Vapourware Unknown Realm: The Siege Perilous - an 8-bit RPG for PC and Commodore 64

[mediocrepoet]

delusion; the
A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence.

Lmao what a fail, dude's not on a cliff and there's no sea of fog.

Their inspiring presence is so great, it inspired other derivative works that cannot help but draw from their example.

Does the cover have a shadowed person on it? Unknown Realm!

Are there trees or grass? Unknown Realm!

Mountains? Clouds? Water???

Unknown, Fucking, Realm!

 

[Eli_Havelock]

delusion; the
A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence.

Brought to you by the Ultima-Dependent Investment Cult who believed Richard made up the Virtues all on his own and was completely original about it.

Most of those useful marketing muppets are still in denial of PLATO being from where their mousefucking messiah who created the genre of Computer RPGs (he did not) lifted all of his shit with just enough D&D and Tolkien scraped back out to not get his ass sued off when he started selling it.

Which would make Deathlord and why RG threw a fit about copyright so hilarious.

While we're discussing who did what first, some other kids invented the MMO when RG was supposedly creating the CRPG genre.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(1979_video_game)

 

[Eli_Havelock]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderer_above_the_Sea_of_Fog

Well, they didn't want to toot their own horn but truth be told, their trend setting goes back in time too.

Indeed.

Judging from the screenshots, this is just like a couple of modern drunken Egyptians shitposting in hieroglyphics claiming credit for the entire Renaissance art movement.

 

[Gandalf]

Ted Nasmith? That's interesting. I'm rather sceptical that this game will ever come out, but I can't also abandon the thought that tihs might be a masterpiece in the making, becausae masterpieces take time.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Ted Nasmith? That's interesting. I'm rather sceptical that this game will ever come out, but I can't also abandon the thought that tihs might be a masterpiece in the making, becausae masterpieces take time.

They certainly do.

https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

With a SEUCK bungup and JollyDisk as the only two other titles by Shitstirring Dragon Games, this makes for a beautiful contrast to bootles' wishful taint polishing over at Lemon64 about how revolutionary this title is (mirroring the devs' delusion) when there's nothing about the game to discuss but failure.

If there was a game, these two numbnuts and everyone else would have something to discuss besides bad narcissism from cult leader and followers.

Lore, locations, organizations, characters, backstory, mechanics, literally fucking anything besides screenshots seven years stillborn.

These two obviously know how, they backed actual successful projects who can update with detail, but they would rather give dodgy advice to other dodgy Dunning-Kreuger Effect developers who took money and encouragement into something they can't deliver.

Bruce and Laura know exactly how to fix this: They can post a real KS update for everyone.

I'll make it easy for them, 1 of each:

Game mechanic
Location
NPC backstory
Bestiary/Enemy

 

[Tweed]

Ted Nasmith? That's interesting. I'm rather sceptical that this game will ever come out, but I can't also abandon the thought that tihs might be a masterpiece in the making, becausae masterpieces take time.

I'd bet on that old dude finishing his Telengard clone he started in the 80s before these clowns write one line of code.

 

[shilence]

"lol"

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Bruce should personally know by now that just screenshots don't satisfy the wife - unless it was the mailman who "delivered" those kids while Bruce took pictures from the corner.

 

[adamantyr]

"lol"

That's why trolling them is pointless. They'll just twist what you say into what they want to hear.

As far as having an artist paint their title screen art, it's like... So what? I could pay an artist (hopefully Ted's check cleared) to paint something.

It's meaningless. It's cosmetic work. It isn't THE GAME. That's what the farce with this whole Kickstarter/project has been, all appearance and screenshots and promises and NOTHING OF ACTUAL SUBSTANCE.

 

[mediocrepoet]

"lol"

That's why trolling them is pointless. They'll just twist what you say into what they want to hear.

As far as having an artist paint their title screen art, it's like... So what? I could pay an artist (hopefully Ted's check cleared) to paint something.

It's meaningless. It's cosmetic work. It isn't THE GAME. That's what the farce with this whole Kickstarter/project has been, all appearance and screenshots and promises and NOTHING OF ACTUAL SUBSTANCE.

I don't know, the smarmy jackass being smug is pretty substantive. Must really piss someone off who gave them money.

 

[adamantyr]

"lol"

That's why trolling them is pointless. They'll just twist what you say into what they want to hear.

As far as having an artist paint their title screen art, it's like... So what? I could pay an artist (hopefully Ted's check cleared) to paint something.

It's meaningless. It's cosmetic work. It isn't THE GAME. That's what the farce with this whole Kickstarter/project has been, all appearance and screenshots and promises and NOTHING OF ACTUAL SUBSTANCE.

I don't know, the smarmy jackass being smug is pretty substantive. Must really piss someone off who gave them money.

Indeed it would. That's been their pattern for seven years, in fact. Belittling, gaslighting, and treating their KS investors like total garbage.

Generally, as someone who was refunded (not by choice, pretty sure it was to purge my KS comments out) I try to tune them out. (Obviously I'm human so I don't always succeed.) The Lemon64 thread shows what happens, eventually the lack of information just leads to endless speculation, anger, trolling, thread locks, etc. Better to spend energy elsewhere.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Indeed it would. That's been their pattern for seven years, in fact. Belittling, gaslighting, and treating their KS investors like total garbage.

Generally, as someone who was refunded (not by choice, pretty sure it was to purge my KS comments out) I try to tune them out. (Obviously I'm human so I don't always succeed.) The Lemon64 thread shows what happens, eventually the lack of information just leads to endless speculation, anger, trolling, thread locks, etc. Better to spend energy elsewhere.

You're not alone - the official Twitter/X account has less than 400 followers and their personals hover around 1k - about 1/10 or less of what their peers actual game developers/games are at. From engagement rates, those numbers are not exactly fans waiting for almost 4 years since the last real update.

So influential!

 

[mondblut]

Not even barely a butthair compared to Cleve then. But he has rep and they have nothing.

He had also released three beta versions between 1998 and 2005, the latter being a basically content-complete game.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Not even barely a butthair compared to Cleve then. But he has rep and they have nothing.

He had also released three beta versions between 1998 and 2005, the latter being a basically content-complete game.

The remaining dev time was all spent on writing the manual.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Do they even still post daily er weekly.. er monthly… uh once in a fuck moon on X?

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Do they even still post daily er weekly.. er monthly… uh once in a fuck moon on X?

January's screenshot appears to be just boomer maymay. Before then, a reposting of the November screenshot at the beginning of December and then some JollyDisk around the time for the December screenshot. Truly going into the effort to earn that sub-400 follower count. Just like this title's eternal state in vaporware, you really aren't missing a fucking thing.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Maybe he’s raising money so they do an Unknown Realm video in the Hazbin hotel Amazon show. Maybe they can buy a piece of digital real estate.


Or maybe they’re digging out of dumpsters at McDonalds with a sign on the corner of Walmarts

“Need money to develop Unknown Realms!”

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Went back through the Lemon64 thread while on a trail walk for some highlights by adamantyr and others for some of SDG's claims.

It made me realize that if SDG aren't grifting they have pretty well absolutely fucked themselves by ruining the entire point of having their KS.

• C64 nostalgia was the main draw, especially the C64 carts.
• Cart development is EXPEN$IVE, especially for custom burns.
• The KS funding allocation for "Shipping" and "Backer Rewards" could have shared the costs for cartridge development with "Production & Operations" but it seems more likely that the cartridge production would have been the core of the money they would have had available after all cuts. It obviously wasn't intended for much of the claimed year of remaining development that turned into seven.
• Shortly after the KS, development switched from C64 to PC taking priority before anything else, so much for the claims of full time development since 2012 and KS claims of native C64 development and their "Anvil platform" to emulate on PC - C64 development that will need to be done to make their custom C64 carts because it is integral to their C64 engine.
• PC development has been in "internal testing" since 2018, according to several backer correspondences with SDG. Six years later...
• Side Note: SDG scrubbed their Discord when it was discovered they were shit-talking Skald, which kind of goes with some of the narcissistic Twitter/X inspiration meltdowns.
• Now have no more money to do "full time development" as they claimed has been underway since 2012.

So here's the magical problem that puts SDG's production right back to where they were before the KS:

• SDG still owe and haven't produced any of the main point of their Kickstarter, the C64 cartridges for the C64 version that will now be ported after the PC version is released.
• Everyone who backed the C64 version will have to wait for SDG to make enough money from potential PC sales to actually do the backer rewards, ship anything, or pretty much any reason why this title was supposedly so "noteworthy" and "inspirational".
• Even worse, resumed C64 development to fulfill those obligations once they can afford to would be in direct competition with the PC version's post-release support phase.

More likely, the C64 backers will be told to go pound sand:

One last thing to keep in mind regarding the C64 version of Unknown Realm: our budget only covers a limited run of these cartridges and they are offered as a Kickstarter exclusive. We have no plans to manufacture additional cartridges later or maintain an inventory to sell after Kickstarter rewards ship.

What supposedly started out as a natively-developed C64 game is only getting a KS-limited run of the cartridges that will be the only form to play the game on C64, and now they can't even deliver that gimmick in the foreseeable future.

RIP

 

[Butter]

Nox Archaist and Realms of Antiquity are what these grifters are pretending to make, including physical releases, and both have been available for years.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

SDG sucks dick. There are still companies producing physical media for enthused buyers. I could probably make a short list but I’m pretty sure there are a few.

 

[Viata]

Not even barely a butthair compared to Cleve then. But he has rep and they have nothing.

He had also released three beta versions between 1998 and 2005, the latter being a basically content-complete game.

The remaining dev time was all spent on writing the manual.

Not really. The game when was released had a bug that made it impossible to finish it. I remember asking Cleve to fix it so I could finish the game.

 

[adamantyr]

Went back through the Lemon64 thread while on a trail walk for some highlights by adamantyr and others for some of SDG's claims.

It made me realize that if SDG aren't grifting they have pretty well absolutely fucked themselves by ruining the entire point of having their KS.

• C64 nostalgia was the main draw, especially the C64 carts.
• Cart development is EXPEN$IVE, especially for custom burns.
• The KS funding allocation for "Shipping" and "Backer Rewards" could have shared the costs for cartridge development with "Production & Operations" but it seems more likely that the cartridge production would have been the core of the money they would have had available after all cuts. It obviously wasn't intended for much of the claimed year of remaining development that turned into seven.
• Shortly after the KS, development switched from C64 to PC taking priority before anything else, so much for the claims of full time development since 2012 and KS claims of native C64 development and their "Anvil platform" to emulate on PC - C64 development that will need to be done to make their custom C64 carts because it is integral to their C64 engine.
• PC development has been in "internal testing" since 2018, according to several backer correspondences with SDG. Six years later...
• Side Note: SDG scrubbed their Discord when it was discovered they were shit-talking Skald, which kind of goes with some of the narcissistic Twitter/X inspiration meltdowns.
• Now have no more money to do "full time development" as they claimed has been underway since 2012.

So here's the magical problem that puts SDG's production right back to where they were before the KS:

• SDG still owe and haven't produced any of the main point of their Kickstarter, the C64 cartridges for the C64 version that will now be ported after the PC version is released.
• Everyone who backed the C64 version will have to wait for SDG to make enough money from potential PC sales to actually do the backer rewards, ship anything, or pretty much any reason why this title was supposedly so "noteworthy" and "inspirational".
• Even worse, resumed C64 development to fulfill those obligations once they can afford to would be in direct competition with the PC version's post-release support phase.

More likely, the C64 backers will be told to go pound sand:

One last thing to keep in mind regarding the C64 version of Unknown Realm: our budget only covers a limited run of these cartridges and they are offered as a Kickstarter exclusive. We have no plans to manufacture additional cartridges later or maintain an inventory to sell after Kickstarter rewards ship.

What supposedly started out as a natively-developed C64 game is only getting a KS-limited run of the cartridges that will be the only form to play the game on C64, and now they can't even deliver that gimmick in the foreseeable future.

RIP

A good summation of it.

Now one curious thing I just noticed is that they clearly delineate their PC 8-bit engine, Anvil, from Unknown Realm itself:

Our custom built game engine is currently in an alpha state as is our enhanced retro PC platform that will be used to run the game on modern systems.

Followed by:

The game itself is currently in a pre-alpha state and nearing feature completion. The game world and locations are already designed, although names and such are subject to change. The bulk of the remaining development time on the game side will be spent finishing game levels, puzzles, NPC dialog, and the normal play-testing and bug fixing.

At this stage, the game itself is already in pre-alpha and most of the major technology hurdles have already been cleared.

The thing is, we haven't heard a single word about "Anvil" since the KS campaign ended. And it doesn't even come up on their rare Twitter/X posts.

It honestly sounds like they thought they could market and sell the engine over the actual game.

 

[Viata]

It's funny. If the engine was finished, they could release it and become more famous than they expected.

 

[shilence]

Nah, you guys are just jealous of Bruce. Or, even worse, aren't even backers. So you have no right to complain at all. It's easy as that.

Jokes aside, when will the beta be released? If I remember correctly they announced it two years ago. And what about some pics of that nice cartridge? lol

One last thing to keep in mind regarding the C64 version of Unknown Realm: our budget only covers a limited run of these cartridges and they are offered as a Kickstarter exclusive. We have no plans to manufacture additional cartridges later or maintain an inventory to sell after Kickstarter rewards ship.

That's a bit weird since they can just get in contact with any publishers (yes, there are still publishers for C64 games) and make a deal to produce more, getting a cut for every unit sold.
But hey, I guess they just wanted to create some pressure/fomo.

btw, where is that Lightbringer guy?

 

[tbadiuk2]

I went through the trouble of creating an account to say this, apologies if it's already been said somewhere in the previous 43 pages.

I stumbled about the Unknown Realm kickstarter page by chance earlier this evening, followed by this thread when I went looking for a review, or status of the project. I was curious because...

...from what I can see displayed on the kickstarter, I'm pretty confident that what is presented cannot be created on a non-expanded/stock (memory wise, at the least) C64, unless that cartridge has a additional RAM built in, or they go with a large number of floppies and a crazy amount of swapping (assuming this is to run a real C64, and not an emulator that can get around these limitations, at least somewhat).

I'm 50 now. I got my C64 when I was 12-13 and spent so much over the next 5+ years on it (learning how to program, mainly) that my spine was growing in crooked from all the sitting, and had to have some medical assistance. I still remember, and have a good feel, for what is and is not possible given the limitations (ie- even if you use some of the 'clever' raster tricks for graphics in ASM, or the hidden 'ram-under-rom' area that boosts things to around 80k, etc).

I just felt compelled to share my take, as I owe the C64 a very large thanks for where my life ended up going (for the better).