Company News Djinn cast away

[Calis]

Tags: Castaway Entertainment

Lack of game publisher funding claims another victim. Today's victim is Castaway Entertainment, a company founded by former Blizzard employees. According to <A HREF="http://au.gamespot.com/news/6188850.html" target="_blank">this Gamespot report</A>, Castaway is on the verge of closing its doors. Here's a comment from VP Stefan Scandizzo:
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<blockquote>"It would have to be soon, but if anyone wanted to come in and save us, we'd give the whole kitchen sink to them on the extremely cheap," Scandizzo said, adding "Otherwise after almost 10 years of this group working together, we're going to have to dissolve."</blockquote>
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Lucky for us, this means that <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK9mJVsF_Do" target="_blank">footage from 2005</A> of their somewhat generic-looking action RPG, Djinn, is now available.
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Thanks, <strong>VD</strong>
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[JarlFrank]

This doesn't even look bad for an action RPG, and the setting sounds rather interesting. Too bad they have to close down. The game looks almost complete, too, what took them so long? 2005 is, like, 3 years ago, and judging from the video, that game wasn't 3 years away from completion anymore.

 

[denizsi]

The footage looks boring and uninteresting.

 

[Kingston]

At least they were using point-and-click with a rotatable camera instead of that Hellgate WASD -crap. That video was clearly a small tech demo, but I think it looked alright. Has a dungeon-crawler vibe.

A small, experienced (well they worked at Blizz, so that counts for something) and cheap team up for sale with a somewhat complete game (since that vid was from three years ago, we can assume some progress has been made even though the team was cut down). I wouldn't say its impossible for them to be saved, it would give a lot of good PR for whoever does it, but I doubt they'll get anyone in time. Sry guys.

 

[Globbi]

I really like this demo. It's just an ARPG but I think it may be better than any other alike. If it has nice amosphere it may be a fun.

They will probably get some support, I hope so. It's a good move to give such info and a video. Now people will talk about them and expect the game. Potential investor gets an already advertised game.

 

[NiM82]

How the hell are people seeing anything but mediocrity and fail from that video? It was going to be designed for consoles, as well as the PC, there's no character at all to the visuals (which are also pretty awful looking by 2005 standards) and the little gameplay shown seems pretty formulaic/repetitive.

I'll eat my hat if they get last minute funding based on that, or much in the way of mainstream interest/outrage. Any investor with sense wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

 

[kris]

Video = character surrounded by enemies make special knockback attack, repeat.

 

[Globbi]

Video = character surrounded by enemies make special knockback attack, repeat.

But that's exactly what you do in such games. And those games sell.

 

[Dire Roach]

Titan Quest clone?

 

[Section8]

It's good to finally see some backlash against the seemingly endless stream of these shitty games. Mind you, they're probably just going to be supplanted by shitty Mass Effect and Oblivion clones, but at least another ARPG developer failing brings a wry smile to the corner of my mouth.

 

[kris]

Video = character surrounded by enemies make special knockback attack, repeat.

But that's exactly what you do in such games. And those games sell.

Sell? I guess that is why they are into liquidation.

Also this was not my expeirence in Diablo. battles was not all the same.

 

[Ryuken]

That looks almost just as good as Titan Quest which came out a year later. Statue coming down and killing skeletons beneath it looks cool as well, that's the kind of thing we should see more. Too bad, it seems Blizzard will have barely any competition when Diablo III comes out, just like it was the case with DII.