KickStarter Witchmarsh - indie action RPG set in 1920 Massachusetts

[lightbane]

Or worse, it accepts the fiendish bribes of China's blatant attempt at taking over the gaming market/Epic.

 

[Tyranicon]

Huh, interesting thread. So what's the story here? Their story guy had to learn game maker to help out, so I'm assuming most of the coders left the project. For what it's worth, it seems like a neat idea, even if it's 5 years past their initial delivery date.

 

[Zombra]

I was moderately astonished just now to find that this project didn't simply sink beneath the waves of time. Although they stopped posting Kickstarter and mailing list updates, for god knows what reason, their discord is currently active with developer posts as recent as two days ago.

I found some newer (ca. July) animations on there, so it appears development actually has been happening as claimed:

I wonder if I'll actually play this game before I die.

 

[Roguey]

their discord

Devs and their retreats to discords.

 

[agris]

team that is horrible about communication, planning, project management and setting expectations has solved all these issues.

You see, instead of making and releasing one game, they will make and release two games.

Update 55

Update #55
Pinned

Tea Party of the Damned​

InglenookCreator
May 15, 2023
Hello everyone!
First of all, apologies for the lack of Kickstarter updates. We've been hard at work on Witchmarsh, and we're definitely getting closer, but I don't think it's a secret to anyone that our approach simply wasn't working.
The main hurdles we've encountered are mostly down to being a team of two developers working on a highly ambitious project. That's why we've made a decision that we believe will allow us to deliver the game we promised, without compromising on the scope of the finished product.

We hope this announcement will cause a.... buzz.
Our plan is to release a short, stand-alone RPG first. We're calling it Witchmarsh: Tea Party of the Damned. We'll have a full announcement, FAQ and press release for it soon, but to summarise:

• Tea Party of the Damned will be a short (6-10 hours) RPG adventure, set before the events of Witchmarsh. It's important to note that this will be developed alongside, not instead of, the full Witchmarsh game you've backed here. Although it will be released first.
• In TotD, players explore a supernatural mega-dungeon, deep beneath Boston Harbor.
• The campaign will feature co-op RPG gameplay, with the full roster of 12 playable characters which will feature in Witchmarsh.
• Your characters and teams will carry over into the main game once it's released.
• Most importantly, ToTD will be completely free to everyone who backed Witchmarsh (including late backers via Backerkit).

'Just a theory, but I don't think we're in Boston anymore.' Investigators have entered the strange, labyrinthine underworld known as the Crawlspace, one of ToTD's signature environments.
We'll be launching a Steam page for Tea Party of the Damned (ToTD) soon, and we'll need your help to spread the word about it! But we'll cover that more in a future update.

Other news:​

Generally speaking, things are going well despite the delays. We actually hit an interesting milestone this week, as we had the privilege of showcasing a small Witchmarsh build to a group of fellow game developers at an industry event.
The feedback was both positive and encouraging, but there's still a bit to do before we send it out in the form of a Gold Key backer test:

• The combat is *finally* feeling a lot healthier, but is still in need of some quality of life fixes.
• We're also in the process of fixing a number of pesky crashes which were unearthed at the event.

The footage above shows some scenes from the upcoming 'prelude' we've titled 'Tea Party of the Damned'. Stand by for new trailers coming with the new steam page!
As for progress elsewhere:

• The game's story is now around 70% implemented (99% for Tea Party of the Damned) and technically playable. This includes cutscenes, branching dialogue, as well as recording choices and consequences made by the players' actions. We say 'technically' playable as it still uses a lot of placeholder assets and animations, but we are getting there!
• Lou hopes to have the main story of Witchmarsh (not TotD, which is already done), fully implemented and tied together by the end of summer this year.

In terms of an ETA, we feel like the setting of a release date for the Tea Party of the Damned mini-adventure is just around the corner. We have a date in mind, but we'll hold off announcing it until backer testing has launched.
Finally, in the run-up to launching a steam page for ToTD, we're also working hard at being more present here, as well as on social media. If you still haven't followed us everywhere, check out our shiny new Linktree!

In closing:​

Well, I think that's going to do it for this update. One piece of feedback we've heard from you is that the dev-updates we've been posting on discord (see the linktree above) aren't reaching most of the people who backed the project.
In the next update we'll go over some of those posts, but if you want to read them now, they've been ported over to our website!
Thank you for your continued support of Witchmarsh, and stand by for more news on Tea Party of the Damned!
- Inglenook Games

 

[Zombra]

I mean a 10 hour "vertical slice" would be good enough to be an entire game imo. Now this mini-module is going to turn into a 10 year epic development voyage, main game pushed out to 50 years final release

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I mean a 10 hour "vertical slice" would be good enough to be an entire game imo. Now this mini-module is going to turn into a 10 year epic development voyage, main game pushed out to 50 years final release

Now you're imagining that concept like this can be turned into a functional game.

 

[Zombra]

I mean a 10 hour "vertical slice" would be good enough to be an entire game imo. Now this mini-module is going to turn into a 10 year epic development voyage, main game pushed out to 50 years final release

Now you're imagining that concept like this can be turned into a functional game.

I'm expecting to wait 9 years and then they'll say "Okay the 10 hour module is getting pushed back, now we're beginning development on a 30 minute minigame first"

 

[Tyranicon]

 

[Fedora Master]

View attachment 36276

Wrong

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Did Cleve have the Guinness World Record for longest time solo working on a game to completion? Maybe they want to break that record.

 

[Skdursh]

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Good lord these modern artists.

 

[Roguey]

RPG devs consistently failing the "make a game with a scope within your capabilities" challenge.

 

[d1nolore]

Another one from the kickstarter scam age. Mock up 1 minute of cut scene, launch Kickstarter, take kickstarter money and blow on new car tyres and rent, run out of kickstarter money, realise you are not capable of delivering project, go radio silent, hand over project to someone even less capable and more delusional.

 

[Zombra]

The little prologue game isn't done yet but there is a Steam page for it now:





I guess they want to have something to show for their Kickstarter before TEN YEARS elapse.

 

[Tyranicon]

It would actually be pretty funny if they released the full game without any fanfare.

Just a "hey, here it is. 10 years well spent."

 

[Modron]

I guess they want to have something to show for their Kickstarter before TEN YEARS elapse.

Just a demo by another name, developers do it this way to gain access to player's Library's What's New row (and their news feed if you don't disable the library filter). At least this way you can download the demo at future date even if they sunset it.

 

[lightbane]

TEN YEARS for a demo? New record! Devs are getting worse and worse.

 

[Roguey]

Tea Party of the Damned will be single-player at launch, we plan on patching in full online multiplayer after release. Thanks for being patient with us while we get this up and running.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Wow. This is something I had hopes for, but utterly wrote off...years ago. Seeing new activity was a surprise to say the least. Let's hope something comes of it.

 

[Tyranicon]

For now, we're going to take a day off for Easter Sunday, then get our noses back to the grindstone. We still don't have a solid ETA, but if we keep working as hard as we have been, it can't be too far off.

You know, I legitimately wish the best for these guys, but making it sound like it's a big deal to take one holiday sunday off in 10 years of supposedly continuous dev makes me 500% more suspicious of your motives.

Bros, just say it'll come out when it comes out. That's what everyone else does.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Why is 1920s Massachusetts filled with larpers?

It's the closest thing to Albion Kwans have.