Inhabitants, Maqiupai and the future of GOAT DC Homebrew

GoatDan, of GOAT Games, posted this information on the DCEmulation forums.[br][br]
For the record, if you want to take the text of this message and post it anywhere... PLEASE DO. I want to inform everyone as much as possible about the problems regarding the release of these games and what we have done. By all means, if you have any questions, please post them here. If you post this on any other message boards, please point it to this thread for people to reply to, as I can only watch one at a time...[br][br]*ahem* So here goes:[br][br]As many people know, there were two games that won the first DreamOn contest -- Inhabitants and Maqiupai. Both games are excellent homebrew titles that are definitely ready for a professional pressing. The games were supposed to be pressed in time for the Midwest Gaming Classic on May 22nd and released at the show. Due to a problem with the master's that assured us only a 50/50 chance that the final product would function, we opted to not force them through and instead resubmit masters.[br][br]About a week after the show, we had created a new set of masters using the exact same method as Feet of Fury, the first commercial release that we did. These disks were sent to the pressing company, and they went through the pre-press set-up and had a limited number of errors. Seeing that they were the same general errors as what Feet of Fury had, we figured everything would be fine and signed for the games. They were shipped to us, arriving on June 22nd.[br][br]Upon booting, the disks refuse to load the game. Both of them will default to the built-in audio track(s) and will play those just fine. The data is accessable by looking at it on a computer. But the Dreamcast will not play it. Even though there would be a relatively easy fix to "force" them to function on the Dreamcast, it would not hold up to the same professional standard as Feet of Fury.[br][br]We are not working with the company that pressed the games to figure out a fix. We are going to have to pay for another pressing, as we signed off on the initial one fully understanding the games may not work. Some answers to questions that have been asked:[br][br]Could it just be a bad burn on some of the disks? The disks that are made into the games are not burnt, they are pressed. The pressing process ensures that every disk is made in an identical way -- if there is a problem with one, there is a problem with them all.[br][br]If the masters work, why can't you just make an exact copy of them? - This sounds like the most simple solution, but the fact is that pressing CDs are really only done in three "flavors" -- music, PC and Mac formats, or a combination of the above. The machine that makes the CD molding has built in error checking for these formats. The Dreamcast is a different format that has obvious differences between the other formats that will arise no matter what -- for instance, the disks contain a lengthy blank track to push the data to the outside of the disk, which theoretically helps keep the Dreamcast alive longer. This consistently shows up as a, "Are you sure?" type option. There are a lot more technical things that pop up too.[br][br]We are the only company currently producing Dreamcast games, and the place we are pressing them through is the only company that is currently pressing Dreamcast games onto CDs, and one of only a handful in the world that have done it. Considering the difference in time frame and scale, this is a huge problem that needs to find a workaround for all future releases.[br][br]Is there any way to speed up the process? Yes and no. We could push the games through right now with hacks that would probably make them work, however it would not solve the larger problem of understanding what went wrong and stopping it from happening again in the future. We have at least three releases in the pipeline right now, and we do not want to run into this problem again. Also, if we pushed them through and they still didn't function correctly, it could do irreversable financial damage to us. We have to get this right, and we have to do it now. Our goal is to have the disks back through production by the end of this month, and it is looking like that will occur.[br][br]What if the games aren't ready to go for a while longer? What about pre-orders? We will keep everyone updated as much as possible. There hasn't been too much news to report as of late, so we have been rather quite. Pre-orders will be shipped as soon as we can. If you have a pre-order and would like your money back, we wil refund your money at any time with no questions asked. Simply email [email protected] and we will set it up for you.[br][br]If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to ask here. Thanks for your continuing support, and we will get this right soon!
[br][br]If you have any comments on this information, please reply to the original DCEmulation Forum Post