Sorry to hear that, man. I hope things get better for you.

Like i said in the other thread my biggest gripe is that you make nothing of the different traditions of artwork that existed between SNES and SFC when there is so much potential to really make the releases shine.

Dude - that's exciting! ^_^ It looks great!

sorry to hear this, siv. good luck!

When will you create a new game?

Yeah unfortunately Sivak is busy with other things and won't be a part of this project anymore. lt was awesome working with him, and we really hope he we can work together on another NES project in the future. He left on great terms, and just needs to focus on "real life" for a bit.

Regarding this project, we have another programmer lined up. This game has been in development for well over a year, but things are taking great shape. We have changed the title to Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayans. We are also developing this game for the Nintendo eShop and modern platforms as well. In addition, we will be holding a contest when this game comes out for the modern consoles for winners who can win a very limited edition version of this game for the NES. I'll share more details as they come.

Anything new? Will all these games be available to purchase from the collectorvision website? Thank you

Anyone?....

I just emerged from my cryogenic chamber. Does Microsoft Kinect dominate the gaming industry yet and are there any updates on this project?

Almost three years later and still not a single word from the developers.

Not only is it pretty ridiculous that such a generally small game even requires that much time to begin with, but they don't even bother to declare the end of the project and give us the reasons.

But don't worry, the other NES game is of course still "in development":
www.collectorvision.com/shop/nes/...

Yeah, sure.

At least this shows us how to NOT announce a project.
I'm also currently working on a game, but I will surely refrain from making any big video announces or advertising campaigns or list the game in my publisher's portfolio until at least 90% of it is actually finished.

This looks sweet!

Still waiting on my NES copy. It's been in development hell for too long.

Yeah, definitely the worse company, or whatever group of people involved. I didn't back this one, but the other SNES version and they say they will receive the shipment on February 16 and ship to backers, but after countless empty promises, can't trust anything they say with the updates. Really sucks as the game looks enjoyable.

4 years is not unreasonable for any large scope NES game (though maybe this one stalled out?). I think I might be the only person in the scene who knew this BEFORE releasing anything, lol, but as more and more large scope (by which I roughly mean: lots of graphics and levels content that scroll) games come out, it becomes clearer and clearer that number is approximately par for the course. So don't pay attention to anybody's estimates that are a lot lower than that; they are likely always wrong.

I'm excited about Justice Beaver btw, and not surprised it is taking the time it is taking. This title looked cool too.

Good to know. Makes it a lot more reassuring now.  

 

Yeah, if there was any word from the developer that they're still working on it. But nothing. Literally nothing in years.

It doesn't matter that a game might take a few years. This in itself is not a problem if the developers keep updating people about the status. But they didn't. They announced a game, created a Kickstarter campaign (that doesn't exist anymore), then never mentioned it again.

Face it: This project is dead.

I'm not quite sure where you are getting this information from. I've been casually following the project for a while now, and they do in-fact give updates to the games' progress. Here for example is a KS update talking specifically about the NES version's development: https://www.kickstarter.com/proje...

And even just by clicking on the video in the update I found the channel from the man who is specifically developing the NES version, and he talks about it in this video: 



It's only a couple months old too. Anything but dead if you ask me.

You're asking me where I get the "information" that the developers give no updates? Seriously? How do you prove a negative?

And the project that you're referring to: That's "Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death". (A game that I mentioned separately in a previous post.) This thread here is about "Sydney Hunder and the Mayan's Revenge". Totally separate games.

You cannot remove a project from Kickstarter, so there is no foul play there. So far as I recall, this one never went to KS or IndieGoGo (like Justice beaver did), and funds were never collected for it. They did collect funds for NES/SNES versions of Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death, and also Justice Beaver for the SNES.

No need to get all hot and bothered over a project that never took funds, unless you are just bothered that someone announced a project that they have yet to complete. They are nothing special if that is the case though, we all have those projects.

O.k., I must have misremembered the Kickstarter thing.

Also, I'm not hot and bothered over it. I merely wrote a snarky comment because I happened to stumble over this thread and remembered the game.
Every following posts are just me talking with the people here.

And regarding "we all have those projects":
Not me. When I do a project, I make sure not to do any big announcements until most of the stuff is actually finished.

There's a difference between writing a post in a forum asking people if they could read the game's story to find any plot holes or asking for proofreaders for in-game texts.
And contacting countless websites to announce the production of a new game and making videos about it, even though you merely have a rudimentary version of the game engine, two or three sample screens and one character sprite.

I wasn't aware that there were multiple Sydney Hunter games. Hense why I pointed out the kickstarter (as you mentioned that they removed the kickstarter). That's what I was referrring to about "this information". I can't keep up with all the name changed, I just assumed they changed it again from Mayan's Revenge, to Curse of the Mayans, and then Caverns of Death. 

Anyways, Did a little more digging and found a video from Gamester81. The NES game has been fully translated into a game for modern consoles it seems, and it doesn't sound like they are doing the NES version anymore.



 

Maybe it will be interesting again when (if!) they actually publish it for real.

Although I must say that I'm not really impressed: They wanted to do a game for an actual retro console and now they're doing...a modern game with retro graphics.
Erm, yeah. Great! So, basically what every retro lover does.

Also, they're still apparently doing the "Caverns of Death" game for the NES (ans SNES?) and that one isn't out yet either.

So, the organization is still a mess: Trying to do a bazillion games at once, not delivering any in time.

Well, apparently the SNES version of Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death will be released very soon. In this video (dated Oct 2017), the developer of the game (Alekmaul, a SNES genius dev) shows the final version of game, including the cartridge. The cartridge is shown at 3:30, while the gameplay is shown at 11:40. You'll also see a "in developement" version of the megadrive version of the game. And last but not least, there is few images on the SNES versions of "Sydney Hunter and the Sacred Tribe", another game in the series.

This actually confirms my complaints and doesn't disprove them:
So, they're finally managing to publish one of the promised three games. After almost three years when the release date was 2015 or 2016.

And what are they doing after only managing to release one of three games with a delay of two to three years? They're already promising a shitload of other games.
Yeah, they'll do the NES port and they'll of course do a Genesis version and of course they'll do a whole new game and let's not forget that game for the modern consoles.
All while the publishing process of the one game is again going on for four months.

When will all of these games finally have come out? 2030?

Many homebrew developers simply have no clue about time and resource management. They simply want too much at once.

That "Mystic Searches" team has the same problems:

That guy didn't know anything about programming before he started, but of course you cannot start with a little arcade game. No, it has to be a full-blown "Zelda"-like action adventure.
(Then he runs out of ROM space after designing nine screens and later he has to redo the whole source code from scratch because it's such a mess. Well, of course. When I started programming in 2001, my codes also weren't very pretty..)

Then they wanted to program a modern platform game in parallel, with mechanics to exchange data between the two games. Of course, nothing came out of that.
Then they released a prequel demo game that shows me that the game still needs much, much polishing, even this late in the development cycle.
Now, instead of finishing the game, they want to finish the NES Maker first and with every new feature of that tool, they have to rewrite "Mystic Searches" because they want the game to comply to the tool.

It wouldn't be such a big deal if people did this silently in their rooms. But these people always have to inform the whole internet about it, making videos, starting Kickstarter campaigns, getting news sites to report about them. Even hiring writers to lay out a story for them, only to realize that the writer's text file is many times larger than the whole ROM.

Here's a hint: If you're working on a game, don't do any big announcements until you're absolutely sure that the game is finished enough so that it will definitely see the light of day in the next 12 months, cartridge, box and manual and everything ready for sale.

Well, as they said, the final 20% of a gamedev project will take 80% of the total project time (polishing, producing content).

It's a very common error (and honestly I still make it with my own projects) to think your game is "almost finished" when you managed to produce a 1st playable prototype with all the mechanics working. "Now I just need to make some content and polish, and the project will be complete." Sadly, this part is very long as not as rewarding as the first one. On most days, you'll feel like you hadn't made progress on your game, when in reality you did, but just you worked on details. That's were many people lost motivation, and the projects are not completed (we're hobbyist after all).

I wasn't aware of all the backstory of Sydney Hunter (I had only heard of the SNES version before this thread) nor the one on Mystic Searches, but they sound like typical examples of that : a good demo is produced rather quickly, so people think they only need a few months to finish the game. So they start taking preorders and all. But then the project enters the "stall" phase, and is either severely delayed, or worst never released.

By-the-way, where did you get all this info the Mystic Search backstory? Is that in their movie? Because this story sound very interesting, so I'd like read more about this project (As I'm focused on SNES and GB, I wasn't aware of it before the NESmaker hype)