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What ever happened to FF: Forgotten Story?

Posted: 7th June 2010 05:24
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Last time I checked was a few years ago, and the development team said they almost had a demo ready, now I cannot find anything on it.

Anyone know what has happened to the project? Is there anyone I can contact from the development team?

I would like to hear the whole story if I may.

Thanks guys!
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Posted: 11th June 2010 00:05

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As I'm friends with the original head of the project, I shot him a message about it to see if he had anything he wanted to say or if he still wants to share his contact info for it. Haven't heard anything back.

I will say, though, that the project is almost certainly permanently dead. It's been several years now, and the original team has more or less disbanded and the original leader works intense hours trying to get his own business off the ground while also working full time on other projects too.

Beyond that, I'm not sure there is a story, nor can I be certain that this is absolutely the full story. But if I get any more info I'll let you know.

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Posted: 15th June 2010 22:59
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Onion Knight
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Hi There,

I feel I should come on here and give a bit more thorough an explanation.

It was quite a few years back I found my way on the FFVI:FS project. At that time it was going to be a ROM hack and things were advancing but a lot of the development team had other commitments and the project just couldn't find any stability. I started off as music composer on the project and as the development team began to change and fracture I gradually found myself moving 'up the ranks' as it were, trying to keep the project alive, until eventually I became head of the project.

We moved quickly from trying to create a ROM hack (which would have been difficult and in some ways needlessly complex) to developing our own engine that would have run the game. I was working with a great programmer at the time who built a fantastic engine that I would estimate was 70% of the way there. In the meantime story development progressed smoothly and we got a fair way into planning the game.

The biggest problem we faced was finding the right calibre artists. We were able to pull a lot from the original FFVI but we clearly needed to create a lot of our own art as well. Finding artists who were able to mimic the look of FFVI and integrate their work seamlessly into existing work was next to impossible, especially as the team was as online, amateur development team.

I gradually started to face the same problems the original team did. Our lead programmer did some fantastic work; so fantastic in fact, he started working for a professional development team and now has a very successful job as a programmer! I myself started to move into film work, firstly music composition (which I still do) but also slowly into film producing (which I am gradually getting into). As I got that little bit older and found myself really working to get my career going keeping FFVI:FS going became increasingly difficult and eventually it ground to a halt - which is pretty much where it has been to this day.

I would still love to produce the project and believe with the technology and online possibilities of today it would be that much more feasible. But I made mistakes in the past trying to convince myself and others that the project was still 'ticking over' when in reality it wasn't. These days, however, my career is more stable, I have more free time, I have producing experience that goes beyond discussing schedules on MSN and I'm that little bit older and wiser. I think the mistake I made in the past was trying to make the project too big in terms of the development team and schedule. It's clear the only way a project such as this will come to fruition is if a small team of dedicated people work together, rather than trying to assign dozens of people in all sorts of fancy job descriptions you read on the title sequence of other games.

Anyway, let me close by stating more directly where the project "is". I would very much like to get the project going again and actually, starting August, have the rest of this year off to work on other projects. However, whether I will be able to actually get things moving again is another matter. I feel it would be unfair to say "I'll definitely get started in it soon" again and have it fizzle out for one reason or another. To that extent I think the best way to describe the situation would be to say I do still have ambitions for the project and do think of it quite often, but the only time I would announce anything "official" would be if and when I was substantially further into production on the project, rather than simply announcing development again only to have it taper off after a few weeks.

And that's basically that! I'm always excited when people still remember the project because I feel we had a great story and I think, with the right team of core people and a proper plan, it could be produced properly and effectively. It's always down to finding those people and finding the time, however. But with this break in my work schedule it's something I'm definitely going to take a look at again and you never know.

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