KickStarter H. P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - Failed

[MaskedMan]

H. P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

 

[garren]

$250,000? Damn. Plus they haven't even delivered Asylum yet, seems like a tough goal to attain. Still, I guess we'll see how well the name sells.

EDIT: Watched the pitch and related stuffies, not too bad actually. Maybe pledging.

 

[J_C]

That's one pretty good KS pitch. And Agustin is such a charmer. Well Asylum's release is just around the corner, they can put every effort into this game, I have faith in them gettin that 250K.

And of course, PLEDGED! YEEEEAH!

 

[Blackthorne]

You know, I know they'll do a good job with this. They really will; no one cares more about this material than Agustin and it'll be a great game. I hope they can get their funding; certainly better than a lot of the other crap I've seen on Kickstarter, for sure.


Bt

 

[Darth Roxor]

I'd be more enthusiastic if Scratches wasn't so terribad and if Asylum wasn't stuck in development hell because LOL LETS CHANGE ENGINES FOR NO REASON, and to a piece of shit engine no less.

 

[Jasede]

I really liked Scratches and think this is a step down. But to each their own.

 

[Whisky]

Not donating until Asylum comes out.

 

[Infinitron]

Interview: Agustin Cordes On Finding The Real Lovecraft
By Richard Cobbett on October 2nd, 2014 at 1:00 pm.

Scratches, Serena and Asylum creator Agustin Cordes has just launched a Kickstarter for the first officially licensed H.P. Lovecraft game, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward. Based on Lovecraft’s only full novel, it tells the tale of a young man in 1918 on a search for a wizard ancestor in Providence and Salem, with not a whiff of Cthulhu to be found. It’s intended to be faithful in a way that no other Lovecraftian game has been, but what exactly does that mean? And why do these old stories still have such a draw? I asked. He answered. Nice when things work out.


RPS: Just looking at the pitch, Charles Dexter Ward doesn’t seem like a regular Lovecraft story. What was it about it that made you decide “Yes. That’s the one we’re going to do!”

Cordes: I have to say, it wasn’t my first choice – it was my second. (silently, somehow makes a sound like fingers being confidently steepled in anticipation of future masterplans) I can’t reveal more about that for now! But for the longest time, this story made an impression on me and I’ve always thought it would be an amazing adventure. Just about every aspect of it is perfect. The investigation, the themes, the sneaking around and the horrors uncovered all make it an ideal story.

RPS: It’s been semi-used in one before, hasn’t it – Necronomicon from a few years ago?

Cordes: Yes. To be honest, I only played a few moments of that one, and didn’t get the feeling it was too faithful. They didn’t have the rights, so they had to change a lot, like the names, and the marvellous sequences in Providence that are a huge part of the story.

RPS: Luckily nobody played it, so it doesn’t matter! I confess to not knowing the story of this one too well, but wasn’t it famous for being one that Lovecraft himself didn’t like, even if lots of other people later did? Is it out of his usual style, or was it more a question of form?

Cordes: The thing is, Lovecraft didn’t like any of his own stories. The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Shadow Out Of Time… Lovecraft just wasn’t satisfied with the writing in those stories, to the point that he didn’t even want them to be published. Charles Dexter Ward is the most notorious case of that because it was published after he died, but I’d say it’s a very atypical entry in his bibliography. It’s a very autobiographical work, where you can really see… especially in the first half… how Lovecraft developed his feelings on Providence, his thoughts on the past, his passion for history, architecture, genealogy and of course, witchcraft, which is a very important theme that Lovecraft was fascinated by. But it’s an incredible story along with all that too, and perfect for this kind of game.

RPS: Structurally, it sounds a lot like Shadow of the Comet – go to a seemingly normal place that you know the later horror is going to contrast with, then the weirdness comes crashing in as everything spins out of control…

Cordes: You’re right, you can see some Charles Dexter Ward in Shadow of the Comet, which of course was inspired by Shadow Over Innsmouth. As for this game, I took the chance to design the full thing before the Kickstarter campaign, and I was amazed by how easily the whole story translated into the adventure format. All the trips Charles takes between Providence and Salem especially.

RPS: Lovecraftian style is very misunderstood right now – Cthulhu, the Necronomicon and so on are pop-culture icons and often dragged out to hijack a little extra mood or meaning, often when a story is failing to do it on its own. Do you think that’s meant they’ve lost its edge?

Cordes: Oh, absolutely yes. The problem is that Lovecraftian games have only scratched the surface of what he had to offer. The monsters, the Necronomicon… the thing about his stories which I haven’t seen in any game yet is that of cosmic horror, the sense that we humans are insignificant creatures.

RPS: An opinion definitely shared by my two cats. A fundamental problem of Lovecraft is that it doesn’t usually turn out well for the ‘heroes’, but on PC, even games like I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream will usually give up and offer a ‘happy’ ending – or at least a happier one than the hero dribbling in an asylum. How can you take those huge themes but also make them suitable for something as objective-driven as a game?

Cordes: It’s an interesting thing for this story because the protagonist only really faces the horrors the once. Usually the fun part is pitting your strength against the monsters, but that’s usually when these games stop being Lovecraft. It kills the whole idea of the impossibility of even attempting to engage these things – just how unable we are to comprehend, never mind battle these things. Based on our past experiences, I’m not afraid of handling that. The inability to see monsters in Scratches for instance was part of the story, letting you form your own idea of the story and keeping a balance between the scientific and supernatural.

RPS: Something that jumped out for me with other Lovecraftian games is that usually the Great Old Ones are just villains and they always have a Plan – which always seems so banal. Like Shadow of the Comet, where the whole thing ends up being part of a big scheme to open a big wobbly doorway for… was it Yog Sothoth? Anyway, it feels like it could be any demon or alien doing basically the same thing. But the expectation is that it’ll be that overt, because in comparison to their hype, even a guy like Narackamous is such a small-time villain.

Cordes: It’s true that humans in his stories are always attempting to bring back the Great Old Ones and all that, but in truth if you read the stories, you see the consistent line of thought that the monsters don’t care at all about them and it’s all humans interpreting them and foolishly working towards their own destruction. This is very interesting if you study Lovecraft, because it’s a commentary on his own views on religion, and on understanding the impossible.

RPS: I’m really thinking about people’s expectations with these stories – that there will be a monstrous bad guy, and Cthulhu will shake a tentacle and go “I’ll get you next time!” and all that kind of thing, when even in concept that seems far too close. It usually feels like it should be closer to a story about, say, astrology, where whatever effect the stars have on the narrative, you’re never going to go hang with them or do anything that they could notice.

Cordes: Exactly. And Charles Dexter Ward is a nice example of that, because you get conspiracies of wizards in Salem trying to bring back the dead and searching for immortality, but there’s always going to be the hints of horror in everything.

RPS: So, what about the gap between what people think they know and what they actually get – for instance, like how people still think of Watson as an idiot based on the Nigel Bruce years, or in Lovecraft, that they know of Cthulhu but are hazy on what he is?

Cordes: I think some will be disappointed, because as you say, they have expectations – players have been spoiled in a way by the weak translations. For instance, something that people take for granted is that it’s always dark, broody, and there are horrible creatures and tentacles… and it’s actually not that often that Lovecraft went that direction. There are no tentacles in our game! Instead, and what we’re trying to shed light on, is that they could often be… charming? Yes. In some aspects. There’s a love for architecture and detail, of sunrises, and what’s going to be shocking for many is that Charles Dexter Ward largely takes place during the day and actually feels more, like, say, Broken Sword, Indiana Jones…

RPS: Day of the Tentacle…?

Cordes: Ha. Not that one! I know that some will be disappointed because of expectations. A Lovecraft game in bright daylight? Yes, but we’re very serious about it. We’re addressing fans of adventure games first, of course, and I think think they’re going to be happy with what we have to offer, but also more passionate Lovecraft fans. I know that when they see it and realise just how much passion we’ve put into every aspect of the game… every detail, right down to symbols in the Kickstarter video that aren’t well known to the more casual fans of Lovecraftian stories.

RPS: Of the Lovecraft games so far, which do you think has been most successful at capturing the spirit of his stories?

Cordes: Of the official and semi-official games, definitely Shadow of the Comet. I think the first half was a brilliant translation of the mood that you get in many of his stories. You can really see the attention to atmosphere and feel. Unfortunately it loses it in the second half and everything falls apart. My other pick would be Anchorhead-

RPS: The text adventure?

Cordes: The text adventure, exactly. It’s not a straight adaptation and there are no direct references to Lovecraftian lore, but the mood is right. It really gets that feel of the weird and the alien… something else I found that was missing in Shadow of the Comet, really. It’s a good horror game, but not… weird.

RPS: I always had issues with Shadow, with the first half being really slow – taking too long to establish its baseline, and then the second half just being silly with its monster temples and wobbly magic from space… Presumably in this one, there’ll be a bit more adventure in the first half – Charles having a more focused task than Parker’s photography.

Cordes: That’s funny. I loved the start of Shadow of the Comet.

RPS: I think for me the problem was that you know what’s coming, and have probably seen the monsters in a screenshot or on the box or something already, so there’s a long period of time where you’re waiting for the shoe to drop rather than being unaware that it exists. While an inferior game, Prisoner of Ice was better at that at least – you hit the limit of what you ‘know’ in the first scene, and then have no real idea of where it’s going. (At least unless you looked at the American box, with more spoilers than a Pimp My Car convention…)

Cordes: Yes, and that’s when the magic can happen – the tension, hinting at some things, and giving the players something to entertain themselves while the big story develops. In Dexter Ward, you’ll quickly be doing things like travelling to Salem and finding out about his mysterious ancestor and all these other triggers will start early… there’s so much material and historical background and things that we can tell players without unleashing actual horror. The story is fascinating.

RPS: It sounds very Gabriel Knight – a slow-burner game, where the horror is more implied than overt for most of the game.

Cordes: Yes, it has a lot in common with that. Time will tell if we got it right, but I’m trying hard to strike a good balance between being faithful and… even I’ll admit that the actual novel is very slow and takes a lot of time to get to the crux of things. As an adventure game though, the interaction will really help – there’s a lot that the player will be able to do.

RPS: Is it a completely faithful conversion, or will there be surprises for readers?

Cordes: It’s as faithful as possible, certainly more than the movie (The Resurrected), though we’ve had to change a few things, and we’re bringing a little more horror into the later sequences. We’re working with S. T. Joshi, the world authority on Lovecraft, who’s ensuring we get our historical facts right and that our interpretation of the story is accurate.

RPS: On the development side, how different is it doing this to your long-running Asylum project, which is a lot more pop-scary and overtly horrific?

Cordes: We’re grateful to have this project! The thing with Asylum is that it’s very dark and-

RPS: BOO!
Cordes: What was that?!

RPS: Revenge for the end of the Asylum demo. (Glares) Please, continue…

Cordes: Ah…. Sorry about that! But yes. It’s a very dark game, staring at those loathsome environments all day, and it requires a very strong state of mind. This is definitely an ‘easier’ project like that. The two games are very linked together though, by Lovecraft and our past experiences with Scratches and Serena. I like to see them as two sides of the same coin. Asylum is dark, disturbing, gory. Charles Dexter Ward is more… I keep going back to ‘charming’, but I think more… dreamy. But it’s a dream where the horror soon starts slipping in of course, and that’s when the fun begins.

RPS: Obviously, Lovecraft is pretty famous for opening up his sandbox for everyone to play with. How do you think he’d feel about the plushie Cthulhus and so on?

Cordes: Lovecraft actually had an amazing sense of humour. I think he’d be very amused and happy with how his cosmology has been taken by people. Maybe he wouldn’t agree with Cthulhu being presented as-

RPS: The core of everything rather than just a minor player?

Cordes: Yes. Maybe he wouldn’t be happy about that, but he wouldn’t be disappointed.

RPS: Do you think we’ve reached the point where they’ve moved from fiction to folklore – not that people believe in them or anything, but baked into the culture in a similar way to things like Paradise Lost or the old folk tales of people like Robin Hood?

Cordes: Yes, yes you’re right. He created such a consistent cosmology and lore, with that feeling of the unknown and blasphemous that still remains so fresh. Those things just never get old.

 

[Blackthorne]

Yeah, the art in the above post, the portrait, the house and the creature, were done by Jenny Pattison, who did the portraits and character design with me on Quest For Infamy, BTW. I hope this project makes it, because I really feel they could make a great game. I am biased; Agustin is my friend - he voiced "Armand" in Quest For Infamy, but he and his team are super dedicated to this game and I think given the chance a this budget, they'd make an awesome Lovecraft game.


Bt

 

[Yuri Gagarin]

Not donating until Asylum comes out.

 

[Western]

I like Augustin but I also can't bring myself to donate until Asylum is released, I've become more cynical about Kickstarter over time, I really need to see what Asylum delivers before I throw more money at Augustin, the continual delays have made me nervous.

 

[garren]

Going kinda slow, could fail possibly. They'll probably try again in the future if this fails, should be done after Asylum is released to get all the unsure people on board. Maybe lower the amount of cash a bit if that's in any way viable.

 

[DraQ]

The hardest part about adapting something like The Case of Charles Dexter Ward into game format would be avoiding railroading (the kind that encumbers player with idiot ball) and metagaming.

Also, I don't see Penumbra in the list of relatively successful lovecraftian games?

 

[Magellan]

This looks cool! By the way, the beginning of the kickstarter video reminds me of the resurrection scene from the original Hellraiser.

 

[J_C]

They are not gonna make it. They are already at halftime and they only have 55K. It seems 250K was an unrealistic goal, I don't know why did they asked this much. They should have waited until they release Asylum, and after that ask for 100K. A small team from Argentina should be able to make the game with 100K + the profit of Asylum.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah that $250,000 goal is fucking crazy. Sorry.

 

[J_C]

Latest update in which Augustine laments about the campaign not doing well.

Greetings from the strange dark orb of Yuggoth! It occurred to me it’s time to pause and think about the current status of this campaign, seeing as we’re already at the halfway point. It truly boggles my mind, since time literally seems to have ceased to exist for me since October 1st. I’ve just finished a series of interviews about the project, talking about the game, our goals, the reasons behind this Kickstarter, and what will happen next if plans don’t turn out as expected. All of which compelled me to write this overview.

It’s no secret the campaign isn’t doing very well. I knew to expect the inevitable slump in the middle — the “dead zone” as I like to call it — but it turned out even worse than expected. The zone seems to have expanded a great deal, and the campaign was showing signs of slowing down as early as the third day in spite of our non-stop efforts with the press and social media. It’s still hard to explain what happened after the mind-blowing start with $10k raised in under four hours. It would seem that Kickstarter is being governed by different laws these days. Everybody is talking about Charles Dexter Ward, I still have seven interviews on queue, people seem to badly want this game — but that enthusiasm is just not being reflected on the pledge counter. For crying out loud, I even offered to strip naked for every $50k raised!!
I will remove my other sock... for a price. I will remove my other sock... for a price.

On the positive side, the average-pledge-per-backer ratio is very high compared to other projects. We also have an incredible level of activity, with loads of likes, comments, and shares. Every day something significant happens, and the amount of support other than actual pledges has been outstanding. Make no mistake, we have come far, with close to $70k raised, but it may not be enough.

Usually complaints about campaigns involve confusing tiers, what to improve, a video being boring, etc., but none of these seem to apply here. I made one tiny change with the all-digital $166 tier and then the planned support for add-ons. The status of Asylum might be part of the problem, but it can’t be the sole reason behind this slowdown — we have reached way more people with this campaign, and the vast majority of Asylum backers have been very supportive. We’re working on that promised demo, which will hopefully convince more of them to support Charles Dexter Ward. However, we need about 6,000 backers, so not even those 3,000 would be enough.

Which begs the question: are we doing something wrong? We seem to have hit all the right chords with our stunning launch, and everybody’s in love with the game, but whatever is happening seems to be beyond our control. I feel like one of Lovecraft’s protagonists, attempting to comprehend arcane knowledge that was not meant for me.
Proof that we're still working on Asylum. Proof that we're still working on Asylum.

The question of what will happen next is trickier. We’re going to keep fighting, and I’m still working on all my planned updates. Many are already suggesting we relaunch the Kickstarter with a lower goal, sacrificing things such as the documentary and the hardcover Necronomicon. The thing is, running a Kickstarter campaign is an extremely draining process. It was about the right moment to do this, before we enter crunch mode with Asylum (and make no mistake, it’s going to be one epic crunch) and, in my personal case, before Cordes Jr. arrives in January. A Kickstarter is not something you can fire and forget, even with a relaunch, so if we don’t succeed this time around, our plans for this project will be put on hold.

I don’t want to sound drastic, but I have to be realistic and avoid giving false hopes. If crowdfunding isn’t the answer, then we have a plan B that involves a smaller project in 2015, which, combined with the sales of Asylum, will hopefully give us the autonomy to tackle the ambitious production of Charles Dexter Ward sometime in the future. As Dr. Ian Malcolm would say, “horror will find a way”. That was the quote, right?

It is easy Augustine. A relatively unknown team, without the pedigree of guys like Tim Schafer, developing a niche adventure game, setting an unrealistic goal, without showing anything from the game is doomed to fail. Sorry.

 

[Gragt]

So, Lovecraft is the new zombies.

 

[taxalot]

My biggest problem is the cartoony style of the graphics.

I remember reading Lovecraft when I was 16 or so. It was the first time reading a book gave me actual chills. Judging from the screenshots, I expect to see Max the rabbit make a snarky comment involving tentacles

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah that art style wasn't doing it for me either.

 

[trustno1code]

My biggest problem is the cartoony style of the graphics.

I remember reading Lovecraft when I was 16 or so. It was the first time reading a book gave me actual chills. Judging from the screenshots, I expect to see Max the rabbit make a snarky comment involving tentacles

He went into that a bit in Update #5:

Some concerns have been voiced about the “cartoony” nature of the game and the borderline charming mood of our virtual Providence. This was a conscious decision to facilitate the process of players coming to know and care for Charles. And yes, Shadow of the Comet has been a strong influence on our take on the characters — it looks and feels like a classic adventure game, and the approach works well for the third-person perspective. Most importantly, it won’t make the game any less scary; it’s a visual choice.

The inspiration for our character designs.

The same goes for Providence, which, in stark contrast with the predominant Innsmouth-ian setting of many Lovecraftian adaptations, is indeed supposed to look dreamy and lovely until the horror starts creeping in. That’s precisely what will make the unfolding events of the thrilling story woven by Lovecraft so shocking. After all, supernatural horror works best when the familiar and mundane becomes alien and extravagant.

 

[Drakron]

Thats absurd, Shadow of the Comet is over 20 years old and its not as much as a deliberate style but working what you got.

Plus Mythos isnt a fucking cartoon or a Tim Burton movie, its grounded as reality because Lovecraft ISNT a modern author writing about how things were 100 years ago but writing about how own time period, its not meant to be seen as a caricature of the time period.

Also interresting enough, this already been made under the name of "Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness"

http://store.steampowered.com/app/302390/

 

[Darth Roxor]

Wait, he's calling Shadow of the Comet cartoony?! And even puts the CHARACTERS as the example of that?

The looks of those characters AND the fact that they very strongly resemble some popular actors, like Jack Nicholson in that above pic, is a rather strong cue that they were going for anything *but* cartoony. Those characters are quite obviously meant to be "photorealistic", or at least as much as the drawing tools would allow it.

I would also definitely not call Illsmouth a "charming" place - it's by and large a typical backwater wooden shithole, complete with ominous fucking mansions that instakill you the moment you walk through the door.

I mean, seriously. You might as well call Gabriel Knight cartoony, ffs.

 

[ghostdog]

lol yeah, wtf. That update completely misses the mark with Shadow of the Comet. One of the most sinister things about the game were the portraits, since most of them are angry and scowling renditions of known Hollywood actors. I guess that shitty, upscaled and filtered screenshot somehow looks cartoony to that dude.

 

[Dehumanizer]

Agree with you guys about the characters in SotC (not cartoony at all), but what I think he meant was that Providence was "charming", unlike Inns/Illsmouth.