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[Clefargle]

Elysian Shadows is an indie 2D RPG that aims to redefine the oldschool 16-bit RPG genre by fusing the pixel art style with true 3D environments, dynamic lighting, shadows, physics and positional audio. Elysian Shadows is currently being developed for Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, OUYA and the team’s personal favorite – the Sega Dreamcast!

The Elysian Shadows team is currently running a Steam Greenlight campaign for Windows/OS X/Linux, you can check it out here. Although the Kickstarter countdown timer has only been rolling for ten of the thirty days it’s scheduled for, the project has already reached $93,000 of the $150,000 they’re asking for! You can find the Kickstarter here.

Full disclosure: The main developers of this project have been long term friends of mine from way back in the early years of high school. I’ve had the honor of witnessing not just the development of the project but I’ve also watched these guys grow from a team of just a few dudes programming in their mother’s attic to the skilled, ambitious, multinational team they are today.

The team has spent the last couple years developing a custom in-house engine, built from the ground up featuring:

- Dynamic lighting with pixel-perfect shadows
- 3D environments and dynamic 2D/3D camera perspectives.
- Full-fledged rigid body physics and particle engines
- Diverse gameplay styles and platforming mechanics
- 3D positional and dynamic audio engine

The Devs refer to themselves as “Elysian Shadows Team” or “Team ES”, @elysian_shadows. The core is composed of Falco Girgis, Lead Engine and Toolkit Developer, and Tyler Rogers, Lead Gameplay Engineer. It’s likely that you’ve seen some of their exploits on their wildly popular YouTube series, “Adventures in Game Development”. Their series gives a true, gritty but honest and real look behind the curtain that so many of the big AAA game development studios like to hide behind. Their series was how the other, multinational team members originally learned of the project and eventually lead to them being involved. All together there are 7 members of Team ES: Falco and Tyler live in north Alabama, Connor (Lead Sound Engineer and Soundtrack Composer/Level Designer) lives in western Canada, Patryk (Lead Graphic Artist) lives in Poland, Leandro (Graphic Artist) lives in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dan (Web Developer/Level Designer) is from the UK and Eddie (Android Developer) hails from the snow wastes of lower Michigan.

Team ES: We’ve fused aspects of 16-bit classical RPGs such as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Final Fantasy, with a highly stylized, modern vision by using dynamic lighting, physics, and audio engines along with swapping between 2D and 3D perspectives. Our goal is to create a "next-gen" 2D RPG in terms of gameplay, graphics, and audio while still remaining true to the games that inspired us to become developers.

The world of Elysian Shadows is a diverse, multilayered landscape consisting of villages, towns, cities, and a variety of different ruins and sub-dungeons. Connecting the various ruins to the societies of Elysian Shadows are many fully realized maps the player must explore. They are generally beautiful, lush, and feature a variety of different biomes such as forests, deserts, mountains, tundra, beaches, swamps, and islands. The ruins tend to exhibit a darker, moodier, and more foreboding atmosphere, playing host to ancient, long-forgotten technology and a multitude of dangerous creatures guarding their secrets. We wanted to create an immense and immersive world that is rewarding to explore, playing host to a cast of characters and a culture that are both compelling and emotionally engaging.

Team ES: It was decided early on that there would be no ‘overworld map’, the world would be open, vast and full of detail. We wanted to create a continuous and connected rather than disjoint and separated through clumsy world maps or menus. There are no decorative doors either – we always hated it when games showed us a beautiful environment but restrict our ability to fully experience it. In our world if you can see it, you can interact with it. Combining these ‘rules’ with our real-time day/night system, rich storyline and engaging cast, we’ve got all of the ingredients for forging that intellectually fulfilling experience and very much look forward to engaging with our audience on an emotional level.

Travel through lush environments and diverse biomes, exploring a series of mysterious ruins, and discovering a world caught in constant conflict between magic and technology. Magic is a gift reserved for only the loyal followers of The Creator, while the non religious sects of society are forced to rely upon technology in their daily lives. Upon uncovering a mysterious artifact deep within one of the ancient ruins scattered throughout the land, Julien and friends find themselves thrust into the middle of this rising conflict. Can you solve the mystery of the ancient civilizations and prevent the destruction of your own?

If you are at all interested in this game and want a behind the scenes look at the rowdy team behind it’s conception, I simply cannot recommend their YouTube series “Adventures in Game Development” (or “AiGD” as they call it) enough.check it out!

Recent Media:
Their YouTube page has an “Elysian Shadows Press” playlists that they’re fairly good about updating with podcasts/interviews that exists on YouTube as well.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR_PJH88vEgfn-McqfMTzHhplRJnlkR1a

The Elysian Shadows team was on the cover of August’s issue of Indie Game Magazine.
Below I’ve included some of the press they’ve done since launching the Kickstarter… these guys are all over the place doing podcasts, interviews and promoting their project as much as possible!
http://nichegamer.net/2014/08/witne...spired-current-gen-experience-on-kickstarter/
http://nichegamer.net/2014/08/elysian-shadows-interview-fantastical-kickstarter-edition/
http://www.ghostvolta.com/exclusive-developer-interview-elysian-shadows-team/
http://dreamcasttoday.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/elysian-shadows-kickstarter-gets-off-to-flying-start/
http://www.seganerds.com/2014/08/02/elysian-shadows-kickstarter-campaign-begins-with-a-blast/
http://segabits.com/blog/2014/08/01...hes-bringing-a-new-rpg-to-the-sega-dreamcast/
http://sega-addicts.com/2014/08/01/elysian-shadows-kickstarter-starts-today/
The Team also did an interview with the local branch of the University of Alabama (Huntsville) http://www.uah.edu/news/people/7927...ides-foundation-for-dream-career#.U-nhoIBdWA1

Now, without any further ado, some more delicious screens:

Update***

Added and replaced some media with the recent press packets these guy released on thee site. Added some more links to some of the newer livestream and video kickstarter content. Also added some specific quotes from team ES on world building.

 

[Comandr]

I don't think I can take a Kickstarter seriously that puts Dreamcast so far ahead of current gen platforms and handhelds. It... Baffles me.

 

[@MUWANdo]

I don't think I can take a Kickstarter seriously that puts Dreamcast so far ahead of current gen platforms and handhelds. It... Baffles me.

Retro homebrew junkies will pay any amount of money for new games, no matter how terrible they may be..

 

[Deleted member 74300]

"Next Generation 2D RPG"

I laughed.

 

[Hasney]

I don't think I can take a Kickstarter seriously that puts Dreamcast so far ahead of current gen platforms and handhelds. It... Baffles me.

It's been planned for years, I talked to the guys a lot back on the dcemulation forums while they were still in it's heyday and that was probably 5 or so years ago? Glad it made it to this point.

In purely for the Dreamcast version as I very rarely Kickstart anything, but a Dreamcast game is worth it.

 

[Game Guru]

I wonder if the Dreamcast version will outsell the Ouya version. There must be far more Dreamcast owners than Ouya owners, after all.

 

[CronoShot]

Ewww...

 

[Persona7]

The king lives on.

 

[TimmiT]

Turns out that after all this time next-gen really meant squashed sprites.

Also, a few of the stretch goals are pretty dumb:

========================================================
$280,000 Soundtrack & SFX Production Equipment
========================================================
Help our soundtrack creator, Connor Linning, get his hands on the same vintage synthesizers and samplers used by game composers such as Yoko Shimomura, Akira Yamaoka, and Masami Ueda in games like Super Mario RPG, Kingdom Hearts, Parasite Eve, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil, so that we can dig deeper into perfecting the nostalgic and classic side of the music's atmosphere we are striving to create.

========================================================
$350,000 Next-Gen+
========================================================
With 350k, we will go all-out graphically, implementing an optional graphics setting for high-end platforms. Your GPU will cry in pain, but your eyes will cry with joy!

========================================================
$650,000 Oculus Rift Support
========================================================
With 650k, we will take a walk on the wild side and allow you to experience our creative vision for the world of Elysian Shadows in virtual reality with the Oculus Rift. You gotta admit, that 3D perspective sure would look sexy...

 

[Comandr]

Turns out that after all this time next-gen really meant squashed sprites.

Also, a few of the stretch goals are pretty dumb:

Guess that's why they call it a STRETCH goal.

 

[dorn.]

Looks all over the place. Funding goals are really weird too.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Guess that's why they call it a STRETCH goal.

No, some of those are actually really weird.

 

[Makai]

I watched their Youtube series. It's been in development for like 6 years, starting when they were in high school. They built everything from scratch and mock tools like XNA in some of their videos. They had a brief feud with the developers of Murder Miners at one point.

 

[Feep]

Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going on with the distorted sprites in faux-3D. This game needs an art director, badly.

I don't know, I don't mean to badmouth other indie devs, but "Final Fantasy Secret of Mana Chrono Trigger inspired 2-D jRPGs" are so incredibly difficult to make that, to my knowledge, it's never really been done by an indie team, let alone one that's never shipped a game. Only Zeboyd Games have ever really gotten close, and that's with a significantly scaled back length and feature set.

 

[Ape]

Good luck.

 

[Sami+]

Those sprites look kind of bad...

 

[thewhitehawk]

I really don't like the art direction and there really isn't anything that speaks for me in this project :/

 

[Zarx]

The perspective makes everything looks like flat cards with pixel art printed on moving around. Everything looks tacked on and doesn't blend together well at all, especially when the camera angle changes and the pixel art is stuck in a fixed perspective. And the action looks very clunky, and doesn't animate well either. The game would honestly look better without the gimmick. And they fail to show any real gameplay benefit from the gimmick except for clunky looking platforming sequences.

 

[Trago]

I watched their Youtube series. It's been in development for like 6 years, starting when they were in high school. They built everything from scratch and mock tools like XNA in some of their videos. They had a brief feud with the developers of Murder Miners at one point.

Yeah, I was watching their series from the beginning. It's crazy to think that they haven't finished yet. I guess stuff doesn't work out the way we all want.

Best of luck to those dudes.

 

[Makai]

Yeah, I was watching their series from the beginning. It's crazy to think that they haven't finished yet. I guess stuff doesn't work out the way we all want.

Best of luck to those dudes.

They could have finished quickly if they just used RPG Maker, but they were more interested in building tools. Not a horrible plan considering this likely helped them land good jobs.

 

[soxinthebox]

Screenshots look bad man

 

[Nohar]

The art direction is... not very... *sigh* Sorry, I need to say "Eww". It's a real turn-off for me.

Also... Oculus Rift support? Really? That's a pointless stretch goal if I ever saw one. I really doubt such a feature would be a good addition to that game.

I can't take this project seriously.

 

[KainXVIII]

Sorry, but looks ugly as hell.
PS - also,,dreamcast version?

 

[FuKuy]

I wouldn't trust a crowdfunding campaign which promotes spending money on a Dreamcast version. And they call it next-gen... seriously?!

IMHO this is a total waste of time and money... the Dreamcast version should be in any case a stretch goal, in fact many of the stretch goals are quite nonsense.

Stretch goal for cloud saves? Nowadays every digital paltform/service have a free service/API for that!!

Screenshots look bad man

AGREE.

Doesn't have a professional look... it feels like a cheap RPG Maker game.

 

[Card Boy]

This looks bad OP and your friends should take the feedback from this thread to heart. Seriously you can't tell me with a straight face the shots you provided look good.

With $15 or less i can get so many good games it's not funny. Your friend is competing with games like Strider, Blood Dragon, CoJ: Gunslinger, Shadow Complex, Guacamelee, Skullgirls, Penny Arcade 3 & 4, Legend of Grimrock, Super Meat Boy, Shovel Knight and hundreds of other games. Why would i fund this, why would anyone fund this? Why buy it once it releases?

 

[Aselith]

Dat art

Spoiler

is ugly

 

[Mephala]

Expected something related with Noogy's Dust: An Elysian Tale. Kind of disappointed.

 

[red731]

Expected something related with Noogy's Dust: An Elysian Tale. Kind of disappointed.

You were not alone. I was expecting Noogy mention somewhere in the OP.

 

[Clefargle]

Whether the art direction is what you like, it's an ambitious project in the vein of games I have thoroughly enjoyed. I know my opinion is biased, but I'm interested enough to give it a try. I like the handcrafted approach to world design they are taking.

 

[Nohar]

Whether the art direction is what you like, it's an ambitious project in the vein of games I have thoroughly enjoyed. I know my opinion is biased, but I'm interested enough to give it a try. I like the handcrafted approach to world design they are taking.

The art direction put aside, an ambitious project doesn't necessarily mean a good game at the end, and I've already been disappointed with some KS projects. The stretch goals don't sound serious to me, and overall I just don't see the appeal. They try to convince us with the nostalgia cord, but that one was used too often in the past: it doesn't work anymore.

 

[Clefargle]

The art direction put aside, an ambitious project doesn't necessarily mean a good game at the end, and I've already been disappointed with some KS projects. The stretch goals don't sound serious to me, and overall I just don't see the appeal. They try to convince us with the nostalgia cord, but that one was used too often in the past: it doesn't work anymore.

Sure, ambitious doesn't equal a good game. I think this game goes deeper than just surface level retro tribute. In the vein of how shovel knight was made with the NES hardware as a virtual benchmark. Some of the stuff they're able to pull out of the DC is really interesting. I may pick up a DC again for this to enjoy the VMU specific features they have mentioned

 

[PureXbox]

"With 650k, we will take a walk on the wild side and allow you to experience our creative vision for the world of Elysian Shadows in virtual reality with the Oculus Rift. You gotta admit, that 3D perspective sure would look sexy..."

With the screenshots looking like they do, adding Oculus Rift to the mix isn't going to be "sexy" at all.

 

[genbatzu]

is it just me, or is the shadow-movement a bit off?
It starts moving, when the character is moving, not when the screen/viewpoint of the player is moving (pretty clearly at the beginning of the gif)


also: anything with stretch goals, especially when they are up to 5x the amount of the initial funding, is illogical and silly...

and last but not least: Next Generation 2D RPG... for Dreamcast... -.-

/edit: the kickstarter link is broken

//edit2: $30.000 for Playstation 4, Xbox One & Wii U Support, including DevKits according to their description.

sounds a bit off.. considering the ESRB/PEGI/USK/... Rating costs, dev kit costs, development costs, etc

for another $10.000 they'll ad 3DS and Vita... yeah...sure

 

[Dascu]

I think it looks kind of awful and I am very surprised it has gotten so much funding already.

 

[CheesecakeRecipe]

I'm glad they got the opportunity to make their own engine to do as they pleased with it, but I think getting a new artist should have been priority. Also, some of the scaling just looks awful and squished rather than properly accounted for perspective. Animation and movement looks jittery and off-putting.

I pretty much didn't see much that led me to believe this is a game I would put money down for. I wish them the best, but I hope they take some of the criticisms to heart and work on creating a more presentable product.

 

[spats]

Doesn't look super great. Good luck with the Kickstarter though!

 

[Falk]

Also, a few of the stretch goals are pretty dumb:

========================================================
$280,000 Soundtrack & SFX Production Equipment
========================================================
Help our soundtrack creator, Connor Linning, get his hands on the same vintage synthesizers and samplers used by game composers such as Yoko Shimomura, Akira Yamaoka, and Masami Ueda in games like Super Mario RPG, Kingdom Hearts, Parasite Eve, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil, so that we can dig deeper into perfecting the nostalgic and classic side of the music's atmosphere we are striving to create.

You need a budget to get an SNES sound chip?

 

[Ferrio]

That's....uhh not good.

Ick.

 

[genbatzu]

//edit2: $30.000 for Playstation 4, Xbox One & Wii U Support, including DevKits according to their description.

sounds a bit off.. considering the ESRB/PEGI/USK/... Rating costs, dev kit costs, development costs, etc

for another $10.000 they'll ad 3DS and Vita... yeah...sure

ok, just read through the stretchgoals, and it seems they plan to release the game physically...

so for an additional $40,000 they will release the game on PS4, XBO, WiiU, 3DS, and PSV

just the rating costs, add up to the following:

ESRB: $4,000 up to $20,000 depening if each platform needs an own rating
PEGI: $8,000 (1x $2,000 + 4x $1,000)
USK: $8,000 (5x $1,600)
COB: ~$1,000 up to $5,000, depening if each platform needs an own rating

$21,000 up to $41,000 for the ratings alone

leaving them in the worst case with $9,000 for 5x Dev-Kit + Development Costs. I don't know how much the dev kits costs, except for the Wii U one.. but I don't think they can afford more than 3 till they have no more money from these stretch goals left...

 

[DracoBlade]

A new Dreamcast game! Instant buy!

 

[Sparrowhawk]

Looks pretty bad. :\
Those sprites...

 

[Palette Swap]

Dreamcast first + looks like ass = pass.

 

[Antilurker77]

With those stretch goals I'm convinced that the developer doesn't know how to manage a budget. I really hope this doesn't get funded.

 

[Paz]

Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going on with the distorted sprites in faux-3D. This game needs an art director, badly.

I don't know, I don't mean to badmouth other indie devs, but "Final Fantasy Secret of Mana Chrono Trigger inspired 2-D jRPGs" are so incredibly difficult to make that, to my knowledge, it's never really been done by an indie team, let alone one that's never shipped a game. Only Zeboyd Games have ever really gotten close, and that's with a significantly scaled back length and feature set.

There are a few things here that set off alarm bells for me too, but it looks like it'll make a pretty ambitious goal. I guess the lesson is people really want games in this space.

 

[Hasney]

I guess the lesson is people really want games in this space.

That and it being a Dreamcast game. If it's anything like a few years ago, that scene will throw money at anything with a Dreamcast release

Spoiler

I'm one of them

.

 

[TimmiT]

The people behind this Kickstarter were also recently on the SEGAbits podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UCi0y1dS_s

Doesn't seem like they're taking criticism seriously enough. At least one of the developers just frustratingly acts as if he knows better.

 

[Nohar]

I'm a little afraid those guys are in over their heads.

 

[EVOL 100%]

Those sprites look like they've been stretched in MS Paint.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

That's kinda ugly looking art

 

[Messofanego]

I like the 2D sprites on 3D, reminded me of Wolfie lol