is this game any good or just another scam game?

[Terroriza]

I honestly can't tell, part of it looks OK and some parts shout red flag that will never get finished or be any good.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

I can't speak for the devs but I've been following them on the discord for a long while since June. What they are going for appears to be possible for them within their budget. I really don't anticipate the players getting burned here. That said, there is a huge update in March(conquest) so if you want to be cautious, it can't hurt to wait till that's release.
I personally find it a lot of fun right now blasting guys and unlocking talents in roguelike mode. They also just added MP. Which really helps make it more fun.

[Sakamerd]

Originally posted by Terroriza:

I honestly can't tell, part of it looks OK and some parts shout red flag that will never get finished or be any good.

We're finishing this game!
Which parts are you worried about?

[Sweatington]

Originally posted by Anthony:

Originally posted by Terroriza:

I honestly can't tell, part of it looks OK and some parts shout red flag that will never get finished or be any good.

We're finishing this game!
Which parts are you worried about?

sci fi mount & blade
made by devs with good taste in anime?
♥♥♥♥ yeah I'm keeping my eye on this one

[Terroriza]

Originally posted by Anthony:

Originally posted by Terroriza:

I honestly can't tell, part of it looks OK and some parts shout red flag that will never get finished or be any good.

We're finishing this game!
Which parts are you worried about?

The game actually looks nice. I haven't ran across a good game that was advertised on facebook before. It seems really strange that you mostly were doing this thru the games website with minimum 50$ purchase. It's pretty much the same format as all those garbage tier games that nobody actually likes. You put out of a good looking video on a website so people make impulsive purchases, make as many sales as possible and then abandon the game. It's also a bit easier to create fake hype via facebook or youtube compared to steam.

Can anyone show me a game that was done this way which is actually any good? Or what about a single facebook game that is actually good?

Another thing that looks odd and maybe it's nothing, but I've seen this same thing in scam games... Everyone related to the game seems overly positive and quick to reply to make things seem good, so much to the point it raises a red flag for me.

These are the same type responses I've seen in failing games over and over. The legit games I join early rarely ever come across this way. I can't help but feel like this is one of those games that will never be finished and abandoned after they make as many sales as possible early on.

It doesn't help at all once you look into the last game by the same dev / publisher having mostly negative reviews. I really hope I am wrong, it's possible this happens so much it just makes people skeptical and you are actually legit.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

Originally posted by Terroriza:

Originally posted by Anthony:

We're finishing this game!
Which parts are you worried about?

The game actually looks nice. I haven't ran across a good game that was advertised on facebook before. Makes me a bit skeptical to buy a package and play now, but I will definitely keep an eye on it and see what happens at release.

Is this game just on steam, requires 3rd party client or can be run either way?

Another thing that looks odd and maybe it's nothing, but I've seen this same thing in scam games... Everyone related to the game seems overly positive and quick to reply to make things seem good, so much to the point it raises a red flag for me.

One example is a post about gunplay from other games and if this game is in Alpha at cost 50$ I would expect the dev team already knows exactly what they want to do and there won't be drastic changes, everyone should have a clear vision of how the game is going to be and some random post isn't going to change it. Another game is mentioned and the publisher is quick to just be like oh yeah our people are looking at that and it's being worked on.

These are the same type responses I've seen in failing games over and over. The legit games I join early rarely ever come across this way. I can't help but feel like this is one of those games that will never be finished and abandoned after they make as many sales as possible early on. I hope I am wrong, it looks interesting, but so did the last game I ran across that never finished.

It doesn't help at all once you look into the last game by the same dev / publisher having mostly negative reviews.

The main reason I am personally positive in my responses is because I like the game. I frequently check this forums to make sure people aren't spreading misinformation about the game or the dev team just because they have earned it from me. I have followed it for 7 months and held a personal opinion much the same as you probably hold now of skepticism. I have gotten burnt on many many games in my time. Almost all exclusively early access shovelware that the devs got the money and ran off. All I can say is that after following it for a long time, is that they love the community and intend to see this through. They have a vision for what they are doing and they really are taking lots of feedback and extremely open about communicating. As such they've earned my loyalty. The game is definitely something they very much care about bringing to fruition and enjoy working on.
They have been really responsive to suggestions and have been making good progress every 2 weeks.
Also I actually really liked seeking dawn. it is a huge and fun game for me. I played it with friends and I enjoyed it alot. I have quite a large selection of games and its come to the point that I don't really trust reviews anymore. If they take a dive initially, it can sour a good game for years and cause a game to fall into obscurity and color other people's opinions. You really need to watch gameplay and make your own judgements.
There isn't really a need to buy an early package if you aren't interested in playing the game as its being developed. It may be fun but it also has a lot of bugs given the speed they are rolling out things(every 2 weeks). Its more of a situation where if you want to get in early, be part of helping it become greater by helping them test and balance it and give feature suggestions and get some exclusive cosmetics for doing so. A lot of current features and balancing has come as of player request. You never fully know how the interplay between mechanics will play out so I personally find it important to get in early and help test and shape the game into something consistently fun.
I want it to succeed. No one is doing this kind of game. Its ambitious and they cranking out updates with really good speed.
I would say check back early April after conquest rolls out(in March) and they've had some chances to patch some things.

[Terroriza]

Thanks for the response, very helpful and good to know. I will keep following it and must say from the videos it does look really good.

[Multiverse Publishing]

This is Freeman - CEO of Multiverse, the studio behind Earth From Another Sun. Some really good questions were raised in the comments above and I'd like to address them.

== Why are we crowdfunding?
Mostly because we need the funds to complete the game to a degree of production quality we desire. But equally important is that we get feedback from paying players, so we can make sure the design and development go in the right direction.

It's impossible to "make as much money early on" because making a game like this is so expensive, and it costs a lot of money each month to pay the salaries of our dev team. Even with traffic from our FB ads it's impossible to turn a profit during crowdfunding. Doing the crowdfunding only helps offset a small fraction of the costs.

== Why are we only doing FB ads?
Because that's the only ad platform I'm familiar with. I would like to try Google, Youtube, and other ad platforms as well, but with all the design and management work I have to do, time is scarce and I have to do it one step at a time.

== Has any other game done it this way before?
None that I'm aware of. But why must people do things the old way? Isn't apple's ethos "to think different, to challenge the status quo"? To make a game worth playing, it's essential to think different and challenge the status quo, and that's how we are designing Earth From Another Sun.

Players have such a high standard for Early Access games these days, and since EFAS is still being developed, if we launch the game in its current state on Steam in Early Access, we might not get a review score we are happy with, so that needs to wait at least until the open world universe in EFAS is fun to play. But we need funding, so we do a crowdfunding.

== Why aren't we doing crowdfunding on Kickstarter or Indiegogo?
We just might! We've been seriously thinking about that. Doing crowdfunding on those platforms takes a huge amount of work, and in the beginning we just wanted to throw together a website and test the interest in the game with some ads, which takes far less time. And so far I'm proud to say the interest level is incredible! That gives us confidence in actually putting together a Kickstarter campaign.

== Will this game be completed?
If you scroll through EFAS's bi-weekly updates on Steam (and I hope you do, we've been working on this game for years!), you'll see the amount of time and effort we have already put into it. There's no reason for us to stop now or any time in the future. Especially with so many players who have already backed us and standing behind us, we'll get it done, no matter what. That's a promise.

== Is our previous game any good?
I don't think it's good, although some players really loved it, and it doesn't have mostly negative reviews. It's called Seeking Dawn, btw. We put a huge amount of effort into its art, but the design and programming are subpar. Which is why for EFAS, we recruited very talented and seasoned game designers and programmers.

The company is still the same company, but the team is very different. The team working on EFAS is so much more talented, and so much more experienced, I know things will turn out much better this time. Success comes from learning from your past mistakes and improve.

The development method is also very different this time. For Seeking Dawn, we made the whole game behind closed doors, without player feedback. This time we are talking to players daily and getting loads of feedback. We are also putting out surveys and having players decide what gets made. It's like a 180 degree turn in terms of openness.

In the spirit of being as transparent as possible, we recently started posting daily development updates (with videos!) on Reddit, you can check them out here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EFAS/

And feel free to join our Discord to get a feel for how supportive the community is:
https://discord.com/invite/efas

And thanks for the unwavering support Mazzle Dazzle! Making a game is challenging and even overwhelming at times, but support from players who truly believe is what keeps us going.

[Terroriza]

Thanks for the info. Will be watching this one, it does look really interesting. It's a shame there have been so many scam games and fishy things in the past to where it makes people skeptical.

[Darknuke]

Originally posted by Terroriza:

Thanks for the info. Will be watching this one, it does look really interesting. It's a shame there have been so many scam games and fishy things in the past to where it makes people skeptical.

As a veteran developer, I can tell you right now that there is NO reason they would ever tell you they are NOT worth buying. I've used these same tactics before. All the things they've said are boiler plate hype-train that any marketer worth their salt would spew to get you to give them money. You should be VERY skeptical of any game that is asking you to give them money pre-alpha. This shows a lack of funding that they would never, ever admit to, because weakness can scare off customers. They've said themselves they need to sell copies now to support the project and are considering further fundraising mechanisms. This is a HUGE red flag to me.

I can tell you that I wrote a significant review of the game in their forum and they deleted it. Goes to show that they do not value, accept, or allow criticism. I was very thorough on what was wrong with the game as well as their dishonest marketing tactics. The biggest problem with this game is the disconnect between vision (idea and the marketing they use to make it seem like that idea is realized to a degree) and reality (what the actual game is). I made the mistake of buying one of their deluxe packages based on their shady marketing material that made the game seem WAYYYY further along than it is. Their marketing material is on par with early No Man's Sky. All hype and no substance. Let me be clear on this: The game is NOTHING like the trailer.

Granted, I haven't played in about a month, but knowing how slow dev goes on these things, I doubt anything substantial has changed. It's a basic Serious Sam style arena shooter with loot mechanics and a skill tree. There are some test maps they have that showcase large scale battles, but they are not fun or replayable. They claim to have a mount and blade style mode coming soon, but I'll believe it when I see it and even if it does come, it's not guaranteed to be functional or fun.

I'm extremely critical of this studio. Look at the reviews of their other game, Seeking Dawn, you will see review after review of "false advertising" claims. This studio knows how to make a trailer but has not proven they know how to make a game. They claim to be doing better this time, but all I see is them repeating yet another falsely advertised trailer. I'm not going to go as far as to call them a "scam" yet, but they are skirting the line really closely.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

I've been following since June of last year from before they even had the ability to pay for the game back then. I thought it was pretty unfun to play until about November of last year. Now I enjoy it alot.
For me it plays like any other roguelike albiet it is buggy but that is completely understandable and acceptable to me. If they spent time making everything 100% stable on each build, it would dramatically lengthen development time. This was a big issue with Destiny and continues to be an issue for many games as they try to pump out new content. I honestly don't really want them to waste their time. Each time they release an update, I play and provide feedback and player logs and videos with time stamps if I experience issues. I then see those issues fixed either the next patch or shortly after.
I will admit, they haven't had any real player facing improvements in about a month. They set up an account system and got that working for a territory naming thing they are allowing for backers at some point in the near future. They did add a map to the conquest demo map but that mode has limited enjoyment.
That said, if you don't heavily follow the game, or participate in the discord, until recently all of the progress they made or what they are working on would be unknown. However, as of now they have kept up with the daily updates on reddit. They have a video log every day, and it shows new things consistently, they also explain what they are working on.

I don't expect the conquest to be super fun or bug free on release, I expect it to be buggy and not have AI, and pretty much only consist of player battles against one another as they add different elements of the game every two weeks.

You can't really be any more transparent than that.

Its also very important to note that on their website it says:
Not all of the features above are ready in the current Alpha build. Please see update logs below for what's already included.

And:
Note: all of the digital items above are for backers only, and are not available to the general public. Digital items are cosmetic in nature and may have small functionalities that don't alter the balance of the game. They will be delivered at a later date.

You can see it at https://earthfromanothersun.com/.

As for reviews, the discord page has a testimonial page, where people have left their reviews which the devs have commented on and mentioned on numerous occasions that there are certain things they will devote time to once the conquest rollout happens.

I personally can appreciate the pace they are going at, and how open they have been. That is why I follow the game, and why I play it regularly.

[Terroriza]

Originally posted by Darknuke:

Originally posted by Terroriza:

Thanks for the info. Will be watching this one, it does look really interesting. It's a shame there have been so many scam games and fishy things in the past to where it makes people skeptical.

As a veteran developer, I can tell you right now that there is NO reason they would ever tell you they are NOT worth buying. I've used these same tactics before. All the things they've said are boiler plate hype-train that any marketer worth their salt would spew to get you to give them money. You should be VERY skeptical of any game that is asking you to give them money pre-alpha. This shows a lack of funding that they would never, ever admit to, because weakness can scare off customers. They've said themselves they need to sell copies now to support the project and are considering further fundraising mechanisms. This is a HUGE red flag to me.

I can tell you that I wrote a significant review of the game in their forum and they deleted it. Goes to show that they do not value, accept, or allow criticism. I was very thorough on what was wrong with the game as well as their dishonest marketing tactics. The biggest problem with this game is the disconnect between vision (idea and the marketing they use to make it seem like that idea is realized to a degree) and reality (what the actual game is). I made the mistake of buying one of their deluxe packages based on their shady marketing material that made the game seem WAYYYY further along than it is. Their marketing material is on par with early No Man's Sky. All hype and no substance. Let me be clear on this: The game is NOTHING like the trailer.

Granted, I haven't played in about a month, but knowing how slow dev goes on these things, I doubt anything substantial has changed. It's a basic Serious Sam style arena shooter with loot mechanics and a skill tree. There are some test maps they have that showcase large scale battles, but they are not fun or replayable. They claim to have a mount and blade style mode coming soon, but I'll believe it when I see it and even if it does come, it's not guaranteed to be functional or fun.

I'm extremely critical of this studio. Look at the reviews of their other game, Seeking Dawn, you will see review after review of "false advertising" claims. This studio knows how to make a trailer but has not proven they know how to make a game. They claim to be doing better this time, but all I see is them repeating yet another falsely advertised trailer. I'm not going to go as far as to call them a "scam" yet, but they are skirting the line really closely.

I agree with you and had already checked stuff like the previous games from the dev / publisher..

From what I have seen I keep thinking about this game "Wild Busters". It looked really good in the trailer, think it was around 50$ and it failed really fast after making a lot of sales and shortly after release was already removed from steam. I would make very valid points about basic things that made no sense and everyone was so fast to give these generic replies about we will look into that, forward it on blah blah blah and nothing ever changed. I stopped playing basically day 1, but checked back after a month and not a single issue was fixed, then the game was gone from steam after that.

[Sakamerd]

I'm not here to convince you to buy it, you can watch our daily updates / check from time to time to see if it interests you.
It isn't a scam and we are completing Earth From Another Sun, we have the budget to finish it, further funding will just allow us to polish it more. A major update will come soon with a ton of new content.
The content is ready, we are tying it up together. The best way to change your mind is to show you our work. There is nothing wrong with buying on release or skip it entirely because it's not for you. I'm not a marketing guy, just someone who believes in the project of making a game with close to AAA technology and the freshness of indie games, bringing back the golden age of AA games.

I'll admit it hurts to be called a scam but I understand skepticism.

[Mathmatics]

This is the company that made seeking dawn? Wow I did no know that before I bought it. I like it so far, hope they dont abandon it before its done like I feel they did with seeking dawn.

Edit: Also OP you can only get Tarkov from the website, and it's doing quite well.

[Sam McCloud]

Originally posted by Anthony:

I'm not here to convince you to buy it, you can watch our daily updates / check from time to time to see if it interests you.
It isn't a scam and we are completing Earth From Another Sun, we have the budget to finish it, further funding will just allow us to polish it more. A major update will come soon with a ton of new content.
The content is ready, we are tying it up together. The best way to change your mind is to show you our work. There is nothing wrong with buying on release or skip it entirely because it's not for you. I'm not a marketing guy, just someone who believes in the project of making a game with close to AAA technology and the freshness of indie games, bringing back the golden age of AA games.

I'll admit it hurts to be called a scam but I understand skepticism.

Thats cool. I notice there are assets from other games in ur game....that something you can talk about?

[Sam McCloud]

Originally posted by  Mathmatics :

This is the company that made seeking dawn? Wow I did no know that before I bought it. I like it so far, hope they dont abandon it before its done like I feel they did with seeking dawn.

Edit: Also OP you can only get Tarkov from the website, and it's doing quite well.

True but Tarkov has alot of mainstream eyes and well known youtubers to vouch for it.