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Momentum - turn-based tactical RPG set in Vietnam War - CANCELLED

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
I'm sorry for the disappointment, we did all we could to make it work. We are also crushed that it didn't work out. We spent a lot of time, money and energy, but there was just not enough traction to get people to invest in this project. You will find below some of the blockers we faced and a few comments.

- Political: Most of the investment in the game industry nowadays comes from China, so people/companies with Chinese ties do not want to get in trouble in funding any games with a topic that might have a connection with Chinese politics. (Vietnam Borders with China and China involvement in the Vietnam War conflict), then you can also include all the small and mid-tier publishers that want to sell their games in China. They do not want to take the risk to offend the Chinese Government. This is overall one of the big issue, the number of people willing to invest in something else than F2P games is limited and most of them have Chinese connections or Chinese market interests.
- Sensitivity: People that are afraid that a Vietnam War game will not be well accepted in the US Market (This only came from people outside of the US). Then there are a significant amount of people that see anything related to real conflicts as something too sensitive/bad/ugly and do not want to touch it with a 5-foot pole. In one version of our game, we had civilians in it (That you were trying to help) well, that freaked some people out. Civilians that can be hurt by collateral fire, no way!
- Budget: As a new studio, asking for a budget to do a game that would have a production-quality close to XCOM was most of the time considered unreasonable. The classic can you do call of duty like quality with the budget of Pacman. There are lot of "experienced" people in the industry that have no idea on the costs of building something. We also refused to play the usual trick of lying on production cost and coming back after for more money once the partners are in too deep to refuse. This is a part of the industry I really despise, but the truth is people expect it, when we gave a realistic budget people either thought we were trying to make money out of their back (charging more for the game than it is worth) or they thought that if we asked X we would need X + 50% which made the budget outrageous. The bullshit is pervasive with "professionals" in this industry I really hate that.
- Team: No one complained about the quality of the team, but as a new studio this being our first game, they saw this as a risk.
- Production stage: This one is a classic, come to see us when you will have this or that ready in the game. This is a polite way to say we are not willing to take risks in your project. Please come back when the game is 95% finished and we will make you an offer.
- Market size: No one complained about the market size opportunity, we did our homework and did extensive market research with hard data that confirmed that the Vietnam War topic is getting a lot of traction.
- Personal taste: In this industry people do stuff more by gut than by analyzing stuff. Even with strong data and the best material, a lot of people will just say no, because they just don't like the theme personally. On a subject like Vietnam (or any modern conflict), you will find a lot of people that will just say no because Real War is bad. It doesn't matter if there is a market and people are willing to pay a lot of money. You need to find someone that really believes in your idea with deep pockets and then you have a decent shot.
- Kickstarter: There is no way for a new studio to get enough funding for a project like that on Kickstarter, we would need to get about 500-600K EUR to be able to move the game to what is called a polished Vertical Slice to be able to get another shot a pitching the game to investors/publishers again. In order to do a campaign able to raise that amount of cash, we would need to invest a significant amount of money that we don't have. Based on our research we do not believe it is possible for a project at our stage to raise that kind of cash on Kickstarter. We also do not want to get people's money and not be able to deliver we are here to stay and we value our reputation.

We are working on a new IP, that is not set in the world as we know it. It will still allow us to offer an experience of Early/Mid 20th century conflicts. We are very excited about it, but we want to mature it more before we can talk about it. We also want it to be strong enough to become a transmedia IP to allow us to not be limited to Video Games as those are very expensive and difficult to make. It would also allow us to get our video Games projects produced by another game studio if needed. So we are focusing on building a strong IP first and then it will be easier to get new games done once we have a visual universe we can present to people.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

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Here's what developers of cancelled 2nd Indo-China themed RPG Momentum developers are doing now:
Stuff found from their discord.
[Creative] Robyn08/16/2020
Hello Everyone, we have done a bit of clean up and removed old channels and information related to our previous project. We would like the Discord to focus on Forgotten Skies our up coming RPG project. We have a completely new approach and our goal is to create a great new universe allowing people to experience it through different forms, Pen and Paper RPG, Table Top games, Comic Books, etc. Etc. Obviously everything needs to start small and this is what we are doing at the moment. We are defining the core concepts of this new universe. You will find on this channel and on this discord information about our progress and the opportunity to be involved in this creative project.
[Creative] Robyn08/17/2020
We are making good progress on creating an online space where you will be able to find a lot of information about this new Dieselpunk game we are working on. We are very excited to present it to you. While the project is at early stage, we are going to work on it in a very inclusive way. You will be able to receive weekly updates on our progress, but also contribute yourselves.
[Creative] Robyn08/18/2020
We hope to be able to share with you the introduction to this new world we are creating before the end of this month.

Because it is still at concept phase, at this stage you will be able to see mostly information in written form about this new world we are creating. This is called World Building, where we spend a lot of time defining things like factions, economy, resources, type of adventures, types of characters you can play, the mood of this world, the different challenges that people are facing, etc. etc.

The way you will be able to collaborate is in asking a lot of questions that will help us refine how the world works. For instance, there are flying ships, you may wonder how do they fly? what kind of energy do they use? are they common or not? How high can they fly? etc.. etc.. This is just an example as we have already the answer to these specific questions. There are many other topics do not worry. This helps create a rich and credible world that will be the foundation for the Tabletop RPG we are working on, but also any other project we will do in the future. Our goal is to create a fascinating universe that is rich and exciting where you as players will be able to experience a wide variety of stories and adventures. We will also integrate in the background and lore of this universe the characters created by the people that are active in the community. We have already started doing this, based on previous play tests we did.

[Creative] RobynYesterday at 12:51 PM
We have started to make physical play session and it went very well. The next one will be Tuesday evening next week in Prague. You can find some information about the universe of our project Code names Forgotten Skies here https://www.worldanvil.com/w/tbgc-grandlion1981 We will fill this space with more information regularly. Right now we are busy with a revamp of the Air to Air combat rules you make them a lot less crunchy and keep the flow of the game while still getting some interesting level of details. For instance in our system we want to be able to know which component of your airplane has been destroyed and how it impacts the plane. One important change we did, is to modify the combinaison of transport on the players’ ship. Originally the players start with a small flying cargo ship that has 1 or 2 airplanes with 1 or 2 seats and 2 helicopters. 1 being a light transport and the other one being a heavy load carrier.
We changed that configuration as it made the flow of the game not as smooth as we wanted it to be. For instance the players could be fighting enemy pirate planes but then they would have to attach again to the flying ship and take the choppers to go on the flying island. So instead we are going to transform the players vehicles into a new type of Osprey like vehicles. Allowing them to fly like a plane in combat and land like an helicopter. This will avoid back and forth movements. We are still going to keep the planes and helicopters in the game. Feel free to have a look on our World Anvil page and ask questions, we will fill the page with more details as we progress.
FORGOTTEN SKIES
This is an introduction to Forgotten Skies, an epic Diesel Pulp Roleplaying Game set in an alternate universe combining traditional RPG mechanics with a Tactical Tabletop Combat system. This project has been in development on and off since 2008 by Robyn Pacetti and has been th...

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/tbgc-grandlion1981
 

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
[UPDATE] MOMENTUM IS REVIVED!

Situation: After the original project being cancelled in Q1 this year, we had to move on to something else as our forces and moral where completely depleted. We spent some time working on a Dieselpunk Pen and Paper RPG Project called [Forgotten Skies] A project that is also close to our heart but very different than the original Momentum. It helped take a step back. We worked on Forgotten Skies from March to October this year. At this point, it became self-evident that we personally couldn't let Momentum go. This project is too close to our heart. So we decided to resume working on it. However, the situation has not changed about financial limitations. So we had to consider another platform to do it. So we decided to work on it as a Solitaire Tabletop Wargame with Tactical RPG Element.
I'm going to post below more information about the new project. I don't if this project still has a place in RPGCodex being a Tabletop game now. Anyway we are extremely motivated and excited to be able to work again on this passion project.
Thank you to everyone following us and encouraging us. :)
 

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
Background
Back in 2018, I started to work on a Video Game Project as Creative Director called Momentum. This was a game set during the Vietnam War (Tactical RPG Game with XCOM like mechanics). This project was unfortunately canceled. It was my dream project and I was the Creative Director on it. I tried to move on but I couldn't let it go. So I decided to still create this game, but in a Tabletop format.

Situation
We have extremely limited experience with board games and wargames even as a gamer. We do have extensive experience on the Pen and Paper RPG side though. So we have spent some time researching existing games. We have tried Warfighter from DVG, we will soon try 65 from Flying Pig, and we have even Fields of Fire2 ready but we were told that it is better to do this one last as it is quite hard to get into. We were wondering if you have good games to recommend that could be interesting for the type of game we would like to make. We need more than a name though if you could tell me what mechanic you liked in this or that game it would be great.

Intentions
The game I'm trying to make is overly ambitious for a first game and for a first-time Tabletop game designer. However, we are not here for the money, We are here because we are really passionate about this topic and we want to make a great game and we don't care how long it will take us to get there. It is not meant as a commercial project if later it becomes one that would be nice. Due to the narrow topic and the depth, we would like to achieve, this is not meant to be for a broad audience. We pretty much want to do the game we always wanted to play and probably no one will ever make nor publish.
1f642.png

Will you finally tell us what you are working on?
Sorry, for the long intro. Here it comes.

THE GAME (Working Title: Momentum)
Setting:
1965, you are Captain of the Special Force during the Vietnam War. You are in command of an isolated Special Force base close to the Laotian border. Your mission is to secure the region and identify enemy movements and activities while keeping your men alive. You are sending your men and Montagnards on missions around your camp. You collect intelligence for your superiors and prevent the enemy from building up their forces in the region, if you don't the enemy might take you by surprise and overrun you... This is Vietnam, expect the unexpected!
Unique Selling Points: You manage all the aspects of the operation, Strategic, Tactical, Political, and Emotional. Wargame meets RPG.

KEY FEATURES

  • Strategy Map: See the big picture, setup your squads, and prioritize your objectives.
  • Tactical Combat: Detailed man to man combat mechanics.
  • Base Management: Develop your base to support your troops in the field. Assign men your limited resources to key structures (Artillery, Hospital, Helicopters, etc.)
  • Combat Fatigue: Your men are humans even if they don't get wounded or killed, they need to rest and your decisions influence their Combat effectiveness.
  • Moral Choices: You will have to make extremely hard decisions to balance different priorities all the time between Military Objectives, Survival and morale of your men, Safety of the local population, CIA requests, political intrigues, etc. Dealing with high stakes, morality, and the Vietnam War Paradoxes
  • Soldier Management: Pick individual soldiers, customize their loadout, and assign them to squads before sending them to combat.
  • 6 Different Endings: This is a game about survival and making really hard choices, the ending depends on achieving Victory Conditions or not but also all the choices you do during the campaign and how you prioritized things. It is not about winning or losing, it is about the journey and what did you sacrifice to get there. It could be your Career, Your men, the local population, etc.

This is a game for a mature audience. The kind of game where you take on a journey where you can very much end up winning the campaign but still end up like Colonel Kurtz...Terminated with Extreme Prejudice.
It is a solo game, it is not meant to be fair, but to provide you with an immersive experience in a very difficult conflict where it is not only about Combat.

YOUR HELP
Based on this, we would love to hear about your experience with games that might have interesting mechanics to study that could serve as inspiration. Thank you, for any contribution you might be able to make.

PS: We told you it is a super niche game and will be hard to design well.
1f642.png
This is still our baby project and it will happen. Thank you for reading.

PPS: Feel free to criticize the concept, this is how we can learn. Feedback is welcome, the good and the bad. To know what you really like and what you feel is weak.
PPS: If you are interested in following this project, feel free to join our discord https://discord.gg/DRbhsW6uNd we welcome your inputs.
 
Last edited:

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
This is a presentation of some of the core systems, you will see that the project is ambitious and deep in scope. This is work in progress.
 

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luj1

You're all shills
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I absolutely agree that it's wrong to discontinue this vision, but why boardgames? It's a small market (?) with debatable returns. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
I absolutely agree that it's wrong to discontinue this vision, but why boardgames? It's a small market (?) with debatable returns. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
We just don't have the necessary financial backing to do it. We tried, we failed and we are just unable to continue this path. There is still a hope somewhere that once people play the boardgame people will understand the potential of this game as a video game, but it is a very long shot at this point.
 

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
The project is still pretty much unannounced at this point but with a 28M EUR budget, we will be able to do something significant. ;-) just wait for it. I'm actually only taking my role in full capacity in January 2021. Big things are coming.
 

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
Hello, I'm sharing a free demo of Momentum Tactical RPG Game that was canceled. The game was called Momentum. It was a kind of XCOM meets Jagged Alliance in the Vietnam War. The demo can be downloaded here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1drTjO-fbuK7ebabweUqlFrIxkAE8C6Zl/view?usp=sharing It is completely free. I was the Creative Director on this project. I'm happy to have some people try it. If you have some feedback/comments please do not hesitate to post them here. I would love to know if you like it or not.

PS: The file is 3Go
 

agris

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I was sad to see this cancelled, thanks for putting your work up for others to try.
 
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Tried the demo and it was pretty great, its such a shame that the project ended like this and I hope you will manage to get it released some day. The game would have been pretty great, especially once the strategic layer was fully developed. The tactical missions allowing for variety of approaches, interaction with NPCs with C&C, lots of realistic weapons and gear... but it is the current year and we are no longer allowed to have nice things.


I said it in your discord back in the day and I will say it again here - it is really terrible that a game striving to portray one of the coolest aspects of US involvement in Indochina (the Laos Shadow War) is seen nowadays as being "too controversial" by the publishers who apparently fear that US SJWs or Chink commies wont like it. Makes me wonder if a game like Vietcong could even come out in 2021. I hope the western world can somehow unfuck itself, because as of now it looks like that all that stuff about how the west won the Cold War seems like fake news.
 

Abu Antar

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Why is it that it's always the most interesting looking turn-based games that gets canned or stay in limbo. This, Realms Beyond and End State. Next up: Project Haven?
:negative:
 

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
Tried the demo and it was pretty great, its such a shame that the project ended like this and I hope you will manage to get it released some day. The game would have been pretty great, especially once the strategic layer was fully developed. The tactical missions allowing for variety of approaches, interaction with NPCs with C&C, lots of realistic weapons and gear... but it is the current year and we are no longer allowed to have nice things.


I said it in your discord back in the day and I will say it again here - it is really terrible that a game striving to portray one of the coolest aspects of US involvement in Indochina (the Laos Shadow War) is seen nowadays as being "too controversial" by the publishers who apparently fear that US SJWs or Chink commies wont like it. Makes me wonder if a game like Vietcong could even come out in 2021. I hope the western world can somehow unfuck itself, because as of now it looks like that all that stuff about how the west won the Cold War seems like fake news.

Thank you so much for taking the time to play it and give feedback. It means a lot really! This game is very important for me. I have not abandoned the idea since we are making a pretty detailed Tabletop game on the same theme. There is a huge stepping stone between both, but I hope to make an intermediary step before of having an automated board game in 2D that feels like a video game.
 

Grandlion1981

Lead Alchemist Studio
Developer
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
40
Location
Berlin
Why is it that it's always the most interesting looking turn-based games that gets canned or stay in limbo. This, Realms Beyond and End State. Next up: Project Haven?
:negative:

Because the most interesting games if this genre do nothing have proper funding opportunities. There are way too few publishers whiling to fund such projects and the publishers that are do not have the means to take big risks.

The game that actually do get made have a hard time to break even and due to the small budget do not have the polish and production value needed to attract a bigger audience. If you play this demo you will see that there are a lot of camera work done, the characters are very detailed and it is photorealistic. All these things make it look like a small movie. But they cost a lot of money. These kind of investment only pays off when you are making a series of games. For instance the total war series would never get funded from scratch today. This is why they do not have any competitors. They also benefit of having build up a lot of tools, experience and stuff that allows them to release similar games at lower costs.
When 2K did XCOM they did it because they trusted Firaxis and it was a relatively small bet for them. Have your noticed that no ones else has done similar bets? All the other XCOM likes have crappy budgets?
 

agris

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Do you have some economic forecasting / ROI projections for publishers assuming different budget scenarios, units shipped and additional games made with tools developed for Momentum?
 

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