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[RK128]

And I bet there are porting studios that'd gladly port this to those platforms given the opportunity.

I could easily see Curve Digital, BitWorks and Just Add Water could be great fits for possible porting houses for Hyper Light Drifter on Vita/Wii U. They are great publishers/developers and I could imagine them working on the game with little issue.

Maybe when the developers health situation gets better and he feels well enough to continue work on the game if he chooses to do so, he likely will talk to the bigger porting houses on the Vita and see what happens.

 

[jholmes]

But they intended to do it though. Hell, they even put work into the vita version. It didn't pan out, he made a video explaining exactly why that is the case and he's giving you back your money. On the other hand you're okay when a feature gets cut even if you don't have the option to get your money back? I just don't understand.

Perhaps I should clarify: I didn't back Hyper Light Drifter. I've never understood the appeal in it, but the money has long shown that a whole lot of other people do, so I tip my hat to all involved. I don't have a dog in this fight and even if I did, the dev seems to have been very open and empathetic about this process, as you mention he has offered refunds, and his need to prioritize his health is understandable. I wouldn't be upset even were I involved in this.

I mean to speak more broadly because I have backed a lot of Kickstarters and there are a lot of cases where a dev isn't doing his or her best to live up to what they've promised. Even more common, things will go wrong and a dev will cease communicating with backers altogether. It's hard to hold someone accountable when they've taken your money and disappear. It's even harder when people dig in their heels on this Kickstarter-is-not-a-preorder argument.

 

[mantrakid]

Well then, Yoyogames straight up lied to him. There is even indie middleware for WiiU, such as construct and another html5 engine which name I don't remember.
Yoyo wasn't willing to work with Nintendo at all.

Yoyogames just wanted that sweet free advertisement.

as someone who worked with construct 2: trying and failing to get a kickstarted game ported to wii u i can tell you that just cuz there's a logo on something saying it's supported and documentation outlining how the process goes and how easy it all is does not mean it is fully supported.

Just be aware that devs are stuck behind non disclosure agreements and unable to really divulge any meaningful info to their communities about any true difficulties or flaws in the process and so have to shoulder the lions share of the blame themselves. Which is fine! That's the devs job but i can honestly say you probably dont even know the half of what he actually went through.

 

[Zia]

No, I think that's good, but that should be pointed out since it sounds like some people think he was doing it out of charity or whatever.

Porting to Vita is basically charity.

 

[EDarkness]

And I bet there are porting studios that'd gladly port this to those platforms given the opportunity.

I sent them an email about porting the game on the cheap, but no ever responded. I sent a message more than once. I already have a Wii U dev kit that I'm porting my own game to and could have easily started working on a port of HLD. I'm sure there are other porting houses that would have done it as well.

 

[Figboy79]

That's super unfortunate all around.

I played the Vita version about two or three E3's ago on the show floor and it was awesome. It looked and played beautifully. Such a shame that the dev was unable to make it work, but health concerns are the most important thing. I guess I'll just by the Ps4 version. I was holding off for the Vita release, since I have more time game on the vita.

 

[RK128]

Porting to Vita is basically charity.

No, it was a stretch goal the developers had planed and it hit that threshold, so they went through and started work on a Vita port. Things didn't pan out in the end is all and while that is a shame, its perfectly understandable.

Basically, the Vita being supported isn't a charity but a goal the developers presented to the backers and it hit that mark.

 

[Ravidrath]

I could easily see Curve Digital, BitWorks and Just Add Water could be great fits for possible porting houses for Hyper Light Drifter on Vita/Wii U. They are great publishers/developers and I could imagine them working on the game with little issue.

Maybe when the developers health situation gets better and he feels well enough to continue work on the game if he chooses to do so, he likely will talk to the bigger porting houses on the Vita and see what happens.

It's made using GameMaker, so it's not his engine to port.

Imagine he made this in Unreal, and now he has to remake the game from scratch AND the underlying engine. Because that's basically the only way to do this.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

And I bet there are porting studios that'd gladly port this to those platforms given the opportunity.

Port studios don't work for free.

 

[mantrakid]

I sent them an email about porting the game on the cheap, but no ever responded. I sent a message more than once. I already have a Wii U dev kit that I'm porting my own game to and could have easily started working on a port of HLD. I'm sure there are other porting houses that would have done it as well.

what is your company name? what other games have you ported?

 

[Ravidrath]

Port studios don't work for free.

Port studios also generally do ports, not remake entire games from scratch.

 

[Roto Prime]

nooo, I needed this on mii Wii U. T____T hope the NX gets it.

 

[Ravidrath]

nooo, I needed this on mii Wii U. T____T hope the NX gets it.

Ask Yoyogames if GameMaker will be coming to NX and you'll probably have your answer!

 

[MUnited83]

So maybe I'm thinking about this completely wrong but they were never going to do cross buy for ps4/vita. What if they got a third party through Sony to do the work and share in the vita sales only since heart machine won't be making money from vita users?


I understand having to literally remake everything from the ground up on a new engine, but how long could something like this take if everything from the level design to the soundtrack is already done?


Probably missing something here. I own the game on ps4. Pretty close to platinum. Like 6 gear bits away. I was really really looking forward to the vita version. Was willing to buy twice, especially if there was cross save. Would still buy without cross save.

Now this is just something I heard from a couple of devs, so not necessarily true in all cases, but Sony doesn't seem to court the indie devs about Vita ports any longer. They used to be really communicative with the devs, providing assistance and lots of industry contacts and generally being helpful along the way. This does no longer happen. Now the following is speculation on my end, but Shahid Ahmad seems to be the only dude at Sony that cared about Vita and actively helping indies getting on it. Things have gone downhill since he left.

 

[PixyJunket]

I sent them an email about porting the game on the cheap, but no ever responded. I sent a message more than once. I already have a Wii U dev kit that I'm porting my own game to and could have easily started working on a port of HLD. I'm sure there are other porting houses that would have done it as well.

Oooh, salacious.

 

[RK128]

It's made using GameMaker, so it's not his engine to port.

Imagine he made this in Unreal, and now he has to remake the game from scratch AND the underlying engine. Because that's basically the only way to do this.

Okay, thank you for clarifying the situation for me with your comment. I thought he could maybe license Game Maker, so sorry for the confusion on my end.

 

[mStudios]

Ask Yoyogames if GameMaker will be coming to NX and you'll probably have your answer!

Hmmm. I don't know if this is a reference to my previous post or not. But maybe just like you, I know several people who have worked with GM before and i guarantee you I wasn't the only one who asked them for the WiiU version and got the same answer from them.

I'm talking about indie developers with well-known games out there. Maybe they had the intention to actually release it for WiiU or not. But as far as I know, yoyogames didn't care too much about WiiU.

I won't get too deep into the conversation because NDA and all that, but we almost ported the whole WiiU Library to be compatible with Gamemaker.

If it wasn't for they shitty ass html5 engine, we probably would've finished it.

 

[B-Genius]

Sad to hear. I was really looking forward to the Vita version, but will happily settle for PS4.

Wishing the team every success and Alex a swift recovery.

 

[Shizuka]

Port studios also generally do ports, not remake entire games from scratch.

I thought there are games running on the same engine that were released for the Vita.

 

[Greatest Ever]

But they intended to do it though. Hell, they even put work into the vita version. It didn't pan out, he made a video explaining exactly why that is the case and he's giving you back your money. On the other hand you're okay when a feature gets cut even if you don't have the option to get your money back? I just don't understand.



He explains why they made this decision now in the video. Seriously, are people even watching it or are these just drive by posts?

I watched it and I understand. When I say I wish them nothing but the best, it's not to exonerate myself from criticism, it's because I mean it.

As a consumer I do get to speak with my wallet and I simply do not like the trend, no matter the cause, of cancelling ports when they were aimed at much earlier. If a game goes this path, I'll skip it.

 

[Ravidrath]

I thought there are games running on the same engine that were released for the Vita.

GameMaker supports Vita, but he pushed GameMaker to the limit and the Vita can't handle it any more at an acceptable performance level.

Thus GameMaker would have to spend a lot of time optimizing it, which they don't seem inclined to do, or he'd have to remake it.

Hmmm. I don't know if this is a reference to my previous post or not.

It was just an acknowledgement that a port to NX would require GameMaker to be ported to NX.

 

[muteki]

In the long run the game is better due to them not engineering it around Vita/U limitations from day 1, but sucks for those looking for those particular platforms.

I would have more interest in it as a portable title, but oh well.

 

[JABEE]

It's almost certainly a good idea for Kickstarter project runners to avoid tacking on add-on platforms that may or may not pan out, but at this point it should also be crystal clear to backers that any port promised for an unpopular and/or underpowered system is potentially vaporware and they should make pledging choices accordingly.

I think there is a lot more responsibility on the producer's end more than the backer.

More platforms means a wider net of money, seemingly less people would ask for refunds than those that were deprived of the game on the platform of their choice.

There is a business advantage to casting the wider net to get the most money up front then cancel later.

 

[Shizuka]

GameMaker supports Vita, but he pushed GameMaker to the limit and the Vita can't handle it any more at an acceptable performance level.

Thus GameMaker would have to spend a lot of time optimizing it, which they don't seem inclined to do, or he'd have to remake it.

Would the engine require optimizing or the game? I don't get how the game couldn't be optimized for the engine to handle it efficiently.

 

[Ravidrath]

Would the engine require optimizing or the game? I don't get how the game couldn't be optimized for the engine to handle it efficiently.

I don't know enough about how the game is made to answer that. It could be that it's too big memory-wise, or has too many objects placed, etc.

If it were the latter, maybe it'd be possible they could remove all extraneous objects, effects, environmental details, little flavor animations, etc. and it would help?

But that's still a lot of work, and I would argue it wouldn't be the same game.

 

[gappvembe]

So I was holding out for Wii U (why I backed it), love the off tv play in bed.

I have both Xbox and PS4, is there any difference between (one better or worse... I know there shouldn't be), the two?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Sales-wise?

I don't have hard numbers, but almost definitely not.

Oof. I'm not surprised, though.

Vita cultists need to realize that yes, porting games to Vita is basically charity. xD

The game doesn't look all that impressive. It looks like it could run on generation 6 hardware easily...

The game looks like an upscale NES/SNES game (not saying that is a bad thing). It looks very similar in gameplay to the first Zelda game on the NES. In all honestly, it looks like it would have been a very good 3DS game if released on the platform.

Exactly, use another engine.

Holy shit.

The ignorance of these posters is infuriating to say the least.

 

[Theanine3D]

I take it the health problem is eye related based on Hyper Light Drifter's graphical style

The developer has a heart condition.

Criticizing the game is fine. Using a creator's illness or disability as a backhanded way to do so is an unbelievably scumbag thing to do. I'm astonished no one's called you out for this post.

 

[Ravidrath]

The developer has a heart condition.

Criticizing the game is fine. Using a creator's illness or disability as a backhanded way to do so is an unbelievably scumbag thing to do. I'm astonished no one's called you out for this post.

Oh, thank you for doing this - I meant to and got distracted by the other stuff.

 

[Galang]

Love this game, but the right choice was made honestly. Really wish I had backed it. I'm waiting to purchase the alt drifter as DLC still and I can't wait to see the other content as well.

 

[mob_skater]

So I was holding out for Wii U (why I backed it), love the off tv play in bed.

I have both Xbox and PS4, is there any difference between (one better or worse... I know there shouldn't be), the two?

I played it on ps4 and loved the game. I don't have any complaints about it.

Seeing all these comments about skipping it because of no vita port makes me sad. Sad because tons of people are gonna miss out on playing a really great game.

I too wanted it to come to vita because I love playing indies on the vita over ps4 but at the same time, if they cancel it on vita, I can still play it on ps4. I understand some people can't play it because they don't have an Xbox one or ps4 but for those that do and are skipping it because they cancelled it, that sucks.

 

[jacobeid]

The developer has a heart condition.

Criticizing the game is fine. Using a creator's illness or disability as a backhanded way to do so is an unbelievably scumbag thing to do. I'm astonished no one's called you out for this post.

Wow. What a terrible post, though I can't say I'm too surprised. Wollan called people autistic the other week and nobody gave a shit ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

HLD is my favorite game this year and Alex needs to take care of himself more than he needs to port the games to those platforms. His reasoning behind the cancellation is extremely well put and feels genuine. They are handling the situation perfectly.

 

[rackham]

A really shitty addition to this story is how Remote Play for the game is practically unplayable. The aiming and shooting is mapped to the touch screen which makes it impossible to actually aim and shoot and you CAN'T remap the controls to the shoulder buttons.

Why do developers do this? How hard would it be to enable button swaps for remote play? I know it's not a concern for most devs but considering how this was coming to Vita and now cancelled, I think it would be the only thing left for Heart Machine to do.

 

[charlequin]

Why?

Because people who were avoiding optimism would recognize that most Kickstarter games go a year or more over their estimate, that Wii U and Vita were both moribund and destined for end-of-life relatively soon, and that (approximately) no one would buy those versions outside of the campaign pledges. You almost certainly lose money on these kinds of versions, the benefit if you extract one is in brand name value and fan appreciation potentially translating into more success down the road. It's good if you can manage it using existing tools, but if your engine doesn't support it there's no conceivable way you come out in the black on doing it from scratch.

 

[jholmes]

Because people who were avoiding optimism would recognize that most Kickstarter games go a year or more over their estimate, that Wii U and Vita were both moribund and destined for end-of-life relatively soon, and that (approximately) no one would buy those versions outside of the campaign pledges. You almost certainly lose money on these kinds of versions, the benefit if you extract one is in brand name value and fan appreciation potentially translating into more success down the road. It's good if you can manage it using existing tools, but if your engine doesn't support it there's no conceivable way you come out in the black on doing it from scratch.

You're talking about September 2013, when the Wii U was 10 months old. Perhaps your mind was made up about it, but $100,000 says not everyone's was.

 

[Grisby]

Aw, hope the dev gets better. I beat HLD on the xbox recently and it was a ton of fun.

 

[charlequin]

You're talking about September 2013, when the Wii U was 10 months old.

I mean, if September 2013 was too early to know that the Wii U was a disaster from a marketplace perspective, I don't know how someone could possibly be held accountable for a promised piece of middleware failing to manifest as a result of the Wii U's market performance later on. If the premise is that Wii U still had a chance to be successful at the time then the cancellation is pretty much entirely on the system's failure.

 

[nakedeyes]

I am bummed, as I was waiting to play this on the Vita. But at least we got a heartfelt apology from the dev, and he has understandable reasons ( as someone who has helped put out games on all major platforms including vita and Wii u.. )

It always seemed bizarre to me when some of these kick starters would promise additional platform ports for ~50-100k stretch goals. It always didn't seem like enough cash to me for such small teams, unless there was some form of Carmackian wunderkund on the project

 

[FyreWulff]

Dev health is priority, but goddamn, if I was backing Wii U versions of games on Kickstarters you'd be prettty soured on KS by this point.

Really sucks that Yoyogames decided to not do what was needed to get on Wii U, but I'm also not surprised at all, considering how they've run GM since they took over from Overmars. I've always considered everything not the Windows version to be "tread lightly".

 

[Messofanego]

I take it the health problem is eye related based on Hyper Light Drifter's graphical style

WTF man. Oh, banned.

 

[FyreWulff]

Would the engine require optimizing or the game? I don't get how the game couldn't be optimized for the engine to handle it efficiently.

I can guarantee you Game Maker is the one that would need to be optimized. In case people might not know, Game Maker actually started as a 2D movie maker that was supposed to let you make animations ala Flash. It didn't even start as a game engine! The creator basically forced it to become one.

Since then there's a lot of weird stuff it does, totally unoptimized, but also made it hard to 'break' it and easier to use.. definitely a lot of legacy cruft. I've been using it off and on since 2003 and the jankiness has been persistent throughout.

 

[Caffeine]

I take it the health problem is eye related based on Hyper Light Drifter's graphical style

he has heart disease
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/07/how-a-lifetime-of-heart-disease-birthed-hyper-light-drifter/

 

[jholmes]

I mean, if September 2013 was too early to know that the Wii U was a disaster from a marketplace perspective, I don't know how someone could possibly be held accountable for a promised piece of middleware failing to manifest as a result of the Wii U's market performance later on. If the premise is that Wii U still had a chance to be successful at the time then the cancellation is pretty much entirely on the system's failure.

Well, the post I was asking about was this:

Any Kickstarter project runner with two brain cells to rub together would have run screaming from Wii U and Vita versions if they were being completely sober and honest about viability, so I guess the question is whether a world where no one ever claimed or attempted Wii U/Vita versions of anything is a better one.

So as I understand it, you first said the Hyper Light Drifter dev couldn't have had "two brain cells to rub together" if he committed to a Wii U port, because it clearly wasn't viable. But now you're saying you don't know how he "could possibly be held accountable" for the middleware falling apart, which you say happened because developing for the platform wasn't viable. Maybe I'm just not clear on this, but these arguments seem like polar opposites.

If you're just trying to stand up for the guy that's cool, but I'm not mad at him, I don't care about the game to begin with and it sounds like it's a crummy situation he's doing his best to make better. I just don't get some of the logic going on here, given how a lot of what's being discussed is blanket statements about Kickstarter projects.

 

[Yagami_Sama]

That's too bad, I was expecting to play this on my Wii U.

 

[charlequin]

So as I understand it, you first said the Hyper Light Drifter dev couldn't have had "two brain cells to rub together" if he committed to a Wii U port, because it clearly wasn't viable. But now you're saying you don't know how he "could possibly be held accountable" for the middleware falling apart, which you say happened because developing for the platform wasn't viable. Maybe I'm just not clear on this, but these arguments seem like polar opposites.

The context here is people complaining about developers dropping ports for failure systems that won't pay for themselves. For the Wii U, there was certainly some point after which it was clear this was the case -- start of 2014, probably, if not earlier -- and I would judge someone to have made a mistake to offer a Wii U port at any price after that point. For people who want to play games on Wii U, that wouldn't work out great either since the result would just be no ports of KS games, but it'd be safer and more responsible.

Before whatever timeframe that was, it was more justifiable to actually promise a Wii U port, but also more difficult to predict that something like their middleware failing in its promise to support the platform would happen.

Only the latter of these two scenarios is really exculpatory to making the initial promise. Both of them describe situations that are pretty bad for Wii U owners, but that's a consequence of it being a market failure that can't support significant revenue for these games.

 

[Shaanyboi]

My thoughts exactly. Some of these devs promise platforms or offer them as stretch goals and that encourages people to donate to get the project to that goal and usually there are other goals in between. Offering a refund it's the least they can do, but in my eyes, it's not enough.

The dev's health is failing, but apparently, your disappointment is the real injustice...

 

[ZombiePlatypus]

Sad to hear.

Hope the developer overcomes health issues.

 

[Yukinari]

The only review of this game i watched was on SuperBunnyHop's channel so correct me if this has been fixed but doesnt this game have performance issues cause of its engine no matter how good your PC is? Wouldnt this run just as bad on a Wii U/Vita?

 

[Purple Cheeto]

The game doesn't look all that impressive. It looks like it could run on generation 6 hardware easily...

In my experience it still takes an experienced team a couple of months to port an existing engine to different hardware. If this is one guy with no experience with that hardware I can see it not being a quick task.

And I bet there are porting studios that'd gladly port this to those platforms given the opportunity.

Porting costs money. Nobody is gonna port this for free.

 

[Candescence]

I don't know enough about how the game is made to answer that. It could be that it's too big memory-wise, or has too many objects placed, etc.

If it were the latter, maybe it'd be possible they could remove all extraneous objects, effects, environmental details, little flavor animations, etc. and it would help?

But that's still a lot of work, and I would argue it wouldn't be the same game.

The only review of this game i watched was on SuperBunnyHop's channel so correct me if this has been fixed but doesnt this game have performance issues cause of its engine no matter how good your PC is? Wouldnt this run just as bad on a Wii U/Vita?

Game Maker has a long history of shitty performance. That's one of the reasons why I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot-pole (various questionable design decisions aside). It's a good learning tool, but I wouldn't consider it a viable commercial engine, the good games have been released are in spite of that. Not that I'd knock anyone using it, of course, only a poor workman blames his tools and all, but when the tools really are poor you should probably be looking into better tools. Yes, GM is widely-used, but there are arguably better 2D engines out there. Well, could be worse, could be the absolutely outdated piece of shit that is Clickteam Fusion 2.5, which is only still around because it predates virtually everything else and still has a dedicated userbase.

Really, before you really commit to a specific game engine you need to take into account the various quirks and downsides for developing for said game engine and be prepared to work with them.