UNHOLY NIGHT: THE DARKNESS HUNTER, An SNES game for 2017

Starting up a thread for Unholy Night: The Darkness Hunter, an upcoming Super Nintendo Entertainment System game made by former SNK staff members.

i mean

this seems hardly profitable

I remember seeing it on Kickstarter, it didn't make the goal for obvious reasons. Later on it made it to Amazon with a pre-order price of 50 bucks. Unless they're planning on releasing it digitally on other platforms (with a way cheaper price, of course), this is probably gonna be a commercial failure.

I mean...does anybody even have an SNES on hand?

Because selling a game made for a console nobody's making anymore, and at nearly $50 to boot, seems questionable to say the least.

Wouldn't it make more sense to release the game as is, but as an indie digital game since a lot of indie games take the pixelated look anyway? At like $5-$10?

Because...yeah, I really don't see how they can profit from selling a Super Nintendo Entertainment System game like this.

edited 1st May '17 7:57:25 AM by TargetmasterJoe

The Genesis homebrew scene is selling some full-priced games like Tanglewood, Pier Solar and the Great Architects, and the upcoming Papriun, but that has a much more united fanbase willing to pay for these kinds of games. Plus on the technical side trailers and PV videos show off features that would be difficult or unusual to pull off on the console as an incentive.

I'm genuinely curious if there's some advantage to making it for the SNES instead of just as a digital download.

Making homebrew games for discontinued game consoles is actually a fairly profitable niche market. NG Dev Team (Dreamcast and Neo Geo) and Songbird (Atari Jaguar) are two examples of game developers who's main business is selling original games on discontinued systems, mostly to obsessive collectors who want a "full set" of their system of choice. The former actually tried to release some of their games on digital platforms and fell flat on their asses.

Yeah. You're talking about a beloved, 40+ million selling game console like it's the Arcadia 2001 or something.

edited 1st May '17 8:35:50 AM by Glowsquid

The last game I ever played on my SNES was Star Fox, and that was for one last trip down memory lane before selling it for a pittance sometime before 2001.

I don't regret it, though. Given how everything's on the web these days, including a ton of emulated games from that generation, there's no value in keeping the system, unless you're holding out in hopes of that one desperate collector/fanatic who's willing to shell out $100+ to get their hands on it.

But this business model... I'm amazed it's even remotely practical. And while I can kinda understand why it's not getting enough traction online due to the hordes of crappy titles flooding digital markets like Steam, you'd think merely paying the fees to upload their games to a server would be dwarfed by the costs of physical manufacturing and shipping.

edited 1st May '17 9:46:28 AM by SgtRicko

It's all about brand recognition, nostalgia for a console's specific quirks, and a certain craftsmanship. Sure they could be making computer games, but if the base is large enough, the fidelity means they'll be extremely loyal and have a very good chance of buying your product.

Since a lot of retro fans with these still working consoles are collectors by necessity, they're more likely to buy a more expensive cartridge and cover the shipping costs if they can be convinced its worthwhile.

The Genesis, Neo, and Dreamcast are the biggest examples because they came out at points in time when they had large marketing pushes, were known for quality games, and have a lot of specific limitations that have become iconic. With the latter two cases, the fact they're certified cult classics that undersold but have a rabid fandom doesn't hurt.

The Amiga still has a lot of fans as well, and the demoscene is still active, churning out audio-visual presentations that push old tech to the breaking point.

The SNES for whatever reason just doesn't have that kind of love. A lot of people sold their consoles for the N64 or GC, Nintendo was ready to move on. But since the Saturn and Dreamcast underperformed, a lot of kids kept their Genesises.

There's a bunch of reasons (beyond simplty being passionate or wanting to show off your tech demo) why garage developers might opt to sell homebrew games on old consoles instead of going the digital route:

Getting there in the first place: Not all digital platforms are open like Steam or the Apple store. Companies can, and often did, reject games for subjective and arbitrary reasons, and 2D arcade-style games were often a victim of this. For a modern example, GOG rejected ports of classic arcade games that would fit their "goold old games" MO because they're "too niche and too hard", not because of objective QA issues.

Platform fees: Platform holders take a cut on every sales. Furthermore there may be additional fees and policies on top of that. For example, Nintendo had a policy for Wiiware where developers would only get money from sales after the game had sold X number of copies. With an homebrew game you can sell your game at whatever price you want, and get all the money from the transaction.

Discoverability: Some storefront have laxer standards, but if you're an indie, being noticed is tough. Selling a game for a classic system exposes you to an informed and engaged audience.

The collector audience: I already mentioned this in my previous post, but basically: The homebrew scene for the two 16-bits systems has increased in the past years, and that's mainly because, for whatever reason, there's a sizable-enough audience of collectors who'll just buy every game released for collecting purpose.

There's this company (I don't remember their name and I can't find it but I do know a bunch of their SNES games are featured on the "Retrobnits Generations" plug'nplay console) that publishes terrible homebrew games on the SNES (basically it's either ugly sprite swaps of Donkey Kong or Atari games, or Newgrounds-level stuff). They make a truckload of this stuff and they can keep going because there's enough people buying these terrible games for the sake of having "a complete collection".

ANYHOW about Unholy Night itself, I don't think making it a SNES game was a good idea simply because it's obvious the system is not up to delivering the game. The footage released so far is really rough.

Sorry if I came across as an inconsiderate git. Maybe I should've reworded what I typed since I was barely a baby when the SNES came out and I didn't really get into the gaming scene until I got a Game Boy Advance SP in like 2004-05.

Btw, the preview actually does look serviceable...though I'd fine-tune the framerates and music volume.

I thought this was an April Fools at first.