After a year and a half of waiting for The Stomping Land to be released as originally advertised, the game recently took another setback. The Stomping Land's 3D modeler Vlad Konstantinov is "freezing" his work on the game "temporarily," he said in a Jan. 16 forum post on The Stomping Land's official website.
The Stomping Land - which received $114K (more than five times its $20K goal) during its Kickstarter which ended in June of 2013 - is an online-multiplayer dinosaur survival game in which you can hunt prey, build structures and drain the land of its resources to survive. In its current state, which is available on Steam, the game lacks many of the features shown in its promotional videos. Features such as the pole vault, being able to customize your character for stealth and using a gallimimus dinosaur to transport resources, as well as many of the traps and dinosaurs shown, have yet to be included in the game.
Initial video for The Stomping Land prototype posted on May 1, 2013. Many of the features and items shown in the video, such as the pole vault and flares, are not available in the current game.
Its been over a month since Vlad last got in touch with the game's head developer, Alex Fundora, (A.K.A. Jig), despite having sent him five messages, said Vlad in the recent forum post He also had to pay the game's texture artist out of his own pocket, and still hasn't been paid for his most recent model.
"I have no idea about the current stage of the game," said Vlad in a recent e-mail. "I regularly see him online in Steam so I have some reasons to suspect that he is aware of the situation."
Many other employees working on the game had previously left the development company, SuperCrit, for similar reasons. In another forum post dated from July, 2014, the game's freelance PR rep. Lee Fisk (Governor Ostrich) said he was "no longer handling the PR" for the game and hadn't been obligated to by contract since May 31. Kcin, another modeler for the game, also had his contract expire at the end of May and hadn't been renewed, but he'd still work on the game in his own time, he said in a thread also from July.
"When Jig goes silent it normally means he is cooking up something big," said Kcin
Jig has not been available for comment as of the time this article was released, but has previously said he's transferring the game to Unreal Engine 4 in a Kotaku article from last September.
Meanwhile, buyers and backers of the game are still restless. While the change.org petition to refund the game's backers is no longer available, reviews on Steam are still panning the game and calling it a scam.
UPDATE: Vlad is now making models for another dinosaur survival game, Beasts and Prey, announced a developer for the game on Feb. 6. Since starting, Vlad has provided the game with an Ankylosaurus model, and plans on providing 3-4 new dinosaur models over the next six months. Meanwhile, The Stomping Land is still being sold on Steam, with no word from Fundora.
