BlackLagoon
Member
Tyrone Rodriguez was on the PlayStation Blogcast last week, and said that the PlayStation versions of 1001 Spikes were done and had been submitted to Sony. Said they were working on setting a date, planning on a "summer" release.
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Is Nicalis one of the worst "indie" publishers in the industry? Why?
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On the positive side of the coin, they actually did an extremely good job porting Nightsky to the 3DS. You can complain about how long it took the game to actually come out, but you can't say anything bad about the quality of the port. The visuals, physics and performance of the PC version were flawlessly replicated on the 3DS, the 3D effect was really nice, and it was completely bug-free. It's one of the most satisfying eShop games I've played on 3DS to date.
Ok, seriously it's like they're doing this on purpose.
They announce a game that could be cool and then they switch platforms without telling anyone.
Not doing business with them ever again.
Diablohead
Member
Don't they also have their hands on 90's arcade racer? I worry about what's going on with that game all the time.
Colonel Mustard
Banned
Off the top of my head...Neko, Ripstone, Circle etd, Enjoy Up, Nnooo.
GhostTrick
Banned
Yes they are. I don't even hate on Nicalis, I actually like them and really appreciate their job... but come on, sometimes, it's just horrible. Especially if you're European.
Black Door
Banned
I didn't know they ever released any games at all.
Yeah, they're awful.
The lack of communication is painful!
I, and a few others, flat out asked Tyrone about Cave Story+ in that Game Pad thread, and we were ignored. That wasn't very long ago either, and it has since released here in Europe, so I don't know why he was so secretive.
I decided not to buy it in the end. I completely lost interest.
The lack of communication is painful!
I, and a few others, flat out asked Tyrone about Cave Story+ in that Game Pad thread, and we were ignored. That wasn't very long ago either, and it has since released here in Europe, so I don't know why he was so secretive.
I decided not to buy it in the end. I completely lost interest.
I agree with that, but it was supposed to be a WiiWare game. It was announced in 2009 (when WiiWare was actually still a viable service)...and it didn't hit any platforms until 2011.
Just_myles
Member
Man God said:
You referring to working designs? I always thought their ports back in the day were pretty solid, but did take a while to localize.
Did NightSky ever even come out on the 3DS in Europe? I know a fair few people who were waiting on that.
Was it Nicalis doing the Vita VVVVVV port that even Terry Cavanagh was surprised still existed when they tweeted about it?
Was it Nicalis doing the Vita VVVVVV port that even Terry Cavanagh was surprised still existed when they tweeted about it?
Curve too. And I guess Team 17 now?
Dog Problems
Banned
Yep. I actually first played the game on 3DS because, at the time, the PC version could only be played in a window and I didn't want to play it like. Now, it's gotten an "HD upgrade" so that is no longer the case.
Megalosaro
Banned
I refuse to buy nicalis products at this point. It's a god damn shame what they did to Cave Story.
BlackLagoon
Member
Devolver Digital, Midnight City, Adult Swim Games...
Such as ? and why?
peanutbutterlatte
Member
They seem to detest Europe with their every fiber. It can't be Nintendo, to a certain extent. If Binding of Isaac:RE takes as long to come here as Cave Story eShop, I'll cry.
Well, modern Strategy First might count: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=762857
I don't particularly want to turn this into a 1-up game, Nicalis have made enough mistakes worth talking about.
I recall being rather excited for Nightsky, the Nicalis and nifflas joint. However, in between the time where they announced they'd be publishing and releasing it, I just sorta forgot about it. 2007 to 2011. That's 4 years and I remember very little news about it's development and progress. I was also there for the whole Cave Story debacle, where let out next to no info with regards to it's release.
I hung around the Cave Story/Nicalis support forums back when it was first announced. The whole forum was filled to the brim of angry Cave Story fans, and even DeceasedCrab complaining about the progress and complete debauchery of the soundtrack ingame. I don't quite remember the tone of response from the PR folks on their own website, but it was very sidesteppy and overall vague.
EDIT: Yeah, looks like the old support nicalis forums are down. IIRC, I just remember DC and a handful of other forumites being highly critical of what they've done with the port.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Seriously, I don't want to wait until 2016 for Binding of Isaac on Vita :|
Let's say one publisher takes a game and proceeds to sell it without giving the dev a penny.
They continue to do so for years despite many requests from the dev asking what the heck's goin' on.
Then they say wait a second, the ceiling for royalty payouts is $5,000, despite nothing in the contract saying that. Then they say $1,000. Then they say payments are quarterly. Then you don't hear from them again.
Then let's say they continue screwing indie devs until one website finally writes an article about it and gets a few statements from devs who have been screwed over by this company.
And then let's say that publisher, despite being 100% in the wrong, denies any wrongdoing and is in fact angry at the article and devs for making them "look like the bad guy." Then they pay out what is supposedly owed to one of the devs in the article, without issuing a royalty report or having any proof that was indeed what was owed, and was in fact a lower payment than any of their supposed "ceilings" you had to hit before getting any money.
Then let's say after the money is finally in your bank account, they actually ask if they could publish your game on Steam, despite email after email declaring your contract with this publisher is terminated due to them not following through multiple points that can be considered grounds for cancellation of said contract.
And then, to top it off, your game is Greenlit on Steam...and you find out the publisher is trying to beat you to market by releasing your game on Steam before you can, despite telling them they have absolutely no right to do so. They know you'll try to pull it off Steam, but at least they can make a few hundred sales right?
So then you're constantly anxious that your game will be released on Steam, without your consent, making money that you'll never ever see a dime of, in a state that could be nearly broken with zero Steam features, without any way of patching it since you'd have to go through the publisher who has zero contact with you already, with the potential of a ton of customers angry at the developer for making a shoddy product despite the fact that it's not their fault at all.
...so yeah, there are worse.
Vyse The Legend
Member
They also said you could import VVVVVV custom levels made in the PC version to the 3DS one prior to release. And, that was a complete, bold-faced lie. I know, because I partly bought it for this reason.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/...can-import-levels-from-the-pc-versions-editor
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/...can-import-levels-from-the-pc-versions-editor
If I remember correctly the situtation was that they sent Nicalis the final build of the game and then never heard anything about it for months until one day Nicalis announced that it was cancelled on twitter and then sent them a email after the fact.
After that the game was promptly picked up and released by EnjoyUp Games.
Herbspiceguy
Member
I'm not that familiar with other indie publishers, but I know how unprofessional Nicalis handled Cave Story and La Mulana. Both games I looked really forward to playing on my (European) Wii. I eventually lost interest and ended up buying them on the PC through Steam and Playism.
Wait. 1001 Spikes is not coming to 3DS?
It's still coming to 3DS, they just posted this a few days ago...
https://twitter.com/nicalis/status/464486821402259456/photo/1
Colonel Mustard
Banned
This is what happened with the Paper Monsters ReCut guys, right?
You should try the Wii version of La Mulana. Enjoy Up is a fantastic company that's great with interacting with fans/customers. They're a godsend for stuff like this.
Now I remember. I think they promised the world by saying they'd add new content and DLC to the Wiiware version, and never delivered upon it. When confronted by fans on their now-defunct support forums, they sidestepped and never really gave an answer. They ended up just adding in the hard mode, boss rush, and easy mode that just colors the protagonist a different color, which is why everyone was so irate on the forums.
The Oil Blue. The poster you are replying to I believe was the developer.
EDIT: I should add, the Paper Monsters case was the same publisher. So probably the same sort of thing applies.
AcademicSaucer
Member
Man, they gave me vvvvvv and cave story on the 3ds, i cant hate on them, i just cant, and tyrone , in this very forum, said that cave story 3d is coming to the eshop in summer this year ...
Also nightsky on the 3ds, fantastic game.
Also nightsky on the 3ds, fantastic game.
Shadow Hog
Member
Ah! Thanks for jogging my memory; I remembered that the Boss Rush was one of the fan-made mods reused in Cave Story + verbatim, apparently without appropriate credit given.
You can mostly thank Terry Cavanagh and Pixel for those. Nicalis did some good work to put them on those platforms, mind.
Also, I might be wrong on this but I'm pretty sure I remember reading that Pixel didn't really get much money at all from Cave Story +. That's not a comment against them at all, it's down to them and Pixel what contracts they come up with, but I always found that kind of disappointing.
Uncle Rupee
Banned
The completely unnecessary 3d remake of Cave Story was such a huge waste of their time and resources. Why did they do that?
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
Team-17(aka the Worms people) are a pretty decent publisher for indies afaik.
Oh My God. That sounds like a horrible nightmare, I'm sorry for
what I guess is
I feel kind of bad about supporting Strategy First. If I knew a specific game was being pushed on Steam by them when a developer did not want it pushed, I would avoid buying it.
But as it is, I feel like they have several rather unique adventure games that would not otherwise be on Steam, so hopefully I'm not hurting any developers by getting those.
But as it is, I feel like they have several rather unique adventure games that would not otherwise be on Steam, so hopefully I'm not hurting any developers by getting those.
Colonel Mustard
Banned
It was a good port of a good game on a download platform that lacked heavy hitters at the time. It was a solid investment that probably cost very little to make.
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