DELETE ME

[Omniknight]

UPDATE-

I. Artwork (???)

i. CHARACTERS/CG-??? (In production, she shut herself in)
ii. BACKGROUNDS-3 out of ~60. 2 more currently in production.

II. Script (16%)

i. Juniper's Knot I (History) (48%)
a. Prologue (100%)
b. Scene 1 (100%)
c. Scene 2 (40%)
d. Scene 3 (0%)
e. Scene 4 (0%)

ii. Juniper's Knot II (Grief) (0%)

iii. Juniper's Knot III (Comfort) (0%)

iv. Juniper's Knot IV (Revelations) (0%)

Current word count: ~15,000 (I've been too lazy to properly format the text from word into script.rpy)

III. Programming (0%, waiting to hear back from programmer)

IV. Music (???) (In production, again, they shut themselves in after an email)

So many shut-ins...

*Sigh*

When we get a fresh website exclusively for Juniper's Knot I-IV, I'll be sure to update this thread again. I'm also thinking of publishing this as a book in the future after the completion of the VN.

Cheers!

[Caveat Lector]

I'm also thinking of publishing this as a book in the future after the completion of the VN.

But wouldn't that technically count as turning the story into a commercial product, something I thought your development thread said you had agreed not to do? Unless your plan is to hand out free copies at conventions?

[Omniknight]

I'm also thinking of publishing this as a book in the future after the completion of the VN.

Unless your plan is to hand out free copies at conventions?

Exactly what I will do. And you can release books for free via iBooks and kindle these days quite easily. If I can release physical books for free, then I'll definitely do that too (will require funds, and it's actually on our kickstarter stretch goals list for the future.)

[pickle131]

I remember I really enjoyed this game! I'm looking forward to the version being worked on C:

[Omniknight]

Aww thank you!! Good news since the character art for the fiend is almost complete.

[MayPeX]

As a Juniper Knot fan and for your own interests I honestly advise against trying to receive funds for this project of any kind, considering this is a fan sequel of a free title. Without written and signed permission so much can go wrong if you get even a penny towards creating the novel and any future projects related to Juniper's Knot.

You may have good intentions and I believe you do, but you must tread carefully. I personally suggest that everything you do related to Juniper Knot must be free, you must not receive any money towards anything of relation to the original creator. If you get money for this, it's very easy to land yourself on the wrong side of trouble.

I also would like to add that getting official consent from the original creator should be a priority.

Regardless, I'll be watching over this because I enjoyed Juniper's Knot.

[Omniknight]

As a Juniper Knot fan and for your own interests I honestly advise against trying to receive funds for this project of any kind, considering this is a fan sequel of a free title. Without written and signed permission so much can go wrong if you get even a penny towards creating the novel and any future projects related to Juniper's Knot.

You may have good intentions and I believe you do, but you must tread carefully. I personally suggest that everything you do related to Juniper Knot must be free, you must not receive any money towards anything of relation to the original creator. If you get money for this, it's very easy to land yourself on the wrong side of trouble.

I also would like to add that getting official consent from the original creator should be a priority.

Regardless, I'll be watching over this because I enjoyed Juniper's Knot.

I'll be sure to:

i) Talk to my lawyer
ii) Have a dev conference
iii) Post on the WIP thread

Before I take any legal/economic action regarding our project. Hopefully everything should go well

[Omniknight]

MAJOR UPDATE: https://dischan.org/devblog/2014/01/dis ... f-affairs/

God must be helping us.

[Omniknight]

This makes the publication of the Sequel VN/actual book (trilogy, probably) in the future so much easier.

Better yet, we might just buy JK from them considering the position they're in. This, of course, will require funds, but I think we can manage that through kickstarter.

Suggestions/Ideas/Worries/Comments Anyone?

[SundownKid]

I highly doubt they would just sell the Junipers Knot IP. Not to disparage your work or anything, but they themselves stated they were only on hiatus, not shutting down their studio. And even if they did, selling it to someone is a risky endeavor as the future works will reflect off of you, even if they were not developed by you.

Not to mention they are still doing an animated series based on it. So selling the rights = selling the animated series, which is not likely.

You're treating them like rivals, but that's a bad idea for a fan project. Fans should never be rooting for a studio of their favorite game to shut down. If you really want to do a Kickstarter and control your IP then consider making a new IP from scratch. You can't have your cake (doing a commercial game) and eat it too (profiting off the publicity of an existing IP).

[Googaboga]

I agree with Sundown. Your attitude towards this is sort of wonky. And honestly I can't see how a Kickstarter would work for such a thing. If I saw someone making a Kickstarter to raise funds to purchase an IP from me (especially one that I was still working on, i.e the animated sequel) I'd be pretty uncomfortable. So I imagine they may not allow you to continue work on this fan project if they hear about what you hope to make of it. And who's to stop them from creating their own Kickstarter to fund their own JK work? I'm sure the fans of the series would rather support a Kickstarter which would get them an official JK sequel and keep the IP with it's original creators instead of some new people. I'm not trying to insult your project, if it is completed I'm sure it will be worthwhile. But yeah your attitude makes it sound like your project would fit your goals better if you had your own IP and since it is crazy unlikely you'll get JK you may just want to keep this a simple fan project and come up with an idea from scratch when you want to do something big/profit off your work.

[Omniknight]

Ah yes, I really wanted to make that point clear, thanks for pointing it out.
The sequels will be free no matter what.
But if we can obtain copyrights from them, life will be so much easier considering character similarities, book publications etc.

And I intend to describe the original release as a prologue and take it from there. I'm going to make sure I announce that "THE PROLOGUE WAS NOT MADE BY US" so it doesn't seem like we're leeching off the publicity. I'll also make sure I announce that "we have no affiliation with Dischan media whatsoever."

[Badriel]

Are you going to keep in mind, that there's already an official sequel of Juniper's Knot in work?
https://dischan.org/devblog/2014/01/dis ... f-affairs/

[Caveat Lector]

The problem is that you've stated "this will be free" but you're still looking to make money off of this project through other means (Kickstarter), and you seem to be rooting for the original creator to fail so you can succeed. The thing is, though, most people in indie circles usually root for other indie artists to succeed, not for them to crash and burn so they (other artists) can move in and obtain the rights to their work.

Also, a disclaimer does nothing to protect you if what you're doing still technically violates the creator's original wishes. The best you can do is cross your fingers and hope that will be enough until or unless the creator either says "Sure, go ahead" or says "No, absolutely not, cease and desist NOW". I'm sure hundreds of Anne Rice fans applied disclaimers to their fanfics, but that didn't stop her from requesting Fanfiction.net to ban anything based off her works. And finally, I find it odd you're referring to the original Juniper's Knot as a "prologue"--so would that mean the Harry Potter series was just one, really long prologue leading up to one fan's Lucius/Hermione epic?

[Green Glasses Girl]

I apologize if I sound harsh, but I'm going to be blunt here to help you and your team out. I respect your passion, but I feel like many here that you're going the wrong way about this.

I'm going to make sure I announce that "THE PROLOGUE WAS NOT MADE BY US" so it doesn't seem like we're leeching off the publicity.

I'll be frank here. You are piggybacking off their publicity because you are using their concept. Otherwise you would have made your own game, right? Even if you say you are not affiliated with Dischan in any way, you are still using the Juniper's Knot namesake.

My advice:
A Kickstarter to buy a namesake is very dodgy, and realistically, probably not going to happen. You also said you would like to produce an artbook to hand out at conventions, and that would require funds (or as you said, another Kickstarter). I would advise a free digital artbook to be handed out for free instead. You could save the art as a .PDF or other file format onto CDs, as well as make a nice label for it along the lines of professional VNs. That would essentially be paid from out-of-pocket, and you would 1) not have to have any Kickstarter, 2) would be less expensive by far, and 3) could still be handed out for free.

Continue making a fangame. A ton of people (me included) would love to see a JK prequel/sequel. That's exciting! However, the discussion about commercializing/copyright buying/distribution of any sort does not mean a thing until you actually show the content. That's a pretty common staple for any game developer. Setting goals out for the future is fine, but I think this thread should be more focused on what is actually being produced. Otherwise it might belong on the Ideas forum.