Another Kickstarter. Al Lowe (again) - Undercover Exposure

[Stupot]

So Al Lowe has caught the Kickstarter bug and this time he's back with a new project.
Steve Ince is also on board, which is excellent news.

The game is called Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure.

At first glance it looks quite a bit like Kinky Island.  Hope you've got a good lawyer, Mods.

[Sslaxx]

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=45693.msg619558#msg619558

Not quite?

[Jared]

Al is certifiably insane if he thinks he can pony up another half a million via Kickstarter. He's gone MAD! MAD WITH POWER!!!

[Armageddon]

I know a lot of you guys loved his Leisure Suit Larry games, but the humor in those games just seem tasteless. At the time it was very risqué but now it's just like Duke Nukem adolescent sex jokes. The guy just doesn't seem trustworthy to me either. I don't know, I've only played the first Larry game so I don't know a whole lot about the nostalgia of Leisure Suit Larry. Please don't hate me.

[Kweepa]

Yup, that's a pretty lame pitch video.

[Anian]

Did they say they made the game engine? By the looks and gameplay elements, I'd say Beyond G&E copy is really the most accurate but skinned like a BS 4 or 3 engines.

Somebody mentioned in another topic about how bad looking wip and concept videos can push away some people and backers, but here they're bragging about how the graphics are gonna be "next gen" and hires...yeah, that looks like it could run on Gamecube and don't need PS3 and XBox 360.

[Eggie]

Guuuuys, Al Lowe is not involved with this. Read the linkiloo.

[Jared]

Oh, my bad. Only just seen the pitch video - didn't have the time to this morning. It looks like Al Lowe's involvement is over for the moment but it's based off of the design he made around 10 years ago. But the Kickstarter is still trading heavily off his name! (Emphasising Steve Ince's involvement might have been an idea..)

The pitch video is much too long, but I appreciate the fact that the game was mostly completed they have a lot of gameplay to show off (but it's kind of odd they never made an intro to help pitch it when it was in development..) Sadly I think it doesn't look quite as remarkable as it would have before, but would probably be fun. The snippet of dialogue they had was remarkably bad, though. You'd hope those were placeholder VOs.

Did they say they made the game engine? By the looks and gameplay elements, I'd say Beyond G&E copy is really the most accurate but skinned like a BS 4 or 3 engines.

Somebody mentioned in another topic about how bad looking wip and concept videos can push away some people and backers, but here they're bragging about how the graphics are gonna be "next gen" and hires...yeah, that looks like it could run on Gamecube and don't need PS3 and XBox 360.

To be fair this is all old material they're showing off. They were working on this game AAAAAGES ago.

EDIT: Wooooah...
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-31-leisure-suit-larry-creator-sues-sam-suede-kickstarter

So, Paul Trowe is taking serious issue with Al Lowe being 'misrepresented' as a dev on this project. I think Trowe must believe any publicity is good publicity based on his many outbursts so far..

[Ali]

I think it definitely implies that Al Lowe is involved - isn't that a caricature of him on the page? I wasn't sure about being critical of it (if you can't say something nice...) but I really do think it looks tasteless and ugly in the extreme.

[m0ds]

Looks like you were right about certain similarities, Stu!

Who in their right mind would pay 8k to be “a naked beach character” and get nothing else? They should be paying you for that imo.

The only difference between that and KI is $7900!

[Jared]

Well, now Al Lowe himself has announced he isn't suing and the Kickstarter hasn't been taken down. But he's also clarified that he was involved on the project for a short time and that the writing had 'barely started', so it isn't really an Al Lowe game at all...

[Stupot]

Yeah. Al has said that he had given his blessings for his name and image to be associated with the project (he did design it after all), but it seems Paul Trowe is unhappy with this.  I'm not sure why, to be honest.

I don't really care though.  I'm not a massive Al Lowe fan to be honest.  I'm much more an admirer of Steve Ince, who is writing for the Sam Suede game.  Still probably won't back it though, sorry Steve.

[Cyrus]

Oh, it's being developed by Wizarbox with the use of their engine Unity. Would be pretty cool if the new Sam Suede looked like So Blonde or Captain Morgane.

[Cyrus]

Now they have some more physical rewards for backers: Invitation in a Bottle and Tiki Bottle Opener, Sam Suede Shot Glass, Adventure Hat, etc. Check them out!

[Cyrus]

An update:

We are launching the first of our new Sam Suede incremental goals!  When the pledges reach a total of $20,000, we will reveal details of two of the game's important characters.

Top secret until now, only the core team has been privy to this important information.  But now we're ready to share with you.

Who will these characters be and what do they have to offer to the game and our hero?  Stay tuned and help us reach this goal quickly!

[Stupot]

They're really not on track to reach their target.  I feel kind of bad.  If you forget all the legal furore at the beginning, it's quite an interesting project. But I'm still not compelled to back. :/

[Babar]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1787675232/sam-suedetm-in-undercover-exposure
The kickstarter has now been cancelled. I suppose it is kinda sad for them that they only achieved 14k of their 500k goal, and figured it was better to pull the plug from beforehand.
Still, according to them the game hasn't been cancelled, and they'll probably be back. They say they still need funding to complete the project, although I'm not quite sure how funding for them would go on a SECOND kickstarter...

[Dualnames]

Sam Suede looked liked shit. So that's better imho.

[Snarky]

Yeah, I'm sorry they were sabotaged by a jealous, unprofessional rival, but the game just didn't seem very good. Maybe they can put some more work into preproduction and redesign and try again.

[ThreeOhFour]

To be frank, I don't feel "unprofessional" accurately sums up Trowe's recent actions. "Insane" feels slightly more precise.