Yeah, eventually, and it'll probably have a few glitches/issues like PS, but more obvious. I think they fell prey to promising more than they could realistically deliver in a reasonable timeframe, and without oversight pressure they're free to dawdle on things other than getting the game actually finished.
Not unless there are massive changes to the company. They lied to us and promised repeatedly that the game was shipping in October. It's been radio silence since then. The game hasn't been delayed again, it just failed to release and the dev vanished. Every email is dead and he won't give refunds.
You guys forget that they have made a crowdfunding for the game, directly through their site with their Gems system... Some people put money on it from the start... not only 3 years ago...
I do think it will come out, God only knows when, but I do think that they will release it. I preordered it from their website when they made it available, and I'm willing to wait, I have not asked for a refund, I basically consider that money gone, and if they don't release the game, well its a pretty penny but it didn't cost all that much.
It probably will end up being crap, but they've backed thenselves into a position where they have to release SOMETHING, as probably the reason they arent offering refunds is that our money is almost definitely already spent :c
I was one of the devs of Pier Solar and have to correct a few things. Very few people involved in Pier Solar actually worked on Paprium. For the most part this is the brainchild of the programmer. This went as far (and I am only citing what has been stated publicly before) that the owner and boss of Watermelon did NOT get access to the game and information by said programmer. There was faith in the programmer's skills but in the end his attitude of secrecy, deciding alone and not showing progress alienated every single other original team member. Including the owner, who then denied the programmer to give him funds collected for Pier Solar HD to bolster Paprium development, but instead finished those ports as promised to backers and then basically handed over the company to the programmer. Simply because there was no working together possible. Not a single person from Pier Solar remains with WM today, except for that one programmer. So while this is officially "Watermelon", please understand this is not from the team of fans who once set out to make a Mega Drive RPG. It is the empty shell of that team, handled by the one remaining person who is hiring people (sometimes apparently not paying them) to do tasks. Watermelon was not even a real company when we made Pier Solar, just a team name, and nobody got paid. And even the people he hired to do stuff for Paprium don't want anything to do with him anymore. Now about the data/facts: Paprium was announced in August 2012, not 2013... originally for a release date of August 2013. I know because expecting to work on this or other projects myself I started a thread about the game in a Forum in August 2012, with that release date as was written on the fact sheet given to me. I just looked and the post is there. Money was taken from that point on. The game was to be financed through the website's own crowdfunding system. People could buy a pseudo currency (GEMS) and invest in projects, and that currency would later be exchanged for games and merchandise when the game is out. The pre-order thing came much, much later at what was supposed to be the last stretch of development. I don't know how many people pre-ordered, but for Pier Solar we had several thousand. So I assume this would have as many or more. And the reason was most likely because the funds had run out after such a long delay for what was intended to take a year or a year and a half. The special chip is intended for sound. Not for graphics or anything. And apparently that chip that was planned did not work out. There were PCBs designed and built, not just the one from the event with the cables. I have seen some pics. No idea if they were working. That event was a 30th anniversary event for the MD, but it was also announced the game would be shown and the first copies could arrive in customers' hands about the time of the event. That was announced just weeks before, so every customer had to see this as a release event and think the game is done. If the game was not already in manufacturing by the time the event was announced, it was impossible to deliver so soon. So seeing the game is not even done now as it seems, that was a flat out lie. It can be assumed that pretending the game was almost done and holsing a release party was meant to attract outside investors for a cash injection. The soundtrack is indeed done afaik. The composer is known, as is the main graphics artist, and from what I can say music and graphics have been done for years. They did that work as hired hands and delivered their stuff ages ago. The issue with the sound not being in that crappy demo seen on the event is probably that the neccessary chip for the sound is missing. The PayPal frozen funds is probably due to PayPal clearly stating in their terms of service that it is not meant for pre-orders and stuff must be delivered 2 or 4 weeks after payment. So when people complain in droves after that time PayPal naturally freezes an account. Refunds have been granted up until maybe a year ago. I assume this may be when the funds dried up. Where does the December 2019 date come from? I have not heard anything since the event took place. All channels fell silent, the website was down for days and even mail adresses were discontinued. The site did come back up but without comment. Also, Project N was announced simultaneously to Paprium. That project was also crowdfunded, and to my understanding is not even close to being finished and not actively being worked on. I don't think there was any ill intent. But bad management and overestimation of what can be done how quickly with limited budget. Doesn't help fans who paid of course, but I doubt the money was used to enrich someone, but simply spent in development hell until it was gone.
I still want to believe that there was no intention from the very beginning to screw people over. That being said, Mr. Fonzie's decisions resulted in one and one thing only: a crime.
@@DeckardGames No intention to screw people over? Then why the fake website datensemi.com (domain name registered by Fonzie in 2013, almost six years ago!), with fake pictures of a factory, a photo of a fake award, and some text in Chinese? Why pretend he would use a "Datenmeister" chip that never existed, and doing that very soon after the game was announced?
@@brinckau That website strangely "google translates" perfectly (or near perfectly from my quick once over) to English, almost if it was written in English first then Google Translated to Chinese (or whatever it actually is)
I actually did some writing work for WaterMelon back in 2013. At that point, the main thing they were focused on was an update of a Japanese mech/tactical RPG called Vixen 357. They were going to overhaul the whole thing and even add online play with some special dongle as I recall. Papirum was in its infancy and still called Project Y at that point. I was supposed to work on that as well, but it never materialized. Gwenael (Fonzie as he is known) was always cool with me, and seemed like a good guy as I got to know him a bit. I know he had issues (even back then) with getting pixel artists who could work on that (large) scale....as that skill set has kind of fallen by the wayside. My guess is his (over) ambition got the best of him here....and I'd still like to know what happened with the Vixen 357 project as I did some quality work on that, I thought.
Indeed vixen 357 was the big project for WM. I was the character designer, cutscene and fmv director on that project as I was on piersolar/HD. God knows if/when vixen will come out one day. Such a pity.
Strange. I was also a writer for Vixen 357, but I never heard of you. I wrote a manuscript of over 100 pages and was also a general game designer on the project.
@@KaskelotenZebbe I started off doing a side project...a rather large "roundtable" interview of all the team members that was planned for a book that was to be a companion to the special editions of the upcoming games. I actually still have your raw interview document, Zebbe. After that was completed, Fonzie asked me to edit/rewrite a few things... most of which were documents related to Vixen as I'm recalling. This was all through Gwenael/Fonzie, so you'd have to ask him for more detail than that.
Guys... Watermelon don't have any money left. The game's development barely started. Most of the developers left the team. The insanely overambitious ideas of its director are basically impossible to achieve on anything less than a NeoGeo. Paprium is not going to happen. Full stop.
They used that budget for project y. Then he used that budget for a coke party. There is a 2 part paprium documentary on youtube giving specific details.
It's really sad what's going on with Watermelon, because Pier Solar was a good game. Not the best RPG, but a solid game, and if you can get a copy it's worth your time. But the Watermelon that made Pier Solar good basically ceased to exist when Tulio Adriano left the company. The guy was not only director, but also the best PR person they had and his hands were pretty full all the time. Now the company is in the hands of someone who not only refuses to do any PR, but is basically in denial of how a video game company is supposed to run, let alone an indie company. By the way, they also announced an SNES game at the same time as Paprium with similar "tech demo" stuff completed, but there's probably less hope for that ever coming out if it's even possible to have less hope at this point. Also Pier Solar appears to basically be sold out, and I have my doubts it'll see any new reprints anytime soon.
I regretfully funded Mighty #9 and Paprium. I hope to God Shenmue 3 delivers. But, I'm probably not going to fund anymore kickstarters from now on.😆 You just can't trust people anymore nowadays. Its sad. Thanks for covering the story Pat!👍 We need more media coverage on this type of crowd-funding abuse. Its not right at all to scam/deceive people out of their hard earned money. They need to be exposed and held accountable.
I am one of the poor saps that preordered this game years back now. I've honestly just written the game off and just consider it $80 down the drain. If I get the game at all down the road, even if its terrible, it'll be more then I expect at this point.
Long before they started taking pre-orders you could be an "investor" on their site. I paid for the investors limited edition years ago. There's a lot more money than a couple thousand pre-orders put into this.
Yeah the idea was that It had branching paths and in any single play through you would only do a small selection of the levels. The save slots was to track your progress on the different paths, or something.
So its been about a year since this vid. A few months ago they took down their website. Right before that Fonzie the owner basically told off the people whom pre ordered the game and said its being worked on, yet he didnt seem at all enthusiastic. They showed a girl worker putting together an arcade stick but that was it. Now there again is zero info for months. This looks to be obe of the biggest scams in gaming history
As somebody who's working on an indie game, this shit isn't easy even though your heart is set on seeing it through. People have to quit because of other obligations, publishers like to scam you out of money, creative differences, Paypal does fuck with people depending on their region, the devs either pay out of pocket for a lower quality game that isn't well-received, or do a crowdfund and struggle to fulfill every single pledge. I guess you have to accept that AAA games are usually reliable, but they like to shake down their customers, and many indie projects are unreliable, volatile and fly-by-night Too bad because this game looked tons more interesting than Streets of Rage 4
When placing a pre-order of Paprium I also ordered a second copy of Pier Solar. If there was no ill intent, why was this finished game not shipped? They might not have started out looking to outright steel from people, but at the end that's exactly what they were doing. With that said if any of the PayPal information is true, I'm also a little pissed at PayPal. It sounds like they were trying to prevent people from getting hurt, but at the same time if they froze that money why didn't they just give it back to the senders? They have been zero help with getting this resolved.
12:15 the demo at that party was on actual hardware. the cartridge was just a weird debug thing. if you mean the big sprites, yeah. the chip they originally were using was a DSP, basically a number cruncher. it wouldn't help the genesis draw more sprites.
stuff like this always makes me sad cause we always talk about corporate overlords and how douche they are and abuse their power and take advantage of people's goodwill and here you have an indie developer doing the same and giving a bad name to all people who want to do things like this legitimately I hope they do come out with something cause the people who payed and have been waiting deserve something
Pier Solar was delayed by 2 years. I did preorder the original posterity edition of Pier Solar and the game was amazing and worth the wait. I didnt follow the other projects, i believe there was another project planned by WM.
I got refunded about a year after pre order as I wasnt happy with the progress reports or the fact members of a Sega Facebook group had promoted the pre orders making claims the game was well on its way to being finished!
Even as a passion project I cannot understand why anyone would do homebrew. Dealing with hardware limitations, manufacturing, and distribution seems like a total hassle for such a small market. So much easier to just dump it on steam.
I'm sure it probably depends on the RPG and the beat-em-up. I bet Scott Pilgrim would take longer to develop than Final Fantasy IV. And someone might reply to that with "but those games aren't from the same era" and they'd be right... but we live in a time where new games are being developed that mimic games from an older era, so that argument really isn't valid today.
I've actually made a MegaDrive game, so I was impressed when I first saw this. From my experience I think minimum you'd need 6 artists on this, 3/ 4 programmers, at least 2 other people doing dibs'N'dabs. From the initial Launch video they definitley have more assets than you see in the video at the party but In reality a small company doing this would need lots of Outsourcers, Adding an element of possible disaster. Very few profensionals do pixel art. I think this companies passion for games has outstretched their ability, Never do the game you want to do, do the game you can do and Pat your right, doing a game the console can't actually do is folly.
Watch the documentary "What happened to Paprium". The assets are done since years, and so is the music. The only real problem is the ego of the project manager, "Fonzie".
@@Shendue Yep, watched that, I think your right, Fonzie sounds like a control freak and his near madness scuppered the project. I doubt they have anything near a game though, They said they have the assets but from my own experience I'm not sure I believe them.
They used the budget budget for project y. Then he used that budget for a coke party. There is a 2 part paprium documentary on youtube giving specific details.
St1ka has a done a documentary which includes interviews from people who worked on the game. You guys should give it a watch, part 1 is here: ruclips.net/video/kXLtnqbeBNI/видео.html
They got my money around 2 years ago. Completely given up on it and don't really think about it. This is the only time that I have ever backed a product like this. Never again. No Kickstarter or anything similar.
I can't say much about the rest of it, but I know for a fact the music in the game actually was done and completed because I happen to be close friends with one of the musicians, and am somewhat friends with its other musician. There are demos of the music released by one of the composers involved that he had to fight tooth and nail to actually be allowed to post. Give some kind of sample despite trying to keep it under extremely tight wraps. The fact that there is no music here is odd indeed. The one I am close friends with has been waiting on its release about as long as everyone else has, and from time to time has been almost itching to release, feeling very proud of it and wanting to show it off. To make up for it, he has been working on a lot of music on the side and upping his skills with more normal ym2612 technology and beyond. As for the name, again, I am not overly fond of it either, I would have personally gone with something along the lines of Cyber Fist, or Techno Fist - The Cyber Future, though I would possibly want to refine it, but it gives an idea of the direction I would go for its name. It seems like something that needs to jump out at you, it needs a punch (no pun intended)
I remember a friend and I talking about Pier Solar years ago. Which was inspired by the Lunar series. The characters had huge chins. I think that's the least of their problems now. :D
I'm always down for some juicy Watermelon smack talk. Anyone interested in the full dirt on this disaster owes it to themselves to check out St1ka's developer interviews /documentary on the topic. It's feature length and divided into 3 parts: ruclips.net/video/kXLtnqbeBNI/видео.html
Paprium is supossed to have rpg elements (branching paths's) including alot of replayabillity, secrets and compatible with online content (DLC & OnlineMP) All this together is what really interested me, not just another beat em up with a different skin. But a beat em up that makes use of elements that give the game more deapth. The game has alot of details like environments that react on the player etc. I hope this will get released. If this comes out, it has the potential to be the most wanted Sega genesis beat em all game. Fonzie please finish the game, it has alot of potential.
This game looks (looked?) so awesome. They should aim to bring it out to the Switch and modern consoles and make more money. Don't know if such quality can be completely done on the Genesis without compromises. This looks more in line with a 90's arcade game. Hopefully something comes of it, but as of now; the actual release looks bleak.
i agree with Pat, just release it as a download(ps4 and xbox one store, etc), without it being confined to genesis technology. i don't think the genesis could run the game we see in the commercial. that's neo geo level stuff
@@brorianszk Nah, NeoGeo shares its CPU with the MegaDrive/Genesis but not the graphics subsystem, the VPU on the Megadrive and the LSPC plus various other bits on the Neo-Geo. The fundamental difference is that on NeoGeo, everything is a sprite (unless it's the forced overlay, the fix layer), and you can have a lot of sprites, and huge sprites, and the graphics chip has its own ROM access. On the MegaDrive, the system is more traditional with scrollable background layers and a sprite layer, and the graphics chip has a separate VRAM that is populated by the CPU with some DMA help. But for sure the game demo as it was back then was running on the Megadrive/Genesis. Whatever happens in the ROM window and the cartridge slot is the easy part, and chances are, the wiring was merely for debugging and quickly updating the ROM.
Seems that there are hardware problems with most, if not all their products. On a talk on twitter with them + Renée, from db electronics + Voultar + INL I asked why a SNES cartridge with the same flaw had damaged my childhood console and their games would not do the same to my Mega Drive. That was enough to get blocked.
The name sounds like it'd be suited to an RPG. Im exited though! Love finding beat em ups that I've never played and I've played a bunch. If you look at the Japanese Megadrive games theres a handful of beat 'em ups similar to Streets Of Rage, well not similar but if u like beat 'em ups there fun. I was suprised when I found some, was like dang! Ive started playing new hack n slash games now to feed my beat 'em up needs. Great chat guys! Putting this in my calander.
I had an original copy of Pier Solar. I called out of work the night of the Paprium preorder. (I would've been fine if I just worked a normal shift because of the clusterfuck that happened with the ordering system, but that's a different story.) I'm not going to ask for a refund. Partially because it's been so long that I already consider the money lost, and partially because I'm still holding out hope that I'll get a copy of this someday. It's really the only reason I still have a Genesis; I've already gotten rid of like 85% of my once massive game library. I barely play my Genesis for more than an hour a month these days. I just want to get this game and see if it was worth the wait, or if I decide I'm just not into games anymore so can finally sell off it and the rest of my library and use that money towards furthering my hobbies.
This game got me into retro gaming again. I got a mega drive just for this then a mega sg, as this game is meant to be cart only. Gave up waiting and sold it all. I've got a MiSTer now that only plays roms.
I guess a dreamcast port is out of the question? Pier Solar got a DC version, and it might be a better home for this than the genesis. It'd give them a little more horsepower to work with. Honestly seems like this isn't going to happen at all, though, on any console.
Was Pier Solar Dreamcast done by Watermelon in-house or by an external studio? I'm thinking Gameblox Interactive in Brazil or GyroVorbis in USA or collab of both. Then again i'm in doubt either will want to work with Gwenaël.
I do know a fair bit of the music was done, as two of the dudes working on Paprium- Groovemaster303 and Jredd- had been sharing teasers of tunes they wrote for it. So the utter absence of any tunes in the Launch Party build is... troubling. For the longest time I’ve wanted to assume there’s no deliberate malice or con-artistry here- it’s still terrible business practices and should be called out, but there’s a difference between incompetence/biting off way more then y’can chew vs deliberately scamming people- but the excuses about the quality of the launch party build are concerning. As is the lack of refunds on preorders. It’s clear the team is struggling to wrangle this over ambitious beast; I can’t see why they’re just not honest about that and offering some transparency. People’ll be angry, sure, but I’d argue people are even MORE pissed off now that they’re being thrown pathetic and likely untrue excuses and, equally likely, empty promises. I didn’t back the game, but I’ve followed it for a long time and at this point, I’m just sad; I wanted, against all odds, for this game to overcome the hurdles and get finished. With each passing day, that grows more unlikely, and that’s a shitter.
I am French, and I can tell you that in France WM has a fucking reputation of professional liars. I am one of those French collectors who fortunately do not wait for anything more from this company, especially after the various false excuses and blows. Down they put in the middle of the retrogaming..I advise you all to go rotten their facebook as some of us in France did.
I backed this but was lucky enough to get a refund about almost two years ago lol. Thing to note, this game was one of two projects that they were trying to do and get funds for. *edit* I honestly can't remember how long ago I asked for a refund, but I did get it. I feel now like it's been years I guess lol
nothing I have ever backed has been ontime… it's always like 2 years after what they ETA on the site... like that student loan site that says on their website that they will help those with loans navigate their loan... yet in court said they have no responsibility to help and you are stupid to believe what they print on their website to be anything but "fluff"... that is a real legal precedent it seems...
It hasn't, but it's almost ready to ship now. I believe the delay with the XM has been due to the health issues of the designer. The delay for Paprium seems to be more about one particular person's ego getting in the way of producing a final product.
Communication was better though and last November one of the team members/programmers visited the ejagfest. You could ask him any question and play games on the XM.
The worst part is Pier Solar is a slightly above average game at best, and they made their name on it. It is a beautiful looking genesis game, with a great soundtrack, but the gameplay itself is just middling, often frustrating in its design.
Do you think Watermelon Games will ever release Paprium?
✅More info @bit.ly/2Hh0fEd
Yeah, eventually, and it'll probably have a few glitches/issues like PS, but more obvious. I think they fell prey to promising more than they could realistically deliver in a reasonable timeframe, and without oversight pressure they're free to dawdle on things other than getting the game actually finished.
Not unless there are massive changes to the company. They lied to us and promised repeatedly that the game was shipping in October. It's been radio silence since then. The game hasn't been delayed again, it just failed to release and the dev vanished. Every email is dead and he won't give refunds.
You guys forget that they have made a crowdfunding for the game, directly through their site with their Gems system... Some people put money on it from the start... not only 3 years ago...
I do think it will come out, God only knows when, but I do think that they will release it. I preordered it from their website when they made it available, and I'm willing to wait, I have not asked for a refund, I basically consider that money gone, and if they don't release the game, well its a pretty penny but it didn't cost all that much.
It probably will end up being crap, but they've backed thenselves into a position where they have to release SOMETHING, as probably the reason they arent offering refunds is that our money is almost definitely already spent :c
I was one of the devs of Pier Solar and have to correct a few things.
Very few people involved in Pier Solar actually worked on Paprium. For the most part this is the brainchild of the programmer. This went as far (and I am only citing what has been stated publicly before) that the owner and boss of Watermelon did NOT get access to the game and information by said programmer. There was faith in the programmer's skills but in the end his attitude of secrecy, deciding alone and not showing progress alienated every single other original team member. Including the owner, who then denied the programmer to give him funds collected for Pier Solar HD to bolster Paprium development, but instead finished those ports as promised to backers and then basically handed over the company to the programmer. Simply because there was no working together possible. Not a single person from Pier Solar remains with WM today, except for that one programmer.
So while this is officially "Watermelon", please understand this is not from the team of fans who once set out to make a Mega Drive RPG. It is the empty shell of that team, handled by the one remaining person who is hiring people (sometimes apparently not paying them) to do tasks. Watermelon was not even a real company when we made Pier Solar, just a team name, and nobody got paid.
And even the people he hired to do stuff for Paprium don't want anything to do with him anymore.
Now about the data/facts:
Paprium was announced in August 2012, not 2013... originally for a release date of August 2013. I know because expecting to work on this or other projects myself I started a thread about the game in a Forum in August 2012, with that release date as was written on the fact sheet given to me. I just looked and the post is there.
Money was taken from that point on. The game was to be financed through the website's own crowdfunding system. People could buy a pseudo currency (GEMS) and invest in projects, and that currency would later be exchanged for games and merchandise when the game is out.
The pre-order thing came much, much later at what was supposed to be the last stretch of development. I don't know how many people pre-ordered, but for Pier Solar we had several thousand. So I assume this would have as many or more. And the reason was most likely because the funds had run out after such a long delay for what was intended to take a year or a year and a half.
The special chip is intended for sound. Not for graphics or anything. And apparently that chip that was planned did not work out.
There were PCBs designed and built, not just the one from the event with the cables. I have seen some pics. No idea if they were working.
That event was a 30th anniversary event for the MD, but it was also announced the game would be shown and the first copies could arrive in customers' hands about the time of the event. That was announced just weeks before, so every customer had to see this as a release event and think the game is done. If the game was not already in manufacturing by the time the event was announced, it was impossible to deliver so soon. So seeing the game is not even done now as it seems, that was a flat out lie.
It can be assumed that pretending the game was almost done and holsing a release party was meant to attract outside investors for a cash injection.
The soundtrack is indeed done afaik. The composer is known, as is the main graphics artist, and from what I can say music and graphics have been done for years. They did that work as hired hands and delivered their stuff ages ago. The issue with the sound not being in that crappy demo seen on the event is probably that the neccessary chip for the sound is missing.
The PayPal frozen funds is probably due to PayPal clearly stating in their terms of service that it is not meant for pre-orders and stuff must be delivered 2 or 4 weeks after payment. So when people complain in droves after that time PayPal naturally freezes an account.
Refunds have been granted up until maybe a year ago. I assume this may be when the funds dried up.
Where does the December 2019 date come from? I have not heard anything since the event took place. All channels fell silent, the website was down for days and even mail adresses were discontinued. The site did come back up but without comment.
Also, Project N was announced simultaneously to Paprium. That project was also crowdfunded, and to my understanding is not even close to being finished and not actively being worked on.
I don't think there was any ill intent. But bad management and overestimation of what can be done how quickly with limited budget. Doesn't help fans who paid of course, but I doubt the money was used to enrich someone, but simply spent in development hell until it was gone.
I still want to believe that there was no intention from the very beginning to screw people over. That being said, Mr. Fonzie's decisions resulted in one and one thing only: a crime.
So what happened to all you guys that left WM? Formed a new company?
@@DeckardGames No intention to screw people over? Then why the fake website datensemi.com (domain name registered by Fonzie in 2013, almost six years ago!), with fake pictures of a factory, a photo of a fake award, and some text in Chinese? Why pretend he would use a "Datenmeister" chip that never existed, and doing that very soon after the game was announced?
@@brinckau That website strangely "google translates" perfectly (or near perfectly from my quick once over) to English, almost if it was written in English first then Google Translated to Chinese (or whatever it actually is)
@@zackschilling4376 Indeed, good catch.
If you want the full story, make sure you check out What Happened to Paprium, a 3 part documentary by St1ka.
ruclips.net/video/kXLtnqbeBNI/видео.html
Excellent documentary. Just watched all 3 parts. 👍
Love me some st1ka.
I actually did some writing work for WaterMelon back in 2013. At that point, the main thing they were focused on was an update of a Japanese mech/tactical RPG called Vixen 357. They were going to overhaul the whole thing and even add online play with some special dongle as I recall. Papirum was in its infancy and still called Project Y at that point. I was supposed to work on that as well, but it never materialized. Gwenael (Fonzie as he is known) was always cool with me, and seemed like a good guy as I got to know him a bit. I know he had issues (even back then) with getting pixel artists who could work on that (large) scale....as that skill set has kind of fallen by the wayside. My guess is his (over) ambition got the best of him here....and I'd still like to know what happened with the Vixen 357 project as I did some quality work on that, I thought.
Indeed vixen 357 was the big project for WM. I was the character designer, cutscene and fmv director on that project as I was on piersolar/HD. God knows if/when vixen will come out one day. Such a pity.
@@ArmVM A pity indeed.
Strange. I was also a writer for Vixen 357, but I never heard of you. I wrote a manuscript of over 100 pages and was also a general game designer on the project.
@@KaskelotenZebbe I started off doing a side project...a rather large "roundtable" interview of all the team members that was planned for a book that was to be a companion to the special editions of the upcoming games. I actually still have your raw interview document, Zebbe. After that was completed, Fonzie asked me to edit/rewrite a few things... most of which were documents related to Vixen as I'm recalling. This was all through Gwenael/Fonzie, so you'd have to ask him for more detail than that.
I remember you had interviewed me too way back in 2014 if I am right...
You’re better off giving your money to the son of the deposed king of Nigeria. He emailed me directly!!
Paprium sounds like a cream you use for diaper rash.
It almost sounds like Papyrus which was the first form of paper
Or hemorrhoid cream
Or Paprika(um)
figment1988 I thought that too!
Guys... Watermelon don't have any money left. The game's development barely started. Most of the developers left the team. The insanely overambitious ideas of its director are basically impossible to achieve on anything less than a NeoGeo. Paprium is not going to happen. Full stop.
I'm still waiting for my NTSC copy of Pier Solar for the Dreamcast that I paid for back in April of 2017!!!!!!!!
They used that budget for project y. Then he used that budget for a coke party. There is a 2 part paprium documentary on youtube giving specific details.
The trailer makes it look like a Neo Geo game! 😳
It's really sad what's going on with Watermelon, because Pier Solar was a good game. Not the best RPG, but a solid game, and if you can get a copy it's worth your time. But the Watermelon that made Pier Solar good basically ceased to exist when Tulio Adriano left the company. The guy was not only director, but also the best PR person they had and his hands were pretty full all the time. Now the company is in the hands of someone who not only refuses to do any PR, but is basically in denial of how a video game company is supposed to run, let alone an indie company.
By the way, they also announced an SNES game at the same time as Paprium with similar "tech demo" stuff completed, but there's probably less hope for that ever coming out if it's even possible to have less hope at this point. Also Pier Solar appears to basically be sold out, and I have my doubts it'll see any new reprints anytime soon.
I regretfully funded Mighty #9 and Paprium. I hope to God Shenmue 3 delivers. But, I'm probably not going to fund anymore kickstarters from now on.😆 You just can't trust people anymore nowadays. Its sad. Thanks for covering the story Pat!👍 We need more media coverage on this type of crowd-funding abuse. Its not right at all to scam/deceive people out of their hard earned money. They need to be exposed and held accountable.
I am one of the poor saps that preordered this game years back now. I've honestly just written the game off and just consider it $80 down the drain. If I get the game at all down the road, even if its terrible, it'll be more then I expect at this point.
Same.
Poor sap here checking in
That trailer does still look awesome though lol. Man..what could have been...
Same same... I hope something comes of it since we can't get our money back.
me too
Long before they started taking pre-orders you could be an "investor" on their site. I paid for the investors limited edition years ago. There's a lot more money than a couple thousand pre-orders put into this.
24 levels in a beat em up sounds more like a chore than actually fun.
It wouldn't be in one play through. That's including all the multiple routes.
Yeah the idea was that It had branching paths and in any single play through you would only do a small selection of the levels. The save slots was to track your progress on the different paths, or something.
@@nebnosneh That actually sounds alright. I wonder if it will come out?
@Iamasillyboy Yesiam"Shadow over Mystara"
Streets of Rage >>> Final Fight
Get it right.
Street of rage 2 genesis + final fight Sega cd = heaven
I've played Final fight too and it's boring. I forgot all about the musics. Nothing catchy.
Wrong direction bud
I gave up on this game a LOOOOOOONG time ago.
I haven’t even heard of this until now...kinda glad tbh because I would have thrown my wallet at this preorder
So its been about a year since this vid. A few months ago they took down their website. Right before that Fonzie the owner basically told off the people whom pre ordered the game and said its being worked on, yet he didnt seem at all enthusiastic. They showed a girl worker putting together an arcade stick but that was it. Now there again is zero info for months. This looks to be obe of the biggest scams in gaming history
As somebody who's working on an indie game, this shit isn't easy even though your heart is set on seeing it through. People have to quit because of other obligations, publishers like to scam you out of money, creative differences, Paypal does fuck with people depending on their region, the devs either pay out of pocket for a lower quality game that isn't well-received, or do a crowdfund and struggle to fulfill every single pledge.
I guess you have to accept that AAA games are usually reliable, but they like to shake down their customers, and many indie projects are unreliable, volatile and fly-by-night
Too bad because this game looked tons more interesting than Streets of Rage 4
I'm just wakin up, I almost did a spit take for how casually Ian says "So, there was no update for 59 months."
This would've made a great Neo Geo or Dreamcast game.
To me the biggest loss of the WM fall was Project N, it was looking really beautiful
Funny watching this in 2021, now that the game has been released and is arguably the very best beatemup on the Genesis......
AFTER the party they clearly stated on Facebook that it was STILL SHIPPING IN OCTOBER AND THEY WERE STILL GIVING REFUNDS. Both were LIES.
Everyone who gets the e-mail saying it's ready to ship: Make sure you're clicking on the check-out button to confirm the order and shipping address!
I preordered, was hyped as hell for a long time and saw their success with Pier Solar.
Lesson learnt obviously.
me too......
I Preordered both Paprium and Second Run of Pier Solar. I haven't even received Pier Solar.
Money went to go to coke party
I think it'd be cool to get some new Sega CD games
When placing a pre-order of Paprium I also ordered a second copy of Pier Solar. If there was no ill intent, why was this finished game not shipped? They might not have started out looking to outright steel from people, but at the end that's exactly what they were doing. With that said if any of the PayPal information is true, I'm also a little pissed at PayPal. It sounds like they were trying to prevent people from getting hurt, but at the same time if they froze that money why didn't they just give it back to the senders? They have been zero help with getting this resolved.
20th August 2020: "Purchase not available at the moment"
12:15 the demo at that party was on actual hardware. the cartridge was just a weird debug thing.
if you mean the big sprites, yeah. the chip they originally were using was a DSP, basically a number cruncher. it wouldn't help the genesis draw more sprites.
stuff like this always makes me sad cause we always talk about corporate overlords and how douche they are and abuse their power and take advantage of people's goodwill and here you have an indie developer doing the same and giving a bad name to all people who want to do things like this legitimately I hope they do come out with something cause the people who payed and have been waiting deserve something
Still not as long as Duke Nukem Forever.
Pier Solar was delayed by 2 years. I did preorder the original posterity edition of Pier Solar and the game was amazing and worth the wait. I didnt follow the other projects, i believe there was another project planned by WM.
I got refunded about a year after pre order as I wasnt happy with the progress reports or the fact members of a Sega Facebook group had promoted the pre orders making claims the game was well on its way to being finished!
Even as a passion project I cannot understand why anyone would do homebrew. Dealing with hardware limitations, manufacturing, and distribution seems like a total hassle for such a small market. So much easier to just dump it on steam.
Personally, I think it is cool as hell they are doing this. Xenocrisis looks to be a success out of this.
Thanks for taking this question! I actually asked Aaron if he had an idea for a topic (he prefers to lurk), and he suggested this.
I recommend Slope's Game Room documentary on this. He did a pretty indepth overview of the situation.
I would think an RPG would take way longer to develop than a beat-em-up.
I'm sure it probably depends on the RPG and the beat-em-up. I bet Scott Pilgrim would take longer to develop than Final Fantasy IV. And someone might reply to that with "but those games aren't from the same era" and they'd be right... but we live in a time where new games are being developed that mimic games from an older era, so that argument really isn't valid today.
Paid for my copy 15 months ago...nothing has come in and they don't answer any communication
I've actually made a MegaDrive game, so I was impressed when I first saw this. From my experience I think minimum you'd need 6 artists on this, 3/ 4 programmers, at least 2 other people doing dibs'N'dabs. From the initial Launch video they definitley have more assets than you see in the video at the party but In reality a small company doing this would need lots of Outsourcers, Adding an element of possible disaster. Very few profensionals do pixel art. I think this companies passion for games has outstretched their ability, Never do the game you want to do, do the game you can do and Pat your right, doing a game the console can't actually do is folly.
Watch the documentary "What happened to Paprium". The assets are done since years, and so is the music.
The only real problem is the ego of the project manager, "Fonzie".
@@Shendue Yep, watched that, I think your right, Fonzie sounds like a control freak and his near madness scuppered the project. I doubt they have anything near a game though, They said they have the assets but from my own experience I'm not sure I believe them.
59 months to develop a Genesis game and they still can't release the damn thing. Then you release that glitch infested demo. What a scam
They should use an arm chip since the cart port has DMA and that they could code using C instead of assembly to get the thing out.
See, if it had Sanic the Memehog 2019 art it would have gotten enough funding.
They used the budget budget for project y. Then he used that budget for a coke party. There is a 2 part paprium documentary on youtube giving specific details.
I was responsible for some of those "jiffs" on the Sega-16 forum.
*guiff
St1ka has a done a documentary which includes interviews from people who worked on the game. You guys should give it a watch, part 1 is here: ruclips.net/video/kXLtnqbeBNI/видео.html
They got my money around 2 years ago. Completely given up on it and don't really think about it. This is the only time that I have ever backed a product like this. Never again. No Kickstarter or anything similar.
Fyre Fest: The Video Game
Nah thats StarCitizen
I can't say much about the rest of it, but I know for a fact the music in the game actually was done and completed because I happen to be close friends with one of the musicians, and am somewhat friends with its other musician. There are demos of the music released by one of the composers involved that he had to fight tooth and nail to actually be allowed to post. Give some kind of sample despite trying to keep it under extremely tight wraps. The fact that there is no music here is odd indeed. The one I am close friends with has been waiting on its release about as long as everyone else has, and from time to time has been almost itching to release, feeling very proud of it and wanting to show it off. To make up for it, he has been working on a lot of music on the side and upping his skills with more normal ym2612 technology and beyond.
As for the name, again, I am not overly fond of it either, I would have personally gone with something along the lines of Cyber Fist, or Techno Fist - The Cyber Future, though I would possibly want to refine it, but it gives an idea of the direction I would go for its name. It seems like something that needs to jump out at you, it needs a punch (no pun intended)
NESpunk bringing out the guns...Spring’s right around the corner!
"Allegedly!" Took them over 36 hours to at least clear a highway of densely packed and DEEP snow in the Dakota states from the recent weather!
Pier Solar was great. Had the Bravely Default battle system before Bravely Default
I remember a friend and I talking about Pier Solar years ago. Which was inspired by the Lunar series. The characters had huge chins. I think that's the least of their problems now. :D
Something I didn't mention in my first comment: I remember Pier Solar being listed as a launch title for the Retro VGS. Yep, it comes full circle.
I'm always down for some juicy Watermelon smack talk. Anyone interested in the full dirt on this disaster owes it to themselves to check out St1ka's developer interviews /documentary on the topic. It's feature length and divided into 3 parts: ruclips.net/video/kXLtnqbeBNI/видео.html
I need a custom chip for my life.
Paprium is supossed to have rpg elements (branching paths's) including alot of replayabillity, secrets and compatible with online content (DLC & OnlineMP) All this together is what really interested me, not just another beat em up with a different skin. But a beat em up that makes use of elements that give the game more deapth. The game has alot of details like environments that react on the player etc. I hope this will get released. If this comes out, it has the potential to be the most wanted Sega genesis beat em all game. Fonzie please finish the game, it has alot of potential.
This game looks (looked?) so awesome. They should aim to bring it out to the Switch and modern consoles and make more money. Don't know if such quality can be completely done on the Genesis without compromises. This looks more in line with a 90's arcade game. Hopefully something comes of it, but as of now; the actual release looks bleak.
That must be the longest development cycle for any Genesis game ever. Did I hear right that it was going to be an 80 meg game?
Paprium is Alive!!!
i agree with Pat, just release it as a download(ps4 and xbox one store, etc), without it being confined to genesis technology. i don't think the genesis could run the game we see in the commercial. that's neo geo level stuff
The GPU is the same but not at the same frequency. Maybe with a little help the Genesis could do this.
@@brorianszk Nah, NeoGeo shares its CPU with the MegaDrive/Genesis but not the graphics subsystem, the VPU on the Megadrive and the LSPC plus various other bits on the Neo-Geo. The fundamental difference is that on NeoGeo, everything is a sprite (unless it's the forced overlay, the fix layer), and you can have a lot of sprites, and huge sprites, and the graphics chip has its own ROM access. On the MegaDrive, the system is more traditional with scrollable background layers and a sprite layer, and the graphics chip has a separate VRAM that is populated by the CPU with some DMA help.
But for sure the game demo as it was back then was running on the Megadrive/Genesis. Whatever happens in the ROM window and the cartridge slot is the easy part, and chances are, the wiring was merely for debugging and quickly updating the ROM.
Seems that there are hardware problems with most, if not all their products.
On a talk on twitter with them + Renée, from db electronics + Voultar + INL I asked why a SNES cartridge with the same flaw had damaged my childhood console and their games would not do the same to my Mega Drive.
That was enough to get blocked.
This game will never see the light of day! A load of pap if you ask me
Yeah, yeah, 59 months. What's far more important is how Pat says 'Gif' incorrectly.
Thanks Pat. Paprium IS the dumbest name for a beat em up. I agree.
The name sounds like it'd be suited to an RPG. Im exited though! Love finding beat em ups that I've never played and I've played a bunch. If you look at the Japanese Megadrive games theres a handful of beat 'em ups similar to Streets Of Rage, well not similar but if u like beat 'em ups there fun. I was suprised when I found some, was like dang! Ive started playing new hack n slash games now to feed my beat 'em up needs. Great chat guys! Putting this in my calander.
I had an original copy of Pier Solar.
I called out of work the night of the Paprium preorder. (I would've been fine if I just worked a normal shift because of the clusterfuck that happened with the ordering system, but that's a different story.)
I'm not going to ask for a refund. Partially because it's been so long that I already consider the money lost, and partially because I'm still holding out hope that I'll get a copy of this someday. It's really the only reason I still have a Genesis; I've already gotten rid of like 85% of my once massive game library. I barely play my Genesis for more than an hour a month these days. I just want to get this game and see if it was worth the wait, or if I decide I'm just not into games anymore so can finally sell off it and the rest of my library and use that money towards furthering my hobbies.
This game got me into retro gaming again. I got a mega drive just for this then a mega sg, as this game is meant to be cart only. Gave up waiting and sold it all. I've got a MiSTer now that only plays roms.
I guess a dreamcast port is out of the question? Pier Solar got a DC version, and it might be a better home for this than the genesis. It'd give them a little more horsepower to work with. Honestly seems like this isn't going to happen at all, though, on any console.
Was Pier Solar Dreamcast done by Watermelon in-house or by an external studio? I'm thinking Gameblox Interactive in Brazil or GyroVorbis in USA or collab of both.
Then again i'm in doubt either will want to work with Gwenaël.
Lets not forget Dead Island 2, Pre-Orders started in 2013 right? What a mess
I do know a fair bit of the music was done, as two of the dudes working on Paprium- Groovemaster303 and Jredd- had been sharing teasers of tunes they wrote for it. So the utter absence of any tunes in the Launch Party build is... troubling.
For the longest time I’ve wanted to assume there’s no deliberate malice or con-artistry here- it’s still terrible business practices and should be called out, but there’s a difference between incompetence/biting off way more then y’can chew vs deliberately scamming people- but the excuses about the quality of the launch party build are concerning. As is the lack of refunds on preorders. It’s clear the team is struggling to wrangle this over ambitious beast; I can’t see why they’re just not honest about that and offering some transparency. People’ll be angry, sure, but I’d argue people are even MORE pissed off now that they’re being thrown pathetic and likely untrue excuses and, equally likely, empty promises.
I didn’t back the game, but I’ve followed it for a long time and at this point, I’m just sad; I wanted, against all odds, for this game to overcome the hurdles and get finished. With each passing day, that grows more unlikely, and that’s a shitter.
I am French, and I can tell you that in France WM has a fucking reputation of professional liars. I am one of those French collectors who fortunately do not wait for anything more from this company, especially after the various false excuses and blows. Down they put in the middle of the retrogaming..I advise you all to go rotten their facebook as some of us in France did.
I just want to forget all of this.. stop talking about
Yep they stole my money and PayPal can’t give it back
And thats why you dont make a fucking trailer with fake gameplay. Smh.
Super Nintendo is what Genesisn't
lol Paprium is supposedly for the genesis
Weird name, but it seems like a really cool beat em up game.
55 weeks not months
This makes me sad because pier solar was an Amazing Game and I thought Watermelon was a trustworthy company.
I backed this but was lucky enough to get a refund about almost two years ago lol. Thing to note, this game was one of two projects that they were trying to do and get funds for.
*edit* I honestly can't remember how long ago I asked for a refund, but I did get it. I feel now like it's been years I guess lol
What the fuck is a Paprium??
nothing I have ever backed has been ontime… it's always like 2 years after what they ETA on the site... like that student loan site that says on their website that they will help those with loans navigate their loan... yet in court said they have no responsibility to help and you are stupid to believe what they print on their website to be anything but "fluff"... that is a real legal precedent it seems...
In genesis shit happens and NINTENDON'T
Pre-ordered this and Project N from them back in 2012 !! and nothing
Because N is for nothing. Y is for why.
There's Streets Of Rage 4 to compensate
Well, the game came out great, despite everything
Where can I purchase a physical copy?
This guy Fonzie... he has pissed alot of people off. Best stay hiding...
Ha this is nothing compared to the atari 7800 xm(expansion module).... I almost pre ordered that in 2010. I don’t think it has even shipped yet
It hasn't, but it's almost ready to ship now. I believe the delay with the XM has been due to the health issues of the designer. The delay for Paprium seems to be more about one particular person's ego getting in the way of producing a final product.
Communication was better though and last November one of the team members/programmers visited the ejagfest. You could ask him any question and play games on the XM.
mjaap I’ve always heard good things about the guy developing the xm but I’m just glad I didn’t pre order it
I’m still excited about the game.
Completely unnecessary sir
Gotta agree with Pat, it's a very stupid name for a beat em up. Every time I'm about to say the games name, my mouth wants to say pap smear.
Yeah the name is really awful.
The worst part is Pier Solar is a slightly above average game at best, and they made their name on it. It is a beautiful looking genesis game, with a great soundtrack, but the gameplay itself is just middling, often frustrating in its design.
It should be released on current Gen consoles PS4, Xbox One, because it would have cut scenes! You can't have cut scenes on a cartridge
"Paprium"? Sounds like a weird chemical in soap. A better name would be " SUPER SEGA FIGHTER DRAGON FART"
Giffs: 'Jiffs, yes Jiffs'.... my hero. =)