Hey, Wolfenstahl the head of Team Projekt Wolfenstahl here!
Even though Deathblight Guilty Raid is NOT Patreon funded, I still figured it's best to inform everyone about the recent changes on the team and how it affects the project.
Our programmer has fallen ill with a serious illness recently (not covid-19).
Because of this he can't continue working for us for the forseeable future, and while there's been some issues with the programming all along during the development, this is basically a huge problem now.
I've been spending more than 47 000 USD (which are documented) out of my own pocket (savings, money from commissions and hired work, as well as money I inherited from family) on developing Deathblight Guilty Raid, no one else has money in this, so while I understand that people are going to be sad about the news, I'm technically the only one who has truly "lost" something in this entire matter.
People can say what they want, it's a simple fact that I'm the only one who was harmed in this entire case and you can trust me that I'm really upset about how this went.
Definitelly more upset than anyone else.
I looked for ANY realistically possible way to save this project, but for the time being there is no satisfying solution.
But to get back to the topic again:
Since the project was planned to be carried by an entire team, not only a single person, and I don't have time to work on this myself, it is now "stuck" and I can't exactly say when it will be continued.
My own work lays with community management, the webcomics, team leading and several other things like Deathblight RPG etc.
So I don't have any time left to work personally on DB Guilty Raid's programming and I'll have to see which solution may apply later down the line.
For now the project is halted indefinitelly, and I have effectively lost 47 000 USD at the time of writing this.
This is no joke...
I already weighed all possible options, from hiring other folks (unreliable) to dropping other projects (not a good idea) to basically anything else that came to mind.
In my opinion, the best course of action is for me to carry on with my other plans, and wrap up DB Guilty Raid once I have time to do this myself, personally, without having to rely on anyone else.
But I can't say when this will exactly be the case, as, as I stated earlier, I'm burried under a mountain of work which is more important in my opinion.
DB Guilty Raid was simply meant to be carried on the shoulders of an entire team.
So when our programmer dropped out for good, that was simply doomed to happen.
DB RPG experiences some delays due to this as well, as I assigned our programmer to do stuff on this one as well.
But given the situation, I'll have to take care of this personally.
So while there will be noteable delays, DB RPG will continue and Cres will be continuing to draw graphics in the meantime.
It simply means the upcoming release is delayed, but progress is still being made in the meantime towards the next update after the upcoming release.
I hope you all understand.
In case you have questions, feel free to ask anytime!
Best regards,
Wolfenstahl
P.S:
I don't want to hire a new programmer at this point in time.
I know Blade (our old programmer) in RL and there's been some trust issues I have towards him due to how things went down with DB Guilty Raid.
So I'm less willing to try my luck with someone I haven't met in RL and I'm not willing to put an entire project as well as even more money on some unknown person I can't get a hold off in RL.
I hope you understand!
Projekt Wolfenstahl HQ
Aaah schmutz digga.
ReplyDeleteBut for real, sad to see another great game getting dumped (or at least, put on hold) especially this one, as I'm a big fan of the RPG and was hella excited for guilty raid.
You mention that there's been trust issues towards Blade, is that the guy that got ill or a former programmer? I'm out of the loop on that one.
Anyway, let's hope the rest of the projects run smoothly. And what I personally hope, for GR to continue some time in the future. Although if it's urgent enough for you to put the project on indefinite hold and writing an official post for it, all we can do is hope that the guy get's well. Because again, if the illness is serious enough for a 50k investment to be put on indefinite hold, then that's monkaW and I wish him good luck and that he and his family stay strong.
Yeah I'm also quite bummed out about how this went.
DeleteThe guy you're talking about is the former programmer and he also got ill. (same person)
And thank you very much!
I do hope for the best as well.
Only time will tell how this will go down.
How about sticking the code up on Github? No money involved and people can add to it.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't that make the code vulnerable to people stealing it though?
DeleteI don't think that works at all.
DeleteNot only would the code be "stolen" yeah.
But the main issue here is that no one knows what I intended to do with this game unless they talked to me.
So they have no clue how to finish programming.
We're talking about a 6 month full time work amount of coding, level design and other things.
There's no way that would work out with that methode haha
This is not about random people adding random code to the game.
But rather finishing the game properly.
(anything else would leave it a horrible broken mess)
So that's that.
I already went through all possible options and there's really absolutely no way to finish this unless I "personallty" take care of the matter.
(which I can't do at this point in time, as I said in the post)
At any rate, thank you very much ^^
Don´t worry! We love you and everything you do is so freaking amazing that it´s definitely worth the wait! ^_^
ReplyDeleteCould you please explain where I supposedly lied?
ReplyDeleteI've been transparent about things for many years and to my knowledge, there's no contradictions or anything.
In fact it doesn't even make sense to lie about anything I named in the post above.
I wish everything would be ok! guilty raid is godlike game , i m waiting for new demo
ReplyDeletesry 4 bad english
he was being sarcastic you idiot.
ReplyDeletealso how do you mismanage your money so badly to make a poor excuse of a game? vosmug makes way better games and probably barely spends anything other than his time LMAO.
not reading ur reply btw
Hey, I was wondering: How is everything going so far? Did you guys made any progress with Deatblight RPG? Anything new in an (now) closer future? Or anything new at all? = )
ReplyDeleteThere's something I notice with a lot of devs like this: They burn out and die more because of what they make than what they should be making. I've played nearly every single game that's come out from you and I see the same grievous error that any other game maker does. It isn't an ACT Side-scroller. Now I'm going to explain such a controversial point so stay with me-And any other dev that looks at this comment.
ReplyDelete4,585 purchases Parasite in City: Notable features - Struggle System, female protagonist, made $73360 off one site alone.
6169 purchases The Entire Girl series by Koonsoft: Notable features - Struggle system, female protagonist, made $123380 off one site alone and makes it himself presumably.
There's Xenotake and it made $48724. You get it and I could list like eight more series and point out while they're shitty actual liars Eromancer is ALSO turning to Side-Action scrollers with: You guessed it, a struggle system, animated sex scenes and a health bar with multiple enemies.
Just a few more succssful ones: D-Lis NIGHT OF REVENGE DEAR GOD THAT MAN IS LEGEND, Mission Mermaiden(Incomplete but holy fuck is it hot D:), The Nekonomicon, Paio hazard(Proof that even somewhat garbage games are loved.) Iris Action and Kurovadis, Future Fragment, Crisis Point and more. They are good looking games, built for now and destined to do incredibly well. You made Paperheads-Which was released in 2013(AKA a really long time ago) and was one of few really liked games in that time despite not being -out there- commercial wise(Tough times back then) and now Dark Alley Elf which got you $7414 on one site, it did meh, it played alright, was pretty hot but missed the core concepts of EVERY game on this list. What you do need to do is plan out a game like one of these, get a patreon, release public releases for those that can't pay in these corona times and make money while developing once you get a good concept. People that love you for you will support you and those that want your game and the latest version will pay and then you get the economic sale of getting your name on the board, and on blog spot while making money and having a huge following of people who BUY YOUR GAME on release. That's just business, it's how it is: The only thing you don't do is throw out this concept and then not deliver(That's a good way to kick your viewers in the dick and make them hate you.)
You get your shit together, do all of this and make your name household like them-Then work on Deathblight and make it 'better' with what you have learned. I'm sure you're working on it because it's what *you* want to work on but take a step outside and understand what the business needs. It sucks complete ass I know but it's what you have to do in order to succeed and get what you want out there.
Just a small side point: You have the characters and you have the art - That is half the battle already, just need to clear out the trenches.
First up, thank you very much for your detailed post!
DeleteI really appreciate it and I like how much thought you put into it.
I think you're spot on with what you said.
And I fully and wholeheartedly agree with what you said there.
I see the same things you see, and I know what you said for a long time already.
There's just... a couple problems...
1. Money is not an issue for me.
2. I don't have a pixel artist or someone capable to do graphics for such a game as you suggest, otherwise I would have done it already.
3. I don't have a programmer for that kind of game right now, that's another problem.
(and I myself don't have capacities for that, I'm completely booked)
I know people would say "hire someone", but let me just say to that, that that was basically what I tried throughout 2018 and 2019.
I burned myself hard doing that, lost a lot of my private cash.
And I'm not willing to trust someone with "important positions" anytime soon again, due to these things I experienced.
If I was to hire a pixel artist or a programmer, I need to be 100% sure they get the job done.
If they bail mid project like with DB Guilty Raid, I'm fucked.
I'm exactly in that position right now (I'm fucked).
So that's what I get for trying that.
Long story short:
While I wholeheartedly agree with you, and I am aware of all these things, sadly I cannot act upon which you said.
Because I don't have the team for that, and that is unfortunately the sad reality.
At any rate, thank you very much, I really appreciate it!
Oh, and as a small addition:
DeleteYes, that's why Cres and I do what we do.
Because we can't work on platformers and brawlers without a pixel artist.
It just doesn't work, no matter how you look at it.
I've been frequently looking for pixel artists that have some references to show and are willing to do NSFW stuff, but it's hard to find someone reliable and honest in that field.
Because we don't have someone like that, we basically do what we do.
We just make the best out of what we have available to us.