Bloodmane and CourierNPC, I think you misunderstood each other and have been arguing about 2 different things. So I wanted to add my 2 cents to both of you.
1- The difficulty of a Beat 'em Up from a technical perspective.
2- The difficulty to implement the ridiculous feature creep of PO from a content perspective.
First, I agree with Bloodmane that the "code was cracked" a long time ago on how to make a good 2.5D Beat 'em Up. From Technos' Renegade (1986), And Double Dragon (1987) to SNK's P.O.W (1988) to Konami's Crime Fighters (1989) and Capcom's Street Fighter '89 - aka Final Fight - (1989). They all lied the foundation on how to make great games in the genre, and dozens more great games followed during the 90s. After the 2000s the genre pretty much died out, but was recently revitalized by DotEmu with Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge. And a lot of "underground" great but unlicensed games using OpenBor like Double Dragon Reloaded or Final Fight LNS Ultimate.
Eromancer could have been smart and used OpenBor or any other existing engine but had to "reinvent the wheel" and do it from scratch. And the claims of "
this is so hard, we only have 2 programmers" after 4 years of "development" make you lose your shit. I understand and agree with you. Eromancer just can't deliver a playable game while Shin (from StudioS - aka Studio Shin -), a one-man-army, developed this:
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Alone, he did Fatal Fight in 13 months during 2011/2012. Does the game have excellent graphics? No. Does it have a lot of H-scenes? No, it has 6 female enemies and only 2 sex-scenes (all female enemies are skins of the same model). Does it have the best control responsiveness and hitboxes? No, it's quite average. Is it fun to play? HELL YEAH!
But to Eromancer's supporters, he doesn't count, because he's japanese. And making H-games is hard in the west somehow.
Second, I agree with CourierNPC that the project would need a lot more people to be completed, if the feature/content creep was under control. But it's never been. Eromancer can get hundreds of workers, but PO would keep getting more and more bloated.
An it's always been bloated, from the very beginning. This is Eromancer's "speech" when they stopped working on MatM from September 2018. Quote:
"The goal is to take part of the team and get a very fun and accessible side project built in Unity with a much smaller scope than MATM to you and to retailers ASAP. As it so happens, we currently have the golden opportunity to do this, as Steam has opened its doors to adult content. We all know that the adult game world is fickle, and that these doors of opportunity often close, meaning we have to make this move now. This in no way means we’ll sacrifice quality – it just means we’ll be very busy!
The game will take place in MATM's world, and act as an introduction to MATM's setting, the theme, the denizens of New Babylon, and even some of the characters.
It will require MUCH less overhead development time, and what you'll see in this update is from only two weeks spent on pre-visualization."
And only 2 months later, in November 2018, this "much smaller scope" "side project" that they wanted to release "ASAP" already had plans to implement 5 stages out of 7 and 6 different factions. Quote:
"Here are some ideas I have for potential stages. We will select the best 5 (or so) ideas to use for the initial retail release of the game.
- Streets (Splicers)
- Red Light District (Syndicate)
- Rooftops (Police)
- Junkyard (Machines)
- Sewer (Biomonsters)
- Prison (Errythang)
- Biomonster Nest (Biomonsters)
- Splicer HQ (???)
The enemy types shown aren’t exclusive to the levels – they’re just ideas for a theme where we could creatively introduce new enemies (or in some cases have maps that lend to enemies that require environments, such as water dwelling enemies or something). Feel free to add suggestions, as well as give me some ideas for environments that could work within these levels!"
And weapons. He wasted even more time planning and making concept art for weapons! Quote:
"
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. Weapons will be expendable like in other beat-em-up games. This means when a weapon’s ammo is spent or it breaks, you drop it and move on. Weapons can be found either in breakable containers or dropped by enemies that begin with them. Some enemies will actually be able to pick up weapons lying around, and other enemies will have specialized weapons that only they can use.
Here are some of the weapon ideas I’m considering:
- Katana
- Handgun
- Uzi
- Machine Gun / Heavy Machine Gun
- Throwing Knife
- Molotov / Grenade
The various guns would have different piercing/knockback properties, as well as special moves."
No amount of manpower would ever be able to deliver Eromancer's delusions. He must hire a lead developer capable of saying NO to the uncontrolable feature/content creep before any of his projects can ever get anywhere.
