Kickstarters

Fatuous One

Well-Known Member
Technically not a kickstarter, but.
[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE6zS6Z9FGQ[/video]
Lab Zero's Action RPG, Indivisible has an Indiegogo campaign

They need to raise 1,500,000 USD, with 505 Games footing another 2,000,000 USD if it meets the goal. The exact funding aside, a rare difference from many other crowdfunding campaign's is that Lab Zero has a playable prototype demo for the game on their website.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
Ordo said:
CIG Employess discuss isuess with Starcitizen
I find the vitriol of those coming to Roberts Defense in the comments fascinating....
...and apparently not entirely unjustified as the validity and intention of the sources has come into question.  Even Roberts himself has responded to this.

I've been following this project since Kickstarter and given the constant updates and transparency with the project status, video released from within the company showing the work they're doing, the cultivation of the fanbase, and elements I've played in the various alphas and betas they've released, I have a hard time buying what Escapist printed as true. At the least I don't believe their sources were properly vetted.

I know that's marketing and that they aren't going to air dirty laundry that way, but it doesn't mesh well with the claims being made against them. The sheer level of work put into cultivating the fans, keeping interest in the project alive, and above and beyond look into development RSI has gone out of their way to provide, and Mr. Roberts's personal involvement with all of that is a good indication that they give a shit and are passionate and competent about what they are doing.

Given what I know of the project coupled with the legitimate doubt about the validity of the sources and intention of their origin, I have a hard time buying The Escapist's story. It just seems too shady to trust against what I know about the project and the people involved.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
Fatuous One said:
Technically not a kickstarter, but.

Lab Zero's Action RPG, Indivisible has an Indiegogo campaign

They need to raise 1,500,000 USD, with 505 Games footing another 2,000,000 USD if it meets the goal. The exact funding aside, a rare difference from many other crowdfunding campaign's is that Lab Zero has a playable prototype demo for the game on their website.
It's crowdfunding, so it's good enough. This does look pretty amazing though. It also reminds me of Prince of Persia for some reason. Probably the design of the level they're showing here, the environment looks an awful lot like a side scrolling PoP game.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
Contrabardus said:
Ordo said:
CIG Employess discuss isuess with Starcitizen
I find the vitriol of those coming to Roberts Defense in the comments fascinating....
...and apparently not entirely unjustified as the validity and intention of the sources has come into question.  Even Roberts himself has responded to this.

I've been following this project since Kickstarter and given the constant updates and transparency with the project status, video released from within the company showing the work they're doing, the cultivation of the fanbase, and elements I've played in the various alphas and betas they've released, I have a hard time buying what Escapist printed as true. At the least I don't believe their sources were properly vetted.

I know that's marketing and that they aren't going to air dirty laundry that way, but it doesn't mesh well with the claims being made against them. The sheer level of work put into cultivating the fans, keeping interest in the project alive, and above and beyond look into development RSI has gone out of their way to provide, and Mr. Roberts's personal involvement with all of that is a good indication that they give a shit and are passionate and competent about what they are doing.

Given what I know of the project coupled with the legitimate doubt about the validity of the sources and intention of their origin, I have a hard time buying The Escapist's story. It just seems too shady to trust against what I know about the project and the people involved.

From here
Here are the exact details of our interactions with our sources:

  • Using the source designations from our story, three sources (CS1, CS4, CS5) initially contacted Lizzy via separate phone calls on Sept. 26 with information they wanted to share after seeing the initial story about CIG on The Escapist. They got her number via a mutual contact. No emails were exchanged. The sources and writer agreed to chat in-depth at a later time. (Note: In the story, the quote on finances reported that "CS1 wrote". This was incorrect as it was part of the phone call and in the reporter's notes. This has been corrected in the story)
  • Four other sources (CS2, CS3, CS6, CS7) initially contacted Lizzy via email on or before Sept. 27 The emails, numbering 32 from these four individuals, were forwarded to our EiC and Publisher, who passed that info by our legal department. It was cleared and we pursued individual personal contacts beginning the following day.
  • The two emails (CS8-CS9) from current employees came into Lockbin on Sept. 27. in the early morning. Lizzy exchanged at least 5-6 emails each with these sources, but they did not disclose their identity.
  • When it came time for followup, three sources (CS1, CS4, CS5) were contacted via phone by Lizzy on Sept. 26. One call started at 5 p.m. and lasted for an hour and 15 minutes. A second was at 6:45 p.m. and lasted for 45 minutes. The final call was at 9 p.m. for an hour an 8 minutes. All three were contacted via Skype as well to verify visual identity.
  • Three more sources (CS2, CS6, CS7) were contacted on Sept. 27. One call started at 9 a.m. for 30 minutes and was Skype only. This was the caller who did not give his name, but verified employment with ID and pay stubs. Call #2 was at 2 p.m. for an hour and 52 minutes, while call number 3 was at 5 p.m. for an hour and one minute. Again, all callers were visually verified after the phone call via Skype.
  • The last call (CS3) was on Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. for 50 minutes, again visually verified on Skype.
  • All sources via Skype had their pictures compared to their LinkedIn profiles or other images of them on the web to verify identities.
  • Chris Roberts' response to me was at 9:10 a.m. almost three hours before publication time. Unfortunately, the response ended up in my spam folder, as it came in unformated and the pictures did not load. Since Roberts did not copy Lizzy or the Editor-in-Chief, who were on my original email to CIG PR head David Swofford, they did not get them and there was no back up to ensure someone saw it. Swofford emailed me at 12:40 - after I had sent him a link to the story - asking if I had received Roberts' response. It was then that I checked my spam folder, found the response and forwarded it to Lizzy to integrate into our story, minus any personal attacks on the sources. I called Swofford at 1:02 p.m. to personally apologize for the oversight and let him know how we would be using the response in the story. Roberts' entire response on the official site showed up roughly 10-15 minutes before we updated our story on the site.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
Ordo said:
From here
Here are the exact details of our interactions with our sources:


  • Using the source designations from our story, three sources (CS1, CS4, CS5) initially contacted Lizzy via separate phone calls on Sept. 26 with information they wanted to share after seeing the initial story about CIG on The Escapist. They got her number via a mutual contact. No emails were exchanged. The sources and writer agreed to chat in-depth at a later time. (Note: In the story, the quote on finances reported that "CS1 wrote". This was incorrect as it was part of the phone call and in the reporter's notes. This has been corrected in the story)
  • Four other sources (CS2, CS3, CS6, CS7) initially contacted Lizzy via email on or before Sept. 27 The emails, numbering 32 from these four individuals, were forwarded to our EiC and Publisher, who passed that info by our legal department. It was cleared and we pursued individual personal contacts beginning the following day.
  • The two emails (CS8-CS9) from current employees came into Lockbin on Sept. 27. in the early morning. Lizzy exchanged at least 5-6 emails each with these sources, but they did not disclose their identity.
  • When it came time for followup, three sources (CS1, CS4, CS5) were contacted via phone by Lizzy on Sept. 26. One call started at 5 p.m. and lasted for an hour and 15 minutes. A second was at 6:45 p.m. and lasted for 45 minutes. The final call was at 9 p.m. for an hour an 8 minutes. All three were contacted via Skype as well to verify visual identity.
  • Three more sources (CS2, CS6, CS7) were contacted on Sept. 27. One call started at 9 a.m. for 30 minutes and was Skype only. This was the caller who did not give his name, but verified employment with ID and pay stubs. Call #2 was at 2 p.m. for an hour and 52 minutes, while call number 3 was at 5 p.m. for an hour and one minute. Again, all callers were visually verified after the phone call via Skype.
  • The last call (CS3) was on Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. for 50 minutes, again visually verified on Skype.
  • All sources via Skype had their pictures compared to their LinkedIn profiles or other images of them on the web to verify identities.
  • Chris Roberts' response to me was at 9:10 a.m. almost three hours before publication time. Unfortunately, the response ended up in my spam folder, as it came in unformated and the pictures did not load. Since Roberts did not copy Lizzy or the Editor-in-Chief, who were on my original email to CIG PR head David Swofford, they did not get them and there was no back up to ensure someone saw it. Swofford emailed me at 12:40 - after I had sent him a link to the story - asking if I had received Roberts' response. It was then that I checked my spam folder, found the response and forwarded it to Lizzy to integrate into our story, minus any personal attacks on the sources. I called Swofford at 1:02 p.m. to personally apologize for the oversight and let him know how we would be using the response in the story. Roberts' entire response on the official site showed up roughly 10-15 minutes before we updated our story on the site.
I've seen this. Still seems sketchy given the rest. A lot of it does seem to have been taken from a blog and questionable sources.

It's not great journalism no matter how you look at it. This makes it sound like the story was rushed. It's digital, so it's not like they have to pump it out before the presses are running. They could have waited on better confirmation or a response.

I don't dislike Escapist, but this doesn't seem like a story they should have run in the state it's in. Too much is hearsay and not enough of it can be verified as reliable, plus there's the blog issue. These tweets put doubt on the source's credentials, plus there's the accusation that several of the quotes were taken off of this site

Here and here are screenshots of the original posts in question on said site.

This is shoddy journalism no matter how you look at it. Even if the allegations are true, they weren't properly vetted and the sources are questionable enough the story should never have made it past the editor's desk. The article is pure conjecture and hearsay without any real evidence that the claims are valid. Their source is questionable and seems to originate from sources that have issue with Roberts, but no verifiable connection with the company or project in question.

What I see in the Escapist article just does not fit with what I've seen in regard to the project, the source is questionable, and the whole thing is a complete mess on their end. They should have held off and properly vetted and verified their facts before publishing. They didn't and it's made them look bad.

Again, I don't dislike the Escapist. I actually quite enjoy some of their regular contributors and videos, but generally the stuff I'm interested in from them is in the opinion spectrum and not news stuff. I also think they've screwed up this time.

This story was handled badly by the site and it's editors and never should have been published in the state it's in, plain and simple. If I was them, I'd be cutting ties with Lizzy over this. She's a contributing writer and not an employee of the site, and they should have been more careful to source this article submission before tossing it up on their site. I blame the editors for this mess, they didn't do their jobs properly and it came back to bite them in the ass because of an amateur contributor's submission that they didn't properly vet in their rush to get it published.

The best thing they could do right now is retract it and own up to it. Even if it means issuing an apology. I'd bite the bullet if I was in charge of the site. If they are unwilling or unable to back up their story, they need to back off and retract. The only way they can hold the line is if they give up their source or provide some proof of their claims, and it does not seem they will be willing or able to go that route as things stand. We'll see.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
"Indivisible" from developers Lab Zero, the same people who created the most excellent Skull Girls is funding a new game on Indiegogo. I think there has been mention of it in this thread before, but here's video of the game...


[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE6zS6Z9FGQ[/video]

Plus there's a Downloadable Prototype that you can play that covers what you see in the video. It's a blast to play and I'm seriously hoping this gets funded. The animation is amazing and these devs know what they are doing and do beautiful work.

Seriously check this out. The demo is a good chunk of gameplay that should last twenty minutes to an hour depending on your skill level.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
For the Battletech Kickstarter

Funding Goals Update

Now, MechWarriors, it’s ONWARD towards our next major objective: STAGE 4 - PVP Multiplayer!
HBS Command has identified two high-value targets on our march to STAGE 4.
  • $2,000,000 - Customizable Home Base: As part of the ongoing campaign, you'll acquire a home base (likely in the form of a derelict DropShip) for your mercenary outfit to call home. At this funding level we'll also allow you to adjust its appearance, repair and upgrade its functionality, and grow and evolve your base as your outfit grows and evolves.  
  • $2,150,000 - Legendary 'Mech & MechWarriors: In addition to the game's standard 'Mechs and customizable, procedurally-generated MechWarriors, we'll include rare legendary 'Mechs to find, and rare hero MechWarriors to hire - including some famous characters from BattleTech history. Such legends may not stick around for long, but will be well worth hiring if you can afford them.
My own Dropship.........I wonder if I could set her up as a mobile weapons plateform for drops into hotzones....Perhaps hire a few Aerofighters for cover.....hmmmm
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
99% sure that Indivisible is happening whether it gets funded or not. There is no official word about anything, but it's pretty obvious that they have either partnered up and acquired funding from other sources, or are more than capable of funding it themselves based off the success of Skullgirls, which is awesome and you should totally play it if you're a 2D fighting game fan. They haven't said anything like that directly so take that with a grain of salt, but it's easy to infer it from what they've been saying in their newsletter E-mails. The Indigogo campaign is probably just promotional and may provide funding for a few nice extras if it succeeds, but it seems very likely that even if it fails the game is happening anyway.
 

Fatuous One

Well-Known Member
Contrabardus said:
99% sure that Indivisible is happening whether it gets funded or not. There is no official word about anything, but it's pretty obvious that they have either partnered up and acquired funding from other sources, or are more than capable of funding it themselves based off the success of Skullgirls, which is awesome and you should totally play it if you're a 2D fighting game fan. They haven't said anything like that directly so take that with a grain of salt, but it's easy to infer it from what they've been saying in their newsletter E-mails. The Indigogo campaign is probably just promotional and may provide funding for a few nice extras if it succeeds, but it seems very likely that even if it fails the game is happening anyway.
I'm... not really sure where you're getting that from? It kind of contradicts what they've said in response to questions asked by fans on their AMA.

A few random quotes on the subject:

Rakurin said:
Worst case scenario if the IGG fails, would the team consider taking a few jobs making games for bigger companies in order to keep the team together?
labzero_brian said:
If the IGG fails, then everyone simply doesn't have income from Lab Zero Games. We would most definitely have to look for other places to support ourselves.
1338h4x said:
I know you guys have said that if the IGG fails that'll just be the end of everything, but is there really no hope of a plan B? With a prototype this solid, surely there must be another publisher that might hopefully be willing to back the whole thing if you kept shopping it around. I just don't want to see this game die at the rate the campaign's going, there has to be some sort of backup plan!
...
Ravidrath said:
There's always other possibilities, but pitching, negotiating contracts, etc. takes time.

For example, we initially pitched Indivisible to 505 Games just over a year ago. In March, we moved forward on hammering out the deal, and it wasn't signed until May. And that is considered fast for this industry.

Right now we're committed to making Indivisible happen, and will do everything we can to that end. If it doesn't work out, we may need to go dormant for a bit while we look for other work or placing Indivisible with someone else.

It's worth noting that publishers are absolutely terrified right now because games are getting so expensive to make and entertainment is such an unpredictable business. And right now game publishers want to make either very small games or really large ones - under $1M or over $25M.
superj3 said:
If this game fails in funding, will you survive?
Ravidrath said:
We have some interest for other projects, but we'll likely have to go dormant for a bit if we pursue that. Dealmaking takes time, and the industry pretty much shuts down after Thanksgiving.

People will likely have to take on some kind of work to survive during that downtime, which risks them not being around if we do sign something else, too.
superj3 said:
So your saying you will disband but hopefully re-unite?
Ravidrath said:
It's a possibility, but one we're desperately trying to avoid.

We'll hold out as long as we can, but Skullgirls drained pretty much all of ours staff's financial buffer.
I mean, it'd be great if that were true, but... where exactly in the newletters did you get this implication from? All I've been reading from them is sort of a 'let's stay positive!' kind of thing.
 

Antimatter

Well-Known Member
Skullsgirls did well, but it's not a steady source of income, and well, companies burn though cash fast just for salaries, rent, utilities and such.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
They are also asking for a lot of money. I mean Shadowrun returns asked for about $400,000 which is just this side of reasonable for a property people know and want to see. Other first time devs with new IPS have gone been succesfull at about the $70,000. These guys were asking for 1,500,000. That is shooting high indeed.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
They've also been showing off several licensed characters for the game, which given their status as a kickstarter seems to suggest that they are getting outside investments for the project who are offering characters from properties they own as part of the deal. If you're trying to fund something like this through crowdfunding, you don't shell out cash for licensing deals over actually getting the project off the ground.

Of course they're going to say that they can't afford to keep going without the crowdfunding. They'd be kind of stupid to suggest otherwise. You don't want to give people an excuse to not donate. You want them thinking "OMG this is so cool! I should fund this to give it a better shot of happening!"

It may have even been true at some point that they needed it, but given that they've got characters from Guacamelee, Super Time Force, and Shovel Knight. To me that screams investors. Maybe they aren't shelling out enough for the whole project, but it does seem like Sony is one of the backers here, so it's not unreasonable to think that they might have the resources to finish the project without crowdfunding at this point.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
Contrabardus said:
They've also been showing off several licensed characters for the game, which given their status as a kickstarter seems to suggest that they are getting outside investments for the project who are offering characters from properties they own as part of the deal. If you're trying to fund something like this through crowdfunding, you don't shell out cash for licensing deals over actually getting the project off the ground.
Wouldn't be the first time a kickstarter made a serious blunder.

Of course they're going to say that they can't afford to keep going without the crowdfunding. They'd be kind of stupid to suggest otherwise. You don't want to give people an excuse to not donate. You want them thinking "OMG this is so cool! I should fund this to give it a better shot of happening!"
......if that's true....it sounds a LOT like what happened to Red Ash: The indelible Legend and the fans did not take kindly to that.
 

Antimatter

Well-Known Member
Ordo said:
They are also asking for a lot of money. I mean Shadowrun returns asked for about $400,000 which is just this side of reasonable for a property people know and want to see. Other first time devs with new IPS have gone been succesfull at about the $70,000. These guys were asking for 1,500,000. That is shooting high indeed.
If SRR had only got that much, it would have been much, much less of a game then what shipped. 

It sounds like they aren't getting as much form the publisher as folks woudl think.  This isn't like Bloodstained which was 90% publisher funded at the start.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
Antimatter said:
Ordo said:
They are also asking for a lot of money. I mean Shadowrun returns asked for about $400,000 which is just this side of reasonable for a property people know and want to see. Other first time devs with new IPS have gone been succesfull at about the $70,000. These guys were asking for 1,500,000. That is shooting high indeed.
If SRR had only got that much, it would have been much, much less of a game then what shipped. 
True, and that works again these guys. If it's going to take 1,500,000 to get a functional game, how much more will it cost to get something really good.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
Indivisible just announced that they've put in for a 20 day extension of funding. They're at just under a million at 4 days to go, so that gives it a reasonable chance of making it.

Plus they've announced yet another licensed character. This time in the form of the Drifter from Hyper Light Drifter.

No way they're getting all these characters without some form of sponsorship.

Again, maybe not enough to fund the game without help, but they've definitely got investment outside of crowdfunding, and I strongly suspect Sony is one of those backers. Possibly Microsoft as well.
 

Fatuous One

Well-Known Member
Contrabardus said:
Indivisible just announced that they've put in for a 20 day extension of funding. They're at just under a million at 4 days to go, so that gives it a reasonable chance of making it.

Plus they've announced yet another licensed character. This time in the form of the Drifter from Hyper Light Drifter.

No way they're getting all these characters without some form of sponsorship.

Again, maybe not enough to fund the game without help, but they've definitely got investment outside of crowdfunding, and I strongly suspect Sony is one of those backers. Possibly Microsoft as well.
All the characters they've been announcing as cameos are ones from indie games, you know. Shovel Knight, Juan, Zackasaurus, and the Drifter are all from games where the developers have a lot of creative freedom with their characters, and in two cases were funded by kickstarters themselves. Using them as an example to why they've got investment outside of the crowdfunding doesn't feel like a very strong argument to me.

That said, Lab Zero DOES have funding outside of the crowdfunding. They've said from the very beginning that 505 Games is going to fund 2 million of the development IF they get another 1.5 million that they projected as necessary to actually fund the game. If they had funding beyond that, I dunno, but nothing they've said or done really makes me believe they have.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
While they haven't as of this posting, it seems like Indivisible is going to hit their funding goal. They've got 3 days and $20k to go. That sounds like a lot, but remember that they're going for $1.5mil, and have done about $30k over the last week. I'll be surprised if it takes two days to hit its goal. Donations seem to be ramping up for the final stretch as well, could be as soon as tomorrow evening if they keep pace.

They've also added a couple more guest characters including Red from Transistor and Shantae.

It's good if they make it because for such a small indie dev they do some beautiful animation and have imaginative design work. The demo is great and really shows off their animation skills. Check it out if you've not done so yet, it's worth a look even if you're not planning on contributing.

EDIT: Goal reached, almost $100k over with 60 hours remaining. Nice.

Looking forward to playing this. The demo is neat.
 

Meinos Kaen

Well-Known Member
Contrabardus said:
While they haven't as of this posting, it seems like Indivisible is going to hit their funding goal. They've got 3 days and $20k to go. That sounds like a lot, but remember that they're going for $1.5mil, and have done about $30k over the last week. I'll be surprised if it takes two days to hit its goal. Donations seem to be ramping up for the final stretch as well, could be as soon as tomorrow evening if they keep pace.

They've also added a couple more guest characters including Red from Transistor and Shantae.

It's good if they make it because for such a small indie dev they do some beautiful animation and have imaginative design work. The demo is great and really shows off their animation skills. Check it out if you've not done so yet, it's worth a look even if you're not planning on contributing.

EDIT: Goal reached, almost $100k over with 60 hours remaining. Nice.

Looking forward to playing this. The demo is neat.
Since you asked in the other thread, I thought it'd be good to put this over here as well.


Fair warning to all the backers. While the concept looks interesting, they're handling their marketing and relationships terribly, and it smells of Tumblrite. Like real hard.

1) They censored Skullgirls around the time the kickstarter for indivisible came out. Yes, they removed content all of a sudden from a game that's been out for years because, suddenly, with a very strange timing, those pantyshots weren't good anymore. All of a sudden, without previous warning, and 'not up for debate'. They didn't explain, they didn't discuss, they just did it. Without a word of explanation not even to their backers -Skullgirls was also crowfunded-. They changed something after years, all of a sudden, without even a word to the people who gave them money for it in the first place.


2) The only reason they even got the game funded is because they got an extension on their original time, otherwise this game would have failed. This is not a successful kickstarter by a long shot. And they've been pissy -to say the least- to people saying 'not confident enough to back this but I'll buy it if it comes out'. The tweets are of course now gone. Strange that.

3) For the Tumblrite, it's just inferring but the designs are not consistent of each other and they seem to be trying real hard to appeal to that crowd. Pregnant giant unattractive amazon woman, hindu recolor Ryuko Matoi main character, arab guy you can't see the face of... Coupled with the oh so timely censorship of Skullgirls, this makes me at least suspicious.

The concept looks good on paper, but the actions above coupled with some very farfetched stretch goals -full VOs and an anime intro- for a game that just barely made its funding target with an extension doesn't make me trust these people enough to put my money forward.
 

Contrabardus

Well-Known Member
Meinos Kaen said:
Contrabardus said:
While they haven't as of this posting, it seems like Indivisible is going to hit their funding goal. They've got 3 days and $20k to go. That sounds like a lot, but remember that they're going for $1.5mil, and have done about $30k over the last week. I'll be surprised if it takes two days to hit its goal. Donations seem to be ramping up for the final stretch as well, could be as soon as tomorrow evening if they keep pace.

They've also added a couple more guest characters including Red from Transistor and Shantae.

It's good if they make it because for such a small indie dev they do some beautiful animation and have imaginative design work. The demo is great and really shows off their animation skills. Check it out if you've not done so yet, it's worth a look even if you're not planning on contributing.

EDIT: Goal reached, almost $100k over with 60 hours remaining. Nice.

Looking forward to playing this. The demo is neat.
Since you asked in the other thread, I thought it'd be good to put this over here as well.


Fair warning to all the backers. While the concept looks interesting, they're handling their marketing and relationships terribly, and it smells of Tumblrite. Like real hard.

1) They censored Skullgirls around the time the kickstarter for indivisible came out. Yes, they removed content all of a sudden from a game that's been out for years because, suddenly, with a very strange timing, those pantyshots weren't good anymore. All of a sudden, without previous warning, and 'not up for debate'. They didn't explain, they didn't discuss, they just did it. Without a word of explanation not even to their backers -Skullgirls was also crowfunded-. They changed something after years, all of a sudden, without even a word to the people who gave them money for it in the first place.


2) The only reason they even got the game funded is because they got an extension on their original time, otherwise this game would have failed. This is not a successful kickstarter by a long shot. And they've been pissy -to say the least- to people saying 'not confident enough to back this but I'll buy it if it comes out'. The tweets are of course now gone. Strange that.

3) For the Tumblrite, it's just inferring but the designs are not consistent of each other and they seem to be trying real hard to appeal to that crowd. Pregnant giant unattractive amazon woman, hindu recolor Ryuko Matoi main character, arab guy you can't see the face of... Coupled with the oh so timely censorship of Skullgirls, this makes me at least suspicious.

The concept looks good on paper, but the actions above coupled with some very farfetched stretch goals -full VOs and an anime intro- for a game that just barely made its funding target with an extension doesn't make me trust these people enough to put my money forward.

This is an overall poor argument against them. It sounds like you're trying too hard to tie this to a sjw movement for personal reasons than anything factual.

First off, getting an extension and succeeding does not make funding 'a failure'. They had a very high funding goal for something like this and were a good way towards reaching it when they got the extension. It's why they bothered with doing so. This implication you're making is dumb. They got their money and the project is moving forward. That's a success no matter how you look at it, especially with a funding goal that high. You're just looking for things to gripe about here and not making any legitimate criticism.

It's a few split second panty shots that very few people care about. This was not some critical plot point that got obliterated over some desire to make it kid safe. There's plenty of other racy content that wasn't removed. This wasn't a slight against backers either, it's their project, and their artistic vision. You're vastly overestimating the amount of creative control owed to backers.

Also, and this is very important. It removes three panty shots from three animations that the devs felt didn't look right. Not that they were too raunchy or out of place, they just seemed to not fit the way the rest of the game was animated, so they removed them. There are literally hundreds more still in the game. Fillia and Cerebella's are clearly visible during several of their animations, I just had a look for myself to be absolutely sure of this and it is indeed the case. Panty shots were -not- removed from the game. Filia's opening sequence opens with a shot of her ass while she's sucking on a milkshake where she's accosted by a male character who grabs her ass and a clear shot of her panties is shown. The idea that this amounts to censorship is stupid, and you've clearly not bothered to actually play the game and see for yourself.

Here's an explanation from the forums:


Okay, let's get this over with before you guys start to freak out as though something much more significant is going on here.


The edits, made exclusively to Filia/Fukua and Cerebella, were not made to appeal to a ratings board or anything like that. The desire to make the changes was internal, and it was cleared with the artists and everyone on the team is cool with them.

Our public stance with regard to panty shots and the like within the game has always been something along the lines of "well, they're sexy girls, and they're fighting. If one of them is wearing a skirt, you're bound to see some panty. We're not trying to hide it, but we're also not going out of our way to show it either."

There were a handful of animations - which I will not spend time enumerating just to sate your curiosity - that we felt went against that, because they seemed like they did go out of their way to flash some panty, and we wanted to fix them. These animations were made waaaay in the beginning of development (Filia was the first character ever made for Skullgirls, remember!) and these animations wouldn't have been made the same way if they'd been animated today because our standards have evolved.

This is not up for debate. The changes are staying and there aren't any more coming. We're not trying to significantly alter the game, because as some have already pointed out, there's plenty of other stuff in the game that's more racey than what was edited.

From another DEV in the same thread:

...These corrections to animation sprites have been listed on the things we were planning to do for years...

So, no. The situation is not what you're suggesting it is at all. It's worth noting that no one on these forums was losing their minds or raging over the changes that I saw over several pages of discussion over it. They were mostly pretty passive about it and more joking around than anything else. It was just something some of them noticed and asked about. The devs were engaging and explaining what happened.

I also quite like the diversity of design with the characters in Indivisible. I never thought for a moment it was some Tublrite feminist sjw pretext. It's just interesting design that isn't a group of sexy girls. I'm perfectly okay with this, and the cast is interestingly designed without being overtly racist, which I also like. This doesn't seem like something that was deliberately done to appeal to sjw sentiment, it's just being respectful to the cultures represented in the game. The bodytype thing is just a dumb point on your end. She looks perfectly at home when seen along the rest of the characters and not out of place at all.



Seriously? The Amazon girl isn't pretty enough for you so it's a SJW/Tumblr thing? She doesn't even look close to pregnant or obese, she's just obviously large and strong. She's got a competitive weightlifter's build [not Bodybuilder's], which makes sense for that type of character. It's fine that you don't like the character designs, but it seems like you're trying to turn it into something far more political than it really is.

Also, what "Arab guy you can't see the face of"? I've seen one shot of him with his face covered up and it implies that maybe in his passive state his face is covered, but it's quite clearly visible in a lot of the artwork I've seen for him. I also don't see why having his face covered matters from a design perspective and you made a point of mentioning it as if it's somehow a relevant thing. I don't see anything wrong with him, especially when seen within the context of the rest of the cast and their design. I actually quite like the idea behind him, his turban is in fact a very flexible sword he wears on his head.



Yeah. No. Anja does look a little like Ryuko, but not that much like her. It's certainly more than a recolour. I doubt there's really much if any relation to the designs outside of coincidence. Not seeing it outside of a few vague similarities that have more to do with them both being anime style teenage girls than anything else. Anja is more consistent with the art style from Skullgirls than Kill La Kill, just more subdued, the rest of the female cast would fit right in with the fighter's cast, even the Amazon woman to be honest.

I don't hang out on their forums frequently, but I do pop in to check out the goings on there as a lurker sometimes to see how Skullgirls was coming along, and now to check up on how this game is going. None of what you're saying fits what I've seen of the devs interactions with the community at all.

This all seems more like a problem on your end than theirs. None of what you're saying matches up with what I've actually seen from these guys. The game is not censored, there are tons of panty shots and hyper sexualization of the girls in the game. The tone was not changed even slightly with the removal of these three animations.

Put simply, you either don't know what you're talking about and are relying entirely on blogs bitching about a game you have zero experience with, you are jumping to conclusions based on character designs you didn't like and commenting on another game you've obviously not bothered to play from them as a result, or you have something personally against these guys and are acting on it here.

Put simply, what you're posting is BS. None of it is actually true. Three animations were cut and hundreds more showing the same thing remain. The designs were meant to be ethnically and culturally diverse while remaining respectful to the cultures they represent, that's not SJW syndrome, it's just doing proper research and handling character design right.

I do admit that the devs get a little snippy sometimes, but I've also seen them apologize for it when they were in the wrong or went over the line. I don't have a problem with that, and if you do it's really a problem on your end. Overall, they are well liked in the community from what I've seen and really engage with their fans and backers.

TL: DR: You are wrong about basically everything you posted.
 

H-Man

Random phantom.
I'd say at least that projects that ask for 'too much money' are worth the concern, even with the names attached. Broken Age was pretty mismanaged even when it made over 3 million, and the problem is that backers are in a position where they want to see what's happening to their money while not really having any of the power that a proper sponsor would have over the company.

So it's not that Indivisible is bad for getting extra time to ask for more money, but this really shouldn't be standard issue and it's kinda unfair for developers to insist on getting more money than initially planned [which has not happened here but it's not the only time it has].

On the appearance thing, I'm actually going 50/50 on that. I don't think Anja is a Ryuko recolor but the short, messy hairstyle is similar in length especially [it doesn't need all the side bangs] and they've got similar frowns in the Ryuko design you posted, implying a similar demeanor. So I take it more like 'Anja is a half-pint girl and Ryuko is a half-pint girl, and both designers had similar ideas as to how such a girl behaves'.

I mean, if you really want to claim it, Vasco looks like every Don Quixote parody with a cowboy hat on and Yan's color scheme in that pic resembles a Saiyajin armor a lot with the yellow marks and the black bodice, and what's up with THAT, right? [/sarcasm] [More seriously though how tall is she supposed to be, she's like ALL LEGS]
 
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