Team Behind UDK Based SFG Now Seeking Help
There is good news and bad news in the latest progress report published last week for the 3D Sonic Fan Game Ashura: Dark Reign.
The bad news is significant. Xaklse, the SFG’s programmer and the brains behind the SonicGDK engine, has stepped down from his position on the project.
“Xaklse has stood down as ADR’s programmer and is moving on to more challenging new horizons,” announced ADR lead Dekrayzis last week. “It wasn’t so much of a shock when he mentioned his departure, as for a long time he has been in search of something more challenging than coding videogames in Unrealscript. Myself and [the] team, appreciate all his hard work through the years and his dedication. [....] Xak is and always shall be a valued loyal member of the team. It’s been an honor working with him. And we ‘the team’ wish him all the best in the future.”
In the wake of the departure, the ADR team is looking for an environment concept artist. Why not another programmer? That leads well into the good news, a fair bit of a progress has been made on ADR since March, and according to Dekrayzis, “There [are] only a handful of tasks left to do in the coding department in regards to Sonic and the gameplay mechanics.”
What’s more, Xaklse will continue to advise the team, affording both advice and further tweaks to the game’s powerful UDK based engine that won’t make it to future releases of the SonicGDK.
“Once the first proper completed act is made, and the main menu system is completed. Demo!” Dekrayzis declared.
Despite the good news, we’ve said it before, and it bears repeating: These are the type of events that tend to derail fan projects. Case in point: when one of the principal developers for Sonic Fan Remix left the project in January, the project entered a virtual purgatory amid news the game would be converted to another fan made engine. SFR missed a target release of February for the next demo, and not much has developed since. ADR, like SFR, has a lot going for it, but this news certainly brings the project one step closer to the quagmire many other promising SFGs of past and present now find themselves in. Still, we will keep you up to date on any new developments with this project.
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Oh noes!
If it wasn’t challenging enough, why didn’t he just finish it?
Damnizean has made significant progress on SFR,
They are still making that game. It seemed like everything came to a stop.
I highly doubt programming is ‘done’. It never is. Unless, of course, they just want Sonic running around a static, uninteractible world going from point A to point B.
I didn’t even know they were still making that, nor did I know that they were ever planning to do much with Sonic Fan Remix. lol
I don’t get it. If he’s the KEY programmer, why would he leave them hanging because it wasn’t challenging enough? That was awfully nice of him. At least he got them as far as he did though and good luck to him.
I am aware that almost all big fanmade projects end up cancelled or unfinished. Even Richard Kuta’s movie is done for. Eddie Lebron is refilming but I think he might be the one to actually FINISH due to having Jaleel in the project and because he has a budget like with his past movies.
I’m working on an animated series of 16 episodes and it’s taken me a couple of years to actually write, draw concept, rewrite, cast, get recordings for, draw, redraw after losing files to a failed computer, and actually animate on my own with no budget. BUT, it’s only taken so long because I refuse to stop. o-o The more help would be nice. XD But hey, hopefully I’ll get some REAL progress soon. ^^;
whats with all these fan games?