Vapourware Unknown Realm: The Siege Perilous - an 8-bit RPG for PC and Commodore 64

[newtmonkey]

First and last kickstarter I ever backed. This thing is never coming out lolz

 

[Ladonna]

Plenty of people have been asking for their money back. So the dev team closed their discord server to anyone that mentions the game. So they tried the kickstarter comments section

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...-an-8bit-rpg-for-pc-and-commodore-64/comments

There hasn't been anything about the game itself posted since the kickstarter ended. Not a screenshot, not a video, nothing.

 

[Infinitron]

Recent comments from the devs: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/stirringdragongames/comments

Hi folks! For those who've been asking, we usually do a post-GDC update, so you should be hearing more from us in the next few weeks. In the meantime, to answer a recent question - I think we've already covered the issue of putting out new estimated release dates. Just to reiterate, we want to make sure the next release date we publish is one we will be certain to meet. Until that date is set in stone, we're avoiding making public projections when there are still moving parts. We have internal targets that we're working towards, but those can change, sometimes on a daily basis depending on what kind of unforeseen issues arise. We'll talk more about this and other stuff in our next update.

Mar 18 2019 on Unknown Realm: An 8-bit RPG for PC and Commodore 64

Heather, as I've reiterated to you multiple times in our private correspondence, we have every intention of delivering this project and fulfilling our obligations to our backers, regardless of how long it takes. We would not be here answering comments, responding to emails, interacting on our Discord and on Twitter, and meeting backers at local game developer conferences and events if that wasn't true. Why would we continue to waste our time and money on any of that kind of customer service or community building if we had no intention to deliver on our commitments? There is a major difference between a project facing delays and unforeseen challenges (which happens all the time in video game development) and creators who "never planned on delivering what they promised" as you allege we did with this campaign. We definitely have had issues with delays, but we are still here making good faith efforts to stay in touch and build our community in our own way and do everything we can to get this game out! We are fully committed to completing the project and fulfilling backer rewards.

Mar 25 2019 on Unknown Realm: An 8-bit RPG for PC and Commodore 64

 

[Old Hans]

their twitter is absolutely useless. youd never know they were even making a game. Youd think it was some company trying to sell their coffee mugs

 

[MRY]

What they say in Infinitron's quotes is nice, but what if what Ladonna says is true, then this seems very similar to That Which Sleeps (or whatever it was called). There are plenty of reasons to maintain community presence, for instance, narcissism, a desire to forestall the mob, etc. The easiest answer to the criticisms would be to post new screenshots or a gameplay video. Why not do that?

 

[Infinitron]

https://stirringdragon.games/marketing-stirring-dragon-style/

Indie Game Marketing – Stirring Dragon Style

Since the early days of Stirring Dragon Games, we’ve opted to take a different and sometimes unconventional approach with how we run our company and in particular, how we market our projects. In the age of screenshot Saturdays, hyped up trailers and early access, people might be understandably confused by our more quiet approach, especially when we’ve all grown accustomed to consuming content 24/7. Here’s a little synopsis of some of the underlying principles that drive why we do things the way we do them.

There’s a lot to cover here, we’ll try to keep it brief

Work Quietly
We’ve found that it’s all too easy to lose momentum when you spend time telling people about what you’re making instead of actually making it. In our experience, frequent project updates, dev blogs, etc. can be de-motivating for a variety of reasons. They require time to prepare and usually get very little feedback, or (worse) create a false sense of “accomplishment” that leads to lower productivity. Take Kickstarter updates for example, on any given videogame Kickstarter, post-campaign updates usually generate less than 5% engagement. Comments and likes are the only way creators can tell if their updates on KS are even being read, and based off that, it’s pretty clear that most backers don’t read updates. 5% of backers is a small number of people to reach considering the amount of time it takes to create an update worth reading. It’s a more effective use of our time to focus on finishing the game that we know 100% of our backers are waiting for.

During the early development stages of Unknown Realm, we did not publicize our work at all. We didn’t have a dev blog or a website or even a Twitter account. Aside from a public demo of an early engine build at the Commodore Vegas Expo in 2012, and a handful of trusted friends who knew about it, we created this project outside the public eye. This was hard to do because we were very excited about what we were doing and wanted to share it, however we felt it was the best way to stay true to our vision for the game.

To that end, we decided not to do any marketing of the game at all until the very day we launched our Kickstarter. We obviously had to deviate from our approach during crowdfunding, however, we find that our best work still happens in seclusion, without a lot of noise from the various “peanut galleries” on the Internet.

Spoiler-free Marketing
We’re not big believers in showing work-in-progress screenshots or game previews before our game is finished. Crowdfunding our game required showing practically every element of Unknown Realm during our Kickstarter campaign – probably more than most teams would show up front during development. And let’s be honest, folks, when you’re talking about an 8-bit RPG, most people have a pretty good idea of what they’re getting, and if they don’t, they probably backed this project by accident. We feel like we already had to give away so much of our game already during the campaign. We want to preserve some surprises for when people play the game for the first time.

What we are attempting to do is bring back the best parts of that 80’s game experience, which is hard to do in the age of instant gratification. While the standard advice for indie game devs these days is to publish screenshots, trailers and playable demos early and often, we feel this approach puts developers at a disadvantage, and ruins a lot of the enjoyment for the players.

“Everyone else is doing it” doesn’t mean you must

There’s another reason we prefer to keep our sneak peeks to a minimum…pre-release hype is not a friend of developers OR gamers. We were lucky to enjoy a huge amount of enthusiasm for our Kickstarter project, but unfortunately, there is a downside to pre-release hype: it fades quickly if you don’t constantly “feed the beast.” When that happens, things easily turn negative when there is a lull in activity or at the first hint of disappointment or delay. We’ve had a front row seat to some difficult launches and some major disappointments in crowdfunded games. In many of these cases, it’s clear that early hype almost leads to unreasonably high expectations from the community surrounding the game and disappointment in the end.

Put Out Finished Products
We prefer to forego early access or public beta releases. We would rather take the time to finish things internally as much as possible and minimize the external chatter until our product is done and ready for you to enjoy. It may not be as fun for spectators and backers during the development phase, but in the interest of capturing the old school computer game experience we love, we’re trying something different and hope that it will yield a more exciting and memorable experience when everyone finally gets to play the game for the first time.

Putting the feelies back in RPGs

Our mission is to create new adventures that set you free to follow your imagination wherever it may lead, and to us, that starts with these principles. It starts with allowing you to experience the game without a lot of spoilers or hype. We want to make games that take you back to your youth and remind you of the wonder and joy of discovering new worlds unburdened by expectations or other people’s opinions. We view the decision to develop and market our games as quietly as possible until they’re finished as a feature, not a bug – it’s all part of the Stirring Dragon Way to bring back the golden age of RPGs. It may not be consistent with conventional wisdom, and yes, there’s a chance it may backfire on us business-wise, but if it brings you back to the good old days when you finally play our games, we’ll be happy and we hope you will be too.

 

[MRY]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's a cool mission statement, but it's a fairly odd one to announce after you've already passed the release date for your game without any proof of life, particularly after a Kickstarter that revealed substantial content. They could even use a blur effect so you can't even see what's happening on the screen.

I think this comment is pretty telling:

The thing that bugs me about all these videogame Kickstarters is how they seem like slam-dunks on the front end, but end up being a train-wreck after backing. The following was taken from the "Project Status" on the campaign:

"Our custom built game engine is currently in an alpha state as is our enhanced retro PC platform that will be used to run the game on modern systems."

"We’ve created approximately 90% of the 1500 graphic tiles along with many of the NPC portraits for the game."

"We've completed approximately half of the game music "

"The game itself is currently in a pre-alpha state and nearing feature completion. The game world and locations are already designed, although names and such are subject to change. The bulk of the remaining development time on the game side will be spent finishing game levels, puzzles, NPC dialog, and the normal play-testing and bug fixing."

Taken from the "Risks and Challenges" section:

"No project is risk free, but the good news is that any risks we foresee come from the “slight delay” column instead of the “failure to deliver” column."

"At this stage, the game itself is already in pre-alpha and most of the major technology hurdles have already been cleared. We have used our own funds to finance the development of the game engine and the PC platform so there are very few unknowns left in that respect."

I haven’t hit the panic button on this particular Kickstarter yet. But, I do expect to see something substantial in the next update since so much of this game was apparently complete before backing concluded.

Again, I think their mission statement is great, but under these circumstances, even if you believe that the best way to treat your players is to hide everything from them, you have a separate an independent relationship with your backers.

 

[Infinitron]

They're definitely strange. I'm coming around to the idea that an underrated cause of all sorts of issues with game development that we've experienced over the past several years is that game developers can be weird fucking people.

 

[MRY]

I think no one accepts just how awful and long the slog to finish a game will be. There is basically no amount of money that can deal with the inherent flakiness of indie developers in the face of the tedium of game development, at least no amount of money on the scale that these little projects raise. "You can work full time for six months" is worthless in the face of six months of ennui and procrastination.

 

[Ladonna]

I have never before seen a dev that didn't want to show of their elite skills by throwing out the odd screenshot, or awesome video of how great their project is.

Unless....it isn't great.

So, the only proof of the game was from before the Kickstarter finished back in 2017. Since then, there has been absolutely nothing proofwise that there is a game at all. Edit: some people have pointed out that this apparently dates from their convention in 2012...I cannot confirm or deny. In any case, this game has been worked on since before 2012 then.

They talk it up about wasting time. Imagine all of those 10 minutes to take a screenshot! Or the half hour it would take to capture some video and comment on it, and post it on the net! Meanwhile, that post above would have taken a good couple of hours to make, and that is conservative, since there would have been time wasted to grab those gifs, time to think about what to write, edits, etc...and that isn't even talking about the time it would take to make the website, organise the coffee cups, etc.

But....the spoilers! There is no need to make a video of the game ending showing how the Big Bad is really your transvestite father. Perhaps someone going to a shop and purchasing a dildo or something would be adequate, but no....spoilers...

Something stinks in the Unknown Realms. And now the developers face a Siege Perilous from the people that ponied the money up to do it all in the first place.

 

[Ladonna]

I think no one accepts just how awful and long the slog to finish a game will be. There is basically no amount of money that can deal with the inherent flakiness of indie developers in the face of the tedium of game development, at least no amount of money on the scale that these little projects raise. "You can work full time for six months" is worthless in the face of six months of ennui and procrastination.

I can totally get that. This can happen with many different undertakings and are very common and understandable. What isn't understandable is the way even the backers get kept in the dark about the games progress, and then treated like disgusting haters when they dare to ask questions about the game and get pissed when they are told not to ask, or booted from the discord server when they dare ask questions about the game. Or get reminded that Kickstarter is not a shop, and they should realise that they just might not get anything. How dare these filthy cash cows ask for information regarding the game they helped fund!

In any case, I think the window for getting your cash back has passed; there was one person that had their money refunded to them, and that is because they made sarcastic, negative comments on the delays early enough (see kickstarter comments section). Those that dare ask nicely for a refund now, receive their schooling on the workings of kickstarter, and to pray they get anything at all.

Hilarious.

I might also point out that the 'radio silence' method of non communication regarding the game was set in stone AFTER the kickstarter ended. So there wasn't some understanding that 'oh, before you pledge your moneyz, just know that we don't do updates in regards to showing any game content. Just some walls of text and, hey, want a coffee cup?'.

 

[MRY]

To be clear, there is reality as it is, and behavior as it ought to be, and the two aren't always the same. I can totally understand why developers who have failed (such as King Dragon Games with That Which Sleeps) would nevertheless continue to act as though the game is coming out. Speaking for myself, the enthusiasm and support of fans is a really powerful and positive gift. And those who are selling hype, rather than finished games, often are getting even more of that enthusiasm and support because what their fans are loving is an ideal (the game they imagine) rather than something real (the game as released). When you're on the receiving end of that kind of support, what you ought to do is treat it as an important trust to be reciprocated. But I can imagine that it would be very hard to just say, "Sorry guys, actually the game has proved impossible to make, I can't refund your money because I spent it, what I claimed was a working game was just a mockup, I said it was a working game because I thought I could make it work, but I can't." It's not just the negative backlash, it's that you will lose the constant flow of support that comes every time you post anything.

So I guess what I'd say is that I totally understand why they might not want to talk about what's gone wrong or the possibility of not releasing, especially if the project has failed, because if the project has failed, the only thing they have left for all those years of stress (and of their own hopes and dreams) is the adulation of their hardcore fans. It's hard to give that up.

 

[Ladonna]

So integrity is a rare commodity.

I couldn't care less if they wasted their own money on their hopes and dreams MRY. And naturally it is never easy to turn around and say 'I was wrong', but unfortunately that is something that is required when you rely on other people to get you somewhere (or possibly nowhere in this case). All this behaviour does (apart from steal peoples money) is destroy crowdfunding, all for the selfishness of a few individuals that want to believe they are famous for a few minutes. With that in mind, anyone that wants to crowdfund something, along with anyone that wanted something from crowdfunding, should be mad at these hucksters, as their possibility of having THEIR hopes and dreams realised just got that much slimmer.

In any case, I certainly won't be throwing another cent at crowdfunding. This was my first and last time, regardless of anything that gets released. I always said I wouldn't back one of these things, just like how I never 'preordered' after a sour experience. I guess I got sucked in being a big C64 fan and RPG player. Back to the tried and tested wait for peer reviews; let it bake with some patches for a few months; see how it is now.

 

[MRY]

Everyone has some measure of integrity, and no matter a person's share, there's usually something that can overbear it. I'm just saying, I've seen enough of these rodeos to have a sense of what's motivating people. I don't think it's malice so much as weakness, vanity, and shame.

And while it ought to be destructive of crowdfunding, it's not obvious to me that it is. I mean, this has happened a lot, and people still go in for the next one. Black Geyser raised 100k euros just last year. I hope it comes out (it was projected to release four months from now), but if people had become gunshy about absurdly ambitious, underfunded RPGs, you would think they would be a bit hesitant.

This, by the way, is why I won't do Kickstarter myself, or promise people "back end" money for working on Fallen Gods. People will of course be let down if I fail, but at least they won't be out a cent.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

people who back kickstarters are stupid
back patreons of people doing useful things like the guy creating underwater hamster habitats

 

[Ladonna]

I do back a few patreons.

Jan Beta on youtube for one. The amount of old computer and stereo equipment I have managed to fix after watching his videos is insane, especially when I think of all the money I would have had to fork out otherwise. There are plenty of others out there that are equally giving and deserve the money for all the help they give/products they create.

 

[Infinitron]

New developer comment: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stirringdragongames/unknown-realm-an-8bit-rpg-for-pc-and-commodore-64/comments?comment=UHJvamVjdENvbW1lbnQtMjM3MjI1OTQ=

Hi SD, when will we see the promised GDC update? Do you have any updates on the "hand drawn monster manual"? I also would like to hear a new part of the game music. Any chance to hear a new tune from the game that has been done by Chris Huelsbeck? I really want this game to be a reallity. Do you think we will be able to play the game this year around X-Mas? I already got my fully functional C64 from the attic.... When will the new "Mystical Feely # be revealed? Thanks and greetings from Germany.

@Lightblade: That update should be out later this month and it will cover some of the things you asked about as well as other subjects.

We're glad you liked Mystery Feelie #1! We have a second one planned and we'll make sure people hear about it when it becomes available.

Well, we have a new deadline.

 

[Melan]

I understand being conservative with spoilers and previews, and not posting WIP stuff 24/7... that's mostly how I do things, including at work. The best thing to make your point is to put a completed, polished product on the table. That's nice. But these people are bonkers, especially since they have blown their deadlines. It is now a matter of backer confidence, and relying on "LOL, no refunds" is behaviour only Cleve can get away with it... and these people are not Cleve.

Posting three screenshots of random wilderness/town sections would put 95% of backers minds at rest (except the "what if MSPaint?" detective types).

Also, Whalenaught has posted regular updates of Copper Dreams, and they have not spoilered too much beyond the basic premise. What secret stuff could Unknown Real have? Renfaire fantasy? That wasn't a secret worth protecting even in the time of Ultima I.

 

[adamantyr]

I'm a backer of Unknown Realms, and I'm pretty disappointed with how the project is going. I'll never give them money again, even if they DO release the product at this point, because of their project mismanagement and incredibly poor behavior.

I've been working on my own CRPG for years now, and I had some friendly private messages about it, but on the boards they were condescending and rude when I suggested a development blog may help people understand where the project is at. "OUR project is commercial" was the inference they had, like mine being a hobby project automatically made it less than theirs.

Now my goal is to get my own CRPG done by the end of this year and BEFORE theirs. I think I got a fair shot at it. I'll start a thread here on RPG Codex as soon as I am able to!

 

[Sukhāvatī]

I'll start a thread here on RPG Codex as soon as I am able to!

Looking forward to it!

 

[Infinitron]

Here's the update: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...bit-rpg-for-pc-and-commodore-64/posts/2495148

Spring 2019 Update
Posted by Stirring Dragon Games (Creator)


Hi Folks!

Yes, we are still here (rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated) and as promised we are posting an update to give you a little insight into some of the things happening around here and where we’re headed.

The last year was pretty rough for us personally and professionally. The good news is that despite Bruce getting his left hand smashed in a tailgate, damaging his right shoulder, and his main development system experiencing a total meltdown (motherboard fried...thankfully no data loss), we've been pressing on with Unknown Realm development through these and other challenges.

Music Update

A few have asked about the status of the soundtrack…here’s a little info about where we’re at with that. The soundtrack is not complete yet. The hybrid-soundtrack for Unknown Realm presents some unique difficulties which has made it challenging to get each version of each individual track completed to the standards we’ve set for this game. The soundtrack requires more work and we need more music than we originally expected, so we're looking for creative solutions to that challenge.

Adventures in Bringing Back the Feelies

Some people have noticed the “Mystery Feelie” as well as a “Feelie of the Month” Club on the Stirring Dragon Games website that launched earlier this year. As you may have figured out, we don’t really do things the way most other game companies do, so when we launched our website, we decided to test two different marketing ideas and see which one was the most interesting and fun for people to participate in.

The first was Mystery Feelie #1, later revealed as a mini version of the Unknown Realm cloth map.

Mystery Feelie #1 - Mini Cloth Map

Some people liked this one so much that they actually posted pictures of it framed, next to their other RPG cloth maps.

The second idea was an old school “S.A.S.E.” (self addressed stamped envelope) club. We thought people would get a kick out of mailing in a self addressed envelope and getting something back via snail mail, and a few people did, but there were some unanticipated draw backs to that which is probably is why nobody else does S.A.S.E. clubs anymore.

Good Olde S.A.S.E.

As we learned, some of the hiccups with doing a S.A.S.E. club were,

• People had no idea how to do it! (despite what we thought were clear directions on the website)
• Some couldn't figure out how to fold one envelope and put it in the other one.
• A few people accidentally licked and sealed the inner envelope!
• It was clear that a few of the envelopes that we received probably were from the 80's, since their adhesive wouldn't stick when sealed.
• Some envelopes took lengthy mysterious side quests in the mail before reaching us.
• Our European friends couldn't participate at all due to postage and currency differences.

The upshot of our experiments was that the mystery feelie was not only more popular; it was also more practical for this day and age. The idea of both these programs was to have a bit of fun while introducing people to some of the land and lore that is a part of Unknown Realm, and maybe even give them a few extra hints that will aid them on their quests in the game. ;-) So…back by popular demand, we have decided to continue on with our Mystery Feelie #2 that has just been listed on our website. From here on out, we will consider the "Mystery Feelie" our digital S.A.S.E. club.


Bumps in the Road

As some of you may remember, last year we had an issue with our landlords informing us that they were going to sell the house we’ve lived in for the last several years, only to change their minds one week (ONE WEEK!) before our move date. We’ve been living in this house for almost 7 years, and they’ve renewed our lease consistently up until last year, so we were sort of hopeful they would renew it again this year. However, we received notice that they’re planning to sell the house, so…it appears our time in this home has officially come to an end. This is obviously not great news for us and adds a huge degree of uncertainty and instability to our lives. Right now we are trying to pack up our home and figure out a relocation plan that will allow us to continue working on Unknown Realm. Our current status as self-employed indie devs with no income makes this infinitely more challenging than it would be under "normal" circumstances. At this point all we know is that Stirring Dragon Games will be on the move soon and we hope that any disruptions to our work will be short term. That said, during the next month or so, it may be harder for us to respond to emails, but we'll do our best to stay in touch.

The Journey Onward...

As of right now, our current plan is to have the digital game released within a year. This is not an official launch date announcement, but we wanted to share with you the target we are working towards taking into account our current circumstances. Assuming we can financially find a way to continue working on the game full time, we believe this is a realistic estimate based on the outstanding tasks we have left to complete. This may require some strategic out-of-the-box thinking on our part, but our objective will always be to find a way to keep the lights on at Stirring Dragon Games so we can keep making games.

Everything we have seen and heard about this project over the last two years indicates to us that Unknown Realm connects with people on a deep emotional level. Positive or negative, the strong emotional responses that we get about this game give us hope that we are working on something special that is still worth fighting for. Our development path since Kickstarter ended has definitely not gone the way we originally envisioned it, but we are still here and will always be grateful to those that continue to stick with us on this journey.

Until next time,

Laura & Bruce

 

[MRY]

Three thoughts:

(1) If these guys are really doing everything they can to make this game, they seem like neat, creative folks, and I wish them the absolute best.

(2) The specter of losing your home is become a disturbingly recurrent theme in indie game Kickstarters. Really sad. In some ways, it underscores the way in which Kickstarter was a trap for all parties concerned, taking promising hobbyists and turning them into promise-breaking professionals, to the harm of donors, developers, and the projects themselves.

(3) This is an extraordinary paragraph:

As of right now, our current plan is to have the digital game released within a year. This is not an official launch date announcement, but we wanted to share with you the target we are working towards taking into account our current circumstances. Assuming we can financially find a way to continue working on the game full time, we believe this is a realistic estimate based on the outstanding tasks we have left to complete. This may require some strategic out-of-the-box thinking on our part, but our objective will always be to find a way to keep the lights on at Stirring Dragon Games so we can keep making games.

So:
(a) They ran a Kickstarter campaign that ended in January 2017 and promised to deliver the game in December 2017. Thus, the time to completion is exactly the same as when the campaign ran. In that campaign, they wrote that "any risks we foresee come from the 'slight delay' column instead of the 'failure to deliver' column." The "slight delay" is now, at a minimum, two years.
(b) Even making that two-year-delayed completion date is now contingent on "find[ing] a way to continue working on the game full time" and "strategic outside-the-box thinking." However, they had ostensibly already been "committed to this project full time since 2012" at the time they ran the campaign. It is unclear how circumstances changed whereby they could work full-time for seven years without crazy financial capers, but now need such capers to come off. It is unclear how, having worked full-time for 17 months past the original completion date, it could not be done. We are now at the point where they claim to have spent 14 man-years developing the game full-time. That is extraordinary.
(c) At the start of the campaign, their "custom built game engine [was] currently in an alpha state," they had "created approximately 90% of the 1500 graphic tiles along with many of the NPC portraits for the game," they had "completed approximately half of the game music," the game itself was "in a pre-alpha state and nearing feature completion. The game world and locations are already designed, although names and such are subject to change. The bulk of the remaining development time on the game side will be spent finishing game levels, puzzles, NPC dialog, and the normal play-testing and bug fixing." They have not, as far as I know, explained what they have been doing the past two years in those regards.
(d) They received 192% of what they asked for.

It seem to me that at least one of three things is true: their description of where the game stood at the time of the campaign was inaccurate; they have not been working full-time for seven years (they may have lacked other employment in the past two years, but that's not the same as working full time on this project); the "within a year" target date is not realistic. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a second Kickstarter or some other crowdfunding shenanigan.

But I'll end where I started, which is that it's possible that these are hard-working, good-faith developers who simply had no idea how long it takes to make a game, and are trying to put on a brave face, and if so, I really hope they finish the game and succeed wildly.

 

[Ladonna]

4 months on, nothing.....not a peep from these professionals.

Looks like some strategic, out of the box thinking will be required soon. I wonder how coffee cup sales have gone?

 

[MRY]

They are preserving the surprise!

 

[Ladonna]

They should work for the CIA.