This absolutely would not be the thing a major development house would pick up.

There is absolutely nothing distinctive about its IP. After all, the entire point of the thing was to be almost entirely procedurally generated. There is no reason for another studio to pick this up when they could either pick up something with a more defined art style or direction, or just create their own procedural generation system if they wanted to.

Maybe, but most of the work Josh put into his project wasn't graphics but rather "under the hood" code and not just for procedural generation either. Still, it's a shame if this really is the end of LT.

Oh thank god. How long have I been predicting this? Limit Theory was one of the 3 games that I routinely used in conversation to discuss development hell. From the very beginning Josh wasn't the guy to get this done. He was too young, and while bright ideas and passion will get you far, that spark will die out. Organization is absolutely required to make a cohesive video game. His idea was great, but he had no idea whatsoever what he was getting into.

I'm happy for several reasons.

1. Its over. Nobody else has to get their hopes up for something that will never happen. (Btw. Working on someone else's code? Especially someone as disorganized as Josh? Basically impossible. That source code will never amount to anything. Not being negative, but its reality. Heroes of Might and Magic III was released on steam minus the expansion. Why? Because the source code was flat out gone. Similar thing applies here. Coding is difficult enough without having to figure out someone elses work. You need help to learn another language, you don't just listen to Chinese and pick it up in a usable form quickly. Anyway, the important thing is that people aren't being lied too anymore. Their money is gone, and hopefully they learn from giving cash to a child.

2. He can start to grow as a person. I've watched all of my dreams die. I can never fly a fighter aircraft. I'm color blind. Its fact. Now I'm getting too old to enlist so even if those color blind glasses do work. Its over. I wanted so much from life when I was young. And as those dreams and ideas crumbled under the cold finality of the human condition, I grew. I learned. I adapted. He will do the same. I'm just happy it happened sooner rather than later. Josh was a foolish young person. I was too. Now he can learn and move on. I wish people hand't crowdfunded his obsession with tinkering with code, but not much for it now.

Now I’m getting too old to enlist so even if those color blind glasses do work. Its over. I wanted so much from life when I was young.

Never say never!!! I 've started practicing fencing with medieval swords (HEMA Longsword ) a couple of years ago. I am nearly 50 years old now, and many times I have kicked a 20 something's butt in a tournament 😀 😀 😀 😀 !! (And many times I had my butt kicked by a twenty something, but that's normal!!!!! 😀 😀 😀 :D). Being 50 year old, is one my best times in my life, for creative activities!!!

Good for you Captain Kal. 🙂
You keep showing those young wippersnappers that there can only be one! o7

Like most of you, I had a gut feeling about this kickstarter in the beginning that one person was going to do all this...? Six years later we now see that the task was indeed too much. This kickstarter made over $100k so there is going to be some people kinda pissed about this. I guess I feel good that I didn't kickstart this and I decided to wait and see.

I think this is totally why CIG is constantly selling ships and whatever so they can continually fund the development of two separate games (Squadron 42 and Star Citizen). The pressure and stress is a lot to bring a triple A game to market because expectations are usually high and the youtubers will slam your game hard if you don't deliver which will affect sales and your motivation in the end.

I have a heavy heart for for the kickstarters not getting what they promised and for Josh as well who suffered actual health issues during development which were brought on basically from the stress of the development process and the long hours.

Like Iron Hound mentioned, bringing dreams alive or just staying in the dream is tough and sometimes impossible because of random factors. I guess one thing I learned in my time in the Army was how you deal with adversity is a huge part of life. Are you the person to push through any obstacle to accomplish the mission or are you content in staying safe and sinking down into your foxhole....?

Why even bother releasing source code, it will take months/years to get people familiar with it to do anything with it. Like I touched on earlier, Josh should have concentrated on make making an amazing procedural engine for gamers to create content for. With so much modding talent out there people would have made some amazing things if the engine was solid. But I guess we will never find out... Josh I recommend you not read the LT forums and kickstarter areas for a while because I would bet there is a lot of negative comments being written because of the development stoppage of Limit Theory .... RIP.

The forums are filled with positivity. Most people are happy for him and feel they got their moneys worth just following the development.

That's good, Star Citizen forums not always like that 🙂 Josh always seemed like a likable guy and you knew he was genuine in his efforts for Limit Theory so I could see how the community took the damage ok and supported the decision. I hope this doesn't mess with Josh's head with this project and affect his jobs/motivation for coding.

Good for you Captain Kal. 🙂
You keep showing those young wippersnappers that there can only be one! o7

Amen to that, brother!!!!! 😆 😆 I raise my fictional glass, in salute!!!!! 😀 😀

Brother? 😮
😀

I forgot not everyone lives in the U.S. or is familiar with Military statutes and limitations. In the U.S. all jet powered fighter/strike aircraft (like my beloved F-16.) can only be operated by qualified individuals chosen by the Air-Force. One of their non-negotiable limits is color blindness. I can never even qualify for training let alone operate one. Its impossible. A limit that cannot be overcome within my lifetime. (There are age requirements as well.)

My example was to show that, despite what the television tells you, life owes you nothing, and no matter how hard you try... some things just aren't attainable. Its fact. I will never be King of the United Kingdom. ( I actually have no idea how that works. Is the royal family over the entire Kingdom, or just England? I know Scotland and Ireland each have their own respective royal families...)

Although it is pretty cool that you can Fence! One of my heroes Fred Bear, is a famous Archer here in America who helped bring archery back into hunting. He didn't start archery until his late thirties if I recall.

Brother or Comrade in Arms? 😀 😀

Brother or Comrade in Arms? 😀 😀

I forgot not everyone lives in the U.S. or is familiar with Military statutes and limitations. In the U.S. all jet powered fighter/strike aircraft (like my beloved F-16.) can only be operated by qualified individuals chosen by the Air-Force. One of their non-negotiable limits is color blindness. I can never even qualify for training let alone operate one. Its impossible. A limit that cannot be overcome within my lifetime. (There are age requirements as well.)

Same here, since every NATO member follows the same guidelines concerning training in combat fighters. I was mistakenly diagnosed with short-sightedness, so my career in Air Force was also over, before it could even start!!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀 Well, I can still boot up my favourite combat flying sim, even if my eyesight is not what it was used to be!!!

I actually have no idea how that works. Is the royal family over the entire Kingdom, or just England? I know Scotland and Ireland each have their own respective royal families

There is only one royal family for the entire Commonwealth (including Australia and Canada, I think).

Well he not the first and he won't be the last, as I have said in the past any crowd funding is gamble on weather they can do what they say they are going to do.

Hey LT fans!

Does anyone have a good contact method for Josh? I'm the lead developer at a small, brand new (we're starting this month), financially well-backed indie game studio, Arcane Ermine, and we're looking to get in touch with Josh about hiring him and helping him finish Limit Theory. We believe it would be a tragedy if all of his incredible work just disappeared, and we're looking to help him get it all tied together.

The above from the LT forum, who are now trying to contact Josh.

Interesting development I would guess the big question would be if they are successful, will they honour the games original Kickstarter backers?.

I would guess not!

That would be my guess too, since it would be a different developer entirely. I believe Josh released all the source code for free, so technically that would have null-n-voided any kickstarter backers. Granted if they did do it that would instantly give them a big fan base. And hiring him even for a brief period to have him dissect his own code for them could save them weeks or months of work. So let's see if this gets a reboot, because the new developer is right, it would be a shame to see this effort and vision just forgotten forever.

Posted by: @sscadmin

I believe Josh released all the source code for free...

Thus far, he has not released the source code - much to the chagrin of some of the LT forum members/backers.

If they get their hands on the 'game', perhaps they'll rename it. How about Limit Theory: A New Hope <sniggers>

Posted by: @ironhound

Coding is difficult enough without having to figure out someone elses work

+1 I'm afraid that the source code might not be of much help. Just to illustrate my own database counts about ~270 000 lines in about 800 files after 6 years of dev, and I'm regularly having trouble finding my way myself! There are certainly many coders with much better skills than mine but for sure they would have to devote quite some time and energy to get into the project 😑 

Agreed @d-c-elington, I see it at work all the time when a developer needs to fix or refactor some old code and there is no comments and they have to spend hours trying to figure out what it does, and that may just be 1-2 files 🙂 your totally right. Maybe we now know why they want to hire josh's services haha

I thought Josh talked about releasing the source in his goodbye message @cody ? And here I thought there was some modders or developers picking his code apart and working on putting something together....

Even the early videos of LT looked great and it was a shame this game never made it to completion. I hope the new developers can possibly make 'A New Hope' come true 😉

Posted by: @sscadmin I thought Josh talked about releasing the source in his goodbye message...

He did, but then went silent. Arcane Ermine are still trying to contact him (it's possible they already have, of course).

On the subject of the KS backers, AE said this:

We intend to, at a minimum, distribute copies of the finished game to backers, as well as releasing on some kind of distribution platform. There is discussion of fulfilling the contribution tier rewards, but we'll need to evaluate that after we get Josh on-board.

Posted by: @sscadmin

it was a shame this game never made it to completion.

Sure 😑
That's great if another team would want to hire the guy, although I'm not sure how I would feel about such an offer in his shoes. Despite the obvious drawbacks developing solo also means total freedom and complete ownership of the project. Difficult to renounce this...

Nice to see that the Kickstart backer may get something, if this come off and that's a big if.

I will add a cautionary tale that we have seen something like this before, if you remember that some one popped up in the Pioneer forum a few years ago, wanting to make a commercial version of the game which I think ended up being JumpDrive, which can still be found on Steam, but has not had a update in years.

So even if they do get the code and JP, we still might not get a game.