Megaton. Durante helped Xseed fix up the Little King's Story port

Just to be clear, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve his tag, far from it, just that I don't think it should be updated with a game he was hired to fix, when it's not just a list of his accomplishments, but also a sort of "wall of shame" for the ports he had to fix on his own time.

I do see where you're coming from, though, and it's fair enough.

I never thought about it that way. It's all down to perspective.

The developers did their part in making excellent games worth fixing. He's a saint for doing it either way, it's not his job.
 
This game chokes my i7 2600 + GTX 1060 with any of the fancier effects enabled. Can't seem to downsample without big hits, either. It doesn't seem like trying to hit 60fps on my rig would be worth it, so I've no issues sticking at the 30fps cap it was intended to be played at. I can manage to hit that at least, so I can only imagine its state before Durante helped out. Also, I wish there was an alternative for the bloom filters. They're a bit too much at some points, but the game looks bland otherwise. All that aside, this game is so much fun. Although it isn't as polished as, say, the Pikmin games, it's incredibly charming and mechanically satisfying.
 
Optimisation stories are my jam, so much appreciated again XSEED and Durante for your work. I was hesitant to by LKS initially due to the quality of the port, but grabbed it yesterday thanks to these efforts.
 
I think it's fair to say that XSEED care more about their ports and their reputation for them than quite a few other companies.

Well, it's not their own game. Doing a bad port could damage their reputation with the rights owner, and potentially with other Japanese IP holders down the line. It's "easier" to do a bad port when you own the IP. If Capcom does a bad PC port, it's not going to have as much of an impact on their business.

Also, there are competitors out there (e.g. Ghostlight's been doing quite a bit of PC ports) who are also making a name for themselves. They are ready to step in if XSEED falls out of the race.

Of course, to their credit XSEED did realize that and understand how important their reputation is. But if it was purely for the love of games that they did what they did, they would've likely never released a bad port to begin with.
 
So... when is this patch dropping on GOG? :P It certainly ain't there, yet.
That's primarily my fault. Be assured that it will be there, the problem is that I'm leaving on a business trip tomorrow, so it might take until the 9th or 10th to show up. Sorry about that.
 
Durante making the world better one game at a time as usual. Mad props.

Also I shouldn't be surprised that there are people cynical enough to downplay both him and XSEED, but I fully admit I didn't expect it. I especially love the "other programmers also work hard and don't get recognition" as an argument to complain about him getting recognition; basically the "all lives matter" argument. Fuck that noise, and I say this as a programmer working my ass off for almost two decades getting zero public recognition. If you truly care about us, make a thread about us, nobody is stopping you.

That's primarily my fault. Be assured that it will be there, the problem is that I'm leaving on a business trip tomorrow, so it might take until the 9th or 10th to show up. Sorry about that.

Apologizing for taking a business trip on a weekend; what a very Durante thing to do. :D
 
This is awesome. I'll see if I can pick it up before the sale ends. I wanted to buy it a while back but the "mixed" reviews scared me for sure.

<---------- Dictator93
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But back on topic - I know the contact was done via twitter at the start, but did you have to prove your credentials at all? Or was it more like, "oh, you are that Durante. In that case, let me send you the Git ASAP."
Wasn't expecting to see handsome dudes in this thread.
 
Damn this game is actually pretty fun! I decided to pop it in for a bit and ended up playing almost 4 hours today. Lol! Very charming.
 
Well, it's not their own game. Doing a bad port could damage their reputation with the rights owner, and potentially with other Japanese IP holders down the line. It's "easier" to do a bad port when you own the IP. If Capcom does a bad PC port, it's not going to have as much of an impact on their business.

Also, there are competitors out there (e.g. Ghostlight's been doing quite a bit of PC ports) who are also making a name for themselves. They are ready to step in if XSEED falls out of the race.

Of course, to their credit XSEED did realize that and understand how important their reputation is. But if it was purely for the love of games that they did what they did, they would've likely never released a bad port to begin with.

Doesn't Marvelous own the rights to LKS? XSEED is Marvelous USA.

XSEED also doesn't port anything themselves, the Falcom releases were already on PC and they have a programmer that updated them. LKS is their first console->PC port, which was outsourced to an unnamed Japanese studio. I don't really think they are competing with companies like Ghostlight in the way you imply. Doubt they are tripping over each other to port games.
 
UI issues with ultra wide:

C4931FD704AE6424113AA37917842286D06D7310

Other than that, Ultra wide almost works perfectly, the biggest problem is that the map is messed up and things won't appear on it correctly.

I'm also having terrible IQ issues, everything looks terribly jaggy and blurry for me, when I take a screenshot it doesn't show and the image is much more clear.
 
Soul of Durante, key to PC gaming.
Soul of the developer, withdrawn from its knowledge.
Let frames be granted, so the ports might be mended.
So the ports might be mended.
 
Remember reading about this game in Nintendo Power when I didn't have a Wii at the time and really wanted to play it (think it got a 9 or so in the review). Game's pretty much what I wanted - Pikmin in a medievalish setting with some charm.


I'm only two hours in but loving what I've played so far. Using a gamepad and have no issues.
 
Just heard about this randomly and now I've bought it too despite my computer I use Steam on not even being in one piece at the moment.
 
I loved this game on Wii, but skipped the PC port due to all the performance reports. Wanted to thank both XSEED and Durante on their work post-launch, and to mention that thanks to the patch I did purchase the PC version on Steam this weekend and am looking forward to checking it out.

If you like Pikmin, you definitely need to check this out.
 
Could Durante like be a consultant or at least a teach to these guys that port PC games. Surely it would be cheaper in the long run and better if companies just hire him to train their staff to make competent PC ports
 
Thank you Durante, XSEED and everyone who make an effort to make games better. But the best way of saying thanks is buying the game, so I did that too.
 
Just wanted to also post my thanks to XSEED and Durante. I was interested in this game but because of the reported issues stayed away until now.

I'm still only one hour in but it appears to be a really charming game.

I'm also having terrible IQ issues, everything looks terribly jaggy and blurry for me, when I take a screenshot it doesn't show and the image is much more clear.

I'm not using ultrawide but did have a similar problem where the image appeared to be scaled but on screenshots everything was normal (1440p). It was particularly noticeable on the steam overlay. In my case the issue was the DPI scaling of Windows. Here I have it at 125% font size. Reverting to 100% made the problem go away on the game, but then of course the text on Windows got small.

Setting "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" on the compatibility tab for the game executable did nothing, but setting on Steam itself fixed the problem.
 
I was chatting to a person I game on XBL yesterday. He mentioned he liked A Kingdom For Keflings and suddenly this thread popped into my head. I told him to have a look and he saw that it was reduced in price on Steam, too. He might give it a go.

I actually have this game on Wii, but don't think I've ever played it. Might still be unopened.
 
No.

Also, XSEED are pretty awesome.

And sadly, the game still isn't quite perfect at 60 Fps. Read the blog for details.

That's awesome, man! Glad you were able to turn being the PC patron saint into a business. I know this kinda stuff probably requires a ton of work by you and you definitely should get paid for it. Thanks for the great work!
 
I was having a good time with this when it just up and crashed out of nowhere. I just built a farmhouse and was wandering around digging up turnips.

I really hope this isn't common since the no autosave thing is making it worse than it could have been.
 
This game is the only one im still playing from the wii era... such a gem... people just need to past the first hour or two to start enjoying one of the best game from wii..
 
I'd like to be playing it, but like a lot (?) of people I'm unfortunately having some kind of deadzone drift issue. Tried some third party hacks with no success, hopefully it gets patched soon. (Apparently the bug is new for this release.)

Visual upgrades look very nice, at least.
 
Erm. This game came out in August 2016. It didn't even sell very well. The fact that they went out of their way to get it fixed is commendable, and that's why there is a thread about it.

As for why Durante has a fan base here, it's because he is a member of the community here and we like him. If you have a problem with that, it's on you, not anyone else. Lol.
And because he's awesome.
 
Dont want to look cynical, but how is this different from all of the others programmers that do this every day for a living?

Good chance to thank all the unsung code heroes that you only see midway through the credits roll and contributed to the success of our favourite games. This people will never get a "you are god" post in GAF or any sort of weird personality cult. If anything, they'll be lucky not to be insulted as lazy.

Durante is their god too because he goes back to fix their work when they fuck it up
 
Just wanted to also post my thanks to XSEED and Durante. I was interested in this game but because of the reported issues stayed away until now.

I'm still only one hour in but it appears to be a really charming game.



I'm not using ultrawide but did have a similar problem where the image appeared to be scaled but on screenshots everything was normal (1440p). It was particularly noticeable on the steam overlay. In my case the issue was the DPI scaling of Windows. Here I have it at 125% font size. Reverting to 100% made the problem go away on the game, but then of course the text on Windows got small.

Setting "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" on the compatibility tab for the game executable did nothing, but setting on Steam itself fixed the problem.

Disable display scaling on high DPI settings seems to have fixed this for me, thanks for letting me know its a scaling issue.
 
Is there any way to get this game running in exclusive fullscreen? Seems to only have a borderless windowed option in the launcher. My PC doesn't work well with games using that display option, and I wouldn't be surprised if exclusive fullscreen eliminated the occasional 1-2 frame drops I get.
 
Problems found so far:

Skip Intro movie: Skips all cut scenes, not just the intro.

Purple Mushroom
Boss: Impossible to beat on 60 FPS, he's much faster and spins for a much longer duration, rendering him impossible to defeat.
 
What about Sera?

Sara was contracted originally, but I recall seeing something that indicated they had hired her at some point.

She wouldn't have been involved with this project anyway, so the point mostly stands. She just works on fixing up existing PC games, not porting console games.
 
What about Sera?

Last I recall she was working on contract, not on staff.

EDIT:

Sara was contracted originally, but I recall seeing something that indicated they had hired her at some point.

Ah, okay, so I'm wrong: they have one programmer. Regardless: they get by pretty far on pretty minor resources here, but the actual best way to get this kind of fix done is just contract someone like Durante who knows how to do it.
 
I may be mistaken, I can't even remember what it was that I saw. May have been something on their forums. Her Twitter profile mentions being "with XSEED" specifically which is the closest thing I can find right now, but that doesn't necessarily prove they hired her.


Hopefully their next port proves to be easier to deal with, based comments from both Durante and XSEED it sounds like LKS was a pain to work with. Wyrdwad/Tom made it sound like they were at least considering further console->PC ports. [source]
 
Finally tried it out and as mentioned above there's a big deadzone issue (at least with a 360 controller), even if I'm not touching anything I just automatically slowly walk around. Hopefully this will get fixed too because I'd really rather not have to put up with that the whole game.
 
Finally tried it out and as mentioned above there's a big deadzone issue (at least with a 360 controller), even if I'm not touching anything I just automatically slowly walk around. Hopefully this will get fixed too because I'd really rather not have to put up with that the whole game.

As a workaround, you should be able to use Steam's controller api to increase the deadzone before the game sees it. I did that with Marvellous Misstake that also had a similar problem on my end.
 
Sorry for the semi-pointless bump but I just ran into a pcgamer article mentioning this while searching for something else. This really is the coolest shit to hear and read about Durante, great job!
 
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