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Republique Kickstarter by Ryan Payton - NOW FOR PC AND MAC! [Ended, $555K funded]

My experience with the two Monkey Island games and Simon the Sorcerer were less than ideal on the iPhone. They were ports, sure, but I just don't think the iPhone has a big enough screen to provide a great control experience for even point and click adventures. Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP had better controls, but it still felt off to me on the iPhone.

I'm sure I'd feel differently if I had an iPad, but I don't. I also don't have any immediate plans to get one.



I'm almost certain it would. I love the concept/atmosphere he's going for and it looks like they have a good team in place. This is the type of project I'd put up $50 or more for if it weren't something I'd have to play on my iPhone. As-is, I'm going to pass and just wish them luck.

And those were just sloppy ports. I don't believe this game will have pixel hunting and it's more 'puzzle room'.

But yeah, it does seem like iPad would be the ideal way to play this. If it was also on pc...
 
S+S is a game that I would not class as a sloppy ports. A lot of games, just need the screen real estate - I have not gamed on the iphone since I got the ipad. (except for shit like wordstorm/find words/slider puzzles of the ilk).
 

Omikaru

Member
The problem with any potential PC version is we don't know how they're going to utilise the iOS device.

If it's just the touch screen, then this'd go to PC really well, but once you start bringing in the gyroscope and the camera, things start to get difficult from a design perspective.

From a technical one, however, it doesn't seem like such a massive deal to port it to other devices. It's being made on Unity, right? That's already been ported to everything and back. I bet they could get this on Vita if they wanted (and wouldn't that be awesome?).

Still, I'm a believer in the original vision of it being mobile only. If they cave and go Android or Vita, that's okay since the form factor of Vita and most Android devices is very similar to iPhones, but I'd be a little upset if they had to compromise the original vision/game design and bring it to PC or whatever.
 
Was just about to post, when Ryan sent out a note about reaching $50,000, a tenth of the way there.
Camouflaj said:
This is just a quick note to express our sincerest thanks for supporting Republique! We've been extremely busy since launch responding to messages, getting the word out, and plotting future announcements.

The amount of positive feedback on the game is truly encouraging. It's good to know that we're not alone in wanting more AAA experiences on mobile!

For those of you asking how you can help us achieve our aggressive funding goal, the best thing you can do is get the word about what we're trying to accomplish with Republique. We knew we were taking risk in developing a big budget AAA game for iOS and turning to the Kickstarter community to help us fund the project, but the amount of encouragement we've received from you all has already made it all worth it.

Thank you again for all your support, and please watch this space in the coming days and weeks. We've got some more exciting news for you as the campaign blazes forward.

-rp
 

zroid

Banned
I bet they could get this on Vita if they wanted (and wouldn't that be awesome?).

Incredibly, I had never even considered a Vita version. That would be amazing!
Probably because of how little mindshare it has right now :(

I would have pretty much no excuse not to get one then. Stardust and Gravity Rush have me on the precipice, and République would push me right over.

Do it, RP!
 

jooey

The Motorcycle That Wouldn't Slow Down
Incredibly, I had never even considered a Vita version. That would be amazing!
Probably because of how little mindshare it has right now :(

I would have pretty much no excuse not to get one then. Stardust and Gravity Rush have me on the precipice, and République would push me right over.

Do it, RP!

I think the point is to make a touch-only game that feels good without resorting to virtual buttons. And if they made a (hypothetical) Vita port that was (hypothetically) touch-only then people would just have a shit fit.
 

zroid

Banned
I think the point is to make a touch-only game that feels good without resorting to virtual buttons. And if they made a (hypothetical) Vita port that was (hypothetically) touch-only then people would just have a shit fit.

these people are assholes. there are plenty of awesome DS games that use nothing but the touch screen, and there's no reason Vita shouldn't follow suit in its own way.
 
these people are assholes. there are plenty of awesome DS games that use nothing but the touch screen, and there's no reason Vita shouldn't follow suit in its own way.
Very well said. And I think the complaints would be smaller as it'd be a PSN-downloadable title, so people would be more open minded about it (edit: what Massa said).
 

jooey

The Motorcycle That Wouldn't Slow Down
Escape Plan is the best selling Vita game on PSN and it's touch only.

It also doesn't have a previous version to line it up against. When people port-beg, they usually envision it using the next system's inherent features somehow. If this went from iOS to Vita as-is, people would bring up that you couldn't select hacking targets with the d-pad or any other choice nitpicks. Think of this as me preparing you for a thread in the future.
 
So I reached out to them:

iba61sdfGvyFm4.PNG


Yeesh.
 

Chinner

Banned
sounds bitter. out of all the kickstarter projects, this is like the only one that actually has something to show than just concept art.
 

Wario64

works for Gamestop (lol)
Everything on Kickstarter has nothing more than a concept or else they wouldn't be on Kickstarter...


Edit: Oh wow.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Eli Hodapp seems like a bit of a moron, but I can understand the cynicism surrounding this project. The way its been positioned ("SUPPORT AAA GAMES ON iOS") is kind of... repulsive. Intentionally or not, it reeks of unattractive self-importance. It's not the sort of card you can play unless you're a Tim Schafer or another industry vet who's earnt their stripes. Payton certainly hasn't. I don't know a thing about the rest of the team from the video on the page.
 

Alex

Member
Touch Arcade is a really lousy site, but I don't think this thing has a chance of getting funded, so I'm with him there. I put in ten, though.

Don't see why they wouldn't pop it some coverage, what are they saving that space for the nine millionth Dark Meadow article, or to give another fifteen games a four star review?
 
Wow, that's kind of a shit response. It's one thing to believe that it won't make the money by the end of the month. It's another thing entirely to be an ass about it.
 

Omikaru

Member
I thought it would be snobbery on their part. Not surprised one bit.

Don't you have to pay to get coverage on these sites anyway?

I can't speak for them since I've never written for these iOS gaming sites, but when I wrote some iOS-related stuff for another site, iOS game developers put me on their spam lists and kept offering money if I reviewed their games. It stopped a while after I told them I didn't review iOS games, but the way they went about it seemed like business as usual for them.
 

Alex

Member
I'd sort of imagine it can be fairly difficult to get noticed on the app store what with a slew of games hitting silently every week. It doesn't surprise me at all that someone would pay for coverage.
 
Here's an article they posted regarding other developers' experiences on Kickstarter.

http://toucharcade.com/2012/04/06/w...just-gets-tougher-bigger-and-more-determined/

While Barry's story stands on its own, we are covering something larger here. This is part one of a two-part series of articles. In the next, we'll introduce you to three more studios who haven't had the greatest experience on Kickstarter. We'll also discuss why we don't normally cover games on the service and why we're not certain of the long-term viability of crowd-funding sources like Kickstarter.

So I guess their real feelings come out in the next part.
 

boingball

Member
I believe this will make its goal :)

It has a chance, but it will be difficult. The first two days and the last two days are the busiest Kickstarter days. Just extrapolating from the the first two days to the overall length is wrong (Vic Ireland did that with his CoH2 project, with the current rate (after 1 and 2 days) we have the funding in 20 days..., unfortunately the next 14 days raised the overall amount only from 42k to 66k).

With a 500k goal I believe you should get to 100k within 48h. Then you will make it. If not, you have to work hard to reach the goal. So I believe the Camouflaj guys have their work cut out for them.

P.S.
have a look at the graph at
http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/shortening-the-maximum-project-length
 

Omikaru

Member
I'm really hoping this gets funded but this negativity can't be good. I'm optimistic. Hopefully the word spreads.

I'm hopeful and quietly confident it'll do okay, but my faith in iOS gaming will be pretty badly dented if it doesn't.

Reading some of the negative reviews on Ghost Trick broke my heart, and then a few weeks later the fact that "Pokémon Yellow" reached #4 on the UK charts didn't exactly bolster my confidence in the userbase, so I'm kind of aware of the audience this game will be being pitched at, but the specs on iOS devices are great and it really needs a game like this. The platform can do so well, and have so many great games tailor-made for its strengths. And whilst there have been a lot of unique iOS games, there really hasn't been many exclusives on the platform that have captured my imagination; Republique is probably the first game that has made me look at my iPhone like a proper gaming machine.

Sadly, I feel we may have a few more years of totally unsuitable action game ports like Max Payne, or advergames like the cack EA releases in the run-up to its AAA console games, should this Kickstarter not do well. Jerkoffs like Eli Hodapp of TouchArcade really aren't doing the platform they write about any favours by being snooty about this game, though. At the very least they should write about the game with some trademark snark and cynicism which game journalists seem to love, and let their readers decide, rather than choose to censor it for whatever reason.
 
I hope they make it but I think asking for $300k and coming out with the other $200k would have been much more reasonable. Finding actual investors for $200k is extremely easy if you can guarantee them a decent return.

Fingers crossed though, I really want to play this.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Toucharcade shits themselves over crap flash games with low framerates yet they won't touch this? Seriously? Now all of the sudden they have standards?
 

Quote

Member
hHow do they plan on releasing the game to the backers? I may be wrong, but I thought the App Store limited on how many codes the Dev's get for promotion? I guess they can just gift it to everyone manually?
 
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