Koji Igarashi Kickstarts Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (2.5D, backdash, 2018)

My bet is it sits at $3.3m or so by the end. Maybe more.
Kicktraq projects $3.84-5.7m by the end of the campaign.
Their projection dropped a bit as we had an unexpected slump earlier this week.

There's nothing unexpected with the way the funding is increasing with this KS, it always goes on a slump from day 5 to day 25 and then the last five days gather once again a crazy amount with lots of backer upgrading their pledges and the PR team giving a final last push with new exciting stretch goals to reach.

Unless something crazy happen, Bloodstained should end in the 4M-5M range, the exact amount being dependant on what is the ceiling level of pledge during day 5 - day 25, and how much actual backers and potential backers will be excited for the future stretch goals (Vita/3DS port?).

Feel free to check the numerous other multi-million KS (Pillars, Mighty no9, Torment etc.) to see it for yourself.
 
Of all the potential bullshit in this campaign Wii U is the one people latch on to. I'm rather unconvinced this game will really be pushing much of anything, I think UE4 is just a development choice. Furthermore it was noted at the very beginning that Iga has 90% of what he needs through other funding, he's really just drumming up preorders. Ultimately they had a threshold where expansion to Wii U was going to be the most efficient way to make Iga fans happy and give reasons for people to continue to give money to the kickstarter. It's going to be an external studio working on it and it's actually one of the few things that can realistically work in parallel without pushing back the main product.

If they look like they're going to hit it, I'll gladly put some money in.
 
Of all the potential bullshit in this campaign Wii U is the one people latch on to. I'm rather unconvinced this game will really be pushing much of anything, I think UE4 is just a development choice. Furthermore it was noted at the very beginning that Iga has 90% of what he needs through other funding, he's really just drumming up preorders. Ultimately they had a threshold where expansion to Wii U was going to be the most efficient way to make Iga fans happy and give reasons for people to continue to give money to the kickstarter. It's going to be an external studio working on it and it's actually one of the few things that can realistically work in parallel without pushing back the main product.

If they look like they're going to hit it, I'll gladly put some money in.

I only want wii u just so it'll sit next to my other igavanias on the system (and that I don't own a ps4/xbone yet and would rather my physical copy be on a console). That said, I never backed assuming we'd ever get a wii u version. I've always backed to play on PC (via steam key) and have a physical PS4 edition that I'll likely never open.
 
If that is a Wii U stretch goal in the basement, I'm going to have to upgrade my pledge so I get both a physical and digital copy of the game. That way I can get both the Wii U and PC versions.
 
I might be alone here, but I _really_ don't care about having this game on Wii U. I mean, I have a Wii U and I love it...but I wonder what corners they'd have to cut by essentially having to make this game on two engines at once, since I keep seeing in this thread that UE4 doesn't support Wii U.
 
Why are people complaining about this game reaching more players? No one is forcing you to play this game on a Wii U, for crying out loud.

The problem with this is that the resources that could go for the main version will now be relegated to a "inferior" version. Be it another team porting or not.

I'd like to call it SotN+ or "the Saturn version of SotN".

A plus imply it's better.

And it is not.
 
Personally, I'd rather the 3 million goal be used on some other aspect of development than the Wii U. Somehow down-porting the game from UE4 to make it run on the Wii U in a different engine isn't going to be a trivial task. It's going to take a lot of time and money. Plus they're unlikely to recoup the cost of porting to the Wii U through sales. It's not going to be a relevant platform in late 2017 and definitely not in 2018 if it gets pushed out later than other versions. It seems like a total waste of resources.

Hell, some vague and nebulous "We'll port it to Nintendo's next console if UE4 supports it" would be a better option. Either that or someone needs to get on the phone with Epic and convince them to build Wii U support into UE4 so that they don't have to deal with converting the game to a different engine, which *will* suck up a lot of money and manpower.
 
Minor drive-by comment, but this is probably the worst maintained OP I've ever seen. It hasn't been updated since the reveal on the 11th and contains no information about the game.

I guess OP isn't obligated to do it, but I wish they would.
 
It's a 2.5D game in the animated artstyle of Guilty Gear Xrd. You're not exactly going to lose some incredible image quality if you move to another console.

Have you seen the PS3 port of Guilty Gear Xrd though (and setting the quality mode to ensure the framerate is consistent)? It looks like a horrible mess graphically. That's the sacrifice they had to make to make the game playable on that old hardware. Not only that, but they removed background objects compared to the PS4 version. And that's a 2.5D fighter set on a limited small stage!

If this game comes to Wii U they have a choice of either making the game look like complete graphic sludge on the Wii U or compromising the PS4/Xbone/PC versions to ensure parity.

Neither outcome is very appealing to me. I love my Wii U but I don't want to see it be the anchor around the neck of a game.
 
The problem with this is that the resources that could go for the main version will now be relegated to a "inferior" version. Be it another team porting or not.



A plus imply it's better.

And it is not.

Inferior version lol. It's a 2.5d platformer, it ain't going to pushing any sort of hardware for it to matter.
They might just use the money from the stretchgoal to port the ue4 engine itself, can then use it for other projects as well.
 
Inferior version lol. It's a 2.5d platformer, it ain't going to pushing any sort of hardware for it to matter.
They might just use the money from the stretchgoal to port the ue4 engine itself, can then use it for other projects as well.

You don't know that, at all.
 
Have you seen the PS3 port of Guilty Gear Xrd though (and setting the quality mode to ensure the framerate is consistent)? It looks like a horrible mess graphically. That's the sacrifice they had to make to make the game playable on that old hardware. Not only that, but they removed background objects compared to the PS4 version. And that's a 2.5D fighter set on a limited small stage!

If this game comes to Wii U they have a choice of either making the game look like complete graphic sludge on the Wii U or compromising the PS4/Xbone/PC versions to ensure parity.

Neither outcome is very appealing to me. I love my Wii U but I don't want to see it be the anchor around the neck of a game.

As has been pointed out multiple times, they've already stated from the beginning of the KS that they do NOT intend on compromising PS4/XBO/PC versions. So "complete graphic sludge" it is!

(I have faith they'll manage to farm out an acceptable port.)
 
Unreal 4 is perfectly capable of running on Wii U. It already officially runs on weaker hardware. In fact, Unreal 4 was developed specifically with scalability in mind. Epic hasn't developed an official Wii U-specific branch because 1) there isn't much demand for it among developers 2) they aren't looking into developing on Wii U themselves and 3) Unreal 3 has been running on Wii U for years and for most purposes is completely acceptable. So no, it's not some terrible idea to port UE4 to Wii U, and in fact bonus reason 4) Epic themselves has said there's no reason why developers couldn't do so if they so desired.
So you think a developer of a small-scale game should spend their limited resources porting a massive game engine to an unsupported platform rather than creating a game? UE4 is huge, and porting it over would require a significant time investment by a team of competent programmers.

And even assuming they successfully port it, they'll then by limited by the target hardware.

As for using another engine, again UE3 already exists as a fallback, and while it's not an exact match, with a small bit of time and money any assets and work done in their UE4 versions could be down-converted for UE3 without overly significant work and added complexity.
What experience or knowledge are you basing this assessment on? I have developed (small-scale, but complete and working) programs in both UDK and UE4, and if you want to make full use of UE4 (and I don't mean this just in the "AAAA graphics" way, but also in the ways in which it improves productivity) it's simply not that easy. And if you don't use the full capabilities in order to ease a downport then well, that proves my point doesn't it?

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Epic specifically built tools for UE4 to UE3 conversion given the broad popularity of Unreal Engine and the significant amount of support last gen consoles are still receiving.
I wouldn't be surprised if some tooling exists to ease UE3 -> UE4 transitions. I'd be quite surprised by the other way around.

You're saying you're going to pull money if a port is greenlit on the hypothetical basis that somehow its mere existence instantaneously destroys the project integrity
No. I said I would reduce my pledge, because the port makes the project less focused. A reduction is not a "pull", and a loss of focus is not "destroyed integrity".

I still haven't seen an argument that additional platforms don't reduce the focus of development. The best case scenario is an after-the-fact port by an external studio, but even that could influence design decisions (like e.g. the skills in Diablo 3 were designed not to require accurate positional play out of consideration for a later console port).
 
In fact u are, u are assuming the wiiu version will be "inferior" and hinder the other versions, which u have 0 clue about it actually being the case at all

It'll be inferior compared to all the other versions. They won't be pushing the platform as much as these other versions will.

It'll hinder money that could be used to make the other platforms even better.

This isn't something unpredictable. It's simple logic.

I assume you're just happy to see the game on the platform you want.
 
some are really trying too hard in justifying their bias with convoluted "arguments" just for their ridiculous hatred towards certain console manufacturers.

Anyway and in general, I doubt the UE4 engine was chosen because they had a project with a AAA budget in mind. It´s a niche title after all, developed from a niche developer. UE4 became comparitively cheap even compared to Unity it isn´t that much more expensive and on top of that it basically is the industry standard when it comes to professional studios. The latter is most likely the more realistic reason for their choice rather than the dreamland idea that this particular niche title is meant to be a graphical masterpiece that needs an incredible amounts of resources. It´s IntiCreates we are talking about after all.

At this point a WiiU version seems likely, so just deal with it, instead of wishing its nonexistance for very biased reasons.
 
It'll be inferior compared to all the other versions. They won't be pushing the platform as much as these other versions will.

It'll hinder money that could be used to make the other platforms even better.

This isn't something unpredictable. It's simple logic.

I assume you're just happy to see the game on the platform you want.

I assuem you are just pissed it is coming to a Nintendo platform now.
 
Anyway and in general, I doubt the UE4 engine was chosen because they had a project with a AAA budget in mind. It´s a niche title after all
No. It was probably chosen because it's incredibly good at supporting highly productive development for its target platforms.

You know what doesn't improve your productivity? Adding an additional target platform which is (a) not supported by your engine and (b) technologically inferior to an extent that might well require entirely separate assets and rendering strategies.

The fact that people can't see this simple argument and would rather assume some ridiculous anti-Nintendo bias is annoying. If they were porting it to the PS3 or Xbox 360 I'd make the exact same argument. Point for fucking point.
 
God, are you 5 years old?

The money that'll be used to port the version to the Wii U could be used towards the 3 initial platforms. Is that really hard to understand?

Is it so hard to understand they are getting this money from people who want it on Wii U?

Some of you are acting like fucking children. It's coming to Wii U. Grow up.
 
Some of you are acting like fucking children. It's coming to Wii U. Grow up.
I've expected that since the start of the campaign, their wink wink nudge nudge references were hardly subtle. I've thought that it was a bad idea just as long. What's wrong with discussing its potential repercussions?
 
No. It was probably chosen because it's incredibly good at supporting highly productive development for its target platforms.

You know what doesn't improve your productivity? Adding an additional target platform which is (a) not supported by your engine and (b) technologically inferior to an extent that might well require entirely separate assets and rendering strategies.

The fact that people can't see this simple argument and would rather assume some ridiculous anti-Nintendo bias is annoying. If they were porting it to the PS3 or Xbox 360 I'd make the exact same argument. Point for fucking point.

The engine became "dirt-cheap" (comparable to Unity with the added advantage of beeing a industry standard among professional studios) a few months ago, no point for a professional studio to stick with outdated engines, regardless of the actual scope of their project. Anyway who cares, a WiiU version seems to be within reach, regardless.
 
I do not understand how or why people are having a discussion on porting a game that is at least two years away from release to a console that may as well have a successor on the market by then.
 
No. It was probably chosen because it's incredibly good at supporting highly productive development for its target platforms.

You know what doesn't improve your productivity? Adding an additional target platform which is (a) not supported by your engine and (b) technologically inferior to an extent that might well require entirely separate assets and rendering strategies.

The fact that people can't see this simple argument and would rather assume some ridiculous anti-Nintendo bias is annoying. If they were porting it to the PS3 or Xbox 360 I'd make the exact same argument. Point for fucking point.

I mean we can make the same argument for why it's not just PC only. I don't think it's very strong, I think that if they didn't have a properly scoped game then it's already a big problem, I think that additional funding provides them these opportunities and that in the end if they can do it then that's more people who get to enjoy the game. It's important to remember that a publisher is fronting the money, the Kickstarter is used for extras and publicity and a Wii U version serves both.
 
I do not understand how or why people are having a discussion on porting a game that is at least two years away from release to a console that may as well have a successor on the market by then.
Because if they promise to do that, then they will have to do it, even in 2017. And some of us think that that's a bad idea. While others really want their Wii U version.

I mean we can make the same argument for why it's not just PC only.
Not really, no (though I'd love to!). PS4 and XB1 are supported by UE4 out of the box. The same rendering strategies apply. The same shaders work. The same assets will be used.
 
No. It was probably chosen because it's incredibly good at supporting highly productive development for its target platforms.

You know what doesn't improve your productivity? Adding an additional target platform which is (a) not supported by your engine and (b) technologically inferior to an extent that might well require entirely separate assets and rendering strategies.

The fact that people can't see this simple argument and would rather assume some ridiculous anti-Nintendo bias is annoying. If they were porting it to the PS3 or Xbox 360 I'd make the exact same argument. Point for fucking point.

So you think a developer of a small-scale game should spend their limited resources porting a massive game engine to an unsupported platform rather than creating a game? UE4 is huge, and porting it over would require a significant time investment by a team of competent programmers.

And even assuming they successfully port it, they'll then by limited by the target hardware.

What experience or knowledge are you basing this assessment on? I have developed (small-scale, but complete and working) programs in both UDK and UE4, and if you want to make full use of UE4 (and I don't mean this just in the "AAAA graphics" way, but also in the ways in which it improves productivity) it's simply not that easy. And if you don't use the full capabilities in order to ease a downport then well, that proves my point doesn't it?

I wouldn't be surprised if some tooling exists to ease UE3 -> UE4 transitions. I'd be quite surprised by the other way around.

No. I said I would reduce my pledge, because the port makes the project less focused. A reduction is not a "pull", and a loss of focus is not "destroyed integrity".

I still haven't seen an argument that additional platforms don't reduce the focus of development. The best case scenario is an after-the-fact port by an external studio, but even that could influence design decisions (like e.g. the skills in Diablo 3 were designed not to require accurate positional play out of consideration for a later console port).

Durante speaking the truth.
 
I've expected that since the start of the campaign, their wink wink nudge nudge references were hardly subtle. I've thought that it was a bad idea just as long. What's wrong with discussing its potential repercussions?

Discussing is cool, whining is pretty unproductive though and why some people so badly want to exclude people from a crowdfunding campaign is beyond me. The vast majority of the discussion about this seems to be from people pointing out the logic of the move, which is met by a wall of complaints of how this game will get hacked to bits on all platforms to fit on Wii U, how the Wii U sucks and is bad and what's the point, how someone's backing for the PS4 and doesn't want their money wasted on Wii U development, and on and on.

I do not understand how or why people are having a discussion on porting a game that is at least two years away from release to a console that may as well have a successor on the market by then.

Because they're willing to pay for it? The irony here is if it were a Dreamcast port (wouldn't be the first Kickstarter!) everyone would think it's cool and there'd be no whining.
 
The way I see it they had conditional backing and heavily hinted at a WiiU version from the very start of the campaign. It would make sense to me that considering the have a target release date that they had a general target of the scale they wanted to game to be and regardless of the level of funding it wouldn't grow that much further from that point.

Furthermore considering the nature of the game itself, I think the WiiU would be capable of running it although it would obviously have to be downported on a different engine. This would likely be done by other staff or after the main platforms are complete so I really doubt we'll see a decrease in quality from the original target versions.

To me the WiiU version basically offers me nothing aside from a way that some people would be able to enjoy the game as well, but I don't really see any real negative to it either as it seems clearly planned from the start.

It you really disagree with me I think it might be a good idea to consider pulling your funding. You don't feel your funding is being used properly and by doing so you make the WiiU port less likely. Actually if you really feel that strongly about it you can contact the staff about it and they might pull the goal entirely as it hasn't even really been revealed yet.

Personally though, I don't really see the big deal.
 
why some people so badly want to exclude people from a crowdfunding campaign is beyond me.
Because developing for the WiiU is significantly different from developing for PC/XB1/PS4.

I think it'd be okay if they farmed the WiiU port out to some other company after finishing the real versions of the game. That approach would work I think. Still money that could go into developing the actual game though.
 
Inferior version lol. It's a 2.5d platformer, it ain't going to pushing any sort of hardware for it to matter.
They might just use the money from the stretchgoal to port the ue4 engine itself, can then use it for other projects as well.

And you do?

In fact u are, u are assuming the wiiu version will be "inferior" and hinder the other versions, which u have 0 clue about it actually being the case at all

I assuem you are just pissed it is coming to a Nintendo platform now.

BUFcVKy.gif
 
Not really, no (though I'd love to!). PS4 and XB1 are supported by UE4 out of the box. The same rendering strategies apply. The same shaders work. The same assets will be used.

Games shouldn't be about the limitations of the tools but yes, it's probably a bad idea they went with UE4 rather than something like Unity if that was their intent. Still, it's their intent and I'm sure plenty of people will donate to ensure a Wii U version that wouldn't otherwise.
 
It's almost like they need more money to be able to make it happen.

Making two versions of a game is major scope creep. Scope creep is one the most significant problems caused by kickstarter stretch goals no matter how much extra money is asked for.

Like I said, farming it out to some 3rd party port house to deal with would mitigate the concern especially if the WiiU port will come later than the real versions.
 
Physical ps4, digital wiiu once the stretch goal is released. Hopefully they'll let people do another $25~30 dollars for extra digital versions so I can get a pc port for the beta
 
Discussing is cool, whining is pretty unproductive though and why some people so badly want to exclude people from a crowdfunding campaign is beyond me. The vast majority of the discussion about this seems to be rrom people pointing out the logic of the move, which is met by a wall of complaints of how this game will get hacked to bits on all platforms to fit on Wii U, how the Wii U sucks and is bad and what's the point, how someone's backing for the PS4 and doesn't want their money wasted on Wii U development, and on and on.



Because they're willing to pay for it? The irony here is if it were a Dreamcast port (wouldn't be the first Kickstarter!) everyone would think it's cool and there'd be no whining.

I'd gladly exclude the completely insignificant amount of No-PC/PS4/XB1, but Wii U-only people for a better game.

The amount of people who will buy this game post release for the Wii U or pledge because of it won't even begin to make up the costs of the NIGHTMARE it will be to port this game to a different platform (that's going to be completely irrelevant in 2017/2018) with hugely different architecture and vastly inferior hardware specs AND convert it to a different engine. I feel bad for any programmers who have to deal with that. That is going to be very expensive and time consuming and a whole lot of trouble.

There is absolutely no way that all of those things combined do not somehow compromise the game for the other 99% of the people who will be playing it. The Wii U was dropped from the vast majority of developers of multiplatform games for good reason. I love my Wii U, it has great games on it, but I sure as hell do not want anything but Wii U specific games on it due to the cost and design implications it has for development on other platforms.
 
Making two versions of a game is major scope creep. Scope creep is one the most significant problems caused by kickstarter stretch goals no matter how much extra money is asked for.

Like I said, farming it out to some 3rd party port house to deal with would mitigate the concern especially if the WiiU port will come later than the real versions.

For all we know some studio is already doing UE4 on Wii U and could be capable of making the port work. There's a lot of wild assumptions being made and I really don't see why people are working themselves into a lather over this. (See above!)
 
Because developing for the WiiU is significantly different from developing for PC/XB1/PS4.

I think it'd be okay if they farmed the WiiU port out to some other company after finishing the real versions of the game. That approach would work I think. Still money that could go into developing the actual game though.

To me, it honestly doesn't make any sense to port it there. I have serious doubts that the Wii U will even be a viable platform in 2017 assuming no developmental delays. It would make some sense to port it if it's target release date would be 2016, since there would likely be some interest in the platform due to people wanting to get their hands on the next Zelda title. After that it's up in the air along with the fact new hardware is right around the corner at that point.
 
While I find the uproar about a potential Wii U port a little confusing, I was thinking- since we already know that there's a publisher lined up to get the game made after IGA proves there's demand for it, is it possible that the very same publisher is funding the Wii U port if enough demand for THAT is shown (like via stretch goal?) That seems the most likely scenario to me, if the plan is to farm it out to another studio.

Either way, I'll triple dip if it does make it to Wii U.
 
For all we know some studio is already doing UE4 on Wii U and could be capable of making the port work. There's a lot of wild assumptions being made and I really don't see why people are working themselves into a lather over this. (See above!)

I think an assumption that UE4 will work great on the WiiU by the time Bloodstained comes out is far wilder than the reverse honestly. Especially considering that ideally you'd want a solid version of the engine before you even start working on a game. Not deal with an unstable in progress verision of the engine at the same that they're developing two versions of the game (one for PC/XB1/PS4 and one for the WiiU).
 
Seriously, I'm starting to think people here don't want it to appear on Nintendo's console because "reasons".

For god's sakes 3million is definitley more than enough to cover development for the mentioned platforms, and people want to deny the WiiU from getting it simply because it would "cannabalize" the other version's development? Some people are even saying that Niintendo's console isn't downright worth developing "because of its userbase" and that's pretty much a borderline console bashing statement right there. A fair good number of people have WiiUs thanks to multiplayer games like Mario Kart and Smash and with Splatoon just around the corner I don't see it not being a viable source.
 
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