Mystery Flesh Pit National Park is a fictional project by Trevor Roberts, who started on Reddit has been in recent years Posting stories and artworks on its websitewho (sorry) fleshes out the story of a giant creature discovered underground in Texas and… turned into a tourist attraction.
It’s a very cool pitch, sort of Lovecraftian Jurassic Parkfull of absurdity, but also abysmal terror, and it has slowly become so accumulate enough fans that it has been covered on sites like United States today. Given the success of the project and the fact that Roberts built a detailed diorama of a world rather than a linear diorama storya video game adaptation must have seemed like a really good idea to a lot of people.
So, last week, Roberts announced that Courtesy of Village Fox Mediaa Mysterious meat pit video game would go into development, and would seek its funding on Kickstarter. Dubbed a “survival horror video game for PC,” it would revolve around the efforts of a crew tasked with helping the park recover from a disaster – remember, it is in a giant beast– which kills 750 people.
A week later, the Kickstarter — which featured very little demonstrations or detailed development information — was trashed, with Roberts saying the decision came after a combination of “fan feedback, a fiddly marketing push, internal squabbles and a deep… Introspection” has been taken. . In particular, the process of handing work on the game to other people doesn’t seem to have gone well at Roberts since writing (emphasis mine):
For those who were looking forward to a video game, my apologies. Most people don’t realize what a substantial undertaking it is to produce even a modest video game. I personally and carefully created each and every piece Mysterious meat pit project, but something as big as a video game is completely beyond my capabilities as a single artist. Unless I’m the one directly responsible for overseeing its creation, I can’t guarantee its quality. After this experience, I can say with certainty that there will be no recommended video game adaptations of the
Mysterious meat pit as long as I live.
I sincerely hope that by canceling this overly ambitious Kickstarter campaign, I have avoided, at best, a rushed and substandard gaming experience, and at worst, absolute disaster. I also hope that my decision to back this particular Kickstarter does not interfere with or hinder the superior work of other credible, talented developers who are working hard behind the scenes and have worked to bring you a belated Mystery Flesh Pit tabletop gaming experience offer in 2023.
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“I don’t have any bad feelings towards the developers,” Roberts tells me. “It was a mutual decision to cancel it in the end. I think they were a bit too ambitious and I had a moment of clarity where I saw the disaster this was going to be for everyone involved. I think I did the right thing. And, for the record, I have always fully supported fan games and will continue to do so. My statement that there is none Mysterious meat pit Admittedly, video game was a little overzealous. Fan games are awesome. I just think there are already too many games/movies/series that are ill-planned cash robberies from burnt-out creators, and that’s not my point.”
IIt’s refreshing to see Roberts seeing the writing on the wall and pulling the plug like this now and not months/years later – having already taken the money – like so many other doomed campaigns on the platform have done.
The tabletop adaptationwhich Roberts says is still on the way should be out early next year.