KickStarter Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders - PnC Incline

[Zombra]

Closed beta! The game is in a playable state!

Update #21 For backers only.

Sep 20 2016

Flash Update #2

Prologue Joy!

Hi adventure fans! Today, we've reached a big milestone in our project, and that is the early access release of the prologue chapter of Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders.

Although this is a closed "beta" release only accessible to Kickstarter backers who opted for the add-on reward, this obviously marks an important point on the road to completing the full game. We're grateful for the patience you have all shown us and promise to make the end result well worth the wait.

For now, eligible backers should have received their download code/instructions by e-mail. We hope you enjoy the game and send us your feedback when you're done--we'd really like to hear from you!

For those who preferred to wait to play the entire game, here's a sneak peek at two of the seven characters you'll meet in the prologue.

Some Perspective

For a little perspective on the project as a whole, we're happy to report that almost all of the hard stuff, like building systems for gameplay, graphics, animations, menus, audio, etc, are all well in hand.

The prologue may not be 100% polished, but it represents all that groundwork coming together in a cohesive whole, and perhaps more importantly, it's laid out the path forward. Now comes the fun of concentrating almost entirely on creating assets and implementing the content.

That's it for now! Thanks for tuning in!

Minh Ta
Lead designer

 

[Zombra]

Free early access to all backers interested in providing feedback - just email them!

Update #22

Dec 22 2016

An earthly report and a heavenly mandate


Season's greetings dear backers!

We are almost at the end of 2016, and what a year it has been! Full of highs and lows, its been a year that has been very challenging yet rewarding at the same time. Speaking of Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders specifically, we reached many important milestones towards the full release, and we are very grateful for the continued support you've shown us. But, this time of year is not just about looking back, so we'd like to touch on some things to look forward to.

Progress Report
Right about now, we know many of you are asking yourselves, "when is this game going to be finished?" The good news is, the game is shaping up to be everything we had set out to create. The catch is we still need a few more months to complete it and hit the high standards we are aiming for. Concretely speaking, that puts the release window into the first half of 2017. Yay!

Expansion of Early Access
As many of you know, we released the prologue chapter of Detective Di three months ago to backers who had originally opted into the Kickstarter add-on. From our point of view, this was successful in that we were able to gather very positive feedback from the players who answered our survey about their experience. However, only about 25% of participants actually sent us any feedback, so we're hungry for more. Frankly, we just want to make sure we are getting the most out of this process, and involve our backers whenever possible.

So, if you are interested in playing the prologue in exchange for answering our short form, please send us a message via Kickstarter with the subject line "Prologue Early Access" and we will send you further instructions.

"Mandate of Heaven"
In the days of Chinese dynastic rule, the "Mandate of Heaven" was a notion utilized by the ruling class to justify their all-powerful dominion over the common folk. Even though our game essentially explores the journey of a single detective, albeit a great one, his pursuit of the truth leads him towards larger themes of the day.

In our next few updates leading up to the release of the game, we will sprinkle some of these notions and themes into the conversation to provide extra context. That way, those of you in tune with these ideas will hopefully take away even more from the final experience.

Here's a look at the "throne room", the hallowed hall in which Detective Di meets Empress Wu Zetian for the first time.

We hope you liked this update and would like to take this chance to wish all of you a very happy holidays and a marvelous new year!

Cheers,
Minh Ta

 

[kazgar]

edit: Ninja'd

Takeaway: opening up prologue early access to all backers if you want to see it (message them)

 

[HoboForEternity]

damn, this looks so good. i love detective stories, and this one isn't set in new york or london, which is a fucking great plus score.

 

[ghostdog]

Aren't Detective Di's stories, crime stories combined with wuxia martial arts? (at least in the movies idk about the original stories)

It would be awesome if this combined classic adventure gameplay with side scrolling Karateka action :D

 

[Zombra]

Update #23

Mar 30 2017

Around the world, and back

Hello dear backers,

Wow does time fly by! I know we've been a bit quiet lately (unless you follow us on Twitter!), but the game has grown in leaps and bounds since we last wrote one of these. Concretely, what that means is that, based on our best estimates, we've completed 65-70% of the game. I've been previously shy about making such estimates, but at this point, I hope this is another indicator of our unwavering commitment to this very personal project.

FULL CIRCLE

However, there's a bit of a good news / bad news situation. The good news is that we have been approached by people who are interested in translating our game into French and Chinese. The French translation is already underway (thanks Alban!) and the Chinese version is being planned and should start shortly. The downside is that this will add additional coordination, testing, Q/A, etc. In other words, the release window needs to be pushed back. Since we don't have any experience producing or launching a multilingual, multi-territory game, it's hard to predict exactly the impact of this additional work, but we are fully engaged in planning out the process to make it as efficient as possible. As always, we will continue to provide updates as we more forward.

Some of you may be wondering why we don't simply stagger the release of these different versions so as to avoid delays to the English one. But everyone we've talked to about this have said that doing so will reduce the chances of the game being successful in the later languages.

My hope is that as Kickstarter backers, we have your blessing to allow this game to reach its maximum potential. We feel very fortunate that these translators believe enough in the game's cultural value and artistic vision that they are willing to take a chance and invest their time to be apart of its creation in their native language. All we need now is a bit of extra time to see it through.

I sincerely feel that, in some ways, this game has come full circle. Starting with my own French-Canadian-Chinese origins (though I can't write in Chinese), I feel that somehow all of these different roots and influences are coming together, which is not something I expected. Argh... It's hard to explain

EXPOSURE

Thanks to Matt Sayer over at Kotaku, our game recently got a little extra exposure when he published his article about Chinese-themed games. It's a pretty good read (you can jump to the end of the article for his coverage of Detective Di). Check it out here.

Well, that's it for this special edition of Kickstarter updates. Thank you for your support!

Cheers,
Minh Ta

 

[Zombra]

Jun 26 2017

Uncharted territories, unfettered progress

Hello dear adventurers!

In our latest Kickstarter update, we'll be doing a little more showing than telling, so let's start at the beginning--there's lots to go through. Let's jump right in with a brand new screenshot, shall we?

Not going to say too much about this scene...
PROGRESS REPORT

Things have been progressing steadily since our last update. The game itself has advanced significantly. It's been a slow grind to build each scene but we're quite far along. Below is a photo of one of the two "big boards" we use to track the locations in the game. Almost all the locations on this board are completed assets.

(This image is low-res on purpose; no spoilers here)
We've also made a ton of progress with the multi-language system (including selecting preliminary fonts) and now both French and Chinese are working in-game. We still need to streamline the way language-specific graphics are swapped, but we're happy with where this is at the moment.

It's been tricky finding a pixel font for Chinese text...
We've also just sent out another batch of physical backer rewards. A heads-up for top-tier contributors: You will soon hear from us as we'll be gathering your creative input as promised.

GAMESCOM

Another big development is that we will be submitting Detective Di to this year's Gamescom taking place this August. Gamescom is one of the largest gaming fairs and we're super excited to get a chance to show the game there. We want to thank our Chinese partners WhisperGames for spearheading this effort. If you're in Cologne, Germany this summer, we hope you'll drop by!

It's been a busy time behind the scenes. We know you guys and gals have been patiently waiting to see the game finished, and we won't let you down. And finally, to close things up for this update, here's a work-in-progress look at the Chinese-integrated game logo.

Well, that's it for this update. See you next time!

Cheers,
Minh

 

[kazgar]

Still happening

Gamescom 2017 Report

Hi adventure backers!

We hope you've had an excellent summer of fun and games! As always, we've been hard at work on the project, making significant progress and spreading the word about our little game.

In today's update, we wanted to give you a look at the game on display this past August at Gamescom 2017, in Germany. It was super exciting to see people sit down and play the prologue demo and get their feedback.

Still surreal to see the game at Gamescom!

People were curious to see what a game starring a Chinese detective was all about...

Some play sessions were quite long, which was super satisfying.
We want to thank all the players who came by the booth and tried the demo. We also want to acknowledge and thank our friends at Whisper Games who made this event possible. This was way beyond what we could have hoped for when we first conceived of this little adventure game, and we look forward to the next big milestone!

That's it for now. Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Minh

 

[Zombra]

Shooting for release this Spring!

Update #26

Feb 16 2018

Steam store page live!

Happy Chinese new year dear adventurers!

Today's update is a special one. Not only have we reached a major milestone by launching our very own Steam store page, we're also sharing something we've been holding close to the vest for a little while, and that is... the game's release window. So, please check out our Steam page to find out what timeframe we're aiming for ;-)

This is exciting news for us (to say the least), but we know there's a lot of work still ahead, much of it in the animation and technical departments--not to mention all the paperwork, PR, and promotional efforts around the corner.

Overall though, we're very happy to report that things are moving along at a steady clip. So, to give you an idea of what we've being doing lately, here are some pretty pictures!

Another mysterious location to explore...

WIP look at 2 more colorful characters you'll meet in chapter 2...

Interesting scroll... makes you wonder if a puzzle isn't too far away...

And last but not least, we're very happy to present the complete Chinese version of the game logo, created with the help of a master calligrapher.

Calligraphy is the coolest...

We've also been working on the in-game hand written calligraphy for items you can pick up. Here are a couple of examples:

Well, there you have it, we hope this little glimpse of what's to come has been as good to read about than it was to write about. And please feel free to offer any feedback on the Steam page or the content in this update.

Once again, may you all have a prosperous and happy year of the dog!

Cheers,
Minh

 

[minhta]

After 4 years in development, we are super excited to announce that Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders is coming to Steam and Humble Store on May 1st, 2019!

TL;DR: Detective Di is a thrilling point-and-click adventure game where you play as Di Renjie, ancient China's most famous and gifted investigator, as he tracks a serial killer in the heart of the Tang Dynasty's capital city.

Here's the brand new launch trailer:

Synopsis:

Amid lingering political turmoil, the first and only female empress of China, Wu Zetian rises to power. Within months of her ascension to the throne, murmurs of discontentment and revolution swell as detractors and enemies begin plotting against her. It is against this backdrop that our protagonist, newly appointed investigating magistrate Di Renjie, must solve a gruesome series of murders–which will lead him on a collision course with the Imperial Court and the empress herself.

Will our young detective overcome his own inner demons and his allegiance to the previous emperor? What is the connection between the murder victims and the capital’s many political secrets? YOU must uncover the truth…​

We’d love to get feedback from adventure fans like yourselves. Let us know what you think of the trailer and if the game's setting is appealing to you.

And if you enjoy the trailer and like the idea of playing a legendary Chinese detective on his first big case, please be sure to drop by our Steam page and wishlist the game!

Looking forward to your comments!

 

[Darth Roxor]

O hey, I remember a thread about this from 4 years ago.

Anyway, I saw ninja and thus put it on my wishlist. Does that mean I now want the Di?

 

[Tom Selleck]

Wishlisted, will buy.

 

[MRY]

Wonderful! I back this ages ago, and I had assumed that its development got derailed. Glad to see it's done!

 

[evdk]

Oh right. I kickstarted this.

 

[minhta]

Thanks for the encouragement!

I see I'm preaching to the choir! Only thing is, I worry at this stage how many people really want to try out a game with such a different setting (pre-release jitters I guess). Hopefully we can buck the trend!

 

[Zombra]

Infinitron please merge with the megathread https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-rose-murders-pnc-incline-funded.96286/page-3
Consider devtag for minhta

Very much looking forward to the game, pre-congrats on the release minhta

 

[Dedup]

I guess we can add this game to the list of victims of GOG's craptastic curation decisions.

From today's Kickstarter update.

We will send out keys for both DRM-free and Steam versions on May 1st. Unfortunately, GOG was the only store so far that rejected our game*, so we will be using itch.io to distribute the DRM-free version instead.

*They essentially said the game was to niche, we tried to start a discussion about it, but they did not reply.

I really can't fathom what's going on in these peoples' heads. Its stupidity is compounded when you look at some of what they will sell.
Tradition point and click adventure game? Too niche!
Weird cell phone simulator game? Perfect!

At least itch.io is an option for a DRM free copy.

 

[CryptRat]

Yes, they rejected Guard Duty just as well.

 

[Darth Roxor]

That's completely stupid :/

 

[Zombra]

Hello Zombra!
An item on your Steam Wishlist has just released!


H Y P E

 

[Terra]

Another dev continuing the time honoured tradition of releasing a kickstarted game on Steam for buyers before mailing out keys to backers I see.

 

[MRY]

If anyone wants my key, let me know. I’d just ask that you leave a review, for good or ill, after playing, as developers really benefit from that support/criticism.

 

[Terra]

Nice, my key just showed up in my inbox, will give this a go tomorrow.

 

[Tigranes]

Is... is that Go minigame?????

Buying now oh god

 

[Sukhāvatī]

Ever read Kawabata's The Master of Go, Tigranes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_of_Go