Paprium

Recently WaterMelon Games just finished a very successful Kickstarter to bring Paprium to the newer consoles, and this is my updated and thoughts after creating the video above. They’re updating the game and releasing it on both physical and digital media for the PS4, PS5, & Nintendo Switch. Also at the same time they promised to re-release Paprium on the Sega Genesis, Game Gear, and the Dreamcast as well. Also as a stretch goal they are releasing their older game Pier Solar for the Genesis, and Dreamcast. As you can see there was an abundance of stretch goals, they had a ton of stretch goals that involved the game on multiple consoles and physical media such as art books and game compendiums. They even had a belt buckle you could purchase during the last hour or two of the Kickstarter, & collector editions for all releases as well as standard editions for each region. Below is some screen shots of their add-on’s you could choose from.

There are still other items that were available on the Kickstarter that are not mentioned. But with everything listed, will they be able to deliver what they promised. As far as I was able to learn about WaterMelon Games as the last time they tried to release Paprium on the Sega Genesis it was plagued with issues, they started raising money on their website magicalgamefactory.com back in 2012 and trying to finish and release the game is a story of its own. They originally planned to release the game in the Summer of 2013 but it would be pushed quietly to 2014 then they stopped giving a release date. The game was going through development hell and there was a lot of internal issues at WaterMelon Games, it was so bad that basically everything collapsed internally and one of the co-founders of the company took everything upon himself to finish. Therefore removing everybody else from the company, this was not the smartest move in my opinion. Then out of the blue on March 17, 2017 they they gave a late 2017 release time frame on their Facebook page, later confirming a release date of Sept. 17, 2017.

Now at this time I’m assuming PayPal was raising some serious concerns regarding this company as they’ve been receiving money for pre-orders since 2012 and have not released anything since then other than a couple of screen shots and short video clips. Given that PayPal shut down WaterMelon’s account and froze their funds stored in PayPal. This made Gwénaël Godde push the planned release date again to an early 2018 release. Trying to prove the game existed and show that it was indeed finished and they were only having some issues with the DATENMEISTER chip set. But behind the scenes there were more issues and the original game would not be released until December 2020 but they are still working on shipping the games for the original pre-orders today. I’m assuming they’re going to use the money they received through their Kickstarter to fund the production of cartridges needed for the Kickstarter and the outstanding orders from 2012 and on.

This is alright in my opinion but they should be transparent on this regard. They now more than ever need to let their backers (previous and new ones) know what is honestly going on behind the scenes and stop voicing their feelings between them and PayPal. They should just release a statement that they’re in a dispute with them and are hoping to have it resolved in the future. They also need to keep up with updates regarding their current progress for their commitments. Even if it’s only once a month, they need to let the people who helped make this possible know what the progress is regarding what they are expecting. And they need to keep the business side within the business and focus on restoring trust in the company itself. We do not need to hear about their issues unless they are released as a statement on why something is being honestly delayed and not statements that you would hear from school kids on the playground.

If anything we have been able to see how passionate WaterMelon Games is for the games they make and the systems they have been made for, but now they need to be a little more professional in the public eye while keeping that passion in their games. If they can do this I believe we will see great things from them in the future. But if they mess up this time and do not produce these products they will not get another chance and will loose what support they still have.