- Aug 2, 2019
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gruff my beloved....It's amazing you guys still keeping a tab on it.
Tell me, how can you expect a dead game that nobody "actually" working on to get new contents?
- Thread starter 7767
- Start date
- Apr 3, 2020
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I don't mean to be rude, but have you actually paid any attention to the updates over the last few years?
Let's look at Krane, one of the most recent characters to have a night updated. I'll start in august 2018, because I got tired of scrolling back on the patreon.
August 2018 - "More Krane". At this point people were already fed up with the barebones double updates.
October 2018 - "Krane night 9 complete". This states that everything until the start of night 9 is finished.
October 2018 - "Krane night 10". Double update on the same day. Night 10 currently being worked on.
July 2019 - "Krane night 9". Nearly a year later, an update to a night that he stated was already finished.
November 2020 - "Krane night 9 into night 10". More than a year later, supposedly adding in what he stated was already done in 2018.
December 2020 - "Krane night 10". Supposedly a lengthy update.
December 2020 - "Krane night 10". Supposedly a similar sized update to the last one.
April 2022 - "Krane night 10." More than a year, unspecified amount of work. Given his track record, we can assume nothing of note was added, if anything at all.
May 2023 - "Krane changes." Nearly a year, unspecified update.
September 2023 - "Krane night 10". Unspecified amount of work. At this point, Krane has been sitting on night 10 since 2018.
May 2024 - "Krane night 6". In 2018, everything up to night 10 was finished. Why are we back in night 6?
Let's look at Alin in the same period of time.
October 2018 - "Alin night 6 Changes". He decided to redo night 6 completely. Stated the next update would add to night 6.
November 2018 - "Alin night 7". Updated the very next day. He said it would be to night 6, not 7.
July 2019 - "More Alin". Given Bane's track record, we can assume nothing substantial.
August 2019 - "Night 7 all gaps filled in". He states that night 7 is finally done.
September 2019 - "Alin night 8". Update the very next day. Thanks to Cascatass we know these two updates were a lot of nothing.
September 2019 - "Alin night 8 some more". Unspecified amount of work done. Apparently he's focusing on Alin 'a whole bunch'.
October 2019 - "Alin night 8++". Next day update again. Thanks to Cascatass, we know this is barely an update.
October 2019 - "Night 8". Supposedly the night is finished, and only new stuff will be added from now on.
November 2019 - "Alin night 9". Next day update. Thanks to Cascatass, we know it's another barely update.
November 2019 - "Alin night 8". Additions to the supposedly finished night.
December 2019 - "Alin night 9". 8 Next day update, Alin updates in a row. According to Cascatass, another unsubstantial update.
May 2021 - "Alin night 8". More than a year later, he's updating a night that he stated was finished. At this point he stopped public comments on the patreon so that Cascatass couldn't point out how little he was doing.
December 2021 - "Alin night 9 changes and additions". With Bane, changes and additions tends to mean nothing of note was done.
April 2022 - "Alin night 9". Unspecified update.
November 2022 - "Alin night 8".
December 2022 - "Alin night 9".
June 2023 - "Alin night 9". Alin's route has been stuck on night 9 since 2019
November 2023 - "Alin night 8". Updates to the night that he stated was complete in 2019.
April 2024 - "Alin night 8". At this point, we know that Bane has been just changing the version number and calling it a day for some updates.
Your average author spends around 6 months to write a novel. Bane has been 'working' on some of these nights for 5 years, yet despite how much is supposedly added, each route is barely progressing. Because he isn't actually doing anything. We know this. We've known it for the better part of a decade, because Bane isn't hiding it, and anyone who actually does the effort to go look can see what he's doing.
Opinions on the story is subjective, but I will say that a lot of the art for the game is really good. All the scenes done by Darkgem are good, because Darkgem is an amazing artist. But, the game hasn't received any new art from Darkgem since like 2017 when they officially dropped the project because of what Bane was doing. Yet they are still listed as the current artist on the Patreon. The sprite/background artist is anonymous, as far as I know, but if they still contribute to the game, it happens very, very infrequently.
If you want to support a furry horror vn, then I highly suggest you give this one a pass. Bane cares so little about the game that the patreon still links to a vn project that died like 7 years ago.
If you genuinely believe in Blackgate, and Bane, then by all means, play the game, support him, even join the patreon if you want to help fund development. All I'll say is that there's plenty of reasons that almost all of his patrons left.
- Dec 13, 2017
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Great synopsis!
It was good to mention the lack of artwork/assets. This was one of the many indicators that Bane was not interested in Blackgate. No new art from commissions, not even any new music (which they created themselves).
Zero time or money invested anymore. Only the bare minimum. That way the victims can keep coming and Bane can pick their pocket twice a month until they finally notice.
I did say the updates may or may not be substantial, as I'm planning on actually playing and see it for myself. I don't need a detailed list of every single update to know the develpmental cycle took a huge nosedive when the project was put on an indefinite haitus that lasted years, can't recall the exact reasons as I was not the guy took pay attention to social media at that time. As for the artits still being credited, even if they aren't any longer the current artits, it's always good to mention all artits involved unless they don't want any credits/mentions. Finally to answer your first question, no I haven't. I only saw it was being updated again about a year ago and decided to wait and see what's going on. Not sure if it's just bane left in this project and if bane is the last person then slow updates are understandable, while they may or may not be huge ones no one can say there's 0 updates.
TLDR I'm aware that updates aren't huge, but they do exist, and I'm planning on playing it soon to see what's changed. This game was on haitus for years and I'm just glad it still has a chance to finish, even if it's just 1 person
Or it could be that it's just one person left who doesn't have the time to create all that. Also there's no "victim", the supporters know where their money is going and at any time they feel like droping the project they can. Updates and notes are publicly available, so unless they're blind and stupid.
- Dec 13, 2017
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Nope. It has always been one person, Bane. Artwork was commissioned by Bane with the money provided by patrons. He did the music himself.
The supporters know where their money is going? That's not true at all. As I said, anybody visiting the patreon will believe Bane is actively developing the game. He is not. Those "publicly available" notes are bogus, I'll refer to Minamimoto104's post as to why.
But hey, you seem to have your mind made up already. Don't bother listening to those who watched this VN spiral into nothingness over the last 7 years.
- Aug 2, 2019
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I agree when it was actually making money he could have gotten an editor, ghost writers, he had darkgem as his lead cg artist and this Mr.E fellow as a sprite artist. Instead of making the effort to make sure his VN was in decent condition he adds pointless routes even though the game was chock full of them before that, began scamming people via double updates and you'd get a 50/50 chance if there was anything actually in them to the point there would be people coming in the comment sections decompiling the game to tell patrons what was actually added in. Now it's just endless Night 8 and Night 9 "updates". Honestly this game is the reason why im so wary of supporting any VN/Game project on patreon.
- Jan 29, 2019
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There are always people like to say these Totally stupid "Hot Takes", ignoring the facts, doesn't even bother to do any research, on topics that don't affect their own benefits (I bet $1 he hsn't ever supported Blackgate what-so-ever), to show they are "different", or "better than the rest of you".
There's really no point to argue with them. No matter how many Graph or Evidence or Fact you show, they won't even bother to take a look at all.
When first started Blackgate did do some amazing works, that's why it got where it was.
Just hv no idea why the sudden shift of the mind of the dev. I initially thought it's a "dev group drama, departure leads to abandon". Unfortunately it's worse, just a tale of "a talented dev got corrupted by money".
Why he decided to abandoned the project while go extra mile to keep gifting money, instead of putting those effort into "actually workin on the game". Heck even if he just do 50 words' "Actual Work" per month, we would've still got somewhere so many years later. (Look at Kingsguard )
Heck, at this rate, ChatGPT or any Generative AI would do better job than Bane himself. Or he is already using it for his "Changelogs".
While Blackgate is not the main reason why Crowd Funding gets so distrusted, it's still among them.
Luckily "word of mouth" does some good work (even on a site like this), so worthy projects still poppin off, just a lot harder because of bad actors like Blackgate, or Could Meadow.
Remember, there'll always be new batch of stupid people to scam every year, if that's what you choose to do.
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- Apr 3, 2020
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The game never went on a hiatus. It updates more frequently than when it was actively being developed. You can go look at the patreon and you'll see that there is absolutely no pause in the update schedule, and no announcement from bane on patreon or any other site that the game was on hiatus.
Also, Blackgate's artist publicly distanced themselves from the project because of what Bane was doing (Double updates hours apart, almost no content per update). Bane ignored any and all criticism, so Darkgem had to deal with it. Many other vns have had artists step away for various reasons. Look at Lustful Desires and Zoroj. They announce the change. Bane didn't. Darkgem is still listed as the current artist. Darkgem was also commissioned to do pieces, not hired as a part of the team.
Same thing happened with the editor he hired. Bane ignored the fallout, and the editor had to deal with everyone's anger. I remember some people saying that the update sizes were getting smaller because of the editor, and they had to make a public statement that, not only were they no longer working on the project, they also barely got given anything to edit. And they were only in the picture for a handful of months.
Blackgate's current 'team' is the same as its always been: Bane.
I think very many people will disagree with you there. Bane communicates nothing, so no one knew where the money was being used. Everyone assumed it went to art, then there was no new art. Also, many people never received any of the bonuses that Bane promised, such as access to livestreams. There's also the question of people who paid for their characters to be added to the game, for many months, and Bane just flat out ignored them. Almost everyone DID drop the project, because of Bane. The updates are public, yes, but often he pushes updates to patron without changing links, so even his patrons can't access the supposedly brand new builds until he remembers to change the links. The update notes are deliberately vague. 'Person updated' is not a patch note. It's barely a patch announcement.
It's because of people giving him the benefit of the doubt that he gets away with what he's doing. Is there more content now than there was? Probably. I'd hope so, seeing as it's been updated twice a month for the better part of a decade. Even if it's only a handful of lines per update, that should be hundreds of lines of text by now. If there's more, and it's good, that's great for the people who still hold out hope for the game. If it's not good, then that sucks, but isn't at all unexpected either.
If you do try it, let us know how it is. I'm curious to know what state the game is in now.
- Apr 3, 2020
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You must be registered to see the links
Apparently that's the most recent windows link, according to the patreon.
Maybe it's nostalgia but having not touched it for 6+ years i find it crazy that there's so many awkward and grammatical errors, like, i can't believe he's had so many years of "revision" only for there to be backwards progress
Definition of 'update'
1. verb
If you update something, you make it more modern, usually by """adding new parts""" to it or giving new information.
He was back in the office, updating the work schedule on the computer.
Airlines would prefer to update rather than retrain crews.
...an updated edition of the book.
Synonyms: bring up to date, improve, correct, renew
2. countable noun
An update is a news item containing the latest information about a particular situation.
She had heard the news-flash on a TV channel's news update.
...a weather update.
...football results update.
3. verb
If you update someone on a situation, you tell them the latest developments in that situation.
We'll update you on the day's top news stories.
I would just update them on any news we might have.
Synonyms: brief, advise, inform, report to
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, if you consider """adding new parts""" as to change only the version number of the VN...
Yes, Bane is doing a lot of """updates"""
1. verb
If you update something, you make it more modern, usually by """adding new parts""" to it or giving new information.
He was back in the office, updating the work schedule on the computer.
Airlines would prefer to update rather than retrain crews.
...an updated edition of the book.
Synonyms: bring up to date, improve, correct, renew
2. countable noun
An update is a news item containing the latest information about a particular situation.
She had heard the news-flash on a TV channel's news update.
...a weather update.
...football results update.
3. verb
If you update someone on a situation, you tell them the latest developments in that situation.
We'll update you on the day's top news stories.
I would just update them on any news we might have.
Synonyms: brief, advise, inform, report to
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, if you consider """adding new parts""" as to change only the version number of the VN...
Yes, Bane is doing a lot of """updates"""
- Apr 3, 2020
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I started checking version 0.187, and till version 0.203 is all the same, nothing new (the zip file is the same size every update 1KB up or down)
In version 0.204 there is a new background (low quality image 800x600 - 97KB) and a few words changed here and there (didn't counted them, but looked like 5-10 words). And from there again, version 0.205 and version 0.206 the same size without changes (he only change the version number from one build to another)
I always use 'VS code' to compare files, it has an option to highlight changes between two files, marking not only changes but also things added or removed
- Apr 3, 2020
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So in the last 10 months of updates, he's pushed 20 updates that in total added a background and a dozen or so words.
That's honestly not surprising, but still shocking.
I still don't understand why he's doing all these meaningless "updates", is it just to keep those few patrons who don't care at all or simply forgot they are still subscribed? Is it really Bane who's still messing around with the game's script every month or is it somebody else?
- Aug 2, 2019
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Possibly a mix of they're holding on to hope bane gets his shit together and start working on this project again, or they forgot. Bane aint gonna stop with the "updates" as long as people are paying for this shit.
- Jan 29, 2019
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A better question: Why not?
It's Free money without doing any actual work.
It doesn't matter if it's still Bane or someone else, What matters is Blackgate is dead, it won't come back.
I agree, Blackgate is dead. It's still a shame though because how promising the game was. I'm not sure if the scummy double dipping behavior started before are after Bane reportedly fell into a depression seven years ago but it's still very strange given the amount of time that has passed. If he's really seriously ill and hasn't sold his patreon to some scam artist he probably really needs help.