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KickStarter Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption - adventure-RPG from the creators of Quest for Glory

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
has the game really gone so badly (between kickstarter, steam, and gog)? Either it's earning (which seem low from what you guys have written) managed anyway to cover their expenses
Well, one way to think of it is that the game had already generated ~$500k of revenue on day one. That's pretty good! The Coles have a big asset now in the engine, and though I gather they're going to make a brand new scripting system for the new games, reusing the engine probably will cut down on expenses.

That said, I don't think the game has picked up in terms of sales. Excluding free keys/Kickstarter backer keys, it had 52 Steam reviews posted in July, 17 reviews posted in August, and 2 so far in September. (Assuming I'm reading the graph right.)
 

Barbalos

Savant
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
200
As for the game itself, I just finished playing for about an hour or so, and I'm not sure I will continue. The art for the portraits is frightening to me:

JKRvNNE.png
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
So, I realize that reviews no longer drive sales as they once did, but I still think if there's a single piece of what-the-heck-happened-here? finger-pointing, I would point it at the press engagement. The design and aesthetics were driven by a mix of programmer reality and the Coles' inner vision of the game. Snafus have so many causes it is hard to isolate any. But sitting today, Hero-U still has only two Metacritic reviews. Two. Lamplight City, launched without the Wadjet Eye brand, has picked up seven reviews in less than a week. How in the world does a million-dollar game released by two of the most beloved adventure designers wind up with no press coverage at all?!
 

Mustawd

Guest
How in the world does a million-dollar game released by two of the most beloved adventure designers wind up with no press coverage at all?!

Thought we already covered this.

Bad project management and terrible business sense. Again, the Coles are devs, not MBAs. But they maybe should have factored that in to the budget that they were going to need help.

It’s like that thing Dustin Hoffman’s character said in Wag the Dog. Producers do a ton of messy behind the scenes work that’s integral to the project and allows the Director to focus on making a good film. In any business you need to have some good business sense or at least know enough that you’ll need to get people that do.

If the KS era has taught us anything is that the business side (aka “suits”) do have some value.

And I agree with @Jarpie’s point about pricing. You have to work with what the market is giving you, or create a phenomenal product that will shift market expectations themselves. Otherwise, you are just being overly optimistic at best or woefully ignorant and/or stubborn at worse.

Take Bard’s Tale 4. The price change probably saved them a good amount of copies. It was originally prices way too high for the kind of game they were making, and they realized this. Instead of digging their heels in they came up with an excuse to lower it. Yah the logic they gave was flimsy, but the decision to lower the price was the right one imo.

Anyhow, the fact that they bungled the development of Hero U in as many ways as they did should be no surpise that they also bungled the marketing effort. The Coles are bad business people. Period.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
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Messages
5,703
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California
I guess, but the overwhelming majority of adventure games are released by people without MBAs, often without any publisher involvement at all. Sending a pre-release email to publishers of major game sites is not exactly rocket science. They got plenty of coverage for their Kickstarters, after all.
 

Mustawd

Guest
I guess, but the overwhelming majority of adventure games are released by people without MBAs, often without any publisher involvement at all. Sending a pre-release email to publishers of major game sites is not exactly rocket science. They got plenty of coverage for their Kickstarters, after all.

Business sense can be innate if you’re familiar with your industry. I dunno why the Coles are as bad as they are. But I also don’t know why the KOTC dev wrote a book about Libertarian economics, and then proceeds to make bad business decision after bad business decision. Some people are just bad at it.
 

Ringhausen

Augur
Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
252
My hypothesis is that the graphix suck and the game looks gay so reviews said "Fuck that shit." and played other games.
 

lophiaspis

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
379
I'm not going to dwell on why Cole is a doofus. But he made a point about the old Sierra games that I'm curious about. It's been obvious since the beginning of this thread, and was repeatedly pointed out to Cole himself, that this whole debacle could have been avoided if he had simply spent the money on hiring Blackthorne and made the game in AGS, in oldschool VGA style.

But Cole lists as one of his reasons for not doing so, that the VGA games looked 'awful'.

Am I the only one that finds this bizarre? Am I seeing the old games' graphics through nostalgia glasses?

For me the Sierra VGA games are still some of the most beautiful games ever. I thought it was generally accepted among fans that all Sierra's 90s 2D games looked great, that you can debate whether the VGA or SVGA style looks better, and that the switch to 3D was a massive decline graphically.

I see the 320x200, 256 color era as a graphical sweet spot because this was the last time you could make realistic looking graphics cheaply. With higher resolution, you generally had to move towards a more cartoonish style, or to 3D. (The exceptions were isometric games which have about as much character detail in 640 as P&C adventures did in 320.) It wasn't until the mid 2000s, at least, that you got realistic 3D graphics as evocative as early 1990s realistic 2D graphics - at exponentially higher cost and with a much trickier art design pipeline.

Comparing the repulsive, amateurish, low-tier Facebook game graphics of Hero-U to some of those mesmerizingly lifelike 320x200, 256 color worlds... it's a joke to even make this comparison. So why does Cole think that the VGA style is so awful? Is this what a typical gamer who hasn't grown up with those games would think?
 

Flint

Novice
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Messages
24
Finally finished the game. It is great that movement speed was buffed in the recent patch, otherwise I would have hanged myself during the catacombs section.

Second half felt more barren and all that pointless running and training started to grate on my nerves. Stupid time gated events didn't help (you cannot find a secret passage behind the painting until you can lmao). It also dawned on me how dull this castle setting truly is. It's fun for the first few hours to sneak around, learn the history, find secrets, open new dungeons and roam around them, but shortly after they're just uninteresting static decorations that you pass through for the 100th time. If you insist on making the character move everywhere manually, at least make locations he walks through interesting and add some events that can happen there like you did in Qfg games with a very good results! Don't make me run through the grey corridor, open door using the menu, go up the stairs, sneak around useless Terk, open the door through the menu, go through the courtyard, open the door, run through the corridor .. argh! If nothing happens anyway, why not make a menu time slotting then, like in Academagia or Long live the Queen? And leave free exploration to the unallocated time slots.

I will probably not back or buy the next game if it's going to be in the same vein (and I'm afraid it will be).
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Comparing the repulsive, amateurish, low-tier Facebook game graphics of Hero-U to some of those mesmerizingly lifelike 320x200, 256 color worlds... it's a joke to even make this comparison. So why does Cole think that the VGA style is so awful? Is this what a typical gamer who hasn't grown up with those games would think?
He also suggests that Hero-U's graphics are better than Diablo's. Maybe it's just marketing talk?
 

Fizzii

Crystal Shard
Developer
Joined
Sep 26, 2013
Messages
185
I guess, but the overwhelming majority of adventure games are released by people without MBAs, often without any publisher involvement at all. Sending a pre-release email to publishers of major game sites is not exactly rocket science. They got plenty of coverage for their Kickstarters, after all.
They may well have emailed a bunch of game sites but barely anyone picked it up. That's been my experience... spending hours writing to people all to get no reply. So next time we release a game, I'm not even going to anywhere near the same effort, since I just don't have that time (so yeah, maybe fewer people will know about our games, but as everyone knows, we're not staking our livelihoods on it).

On the other hand, Franscisco / Dave may have managed to get more press because they actively engage with them, doing podcasts, tweeting on social media, going to conventions etc. I think that makes a difference to getting publicity.

Comparing the repulsive, amateurish, low-tier Facebook game graphics of Hero-U to some of those mesmerizingly lifelike 320x200, 256 color worlds... it's a joke to even make this comparison. So why does Cole think that the VGA style is so awful? Is this what a typical gamer who hasn't grown up with those games would think?
He also suggests that Hero-U's graphics are better than Diablo's. Maybe it's just marketing talk?
I suspect Corey thinks that crisper higher res graphics look better and he doesn't have as much an eye for artistry. That said, I think Hero-U looks nice enough and they did well with the resources and people they had.
 

jfrisby

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Mar 21, 2013
Messages
491
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Dave, Francisco, Telltale, Campo Santo, Ron Gilbert, all hire Emily Morganti for PR, who probably has the real email addresses.
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
I'll just echo my thoughts from a previous post.
  • Upon first glance it's not quite clear what Hero-U is: RPG? Adventure? Casual time management sim? Dating sim?
  • $35 is high compared to pricing of other "indie" games.
  • Most people have forgotten about Hero-U due to lengthened development.
  • The release date wasn't certain until the game actually came out, and the launch was confusing (e.g. timing of GOG vs Steam).
  • Hero-U takes about 30 hours to complete.
  • For most review sites, those 30 hours will be allocated to a bigger title with a bigger audience (or multiple shorter games) because the latter's review(s) will generate more traffic and interest compared to the readership a Hero-U review would attract - a matter of time invested to play the game vs demand/interest for a review.
  • Because of aforementioned release uncertainty, reviewers likely didn't have enough time to play Hero-U and publish their reviews upon the game's release.
  • Thus, Hero-U missed out on the small window of opportunity to have concurrent press coverage that would direct people to the game's store pages.
Now it's a question of how the Coles will discount the game in the near future, if they'll do a permanent price drop when sales dry up, and whether they'll be willing to put Hero-U in a bundle some time next year.
 

Blackthorne

Infamous Quests
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Developer
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Jun 8, 2012
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981
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Syracuse NY
Codex 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
Boy, I will say: I would have enjoyed producing a game like Quest for Infamy with the budget they have from even their first Kickstarter. I dare say it would have even been fun to make a game with them - let them design characters and stories, and I and my crew would handle the production of the game. But in the end, it's wishful thinking. It's not like QFI sold well, either. But I still do like my game, even after four years!


Bt
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Well, I think this is a case where the alloy of your project management, implementation skills, community outreach, and team-building and their name recognition, pun-meistery, and design experience would have produced something that would've been stronger than either part separately.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/hero-u-rogue-to-redemption/posts/2298397

Super Steam Sale!


Hero-U is currently 35% off on Steam


If you have friends who have been on the fence about buying Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, now is a great time to have them check out the game on Steam. We’re running a 35% off sale there ($22.74 sale price in the U.S., varies by country).

Currently the sale is on Steam only; we’ll do a similar sale on GoG in a few weeks. We’re trying to get more players to discover the game and hopefully talk about it to their friends.

Upcoming Patch
We continue to work on improving Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption even while we are getting started on our other projects and finishing the art book and other Rogue to Redemption accessories.

In particular, we’ve fixed an issue that caused the display to not work on some systems with 16:10 ratio monitors. Previously, we only supported 16:9 and 4:3 ratios, the most common displays.

We’re also fine-tuning the Boss Wraith combat, fixing an occasional lockup fighting the Gog Shaman, and fixing some problems with other combat sequences. Then there are some text improvements suggested by players. We plan to package all of these changes into “Patch 3,” likely mid-October.

Cool Crowdfunding Campaigns Concluding Soon
There are nine days left in the Nighthawks Vampire RPG campaign - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/753131002/nighthawks-the-vampire-rpg-0. Nighthawks is being designed by Richard Cobbett, formerly an editor at Rock Paper Shotgun. Richard wrote some insightful articles about Quest for Glory that tell us he “gets” what it takes to make a great adventure game. This one sounds like a hybrid adventure/RPG much like Hero-U. Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games (Blackwell, Unavowed) is producing the game, a good portent that it will actually get done. I’m backing this one personally.

Over on Fig.co, check out the Starflight 3 funding campaign - https://www.fig.co/campaigns/starflight-3. Starflight was a fun and important space exploration RPG. Starflight 2 took it up a notch, and Starflight 3 could become a great game in the series. It’s halfway to the goal with just two days left, so this project will need a lot of last-minute love (or a few dedicated investors) to make it happen. Fig has a similar model to Kickstarter, but also allows investment in the success of products. Their CEO formerly worked at Double Fine and helped launch Broken Age.

Watch for some additional news next month about a small crowdfunding campaign we plan to have to support a Nintendo Switch (and possibly PS4 and XBoxOne) version of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption.

Visit www.hero-u.com for more information or to participate in our forums. And please continue to tell your friends if you love Hero-U. Personal testimonials and social media sharing are our best way to reach out to potential players.

d0673dcb3a1fd2634bed4a1f0d23362c_original.jpg

Take It From Gregor
 

Blackthorne

Infamous Quests
Patron
Developer
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Messages
981
Location
Syracuse NY
Codex 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
Obligatory "$20 in 1990 is worth $39.03 in 2018" post.

Seriously, almost double.... crazy.

Also, the $35 price point didn't help this game out, did it... even at a discount, $22 bucks looks daunting to many of today's gamers that might pick up Hero-U.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
In fact, it's less than 20 Merkelos now, so I might as well buy it, I guess.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Obligatory "$20 in 1990 is worth $39.03 in 2018" post.

Seriously, almost double.... crazy.

Also, the $35 price point didn't help this game out, did it... even at a discount, $22 bucks looks daunting to many of today's gamers that might pick up Hero-U.
We have it great now. The elimination of fabrication costs is miraculous. I remember paying $93 (with tax) for Final Fantasy VI (then FFIII) in late 1994. Would be $157 today. Final Fantasy XV was $50.
 

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