Chris Koźmik
Silver Lemur Games
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2012
- Messages
- 414
EDIT:
The game has been released on GOG. Details below.
Legends of Amberland approved by GOG!
All right, here goes the story. A while ago, I got a surprise email from GOG and it said they do want to have LoA on their store after all. Why the sudden change of heart is a speculation but I think the wishlist link ( https://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/legends_of_amberland_the_forgotten_crown?as=1649904300 ) you posted months ago might have been an important factor in change of the decision. It gathered quite a lot of comments saying, well, paraphrasing it and to put it kindly "we want the game on GOG, pretty please?" (OK, they used a different wording in those comments with a bit more of emotions). It seems GOG staff do read those whishlists, as they claimed previously
GOG agreed to all the things I said in the past I will try to get for you if it ever is released on GOG (so you don't need to pay for LoA twice):
1) All people who bought the pricer "Support The Developer" Edition via my official website got a free GOG key (if you have not received it, please email me using the same email you used when you bought the game). It applies to people who bought the game before GOG release.
2) There is GOG Connect enabled for one week (so hurry up!) for all people who bought it via Steam and want the game transfered to GOG.
It was released on GOG 24.02.2020.
I do hope it means the future sequel will be available on GOG from the start Thanks all of you who endorsed the game and made it happen! Many thanks!!!
======
This is a topic I tried to avoid for a while but, well, after talking with GOG representatives a few times I can say now that Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown will not be published by GOG. At least not in the near future, probably never.
I know a lot of you asked for GOG availabilty of the game, so I tried my best to push it but at this moment I gave up.
What I can say now is buy it on Steam. There is no DRM protection of any kind integrated in the game (there never was and never will, it applies to all my games by the way), so you can just launch the game without launching Steam client anytime you wish after downloading.
You can try wishlisting it on GOG (but I highly doubt they ever take a notice of this wishlist):
https://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/legends_of_amberland_the_forgotten_crown?as=1649904300
Also, there is something called "GOG Connect" which they introduced recently which allows you to transfer your game from Steam to GOG libray. If the game ever go on GOG and they enable Connect and the rules of this connect thing are sane and it's free then I vow to put the game as elligible for GOG Connect (I will do my best to not make you pay twice for the game).
The story behind GOG submission:
First, don't get me wrong, there is a lot of nice people at GOG. They played the game, they gave a nice feedback and so on.
But the thing is it's the third game I sent to them. Not a single one passed for numerous reasons that, well, do not make sense to me (it's a good game but it's already released so we will skip). As for Legends of Amberland it passed the first look and it went into internal testing. They provided me the feedback/results of the internal testing (which is super nice of them, it was not "thank but we are not interested" thing but actually something useful which I salute GOG for).
The problem is the reasons they listed. They have not objections to disclosing it so I will write in more detail. In addition to some subjective things (like story and combat) which I supposed is subjective and fair enough, and some objective things (like a single bug they encountered) there were some quite disturbing reasons like "poor animation" and "lack of shadowns"... Which made me totally puzzled. There is no way I'm adding shadows, this would totally destroy the oldschool feel of the game, same for excessive animation.
It simply felt to me the people who evaluated it did not even acknowledged the fact the game was somehow related to the games from the 90s. I'm not sure they even noticed... And if they did they did not care, or even worse, they considered it being a retro game a bad thing.
The biggest advantage of GOGs is they have this huge library of old RPGs from the 90s. It is perfect, I mean PERFECT, shop for a game like Legends of Amberland. All gamers who strive for the feel and look of the old games have a account on GOG because it's the only place they can buy those. It would be a perfect fit...
Let's face it, it's not the first story you heard here. If you count the recent RPGs theat were rejected by GOG you definitely should see the pattern.
It seems GOG has abandoned the Good Old Games legacy and want to distant themselves from their retro past. Which is also compatible with their recent moves to enter the digital stores war alongside Epic and emerge as a traditional digital shop rivaling Steam. Somehow they seem to decided that being connected to a retro image would undermine that strategy. That's why I highly doubt that Legends of Amberland will ever be accepted to their store.
The game has been released on GOG. Details below.
Legends of Amberland approved by GOG!
All right, here goes the story. A while ago, I got a surprise email from GOG and it said they do want to have LoA on their store after all. Why the sudden change of heart is a speculation but I think the wishlist link ( https://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/legends_of_amberland_the_forgotten_crown?as=1649904300 ) you posted months ago might have been an important factor in change of the decision. It gathered quite a lot of comments saying, well, paraphrasing it and to put it kindly "we want the game on GOG, pretty please?" (OK, they used a different wording in those comments with a bit more of emotions). It seems GOG staff do read those whishlists, as they claimed previously
GOG agreed to all the things I said in the past I will try to get for you if it ever is released on GOG (so you don't need to pay for LoA twice):
1) All people who bought the pricer "Support The Developer" Edition via my official website got a free GOG key (if you have not received it, please email me using the same email you used when you bought the game). It applies to people who bought the game before GOG release.
2) There is GOG Connect enabled for one week (so hurry up!) for all people who bought it via Steam and want the game transfered to GOG.
It was released on GOG 24.02.2020.
I do hope it means the future sequel will be available on GOG from the start Thanks all of you who endorsed the game and made it happen! Many thanks!!!
======
This is a topic I tried to avoid for a while but, well, after talking with GOG representatives a few times I can say now that Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown will not be published by GOG. At least not in the near future, probably never.
I know a lot of you asked for GOG availabilty of the game, so I tried my best to push it but at this moment I gave up.
What I can say now is buy it on Steam. There is no DRM protection of any kind integrated in the game (there never was and never will, it applies to all my games by the way), so you can just launch the game without launching Steam client anytime you wish after downloading.
You can try wishlisting it on GOG (but I highly doubt they ever take a notice of this wishlist):
https://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/legends_of_amberland_the_forgotten_crown?as=1649904300
Also, there is something called "GOG Connect" which they introduced recently which allows you to transfer your game from Steam to GOG libray. If the game ever go on GOG and they enable Connect and the rules of this connect thing are sane and it's free then I vow to put the game as elligible for GOG Connect (I will do my best to not make you pay twice for the game).
The story behind GOG submission:
First, don't get me wrong, there is a lot of nice people at GOG. They played the game, they gave a nice feedback and so on.
But the thing is it's the third game I sent to them. Not a single one passed for numerous reasons that, well, do not make sense to me (it's a good game but it's already released so we will skip). As for Legends of Amberland it passed the first look and it went into internal testing. They provided me the feedback/results of the internal testing (which is super nice of them, it was not "thank but we are not interested" thing but actually something useful which I salute GOG for).
The problem is the reasons they listed. They have not objections to disclosing it so I will write in more detail. In addition to some subjective things (like story and combat) which I supposed is subjective and fair enough, and some objective things (like a single bug they encountered) there were some quite disturbing reasons like "poor animation" and "lack of shadowns"... Which made me totally puzzled. There is no way I'm adding shadows, this would totally destroy the oldschool feel of the game, same for excessive animation.
It simply felt to me the people who evaluated it did not even acknowledged the fact the game was somehow related to the games from the 90s. I'm not sure they even noticed... And if they did they did not care, or even worse, they considered it being a retro game a bad thing.
The biggest advantage of GOGs is they have this huge library of old RPGs from the 90s. It is perfect, I mean PERFECT, shop for a game like Legends of Amberland. All gamers who strive for the feel and look of the old games have a account on GOG because it's the only place they can buy those. It would be a perfect fit...
Let's face it, it's not the first story you heard here. If you count the recent RPGs theat were rejected by GOG you definitely should see the pattern.
It seems GOG has abandoned the Good Old Games legacy and want to distant themselves from their retro past. Which is also compatible with their recent moves to enter the digital stores war alongside Epic and emerge as a traditional digital shop rivaling Steam. Somehow they seem to decided that being connected to a retro image would undermine that strategy. That's why I highly doubt that Legends of Amberland will ever be accepted to their store.
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