5pillarsstudios

Current State of Things

Added 2020-03-05 04:51:56 +0000 UTC

Today has not been a good day for the team and, through it, the community. This is going to be a long, and somewhat painful, read. I apologize for that but I feel I have to say this.

Let me start at the beginning.

In December, 2018, a legal adviser who had helped me, and the team, through a bad situation with someone taking and distributing game assets without permission, informed me that the creators of the Pokemon games were making moves at the start of 2019 that would jeopardize the future of Pokemorph. I sat on that for a bit before informing the team. I wanted to make sure I had a proposal ready to go for when I told them we were shelving the project to start on something new, something that was our's, something that we wouldn't have to worry about copyright issues or deal with anything related to another, much more renown, company. Tierwäch was born.

I voiced some concerns at the time, mostly that it took us nearly 5 years to complete (optimistically) 15% of Pokemorph. I wanted to move away from treating the project like a hobby and more like a game design team that was focused on getting the project out. We had 5 years of experience together, it was now time to officially make that transition.

We had a good push for the first few months, then things slowed a bit as our narrative writer was also working on, and struggling with, the engine. Our most recent programmer joined the team in late May/early June but on the condition that he didn't start until after his last college break in roughly August/September, which was agreed upon. I don't how much was completed over the summer, likely just some art, background lore and a little bit of spritework. When the time came, the programmer informed us that he was still busy but would begin working on it as time permitted.

Months would pass with little progress on all fronts. On October 30th, after seeing things moving sluggishly in nearly a year, I issued an ultimatum and challenge to the team at the time: either step up and help make Tierwäch a reality or step down so that we can find those that would. I acknowledge and admit I could have handled the situation better but the team pulled through in the end. Our only loss at that time was our narrative writer who left due to creative differences in how the Tiers came to be when we re-approached the story. The rest of the team agreed upon what was needed to be done in order to get production moving again.

At my pinnacle of business, I was coming home from 12 hour shifts, Monday through Saturday, working construction and renovation, only to spend time drawing or writing, with a day or here or there where I would come home, eat and pass out. Still, I averaged one or two hours a night to working on the game, most nights. I told the team that if they didn't have the same level of passion, it was time to go. If they did, then they needed to show the same commitment by either dedicating 1 hour a day or 5 hours a week to the project, with more if they could manage. Again, the team made it seem as if we were in agreement to that. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, I eased back for the holidays with the clear intention of hitting the ground running in early January.

During this time I tried to learn programming and spritework myself in order to bolster those sections, burning out a few times in the process. I also used this time to hammer out the details for some of the routes to start building the base map for the game.

February 11th I touched base with the team to see where everyone was at and what progress had been made. Very little, almost no progress at all, had been done. Very little art, very little sprites and, come to find out, very little on the engine since September. Months of time we could have seen productivity wasted and gone. The programmer was asked to resign from the team. That same day I reached out to someone who had assisted us with Pokemorph and offered to pay him to finish the engine for us. He declined payment and said he'd do it pro bono but said he would not be rejoining the team. I made the announcement of the engine shortly after his assessment of what needed to be finished.

Also on the same day I told the team that I was going to try to launch a kickstarter to help pay for the assets we really need for the game as I could not afford them out of pocket. These included a full time programmer (since the other one wasn't going to join the team and we need someone to help build the game itself and maintain the engine), a sound and music tech, a narrative writer to translate the story into the game, an animator and possibly another artist. Possibly getting a 3D artist as well. Not to mention pay the current team for their work so far. Even if I didn't see a dime of the money myself, I want to do what I can to ensure that Tierwäch is up and running sooner, rather than later.

In lieu of doing so, I started working on the wiki page to help showcase the lore and story we've built so far, to help support the kickstarter.

Today, March 4th, I discovered that our spritemaster had disappeared without telling anyone. Hoping for some good news, I reached out to the programmer. He was surprised to get a message from me and admitted that he had attempted to ghost me without letting me know he was no longer working on the engine. His reason is two part. First, he saw the kickstarter as me being greedy and nothing more than a cash grab, despite me outlining why exactly we needed the funding. Second, some of the members of the team had been complaining to him about recent treatment, namely in that I started cracking down on them to get away from the hobbyist mentality, only working on bits of the game every few months when it was convenient for them. Apparently they feel I've been treating them as nothing more than tools, stepping on and over them in trying to milk money out of a game that hasn't even entered a production stage yet.

In short, he burned me a second time. There's no engine coming, again.

Tl;dr version:

We've faced a lot of setbacks this last year. We've taken blow after blow, with the most painful of these coming over the last few months. We've said goodbye to friends and colleagues we've been working with for nearly 5 years now as well as some who have come and gone from our projects in shorter periods of time. To all of them, I can only send my heartfelt apology, tell them good luck, godspeed and may you find your true passions in the world.

There are some daunting obstacles ahead for this project but I, personally, remain steadfast in my commitment to seeing Tierwach come to fruition. Not because I will it, but because you our community and supporters who continue to back us and encourage us to press on.

With that said, a big thank you should go out for those who have added us and our former team members. Not only to them but also to those who have really stepped up and been vocal about the game and their support within the last month.

DoomRPG, Huskya, Linkadion, miyto, Nick, Powered and all others who have taken the time to share their input, suggestions and criticisms. Thank you all for being here and helping uplift, not just the game and the team, but also on a personal level with myself. Thank you, so much.

For the rest of the community, as always, thank you as well for your continued support through these rough times. Tierwach may not be here tomorrow, or likely any time soon, but you all will help see to it that it's made one day.

Again, thank you all so very much. You are all greatly appreciated.

Dapper Gent
Team Lead of Dark Impulses
Project: Tierwäch

On a final note, if you have any suggestions on how we can go about finding much needed additions to the team, I would be indebted to you.

We need the following: