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[foxuzamaki]

I was always confused at the idea of these far away games getting Wii U ports, like Bloodstained last year.

Cause these games do well on WiiU, why would they not put it on WiiU?

 

[frankie_baby]

Armature? They'll be fine. Heck, they'll probably port it to NX.

A digital Wii U game won't have a market in mid to late 2017 (or 2018) when this game launches.

There'll still be probably be more Wii U owners than nx owners when it releases, including people who have already paid for their copy

 

[foxuzamaki]

Things still get ported to the Wii U?

This is neogaf, not gamefaqs, go back to that place if your gonna make such a stupid joke.

 

[ephemeral garbage]

But the fact they never bothered to check before whether the game would run on Wii U is definitely Nintendo's fault, good point.

It wasn't supported at the time they started development, but the engine vendor told them that it would be ready by the time they launched. How would "checking whether it runs on Wii U" have helped them again?

 

[SatoAilDarko]

Bloodstained was logical? It actually uses a fancy engine that isn't native on the platform, and it's coming out after the Wii U will be replaced.

Armature? They'll be fine. Heck, they'll probably port it to NX.

A digital Wii U game won't have a market in mid to late 2017 (or 2018) when this game launches.

It's a physical game as well published by Deep Silver. Also a Vita version is planned and Wii U is more more alive than the Vita in the US.

 

[ZoddGutts]

It's a physical game as well published by Deep Silver. Also a Vita version is planned and Wii U is more more alive than the Vita in the US.

Not that it's saying much.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

They'll do refunds if they can't get the game on the Wii U and a backer doesn't want another version.

We'll work on refunding for Wii U if it comes down to canceling and people don't have another platform they'd prefer it on

 

[frankie_baby]

It wasn't supported at the time they started development, but the engine vendor told them that it would be ready by the time they launched. How would "checking whether it runs on Wii U" have helped them again?

Maybe by checking things in the 2 years inbetween then and now

 

[outunderthestars]

Things still get ported to the Wii U?

Like the Vita, the Wii U has a small but very active userbase that is hungry for games.

 

[EDarkness]

It wasn't supported at the time they started development, but the engine vendor told them that it would be ready by the time they launched. How would "checking whether it runs on Wii U" have helped them again?

There were no guarantees. It didn't work then and doesn't work now, so they should have had a contingency plan. They shouldn't be surprised it doesn't work many years after the fact, because it has never really worked. The fact that they weren't prepared is what's baffling to me. If they were seriously going to release a Wii U version, then they should have had a plan ready to go.

 

[DrArchon]

They'll do refunds if they can't get the game on the Wii U and a backer doesn't want another version.

Great of them to leave that open as an option for backers. I hope most people don't take advantage of this (either because they get the Wii U version or decide to switch) but it's super nice of them to offer it.

 

[Symbiotx]

I assumed the whole game was in limbo at this point

Why would you assume that? It's nearing its release on schedule for all other versions.

 

[jholmes]

But they did check if the game would run on the Wii U. They were told the engine would be supported, but now it's not. This isn't their fault at all. What more do you want from them?

There's nothing they can do now, although they ideally should've figured this out a great deal of time ago.

I don't agree with this idea that they're great guys for doing this. They took in a lot of money, and this post is not much of a mea culpa. It would look better on them to wear this and take some responsibility for letting down their backers. They didn't make the engine, but there's no excuse for dropping this news so late (they were aiming for a June 2014 release) without so much as using the word "sorry".

 

[frankie_baby]

Great of them to leave that open as an option for backers. I hope most people don't take advantage of this (either because they get the Wii U version or decide to switch) but it's super nice of them to offer it.

Super nice? No it's pretty standard, if they weren't gonna offer refunds then it'd be Fucking disgusting

 

[OrbitalBeard]

There'll still be probably be more Wii U owners than nx owners when it releases, including people who have already paid for their copy

Oh, I'm sure there will be. But most of those Wii U owners aren't going to be actively buying games in 2017 / 2018 for the platform.

To be fair, I forgot Deep Silver was publishing this at retail, so that may make a Wii U version more likely, even at such a late date.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Given how long Hyper Light Drifter has taken to developed I kinda read the game itself being "in Limbo" :/

I think people are so used to the typical game schedule (which generally announces games when they're mostly done) that they feel like Kickstarter games take forever since they're often announced near the beginning of development. If HLD comes out this year, it'll have taken about 3 years to make which though not fast, isn't really abnormally long when it comes to game development.

 

[Joqu]

There were no guarantees. It didn't work then and doesn't work now, so they should have had a contingency plan. They shouldn't be surprised it doesn't work many years after the fact, because it has never really worked. The fact that they weren't prepared is what's baffling to me. If they were seriously going to release a Wii U version, then they should have had a plan ready to go.

Yup. The support wasn't there at the time so they should have been prepared to port the game through other means if official gamemaker support didn't work out. If this wasn't feasible for them they should have never promised a Wii U port to begin with.

 

[Fancy Clown]

Why would you assume that? It's nearing its release on schedule for all other versions.

I was not aware it even had a release date yet

 

[GhostTrick]

I think people are so used to the typical game schedule (which generally announces games when they're mostly done) that they feel like Kickstarter games take forever since they're often announced near the beginning of development. If HLD comes out this year, it'll have taken about 3 years to make which though not fast, isn't really abnormally long when it comes to game development.

To be honest, most Kickstarter announce a tentative release date before being funded. June 2014 for Hyper Light Drifter for exemple.
Heck, even Cosmic Star Heroine had December 2014. I don't know how Kickstarter works, as if Kickstarter gives you a maximum delivery date, like 1 year or 2 year. But I think that most Kickstarter shouldn't give such early dates if it takes that long.

 

[ephemeral garbage]

There were no guarantees. It didn't work then and doesn't work now, so they should have had a contingency plan.

It looks like the contingency plan was to announce the Wii U version is delayed. Do you guys have any idea how much money and time it takes to port a game to another engine? On a $650k total budget, for a single non-primary platform? I don't blame people for asking for refunds if they really only wanted the game on Wii U, but imo having a "backup engine" is unrealistic.

 

[outunderthestars]

I think people are so used to the typical game schedule (which generally announces games when they're mostly done) that they feel like Kickstarter games take forever since they're often announced near the beginning of development. If HLD comes out this year, it'll have taken about 3 years to make which though not fast, isn't really abnormally long when it comes to game development.

This is an excellent point.....

(Now get off of GAF and finish CSH)

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

To be honest, most Kickstarter announce a tentative release date before being funded. June 2014 for Hyper Light Drifter for exemple.
Heck, even Cosmic Star Heroine had December 2014. I don't know how Kickstarter works, as if Kickstarter gives you a maximum delivery date, like 1 year or 2 year. But I think that most Kickstarter shouldn't give such early dates if it takes that long.

Yeah, I feel really bad for setting that date. I don't know what I was thinking, expecting that we could make a much bigger & more advanced game than ever before while also creating a brand new engine from scratch and do it in not much more time than our previous games had taken.

With HLD though, they had a Broken Age situation where the amount of money they got was exponentially higher than what they had asked for ($645k with a $28k goal) so they increased the scope to match.

 

[EDarkness]

To be honest, most Kickstarter announce a tentative release date before being funded. June 2014 for Hyper Light Drifter for exemple.
Heck, even Cosmic Star Heroine had December 2014. I don't know how Kickstarter works, as if Kickstarter gives you a maximum delivery date, like 1 year or 2 year. But I think that most Kickstarter shouldn't give such early dates if it takes that long.

I haven't messed with the Kickstarter website in a while, but I remember it not allowing a vague release date. It required a number to be put in so I guess people go with optimistic when setting those dates, even though odds are they won't make it. If I could have just said "undetermined" or something, then I would have done that for my own Kickstarter. Oh well, just kinda how it works out.

It looks like the contingency plan was to announce the Wii U version is delayed. Do you guys have any idea how much money and time it takes to port a game to another engine? On a $650k total budget, for a single non-primary platform? I don't blame people for asking for refunds if they really only wanted the game on Wii U, but imo having a "backup engine" is unrealistic.

Yeah. I do. But if they just need it ported, I have a kit, some free time, and would do it on the cheap. I'm sure some other groups would do it, too. Having a backup engine should have been in the cards from the very beginning since Gamemaker didn't work on the Wii U and there were no guarantees it would. Luckily, there are other engines to use and Nintendo has a program to provide Unity for free as well. It wouldn't have taken much to get started on something all those years ago. It what they should have been doing.

 

[Joqu]

It looks like the contingency plan was to announce the Wii U version is delayed. Do you guys have any idea how much money and time it takes to port a game to another engine? On a $650k total budget, for a single non-primary platform? I don't blame people for asking for refunds if they really only wanted the game on Wii U, but imo having a "backup engine" is unrealistic.

People aren't saying a backup engine would have been realistic. People are saying they shouldn't have offered a Wii U version if such a thing wasn't realistic.

 

[fernoca]

It looks like the contingency plan was to announce the Wii U version is delayed. Do you guys have any idea how much money and time it takes to port a game to another engine? On a $650k total budget, for a single non-primary platform? I don't blame people for asking for refunds if they really only wanted the game on Wii U, but imo having a "backup engine" is unrealistic.

Keeping in mind that when they announced the Wii U version, it was a stretch goal to $550k.

Then on 2013 they announced the Wii U version for Summer 2014.

Said contingency plan should've been there the moment they set the original 2014 release date and missed it.

And I understand many things can go wrong, but you can't drag a game nearly 3 years and set different release dates; just on promises and ideas.

They're doing an amazing work on this game, but the handling of this issue was a bit bad. Wii U never supported Game Maker so whatever they were told in 2013 that made them expect a 2014 release...which never materialized on consoles, should've initiated a backup plan.

 

[ephemeral garbage]

People aren't saying a backup engine would have been realistic. People are saying they shouldn't have offered a Wii U version if such a thing wasn't realistic.

IMO, it was realistic to believe their engine vendor when they promised it would work on Wii U before ship. I guess that's just more of an informed opinion than anything else though, so carry on!

They're doing an amazing work on this game, but the handling of this issue was a bit bad. Wii U never supported Game Maker so whatever they were told in 2013 that made them expect a 2014 release...which never materialized on consoles, should've ininiated a backup plan.

This is totally fair. I'm guessing they contacted Yoyo and got more assurances, and then since everything else was slipping anyway (and their focus was more on finishing the game than anything else), it made it easy for them to give Yoyo more time, especially if they didn't have the budget or time for an engine port. This is pretty baseless speculation at this point, though, driven mostly by sympathy (I've worked on a third-party port to another platform while the main game was still in development and it was a hideous logistical nightmare that eventually failed.) It just sucks that it hasn't worked out.

 

[CHC]

Definitely too bad but I do imagine that this a "dozens of us" type situation. Or at least I would hope so, I don't want either side to get burned too badly by this.

 

[Joqu]

IMO, it was realistic to believe their engine vendor when they promised it would work on Wii U before ship. I guess that's just more of an informed opinion than anything else though, so carry on!



This is totally fair. I'm guessing they contacted Yoyo and got more assurances, and then since everything else was slipping anyway (and their focus was more on finishing the game than anything else), it made it easy for them to give Yoyo more time, especially if they didn't have the budget or time for an engine port. This is pretty baseless speculation at this point, though, driven mostly by sympathy (I've worked on a third-party port to another platform while the main game was still in development and it was a hideous logistical nightmare that eventually failed.) It just sucks that it hasn't worked out.

Yeah I'm not really mad or anything, like I said I believe them when they say they were given that information and they'll be offering refunds if needed so it's no disaster. But I do think it's disappointing that's all they were depending on, I don't think I would have been confident enough to consider that port anything but a maybe. Not when you're dealing with a crowdfunding campaign and especially not to make it a stretch goal.

I mean it's good they're saying they'll be able to offer refunds but that by no means would have been a guarantee back then.

 

[exmachina64]

I assumed the whole game was in limbo at this point

Updates on Kickstarter are fairly regular.

 

[Astral Dog]

Yeah, that one's baffling. Calling it now, Bloodstained's not coming to Wii U.

But..i got the Wii U version ordered 😟

 

[jacobeid]

This is neogaf, not gamefaqs, go back to that place if your gonna make such a stupid joke.

I guess you haven't been in any of the Street Fighter threads then

In regards to the OP, the devs are being transparent and it doesn't seem like they can do more than what they're already doing or have done already. I'm just curious to know the release date for the other platforms.

 

[@MUWANdo]

IMO, it was realistic to believe their engine vendor when they promised it would work on Wii U before ship.

It would also have been realistic to believe it wouldn't work on Wii U long, long ago.

 

[jariw]

GameMaker ports were discussed on GAF a couple of weeks, regarding Undertale:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1179902

Apparently, Abstraction Games are specialist at porting GameMaker projects natively to Wii U, using their own technology "GameBaker".

 

[Bulbasaur]

Surely it can't be that hard to port it? We did put a man on the moon you know.

 

[Wyndstryker]

GameMaker doesn't directly port to the Wii U. It can port to HTML5 which can be ported to the Wii U but it gets complicated and messy.