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A Sad Outcome

  • Fidchell
  • 11/02/2018 05:25 PM
  • 4102 views
I thought that I had a game plan for creating this project, but unfortunately things have fallen apart, and both Gibmaker and I have dropped Ruby Quest: Undertow. Now allow me to explain what happened.

The game was a huge, ambitious effort from both of us but it proved too much. Production started a few years ago and a lot can change in that amount of time. I'm talking real life stuff, and sure enough, things changed for both of us.

In Gibmaker's case, since the beginning of this game, he was in a bad spot. In a sense, both of us were, but Gib was fighting his own demons, struggling with an obsession in progress and not feeling like he was getting much out of life. Just recently he managed to find someone that gave him a different outlook and practically changed his way of living. He does not have time much to work on the game anymore, and this is a critical blow, as he is the programmer and debugger. Not to say he had absolutely no time, but work was going slower than it ever has been, and things were beginning to fall apart.

In my case, there were a few factors in my loss of interest for this project. Firstly, while we thought RMXP was a sufficient engine for the game considering Gib and I were familiar with it, the further we went into production, the more I was realizing this engine wasn't up to snuff. At the point where we are with the game, it's basically being held together with duct tape, bursting at the seams. We've pushed RGSS to its limits here, and have encountered countless bugs and performance issues that marred my vision of the game severely. I've come up with the prospect of switching to software like Game Maker or even Unity, but decided against it, as that would mean we would have to learn an entirely new engine, code structure, and interface. It plainly wasn't going to happen. Another factor is just how ambitious I was with the graphical style. There was simply way too much for me to make, so much that I started asking Gibmaker for help with tilesets.

In retrospect, it would have been wiser to make a bigger team, but I thought the two of us could tackle it by ourselves. It was a mistake, almost an impulsive decision without much planning (I didn't even create a full script/outline for the game's plot until we released the demo). That's a personal demon I have to fight myself, my impulsive nature. I heavily regret dropping this project, as I'm sure a lot of people were looking forward to our iteration of the popular source material. We apologize very much for how the production of Undertow came to a screeching halt.

All that being said, we won't leave you guys with nothing. We have a newer build with more maps and events. It's about halfway through the game, but we won't be making anymore of it. We will release this build for you guys, but as it is incomplete in many ways, there is a high chance you will come across bugs, but hopefully nothing game-breaking. This is the least we can do for you guys who were sticking around since the start. We hope it provides some fun in the wake of this saddening blog. It also contains all of the music we have planned to use for the game. We've also included a bunch of fun pictures/plans that we've created in the production of the game. The demo will end while you talk to Tom in the hallway upon returning from the second dark world. It is not a game-breaking bug, it is simply where we stopped working.

Thanks again for taking interest in our project. I can't say for sure if we'll ever work on a game again, but you guys are free to check my and Gib's portfolio of games if you're ever curious for more completed works from us. Thanks for reading!

EDIT: Because RMN is being stupid, I've uploaded the demo to Mega. https://mega.nz/#!erJUBCJA!3v_CTxZzvr3HzLdQ8bqi1RZPDbQZCdIIBS7409x14K8

Posts

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Ah, tis a shame, but understandable. (and RMN has a penchant for being stupid)
Thank you for what you've made.
This is really unfortunate news, but more than understandable given the circumstances. Thanks for you guys' dedication to this project all this time. :)

At the end of the day, you still have something solid to show for all the work you've done, and that definitely counts for something too.
You gotta do what's best for yourself as a dev, and sometimes that means putting a project down! I'm sure you learned a ton, and even if you didn't finish there's a good chance the work you've done here will benefit your future stuff (whether in gam mak, or having practice with broadly helpful Life Skills like scheduling/teamwork/communication)

Plus, even as a WIP project this got me to read ruby quest, which I loved, so thanks for being my introduction to that!
This hurts me, but, I'll give it a good send-off and play whatever is in there. Thanks for the good times
RMXP is kind of on its lasts legs. RMVXAce is probably not far from that. I sometimes think that RMXP will eventually become not just obsolete but incompatible with Windows. But I don't have enough time for moving to mkxp right now.

It's sad, yeah, but I guess you pondered this decision quite a lot. So I hope you do well in the future. Also if you and Gib are planning to keep on gammak, I suggest learning a new engine on the spare time, might be while working on something else. Also would help keeping an eye on the scope.

Anyway, wish you the best. Dunno a thing about Ruby Quest but I liked this game. I like things with heart and soul.
*laughs in RM2k3... and then cries and whimpers a little*
Since this is a fangame to an animation series by weaver, could I make a Ruby Quest game of my own. It’s a good story and I love it! So I hope you don’t mind me making one.
Since this is a fangame to an animation series by weaver, could I make a Ruby Quest game of my own. It’s a good story and I love it! So I hope you don’t mind me making one.
Sorry about spam. I accidentally did it because rmn was being slow so I thought I should click CONFIRM again.
It's just heartbreaking; but, again, situation is totally understandable.

Thank you so musch for everything you've created, this project was really good.

Still: somehow, I can't download new demo from the Mega either (your link just sends me to their main page). If it is no bother, could you please reupload it again?
Hope you'll see this message.

And, again, thank you so much.

UPD: Oh, forget the part about reuploading. Somehow, copying the link into new tab just worked.
Its really really sad to hear that, i played the game my self and i must say that it was an amazing enjoyment, and i got soo attached to the main characters,(Ruby and Tom),i wonder what would happen to them and how would they live or escape, it is really breaking my heart, but i do understand you tho, if u guys would ever decide to come back to this game, we all fans would be really happy about that, but if you do, it would be better to be more prepared for it, like getting bigger group and ext., we do love you soo much for what you have done so far and we wish you luck in your future projects, i believe that this would be one of the most greatest furry , puzle , horror game soo far, again we all love you guys and we apriiticate your time that was inserted for this game.(btw sorry for my grammar)
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