Creator jack 5 days ago

Happy 6 month anniversary of the time Alex posted that the next update would come later in the month.

Creator codeRdad 6 days ago

Alex,
I joined Kickstarter solely to back your project so I could use it as a tool to interest my kids in coding. The path this project has taken is very disappointing and actually frustrated my kids further about programming because something they became excited about has been a bust.

I agree with the posts below that asks you to open source the code so that others can take it forward. This is a moral obligation you have to the 7459 backers who gave you money, and to the coding community in general whose kickstarter campaigns have to overcome the stigma of this project.

Stop sitting on the project and let it become useful.

Creator Tomimt 6 days ago

Be a man Alex and give us a postmortem at least. That's the least bit of effort you can do after spengin our money.

Creator jack on October 7

Alex Peake - Last login Oct 6 2014

Hi Alex

Creator Maxedaddy on October 7

I'm so glad i only donated a dollar.

Creator Tomimt on October 6

I just came to see if anything was different. It wasn't.

Creator Nancy Hutchins on October 3

And so where exactly did the 170K go?

Creator njt on October 2

"Because real artists ship" - Alex Peake

Famous last words...

Creator Thomas on September 22

This is rather depressing. The least he could do is open the source for the code that we paid for. It's a shame that shy of a lawsuit we're probably not going to get access to what we paid to develop.

Creator jack on August 28

It's cool that Alex continues to login and back other projects but won't update his own.

Creator PegasusOrgans on July 31

@ William ~bows his head in a silent moment of reflection~

@ Tomimt, exactly the same for me. Today, this would never get the kind of attention it had. Likely would have made 20k and been forgotten.

Creator william on July 26

Code Hero Obituary:

Our beloved Code Hero has finally passed away. The date on which Code Hero officially passed is in question, as he suffered a terribly long illness and there were brief times he showed signs of recovery. It is clear now that he is gone, even though there remains a handful of devoted online friends and family who gather by his side, even at this late date.

He was born on February 24th, 2012, with a misdiagnosed case of Fund Mismanagement which unknowingly grew, along with a severe bout of Fatherly Neglect which developed later. One illness would've been enough to end even the healthiest Kickstarter project, but suffering both, it quickly proved to be terminal and he soon slipped away from us all.

Ripe for potential, he stormed into the world, a bright and fantastic game which taught you to program. A first person shooter using a gun to copy and paste code, he was the internet's darling with articles aplenty pointing those interested to his Kickstarter page. Looking to raise $100,000, he managed to gain $170, 954, nearly $80,000 more than was thought to be needed to fulfill the game. Unfortunately, even the large sum of cash that was raised was not enough for him to ever truly recover. His backers followed diligently for years, hoping to someday see progress, but none was ever made. His bright light shone all too briefly.

He was preceded in death by Hope that it will get finished, and Faith that it will get finished. He is survived by Dustin Deckard, Jonathan Jou, Tomimt, Jack, PegasusOrgans, and 7,454 others who backed him. He is also survived by his father, Alex Peake, whose whereabouts are currently unknown.

His remains are likely tucked away nicely on a flash drive somewhere that eventually got kicked under the couch and forgotten about and is now covered in dust with a half-chewed piece of gum stuck to it. Friends and family would like a postmortem of his remains.

In lieu of flowers, family would encourage those wishing to, to make a generous donation to …no, never mind. Enough has been spent on him already.

Creator Tomimt on July 24

The only reason this unfortunate project made 170k is that they had the luck to be in the first KS graze that Double Fine caused. This even was the second project I backed, DF being the first one.

If this same project would be proposed now it wouldn't receive the money. At least I know I wouldn't back it, as I have become more choosy with the things I back. I haven't actually backed a thing in over a half year now.

Creator PegasusOrgans on July 23

It saddens me that many very worthwhile games have trouble reaching 30k while this made 170k! Saddens me terribly.

Creator jack on July 22

I think I got at least $13 worth of laughs out of that last update from the "Project Coordinator", so I now consider this project a success. I'm looking forward to the next post from Alex about how he needs to improve his communication before he disappears again for months. Good to see that he is still backing other projects too, even if he's abandoned his own.

Creator Tomimt on July 22

As I've said a couple of times, the best thing Alex could do now is to just release the done stuff as opensource for the community to prod around and to see if there is anything to salvage there.

A postmortem would be nice as well, but doing that would require Alex to actually admit, that he has failed as a project lead, so I think it could be embarassing read of bad excuses,

But anyhow, Yogventures failure might be a blessing for Code Hero as well. If they get that sorted out, perhaps it will encourage Alex to do the right thing as well, instead of being holed up somewhere, lips sealed.

Creator Jonathan Jou on July 21

There's an interesting conversation to be had around the many pitfalls of kickstarter software projects at this point, which seem to be an especially tricky situation. Stretch goals that extend the scope beyond the bounds of the team's experience, budgets which are naive at best that are disregarded as the project progresses, and most importantly the ethics of what happens when a project fails.

It does seem very odd that people pay for someone to work on a project, and when the project has by all promised metrics become a failure there's no way to recover any of the work done. Alex could just as easily have burned the hard drives with the code on them and his contractual obligations to us are still not an issue. But from a moral standpoint, is the right thing to do to release the code under a public license and just hope someone else can finish what he started?

I'd certainly be interested in reading about other examples and what they did right or wrong. Yogventures! certainly looks like a good example of trying to make things right.

Creator Dustin Deckard on July 21

Also - it's interesting to note that the Yogventures! game that failed now has its backers demanding the source code and/or assets created for the game. The backers did pay for those, after all, and in the complete absence of a finished game and no possibility for a finished game, it seems absolutely reasonable to demand that the assets (which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars) be returned to the community rather than used on some other project at a later date.

Creator Dustin Deckard on July 21

Yeah, I think Thomas has the right idea. Sure, we'd all love more information (and rightly feel like we're "owed" it) but if Alex actually did write a postmortem, it would just be an exercise in embarrassment. The failed Yogscast game that's been making the rounds this last week just put up their own postmortem, detailing how they wasted/lost nearly $600k. Obviously people are pretty furious about that (again, rightly so) and there are still tons of unanswered questions, but when you fail on that level (or on Alex's level) it's typically because someone made terrible choices. Plus, all it would do at this point is rile us all up, assuming he was honest about it. The emails I got from his friends and roommates, though (back when this all blew up), claim some of his first purchases were new computer(s), extravagant dinners and plane tickets (for himself and companions), among other BS. Not to mention the squandered opportunity to use IGN office space. An honest postmortem would almost certainly just make him look even worse.

Creator Thomas on July 21

Jonathan, I'd like to know. But, I think the only reasonable explanation here is just gross incompetence with regard to project management.

Creator Jonathan Jou on July 21

Does anyone else here feel like it would be worthwhile to write a postmortem of this game, even if only from the limited information we have as backers? I'd be very interested if we could assemble all the data and look for meaningful takeaways regarding common pitfalls for kickstarter games and important red flags for prospective backers. I've been going over what google has to offer about Alex and his interviews tell a very discouraging, if not frightening tale. Reading about how Alex explains that he used (our) $150k to pay 10 people at $5k a month, but then also discusses how startups often have to pay employees less than they were promised makes me wonder how he managed his money at all. Going from the notion that this was a relatively simplistic game (as a $170k budget would warrant) in feauture-complete beta to the sudden promises of alphas and mind-bogglingly ambitious feature sets continues to confuse any sympathetic narrative I could use to explain what's happened. And, of course, most worrying to me is the fact that Alex has somehow managed to hire two separate community managers to try and keep us in the loop, only to have both of them politely quit without ever being able to answer any of the hard questions.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on? I'm somewhere between deep concern and morbid fascination.

Creator Lorenzo Dolcetti on July 16

My first and only Kickstarter... too bad for me :-(

Creator PegasusOrgans on June 28

@Dustin Deckard, too true. And despite getting no funding still get much more done!! Games made by developers of actual games(people with experience) end up with failed Kickstarters. Very discouraging.

Creator PegasusOrgans on June 28

@Alex Peake Where is the update "later this month"? It's july!!!

Creator Dustin Deckard on June 26

It really freakin bums me out that amazing game projects struggle to hit the $50k mark these days. People like Alex degraded the crowdfunding experience for the entire industry. :(
Anyways, putting a shameless plug in here for SUNSET, the new Tale of Tales game. They make odd "art" games, but have a solid reputation, have won many awards, and can be trusted with your money. It's also a first-person war game with NO GUNS, which is really special. Check it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/taleoftales/sunset-a-first-person-videogame-thriller

Creator jack on June 13

"We will continue to make regular updates...We have some good news to share in our next update later this month.." -Alex Peake, 4/3/2014.

lol.

Creator Jonathan Jou on May 19

Fellow backers,

Every so often I visit this page, hoping to hear of news and developments that might have moved Code Hero towards benefiting others. At this point, I don't think anyone would want to be Alex Peake, and I don't think there's any positive outcome from continued criticism, even if it's constructive.

Alex owes many people money, and many more people a dream they bought into. His vision drew the attention of thousands, and then soured the hopes of thousands. He appears to have made a number of unfortunate decisions, and now it's not clear to any of us what good might come of the funding we offered him.

His team suffers turnover, his code has possibly insurmountable technical debt, and to this day he's unable to promise us any sort of schedule or end product. A postmortem of the project would likely chronicle a series of mistakes due to inexperience, and a transition into silence to avoid the hard questions that still go unanswered. Those seeking to learn more of his endeavors before Code Hero will find a trail of interesting ideas which suffered much the same fate. As a developer, I sympathize with his dilemma, and forgive him for his ambitions. As a backer, I worry that his history of mismanagement will deny him the opportunity to realize a truly worthy idea. It's clear to me that Alex could have been a very sincere, honest programmer with an idea he believed in, who should never have been thrust into a position of management, much less allowed to shoulder responsibilities he wasn't ready to handle.

We're left with a project we can't know will deliver, which has taken money we can't expect to get back, to produce an incomplete product we're not allowed to have. There are those of us whose money may have been better spent, who could have provided opportunities to other projects. For most of us, our money has gone into teaching Alex that writing software is hard, and starting a successful software company is much, much harder.

I'm mostly okay with this. My $13.37 was well spent. But I think we do have a responsibility to make sure Alex is ready before he takes on another grand idea. For those of you who remember his biography (the website appears to be down again), I'd recommend Alex go back to school and get the programming degree he wasn't convinced he needed, and find the humbling entry-level industry job he doesn't seem to have had. He'll want a team of industry veterans to tell him that $170k is less than a tenth of the budget for an MMO, and people with project management experience to turn his visions into tractable milestones.

Which is to say, I can't say that Alex Peake is ready to make this game. In my opinion, it would be unfair to both him and us to believe otherwise. The best thing we can do for him now, is to help him prepare for his desired role, even if that means holding him back until he is truly able to live up to expectations.

Be kind. We don't need to be hurtful to help, and we certainly don't need to keep pushing Alex along the pipe dream we don't believe in.

Sincerely,
Jonathan

Creator gamesBacker on May 8

Here's a game called 'Glitchspace' that people might like while waiting for this one. It looks similar to a cross between this and Portal from what I can tell. I just heard of it, but it looks great, and it's pay what you want for the next 48 hours on indie game stand. It's the next best thing to getting a finished version of Code Hero.

https://www.youtube.com/watch…

Creator Tomimt on May 6

Here's one interesting case. Basically it's a set of playing cards that failed to deliver to the backers.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/03/washington-state-files-suit-over-unfulfilled-kickstarter-rewards/

Creator Cassandra S on April 22

Correction: It'd be small claims court to get yourself a refund (unless you were one of the very high tier contributors), and it'd be a *class action* for all of us to get refunds, to my understanding.

Creator Cassandra S on April 22

Firehead, you can go to California small claims court.
You could take Dustin's advice, and leave about one comment per day until you get a refund.
I think Dustin has Alex's contact information, if you want it.

To my understanding, because there are relatively few of us and none of us lost very much money, it's practically impossible for us to take this to court - basically because that'd require a lawyer I guess, and lawyers cost a lot of money. So unless someone reading this happens to be a lawyer willing to take on a Kickstarter case pro-bono, or if you want to start a small-claims case without even being a lawyer (I suppose it's possible?), it doesn't seem like legal action can be taken. But please try, if you want to; don't let me discourage you. Just consider yourself amateurly warned. :P

Creator Firehead on April 20, 2014

I wonder if there are any legal actions that could be taken for this crap? Especially after promising the refunds on video. I'm sure there are people with better legal knowledge than myself.

Creator Jonathan Jou on April 20, 2014

I'd have to advise against that, Andreas. Code Hero's biggest issue is the lack of accountability, and while I'm sure additional funds would be appreciated by Peake and his team of volunteers, there's no way to know if that would even improve its chances of seeing release. Alex has perpetuated a pattern of promising updates without delivering, so we really have no idea what they've done over the last two years beyond what's in their demos, which is unfortunately a far cry from a finished game and a further cry from their envisioned, rather overly ambitious end product. I'd wait until Alex puts together the funds to fill backer rewards, and if you really want to support the game, my recommendation is to hold onto your money and buy it if it eventually comes out.

Creator Andreas Czák on April 9, 2014

Does the demo still exist somwehere?
I'm one of the few people, who don't want their money back, in fact, I'd donor some more money if that'd help to finish this game.

Greets

Creator antejentacular on April 4, 2014

I agree that the current situation is irritating and disappointing of course. But everyone who donated did so in the expectation that their money would be spent and therefore that there would be nothing for refunds. Where would the money come from after all? Funding a project isn't the same as making a loan, and there's no money-back guarantee.

If Peake had a spare $170k lying around for refunds, I'd tell him to finish Code Hero and give us what we backed in the first place. Assuming there was some way of, y'know, following some sort of realistic project plan.

Creator Dustin Deckard on April 4, 2014

I only know of one person who got a refund, and it was mostly because they were leaving about one comment per day demanding it. They were also a $13 backer, so it wasn't a big deal to swing. All of the other people who asked for refunds last year (and were promised refunds by Alex on a live video chat!) are still waiting. Yes, apparently because Alex doesn't have any money. But that's not an excuse, since... you know, he spent all of our money.

Creator Tomimt on April 4, 2014

I did ask for a refund ages ago and got an answer that they'd put me "on a list". What that means and if there is an actual change of getting a refund is anyones guess. Like I've said before, the best thing for this project would be to open source it. It's clear that Peake won't be able to deliver this otherwise, as I doubt he has the resources to actually pay oneone to code full time anymore.

Opensourcing this he could try to safe what little there is and try to help the project to really grow. It's not a guaranteed success ofcourse, but it would be a better change what there is now with this vaporware project.

Creator antejentacular on April 4, 2014

For those of you who want a refund: you’re probably not going to get a refund. Why? Because there isn’t any money. And even if there were, Kickstarter’s terms leave it up to the backers to find legal recourse. Clearly if you want to spend more money on a matter of principle then that’s up to you; I donated $313 and I have no intention of ‘lawyering up’. Kickstarter will always be a gamble. The majority of successfully funded projects miss their deadlines. Some just fail outright - that’s why pledging more than you can afford to lose is just a bad idea.

As for Code Hero itself, two years without t-shirts says about as much as anyone needs to know regarding its organisation, planning and delivery. Unless Peake is sitting on something huge (which seems unlikely given that the Project Coordinator just left) the next step should be to solicit help publicly. This doesn’t mean posting 17 open positions on the primer careers page. It means setting pride aside and saying: ‘This is a good idea. It can be done, but it needs a lot of help and it needs that help now.’

I’ve worked with an individual who I suspect is a bit like Peake, business-wise. The problem is that creativity, enthusiasm and personal competence count for very little in a team oriented project if you can’t manage a team, don’t effectively organise your time and fail to set and achieve realistic goals. Everything I’ve read about this debacle suggests that Peake should have had someone to keep him in line while there was funding – to prevent a capability-expectations gap from developing on the part of backers and Primer. Now it seems to be too late.

Creator LordDon on April 3, 2014

Alex - I'm impressed by your perseverance. I backed this 2 years ago when Kickstarter was still new and the fact that you're still working on this in spite of a few setbacks speaks volumes. Keep up the good work.

Creator Jonathan Jou on March 12, 2014

(Reposted from my comment on the last update, in case someone with more info chances upon it:)

Michelle,

Its been exciting to follow the process of putting Code Hero into the hands of other children, and I thank you for your time and effort in keeping us apprised.

I'm saddened to hear that your updates will come less regularly, especially since the scarce information I've seen regarding the complete vision for the project leaves me with many more questions than answers.

Is there someone on the team who can fully articulate what the final game will have, what it won't have, and what you have right now? How did a game go from beta back to feature incomplete back to "upcoming beta," only to fall back into feature incomplete again? Can someone tell us what delayed the sending out of T-shirts? Does anyone have a plan for the mentorship, the teacher training, or that intern on a plane?

We have, unfortunately, heard the "we're working on it" promise more than once, and what worries me isn't that someone is still working on it so much as the fact that I have no idea what someone might be working on. How is the secrecy and lack of transparency helping? Is Alex still hoping to one day sell his game for money, or is there some other reason the code hasn't been uploaded to a public repository and released under a license like the MIT Software License for everyone to hack on together? In all honesty I'm a little scared by the reasons I can think of that has resulted volunteer after volunteer distancing themselves
from the project.
I don't know if you'll be able to respond to this, and I do wish you all the best.

Creator Jean-Luc on March 6, 2014

I want a refund.

Creator Urutsini on March 4, 2014

"I’m sad to say that I’m probably not going to be able to update as regularly or as often."

As often as what . . . you mean like less than the 7 updates in total posted last year?

I want my refund Alex. I want it now. You are lucky there are no profanities in this post but feel free to add some yourself because that would be closer to what I am feeling right now.

Creator njt on February 24, 2014

See, the more public communication the quieter the complaints become :).

I still don't see why it's not more open source, though. I mean - it's still profitable that way (maybe even more so?) and it goes more to the goal of what this game's about (imho).

Regardless, glad to see it still breathing.

Creator Dustin Deckard on January 21, 2014

Another update, but still zero news about the game - just "we're still working on tshirts" but haven't even gotten an estimate on the order.

Creator Tomimt on January 6, 2014

Here's an another project, which I didn't back my self, but apparently a game called Unwritten in a turmoil which has lead the devs to retun money to the backers as they aren't confident that they can do the game. I read some of their updates and I appreciate the frankness they have. No beating the bush.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/06/unwritten-that-which-happened-may-not-happen/

Creator Jonathan Jou on January 4, 2014

Shaun, it's been a while! I'm glad to see you seem to be in festive spirit and doing hopefully well. I'm curious if you have any insight into how Code Hero was doing when you were involved. I really appreciated the attempts to really keep backers engaged when you first started, and am rather very curious to know if you have any comments on the challenges and difficulties that led to the eventual return to silence. Do you know who's the right person to ask who would have answers regarding the past, present, and future of Code Hero? It would be great to learn more about what's going on.