KickStarter Project Phoenix - Indie jRPG with Nobuo Uematsu

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Dark Souls

 

[Ninjerk]

 

[Morality Games]

Where is it right now outside of Final Fantasy?

Well, in a futile attempt to create complexity, they started injecting Manichean conflicts between good and evil with the moral ambiguity of political intrigue -- usually with well-intentioned extremists as the primary villains, ala, Final Fantasy XII. With the result being most JRPGs wind up reading like the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

 

[Ninjerk]

Ew.

 

[LESS T_T]

I need at least two necromancer rats hamsters here.



https://www.kickstarter.com/project...apans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1082750

Vertical Slice Complete!

Hey guys, It’s finally here!

The Vertical Slice is finished and is available for Developer backers to play and critique right now. If you’re not a Dev backer, don’t fret. We will be hosting a Phoenix Hangout at these region specific times to stream a live walkthrough of the demo:

Los Angeles - Sunday, December 14, 2014 at 2:00:00 PM PST

New York - Sunday, December 14, 2014 at 5:00:00 PM EST

London - Sunday, December 14, 2014 at 10:00:00 PM GMT

Tokyo - Monday, December 15, 2014 at 7:00:00 AM JST

During the play through, Hiroaki Yura and members of the team will be discussing the game and answering your questions. We will be linking directly to the hangout on our Facebook, Twitter, and Website, so make sure you don’t miss it!

We still intend for an action-packed video to be finished and released. Actual gameplay footage is always better than concept art. Unfortunately our video editor was injured and unable to deliver a video. I felt it was more important to show the actual gameplay this weekend, than to permit any further delays.
-Cronus

They've posted many updates (this is #100!) so far, but I think this is the first time they showed a "real" screenshot.

 

[Siveon]

Vertical Slice Complete!

Eew, looks like a fucking MOBA.

A bad one at that.

 

[80Maxwell08]

I had completely forgotten this even existed. Also Siveon nailed it. That looks completely like a MOBA.

 

[Raghar]

I need at least two necromancer rats here.

It's hamster.

 

[LESS T_T]

It's hamster.

Yeah, I thought they are too cute for rats.

 

[Abu Antar]

Looks unbelievably shit. Glad I did not back. I'd back a Matsuno game in a heartbeat, but I knew his role was only to draw attention to the game. (This is the game I am thing of, right?)

 

[Branm]

Woah...is that pic a troll lol? Looks so unprofessional and just plain bad. I went to kickstarter page....pretty weird how no one raging about it....

 

[80Maxwell08]

Looks unbelievably shit. Glad I did not back. I'd back a Matsuno game in a heartbeat, but I knew his role was only to draw attention to the game. (This is the game I am thing of, right?)

That's another game called Unsung Story.

 

[Abu Antar]

Looks unbelievably shit. Glad I did not back. I'd back a Matsuno game in a heartbeat, but I knew his role was only to draw attention to the game. (This is the game I am thing of, right?)

That's another game called Unsung Story.

Oh, I knew I might have mixed the games up.

 

[LESS T_T]

The demo is released to some higher tier backers, and here's official someone's LP gameplay video.

Eew, looks like a fucking MOBA.

A bad one at that.

 

[felipepepe]

It's a fucking RTS with auto-attack... and one clearly made for tablets. Warcraft 3 was more of an RPG than this.

And to think that back in 2013 the devs said this when I asked about the combat:

It is totally real time. We cannot give you a reference to other games since nobody has done this before! We do love Tactics Ogre though!

What a waste.

 

[LESS T_T]

Oh, and apparently this game is delayed to Q3 2016.

 

[LESS T_T]

They've switched to Unreal after 1.5 years of work on Unity: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...apans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1172084

"Hi, everyone! We wanted to give you a better look at what Pascal, our programmer, is working on. Please note: the video is not here to show off how great the game looks, but rather, to show what we're coding. This means that the visuals, animations and effects will not look good, nor are they intended to be the final product. Also, the test is very preliminary, this is not the final version of stealth and stealth only works with other functioning parts like the Threat System which isn't in place yet. Finally, please remember that we're working from the ground up on the UNREAL Engine so we're going back to square one. So without further ado, check out the video of Pascal's hard work!"

 

[m_s0]

It's a fucking RTS with auto-attack... and one clearly made for tablets. Warcraft 3 was more of an RPG than this.

And to think that back in 2013 the devs said this when I asked about the combat:

It is totally real time. We cannot give you a reference to other games since nobody has done this before! We do love Tactics Ogre though!

What a waste.

That's to be expected. The Japanese do seem oddly ignorant of games made outside of Japan, and RTS games aren't as huge as they once were.

http://www.wired.com/2010/09/western-games-japan/

“The other day,” says Q Entertainment’s Mielke, “I was having lunch with a friend and I said, ‘Have you ever played StarCraft?’ And he said, ‘What’s StarCraft?’

They've switched to Unreal after 1.5 years of work on Unity: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...apans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1172084

 

[LESS T_T]

After 2 years...: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...apans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1342656

State of the Game

• 100% Scenarios (Main battles and story elements for Acts 1-5)
• 90% Game Design (combat mechanics are designed and programmed with the exception of the threat system)
• 80% Overall models (all base models are done which includes characters and environment - variant models are left to do)
• 70% Overall animations (90% humanoid animations are done)
• 0% Textures
• 0% Script (text for the game)
• 0% Unreal 4 executable (sandbox used to create the game) - this is the main thing we need a programmer for
• 0% Level Design (“physically” building the world, placement of objects and characters, lighting, and scripting) - obviously this cannot happen until we have the executable
• 0% Particle Effects
• 5% Sound Effects
• 0% VO (dependent on script and casting)
• 0% Localization (mostly dependent on script)
• ?% Music - 80 minutes of unlooped music is composed (JRPGs usually have 90 minutes) - still needs to go through post production/arrangement and recording

We have made progress but still have a lot of work to do. A lot of the groundwork has been laid (i.e. base models) which is a majority of the work, time-wise. Once this is done, theoretically the rest of the work will go smoothly and quickly.

0% is kind of harsh to say on some of those things but I would rather be conservative at this point until we see some results. Yes, after 2 years there should be more to show but I will go into the reason below...

So what happened? What’s going on? Why the delay? Why such a long delay?
The short answer is: Programming. Programming was listed on the KS page as one of our major risks to the project and we got hit by it. We were holding off for a specific person and ultimately they could not join us. Now we have to get a replacement(s).

The long answer is: the Project Phoenix development was hinging on one major programmer to bring the project to a point where others could begin their in-game work. Obviously, that did not work out. The programmer’s involvement got delayed and therefore the game was delayed respectively. Now he has been removed from the project altogether and we are working to get a replacement(s) in as soon as possible. The replacement programmer(s) will be paid to do the work until the game is done, unlike the original staff’s arrangement which is based on royalties (i.e. they don’t get paid until the game is done and starts selling - and no, this is not the same as volunteering) but this will be paid out of CIA’s company account and not the KS funds.

Unfortunately, we are not able to solidify the replacement programmer(s) contract until the end of October 2015 which means that there will be not much to show in terms of in-game assets until closer to the end of the year.

Why rely so heavily on one programmer?
It’s not unheard of and happens more often than you might think. Especially for Indie projects like this one. The other game he was working on, Ori and the Blind Forest, was also mostly programmed by him and there was no reason to suspect he could not do the same for Project Phoenix. David Clark is a very talented programmer and any team would be lucky to have him involved.

Why wait so long?
This was a production decision and it should have been better and/or more explicitly communicated. We wanted him to be able to be involved but, at this point, we have had to move on. We hope to be more communicative going forward. If we are waiting on things, we will let you know. I will put out an update every so often and address development status.

After all of that, why switch game engines? Doesn’t that set you back even further?
The decision to switch game engines was made for two reasons. 1) The programmer we had been hoping to work with was very well versed with Unity but once we lost him we had no particular reason to stick with it and 2) Unreal 4 natively offers much more robust tools for development than Unity and it would have actually been more time consuming to stick with Unity sans our original programmer than to switch and have a plethora of tools immediately at our disposal.

And this followed by a breakdown of budget and funds and clarifications.

I recommend you to check out comments. You'll find world's most optimistic folks there.

 

[Perkel]

so in other words they are bunch of artist without programmer ?


hahahahahahahah

ahahahahah

ahahahha


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHA

I wonder what idiots pledged for this. Hey we are doing jRPG with UMEATSU. yeah that one ! Fuck the rest. Rest is unimportant.

 

[pakoito]

Programmers don't matter, they have unity and twine. Games are more open and democratized than ever. Technical skills are dead, long live artists.

 

[CryptRat]

A bad game that will never be released. Would be funny...if I hadn't paid for this.

 

[Siveon]

Programmers don't matter, they have unity and twine. Games are more open and democratized than ever. Technical skills are dead, long live artists.

I don't really think they have much in the way of artists either:

0% Textures

Or writers:

0% Script

I mean, wow.

 

[Zombra]

If nothing else, I'm looking forward to hearing that soundtrack some day. Would be nice to have a game to go with it. Too bad their project management isn't as good as their community management - their communication has been crazy comprehensive throughout their many missteps. Look at those comments, the backers love these guys.

 

[Hobo Elf]

So after 2 years they have a few napkins and post-it notes with some game design scribbled on them. I bet the backers are feeling euphoric right now. I bet they are real happy over their investment. Let's see what the comments have to say about the great progress this game has been making?

Sterling Treadwell about 2 hours ago
at this point i kind fo wish i backed more funds into the project.. but alas.. opportunity lost. unless i could buy out someone's backing? is that even possible? hahaha

Andrew Hsieh about 1 hour ago
This is the post I was waiting to see. Thanks for the update.

DUN about 1 hour ago
I'm ok with delay in project.
But I really want to see a development planning. Something like you will need x week for that task, y week for the other one.

Lumiere about 2 hours ago
I'm extremely surprised there's not a single cry for refund.

To echo, thanks for the comprehensive and transparent update.

Samidare Miyuki about 3 hours ago
Despite the 0%s in development, I appreciate the honesty and believe that would make a lot of unhappy customers calm down and be more patient. Hope you guys can get the programmers in quicker though.

Mikhail Aristov about 4 hours ago
Glad to see the communications improving. The fund allocation chart is great, and not many devs dare to post information like that in the open. Still, I'd also like to see the current budget allocation, post-engine switch.

Zerotown about 4 hours ago
Great update! Nice to read this much info.

What's wrong with these cucks? These are the kind of idiots who get strung along by Cleve and his never ending promises. You should consider tapping into these people, Cleve. I'm sure they'll even shine your shoes if you take the time to assure them that one of the Femto issues troubling Grimoire has finally been dealt with.