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Vapourware That Which Sleeps - Vaporware Strategy RP

Space Satan

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
6,216
Location
Space Hell
By the way, all this kickstarter no refunds, two year long delays and other shit is awesomely normal in 2017 because EA made all this a minor issue.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
In all seriousness though, it will take a lot of YouTube videos to rebuild my trust. Remember, this guy has already recorded some 'gameplay' videos a few years back and they turned out to be fake. This could be just another ploy to get the lawsuits off his back (can't sue me, I'm still working on it, see?). Wouldn't surprise me one bit if he lost all the game code in a freak HDD accident a few months ahead.
It's obviously fake. I mean, seriously, you still believe this? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Given that we already know faking videos is well within his abilities, why would you believe more fake videos? More importantly, given that even a total muppet can fake game videos, why would you believe ANY such videos? There is a reason why I don't believe any of these videos and consider even their existence to be evidence of deliberate deception. If you say nothing, you have the benefit of the doubt. You may or may not be making a game. If you make a video, now I know what you spent your time on and it wasn't a game, so now I know it's fake.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I believe people more knowledgable in the subject proposed that it would be much easier to create an empty shell of a game using Unity than to animate an entire video. As in, all the assets are real, but there are no mechanics behins them, everything is prescripted, etc

I find it hard to believe that the game is in the state he claims. If he really had a polished and content rich game like he claims, why the hell wouldn't he release it to the backers? That
would certainly shut a lot of us up and generate a new wave of hype.

On the other hand, I also doubt the game is (for the most part) a fake. If that is the case, what would be his long-term goal? Spend the rest his life building a virtual Potemkin village so that he can justify not providing refunds?
The UI sure seems functional. The problems mentioned before were the turn processing and AI. It is impossible to infer the state of the AI from the video. Turn processing too is difficult to assess. I mean, he could easily just have a few counters to decrease at this point.
TLDR: There is obviously something underneath, but it is hard to tell what exactly.
Now for the long term goal, we can imagine several reasons for going this route.

1) Cleve mode: He just consider he has sunk too much money and time into the game, plus he won't let his detractors have the last word. Also, bumpy development cycle makes for a better marketing story.
2) Mastermind: There always was a game. He faked development hell to get rid of his partner who did nothing useful for the project, and contributed a paltry amount, so he had to make him believe the project was doomed when it was not to get him to abandon his shares.

There are countless other that would work better obviously:)
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
On the other hand, I also doubt the game is (for the most part) a fake. If that is the case, what would be his long-term goal? Spend the rest his life building a virtual Potemkin village so that he can justify not providing refunds?

This is a guy who posted hundreds of pages of fake alpha tester stories. They were fairly detailed, too.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
On the other hand, I also doubt the game is (for the most part) a fake. If that is the case, what would be his long-term goal? Spend the rest his life building a virtual Potemkin village so that he can justify not providing refunds?

This is a guy posted hundreds of pages of fake alpha tester stories. They were fairly detailed, too.

I'm well aware. I'm objecting to the idea is that all footage of the game released so far has been the work of video editing. People already got their hands on the map prototype and stated that it has functional UI made up of Unity assets, but - as Galdred said - how much of actual game there is underneath, in terms of AI, turn processing, and so on, remains a mystery. In other words, it is much more plausible that he is "faking" the game by putting a bunch of pretty UI on the screen and simulating "emergent" things happening despite them not being actually emergent (think vertical slice of gameplay demos) rather than him actually animating an entire fake game using paints and photoshops.

Now for the long term goal, we can imagine several reasons for going this route.

1) Cleve mode: He just consider he has sunk too much money and time into the game, plus he won't let his detractors have the last word. Also, bumpy development cycle makes for a better marketing story.
2) Mastermind: There always was a game. He faked development hell to get rid of his partner who did nothing useful for the project, and contributed a paltry amount, so he had to make him believe the project was doomed when it was not to get him to abandon his shares.

Well, now that's a great idea. You know how That Which Sleeps has multiple Ancient Evil types with various objectives and so on? How about we make a game about being a disingenious kickstarter dev. We could even call it "That Which Vapours." The player gets to select between various personality disorders like Cleve, Mastermind, Delusional (genuinely believes the game will come out eventually), Scammer (self-explanatory), and so on. The player would have to "infiltrate" various online communities (either by making an account himself or hiring shills) and perform various challenges (do interview, create trailer, release prototype, etc) in order to influence statistics like "Hype" and "Skepticism" that represents the willingness of said community to give them cash to fund the development of the game, or lack thereof. In the meantime the player is trying to decrease the global Truth meter which will eventually lead the public to finding out about the game's true state as well as preventing the rise of the Autist, a powerful "Gamer" class unit whose sole goal in life is to destroy the player's life through FTC complaints and penetrating expose's.

Man, this thing is going to be a massive success. Let's make a kickstarter campaign to fund it post-haste.
 

Iwannabearock

Novice
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
25
Gentleman! Developer of That Which Sleeps here, I've made a note that "Rpgcodex.net wants more rape in the game" gotcha! No but honestly I'd never heard the expression "Silly Buggers" before and I'm going to make sure that The Hermit says that at the start of every fight, no idea what it means but I'm sure it's perfectly civil.

We will have a demo out approximately end of the month, I'll let you guys know when it's released so you can give it a whirl. It is significantly different from Dominions (great game) and the AI is pretty unique, even if it still does some horribly stupid things from time to time.

Mandatory marketing links: IndieDB, Subreddit, Join our Mailing List

That has been a very long month; still waiting the end of the month for the demo :(
 

Iwannabearock

Novice
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
25
He broke my hearth again :'( He is a ******* sadist!
I'll never trust someone I don't know again....
RIP hopes and dreams.
:dead:
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,764
Someone needs to fedex this guy NARCAN asap or we ain’t ever seeing that demo.
 

KoolNoodles

Arcane
Joined
Apr 28, 2012
Messages
3,545
Man, just the other night at the pub I was thinking of buying a pricey(and probably good) new beer but decided it was too much. Then I remembered the $15 I dropped on this gem.

Truly, The Great Old Ones mock us from beyond. These are just the first, slight, terrors that begin to haunt our daily lives, leading up to their return.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
The lesson we take from that is that, apparently, a baby can fly. Not very well, but they do fly. The same cannot apparently be said here.
 

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