Zombra
An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Backed. It's not even about getting the game, it's about having more SWERY in the world.
Have to agree on this. Pretty much every jap project I followed or backed has failed in some way.So far the Japanese devs on Kickstarter have been scammers and/or lazy.
I hope SWERY bucks the trend.
I hope so, because I gave him MY MONEY!
Update #35
May 29 2018
The true challenge begins now! - ここからが本当の挑戦です
Posted by Yuya Yamada
We'll never forget how moved we were on May 5th...
We are so deeply thankful to you all, from the bottoms of our hearts.
The Kickstarter updates going forward ――
From here on out, we'll be posting updates once a month to make sure we keep you all informed and don't let you down. In the updates, we'll give you the latest news on the development progress and other items, so please keep an eye out for them!
If your Kickstarter payment failed ――
Directly after the Kickstarter campaign ended, we received many messages from backers who were experiencing problems with getting their payments processed. About half of the backers that saw their Kickstarter payments failed at the end of the campaign managed to fix their issues during the grace period.
Unfortunately, we still have backers that were unable to fix their payment during Kickstarter’s automated grace period. In order to solve this problem, we are preparing to set up a PayPal account where you can make your payment to us.
Once preparations are complete, we’ll send out a separate update to all backers who were unable to process their payments on Kickstarter. Please just wait a little bit longer.
State of Development ――
Three weeks have passed since the campaign ended.
Now that the campaign is behind us, we are doing many things that are not very exciting nor very visual. We’re managing our funds, rescheduling our production plan, looking at overall game plan, and deciding on what all we’ll realistically be able to include in the game.
But this is still a very important step in game creation, and a necessary one that everyone at White Owls and Grounding has gone through numerous times.
We’re sorry we can’t provide you with new screenshots this time. But we believe that all our faithful supporters will understand and continue to trust in us!
Stretch Goals ――
At the end of our campaign, we managed to gather funds beyond our initial goal. However, as written earlier, there are still a large number of backers who were unable to successfully process their payments.
Solving these problems is our top priority right now. Therefore, we plan to decide how to use the additional funds after we first solve these problems. Once everything is in order, we’ll prepare a report for you!
The BitSummit ――
We took the playable demo of The Good Life to BitSummi, Japan’s biggest indie event. We met with many people who came to the event to cheer us on, play The Good Life, and also simply to greet us as backers. It was a very important event for us in that regard.
Two great things about this event are that it’s centered around indie games, which is rare for a Japanese event, and also that it takes place in Western Japan, where White Owls is located.
With that in mind, we took part in this event not only to introduce The Good Life to Japanese indies fans, but also to support a very important event for the Japanese game industry.
You can find a few pictures of our Bitsummit booth presence here:
See you next update (next month)!
我々は5月5日の、あの感動を忘れません。
今も、サポーターの皆さんへの感謝のお気持ちでいっぱいです。
これからのキックスターターのアップデートについて ――
私たちは、The Good Lifeについて、これから月1回のペースでアップデートを更新していく予定です。
開発の進捗状況や新トピックなど、最新ニュースをお伝えしていく予定なので楽しみにしてください!!
キックスターターで決済がうまくいかなかった方々へ ――
キックスターターでのキャンペーンが終了した直後、決済に問題を抱えるサポーターの皆さんからの問い合わせを多くいただきました。問題を抱えたバッカーのうち、半分の方々は二週間の決済猶予期間のうちに無事決済ができたようです。
しかし、残念ながらこの猶予期間中に問題を解決できなかった方が、まだ、いらっしゃいます。
我々はこの問題を解決するため、別の方法で決済ができるようPaypalアカウントの準備を進めています。
準備が整い次第、アップデートで告知を行い、決済ができなかった皆さんへ直接ご連絡いたしますので、もうしばらくお待ちください。
開発進行状況 ――
キャンペーンが終わって三週間が経ちました。
私たちは現在、あまりビジュアル的に表現が難しく、そしてあまり面白くない作業に取り組んでいます。まずは入金の管理と制作スケジュールの見直し、そしてゲームの全体像と、現実的な実装内容を検討しているような状況です。
ただし、これはゲーム製作にとってとても重要なプロセスであり、White Owlsとグランディングがこれまでも、ずっと行ってきた必要な作業です。
新しいスクショが無くてごめんなさい。でも、キックスターターで応援してくださった皆さんなら、きっと理解してくれると信じていますよ!
SWERY
ストレッチゴールについて ――
私たちのキャンペーンは、イニシャルゴールの目標を上回る形で成功しました。しかし、前述のように決済に問題があるバッカーの方が想定よりも多く存在しています。
私たちはこの問題を解決することを最優先に進めています。従いまして、実際にイニシャルゴールをうわまった金額の使い道については、これらがすべて解決したあと、皆さんへ報告させていただきます。
ビットサミット ――
日本の最大のインディーズイベントであるBitSummitに体験版をプレイヤブル出展しました。
The Good Lifeを遊ぶため、そして私たちを応援するために、わざわざ会場まで足を運んでくださったサポーターもいらっしゃいました。とても有意義なイベントになったと思います。
また、このイベントのいいところは日本ではめずらしいインディーズゲームが中心であることと、White Owlsのある関西で開催されているということです。
そういう意味で、このイベントへの参加意義は日本のインディーズファンにThe Good Lifeをお披露目するということだけでなく、日本のゲーム業界の大切なイベントを支えるためでもあったといえます。
私たちのBitSummitのブース要素の写真はここで見れます。
それでは次回の更新(来月)をお待ちください。
The Good Life now has a publisher! - THE GOOD LIFE のパブリッシャーが決定しました。
Publié par Yuya Yamada (collaborateur)
Hello everyone! How are you faring over this sweltering summer?
This is SWERY, the director of The Good Life.
Today, I've come to discuss our publisher, which is a very important part of making sure we're able to send The Good Life out into the world.
UNTIES gave us their support from the very first day of our Kickstarter campaign, but as of today, they've decided to officially become the worldwide publisher for The Good Life. *applause*♪
THE GOOD LIFE Research Trip Diary
Art Director Noboru Hotta
Part2
Part 2 of the trip starts with us leaving the beautiful garden and trees of Acorn Bank.
After leaving Acorn Bank, we decided to visit the birth house of Wordsworth at Cockermouth.
I have only heard of the name Wordsworth, and I assumed he was a gardener. (In japan there was a TV show called Wordsworth garden)
He is actually a famous poet. Sorry of my lack of knowledge, people England. We arrive at Cockermouth and visit Wordsworth’s birth house.
Once we arrived at the house, they were closed!
I was looking forward to learning about Wordsworth, too bad.
I’ll just peek in through the window.
So we decided to walk around the city of Cockermouth.
We leave the main street and into the alleys and through to the river.
As we walk along the river, we run into our first cat!
I love cats! I wonder if it only understands English.
We say bye to the cat, and walk towards a strange tower and into the alleys.
Wow it’s a brewery! What a cool building! (Jennings Brewery)
I didn’t expect one in the middle of the city! What a delight!
https://www.jenningsbrewery.co.uk/
I’m sure SWERY would have a drink if he was here.
We were thinking of having a brewery in the THE GOOD LIFE so this is great reference! (I would love to design and original beer!)
This building has so much character.
We leave the brewery and head towards a church that we spotted when we arrived at the city.
Yay! My first research at a church!
First, to the graves! So we enter to the cemetery behind the church.
I’ve only seen them in movies so I’m exited to see what they are like in real life!
First time to really look at some graves…
WoW!! The tombstones are huge! I didn’t expect them to be this big lol
They really look like some zombies might come out.
I take some pictures while trying to not disturb the dead.
Please no creepy ghosts in my photos!
I’m glad I was able to see the size and scale first hand (Maybe they are just big here?)
Now into the church
The ceiling is really high and it has a great atmosphere!
Although, it’s not exactly the kind of church for our game.
There are still plenty of churches, I hope I can find one that fits our image.
We pray for our safe journey and head back to the car.
Cockermouth was really beautiful city.
Anywhere you look it was like a painting.
But it isn’t the kind of city for Naomi.
We were getting hungry so we went to the distillery, “Bistro at distillery” which we researched before coming.
Apparently it’s famous for its great food and alcohol.
We arrive at “Bistro at distillery”.
The exterior is fantastic!
Now for our second English meal!
I pick the deer meat out of the many items on the menu since I rarely have a chance to eat it.
All of our orders get delivered to the table!
It’s so fancy! It’s definitely gonna taste good!
The layout is just great. It has to be good!
We all share our food.
It’s so good I could cry, wonderful!
The alcohol is great! And so much variety.
Futatsugi and SWERY should come! I’m sure they will!
(The planner team is planning on visiting at a later time)
Make sure to come here last.
The English food is so good! I love everything I’ve had so far.
The sun is really bright, but it’s already almost 8PM so we are done for today! Just one more thing to do.
We leave “Bistro at distillery” and head to Ambleside on the way back to the cottage.
The last thing left for this day is “Let’s watch some football at an English pub!!”
Today was the Belgium vs France of the world cup! (I wanted to watch the English game but was a little scared so we watched the Belgium game)
We head to the pub rooting for Belgium who beat Japan!
We enter the pub excited.
Inside there were some locals already watching the world cup.
It wasn’t too crowded though, and we were able to get some seats!
We order some local bear from the extensive list of beers and watch the game!
Not sure if we should root for Belgium, we look around to see who people are rooting for.
Looks like everyone is rooting for Belgium!
Everybody was pretty calm and quiet, maybe because it wasn’t an England game.
The lady at the counter as singing and dancing, I wish I was able to have fun drinking with the locals too.
Belgium ended up losing to France, but no one seemed angry so we were able to leave the bar in one piece (wonder what it’s like for England games…)
We were too scared to take pictures of the pub, but I burned into my memory.
I’m happy to finally go to an authentic pub! Wonder how many more I can visit.
It’s still light outside and it feels good! It’s great to have short nights.
As we return to our car, I find an interesting building at Ambleside.
There’s a small house on a bridge, apparently it’s famous.
It would be cool to have a character that lives on a bridge! (Maybe he won’t let you pass easily, like you have to have some tea with him to pass)
The building is really cool.
We go back to the cottage from Ambleside and talk to the art team for a while.
After walking around for a day, there are a lot of great cities, but they aren’t the kind of city Naomi will live in.
We all agreed that we want a smaller village type scene, like the one we passed while moving around.
So we change our schedule a little bit and decide to visit some smaller villages tomorrow.
Excited for tomorrow!
SWERY's 2018 retrospective https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/swerys-top-10-games-of-2018/1100-5787/ The new SWERY game released whilst The Good Life is being made: