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KickStarter Summer Daze - light-hearted Hero-U mini-sequel

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/summer-daze-at-hero-u

https://summerdazegame.com





Summer Daze at Hero-U is a light-hearted adventure story game by Lori and Corey Cole, the Designers of Quest for Glory and Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. We're launching a funding drive on Kickstarter starting Oct. 1, 2019, with the planned release date for the game Oct. 1, 2020.

This video introduces the two viewpoint characters and gives a quick look at the game art and gameplay. For more information, visit https://www.summerdazegame.com.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Steam page already:



The Story: Summer Daze at Hero-U is a light-hearted interactive tale of friendship, fun, and folly suitable for all ages. It's up to you to save the upcoming Harvest Festival at Hero University from imminent disaster... or make it even worse! Will you forge life-long friendships? Will you be the hero, or will you be expelled from Hero-U? It all depends on how you play the game.

Gameplay: Summer Daze is an interactive story game that changes through your choices. You play as the studious Wizard Ifeyo or the mischieveous Rogue Tilly. Your choices will help you make friends, have exciting adventures, and help the Harvest Festival succeed (or fail gloriously). This is a dialogue-driven point-and-click game with choice menus and an interactive game map.

The Team: Corey and Lori Cole, the husband and wife team behind Transolar Games, have designed many great games including the Quest for Glory series, Castle of Dr. Brain, and Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. With the support of their talented development teams and devoted fans, they continue to create role-playing, adventure, and story-telling games full of lore, mystery, wonder, and beauty.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
Who is this game catering to? I honestly can't see the 30-40 year old people that grew up on such games to be "what i need in my life is a harry potter teen drama set at the beach"!
 

cruelio

Savant
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
369
Haha yeah. Who would want to experience Harry Potter teen drama at the beach *reflects on boring school years where I knew no one and did nothing interesting and how I now live my boring pointless adult life paying the bills and going through the motions and tries not to cry*
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
I have a hard time imagining that a visual novel spinoff of a game that had disappointing sales and struggled to find a decent audience will be a profitable venture.

Regardless, I hope it works out for the Coles. They're good people and do seem quite passionate about Hero-U and their planned future titles.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
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Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Hi,

We're excited to launch our next Kickstarter: Summer Daze at Hero-U.

We're doing some exciting new things with this game to make it fun and accessible both for committed adventure gamers and for casual audiences. Summer Daze at Hero-U focuses on the core elements of characters, story, and player choices. It's of course set at Hero-U (as a prequel to Rogue to Redemption), and will be playable on iOS and Android as well as Windows, Mac, and Linux.

As a past supporter and fan of our games, we want to ask you to consider pledging on day ONE so that we can have the strongest launch possible. The campaign will launch at noon PDT on Tuesday, Oct. 2, and run for 35 days so that we can celebrate Halloween with you during the campaign.

We have some special early-bird tiers for the first backers. In particular, our Beach Blanket Beta tier, normally $100, will cost just $90 for the first 100 backers. We also have a special catch-up tier for players who don't have a Hero-U or Quest for Glory game key, or want to get extra keys to give to friends. The "Summer (and Winter) Games" tier is also limited to the first 100 backers.

We're seeking $100,000, enough to finish and polish Summer Daze. We're hoping to raise an additional $50,000 to fund foreign language translations and English-language voice acting. Major success in the campaign will allow us to add even more cool stretch goals and add-on items. Extra funds could even allow us to start preproduction work on Hero-U 2: Wizards Way.

You can help us reach these goals by supporting the campaign early and sharing it with your friends, social media, and favorite media outlets.

Can we count on your pledge?

Thanks!

Lori and Corey Cole

Transolar Games, Inc.

https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/1158/landing
 

cruelio

Savant
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
369
God bless the Coles, they got my day 1 pledge, but do video game Kickstarters even hit six figures anymore?
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
In some ways, this is not that different from a GoFundMe effort at this point. I don't think folks are hoping for a good game so much as pensioning the Coles so that they can maintain their lifestyle despite having purportedly lost their savings on Hero-U. Having been a huge QFG fan as a kid, I probably will throw a few more bucks their way on this, even though I couldn't bring myself to even load Hero-U when all was said and done. Having never played Dragonfire, either, I'd rather leave my memories of their games at the A+ level.
 

cruelio

Savant
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
369
I’m pretty sure Hero-U was better than Dragonfire. Like... 57% sure.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
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Jan 28, 2011
Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Kickstarter is live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/summer-daze-at-hero-u



4bc48b9ee2a153ad8d687601065a8098_original.gif

Join Lori and Corey Cole, award-winning game designers of the Quest for Glory game series, Castle of Dr. Brain, Shannara, Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, and Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption in a new Hero-U story adventure.

Summer Daze at Hero-U is a light-hearted interactive tale of friendship, fun, and folly suitable for all ages. It's up to you to save the upcoming Harvest Festival at Hero University from imminent disaster... or make it even worse! Will you forge life-long friendships? It all depends on how you play the game.

With a diverse cast, and narrative-driven gameplay, Summer Daze is part visual novel, part adventure game, and a dash of “light RPG” for everyone who enjoys great storytelling. New players will enjoy the simple point-and-click interactions and lighthearted humor. More experienced players will dig into the nuanced puzzles and masterful game design by two of the most acclaimed game designers.

“Summer Daze at Hero-U is a new direction for us. We’ve crystallized the story and characters into a fast-paced illustrated adventure that can be played anywhere.” – Corey Cole


Play day 1 of Tilly's story

The best way to learn about Summer Daze at Hero-U is to try our playable demo. You can download it now from itch.io at https://transolar-games.itch.io/summer-daze. You’ll be able to play the full first day of Tilly’s game.

NOTE: Anything in this demo is subject to change in the full game. That may include editing, adding more player choices, and additional art, animation, music, etc.

0400cd9bcf06c28991f8ba5dfee6a3e7_original.gif

  • Interactive adventure story with role-playing elements
  • Light-hearted game filled with humor and charm
  • Choice of two playable characters - and two very different stories
  • Set at Hero University - the school from Rogue to Redemption
  • Meaningful and memorable interactions with 23 unique characters
  • 25 beautifully-rendered locations
  • Playable on PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and Switch
bf3833ff1f500ace690e12d5ef4ac02b_original.gif

The Hero Ewe Needs You at Hero-U
Summer Daze is an interactive story game that changes through your choices. You play as the studious Wizard Ifeyo or the mischievous Rogue Tilly. Your choices will help you make friends, have exciting adventures, and help the Harvest Festival succeed (or fail gloriously).

This is a dialogue-driven point-and-click game with choice menus and an interactive game map. The focus is on the story and characters. There is no "hunt the pixel," juggling dozens of inventory items, or getting lost in a maze. It's a purer, more focused form of adventure game play.

Try out the free gameplay demo. Players of all ages have praised the intuitive game controls and gentle sense of humor in Summer Daze at Hero-U.

MRY Charity awaits.
 

Hellion

Arcane
Joined
Feb 5, 2013
Messages
1,582
Rather steep entry level pledge tier at 25$ for a project of this scope. Not even any early bird specials at 15-20$. It seems to be hitting it off nicely though, almost 10.000$ minutes after it was first announced.

My adoration for the Coles for the countless hours I've poured into the QfG games almost compells me to support this, even though I can already feel the cringe to be brought forth by their "humor" and "light-hearted adventure about friendship".
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/hero-u-rogue-to-redemption/posts/2640022

Summer Daze at Hero-U Now Live On Kickstarter!


It’s now officially Autumn, which is a bit like “second Summer” here, but Lori and I are looking ahead to Summer. Specifically our new game, “Summer Daze at Hero-U,” which is a prequel to Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. We’ve just launched a Kickstarter campaign for it at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/summer-daze-at-hero-u.

This isn’t just a fundraising campaign for Summer Daze. We’re planning a really fun month of games, contests, livestreams, and other activities. This also happens to be the 30th anniversary of Hero’s Quest, so we’ll have that theme for some of the events.

Important Note: If you preordered Hero-U 2: Wizards Way (formerly “Wizard’s Way” - browsers hate punctuation), we will be fulfilling that by sending you a copy of Summer Daze at Hero-U when it’s finished. There’s no need to support the new campaign at the minimum level unless you want to get another copy for a friend. As I’ve reported previously in these updates, Rogue to Redemption has not been successful enough to fund another full-sized traditional adventure game such as Wizards Way. We still hope to do that in a year or two, but we aren’t there yet.

Summer Daze at Hero-U is a smaller, more focused game that we are able to make with a smaller budget. That doesn’t mean it has any less story or player choices. What we’ve cut out are walking around, examining every object you see, and the complex time mechanics of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. Summer Daze plays more like a cross between a dating sim and an interactive storybook than a Sierra adventure game. Think Dream Daddy or Long Live the Queen, but with 10x the story and dialogue of games in their categories.

Incidentally, we’re a lot farther along on this game than we were when we Kickstarted Rogue to Redemption. We’ve been working on it for over a year, so most of the principle art is complete, and the game is fully plotted. You can play through the first day of Tilly’s story by downloading the free prototype demo from https://transolar-games.itch.io/summer-daze. That will give you a good feel for the play style, although it isn’t final - We’ll add more decisions and dialogue choices as we refine the game.

With Summer Daze at Hero-U, we’re refining an adventure game down to its core - story, characters, and choices. Have you played games that caused you frustration because you knew what you wanted to do, but couldn’t find a way to communicate that to the game? I have that experience with pretty much all adventure and many other games.

Then there’s walking around. You did a lot of that in Hero-U. Some players loved it, and it made them nostalgic for 1990’s Sierra games. Others complained that it was too slow and painful. Or that they needed an automap because they kept getting lost. Or that they needed a “quick travel” option because they already knew where they wanted to go. And you know what? Every single one of those players was right… for the way they like to play games.

c620414bec4c402b62c263f0eb2b85ad_original.jpg

Too much walking? Try sneaking!

So we thought, “Our games are really about story, characters, and choices. Moving a small avatar around isn’t any of those. Searching for the right object to pick up isn’t one of those either. Those things are the most costly part of developing an adventure game, and they don’t really add to the experience. What if we took those out and focused on the parts that matter? Story! Characters! Choices!”

That’s not to say that story, characters, and choices are the only things that matter in a game. Beautiful art, charming characters, and uplifting music help create atmosphere and add to the story in their own ways. You wouldn’t need a computer to play a choose-your-own-adventure book. So we decided to make a beautiful game full of rich dialogue options, but without inventory management, pixel hunting, or maneuvering a small character around the screen. We decided to focus on the parts that we think matter most in a narrative adventure game.

The next question was, “What kind of stories do we want to tell?”

We see a lot of dark, grim games these days. Wars, insane asylums, vampires, murder, and more. As the “Mongolian Birthday Song” puts it, “Death, destruction, and despair, people dying everywhere. Happy birthday! Uhh!” (http://caidwiki.org/index.php?title=Mongolian_Birthday_Song).

We’ve had some intense moments in our games. Shannara features the death of a major character. Quest for Glory IV has Vampires and Dark One cultists trying to turn the world to darkness, Quest for Glory V has a character assassinating a King and summoning a huge Dragon to lay waste to the countryside.

But along with that, we’ve always made sure our games include humor, friendship, and heart. Most people are basically good and helpful. A few are scoundrels, because without them, there’d be nothing for heroes to do. But on the whole, our games have positive, uplifting messages.

That might sound a little sappy, but it’s our way. We’re more interested in heroes, and what people can do at their best, than about the dark, grimy things they fight against. Shawn O’Conner is a rogue, yes, but he’s a rogue with a good heart who would much rather help people than hurt them. And of course the Quest for Glory hero is all about honor, friendship, and doing good.

5f91f689532a0dc0969cb34791f96d8d_original.jpg


Nowhere is this more evident than in Summer Daze at Hero-U. You’ll get to play as Tilly Appleberry, a sweet but mischievous rogue, or as Ifeyo Kinah, a studious and honorable wizard. Both are really good people who like to make friends and do good. Of course, in Tilly’s case, that mostly consists of causing chaos, but always in a well-meaning way. Or so she says.

Summer Daze is a “prequel to Rogue to Redemption,” taking place the Summer before Shawn O’Conner gets shanghaied into attending Hero-U. You’ll learn why Master von Urwald is ready for any of Shawn’s antics after spending a Summer dealing with Tilly. The game leads up to the annual Harvest Festival at the end of Summer.

There’s much more about the game on the Kickstarter page. We hope you’ll join us for there, and share Summer Daze with your friends. We think the world needs more sweet, uplifting games to counter all the darkness and gloom out there. And it’s going to be an amazing and memorable month full of fun and games for all of us!


Your Heroes - Tilly Appleberry and Ifeyo Kinah
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Infinitron, ghosting @-ing me to rile me up. And rile he did.

With Summer Daze at Hero-U, we’re refining an adventure game down to its core - story, characters, and choices. Have you played games that caused you frustration because you knew what you wanted to do, but couldn’t find a way to communicate that to the game? I have that experience with pretty much all adventure and many other games.
...

"Those things are the most costly part of developing an adventure game, and they don’t really add to the experience. What if we took those out and focused on the parts that matter? Story! Characters! Choices!”

That’s not to say that story, characters, and choices are the only things that matter in a game. Beautiful art, charming characters, and uplifting music help create atmosphere and add to the story in their own ways. You wouldn’t need a computer to play a choose-your-own-adventure book. So we decided to make a beautiful game full of rich dialogue options, but without inventory management, pixel hunting, or maneuvering a small character around the screen. We decided to focus on the parts that we think matter most in a narrative adventure game.
At the point where they are actively trying to harm those who continue to develop adventure games by reinforcing the self-loathing credo that every adventure game that people loved actually sucks, and that what adventure gamers really wanted was actually "Dream Daddy" -- literally, after describing what they consider to be the essence of the genre, they say, and I quote, "Think Dream Daddy" -- I can't really continue to wish them well. I don't wish ill, or poverty, on anyone (and certainly not on good people who have added much joy to the world), and everyone should feel free to develop the creations that they want to create, so I wouldn't discourage them from making a dating simulator for Ifeyo and Tilly. And, with $14k in funding out of the gate, it seems like they know their fanbase well. But I would really rather they not pretend that the core gameplay loop from every adventure game the Coles themselves made was irrelevant. There is no possibility that 15 years from now, the Steven Alexander of the next generation is going to say, "I want to dedicate all of my time, energy, and money to making a game that captures the spirit and style of Summer Daze." The Coles are basically saying their own legacy is worthless, and they are doing so to peddle a game that might as well be PANIC at Multiverse High! or any of a thousand also-ran dating sims. It's their legacy; if they want to mortgage that legacy for this game, I can't stop them; hopefully they get a tax benefit for that, too, like Corey says he did on the last one. I just hope they don't persuade anyone with the line they're selling because it will hurt those who continue to believe that puzzles, inventories, exploration, and openness are actually the core of adventure games -- as they have been since Colossal Cave, through King's Quest I, past Day of the Tentacle, and yea, even unto Thimbleweed Park. Some of those developers, like me, were inspired by the games that the Coles made and now disavow. So it goes. Cronus has always devoured his children.
 

TheWorld

Educated
Joined
Apr 11, 2017
Messages
44
This doesn't look very interesting... and it looks a really weird choice... doesn't look like something that can interest the qfg fans. That said... i've backed it. Quest for glory is my favourite saga and I actually enjoyed a lot hero-u, even though I think it has a lot of flaws. I would have preferred if they would focus on hero-u 2 (don't really think they would manage a kickstarter for that though) or at least have a different focus for this one. One of the best things about hero-u was the dark story surrounding the university, and the past of the ancient heroes. The game manages to mix pretty well the silly puns and fun school life with a more dark and serious backstory. Unfortunatley this seem to be going in a completely different direction.
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
This is 1/3 funded in the first day, which IIRC usually indicates the project will meet its goal. Compared to the original Hero-U campaign the Coles seem much more confident and prepared - having a playable demo has probably been a big boost.



 

Hellion

Arcane
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Feb 5, 2013
Messages
1,582
Anyone bothered to play the super-short demo yet? It plays 100% like a childish visual novel - you select which area of the castle to visit, you automatically start conversation with whomever is in that area, and then you automatically exit. I have a hard time imagining how they can implement Adventure or RPG elements in that framework.

No need to mention that the "humor" in the demo is terrible, of course.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Anyone bothered to play the super-short demo yet? It plays 100% like a childish visual novel - you select which area of the castle to visit, you automatically start conversation with whomever is in that area, and then you automatically exit. I have a hard time imagining how they can implement Adventure or RPG elements in that framework.

No need to mention that the "humor" in the demo is terrible, of course.
Kickstarter has changed the calculus for stuff like this. They don't need (or even want) to appeal to you. They need to appeal to a core of fans who either love the idea of a wacky, pun-filled dating sim where you date a cow-paladin (cowladin, I assume, sworn to some bovinity, maybe a Moooon goddess) or love the Coles and are willing to give them whatever sinecure is necessary to keep them afloat. It's a pretty magnificent thing that Kickstarter has created crowdfunded niche patronage like that -- 50% paid on day one, with 19 people donating more than $500 and another 28 paying between $250 and $500. Kickstarter lets you go "deep" rather than "wide" with the fanbase, and while it may require pandering to niche tastes (cf., cowladin romance), there's no harm in that if the developer shares the same niche tastes, as the Coles do. If the Coles had said, "In retrospect, the aspect of QFG we liked most was the flirtatious dialogue between the Hero and the centauress, and we wanted to build a whole game around that dynamic," I'd be cheering them on (though not backing the game, since that holds no interest for me). My quarrel here isn't that the game isn't for me -- it's not meant for people who like traditional adventures -- it's that it's being presented as the distillation of games I adored. If this is a distillation, the Coles have boiled off the aspects I loved, and kept the bottoms. (I'm sure there could be a wacky pun to be made off of "bottoms," but I'd rather just end with a shrug.)

f79d76d0a21f6bf34567bc5a270103a0_original.jpg

Even Shameen looks uncomfortable with this distillation.
 

Blackthorne

Infamous Quests
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Codex 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
I honestly believe that if they announced they were doing a Hero-U universe game in the style of older adventure games (like we did for QFI) they'd make a mint. That's what people want. Maybe a few more modern innovations, fast travel maps, "quest logs" but in essence, and old-school "3-D Animated Adventure Game". But all these devs seemed to try to want to make something "new" and then declare people didn't want their old stuff, when they never ever tried to make something in-line with the old stuff.

Gimme $100,000 and some story work by the Coles. I'll make a game people want to play. (Is that bold? hahah)
 

TheWorld

Educated
Joined
Apr 11, 2017
Messages
44
I honestly believe that if they announced they were doing a Hero-U universe game in the style of older adventure games (like we did for QFI) they'd make a mint. That's what people want. Maybe a few more modern innovations, fast travel maps, "quest logs" but in essence, and old-school "3-D Animated Adventure Game". But all these devs seemed to try to want to make something "new" and then declare people didn't want their old stuff, when they never ever tried to make something in-line with the old stuff.

Gimme $100,000 and some story work by the Coles. I'll make a game people want to play. (Is that bold? hahah)

I think so too. They just don't seem to want to make that game. And, since they often said that they didn't have the budget to do something like that (which always felt a bit weird to me, since there are tons of adventure indie games coming out) I thought they could have also gone for something like shannara: 2d fixed visuals, but still keep puzzles and rpg elements. I would have dig that. I think hero-u was still a pretty good game, but would have definitively preferred some more puzzles.

I hope that at least by focusing on a visual novel they can get something of the charm that was in the characters and writing of the quest for glory games.
 

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