names2hard4you
Member
I haven't gotten anything. Pretty sure they have their hands full trying to organize how to spend their time for the next while. They have a lot of stuff to work on
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Koji Igarashi Kickstarts Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (2.5D, backdash, 2018)
- Thread starter PranooY
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Jotamide
Unconfirmed Member
After seeing how things are going for the Shenmue III kickstarter, I really gotta give it to the folks in charge of running Bloodstained's KS. Probably the best managed campaign I have ever seen.
names2hard4you
Member
I'm not a Shenmue fan nor a backer so I may as well be talking out of my ass, but the love and care for the project isn't reflected on it as much as Bloodstained was.
Yeah it was really cool with all the social media stuff and community art projects and things.
Wait, what is this about Heart Forth, Alicia being delayed? D:
The Private Demo was so gooood >_<
I thought I'd have Heart Forth Alicia and Timespinners to tide me over (two Metroidvanias I Kickstarted a year ago and look delightful) but they just got delayed until 2016 so I'm a bit sad here
the early trailer for Timespinner (feels like a lifetime ago) made me drool, I can't wait to see the finished product!
There was an update detailing their E3. From what I can gather, the game is going nicely, but it won't be released this year.
I'm a Shenmue fan and backer (100$) and I absolutely agree.
The presentation of it all feels a bit lacklustre.
Or perhaps it's the Bloodstained Kickstarter that felt overwhelmingly well designed.
Theonik
Member
It's due 2017 maybe delayed to 2018 due to stretchgoals throwing planning off. People shouldn't expect to see much of substance until next year really.
Alex_Mexico
Member
A bit of both.
Bloodstained was incredibly lucky well managed and Shenmue III is lacking.
We forget that Shenmue in 3 days had an amount pledged that it took Bloodstained 20+ days to get to. Problem is that Shenmue's KS plateau'd and screeched to a halt harshly while BS even on its weakest day still pulled double than what Shenmue's is taking in these days and I don't see that changing before the last couple of days.
Alex_Mexico
Member
You're talking Bloodstained. They guy you quoted was talking about Heart Forth Alicia which was supposed to come out later this year and was delayed to 2016.
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Banned
I even think that with Bloodstained, they even exaggerated a bit. Don't get me wrong, the campaign was great, and many KS-projects need to take a good look at is, i just feel that they went a little overboard.
Still, i prefer an over-the-top managed campaign to the mess that is Shenmue 3.
Theonik
Member
Well this IS the Bloodstained thread my confusion makes sense! Also par for the course for KS games and well games in general if you don't have a publisher yelling at people to release half the game because pre-orders. I wonder where Bloodstained ends up with all the stretchgoals it hit...
Alex_Mexico
Member
I agree they went a bit overboard but there's little we can truly complain about when they ended up being the 8th highest kickstarted and the most successful video game crowd funded of the site.
For example I thought the social achievements were too complicated, too cumbersome, and that the majority wouldn't even care about. And yet here we were on the last day scrambling to put together 5 Johannes cosplays to get that last achievement for Miriam's new dress and it was fun as all holy hell.
I don't think I ever experienced that sense of community for a videogame ever before.
And to my surprise we even overshot the achievements! We were supposed to get to 50 and ended with 61.
I am upgrading my pledge when I receive my survey from being impressed by the whole campaign, especially all the IGA interviews.
One thing I applaud IGA for is he was frank in how the production schedules were at Konami, and I like how he is taking his time aiming for a 2017 release.
One thing I applaud IGA for is he was frank in how the production schedules were at Konami, and I like how he is taking his time aiming for a 2017 release.
Shadow Ranger
Member
Want to upgrade my pledge as well. Waiting on that survey.
Alex_Mexico
Member
Did we ever got an explanation on what the Pixel Pants (which we it at 35 backer achievements) were for? We only got a brief descrpition saying we'd get an 8 bit remix of sorts. But remix of what? Is it one? More than one? When? In the final game? In an update next week?
Did I miss it?
Did I miss it?
It's due Q1 2017. It would be almost a full year delay if it got pushed back to 2018. I don't think the stretch goals are enough to set it back that far.
Alex_Mexico
Member
How can they not be? They thought they'd reach $800,000 by the end of the campaign and ended up with $5,700,000+ (PayPal included) and a whole bunch of new modes, bigger castle, characters, bosses and such.
I totally see a delay announced in the future.
Theonik
Member
Not unheard of for a Kickstarter at all. In fact I'd be extremely impressed if it's not the case. Ports will be pushed back at least.
Kojirospath
Member
I'm really curious how much money got added after the campaign. I upgraded my paypal pledge from 60 to 150 and am going to upgrade to 250 if I can after paying all my monthly bills. Can' t be the only rampant upgrader? Will not be surprised, if they let kickstarter pledges be upgraded, to see this go up to 5,9 mil.
Yeah I recall people complaining about lack of updates at the very start with this but overall the did an amazing job.
The teased the project beforehand, set a date and made sure the highest level fans knew what was going to happen those days. They got YouTube personalities involved to spread the word. They realized that these games have not been around in a while so they put a lot of focus on relating them to the games they inspired which are popular in indie gaming.
The campaign itself had a lot build onto it over time, they had significant stretch goals that people genuinely wanted at points and they monitored discussion so they could address concerns and uncertainty could be minimized.
Ultimately they used IGA as a personality, made sure people knew who he was and what sort of legacy he has.
I really wish the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter had a better idea on how to leverage these things. The had Sony backing them at E3 with the announcement, which was a megaton but aside from that they haven't kept the buzz going.
I like IGA's games a lot but to try and compare his legacy to Yu Suzuki's is just plain unfair. If you play on Sega consoles or the arcade in the 80s or 90s you know this guy's work and a lot of it is amazing. Shenmue itself broke a ton of new ground and heavily influenced some of the most popular current games.
Shenmue got a huge amount of awareness from Sony at E3 but I think they should really sit down and look at Bloodstained to see how they can further capitalize on it or maybe even sign some of the people who worked on it up to help them.
I don't mean this as Doom and Gloom for Shenmue, even with how it's currently going I think it will do well, but I think if they want to hit 10M it will be in their best interests to step thier game up a few notches and this was a good example of how to do it.
Since I'm a backer for both HFA and Bloodstained (and I don't KS many games), I think I really should investigate this Timespinner ^_^
I wouldn't be surprised by a delay, and I wouldn't be mad about it...
But the main idea behind "more things if we get more money" is that more money allows you to hire a larger team that will work on the game. There's some overhead, but it shouldn't delay the game much, or they're doing it wrong.
That being said, we always see delays from "normal" video game producers, and when we don't, some games are half-baked. We can live with some delays, especially to get a better game at the end.
I could possibly see the game being delayed but I don't think that it would be a 9 month delay or the direct result of the stretch goals.
Honestly I trust IGA knows what he is doing and he has a 2 year dev cycle planned for this game. IIRC SoTN took 3 years but it was primarily a staff of 5 people and they didn't really have a clear picture of what they were doing.
This will be IGA's 8th game in this style, I trust he has a clear vision for it so I highly doubt it will see significant delays.
* Maybe the ports though, porting the engine itself must be a huge job.
That just proves how mediocre and niche Shenmue is in terms of popularity (talking about the numbers raised yet only). But yeah, the way the campaign is being handled and the objectives are being set for Bloodstained is really amazing.
I don't think the Bloodstained Kickstarter being maintained far better than the Shenmue one proves anything about Shenmue's popularity itself.
Theonik
Member
That brings me back to the stupid arguing people were having when the ports were announced actually. It's not just a question of overhead of larger teams the real question with adding things is how paralleleable it all is and whether they can be pipelined. That's what makes outsourced ports so great because they might very well not exist as far as delivering the game is concerned but they pull tons of new people. The biggest bumps the campaign got were the WiiU and Vita announcements which then whirlwinded into the final push.
Edit: Some modes that are added on for instance will have to be developed last, they require the rest of the game being done. Designing a larger castle might take more time, as well. There is a limit to how much you can push by putting more people on. In the end stretchgoals in this case buys them the delay more than getting more people but these projects never mention this for obvious reasons but I am totally cool with it. I'd rather get a better game in the end waiting longer without rushing than something more half-baked.
Indeed... All depends, as you say, on how you can parallelize tasks.
I'd say that the larger castle isn't an issue as long as you can find good level designers and graphists. This is an example of a simple task to parallelize (you just distribute parts of the castle, explain which items the player can use at each part of the game for each part of the castle if there's backtracking, and each item that should be found).
Some modes will have to be designed last, indeed, but they usually can be coded while the graphists and level-designers finish the main game. If you don't use many specific assets, it's really doable. A boss rush, for example, is quite an easy addition.
Alex_Mexico
Member
Thanks ^_^
I actually managed to find it myself... ^_^ It's lovely. Do want. I'm happy that this game has been brought to my attention, but I'm sad that I missed the kickstarter. I would have bought at the very least a physical copy :/ Well...
''(talking about the numbers raised yet only)'' FFS.
21 days to go though, but even considering this, Bloodstained got nowhere near the exposure Shenmue 3 got and still managed to be a absurd success and I think it will still have more money backed/individual backers. Anyway, don't bother.
Oh, ok, I was already aware of the 2016 release thing, I was afraid it would be pushed back to 2017.
What a fantastic game it is, really don't regret backing it for $125 (IIRC), Alonso just gets it, every feedback I had for him of the private demo was answered with "oh yeah, already working on it"
Astral Dog
Member
I kinda wanted to support this on Wii U, but that Digital Event makes was a bit sad when even Nintendo is bailing out :/
Personally I'm treating it as HIS games specifically, that is Igavanias are Iga's Metroid-type games. Though a lot of them are more Metroidlikes than SotNlikes, so in a sense he's kind of got a monopoly on it anyway.
I think some people kinda act like SOTN did not bring nothing new to the table and, thus, the "vania" part of the term is unneeded.
I disagree with that assessment, though. Even if you consider SOTN (and its Castlevania derivatives/sequels) a watered-down version of Metroid, I think they're different games despite the similarities. I think the combat plus the RPG-lite elements are things that make those games a different beast from Metroid, at the cost of actual platforming.
So... yeah, I've never had any trouble with the term "Metroidvania". "Action-exploration-platformers" or whatever the hell some people tried to invent seems too cumbersome for my tastes.
HYDE
Member
Have you played Circle of the Moon?
Interestingly enough the numbers don't just exist in a vacuum, there are entirely different marketing campaigns and game releases behind them that you're ignoring so you can come to the conclusion you want to.
I'm not even saying your conclusion is wrong but the way you're ignoring all the other factors makes your argument weak. It's obvious from your reply you'd rather just listen to the sound of your own voice than look at the larger picture or discuss anything so I won't elaborate further.
I don't really like the Metroidvania term as it really comes off like temporary placeholder genre name like Doomclone was until people actually came up with a real name for it.
The thing is, no one has ever really come up with anything that's stuck so we're still putting two games names together to describe a genre.
Great game, would highly recommend. It's the closest to the old style of games while retaining the metroidvania exploration.
It's a much better game than it often gets credit for. It's very much an IGAvania styled game but it does keep more of the classicvania flavor to it.
It really is one of the stronger titles in the series though, it's a shame it seems to get overlooked a lot of the time.
I had A LOT of fun with it at the GBA launch. I luckily didn't have any real problems seeing the action. Has one of the best Dracula fights in the entire series and I really liked how the different classes really changed up repeat playthroughs. "Hard to see stigma" + "exiled from Castlevania canon" + "IGA didn't actually work on it" all probably contribute to hurting its reception over the years.
I ended up having to play the game on my Gamecube, it was too hard to see even with the light.
The exiled from Castlevania canon thing is blown out of proportion anyway, the game was missing from one timeline and people freaked out even though when asked about it IGA said it was a side story.
The game actually fits into the timeline surprisingly well considering it's one of the few titles in the series that explicitly states the year it takes place in. It's just a bit of an oddball in that we never hear of the Baldwin or Graves families in any other games.
I have not played it, but I might do so. I just watched a few minutes of a Let's Play; it looks awesome.