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Replay Games dumps developer Adventure Mob

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Total Posts: 54

Joined 2005-01-20

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Kasper,

Fair enough questions. (Curiously, though, nobody said to us, “Why are you going with a developer who’s never shipped a single game?” when we were talking about Adventure Mob.)

The credits mentioned in the Venturebeat article were from a decade ago and are not a fair or up-to-date representation of N-Fusion’s resume. They’ve released games for just about every genre. Leela for the XBox360/Wii and Air Mail for iOS are two of their most recent releases, and they’re both about as far from hunting games—or each other!—as you can get. Not having experience in the adventure field specifically…well, how many developers active today DO have experience in that genre? Did Adventure Mob?

I’ve known Jeff Birns, head of N-Fusion, for most of the last 15 years. He’s an enormous fan of adventure games and Sierra games in particular. And under his leadership, N-Fusion has survived as an independent development house for nearly 20 years. You know how rare that is in this industry?

I’ve worked on writing and/or design on probably a half-dozen of Jeff’s games over the years, and I think he’s just about the most smart, straight-shooting, level-headed developer I know. We already have a great working relationship, and we’ve talked for many years about doing a Sierra-style adventure game together.

And the fact that they’re in NJ—just a few hours’ drive away—means I can work side-by-side with the team frequently without an international ticket and a 14-hour flight. As the project’s creative lead, that alone is of immense value to me.

We are not closed to the idea of working with Adventure Mob on one of the subsequent Larry games, and we’ve made that absolutely clear to them. But all those red flags—and they are substantial—have to be addressed, and we can’t just wait for that. Al and I have a game to make.

     

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This is just weird. The AdventureMob site hasn´t been updated yet so they don’t seem to know? Also, even if they haven´t made any games as AdventureMob, Oded has made several in his previous company Corbomite Games (Pizza Morgana, for instance). And he was just in San Diego (ComicCon) for a talk on Kickstarter with Chris Jones (Tex Murphy), Chris Pope (Two Guys from Andromeda: SpaceVenture), Jordan Weisman (Shadowrun), and Chris Avellone (Wasteland 2). I’m very confused.

     

Madre de Dios, es el Pollo Diablo!

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You’re right! He was supposed to be in SD for that talk, wasn’t he? I remember reading about that…I wonder when he found out!

Yikes! This is getting messy… Frown

     
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I would have to agree with Josho on this matter. When you have a limited budget and deadline, you want a proven quantity. The lack of adventure experience isn’t an issue, they have proven they can develop a game within a budget and get it to market.

This is what you want. You don’t want someone who might make mistakes and suffer delay, driving up costs etc because they have never done this type of thing before.

It’s the same when I’m interviewing for new staff. As much as I would love to give someone with little experience a chance to get the skills and experience(and I do hire some staff in particular posts for just that reason), There are times when you need to get the best person for the job that can hit the ground running with little or no training.

     

An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams

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Josho - 15 July 2012 11:54 PM

I’ve known Jeff Birns, head of N-Fusion, for most of the last 15 years. He’s an enormous fan of adventure games and Sierra games in particular. And under his leadership, N-Fusion has survived as an independent development house for nearly 20 years. You know how rare that is in this industry?

20 years and not a single quality game. Yeah, that is pretty rare.

Edit: Ok, I’m being a tiny bit unfair. But look at that track record. There is almost nothing of any value whatsoever there.

     
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Adventure Mob definitely knows. And they’ve known for awhile. This is not news to them at all.

     

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Joined 2011-03-08

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Did N-Fusion Interactive offer to make the game for 300,000 $ ?

     
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Kolorabi - 16 July 2012 07:11 AM

20 years and not a single quality game. Yeah, that is pretty rare.

Exactly. My reaction is as well: “N-Fusion Interactive!?” True, I haven’t touched any of their games for a while but I gave them many chances years ago, and left unsatisfied. Deadly Dozen and Deadly Dozen: Pacific Theater were ok. Line of Sight: Vietnam was decent. Hour Of Victory was bad. Elite Warriors: Vietnam was unplayable because of gamebreaking bug in the beginning. Sure, they may surprise us, but I’m turning my turning my anticipation meter to zero.

     

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First of all, as was said earlier, their latest game “Air Mail” got a lot of great previews from legitimate gaming websites at GDC 2012. “Leela” got a good write-up in Wired.

Their lack of adventure experience is not a big deal. When was the last time a classic Sierra or Lucasarts style game failed because of the engine or technical issues? It’s about the design, writing, acting etc., all of which will be done under Josh and Al’s guidance.

     
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I’ve noticed a recent message posted on this article:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/15/leisure-suit-larry-publisher-trades-up-to-a-new-developer-exclusive/

I’ll quote the message here for posterity:

Michael Schwartz:

/rant

Wow! Are you “people” even real? It sounds like you’re a bunch of pissed off people from Adventure Mob posting as other people. ROTFL

Nfusion has been around for 15 years and just came out with Deepak Chopra’s Leela for 360 and Wii, among dozens of other titles over their lifetime. Adventure Mob has come out with nothing but a cheezy ass iphone game for kids and their previous company, which it looks like they abandoned, came out with shit titles too. I’m a backer for LSL and have been getting all the updates. They totally made the right decision to dump these guys, especially after doing their “due diligence” and finding out that nobody even really worked at the company. They have no employees, use contractors and when they went there, they didn’t even have an art director hired (contrary to what it says on their website). I do not work for Replay Games or Nfusion so I don’t care what I say about them. I simply emailed them on their Kickstarter page and got a very honest answer. Do I think they f’d up by going with those rag heads in the first place? YES!!! Do I think they’re doing a better job now? YES!!

I trust Al & Josh to make the best decision as to who they should work with and who they shouldn’t.

I also seriously doubt adventure mob rallied all their friends. I mean…how many people could actually be in israel anyway? Not enough to create 14000 backers, that’s for sure. I also heard their CEO got in to it with the CEO of Replay and started disrespecting Al Lowe, Josh Mandel, and Paul Trowe. Not a very smart move if you want to create a game about LSL.

And from what I can tell, there’s only 1 t-shirt design and I heard Josh designed it himself, which makes perfect sense since him and Al Lowe are the two guys behind the game.

Sounds like you guys are just pissed they ditched a small time developer that didn’t have their shit together for a real developer that’s made real games.

Oh…and if you don’t want the game…don’t f’n buy it!

/rant

For a “regular” backer of LSL this guy sure seems to know some stuff the rest of us don’t know. Where did he read that anyone from Adventure Mob disrespected Al and Josh?

For comparison a tweet by Paul Trowe written at least an hour AFTER the above message was posted:

Could it be that someone is trolling again?

 

     

Total Posts: 56

Joined 2011-07-29

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Wow that’s bad.

     

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Joined 2010-11-16

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yeah, he does this. Its concerning.

     
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I doubt that the troll would have anything to do with the project other than being a backer.

You would like to think that they are far too professional to post ignorant and racist remarks on a website.

     

An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams

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Joined 2010-11-16

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^its just too much… its too detailed, particularly that he feels the need to insist he doesnt work for replay when noone wouldv accused a random person of that by default… except he brought it up.. and said some curious things… and its not the first time hes done it.

     
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zane - 17 July 2012 01:50 AM

^its just too much… its too detailed, particularly that he feels the need to insist he doesnt work for replay when noone wouldv accused a random person of that by default… except he brought it up.. and said some curious things… and its not the first time hes done it.

I would still like to think it was just some random racist twat. There is no proof of anything else.

Either way i’m glad I stayed clear of this kickstarter as it has been nothing but hassle and controversy.

     

An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams

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