Chapter 4: Page 101
The immediate danger has passed and Rhosyn has a new crossbow–but OH NO, looks like the group’s come across a pretty unfortunate dead end! Not necessary a problem for the tamian in the group, but Dakkan and the ermehn trio don’t exactly possess the same command over vertical surfaces that the tamian scouts do.
Things have been a little quiet on the Western Deep front as we transition into the holiday season, which our longtime readers know is always a tricky spot for us given our real-world jobs and responsibilities, but we’re excited to share more pages and more developments on War of the Western Deep in the coming weeks and months.
A quick status update on that is deserved, I suppose!
After a phenomenal showing at PAX West with crowds so deep the PAX enforcers had to organize them to prevent blocking the aisle, we’ve had some productive conversations with publishers, but our eclectic mix of swordplay and exploration has proven a hurdle for the conventional adventure publishing crowd.
Aaaand our emphasis on classically animated 2D characters (not just hand-drawn animation, but some of the most sumptuous and time-consuming hand-drawn animation one can do) has proven a hurdle with “cutting edge” publishers more interested in AI-driven art pipelines than what we’re doing–which I suppose is almost the complete opposite of what they’re looking for.
Despite all this, we do still have several paths forward! We’re in the process of shoring up some of the existing content in the PAX demo alongside building out the full introductory sequence to the game–the result of which will be a continuous 45-60 minute demo that we’ll plan to release on Steam hopefully sometime late next year (2025).
If we don’t have a publisher or financing lined up by then, we may start exploring reducing the game’s scope so we can look at a crowdfunding campaign. Either way, we’ll keep you all updated no matter what course we explore.
As always, thank you for your support, and we’ll catch you at the next page!
I guess this is where the boss battle really begins!
*Blade from Suikoden 3 OST starts playing*
‘ …our emphasis on classically animated 2D characters (not just hand-drawn animation, but some of the most sumptuous and time-consuming hand-drawn animation one can do)…’
Disappointing (but, I suppose not surprising) to hear of publishers who are so dedicated to cost cutting they are pursuing a policy of removing the human factor from art*.
As a counterpoint it’s good to know painstakingly animated video games still (occasionally) come out like Cuphead or The Eternal Life of Goldman. How did those developers secure funding?
*Which is, obviously, not possible.
The story of Cuphead’s release is a whoooole thing–the creators basically risked their entire livelihoods to finish it, quitting their day jobs and maxing out loans (I think one of the creators even mortgaged his house??) so that could have gone VERY sideways for them if Microsoft had been unable to help them. As for Eternal Life of Goldman, the studio has some prior games released to its name and a publishing deal with THQ Nordic–which… I don’t know what they’re up to after the Embracer shenanigans, but that sounds precarious to me. And the game looks heavily inspired by Ducktales, mechanically, which is easy to understand at least. War of the Western Deep being an adventure game with combat–the last major hit to fit that niche was Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP.
Still, we find a LOT of folks at publishers who love it… it’s just that it doesn’t neatly slot into a publisher’s portfolio. But we’re gonna keep looking!
Thank you for the in-depth answer. Needless to say, I hope you don’t have to mortgage your house or run the risk of being ‘Embraced’* to make the game you want to make.
*I still can’t believe they actually called it ‘The Embracer Group’. Sounds like corporate cult from a Cyberpunk game. Come to think of it they also act like a corporate cult from a Cyberpunk game.