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Project Phoenix - Gearing up to "finish" Project Phoenix

Sumio Mondo

Sumio Mondo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,932
United Kingdom
Remember that "revival of JRPG" game that started last gen then disappeared into the ether?

The game still hasn't started development! But apparently it will now.

Dear backers,

2018 was quite a busy year for our team and I apologize for the lack of communication. We have been working to establish a foundation for Project Phoenix to begin building the project from the ground up.

We're currently cultivating the programming team, but before we're able to fully recommit to Project Phoenix, we're working on titles independent of this project. Since we currently only have a small team, we will slowly work to increase its size and capability. They will be working on other projects to develop the tools, systems, and pipelines needed to proceed with Project Phoenix.

Until then, we will begin doing what we can by reworking concept art, as our original designs have aged somewhat. Here's a concept our artist, Go Takahashi, worked on recently.

ad2064045175059f1d6cf70a914de232_original.jpg


We're also bringing on six in-house artists led by Takuya Suzuki, previously a Senior Environmental Artist at Blizzard Entertainment, as well as Erasmus Brosdau, a former Art Director at Crytek. They will start creating world assets sometime later this year and work on finalizing those designs. Once those assets are complete, we hope to have our programmers ready to take on the task.


Lastly, Mr. Uematsu is still involved with Project Phoenix. He has already submitted parts of his music and we are in discussion on how the remaining music production will work around his recovery. Thank you to everyone who has expressed concerns, well-wishes, and support for Uematsu-san's health and well-being, and we're with you in wishing him continued strength and success.


We will be answering questions to the best of our ability, but please note that we're doing what we can with the limited resources we have at the moment. Our current operation expenditure all comes from what we've earned from other projects and I hope you can see we are doing our utmost to bring the project together.

Hiroaki Yura - Director / Producer of Project Phoenix
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Did a search and didn't see anybody posting this. The comment section is a snake pit.
 
Risev

Risev

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,415
Assholes took money from backers and then Went on to work on other games. Every once in a while they promise again that they're just about ready to work on the game again, go for a few months without a word, and then send out another message that they're just about ready to start work again.
 

Deleted member 2254

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
21,467
Sucks for backers as the devs were intentionally muddy about what they were working on, using the backers' money to develop a completely different game, parking this project. It's the risks of crowdfunding, but I'd be wary of giving them any faith in the future for sure.
 
Liam Allen-Miller

Liam Allen-Miller

Member
Nov 2, 2017
6,811
Shibuya
Honestly takes a lot to bungle your KS game, ship another game to raise money and still want to come back to the original game (especially given the somewhat understandable hostility towards them from folks). Wish 'em the best, as always. Would rather something come late than never at all.
 
Lucreto

Lucreto

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,640
I back it for $60. It was the last thing I backed all those years ago. Never again.
 
AlexFlame116

AlexFlame116

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 17, 2017
23,182
Utah
I had $250 dollars to back a project and it was between this and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero.

Super glad I chose Shantae.
 
JudgmentJay

JudgmentJay

Member
Nov 14, 2017
5,220
Texas
This and Ghost Song were my first two kickstarter pledges. I hope Ghost Song comes out some day. Couldn't care less about PP at this point.
 
cyrribrae

cyrribrae

Chicken Chaser
Member
Jan 21, 2019
12,723
Liam Allen-Miller said:
Honestly takes a lot to bungle your KS game, ship another game to raise money and still want to come back to the original game (especially given the somewhat understandable hostility towards them from folks). Wish 'em the best, as always. Would rather something come late than never at all.
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lol. this is all quite sad, but yea I agree with you. They obviously mismanaged, but it's not like this is unique to Kickstarter development - which tends to have even worse likelihood of success when you have a static lump of cash and an ever expanding raft of costs to pay with it. "Using the money to fund a different game" is definitely something that would give people a bad taste.. but in the grand scheme of things, if you don't have enough money to make the game, you can either 1) make 70% of a game and release nothing or 2) make 10% of a game, use the money to make 100% of another smaller game, take those profits (if there are any) and reinvest them into making 100% of the original game several years later than expected. (Or some combo of eventualities). None of these are particularly attractive options, but hey.
 

Deleted member 2317

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,072
JudgmentJay said:
This and Ghost Song were my first two kickstarter pledges. I hope Ghost Song comes out some day. Couldn't care less about PP at this point.
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I honestly think Ghost Song has been straight up lapped multiple times in the metroidvania realm, and have little hope of it actually being fun to play.

Never again Kickstarter. Let others fund the FTLs, I'll buy them when they release.
 
justiceiro

justiceiro

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
6,664
Is this that game that were grabbed by a different studio after the original ran with everybody money?
 
Titan81721

Titan81721

Member
Feb 20, 2019
1
Tokyo, Japan
I know it may be weird for me to post here, but this thread caught my attention.
We've been given a lot of abuse on Kickstarter with Project Phoenix, but truth be told, we've actually given reports on how we spent the money, and shown what we've done in our updates. We've made a Vertical Slice and explained why couldn't finish the game - referring to our Programmer we lost due to Ori and the Blind Forest being so successful and with c.$870,000, it's not enough to get a team of Programmers, make all the assets we've planned and record all the music.

We made TINY METAL and its sequel with money garnered from investors and publishers. We've shown proof to several media of our banking details and contracts as to where we got the money to develop this. The first game sold well, but not well enough to create Project Phoenix. We hope this upcoming sequel will do well enough to make Project Phoenix enough to gather more investments from outside sources.


Now, Go Takahashi, the Art Director for Project Phoenix wants a redo of the design for Project Phoenix as too much time has passed his first concept. I also run a separate company working on CG in Japan for other AAA titles and films which is doing well, and plan for them to help us with Project Phoenix also. We are slowly trying to get Project Phoenix to give momentum to develop again.

It is my fault, our initial start to Project Phoenix tripped over, but we're not giving up on this project. I know I've made some backers mad over this but I just want to put it out there that there is nothing sinister nor did we syphon money for something else.

Again, excuse my sudden appearance here, and I know a lot of backers would want me to answer questions on the Kickstarter page, but the amount of abuse and the same questions being thrown around there is phenomenal. Thanks for reading.
 
Verelios

Verelios

Member
Oct 26, 2017
14,877
I completely forgot about this. Now? I'm not really that invested in it coming out. I'll just chalk it up as a $20 donation for my mental health.
 
Strings

Strings

Member
Oct 27, 2017
31,419
justiceiro said:
Is this that game that were grabbed by a different studio after the original ran with everybody money?
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Nope, that's Unsung Story, the Playdek SRPG that had some Matsuno scripts and design docs. It's actually going surprisingly well now that Little Orbit have picked it up. They have consistent updates and everything.

Huge one from 2 days ago: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/littleorbit/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians/posts/2524318
 
Feep

Feep

Lead Designer, Iridium Studios
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
4,602
Titan81721 said:
I know it may be weird for me to post here, but this thread caught my attention.
We've been given a lot of abuse on Kickstarter with Project Phoenix, but truth be told, we've actually given reports on how we spent the money, and shown what we've done in our updates. We've made a Vertical Slice and explained why couldn't finish the game - referring to our Programmer we lost due to Ori and the Blind Forest being so successful and with c.$870,000, it's not enough to get a team of Programmers, make all the assets we've planned and record all the music.

We made TINY METAL and its sequel with money garnered from investors and publishers. We've shown proof to several media of our banking details and contracts as to where we got the money to develop this. The first game sold well, but not well enough to create Project Phoenix. We hope this upcoming sequel will do well enough to make Project Phoenix enough to gather more investments from outside sources.


Now, Go Takahashi, the Art Director for Project Phoenix wants a redo of the design for Project Phoenix as too much time has passed his first concept. I also run a separate company working on CG in Japan for other AAA titles and films which is doing well, and plan for them to help us with Project Phoenix also. We are slowly trying to get Project Phoenix to give momentum to develop again.

It is my fault, our initial start to Project Phoenix tripped over, but we're not giving up on this project. I know I've made some backers mad over this but I just want to put it out there that there is nothing sinister nor did we syphon money for something else.

Again, excuse my sudden appearance here, and I know a lot of backers would want me to answer questions on the Kickstarter page, but the amount of abuse and the same questions being thrown around there is phenomenal. Thanks for reading.
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You took money from people and then failed, utterly and absolutely, to make anything of note. $850,000? Do you know what a competent developer could do with that? And you were telling people $100,000 was enough, that you'd take that and make a real game of it. You received over eight and a half TIMES your requested amount, and you could only make a vertical slice?

I believe, I suppose, that it was gross incompetence and not outright criminal intent to mismanage the project so spectacularly, and that's as charitable a view as I can give you. As someone who has funded and completed two Kickstarter games, I'm sorry, I have very, very little sympathy. Your project is one of the greatest embarrassments in Kickstarter gaming history, and you hurt all developers through your actions.
 
Thorzilla

Thorzilla

Member
Oct 28, 2017
690
lol

(That's basically all I can come up after 7 years of waiting and a yearly update promissing the same crap).
 
CHC

CHC

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,246
Titan81721 said:
I know it may be weird for me to post here, but this thread caught my attention.
We've been given a lot of abuse on Kickstarter with Project Phoenix, but truth be told, we've actually given reports on how we spent the money, and shown what we've done in our updates. We've made a Vertical Slice and explained why couldn't finish the game - referring to our Programmer we lost due to Ori and the Blind Forest being so successful and with c.$870,000, it's not enough to get a team of Programmers, make all the assets we've planned and record all the music.

We made TINY METAL and its sequel with money garnered from investors and publishers. We've shown proof to several media of our banking details and contracts as to where we got the money to develop this. The first game sold well, but not well enough to create Project Phoenix. We hope this upcoming sequel will do well enough to make Project Phoenix enough to gather more investments from outside sources.


Now, Go Takahashi, the Art Director for Project Phoenix wants a redo of the design for Project Phoenix as too much time has passed his first concept. I also run a separate company working on CG in Japan for other AAA titles and films which is doing well, and plan for them to help us with Project Phoenix also. We are slowly trying to get Project Phoenix to give momentum to develop again.

It is my fault, our initial start to Project Phoenix tripped over, but we're not giving up on this project. I know I've made some backers mad over this but I just want to put it out there that there is nothing sinister nor did we syphon money for something else.

Again, excuse my sudden appearance here, and I know a lot of backers would want me to answer questions on the Kickstarter page, but the amount of abuse and the same questions being thrown around there is phenomenal. Thanks for reading.
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I'm not really sure what you are looking to hear from people on this forum if you are indeed involved with the project. The project received amost 10 times its goal 6 years ago and today, you are still talking about making concept art. The whole spectacle has just been sad to watch.

As someone who runs a company yourself, think about if you hired someone to manage a project, allotted them ten times what they said they needed to do it, and every time you stopped by their office they just had a list of excuses about how they weren't able to do what you hired them to do because of X, Y, Z reasons. You would fire that person on the spot.

And since you bring Tiny Metal up, now imagine if that employee you hired had been working for another company, making a separate product, during the time that you were expecting them to do the job you hired them to do. And then picture them saying "well sorry boss, couldn't finish the job you were paying for, but look at THIS!" as if that was any help whatsoever. You'd probably want to do worse than fire them at that point, right?

Truly I do not wish you any additional stress or anguish over the project and I am not trying to be vindictive, but surely you have to understand how all of this has looked to backers. At this point it would be a mercy to cancel it and just apologize rather than continue with the delusional updates and transparently false optimism. Be honest with yourself in assessing the likelihood that this game can be finished if you are still talking about concept art six years into it, please.
 
Poppy

Poppy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,273
richmond, va
at least my kickstarter funds have given me all these delightful little jokes that appear in my spam box every several months, but if they're going to be posting their flop sweat laden responses here on era i feel like i am losing out on some value
 
Hailinel

Hailinel

Shamed a mod for a tag
Member
Oct 27, 2017
35,527
Well, the twists in this thread make a fine caffeine substitute, let me tell you.
 

mclem

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,456
Strings said:
Nope, that's Unsung Story, the Playdek SRPG that had some Matsuno scripts and design docs. It's actually going surprisingly well now that Little Orbit have picked it up. They have consistent updates and everything.

Huge one from 2 days ago: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/littleorbit/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians/posts/2524318
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Yeah, I've been rather pleasantly surprised at the turnaround on that one. Who knows if the resulting project will be good - , but it really does appear that Little Orbit really are pushing and working hard.
 
Booki

Booki

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,865
Brooklyn
Sure, okay. It's not like I have anything to gain by wishing ill on a product I threw money at 5+ years ago. Do whatever y'all gotta do to make the best game you can.
 
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CaviarMeths

CaviarMeths

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,655
Western Canada
I'm surprised there hasn't been a class-action lawsuit against these people yet. I know Kickstarter isn't responsible for failed projects, but the fact that they straight up have nothing to show for nearly a million dollars except some concept art and a "vertical slice" should require a full discovery.
 
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Renteka-Bond

Renteka-Bond

Chicken Chaser
Member
Dec 28, 2017
4,271
Clearwater, Florida
Titan81721 said:
I know it may be weird for me to post here, but this thread caught my attention.
We've been given a lot of abuse on Kickstarter with Project Phoenix, but truth be told, we've actually given reports on how we spent the money, and shown what we've done in our updates. We've made a Vertical Slice and explained why couldn't finish the game - referring to our Programmer we lost due to Ori and the Blind Forest being so successful and with c.$870,000, it's not enough to get a team of Programmers, make all the assets we've planned and record all the music.

We made TINY METAL and its sequel with money garnered from investors and publishers. We've shown proof to several media of our banking details and contracts as to where we got the money to develop this. The first game sold well, but not well enough to create Project Phoenix. We hope this upcoming sequel will do well enough to make Project Phoenix enough to gather more investments from outside sources.


Now, Go Takahashi, the Art Director for Project Phoenix wants a redo of the design for Project Phoenix as too much time has passed his first concept. I also run a separate company working on CG in Japan for other AAA titles and films which is doing well, and plan for them to help us with Project Phoenix also. We are slowly trying to get Project Phoenix to give momentum to develop again.

It is my fault, our initial start to Project Phoenix tripped over, but we're not giving up on this project. I know I've made some backers mad over this but I just want to put it out there that there is nothing sinister nor did we syphon money for something else.

Again, excuse my sudden appearance here, and I know a lot of backers would want me to answer questions on the Kickstarter page, but the amount of abuse and the same questions being thrown around there is phenomenal. Thanks for reading.
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I respect that you decided to come in here and try to tell your side of the story but, honestly, as a layman, I really don't care anymore. 6 years later and all you guys have is concept art? Fuck off. The team deserves the 'vitriol' (apathy and regret is not abuse) it's getting for the massive failure that this project is.

Basically, refund backers or go away. You've done nothing to inspire any sort of faith or trust in this and you deserve no sympathy.
 
Hektor

Hektor

Community Resettler
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,884
Deutschland
Bumping this thread to point out that it's been a year* since this update with no new updates since again

to the surprise of no one

*Despite this thread being posted in june, the update came in march
 
waugh

waugh

Attempted to circumvent ban with an alt-account
Banned
Feb 21, 2020
1,401
They really should just cancel this project at this point. Backers can't get anymore mad at this point.
 
Jegriva

Jegriva

Banned
Sep 23, 2019
5,519
I am still trying to understand how many backers has still not asked refunds.

This game is gone, put your mind at ease.
 
Lunchbox

Lunchbox

ƃuoɹʍ ʇᴉ ƃuᴉop ǝɹ,noʎ 'ʇɥƃᴉɹ sᴉɥʇ pɐǝɹ noʎ ɟI
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,548
Rip City
I remember telling my friend about this 2013 & how it might be the first thing I ever backed, I didn't back it & still haven't backed a thing :P
 
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