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So I was wondering if anyone else backed Darkness Sabotage by Dethrone Games. They have been silent on the Kickstarter page since May and the FB page shows nothing either with the most recent post from them involving a car purchase (February 21, 2018). They seem to have had multiple problems with mini-preproduction, something about a death in the family and other excuses about why it was not in the hands of backers.

Funny enough it was also offered on a KS selling site under preorder (noting sold out), and there is still the “late pledge” button up (it does not work).

I went a little further and contacted the pledge manager and got a response that stated, “Unfortunately, here at Crowd Ox, our only involvement is providing the survey software. Our team did attempt to reach their support team but didn't receive a response. At this time we do not have any information about the project to share. I do apologize we are more involved to help. Please let us know if you have any other questions.”
Entertainingly there was a phone number posed on the FB page from a backer to a landline and I am kind of tempted to call it.

I was in on that KS with just a dollar - and my pledge says:
"I want to wait, watch and witness... what comes out of the Darkness."

I guess that is weirdly appropriate for this KS. :(

I'm sorry for anybody who got sunk on this.

Have you notified Kickstarter? Seems the best course at this stage.

 Theophony wrote:
Have you notified Kickstarter? Seems the best course at this stage.

Ha!

You're a veteran of the long war here - and there - so what exactly do you think Kickstarter will do about it?!?

I know you know - but I'm just curious in case you've changed your opinion!

If my understanding of the first post is correct, the Creator used funds to go out and buy a car. That is obvious fraud from the kick starter rules, so there should be a case.

Is there an original KS thread here on Dakka?

I... backed it..

Heck, I even ended up winning a contest for an extra big guy mini.

They seemed like they had their act together when the campaign was running. For a first timer, they seemed to have at least done their due diligence prior to launching.

I think they bit off more than they could chew, and with family deaths, entered into a downward spiral that they haven't been able to crawl out of.

One of the other backers contacted Ludofact to see if there's been any movement. Nope. Nothing.

Sad. It looked cool, but at this point, I think it's a wash. Maybe Dez will crawl back out of his depression some day and try to salvage this thing.

I'll never do another Kickstarter after the Robotech debacle.

 Mysterio wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
Have you notified Kickstarter? Seems the best course at this stage.

Ha!

You're a veteran of the long war here - and there - so what exactly do you think Kickstarter will do about it?!?

I know you know - but I'm just curious in case you've changed your opinion!

Kickstarter may not refund money, but they do generally have contact information for the creator of the projects. While we all moan and complain about them not doing ANYTHING, they have made contact to project creators before. While it may not recover the funds, it might get the ball rolling again, or it could at least get them to respond with an “I blew it” or “here’s the deal” statement. Either way it’s always the next option. Better than a page of people complaining when a simple step is skipped.

I did contact kickstarter and they have yet to send a reply. Considering they are not even maintaining their facebook page anymore they may not be able to contact the creators. There was another project they were going to launch, "Joyland" in 2017, but I am not sure what came of that, there were comments about artists not getting paid but the company still using the art.

I was all in on this one... unfortunately.

 Ghiest1 wrote:
there were comments about artists not getting paid but the company still using the art.

Have you a link to that please, as that is the 1st ive heard about Dez not paying artists!

The artists not getting paid got sorted out I believe.

The fact that things had progressed to a back and forth with Ludofact make me believe he was genuine about trying to get this to market.

Reality seems to have hit him hard though.

Ok thanks, i missed that bit of "fallout" somehow!

I have known Dez since his 1st failed campaign in mid 2015 IIRC and yes Dez was very serious about this game and up until May this year i was in contact with him very regularly through FB, unfortunately i dont have any other contact details otherwise i would have reached out to him, if you didnt know im Tom Mills who is thanked in the credits.

Personally i think the death of his Mother(IIRC) and i heard there was a 2nd death associated with his family on his or his wifes side have effected him quite bad, i say this from my own experience of losing my Mother to cancer in 2001 it put me out of action for a good 18 months and i still suffer from depression that started in 2001 and depression can really kick peoples arses.

Dez never once came across as a con artist, he comes across as a very passionate person who believes in what hes doing, he was a bit stressed it was running late and as we have seen, a lot of work has gone into this as its near enough ready for production IIRC

Does he have money problems, i have no idea as he never mentioned them, he was normally upbeat when talking about the game and the games production.

Its not a great place to be at the moment if your a backer and hopefully Dez will reappear at some point or someone can get hold of him and shed some light on this good or bad!

Per your request; here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/dethronegames/ go down a bit to the "Slinger" post.

The response from KS support; Thank you for following up with us about the status of this project. I’m sorry you’ve been experiencing these issues with communication.

We've reached out to the creator to remind them of their obligation to communicate with you and your fellow backers, and passed along your concerns. I'm as frustrated as you that you haven't heard from the creator yet -- it's their responsibility to communicate and complete the project as promised.

So we will see if anything comes of it.

 Ghiest1 wrote:
Per your request; here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/dethronegames/ go down a bit to the "Slinger" post.

The response from KS support; Thank you for following up with us about the status of this project. I’m sorry you’ve been experiencing these issues with communication.

We've reached out to the creator to remind them of their obligation to communicate with you and your fellow backers, and passed along your concerns. I'm as frustrated as you that you haven't heard from the creator yet -- it's their responsibility to communicate and complete the project as promised.

So we will see if anything comes of it.

That is the standard Kickstarter copy & paste act. Let me translate it for you - 'Ha, Ha sucker! We got our cut, so we don't give two &^%$% what happens to you! Remember to back more Kickstarters, wink wink!'

Yeah, that.

Although he's run two campaigns, this is his first funded one, and I usually avoid First Created projects, unless the project manager has the appropriate experience.

With this Black Friday's sales, I'm questioning how good of a value KS really is. I'll back projects which won't hit retail (eg. unusual miniatures), but, at least for boardgames, you can more easily find base games at half the price of a pledge plus shipping. Pretty obviously, you don't do this if you *must* have the game and the SG's, but it's an option for others.

Not helping that, after a few years of KS, I'm *way* behind in the boardgame and paint queue...!