The Good Life - 15th October

Andy

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Sep 11, 2013
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The Good Life will be crowd-funded, developed by Swery's new studio, White Owl. Assuming it's fully funded, it'll appear on PS4 and Steam.

The town's name (Rainy Woods) was the original name for Deadly Premonition, so there is likely some connection. It's about a town whose residents all turn into cats.

The game is set in Rainy Woods, the self-proclaimed "happiest town in the world." Here, you'll play as Naomi, a photographer from New York who finds herself stuck in this small town in rural England. She's found a way to pay off the massive debt she's accumulated, but she soon discovers that the town is hiding a very bizarre secret...

At night, all of the town's residents turn into cats.

Ok, weird enough. He was writing a murder mystery from the perspective of a cat, so maybe there's a connection there, too.

Here is Swery's message:

"This game will inherit the spirit of Deadly Premonition, my most representative work, but it will also feature a brand new style of gameplay. It's a mystery game based on the framework of a 'daily life RPG.' I'm positive that the happiest town in the world and the most bizarre townspeople in the world will capture your heart and pull you deep into their world. Please support The Good Life and help us bring this game to life."


http://mailchi.mp/fig/1111112?e=17c3f48f1c

GAmKKNg4
 
I really need to play Deadly Premonition again. It's been way too long.
 
Huh, so I can legit invest in this. Although I wouldn't expect a huge return as he's niche, I consider myself a devoted patron of weird s***. Will look into it.
 
Here's the debut trailer for the game.

 
It's not going to reach its funding goal. It's only at 16%, with 26 days to go.

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/the-good-life

I'm not too surprised. DP is too niche of a game, and the appeal of this game is too small (even among the already-small DP audience) to ask for 1.5 million dollars of support. I really liked DP, but when I saw the pitch for this game, it confused me --

- Cats?
- Odd art style.
- It is described as a "debt repayment life simulation RPG." What does that even mean? None of those words except "RPG" sound fun.

It was just too weird of a pitch. I know Swery specializes in weirdness, but if you're asking a very small audience to chip in 1.5 million dollars to fund your project, you need to have a clearer and more convincing proposition than that.
 
Not a fan of the art style. The story/premise intrigues me but it looks like it is a moot point if not funded.
 
It's not going to reach its funding goal. It's only at 16%, with 26 days to go.

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/the-good-life

I'm not too surprised. DP is too niche of a game, and the appeal of this game is too small (even among the already-small DP audience) to ask for 1.5 million dollars of support. I really liked DP, but when I saw the pitch for this game, it confused me --

- Cats?
- Odd art style.
- It is described as a "debt repayment life simulation RPG." What does that even mean? None of those words except "RPG" sound fun.

It was just too weird of a pitch. I know Swery specializes in weirdness, but if you're asking a very small audience to chip in 1.5 million dollars to fund your project, you need to have a clearer and more convincing proposition than that.

Not surprised. As far as the plot of the game goes, what more could you expect from these guys after DP? It's what makes Japanese games so unique in the first place. Shame so many decent devs can't muster up the funds to bring their ideas to life.
 
It's not going to reach its funding goal. It's only at 16%, with 26 days to go.

And 11 days later, it's at 18%, with 15 days left to go. Not gonna happen.
 
I don't know how that site works. Some people say he would've done better to use Kickstarter. I don't know. I think the project was doomed from the start -- the pitch was too weird, and Swery's following is too small to cough up 1.5 million dollars.
 
Yeah doesn't look like it should need a budget that big and it has 0 chance of reaching it.



Shame that both Deadly Premonition and Dark Dreams don't Die are both dead.
 
It's over. It had a surge of support, reaching 45% (up considerably from the 16% to 18% it was stuck at for a long time), but still fell far short of its goal.

Swery posted that he is not going to give up. He went through a post-mortem, talking about the mistakes that were made on this pitch. He said he is going to try again on Kickstarter. He also mentioned having a new partner, which will decrease costs.

So maybe with a better strategy and a lower financial target, it will succeed the second time around. Hope so.
 
Felt sorry for him as some said they wouldn't help fund this game due to not finishing D4

Despite him saying he left gaming for a year due to health issues and that MS own the IP
 
The new Kickstarter campaign is up and running.



We'll see. I'm not really very enthusiastic about what I've seen so far. The art style looks cartooney, organizing the adventure around paying off a huge debt sounds like a drag, and the cats and dogs seem more cute/cheesy than intriguing, at least so far. I'm sure he's got some odd characters in there, and there's a murder mystery of some type, so that's good.
 
Down to the final stretch. At about 70%. We'll see if it gets funded this time. 4 days to go.
 
Probably not. It was stalled at under 50% for a long time. Seems like the game just doesn't have much of an appeal, beyond hardcore Swery fans.
 
Well, it's rallying in its last few days. Up to 85% now. Was at around 65% on Friday, so that's a big surge. If it fails, it won't fail by much.
 
Up to 91% after only 6 more hours. Looking very good now. I'd be surprised if it didn't make it, at this point.
 
It made it. Fully funded.

That's good for Swery. Hope the game turns out well.
 
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