by Kikki » Feb 29, 2024 4:45 pm
As someone who doesn't particularly enjoy Pokemon, and so rarely knows what's what with the series, the announcement just confused me. I thought I was hearing about a remake of Gen 6 (?) AND a new Legends game in the style of Arceus. But...this is a Gen 6 remake and a new game all in one? They're remaking a standard mainline Pokemon game into a Legends style game?
~
Saw a game from the Netherlands announced for 2024.
Luma Island. It grabbed my attention since I don't seem to recall many games coming specifically from the Netherlands, and it's a farming game, so I looked. Then it grabbed my attention again because the title image is moderately derpy...but the in-game art is beautiful. It's so rare that the in-game art style is prettier than the title image! With indies especially, it's almost always the opposite. Gorgeous title/key art, but open the actual game and it's all unappealing pixel graphics. But not so with Luma Island!
I have put it on my Steam wishlist.
March 1 EDIT: Ahh, so, for those who were/are hoping for a
Harvestella follow-up, this won't be the best news. I'm not sure it means the end of all possibility, but it probably does reduce it, and the chances were a bit low to begin since the game wasn't anywhere near a runaway financial success. Daisuke Taka, the producer of Harvestella at Square Enix, has quit. Or been laid off? I'm not clear on that, since
the article says he doesn't even have anything else lined up, which seems odd to me if he were leaving after
deciding to quit.
Certainly layoffs are happening like mad in gaming right now. Just a few days ago I saw, just from perusing headlines, that Sony Interactive is axing 900 workers, which if the numbers are still accurate (I looked up how many employees they have worldwide, which was 12,700 last year...if that number is reliable) is not that much under 10% of its entire workforce. And I swear I seem to see another similar article every few week or so, this year.
So his leaving Square Enix as he is seems odd to me. It sounds like he's floating lose with nowhere to go and is inviting both professionals and even amateurs with interesting projects to feel free to contact him. Well, I hope it was just his decision, because I can only imagine finding another job in the industry would be difficult right now. Though I'm sure someone like him could easily get scooped up by a little indie team, I imagine it would be a huge step down, since little indie teams tend to also have very small budgets.
As someone who doesn't particularly enjoy Pokemon, and so rarely knows what's what with the series, the announcement just confused me. I thought I was hearing about a remake of Gen 6 (?) AND a new Legends game in the style of Arceus. But...this is a Gen 6 remake and a new game all in one? They're remaking a standard mainline Pokemon game into a Legends style game?
~
Saw a game from the Netherlands announced for 2024. [b][url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2408820/Luma_Island/]Luma Island[/url][/b]. It grabbed my attention since I don't seem to recall many games coming specifically from the Netherlands, and it's a farming game, so I looked. Then it grabbed my attention again because the title image is moderately derpy...but the in-game art is beautiful. It's so rare that the in-game art style is prettier than the title image! With indies especially, it's almost always the opposite. Gorgeous title/key art, but open the actual game and it's all unappealing pixel graphics. But not so with Luma Island!
I have put it on my Steam wishlist.
[b]March 1 EDIT[/b]: Ahh, so, for those who were/are hoping for a [b]Harvestella [/b]follow-up, this won't be the best news. I'm not sure it means the end of all possibility, but it probably does reduce it, and the chances were a bit low to begin since the game wasn't anywhere near a runaway financial success. Daisuke Taka, the producer of Harvestella at Square Enix, has quit. Or been laid off? I'm not clear on that, since [b][url=https://www.gematsu.com/2024/03/harvestella-producer-daisuke-taka-to-leave-square-enix]the article[/url][/b] says he doesn't even have anything else lined up, which seems odd to me if he were leaving after [i]deciding [/i]to quit.
Certainly layoffs are happening like mad in gaming right now. Just a few days ago I saw, just from perusing headlines, that Sony Interactive is axing 900 workers, which if the numbers are still accurate (I looked up how many employees they have worldwide, which was 12,700 last year...if that number is reliable) is not that much under 10% of its entire workforce. And I swear I seem to see another similar article every few week or so, this year.
So his leaving Square Enix as he is seems odd to me. It sounds like he's floating lose with nowhere to go and is inviting both professionals and even amateurs with interesting projects to feel free to contact him. Well, I hope it was just his decision, because I can only imagine finding another job in the industry would be difficult right now. Though I'm sure someone like him could easily get scooped up by a little indie team, I imagine it would be a huge step down, since little indie teams tend to also have very small budgets.