KickStarter Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption - adventure-RPG from the creators of Quest for Glory

I hope they can get this done.

 

They aren't shy talking about how that they were originally kind of forced into it by being hired to do a role-playing game with an adventure game engine, but not once have I seen or heard them even remotely say that they hate the concept - not while they were pitching their original vision of Hero-U and certainly not afterwards.
By contrast, while they like the player choices, NPC voices and fugly graphics (Corey more so than Lori, I find) of QfG5 despite bemoaning that an earlier, prettier (IIRC voxel) 3D engine turned out incompatible with the hardware of the time (and all the time and money woes of the project and obscene mistreatment of them that eventually stemmed from it), they are equally un-shy that they hate the half-assed Diablo-style itemization (not 100% sure how they feel about the equally suits-born combat--I do know however that they like the absurd "arcade fighter combat with mouse but not keyboard support" of QfG4 demanded by higher-ups mixing two incompatible trends of the time) required by their executive overlords for them to greenlight/finance the restart of QfG5's development demanded by a fan letter campaign. A properly executed one on the other hand they'd have nothing against in principle, but I'm pretty sure they said that they felt it wouldn't fit QfG.

Anyway, regarding the update:
The wine cellar still looks pretty enough from afar, but I sure hope they don't plan on presenting those textures that up close.
And action points don't necessitate a grid by any means, but anyway, yay for vector-based!

 

No U.

Considering how hard they were invoking the QfG's name everywhere (the quotes of that are on the last page), it would be rather, shall we say, interesting for them to say anything bad about the game. You think they're what, saints whom only desire is to shed the beautiful light of their games on the poor and the meek? Right.

They said stuff that would gather them money. It did. Just like the Fargo, who will say in one interview that Wasteland 2 is its own thing and doesn't follow Fallout's success, will namebomb said success over and over and over in another interview. Ii's business. No room for honesty here.

 

I'm not a graphix whore but damn... someone kicked my balls and it hurtz.

 

Unity.

 

I wonder if at some point badly anti-aliasing and polygonized graphics will appear under the banner of "oldSchool 3D art graphics".

 

Nope, old 2d pixel art is still beautiful art to this day, it only got better with the time...


Early 3d?

 

Seriously, why is every half-promising game being postponed to '15 now? Sigh.

 

At least it sounds a bit less pessimistic.

 

Yeah, they fucked up.

 

Dem cheap skanks and $3/bottle Chilean wine.

Besides, a small consideration.

How is this game even "worth" 400k, let alone the fact that they had originally planned a total budget of 650k?

D:OS had a 400k KS too.
Serpent in the Staglands: 10k goal.
WL2, PoE and ToN both have around 1M goals, but they immediately look like they're on an entirely different league.
Double Fine Adventure: 400k
Kung Fury (looks very promising, btw): 400k
Balrum: 50k

I'm sorry but this game looks/feelslike it belongs more to the 10-20k league rather than the 400k+ "pretend-AAA" "clique". Hell, from the trailer it looks like a a shockwave/flash game.

 

Much of Divinity's features was already complete when they got to Kickstarter.
Don't really know about Serpent in Staglands situation, so I can't comment.
Wasteland 2 had additional funding and doubled its budget during development ([1]). Too early to tell about Torment, but my guess is that it's budget probably, like case of Wasteland 2, will be doubled.
Obsidian, being an active developer, probably has additional resources and also secured a deal with Paradox, who will handle localization and distribution.
Never even heard about Kung Fury, so I can't comment either.
As for Balrum — they've missed their release date and gone incommunicado, so the project may be dead already.

Coles dove into Kickstarter head-on, without doing sufficient prior research, without considering who their current audience are and what game do they want to see made. They miscalculated expenses, they've changed both concept and engine multiple times, and, more importantly, they a) haven't been active developers for some time now, so they are sorely out of touch with industry's state and b) they live in USA, in California, which I was lead to belive is an expensive state. So that's probably how making of the game costed them so much. I'm a backer, but, as I stated multiple times already, I don't even care would they release that game or not, I just don't want them to become bankrupt.

 

Brofisting Stainless Veteran for his dedication.

 

Jesus, 150.000? While I'm angry with them not doing a thousand obvious things and avoided the current situation, they should had slow down the development or something. I not that sure that an indie , niche, no marketing adventure game can make that kind of money back. They are on a tough situation, if they don't release the game, they failed alot of people that are going to be angry (and they would be right as it was their hard earned money) but 150.000 dollars in debt with Europe, Japan and the USA going out in flames? It is a bad, bad, idea. I hope they recover and the game recoup the losses.

 

Gemini Rue, Resonance, and Primordia all cleared that amount, though there are distributor, publisher, tax, etc. costs that come off the top. I would have to think that Hero-U, if it were good, would be able to do 10 times what WEG's bestsellers did.

 

Not really a dedication though, QfG are one of my favorite series. I first encountered them when parents bought me my first PC in 1995, and played from first to fourth game non-stop for a couple of months. Of course they were pirated versions, we almost didn't have other ones in Russia back then, and even if we had I sure couldn't afforded it. But it gave me so many hours of joy, that I think of my kickstarter pledge as a "thank you" money and payment for those old pirated games.

 

Fair enough. I've done that before, too. I don't mind giving some money to the people who actually deserved it (by providing me with entertainment, emotions, or value of any kind)!

 

I think you guys have elevated video games to "art' status. Arts patronage!

 

Not really. Not always, anyway. It's a bit like tipping a barman for concocting me a badass White Russian cocktail. I am a strong believer in rewarding merit.

 

Err, nope, not at all. I'm too poor to be a patron of anything, anyway. In fair society each person would have been compensated according to his contribution to said society, but since we don't live in it (and probably never will) - I just feel good when I compensate favorite author or developer accordingly because I enjoyed his or her work . That's all.

 

The Adventure of Making Hero-U

Original dungeon tiles:




Initial demo (Fall 2013):

Now:

 

If they actually do enjoy it, that's great. I really hope they make it.

Current look is also much better than the 2013 demo. Has a pretty nice feel.

 

If they had started off with the adventure rpg design instead of the tile based puzzle thing, I'd have actually backed this. I was torn on it anyway since I love QfG, but the original pitch didn't appeal to me. Hopefully they see it through so I can buy it.