Arcadia Blog - First Post and Welcome!

Hello Readers,

Welcome to the official blog of the Arcadia: Guild of Heroes project! I'm happy that Manifesto has allowed me to have this page and blog bringing you all the highs and lows of one of the most ambitious PC game projects (in terms of design and funding method) ever undertaken. I certainly hope you visit the Arcadia registration/info page: http://stormcloudcreations.com/arcproject.htm and place your pre-order to become a part of gaming history!

My ultimate goal and project focus: to make it possible for devs with lots of desire, good ideas and talent, but not deep pocketbooks, to create games that would normally never get made, and have the chance to make them right, without mortgaging their homes or gambling with their futures in similar fashions (yes, I've known this to happen a few times, and it isn't pretty). Allow gamers to get an inside look and participate in the development process from the beginning as compensation for their pre-order, and download builds as they are released.

Current Status up until this point, along with miscellaneous babblings:
Game is 15% complete, with party selection screens and intro screens pretty much complete and working. Pre-order customers will get to download this early version and see for themselves.

I sent an e-mail to over 350 previous customers, with 40 pre-orders to this point. I was a bit disappointed in this number, but hey, it is a pretty new way to make a game, and people were a little nervous and skeptical about it.

But....What made me feel strange about this result was twofold:
1. $19.95? Many people are fine to pay $29.95 or $39.95 for Madden 200-whatever, which was essentially an incremental patch most of the time anyhow, with bugs usually carried over from the year(s) before (telling you the code wasn't really touched that much), yet they balked at $19.95?
2. I finish what I start, and have a 6-year, 10 game track record of doing so. I've never cancelled a project midway, ever. So the 'vaporware' fear some expressed was not justified at all.

I began wondering if this project would ever get off the ground, and did contemplate cancelling it at one point. But I really believed someone would take notice of this approach and idea, and stuck with it thru the early development stages. But the simple fact was: $700 and change wasn't enough to really make the kind of game I wanted. So I shelved it for a bit and decided to find a publisher or site who had enough faith in me and my vision to bring attention to more gamers about the project. Enter Manifesto Games, who indeed believed in me enough to do a story and bring more coverage to it.

That's where i'm at now. More coming very soon as I will soon begin work on the game once again. I hope to have the pleasure of your pre-order and i'll see you there, fellow gamers!

Derek - Stormcloud Creations
www.stormcloudcreations.com