Zelda-Style Adventure Midora Runs Out Of Kickstarter Cash, Future Of Wii U And 3DS Versions Uncertain

Must've been one great party.

Lots of warning signs in that kickstarter video for me. Remember that lovely pixel art and animation does not make a good game on it's own.

Finishing a game is always the hardest part. Knowing when to stop adding features is step one.

They should have finished the game as promised, get it on Steam green light early access and then start to look at implementing these new ideas because they'd have, potentially, income from sales to keep them going and wouldn't piss off the backers quite so much.

That logo seems like it's the only thing they've come up on their own and it looks awful. I get it when people are inspired by other games, but honestly that is pushing...or the line between getting inspired and ripping off is so far in the horizon it can barely be seen.

It looks almost too much like Zelda, particularly Minish Cap.

There's something to be said about making a game as good as it can possibly be, but when you get all that support for the game on Kickstarter, you don't want to change and add so much that you can't even follow through with it.

But, I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there.

Sounds like a clear case of a severe lack of planning, imo. Of course new ideas and features will come up during development. That doesn't mean you have to implement them all.

These are the horror stories that put me off kickstarter, I would have easily pledged to Shovel Knight or Mighty No. 9 if I hadn't heard of tales similar to this before doing so. The fact that this has happened isn't just a bad thing for the developer and the backers but for the whole community for Kickstarter dependant developers too, who's to say that this won't be repeated or worse such as the whole Yogventures thing from a while a go. I think that I will back Project Ukulele for the sole reason that the game can be made without the kickstarter but instead is relying on it for fan input.
On a side note though that game is way to similar to Minish Cap, the shield animation and the logs look like they were straight up ripped from the game.

It's an unacceptable attitude to have. They either need to make a game that they had the budget for or just put their heads down and make whatever sacrificies necessary to finish it. Sleep on each other's lounge floors of something to save on rent. Eat on a budget. Give up social lives for a while. But don't screw over the people you've made promises to.

Not really familiar with this, but to be fair $73,000 pledged sounds really unrealistic to complete a game of this scope (going by the videos). Sounds like the guy in charge didn't have a clue what it would take to bring this to completion. Lesson: don't back anyone without some kind of track record completing a project (no experience likely means poor ability to estimate costs). Can't find anything about Patrick Mathis/Epic Minds online apart from this project.

This sound like someone trying to build a castle that will be so awesome that even god himself will be envious without first building the foundations to support the scale of the project.

Also I've listened to the feedback you lot gave me and I will review the project as a whole to keep the business model used as fair as possible.

I pledged $1,000.

Sounds pretty typical of startup companies on Kickstarter that have no idea what they are getting themselves into and undershoot their goal. To be honest, they have no one to blame but themselves. Don't shoot for the stars. Be realistic. That's why I'm hesitant to back these projects. It's rare to see a project come out alive, let alone be what was promised.

Wow, you weren't kidding that the blog post is unapologetic. It's all just making excuses and rambling on about some great vision. I can't even feel sorry for this guy.

This just goes to emphasize the pitfalls of crowdfunding / kickstarting. It is no different to gambling. If you cant afford to loose the money then don't pledge it.
There was a recent TV news feature in the UK on how Kickstarter and crowdfunding sites are being hijacked by criminal gangs and fraudsters who are just wanting to make easy money, which they are doing, as there is no protection or insurance for those "investors". These sites need to create a scheme similar to what Paypal did (buyer protection) to make ebay less of a gamble.

Edit: I am no way inferring that the people behind this project are crooks. I was just highlighting the dangers of the kickstarter crowd funding territory.

I think the budget should have been somewhere between $750,000 to $1,500,000 for a game like this and let's remember what that money is actually spent on guys.

• Office Rent (monthly)
• Business Rates
• Utility Bills
• Internet Access
• Staff Wages
• Insurance
• Hardware
• Software
• Liscences
• Legal Costs
• Marketing

These things cost money and depending on how long you plan to spend working on this project can also eat into your funds as well.

That said this game should have been planned out paper to avoid the ever so common problem of "just one more idea please", also no developer is ever help with the products they release because there was so much more they wanted to add to the game that they didn't have time for and that they had to cut a lot of content out just to get the game finished.

This is unfortunately what kickstarter is all about. By backing them you are giving them support to make a game but that doesn't guarantee the game will ever be actually finished, hence why I don't use kickstarter. There are too many games that are actually coming or are already out for me to want to gamble money on a project like this.

This is probably the main reason I don't do kickstarter funding. Incidents like these happen A LOT, and I'm not going to put my money down for a hopeful Wii U release when so many games fail to come to fruition. Maybe this game will be finished in time, but I highly doubt it will come to Wii U if they can hardly finish development in the first place. That being said, there are also a ton of success stories. This just isn't one of them, and honestly it doesn't even look that interesting to me.

I have only used kickstarter to back companies that have already had success, such as Silence in the Library for various books and short story collections, the Pinball game that's not on Wii U yet for the Terminator 2 pinball table and Shadowrun for the second expansion.

Well at least they didn't go down this route guys
http://www.vg247.com/2015/04/14/mortal-kombat-x-dlc-makes-performing-fatalities-easier/

According to their Kickstarter page, the last update was a mistake, and the project is back on track.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/epicmindsinc/midora-0/posts/1196479

This is not good. To quote Jesus one must first sit down and count the cost otherwise you will be mocked when people see that you are unable to finish what you started...(para phrased)
I hope it comes out though. Looks like a neat game. I'd buy it.

@Achoo And its not the only time that happened by far.
There were many big names with questionable business plans on kickstarter that left a bitter aftertaste.
For example: Tim Shafer and Broken Age. Got several times the money that was asked, delivered only half a game. The other half is announced, but i would only trust that man as far as i can spit.
Or Mighty No.9. It also lost quite a bit of support and trust over its development time, due to several kickstarter campaigns, although everyone overshot the asking goal by miles and a pretty bad treatment of backers.

There is a TV-Tropes page for a trope, which name escaped me, but:
If it can be abused and exploited, it will be abused and exploited.

Of course, most of the time, were dealing with first time devs that never managed a large scale problems and thus, might encounter business plan errors. Completely understandable, and its a LOT of pressure for these poor souls to deal with other peoples money and seeing "Fork ! This doesnt turn out as planned !"

What ruined Kickstarter for me, were the many many veterans and big named devs who shamelessly abused it to the point, that they used their mainstream appeal and popularity, to reach deep into peoples pockets and never deliver their promised goods.

What?!

This looks potentially rather good too! Visually like a cross between A Link to the Past and the 2D Pokemon games.

@Laxeybobby exactly the right attitude. I backed Elite: Dangerous with exactly that attitude, was fully prepared for it to be lost. Only thing I ever backed on KS.

Update Bassie The Flying Cat will be a Premium game instead after developing the concept further the Flappy Birds style game play just won't work very well so it will be a 2D platformer instead.

Also just so you know just because a game is F2P doesn't mean it's a pay 2 win type of game, I will not be known for developing P2W type of games as I am against them ok.

That game sounds and looks way too much like Minish Cap, made in 2004, while they claim its 90's inspired, look https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/epicmindsinc/midora-0/posts/1196479

This is why I extremely rarely do kickstarters. (By that, I mean I've done it twice, and both times I personally knew the people involved.) I think the vast majority of them are aimed at suckers, because they know they can't get funding from people wise enough to do it for a living.

Should have just called it Midrule and be done with it. Not Hyrule, not Lorule... just somewhere escargot in the middle. Zero originality.

I still can't believe these graphics are not ripped from Minish Cap, they just look too close to the real thing. Whatever I guess that's praise to the sprite artists for being able to copy a style so perfectly.

This is why I'm not too keen on showing support to projects via ways like kickstarter, backers are just not protected enough.

Stop thinking like George Lucas and keep expanding your first idea. Lol, I keed I keed...kinda.

@ZeroZX-Dev
They couldn't have ripped the assets straight from Minish Cap because those sprite were designed for a lower resolution screen that the GBA had and Midora has higher resolution graphics designed for HD TVs. Also as my old school teachers would say "You can't just resize an image and expect it to look good when it's being stretch beyond it original size, it will look blurry as heck".

The only game I'm backing is Project Ukulele, and that's because they guaranteed its release regardless of Kickstarter funding. It's just for tiny bonuses.

There are pledges of $2500 and $4000 on that game. Surely that is a scam and the backer paid these to boost their credibility.

This is an obvious case of overshooting. I may not have gone beyond some concepts in terms of game development, but even I know how impacting major changes are.
This guy had a rough vision, and instead of taking his time to fully develop the conceptual idea, he immediately went to action while shaping his vision in the middle of the game development process. You don't do that. You make games that you are clear about in their direction, not do "stuff" and then change some underdeveloped aspects in the middle of work. A terrible mistake that could've been easily avoided by keeping some later ideas for a potential sequel, or an expansion of the game. And this mistake might screw over a noticeable amount of trusting backers who thought this guy knows what he does.

Honestly, I'm not convinced they ever had any intention of making Midora at all. I think they just hired a cheap knock-off sprite artist to make the most obvious Minish Cap clone mock-ups and get people hooked, then funnel the money towards other projects.

No matter how you cut it, though, it was the backers who got screwed, and I don't like it, not one bit.

@CreativeWelshman I know that, they just look ridiculously similar to the original assests is all.
Like, copyright infringement close.

There's this and then there's the Arise incident that happened a while ago, my advice is to plan ahead with the costs make sure you got the game down on paper with a Minimum Viable Product to show off what the core of your game is and then build upon that MVP until you have your final product.

teenegers make better rom hacks than this in their bedroom. he's luky Nintendo/Capcom didn't sued him for use of IP and assets from Minish Cap

This person sounds like he's never made a game before. He would know better about how hard it is to finish creating a game, but then to say I wanted to add more. This person comes off with an ego drive, about what he wants, it became less about his vision once he started taking peoples money. He needs to check his ambition at the door and finish the game, if its remotely successful, make a game on a bigger scope, and ask for what real money is needed. If he can't finish this product that tarnishes his company, that is on him. I have seen projects change over time and deadlines missed, but this comes off as a severe mess up on what is needed to finish a solid product. I hope they at least finish the game and makeup for their mess ups to the kick-starter audience. That would at least help create some damage-control.

@arronishere people need to control their projects better - I see a future where most games are like $10 - $20 - but if there are enough buyers, then they offer DLC - if the game is a success, then you make it deeper and more involved - nobody gets ripped off - and the game can maintain high quality. I dunno, dreaming I guess.

Good thing I didn't pledge nothing yet. Well no big loss here, at least we still got Ittle Dew which is a better 2D Legend of Zelda clone anyways. If and when they decided to continue development, I hope could they deliver it soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtWH5LRHiqI&edufilter=XjBg0DhGLYo499Eqx_l0_g&safe=active

They're not looking for a publisher out of pride? Those idiots. 3000+ people donated money to your cause, and you deny them their product because you're too proud to suck it up and accept you didn't have the financial sense to make it as an indie. Its bad enough when indie developers lie about how much money they need, or lose sight of what they can do and aim for more once they get more money, but to do that and then not look to every possible solution? Glad I didn't back these guys.

his vision for Midora kept growing during development

As any experienced developer can tell you, that is a big no-no and probably the main reason why the project failed. Amateur hour

The 6 golden rules of games development an idiot

Rule 1 - Draft Out A Concept Plan
This should be the first thing you do when starting a new project, by drafting a basic concept of what your game is all about you will be able to create your M.V.P (Minimum Viable Product). With this you can fine tune the feel of your game and how it will play out in the future.

Rule 2 - Build Around The Basic Gameplay
This is a bit of a no brainer to be honest, if your game has element that don't work well with the basic gameplay mechanics then you should scrap it the idea and work on something else instead. Otherwise your game's design will be criticized by the players who find that segment of game unenjoyable.

Rule 3 - Tailor Your Content To An Age Group
Again a no brainer, but this should be done as early as possible when you design, develop and test your mechanics in your game. If you don't then making it so your player understand how to play may be a more difficult task then it needs to be.

Rule 4 - Make Your Game Fun and Fair To Play
If you decide to make your game very difficult for no reason whatsoever then no one will enjoy it. by keeping the game's difficulty fair and honest while building interesting mechanics that flow with the gameplay then people of all ages will enjoy it regardless.

Rule 5 - Test and Fix All Bugs
Do I even need to explain this one? if there are a lot bugs and glitches in your game then it stops being an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. You need to accept the fact that your game may not be perfect and that there will always be problems with it years down the line.

Rule 6 - Accept Negative Feedback
It will help you find out what's wrong with your game and you will be able to fix the problems as quickly as possible. Also never go on a rant about how people don't understood your game, remember that your game will never be perfect as your not Nintendo.

This is exactly why I'm hesitant to pledge towards anything on kickstarter. I've pledged to only 2 projects, and not a lot of money to either one. One I have full faith it will be completed, the other was a bit of a gamble. Anyone considering pledging to anything should look into whether the company has a proven track record and has a realistic plan and budget for actually completing what they are proposing. (Unless you've got money to throw around and don't care if it's wasted, then I guess go ahead and pledge to anything).

@RedDevilAde I was thinking the same thing. If they had a more realistic funding goal or was able to keep the design concept in check perhaps things would have been different.

When you kickstart a game sometimes the scope of the game will have to be compromised. Release a simple version of what everyone wants and if you have grander plans then release a Directors Cut or sequel to implement your plans, it would probably be funded by the first game.

I've kickstarted 3 games so far and while none of them are out yet I do feel they will all be released and they've been really good at keeping people notified whats going on. It is a gamble, but some games are worth gambling on in my opinion.

@Bushido_Fai no way

It is both hilarious and sad to see all these comments about what the developer "should've done" or what they did wrong and all this crap when projects like this can crumble for a wide variety of reasons. Kickstarter is not like gambling, not even a little bit. It's a place where people can help support the dreams and goals of other people. Yes, you should always be careful in choosing where you put your money, and you should never be looking for "what's in it for me?" because that's narcissistic and not the point of Kickstarter.

It's unfortunate that this project has reached this point. I didn't back this one, though. Most of the stuff I backed has either completed successfully or is still in the works.

My Atari 2600 Star Castle is still my favorite one.

@Yorumi

Yeah budgeting time is never easy. The team I'm on was delayed by about a year, and we're anxious for the next project, but still going through a lot of the pre-planning, which is something I enjoy writing up.

It's good to have an end goal, but you never know what can eat up time. We sat in lotcheck for two months. That's a lot of sunk time.

@Mk_II

Don't make the mistake of blindly calling "amateur hour" on this, when this very thing happens all the time in gaming.

Or would you like to call "amateur hour" on Aonuma for delaying Zelda U with this exact excuse?

Delays happen. Scopes change. Projects fall apart. Engines evolve. Focus changes. These things happen. Calling it "amateur hour" is something only a rank amateur who has no concept of what goes into game design could say.

Unless, of course, Aonuma is just "amateur hour" in his design mentality.

@Quorthon So basically you view kickstarter as charity? That doesn't make sense either. The people funding projects definitely ask what's in it for them. What they get is to see a game made that they want to play, plus often other bonuses. While backers can't view kickstarter projects as investments, project creators should definitely not consider it charity.

This is the issue with crowd funding: anyone can go right on in and promise anything and write nice sounding project updates to sound sincere when they realise they've promised the earth.

@ted-k

I didn't say a charity, though it's closer to that than an actual investment.

Here's a huge problem that kills some Kickstarters--and that's the "what's in it for me?" mentality. If these guys have to give up more crap per donation, then it eats away at what they can ultimately do with their funding. You need to be cautious of that--when the developer (or whatever) is trying to sell you on the stuff you'll get for your donation, that's money they will have to spend on just giving people trinkets and excess crap. That is a recipe for failure.

Getting something back from a Kickstarter project is essentially a bonus and a pre-order, and that should be it. To demand or expect more is pure narcissism if not greed. It's not a store. It's not an investment firm. It's a place to support artists, designers, and creative people who you, as a backer, believe in. That's why their called "backers," not investors.

@ottospooky

That is a staggering amount of ignorance of what goes into Kickstarter and crowdfunding. These sites all have checks in order before they host any Kickstarter project, and if they find something sketchy or questionable, if will not go up. It takes a lot of work to build a valid Kickstarter.

Does it stop all crap? No, of course not, but your blatant assumption does not remotely match reality. This is the Wikipedia Fallacy all over again--"anyone can do it, so it can't be trusted." Besides grossly assuming the absolute worst in all people, that kind of thinking totally, and almost deliberately ignores reality. Both Kickstarter and Wikipedia are filled with checks, staff, moderators, and the like. Fraudulent Wikipedia entries are taken down with decent speed.

@Yorumi

No, of course you can't go to investors like that--my note on "this crap happens" was to the point that them being "indie" or "amateur" is not automatically the problem. Money mismanagement is always a concern, and happens literally everywhere in the industry. We have Duke Nukem Forever as the poster child for every problem that can hit a game over the course of development.

Not everyone is a good project manager or money manager. This topic comes up frequently in my team, and we have our completed game so that we can properly manage everything going forward. It sucks working nights and weekends trying to cobble together a game while working day jobs and having to juggle everyone's personal life. A "simple upgrade" turned into a major overhaul.

Right now, all of the risk is entirely on us. We're not even sure if we want to do a Kickstarter at some point as gamers have such insanely sour attitudes about it, even when it works out as intended.

@Quorthon

I'm not making a generalisation about everyone that uses Kickstarter. Crowd funding is a good thing - it gives people with a dream the opportunity to offer a product directly to their public. It bypasses large corporations and affords people the opportunity to create a project that they assume full control over. But it's far from perfect. Things like those mentioned in this article can easily happen.

And I don't doubt that a Kickstarter page can be genuine and valid but these things don't start to unravel until the money is being used to create said project and that people start to realise that their targets are now not feasible.

My post was not a criticism of the way Kickstarter is run, more that as more people use the site, the more chance there is for things to go awry and for people to be disappointed. It's a platform that's still in its infancy and we don't fully know to what extent it will be used to present projects to consumers.

@ottospooky

Alright, fair enough. But the things you note cannot happen as easily as you think. With enough red flags, Kickstarter will remove a crap page. No system is perfect, and Kickstarter needs to allow for the freedom for people to outline their pitches how they want--or to bury their projects as badly as they are able.

GameInformer did a hilarious look at one titled "This is what a terrible Kickstarter gaming pitch looks like." http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/02/27/this-is-what-a-bad-kickstarter-gaming-pitch-looks-like.aspx

And Gamasutra has a good article on the notoriously awful Night Trap Kickstarter. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224117/What_developers_can_learn_from_that_Night_Trap_Kickstarter.php

Yes, some of this crap slips through. Your original comment made it sound like there were no checks in place to protect either backers or pitch makers, and that just isn't true, which is why I was inspired to comment. Any system can be abused, but Kickstarter does it's best to ensure that both parties are well protected from that. Both of the Kickstarters I noted here show off the red flags backers should watch for, but I think there's value in backing people and helping one another out.

With the amount of money they were asking for, this felt like pocket cash for a garage based weekend only hours studio, you know, making a game on your spare time kind of thing, which is fine, and awesome, but the director makes it sound like this is the only thing him and his army are working on, and if this is really the case then shouldn't the kickstarter budget been a LOT higher? and therefore we should have been able to see the cracks really before this thing had been finded.

@Yorumi

And that's a fair way to look at it, you have looked into the actual Kickstarter and the project leader himself. And that should've been a red flag to any interested party who wanted to back it.

Again though, it's not like these things are only in the realm of amateurs--but it doesn't help.

@arronishere I had the unfortunate "pleasure" of talking to that Mhyre guy, he was intent on only farming backers from current zelda fanbase and basically called anyone who criticized his plans an idiot.

He's an arrogant jerk with no respect for people's money so I can't say I'm surprised by this at all.

@Quorthon I would say the exact opposite: kickstarter projects are much closer to investments than to charity. It's not an investment in that you don't expect to get back more money than you put in, but you definitely expect to receive a finished product, otherwise I don't see why anyone would back any project. Getting something back is not a bonus for backers, it's what they expect and what they were promised by the project creator. You don't give money to a project just to give the creators the opportunity to make something; you give them money because you expect them to follow through and deliver a product.

@ted-k

A valid point.

My primary concern was to not focus so much on "what I get out of it." Any project offering "too much stuff" to the backers is at risk of never having enough money to do either fulfill the promises or complete development.

Essentially, I may back a project for $40, but only get a $20 game out of it. That's fair, because the developer needs a buffer zone of money that will actually be spent on development over delivering some collectible crap to consumers.

I think I spent $50 for this Atari 2600 game. And was happy to do so. It's pretty rad. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/698159145/atari-2600-star-castle

I'm terrible at the game.

@Quorthon Actually I agree with your point about giving a bunch of extra "crap" for higher pledges. Developers (project creators) should be careful about promising too much extra stuff because that will eat into their funds. I guess in my personal opinion backers should pledge whatever they consider a fair amount to receive the finished product, and anything above that is kind of extra just to help the project creators, so actually I guess my point of view isn't that far from yours.

I somewhat remember this game when I visited Kickstarter. Didn't backed it but I was really interested in it. I loved Minish Cap and the game really reminded me of it. Sad that it didn't reach the Wii U and 3DS gold. I would love to play this on my 3DS.

Kinda looks like they saved money on the graphics by reusing them from Minish Cap.

I'm glad the development team is working on the side of not releasing something they will not be proud of, but setting a kickstarter goal means just that. If all the money is spent, well, you are screwed. These things do happen, but it puts you in a rather precarious position since a LOT of people at this point gave you money, and they have no product. Adding to the game after the kickstarter is done knowing it will go over budget is just bad. This attitude is what killed Duke Nukem Forever and put it in development hell for 12 years.