Less than a year ago, The Day Before arrived on Steam and, in the blink of an eye, disappeared, leaving behind controversies, memes, and a monetary investment that was left hanging, but ultimately led to the closure of its studio. However, Fntastic is back, and they have not only announced their return to game development, but, far from reopening a new Kickstarter as they did in September, they now propose that the players be the ones who create free maps for their next game.
As mentioned, Fntastic launched a failed Kickstarter campaign in late September with the slogan “everyone deserves a second chance.” However, this project, called Escape Factory, failed to gain player acceptance, and the funding campaign ended up disappearing in favor of a new project: Items, a prop hunt multiplayer game very similar to a previous title from the studio called Propnight.
Items will rely, or at least they hope, on unpaid work
Now, while plans to develop Items are still under way, the studio has taken it a step further and, according to the announcement on their Discord server, they have launched a contest for interested players to create at least one map for the game. According to Fntastic’s statement, participants must submit a stage design in any format, whether in drawing or 3D model, accompanied by a detailed description that includes aspects of balance, spawns, and the theme of the map.
Discord de Fntastic
However, while it is a contest with a screening process and a selection process (or so we hope), there is no monetary compensation, beyond the pleasure of seeing your map and name in the studio’s next project, as well as a key to a game that is still in development and we do not know if it will materialize. In fact, the curious thing is that Fntastic’s current initiative to seek free contributions from the community is not new for the studio, as they have already tried to recruit unpaid volunteers in the past.
The reception in the same Discord channel has been peculiar, with many laughs and some doubts about the development of Items, but with an unexpected twist: the contest has already received its first four proposals in 24 hours. For now, we can only wait to see what will be the fate of Items and, most importantly, the studio as a whole.
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