Towns Developer Officially Abandons The Game

Uratoh

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Lessee...I got 36 hours out of Towns before I decided to wait for updates to make the game more 'complete'...though that means I got 36 hours of enjoyment out of it. I can't be too upset, really, and while I hadn't heard about the cancer thing (I just checked for updates on the main steam page for it) I can see that devastating both the resources and drive to work @_@.
 

dadioflex

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Ultratwinkie said:
And if you want something like towns, you can try Clockwork Empires, maia, rimworld, banished, a game of dwarves, foresaken fortress, and gnomoria. Gnomoria is the closest. I keep tabs of all Dwarf Fortress like games. There was another one with colorful aliens but their name escapes me.
I think "Unclaimed World" is the other one. I'm keeping an eye on most of them.

I'm another "Towns" player that got hundreds of hours out of it. I've seen a bunch of anger over on the Steam forums, but I'm still unclear what people were expecting from the game that provokes so much fury. Once "Gnomoria" came out I barely looked back at "Towns", and now it's apparent that "Gnomoria" is never going to get particularly interesting I'm looking for something else. "Clockwork Empires" certainly looks intriguing, as does Rimworld.

EDIT: And I just noticed that "Spacebase DF9" is 40% off on Steam for a few more hours. It's the base builder in space from Double Fine.
 

ASnogarD

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Well, I am not totally unsympathetic to their situation, but the devs have definitely sold their reputation for getting cash in hand faster from the product.

I am sorry for the situation, as a hobby game developer in re-training (released a title, wasn't good , wasn't really noticed and vanished in the mire of vapid shovelware...where it belonged to be honest :p) I can even understand it BUT in the end the devs issues should not be the customers problem so they do deserve the flack unfortunately.

One thing I do understand is they had a chance to show off to the public, had the exposure that many, many indies would kill to get, and blew it basically.

... and to even mention a sequel after abandoning a title they sold, that's just playing Russian roulette with a Desert Eagle... and equally messy as far as reputation is concerned.
 

dadioflex

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Which features didn't they deliver on ASnogarD?

It would probably help the discussion if people understood how the devlopers let their customers down. As I said, I played the game a lot way back in the early alpha and it was perfectly playable back then, but the devs must have done something to make people angry.

Speaking of reputations. I got an email from Keen Software saying that "Space Engineers" had over half a million sales on Steam Early Access - which is a miracle after Mine Wars 2081. I managed to get a free Space Engineers key on the back of the Miner Wars MMO which will probably never happen, though they say they're still working on it.
 

Ohlookit'sMatty

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I've not heard of the game up on till this very moment but after reading its description it sounds like a great concept // Pity it is now gone, gone forever, never to be see or heard from again . . .oh wait, Towns2

-M
 

ASnogarD

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dadioflex said:
Which features didn't they deliver on ASnogarD?

It would probably help the discussion if people understood how the devlopers let their customers down. As I said, I played the game a lot way back in the early alpha and it was perfectly playable back then, but the devs must have done something to make people angry.

Speaking of reputations. I got an email from Keen Software saying that "Space Engineers" had over half a million sales on Steam Early Access - which is a miracle after Mine Wars 2081. I managed to get a free Space Engineers key on the back of the Miner Wars MMO which will probably never happen, though they say they're still working on it.
The term abandoned heavily implies incomplete and lacking but not going to be completed.

Either the Escapists news is lying and reporting a complete title as abandoned, or it is indeed incomplete and lacking.
A title that is playable but not complete and is abandoned is still dishonest.

If all the promised features was accounted for , either implemented or an account given as to why the feature was removed then the game would be complete and no need to apologise for abandoning the title... see Terraria , it was done and complete yet the developer still got accused of abandoning yet that wasnt reported as the case.

Minecraft was playable, and I got hours of fun out of it before it even got features like the end game or villagers... yet if Notch had suddenly tweeted that he is abandoning the game before it got to ver 1, there would of been a huge outcry.

A lot of fans, and gamers can tolerate a lot if they are in the belief a title is still being developed... look at Kerbal Space Program... it has issues all over the place and can cause hours of time to be wasted by some silly little bug yet players happily carry on... in the belief it will be a complete title when its done.
Alpha is alpha, until its abandoned.
 

NuclearKangaroo

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Ultratwinkie said:
Well duh. The dev's wife got cancer and that bankrupted him. This was before early access was put in, so he had to release it early to get enough money or lose everything.

The bad press then destroyed Town's popularity and the sales plummeted. So he can't work on it while also dealing with his medical bills.

Its a clusterfuck. If early access came earlier, he might not have been in this position. He would have labeled the game as incomplete and he wouldn't have taken the reputation hit. It would be honest. Sadly, I don't think he could have waited.

As for the game. its not that bad. You should wait for a sale unless you are a die hard dwarf fortress fanatic that buys any game like it.

I buy them, even when DF is free, because I want to support games like this so that it may become a full blown genre like MOBAs and survival games. Which is why I want to get clockwork empires when it launches, even if it goes on sale later.
i was going to talk shit about the dev but, holy fuck is that depressing

i guess its very easy to forget developers have lives too, and i dont mean it in the "social life" way, they are human beings and well, the guy might have legitimately wanted to finish the game but, hell, fate wouldnt allow it
 

Roofstone

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I..

That wife business if true, is very sad and whatnot. But I am still kinda pissy. I regret buying this game now. I am gonna try and get a refund and buy Banished or something.
 

RoonMian

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It was exactly the same cas with the game "Stardrive"... I'm never gonna buy early acess again.
 

uchytjes

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I support early access, but never buy on promise of good things to come alone. I'll only buy if I KNOW I'll get a game's worth of fun out of it. For instance, I'd been keeping an eye on Space Engineers for the longest time, but never bought it because I didn't have much interest in just building some ships and crashing them into each other. But since they added a survival mode in a recent update, I decided to put down the money for a copy. I knew from the footage I'd seen that I'd like it and thus get my money's worth out of it.
 

Scorpid

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Someone should sue the hell out of this guy. This is the exact reason I don't buy Greenlight games, once someone has your money for a promise of completing the game the only reason they have to finish the game is the risk of lawsuit.
 

ColaWarVeteran

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ASnogarD said:
If all the promised features was accounted for , either implemented or an account given as to why the feature was removed then the game would be complete and no need to apologise for abandoning the title... see Terraria , it was done and complete yet the developer still got accused of abandoning yet that wasnt reported as the case.
The accusations with Terraria came about because they claimed the game was finished for the PC but then had plans to release console versions with extra content not available on the PC version.
 

Serrenitei

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Jun 15, 2009
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This is a sad, sad thing for a multitude of reasons. There's a serious illness, a game gets abandoned -- just lots of crap all over the place. My take is that yeah, it's 100% sucktastic that the game won't be 'finished', but I don't begrudge the guy at all for talking away from a mostly thankless, low-income, many hour situation to pursue something more lucrative to help with his wife. More over, I can understand how something like your wife getting cancer can make it hard to focus on work, get things out the door, etc. it's not like developing and launching software is easy ... at all. If it were, everyone would do it.

All said and done, I think it was fine he was thinking about Towns2, probably not the best move to mention it while announcing the death of your first game. Rookie mistake there. From my perspective with the "gamer's have a long memory...", Gamers talk a big game (ha! pun!) but rarely follow through with threats of "never buying from X developer again." If he does decide to do it, people will bring up this situation and make a big fuss about it.

And lots of people will still buy the game. Such is the way of things.

I also don't see this as having a chilling effect -- rather just an educational effect on early access/paid betas, etc. There's nothing wrong with offering that, and crowdsourcing is a great way to give an opportunity to create games that otherwise wouldn't get made. There's always an expectation that the developer will deliver on their promises, and there always should be. But I think gamers need to remember that in situations like this, you are always taking a risk. Always. It's the responsibility of the player to be educated about what you are putting money into.

For myself, I have a checklist of things to have to be in place before I'll 'invest' in a game that's not completed. Are there assets readily available for review? Has work already started on the game? Is the website well done? Is the developer active on blog and social media? Is there a clear path of progression between when I invest and when the game is slated to launch? I've passed on games because as cool as they looked, they didn't meet all of these things, and I passed on them. Other games, Star Citizen, TUG, Landmark -- they met everything I wanted them to, so I invested.

Even then, nothing is guaranteed. A game could meet all my criteria to invest and still fail and never produce the final product. While I be sad? You bet. But I won't be demanding money back because I knew it was a risk. As long as the company made a good-faith effort at completing the game, that's all I'm entitled to as a back/investor/early-accessor.

As for the people with 20+ hours logged into a $10 game demanding your money back - that's just ignorant. You clearly got hours upon hours of enjoyment out of the game. It's just insulting to demand your money back after that.
 

C.S.Strowbridge

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Jul 22, 2010
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I knew the game was in early development when I bought it on Desura. I got more than enough entertainment out of my investment.
 

JarinArenos

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I completely missed the media blowup, apparently. There was EVER a question that this game was in early development? I sorta treated it like minecraft or dwarf fortress, figuring it was just a never-to-be-finished dev cycle.
 

1337mokro

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So this of course means that he will allow anyone to just pick up the game and continue development right? Right?
 

Duskflamer

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dadioflex said:
Which features didn't they deliver on ASnogarD?

It would probably help the discussion if people understood how the devlopers let their customers down. As I said, I played the game a lot way back in the early alpha and it was perfectly playable back then, but the devs must have done something to make people angry.

Speaking of reputations. I got an email from Keen Software saying that "Space Engineers" had over half a million sales on Steam Early Access - which is a miracle after Mine Wars 2081. I managed to get a free Space Engineers key on the back of the Miner Wars MMO which will probably never happen, though they say they're still working on it.
They made a lot of vague promises that things would be improved upon, that villager AI would be improved in some way for example. Things that are hard to pin down as "They said X and then didn't do X," but things that built expectations nonetheless.