Encased - Kickstarter Live

@Cadmus;

It's ironic, because I brought up After Reset a few days ago, as I'd noted there were similarities, yet this project seemed much more convincing and had a different tone. Having the same artist but a different team would account for that. Reading the post on NMA, it is clear that Andre appears as a separate entity to Mr Nixon. It's quite possible he was bitten by Nixon himself.

Having said that, any association with that debacle is obviously going to raise some doubts. I wonder, could Andre respond, and tell us about the situation? He said he met Nixon and the team at Black Cloud. Could he tell us who they were, what was Nixon's real name (not unreasonable since he took people's money) and what occurred? If we know who is, and what happened, it helps to avoid any speculation about who he and his team might be.
 
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Ripper said:
@Cadmus;

It's ironic, because I brought up After Reset a few days ago, as I'd noted there were similarities, yet this project seemed much more convincing and had a different tone. Having the same artist but a different team would account for that. Reading the post on NMA, it is clear that Andre appears as a separate entity to Mr Nixon. It's quite possible he was bitten by Nixon himself.
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He definitely was hit by the fact After Reset ended like this. When I have reached him with Encased, when we were launching the project back in December he checked my bio three-four times, to be sure that I am who I say I am. So yeah, he paid his own toll.
 
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Ripper said:
@Cadmus;

Having said that, any association with that debacle is obviously going to raise some doubts. I wonder, could Andre respond, and tell us about the situation? He said he met Nixon and the team at Black Cloud. Could he tell us who they were, what was Nixon's real name (not unreasonable since he took people's money) and what occurred? If we know who is, and what happened, it helps to avoid any speculation about who he and his team might be.
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Yeah, I think we must do this. I'll ask him to register, or at least post it through my account.
 
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Just re-posting the links that got purged from the other thread for reference.

So no harm of fouls meant from this post cadmus.=)
Hello! My name is Vladimir, and I am one of the backers of After Reset RPG, a game that gathered 90.000 USD from 3000 backers on Kickstarter, after which the developers just dissapeared with the money. I found out that developers behind the scam now refurbished their company as "Dark Crystal Games" the name of the new money grab is "Encased old-school RPG". The head designer behind the failed After Reset, Andrey Lyapichev aka Weilard aka Mr.Nixon is leading this new team. Please, spread this information around. As a person who lost $250 backing their previous scam I can't simply sit around and see it happen again to the new people these criminals try to fool with their fake campaign!

All the needed proof is in the attachment and the links below. Please, do something about it. Help stop the scam(edited)
1. http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/a….199729/page-5
https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/HEbTGJj.png
2. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects…pg/description
https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/HEbU7Wf.png
3. https://twitter.com/Weilard
https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/HEbUFR8.png
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Couchpotato said:
Just re-posting the links that got purged from the other thread for reference.

So no harm of fouls meant from this post cadmus.=)
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No, that's ok. As you can see, Andrei was not really hiding all this time he is pretty public. He runs a patreon, streams his drawings, does daily contests. I don't see hordes attacking his account. I was really surprised by this attack today. I mean I understand Vladimir and his frustration of course but was genuinely surprised, mostly because we were very public about Encased and who stands behind it for last 10 months or so.
 
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Cadmus said:
No, that's ok. As you can see, Andrei was not really hiding all this time he is pretty public. He runs a patreon, streams his drawings, does daily contests. I don't see hordes attacking his account. I was really surprised by this attack today. I mean I understand Vladimir and his frustration of course but was genuinely surprised, mostly because we were very public about Encased and who stands behind it for last 10 months or so.
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The biggest regret me and the guys have is that we acted too late to show your lies to the world. It's completely logical Nixon was created by your director to get all the blame. If the scammed masses go ask their money back from a fictional person, everyone's happy, right? Andrey sure is a public person. Like while only being a lowly contributor of art to After Reset, he gave out interviews with Nixon's opinions, he made co-joined NMA posts with him, he ran the Kickstarter campaign, etc, etc. Every artwork contributor does that amirite? :D

I will be proven correct when the good people of our RPG hobby will collectively lose $100.000 or even more on After Reset 2: Encased Edition, which is basically the same broken game with new filters. Sad that it won't give me my money back, though. Keep getting fooled by sharp marketing, guys.

P.S. I'm pretty good at drawing Pepe in Paint. If I draw one for Encased, will you let me represent your company in gaming press and on forums pleeeeeease? :D Nixon allowed that to Andrey, so why can't you? :O
 
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Vlad_ko, I need to run a game production I can't spend more time on this. I tried to have a reasonable conversation but looks like you will never stop. Today I have not seen any facts or proofs apart from your conspiracy.

After Reset 2: Encased Edition, which is basically the same broken game with new filters.
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This is obviously not correct. The code and art of our game have not existed 10 months ago.
 
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Wow so some guy on the internet said Nixon is not Weilard? Accept my apologies, dear sirs!

NOT.

Dude, there are four major projects: After Reset, which scammed me, Serenity, www.serenitythegame.com this Daedalus thing https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=791630243 and Encased, all of which happen to feature your art director's art... The previous three are all scams. All of the three had your art director and some guy - sometimes Rich Nixon sometimes Rick Lion. Are you telling me that all those times your art guy was just a contributor? Explain the interviews, explain his PR work, explain why all those scams look like they were made and written by the same person? Come on.

I haven't read the private message you sent, but I'm betting it's something to make me shut up. Not gonna happen.
 
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Here's the thing, if I wanted to set out to scam people multiple times, why would I use a name or alias that was in any way associated with one of my previous scams?

Wouldn't that, you know, kinda tip off the potential victims of my scam in progress?

I'm inclined to believe that the artist for Encased was just the artist for Black Cloud Studios and not Mr. Nixon himself… Because changing your name to not immediately alert donors of a potential scam is pretty much Con-artist 101.

Even our pals at Ellis Studios (aka Grinding Gear Games aka Dragon Design games) picked up this, and they're not even full fledged scammers (i.e., their games actually exist in a more or less playable form).

So the artist did some PR for After Reset? What does that prove? Isn't it pretty normal for artists to promote projects they're involved with? Especially if a Kickstarter is involved as presumably artists want to be paid for their work.

The artist could've changed his name / handle to dissociate himself from Black Cloud Studios so it seems like maybe he's trying to be as honest & open about his past involvement. Certainly any association with previous KS scams may give cautious backers pause but insisting that the developer is lying just makes you seem like a conspiracy theorist- who will never consider new information because you're only interested in focusing on things that supposedly support your claims.

IDK, Vlad I get you're pissed about throwing away money on AR and probably have good intentions (i.e., don't want to see anyone else fooled out their hard-earned money) but what if you're mistaken about the situation? Then you're just potentially screwing up the chances of a legitimate RPG project being funded. After all, aren't you just "some guy on the internet", too?

I'm not backing it, but I do find Encased a lot more interesting than After Reset.. For one it's turn-based rather than RTwP (huge plus in my book) and also in their KS video they're shown a lot more gameplay than After Reset early access version has (which is just a character creator and a room with basically nothing in it). The concepts also seem a lot more fleshed out than AR.
 
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I would definitely like to hear from Andrei, though. He does seem to have been involved with a number of very similar Fallout-esque games, all quite similar to this one, all of which went nowhere.

There's the Project Serenity, that's been mentioned. And, with a very similar website that also seemed to produce very little, Lionwood Studios. At the very least, it looks like a rather bad track record.
 
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It's ridiculous we're still entertaining this.

There are 21 names associated with the project, many of which have worked on professional games before. Yet we're supposed to believe it's a scam because one artist who loves Fallout was involved in a couple of failed Fallout projects?

Until there's more than just baseless speculation and circumstantial evidence, I think everyone should just stop talking about it. They still have a lot of money to raise, and this kind of hearsay could damage their campaign if it travelled elsewhere.
 
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daveyd said:
Here's the thing, if I wanted to set out to scam people multiple times, why would I use a name or alias that was in any way associated with one of my previous scams?

Wouldn't that, you know, kinda tip off the potential victims of my scam in progress?

I'm inclined to believe that the artist for Encased was just the artist for Black Cloud Studios and not Mr. Nixon himself… Because changing your name to not immediately alert donors of a potential scam is pretty much Con-artist 101.

Even our pals at Ellis Studios (aka Grinding Gear Games aka Dragon Design games) picked up this, and they're not even full fledged scammers (i.e., their games actually exist in a more or less playable form).

So the artist did some PR for After Reset? What does that prove? Isn't it pretty normal for artists to promote projects they're involved with? Especially if a Kickstarter is involved as presumably artists want to be paid for their work.

The artist could've changed his name / handle to dissociate himself from Black Cloud Studios so it seems like maybe he's trying to be as honest & open about his past involvement. Certainly any association with previous KS scams may give cautious backers pause but insisting that the developer is lying just makes you seem like a conspiracy theorist- who will never consider new information because you're only interested in focusing on things that supposedly support your claims.

IDK, Vlad I get you're pissed about throwing away money on AR and probably have good intentions (i.e., don't want to see anyone else fooled out their hard-earned money) but what if you're mistaken about the situation? Then you're just potentially screwing up the chances of a legitimate RPG project being funded. After all, aren't you just "some guy on the internet", too?

I'm not backing it, but I do find Encased a lot more interesting than After Reset.. For one it's turn-based rather than RTwP (huge plus in my book) and also in their KS video they're shown a lot more gameplay than After Reset early access version has (which is just a character creator and a room with basically nothing in it). The concepts also seem a lot more fleshed out than AR.
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Dude, I see how you notice holes in what I'm saying but yet you're someone who finally didn't brand me a conspiracy nut, or tried to deplatform me. This is EXACTLY what I am trying to say... I'm not the villain here. I would never want anything to happen to those who do not deserve it. If I'm wrong I will do anything to make up any damage done to the people I wrongly accused. I ONLY have good intentions, i.e. I want to stop my fellow gamers from making my own mistake. Yet, this doesn't look or feel like a coincidence. Please, get what I'm trying to say: The guy was there when After Reset hit, the guy was there when Serenity failed, the guy's art was used in Daedalus. Now he is basically in charge on Encased. And with all frauds there is always a Russian-American smooth talking scammer with a stock photo called either Richard Nixon or Rich Lionwood who takes all the blame. Why change your name when you have a patsy, and you yourself are only credited as a lowly art contributor? Can't you see that it's enough for me to take the risk and openly accuse the devs? Encased, AR, Serenity, Daedalus - all have no demo at crowdfunding start, all have similar art, all are affiliated with one man. I would never harm an innocent, unless I was completely sure about my words.
 
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Ripper said:
I would definitely like to hear from Andrei, though. He does seem to have been involved with a number of very similar Fallout-esque games, all quite similar to this one, all of which went nowhere.

There's the Project Serenity, that's been mentioned. And, with a very similar website that also seemed to produce very little, Lionwood Studios. At the very least, it looks like a rather bad track record.
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Exactly. There is Serenity with a Russian-American Rich Lionwood. There is After Reset with a Russian-American Rich Nixon. There is Daedalus (Rich Nixon again). How many Russian Americans with awesome sounding fake names are there, that are interested in making scammy fallout clones? I'm not saying Andrei is 100% those people. I'll even give a tiny little benefit of the doubt that he was in on the constant scamming done under his name, with his artwork, and basically with one and the same idea of a modern Fallout clone for that nostalgia money...
But the LEAST we can agree on is that it's really, really fishy. I want to see him explain himself. I want to be wrong. But I know I won't be...
 
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Silver Coin said:
It's ridiculous we're still entertaining this.

There are 21 names associated with the project, many of which have worked on professional games before. Yet we're supposed to believe it's a scam because one artist who loves Fallout was involved in a couple of failed Fallout projects?

Until there's more than just baseless speculation and circumstantial evidence, I think everyone should just stop talking about it. They still have a lot of money to raise, and this kind of hearsay could damage their campaign if it travelled elsewhere.
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Bro, no offense, but we all heard your skepticism the first 10 times :) Continuing acting like there is nothing to doubt in this fishy as hell story will only make me think you're in on it somehow. It won't protect Encased from our completely valid questions.
 
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On the other hand, and this seems to me to be a big one, Cadmus - Viacheslav Kozikhin - the guy fronting the KS video - is legit.

Identify him in the video, and look him up.

You can see him pictured here on the Larian kickstarter - scroll down to where it says Larian on Tour. They refer to him as "Our designer Slava ", but that's the guy. Why would a legit guy working at Larian be in with two-bit scammers that would destroy his reputation? That's enough to give them the benefit of the doubt, IMO.

I would like to hear the story from the artist, though, as he does seem to have been much more than a gun for hire in those previous projects.
 
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Vlad_ko said:
Dude, I see how you notice holes in what I'm saying but yet you're someone who finally didn't brand me a conspiracy nut, or tried to deplatform me.
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Right, but notice I didn't exactly rule it out either. I will say that the sarcastic / emotional tone of some of your posts and implying that Silver Coin is somehow "in on it" don't exactly help your case. I pointed out holes in what you're saying, because there are holes. Yet you continue to believe you're right with 100% certainty…

Vlad_ko said:
This is EXACTLY what I am trying to say… I'm not the villain here. I would never want anything to happen to those who do not deserve it. If I'm wrong I will do anything to make up any damage done to the people I wrongly accused. I ONLY have good intentions, i.e. I want to stop my fellow gamers from making my own mistake. Yet, this doesn't look or feel like a coincidence. Please, get what I'm trying to say: The guy was there when After Reset hit, the guy was there when Serenity failed, the guy's art was used in Daedalus. Now he is basically in charge on Encased. And with all frauds there is always a Russian-American smooth talking scammer with a stock photo called either Richard Nixon or Rich Lionwood who takes all the blame. Why change your name when you have a patsy, and you yourself are only credited as a lowly art contributor? Can't you see that it's enough for me to take the risk and openly accuse the devs? Encased, AR, Serenity, Daedalus - all have no demo at crowdfunding start, all have similar art, all are affiliated with one man. I would never harm an innocent, unless I was completely sure about my words.
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The problem here is that your claim is essentially non-falsifiable. There's nothing Dark Crystal games can do to prove that their concept artist isn't "Richard Nixon / Lionwood". You will just keep insisting that they're lying and anyone who doesn't believe you is naive or part of the conspiracy. How can someone possibly prove he never want by a fake name?

I do agree with Ripper that it would be helpful to have a statement from the artist clearing up the extent of his involvement with Black Cloud Games projects. And some caution may certainly be warranted (as with all crowdfunding projects). But there doesn't really seem to be any way anyone can definitively prove or disprove your "theories".
 
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Ripper said:
Why would a legit guy working at Larian be in with two-bit scammers that would destroy his reputation? That's enough to give them the benefit of the doubt, IMO.
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That's what I've been saying from the beginning. There are 21 people working on the project, many of them industry professionals. They wouldn't throw away their careers for a petty kickstarter scam.

And no, I don't think the artist should come here and clarify things. By doing so it's acknowledging that these baseless accusations have merit, when there's not a single reason to suspect them of any malevolence at this point.

That's the last thing I'm going to say on this topic, which frankly should of ended long ago.
 
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I had seen no evidence myself about these 21 professionals, though, and perhaps Vlad_ko hadn't either. So I thought posting the clear evidence I found through a bit of Googling their background might be helpful.

I don't think there's any reason to suspect them of "malevolence". But I also don't think the Art Director, one of the five listed Leads, appears to have a very good track record, and a repeated professional association with a proven scammer would at least be worth an explanatory statement, IMO.
 
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