Post by DaedalusMachina in The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest (Demo) comments

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Inferior music will harm the entire project. Please put aside your own ego/hubris and admit that to yourself for the sake of this project and future ones. The only way you grow is to fall down, make mistakes, and get right back up.

If you keep repeating the same thing, then you will come up with the same results.

I am in touch with a fantastic freelance music composer willing to contribute some amazing musical tracks if you feel like adding in a proper composer to your team. They are currently on another project that is wrapping up and I could convince them to help you instead of immediately moving on to other work.

I would prefer they get paid for their work, but if you two want to talk and hash out financial details then that's up to you. If interested in this offer just reply to me and I'll post my Discord details so we can set it up. If not interested, then I wish you luck in this endeavor.

We already have Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon as far as throwbacks go, but fan endeavors like this help everyone enjoy a bit of 'Transylvania' in their lives.

You're also way overdue for a new/updated demo or some kind of release by now. Been about 5+ months.

Programancer2 years ago (2 edits) (+28)(-1)

Hey, this is precisely how not to respond to anyone, ever. I'm sure you think you were responding however respectful as you thought you needed to be, but here are a few things for you to keep in mind:

1) It's my game, so I can have any hubris over it I want. I can make whatever decisions I want for it. You have to work through some things if you think I'm not entitled to make my own decisions on my own game.
2) I frankly don't need your involvement or assistance. You can't "offer" me anything I don't already have access to. I know plenty of wonderful composers, artists, designers, etc myself, to the point that I don't need someone else to do exactly what you're doing. If the point was to bring them on as a composer, I would. That's literally not my goal or motivation with this project, as explained in my last reply to this thread.
3) You're not entitled to anything involving something I put my own time and energy into. Period. There aren't going to be anymore public demos, since the previous one is a decent enough slice of gameplay. There's no need for another. It conveys exactly what I'm going for with this game, and that's the point of a demo.

DaedalusMachina2 years ago(-30)

When you create your own game idea and your own IP without riding on the coattails of the Castlevania series, then you can have as much ego and hubris as you like. Until then, kindly check yourself.

What you've made is nothing more than the equivalent of a fan game for Castlevania (changing things here and there to avoid legal issues). I'd argue that rom mods/hacks made by far more talented individuals/teams have a greater precedent for this style of gameplay while also including original compositions superior to whatever you have offered in your demos.

When you're coding in 68k assembly language, then come talk to me about gamedev.

Programancer2 years ago(+13)(-1)

Banned :)

wtfmig2 years ago(+5)

lol dumb

Leegan2 years ago(+2)

jeez dude,they are just a person that wants to make a game! so what if its not a rom hack?

rms099rickdias2 years ago(+19)(-1)

Attn daedalusmachina: The ego and hubris required to stomp into a developer's project, talk like this toward them, and act like you're doing them a favor is astonishing. As for the music needing a tune-up? I couldn't speak to that, but I sure wouldn't want it from someone marketing it like you are.

Based on the demo, I'm confident in saying this game appeals to a different part of the 'Retrovania' experience than the admittedly excellent Curse of the Moon does. This feels more like somewhere between Castlevania 2 and mild bits of Richter's route in Symphony of the Night; 'Adventures of Simon Quest' clearly fills a different space in the fandom than CotM.

Also, Programancer doesn't owe us a damn thing at this time. I don't remember there being a crowd-funding initiative for this, nor are any of us serving as the game's publisher. The delivery time-table for an unfunded game is half past whenever the developer is good and ready to share things.

This entire response to Programancer, demanding things and slamming the game's music, was way out of line. It is almost a perfect example of how NOT to interest a developer in your pitch.

Chauvelu2 years ago(+9)

@DaedalusMachina

Never been more baffled by a comment on itch. Are you for real, or is this some kind of elaborate troll ?

Ten Pennyfingers2 years ago(+6)

wtf dude

Reineke2 years ago(+7)

@DaedalusMachina

I know you think you were being encouraging and generous, and that you maybe had to "break some eggs to make omelettes," but you need to understand that the ego and hubris is with you. You project your subjective opinion onto this game as an infallible truth while obviously not understanding the intent of TASQ. Your suggestions imply that you do not even consider the concept of how Programancer's own music is very likely to have integrity in the context of the project. And I'm guessing you have never taken on a project as TASQ, or any game development project . What all of this means is that you see yourself in a position you are absolutely NOT in. You speak to a developer (who owes you bugger all) in a way that not even project leads I've met would do.

If you wrote this comment with no malicious intent, then I hope this backlash, as uncomfortable as it is, at least inspires you to do a reality check. In the future, please refrain from this kind of unsolicited input. Just because you can reach out to a developer doesn't mean you should.

There are no "buts" here.

DaedalusMachina2 years ago (1 edit) (-22)

Kill your darlings.

Often it takes an outside influence to let a game dev know what to improve upon.
If they don't want any opinions or offers of help then they should probably have turned off comments. Just sayin.
I've seen them respond to others (multiple times) claiming the music is ok to them and they aren't interested in any help for it. That's the primary reason I went with the tone that I chose. Harsh yet polite. Even perhaps a bit of cynical deprecation, if you will.

Dev has made it crystal-clear they don't want to put out the flaming dumpster-fire they have for 'music' and would rather have things 'their way' to the detriment of the entire project than to reflect and realize they may want to improve things if they want to sell the final product to a willing audience.

Wish em the best and hope that the final product, whenever it is ready, has a musical composition worthy of the gameplay. If not, at least it can make for some funny meme videos by the ones far worse than I am at completely tearing things apart.

I'm going to go throw money at Curse of the Moon 2 since I didn't realize it existed. I'd rather go get something that has good music than an amateur project that is inferior to most rom hacks of the genre.

Deleted post2 years ago

Deleted 189 days ago

Programancer2 years ago(+5)

lol curse of the moon 2 is good so you throwing money at it is the only smart thing you’ve said so far

Reineke2 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

I said there are no buts to this, yet here you are with a but that just further proves you do not understand the situation.

"Kill your darlings" is good advice, but to a limited extent and not the way you're using it.
"Outside influence" can indeed be a helpful way to improve a project, but it is a delicate and PLANNED concept, and you are obviously just trying to stroke your own ego here with subjective and shallow feedback.
You were never "polite," you were being self-righteous. You were not "harsh" either, you were being narcissistic. I already explained why your "approach" does not come off the way you apparently think it does, and now you're outright insulting the developer, too.
Finally, to reiterate: You obviously do not understand game development, you obviously have not worked in game development. You are a consumer who has played games before and thinks this is enough qualification to know better than the devs. It is not.

You are not in the position you see yourself in.

Take this with you for the future. Do not pester game developers any more.

itch.io

Viewing post in The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest (Demo) comments

You are not in the position you see yourself in.