Elementary, My Dear Holmes: A Point and Click Adventure Game on Kickstarter!

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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1375982935/elementary-my-dear-holmes



Hi everyone! I'm here to talk to you about our upcoming game and current Kickstarter project: Elementary, My Dear Holmes. It's a point and click adventure game starring legendary sidekick John Watson on an epic quest to prove that Sherlock Holmes is just a jerk.

Elementary, My Dear Holmes is a point-and-click adventure game, like the awesome ones we played as kids by companies like LucasArts and Double Fine. Like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango, we’re making a game where you once again suffer from the terrible infinite pockets affliction, and are forced to store everything from a whisky bottle to a weird painting about intelligent peaches for further bizarre combining use. Solve puzzles that we’ve done our best to not be incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t a game developer! Obviously, using that gnome plus a watermelon on the revolving door will create an interdimensional portal! Obviously.

Feel free to drop by our Kickstarter, or fire off questions at us here! One of our dev team will be monitoring the thread, and will get back to you as soon as possible.

You Tube Video

Dennis!

on your project.

Dennis!

Ana

Thank you for letting us know, Dennis!

I'm not sure about a Sherlock Holmes solving cases without intellect, but I pledged $25. We shall see...

Thanks guys for the warm welcome =)



I can see your point, we want to have Watson step into the light and not be dragged behind the curtains when Sherlock is taking all the credit, what do you think about giving Watson a change?

Thank you very much for supporting our project and we will make sure we will deliver.

I think it would be an interesting twist.

Ana

I think Watson being given a greater role and more intelligence is fine, he was never stupid to begin with, he was like any of us. But I do warn about turning Sherlock Holmes into Inspector Gadget with his dog being the intelligent force behind it all. I fear only children might enjoy it.

The whole interest of Sherlock is his superior intelligence, encyclopedic knowledge of all past crimes, and deductive powers. Without that, why use Sherlock Holmes for the basis of the adventure?

However, I can see you have some sort of vision, and certainly we must let you realise it without too much influence from the backers.

The idea of crowd-funding is exactly that, to have all the freedom in the world to truly achieve one's own vision without a publisher behind destroying such vision. It may be a good idea after all, no way to know yet until it is finished. That is why I pledged and said we shall see...

Good luck!

We look at crowd-funding as also crowd-publishing. If we've got an idea that goes against the majority of what our backers want, well, then it's time to rethink the idea.

We've got an idea, don't worry. We're not just using Sherlock and Watson for the sake of their names, there's a whole mythology we've been working on to setup for the game.

We're going for zany action game crazyness, but not kids crazyness. There are very different, as I wouldn't call the Lucasarts games really for children. There's a complexity of humor there we're trying to work with.

Thanks a ton for the input! We really appreciate it, and keep it coming. As we begin to release more on the story, we'll be happy to hear what our backers say.

We at Victory Square Games are very excited to announce that we have just reached our base $50,000 Kickstarter funding goal on our point-and-click title, Elementary, My Dear Holmes!

New Video and Concept Art!

To celebrate, we've released a new video update, as well as a bunch of concept art to share with our backers and the community. The concept art and the video is live on the main Kickstarter page at http://kck.st/19tFgrV. The video is also available at http://youtu.be/bOff7gh6Y40

A Linux Version!

In addition, we're proud to announce that the Linux version has been moved from a $75,000 stretch goal to a $50,000 base goal. Which means that the Linux version will be shipping in September 2014!

Free Game Consoles!

And that's not all. Victory Square Games is also hosting a Console Giveaway! Anyone who donated $15 or more to the campaign is now in the running to win one of four consoles - an Ouya, a Wii U, a PS4 and an Xbox 1. Also, anyone who donates between now and September 05 is also eligible to win.


It's a really exciting time for us at Victory Square Games, and we are proud and happy to share our little success story. Please feel free to write back if you would like any further information on any of the updates.

Best,
Sam

Congrats Sam! THat was fast.

Sounds like this movie. It was really funny and I suggest you see it if you haven't already

Without a Clue


I am looking forward to the game...Thanx

Anyone know anything about this?

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/28/4667078/ouya-kickstarter-scam-allegations

Interesting, mj2c.

I won't throw stones without the facts so I will watch and see what becomes of this.

Thanks for the headsup.

Ana

Well as DennisVSG says the dev team is monitoring this thread, I am sure they will comment on this very soon I would imagine.

Sam who posted a few posts up is the developer so I am sure he will be here to update.

Ana

"Elementary, My Dear Holmes! by Sam Chandola has been suspended."

This cannot be a scam, or some trick to succeed on Kickstarter, surely?

I need more evidence... because I remain unconvinced.

At any rate, I really don't mind, as long as the game comes to be.

I'm still ready to pledge double, directly.

I'm not throwing any stones either rmt. I checked it yesterday and it was still up. I will see what happens....

Ana

So far there is this article:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/9/6/4702564/elementary-my-dear-holmes-kickstarter-suspended

A message will be sent to all backers soon, as I was a backer I can report back.

There is also a discussion about it in the comments of the project's Kickstarter page. But I did not have a chance to read it yet:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1375982935/elementary-my-dear-holmes/comments

Hmmm....

So, apprarently there were a batch of fake backers with photos of celebrities with their names being similar to the celebrity, and strangely often with a French-Canadian last name. They were shiny new profiles, no previous backed projects, or backing the same projects in numbers with $1 pledges or backing projects who were obviously going to fail, to keep the illusion.

The developers of Elementary, My Dear Holmes say they had nothing to do with it and questioned it with Kickstarter and Amazon, hoping to perhaps confirm something weird and get these backers deleted. Instead the campaign was suspended.

Usually only the developers profit from this type of fraud, hence it is easy to declare them guilty before being proven innocent. This time though it involves a whole Ouya community, who I assume is desperate for new games, and possibly the developers are not the guilty culprit. We might never know what happened exactly.

I always suspected that many backers on projects on Kickstarter were fake, that the owners of such projects, seeing themselves almost reaching their goal, but seeing it slipping away at the last minute from a lack of a few backers, will come up with the money to ensure success and get the money. That may be the case for thousands of projects with no evidence to prove it.

This is an issue with Kickstarter, that if you do not reach your goal, you don't get anything. Indiegogo does not have this limitation, you can choose to have the money anyway, even if the goal is not reached, preventing the need for these frauds. But Indiegogo does not attract as many backers, so you are always better off on Kickstarter.

I find it acceptable when project owners will come up with the money to ensure their project is successful when it is required to reach a goal which nearly made it on its own. However in the case of Elementary My Dear Holmes, we are talking too large a proportion of the whole goal. At that point we cannot fail but to call it fraud. A type of fraud that could undermine the Kickstarter concept as a whole if left unchecked.

The idea was that if the goal was reached, Ouya would give them an equal amount of money to produce their game. So it did not matter if most of the money was not obtained through Kickstarter, the Ouya prize was the goal.

Another issue is that Ouya has set a minimum of $50,000 for project goals on Kickstarter to get an equal amount of money in return if successful. Not many developers could easily get that on any project without quite a reputation and credibility to begin with. Hence the temptation to use fake backers. Normally project owners set their goal as to the ultimate minimum with which they could actually survive with and deliver their project.

At the very least this is all illuminating, and might lead to some changes at Kickstarter. I think it should, at their end I'm sure they can prevent this from happening, at least on a large scale.

In the meantime the question is now, whenever we back a project on Kickstarter, are there fake backers, are there fake backers actually backing suspiciously a lot of money? And if it appears so, then would the game still be made if the project is successful?

Because I guess in the end this is all that matters. Is it a fraud to help the goal to be reached so the project is successful and gets made, or is it a fraud where people want the money but don't intend to deliver on their promises?

Well, in the case of Elementary, my dear Holmes, I have no doubt the company is genuine, and would have delivered the game.

As to if they are guilty of this fraud, they certainly present a convincing innocent front, with some transparency as to what they have done and their communications with Amazon and Kickstarter. Is the Ouya community involved somehow? Who knows?

But of course, it does not look good from whichever angle you choose to look at it from. The lesson learned here for any project owner, now that two projects have been suspended, is to stay away from fake backers, and set your goal as the ultimate minimum required.

There, I still have faith in Kickstarter to help the indie community.

rmt, Gridiron did not get suspended, they are still open and the Kickstarter is in it's last 7 hours. I still don't get how they got 6 backers to pledge 10K each. The only perk was to attend a super bowl party? Really?

I don't care how they get their money as long as they deliver the game. That is my only concern.

Ana

True, and I agree.

There is a statement here.

Ana

So now possibly this was sabotage. Interesting...

It was indicated that Ouya did it from the beginning. At least that is what I gathered. Unfortunately, I do not believe we will ever find out. I just do not get why Gridiron is still going. They aroused more suspicion than Elementary.

I still would not hesitate to support them if they ran another one. Just my opinion.

I feel the guilty party would not be Ouya, it would be a competitor with its own gaming project who hopes to get some of that million from Ouya. A million is not much if they can match up to $250,000 per project. That means technically only 4 successful projects could easily get all of Ouya's money.

It had to be obvious, hence all the celebrity photos and names. If you were to create that many fake backers on your own project, would you make it so obvious so anyone can easily match them all up? I would not. That alone warrants me giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Sometimes conspiracy theorists are right, rmt. Look at Area 51.

I see you removed your desire not to be one. I never thought you gave that impression. Just examining all the angles.

Gil.

Yes!

You were too quick Gil, you were not supposed to read all the changes. I always immediately rework my posts after posting, and don't indicate it is edited because I assume no one would have the time to read the changes.

I like your theory better than mine rmt. I believe yours makes a lot of sense. What a shame...

Hello,

We have published a statement to our Backers regarding the suspended Kickstarter campaign. We encourage you to read it and appreciate your support.

http://victorysquaregames.com/elementary-my-dear-holmes

Thank you.

Thanks Dennis, I posted the link to the statement some posts up on the 9th.
I am sorry that your funding came to an end and I hope you are able to finish your game.

Ana