Unreal Engine Abandoned Project Elimination: The Forbidden Planet [Test version v0.55] [MATEYDEV]

[Whotfisthis]

Well I gotta agree on how impressive the dev's efforts are, although switching from some easy to load side-scroller to some Metal Gear-esque game that my devices could barely run would be a real bummer. Whatever he's making now really has potential

 

[PinkyFoa]

I am shocked that he shelved the side scrolling thing. It seems like such an easier design and huge ambition for a small dev usually stalls work so much the fanbase gets irked. We'll see how it plays out I hope it turns out great as a Patron obviously but its not the course I would have encouraged.

 

[FaerDear]

I am shocked that he shelved the side scrolling thing. It seems like such an easier design and huge ambition for a small dev usually stalls work so much the fanbase gets irked. We'll see how it plays out I hope it turns out great as a Patron obviously but its not the course I would have encouraged.

don't quote me on that. But it might not happen. Matey seems to be unhappy that people lose trust in him and might change things back and forth but he is still making a semi 3d game, he is trying out different concepts to see what fits the most.

 

[ПАВЕЛ КУЗЬМИН]

Perhaps I was in a hurry to praise the game too strong enemies and the girl runs out of health too quickly, so while it's far from ideal, this is only my opinion

 

[Alket]

I am shocked that he shelved the side scrolling thing. It seems like such an easier design and huge ambition for a small dev usually stalls work so much the fanbase gets irked. We'll see how it plays out I hope it turns out great as a Patron obviously but its not the course I would have encouraged.

He himself discussed on discord how the sidescroller project development was similar to a game in a full 3D perspective. The game's assets were 3D anyway, the transition to a different genre was a simple rework of the camera system...

 

[Alket]

Perhaps I was in a hurry to praise the game too strong enemies and the girl runs out of health too quickly, so while it's far from ideal, this is only my opinion

The version that you are playing was never intended to be balanced in the first place, it's a testing ground for mechanics and general gameplay, it lacks a lot of things, that's the reason why the dev didn't want it exposed to the general public. It's not a demo.

 

[FaerDear]

The version that you are playing was never intended to be balanced in the first place, it's a testing ground for mechanics and general gameplay, it lacks a lot of things, that's the reason why the dev didn't want it exposed to the general public. It's not a demo.

Don't waste time explaining. You'll get insane by amount of people still would come and discuss the game being not polished, not fair or boring even though it was never meant to be magnum opus in half of year work.

 

[ПАВЕЛ КУЗЬМИН]

I didn't mean that the game is bad, on the contrary, it has potential, but it needs a lot of improvements and so the game looks very cool, I just want to get updates quickly, but I understand perfectly well that it's very difficult to create such projects alone, I hope the developers will succeed

 

[Apahguinsimo]

He himself discussed on discord how the sidescroller project development was similar to a game in a full 3D perspective. The game's assets were 3D anyway, the transition to a different genre was a simple rework of the camera system...

I think you're underestimating how much work is involved in completely shifting the perspective of a game. It's not just camera work. Movement is now going to be 3D which is vastly more complicated than 2D up, down, left, right sidescrolling. The shift in perspective also brings the camera much closer to the player character and environment, meaning both need to be completely redesigned for more detail. Detail is not as important when the camera is always 50ft away and off to the side of every 3D asset, as would be the case in a sidescroller.

It should be mentioned this dev has never finished a game, and has abandoned every one of them part way through development to jump on some new project. When I played this game's demo and liked it I remained apprehensive because of the developer's history of not finishing projects. Then in December we get an update saying a hard drive failed and data was lost, which was super sus. Couple weeks later, new game that looks totally different. I get this feeling that the dev gets an idea and runs with it until he gets a new idea, then abandons the previous and moves on to the next.

My biggest gripes with it going from side scroller to 3D shooter are that 1) a 3D shooter is much more complex to develop than a sidescroller, and thus has a much lower chance is being finished and 2) this dev has already made a 3D shooty game that he abandoned. Yeah - not opimistic but I'll still follow.

 

[Alket]

I think you're underestimating how much work is involved in completely shifting the perspective of a game. It's not just camera work. Movement is now going to be 3D which is vastly more complicated than 2D up, down, left, right sidescrolling. The shift in perspective also brings the camera much closer to the player character and environment, meaning both need to be completely redesigned for more detail. Detail is not as important when the camera is always 50ft away and off to the side of every 3D asset, as would be the case in a sidescroller.

It should be mentioned this dev has never finished a game, and has abandoned every one of them part way through development to jump on some new project. When I played this game's demo and liked it I remained apprehensive because of the developer's history of not finishing projects. Then in December we get an update saying a hard drive failed and data was lost, which was super sus. Couple weeks later, new game that looks totally different. I get this feeling that the dev gets an idea and runs with it until he gets a new idea, then abandons the previous and moves on to the next.

My biggest gripes with it going from side scroller to 3D shooter are that 1) a 3D shooter is much more complex to develop than a sidescroller, and thus has a much lower chance is being finished and 2) this dev has already made a 3D shooty game that he abandoned. Yeah - not opimistic but I'll still follow.

I'm no game developer myself so I have absolutely no idea what shifting from a 2D to 3D perspective actually entails, I just reported, maybe a bit too roughly, what emerged from a far more detailed discussion on the Discord channels.

Also, I just want to point out that, about your (and many others) suspicions about the dev's intentions or honesty, you are totally within your rights to be suspicious, I will not argue with that, it's more than understandable. I would be too, but in the past months I've had more than a few chats with him and I believe that he has no mean intention, the first shift of project was due to the complexity of the work coupled with the lack of funding, this one is due to a honest mistake with the backup management that he has already "taken responsibility for"...my words are worth nothing, I know that, I just wanted to type that down.

 

[randomguyspain]

Does this game have cheats or at least a way to dodge attacks?. I cant pass the first area. The moment i get knocked down i get chain grab until i die
Thx

 

[StevieJobs]

The majority of supporters gave him the alright to do it. The side scroller slapped in all, but there are plenty of us that wanted his first games style. So with the loss of data we were asked in the discord for opinions and it looks like this is the route being taken.

Personally, I don't mind the change as each time he shifts or a few months pass they get better and better and the games improve quality wise insanely fast. We're pretty much back to his first game with much better models and and a dev with much more experience from what they learned over the last 6 months.

While I'd suggest that everyone decide what is and isn't worth supporting on their own, this is EXACTLY how supporting developers work. It's support, not a buy in to get something in return. You make the decision to support them with no binding contract that obliges the developers to produce results.

If you feel their results aren't up to your standards you simply unsub, but this is how optional support systems work. You aren't paying them to create whatever they're working on, you are supporting them while they work on whatever they're making and whether or not they finish it is up to chance.

This dev has a 15 dollar lifetime goal so if you paid max support for 2 months you would get access to anything they produce at the finish line. Less than a pizza in cost. I could think of worse gambles to take.

Fair enough, thanks for laying this out for everyone to read, not all devs are like this. We will see with time where everything lands.

 

[Apahguinsimo]

I'm no game developer myself so I have absolutely no idea what shifting from a 2D to 3D perspective actually entails, I just reported, maybe a bit too roughly, what emerged from a far more detailed discussion on the Discord channels.

Also, I just want to point out that, about your (and many others) suspicions about the dev's intentions or honesty, you are totally within your rights to be suspicious, I will not argue with that, it's more than understandable. I would be too, but in the past months I've had more than a few chats with him and I believe that he has no mean intention, the first shift of project was due to the complexity of the work coupled with the lack of funding, this one is due to a honest mistake with the backup management that he has already "taken responsibility for"...my words are worth nothing, I know that, I just wanted to type that down.

I believe what you say about the developer having no ill intention, and I can even believe that the developer himself believes there was no ill intent. However, I have to suggest that maybe one of the reasons why there is a lack of funding is because the developer has proven unable to settle on a single vision and see it through to a finished project. The hard drive failure may be genuine; the developer's regret over the failure may be genuine; but I cannot shake the feeling that even if there is no malice, the drive failure was taken as an opportunity to move on to a new idea rather than see the old one through. Given that the last project was abandoned and unfinished, why would I trust the dev to see through this larger and more ambitious idea?

Chasing "new" is a major thing on not just patreon but marketing in general, and new and exciting projects often bring a short-term influx of new patrons. We're all imperfect and some devs are drawn to the renewed excitement they get from announcing something brand new, rather than an update on something ongoing. An act of god like a drive failure frees a developer to move on to something new, but each time they move on without finishing what they started, they alienate followers who liked what was left behind.

This game was constantly compared to Alien Quest EVE. That game took 3 years for Grimhelm to make and it was a painful time for them. But they stuck with it and now we have a great and memorable sidescroller to end all sidescrollers. This dev clearly has talent and I wish they would just pick something and stick with it. Learn the technology they are working with, learn how to use it to make good level design and fluid animations. And also use some of that patron money to buy a second drive and back up their stuff.

 

[tomwilliams9911]

Hey, as another one of his patreons, I get the suspicion. Especially with all that's happened with Eromancer and similar devs. Because there's a lot of scams and abandoned projects all over the place, easily more than there are actual finished games.

I'm still supporting Matey. Because it's really not that much money out of me (as someone who can afford a few dollars a month) and he's proved one of the most communicative and hard-working devs out there, and produces some really good quality stuff. Like, out of all the potential projects that have existed on this site, his are easily amongst the best. Better than Pure Onyx or Malaise and the Machine, and many other projects that rake in thousands more than him.

Also (for those who need telling, because there is someone), remember this most recent version that y'all talking about is a test version that someone leaked. This was never intended for non-patreons to play, the purposes for which are to test the mechanics and provide feedback on them (and find bugs). It's not supposed to be considered a finished product or even a demo. It's literally just an internal testing thing. That's why the mechanics aren't perfect and the layout is a bit weird and things like that. I do agree with comments saying it's flawed, it definitely is. But I'm just saying not to hate on it so much.
Besides, it's a moot point now. The sidescroller is gone, may it rest in peace.

Also also, I just want to say it was the general wish of his patreons and discord members to move to a 3d game rather than continuing to be a sidescroller, by quite a large margin. So please don't accuse him of chasing the hype when this change is literally what people asked for. He got burned by a drive failure and couldn't recover most of the stuff, had an idea and people said 'let's do that instead'. Also, if you want to argue technicalities, this project isn't abandoned, it's just changing to being something very very different (hence why it's a rebuild, even if it might as well be). That said, neither is his other project abandoned. It's going to be his main project, it's just on hold, because he needs money to work on it, hence this game.

Just FYI. Hope this info clears some things up

 

[Shirobine]

I certainly wouldn't consider Alien Quest Eve memorable. The animations are great but the game itself is mostly a glorified ACT gallery like many others in the past. I'd consider it a demerit to be associated with that H game unless it's vastly improved. Also least we not forget, even creators that have successfully finished H games before like Kyeriyu with Eroico and Kurovadis ended up losing steam eventually, entropy exists for everyone and everything. Meanwhile creators like Hound of Blade or meteor or whatever is on his 3rd H game attempt now(?) and he's still being supported for his WIPs.

 

[69ztare]

Just played it.
I'd talk of the game's problems, like the lots and lots of game blocks (no way to go), bugs, and so on.
But reading the last posts, gotta wait for more. Especially because it looks like we gonna have huge changes.

 

[clamp360]

So is this the final version of this game that we'll ever get? Still not clear on whether the new project is "this game but in 3d" or a new game entirely.

 

[elmicho]

looks cool

best of luck to the dev!

 

[smithsmithsmith]

Oof, with the change of direction this now looks like another game for the "check back in five years" folder. Full 3d games really don't seem to be practical for solo projects.

 

[6DarkRaven9]

Hope this one won't get abandoned like Section 7 then.