This can best be quantified as a scam. I think it is time for a history lesson, and that will shed some light on my perspective. IT has been roughly 10 years it feels like, so my recollection may be less than perfect. Originally a game, Malise and the Machine existed. During development, I think they were using an old and heavily modified rpgmaker vx ace engine. It was before any of the modern rpgmaker versions on steam existed. The game looked neat and you could tell there was a lot of attention to detail. About a year-ish in the devs decided that they needed to shelve Malise and the Machine. I believe the reasoning was to learn more about developing in that archaic environment.
To do this, they launched what was meant to be a small side project. This small side project is what has now become Pure Onyx. I think some of the first released demos of Pure Onyx were released early 2021, though it feels like it has been far longer. All research points to their patreon scam being originated in 2014. I am not sure about exactly when, but I see figures starting at May 2015. As an aside, they were removed early 2024, so about 10 years on patreon between two games and not a single finished game. In the real world development studios get shuttered from this level of incompetence.
By the numbers, its been a minimum of 10.5 years between MatM and Pure Onyx. As the grannies said it best in one of those old 80's commercial. Where's the beef? (I think the 40th anniversary of that commercial was last year.) At this point people are at best being mislead by thinking a game might happen after 10 years. So far there are a decent number of animations and uhh.. Well, at least there are animations I guess! No voice overs, even though I remember there vaguely being a search 5-ish years ago for voice talent to use in the game. Guess no one on fiver really wanted to be bothered with that. Hell, give me a couple cases of beer and I'm ready to go. Can't be worse than karaoke night, right?
This rudderless ship has no direction to it, and I think that is part of the how and why everyone is content to be jerked around by the glorified animation creation. I really think that if someone took control and gave this group focus on going from start to finish in a linear path, then a game might emerge out of the muck. For now, everyone is getting scammed by the vision of what this could be. Not what it really is.
I am probably doing something wrong here, but for reference this is the graphtreon I am using as a reference:
You must be registered to see the links
