Adventure Gamers - Forums

New developments are afoot in the continuing saga of the Leisure Suit Larry remake. Paul Trowe has given an interview to Venture Beat (again? Really, are these the only people he ever talks to? What’s the connexion going on there?) where he reveals that Replay Games are no longer using their original development studio, Adventure Mob, and have instead switched to N-Fusion Interactive.

Article here

I don’t know what to make of this. On the one hand I do feel bad for the Adventure Mob guys, because they were clearly very enthusiastic about the project from the start. They were the ones who had done all the legwork on providing prototypes for the game, and they had pledged their own money to support the Kickstarter. It almost seems like a bit of a bait and switch going on, by advertising one team and showing off their concept art while gathering funding, and then changing track afterwards. You’d think with all the time they spent planning this project they’d have done enough due-diligence to know if they’d chosen the right developer for the job, long before they embarked on fund-raising.

On the other hand I can reasonably see how unexpected issues can arise in business, and perhaps it really is the best decision for the game. This is what I’d like to be able to believe and have to hope for. The art from the new team seems acceptable so far, so who knows.

Hm, while I have no idea if Adventure Mob were the right people for the job or not, it is a bit concerning that it’s now been handed to a shovelware developer.

I feel like im watching a train wreck play out very very slowly.

I have a bad feeling about this. This might teach me a lesson about giving projects money I don’t feel exactly enthusiastic about!
Let’s hope Paul Trowe has very good reasons to ditch them!

I’m certainly glad I haven’t supported this project in any way. Everything about Replay Games just seems shady and wrong.

Hey, all,

I posted this on the Replay Games forums, and I’m reposting here For Your Convenience.

In Tel Aviv and during the due diligence phase, quite a few red flags were raised about the prospect of working with Adventure Mob. While we adored the demo work they did for LSL1, and while we had no reason to question their commitment to the project, we also had to acknowledge that, with absolutely no track record to look at, AM was going to be a very big risk for us.

My personal feeling was that it was a risk possibly worth taking with our *own* money, if that’s how we were funding the game. But we aren’t putting our own money into the game, we’re putting Kickstarter pledges into it. To me, we should absolutely not take this kind of risk with other people’s money. I would love to work with Oran on a future Larry game, but not until AM has a track record, and not with Kickstarter funds.

To this, I’ll add: AM has never shipped a game. Not a single one.

On the other hand, N-Fusion’s latest iOS title, Air Mail, has received universally positive reviews and was awarded Apple’s “iPad Editor’s Choice” upon release. It’s currently at 85 on Metacritic.

I think we made a VERY smart move, and we made it very early in development. This is all to the good.

Josh

Odd, I’d be more willing to take chances if it wasn’t with my own money!

Hopefully you’re right Josh and this was a smart move! I hate to be prejudgmental about this, so I’ll just wish that this works out for you. And for us!

Joblowshow,

The red flags started popping up during due diligence. No contract, no termination fee. Like I said, it’s all good.

—Josh

Josho, while we obviously can’t know if it’s a good or bad thing that the original developer got canned, it seems more than highly bizarre that you guys have chosen a developer who’s mostly made hunting games and other games completely unrelated to anything resembling an adventure to take over.

If you’re at liberty to say, what made you choose these guys? Since they have zero experience within adventures knowing what’s so great about them would probably put peoples minds at ease regarding the future of the project.

Thanks for popping by and clarifying things, Josh.

I suppose the issue I take with this situation is as follows: when the Leisure Suit Larry Kickstarter first emerged, after a moment or two of going “Wow, Al Lowe’s back!”, I took pause and said to myself “wait a second, who exactly are Replay Games, and who are Adventure Mob?” so I went off and did a little research. After 10 minutes or so poking around the Internet I learnt the very things that are mentioned above, that Adventure Mob don’t have much of a track record, and that they haven’t shipped a game. On the back of this I did find the choice of studio to be a questionable one, but I looked at the art and it seemed good, and I concluded that if Replay Games had been planning to remake this game for so long, then they must have a very good reason for their choice of studio. As it turns out I was completely wrong on that point.

I have a hard time placing my faith in the man at the head of this company when he displays an apparent complete lack of foresight. I didn’t mind taking a $15 gamble on Kickstarter, but how can anyone go out and try to raise money for a project, when they haven’t even fully vetted a crucial component of it? That’s clearly something you are supposed to do beforehand, it’s becoming steadily more apparent why conventional funding for this project wasn’t forthcoming, I can imagine Paul Trowe getting laughed out of a boardroom if he went in for a pitch for financing and basically told people “I want to remake this game, and I’m going to do it using this team that I know nothing about.” It’s almost ludicrous.

Beyond the bad business practices I think it’s unfair on the Adventure Mob people to give them such false hope. They are seemingly good-hearted, well-intentioned people, who thought they were about to get their big break, only to have the rug pulled out from under their feet, all because someone put his cart before his horse. Maybe they were the wrong choice, maybe the evidence supports this, but this evidence isn’t exactly new, and there was no reason to get them so involved if things had been handled better.

While I’m on the subject I might just play devil’s advocate for a second. The involvement of Adventure Mob was very much sold as part of the Kickstarter pitch, so hypothetically there may have been people who pledged with this in mind. Kickstarter emerged around the idea of originally helping small independent outfits to get the funding they needed, so it’s not inconceivable that the appeal of helping this fledgling studio was a key motivation of some backers. The choice to change studio may have ostensibly been in the interest of protecting the backers’ investment, but chances are not everyone will be so thrilled with this sudden revelation.

Anyway, now that this is done I’m hoping the project will proceed without further hiccups. I trust in the integrity of Josh and Al, and in their work, and would like to believe that their influence will help guide things in the right direction.

Kasper F. Nielsen - 15 July 2012 11:06 PM

it seems more than highly bizarre that you guys have chosen a developer who’s mostly made hunting games and other games completely unrelated to anything resembling an adventure to take over.

well i would say this much: the amount isnt enough to be picky… So really you just have to take a developer that can get things done at the right price. Doesnt matter so much that n-fusion hasnt done adventure games… because theyr not making up their own game by scratch… theyr following direction from replay and putting the parts together.

But yeah, its still a little concerning.
Really, whats most concerning is the sense of instability replay has given a few times.