Elysian Shadows

EDIT: Please read the post made by Falco Girgis so that you can make a fully informed decision before you choose to donate.

Ladies and gentlemen...Many of you may know me from the Adventures in Game Development series as the guy who opens cans with his face. Yup, that's me

I am also the ES team member who made the award winning Level Editor back in the day, and am currently one of the Toolkit Developers.

I come to you today to ask for your charity. I am in a pretty tough financial situation. I recently lost my job after having to take a week off during an evaluation period due to a severe upper respiratory virus. If any of you ever have the misfortune of working with Asteria Solutions Inc, be sure to give them a nice big finger for me..;p

I am currently working with some technical recruiters with TEKsystems to find employment...But in the meantime, I am having trouble paying for food, bills, gas, and all that other good stuff.

So, so, so so...

If any of you fine ladies and gentlemen want to indirectly support the ES team (helping me helps them!) and directly do me a huge favor, please consider making a money donation!

As a huge THANK YOU! for your help, I have created a tiered list of donation incentives. For example, if you donate $25, you will receive the $25 incentive, the $10 incentive, and the $5 incentive. As for receiving your incentives, please coordinate with me either here in this topic or over email.

Thanks everybody!
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Donation Incentives:

$5 -

As a thank you for your contribution, I will add you to my personal emailing list.
I'll be sure to send you personal messages whenever a public ES related event occurs.

$10 -

You will receive a link to various (semi-melicious) scripts and programs ES team members have written and shown off in the AiGD series. In addition to this, you will receive a copy of the first game I ever completed, a Space Shooter in BlitzPlus. Windows executable only, and known bugs+memory leaks..But still fun!

$25 -

If you are in the US, you will receive in the mail a DVD containing a graduate level presentation
done by Gyrovorbis discussing the method behind ES's physics engine! This will be autographed
by Gyrovorbis (Falco) and myself (Marcel).

(add an extra 10$ - Peter's signature as well!)

$50 -

You will receive a Windows executable of the deprecated Elysian Shadows Level Editor--the
same one that won entrance into Intel's International Science and Engineering Fair.

You will also receive an Elysian Shadows or Adventures in Game Development
white custom made T-Shirt.

$100 -

You will receive the full source code to the deprecated ES Level Editor (written in BlitzPlus) as
well as a compact version (with full documentation) of the BlitzPlus IDE used to create it.

PS: I love you <3

??? -

Willing to donate, but have another incentive or donation request in mind? Post here and we'll see what I can do!

Donated - Sent PM, hope it helps bud!

I know I already thanked you on FB, but I'd like to do it again here. Every cent helps, thanks a ton! If I have leftover shirts I'll send you one anyway for being the first to donate.

Thanks a ton! =)

Donated! Hope it helps. I would definitely donate quite a bit more, but I've hit some financials pitfalls myself lately... Best of luck my friend!

Eatcomics, thanks alot! The reason I am doing the whole "mailing list" thing is so that I don't forget who all helped me out.

I greatly appreciate the help!

Donated! Hope it helps dude, I know how much this can suck

short wrote:Donated! Hope it helps dude, I know how much this can suck

Factor in parents who feel they've already done too much, and you don't know the half of it -.-;

But thanks a ton man! I am very grateful to you and all the rest of the community who are willing to help me out. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd get any feedback, but thought it was worth a shot anyway.

I honestly think I only need to make it another week, maybe two, before I'm in a new job. But being at the end of your resources really sucks

Arce wrote:

short wrote:Donated! Hope it helps dude, I know how much this can suck

Factor in parents who feel they've already done too much, and you don't know the half of it -.-;

But thanks a ton man! I am very grateful to you and all the rest of the community who are willing to help me out. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd get any feedback, but thought it was worth a shot anyway.

I honestly think I only need to make it another week, maybe two, before I'm in a new job. But being at the end of your resources really sucks

Of course! You, Falco, and Peter helped me get excited about CS again in the middle of my sophomore year during school, and you all have continued to provide hours of entertainment in the form of youtube videos, blog articles, facebook updates, etc.. all for free!!!

I honestly am just glad I get to return the favor a bit

For the record:

This "charity" has nothing to do with ES. We have never and will never ask for your charity. We made one Youtube video asking for contributions for a CAMERA, but that was to provide you with HD entertainment, not to feed us.

The things on Marcel's list have nothing to do with our current codebase or work, and they have nothing to do with ES in its current state or the rest of the team. The "graduate-level physics DVD" is something that Marcel is only able to sell you, because I have been gracious enough to gift it to him... and as I told him, I don't even know if I still have it.

I want there to be no misconceptions here. Marcel has barely written a line of code for Elysian Shadows in the last three years. He has consistently failed to keep promises, skipped development meetings, or just shown up high. He has smoked away the dream that he once shared with us. In case you didn't notice, he was baked for AiGD Chapters 18-20, and he was only in a handful of segments, because he didn't do a goddamn thing. He skipped our last live stream and had absolutely nothing to contribute to the one before. He has become nothing but a public figure for this project and has only been allowed to remain on this team, because some of us are naive enough to believe that one day he will extract his head from his asshole and find his way again.

short wrote:Of course! You, Falco, and Peter helped me get excited about CS again in the middle of my sophomore year during school, and you all have continued to provide hours of entertainment in the form of youtube videos, blog articles, facebook updates, etc.. all for free!!!

If you're talking about our older videos, sure. But Marcel has not lifted a finger for any of the newer videos, hasn't posted a single Facebook update (except to beg for money, lol), no longer participates in our private development forum (which is where the majority of ES is developed), and has not contributed a single blog or article to this site. You are giving him too much credit.

Any association made between the above "donate" button and ES is very disturbing and feels pretty wrong to me. I don't wish to taint our work by begging for your sympathy or money. The only reason I am even letting Marcel do this much is because I pity him as my little brother. He has every right to sell his old Blitz Editor. We aren't using it, and he wrote every line of it. What he doesn't have a right to do is market this campaign as though you are donating to a functional, contributing member of this project.

This is a disgusting fucking lie, and I will not stand for it:

Arce wrote:If any of you fine ladies and gentlemen want to indirectly support the ES team (helping me helps them!) and directly do me a huge favor, please consider making a money donation!

So now you know the truth... my conscience can rest easy. If you wish to donate, do so knowing the full extent of the situation. You are not donating for ES or towards ES. You are being charitable to Marcel and only Marcel as he leverages the hard work of others on a project he turned his back to many years ago...

Falco Girgis wrote:For the record:

This "charity" has nothing to do with ES. We have never and will never ask for your charity. We made one Youtube video asking for contributions for a CAMERA, but that was to provide you with HD entertainment, not to feed us.

The things on Marcel's list have nothing to do with our current codebase or work, and they have nothing to do with ES in its current state or the rest of the team. The "graduate-level physics DVD" is something that Marcel is only able to sell you, because I have been gracious enough to gift it to him... and as I told him, I don't even know if I still have it.

I want there to be no misconceptions here. Marcel has barely written a line of code for Elysian Shadows in the last three years. He has consistently failed to keep promises, skipped development meetings, or just shown up high. He has smoked away the dream that he once shared with us. In case you didn't notice, he was baked for AiGD Chapters 18-20, and he was only in a handful of segments, because he didn't do a goddamn thing. He skipped our last live stream and had absolutely nothing to contribute to the one before. He has become nothing but a public figure for this project and has only been allowed to remain on this team, because some of us are naive enough to believe that one day he will extract his head from his asshole and find his way again.

short wrote:Of course! You, Falco, and Peter helped me get excited about CS again in the middle of my sophomore year during school, and you all have continued to provide hours of entertainment in the form of youtube videos, blog articles, facebook updates, etc.. all for free!!!

If you're talking about our older videos, sure. But Marcel has not lifted a finger for any of the newer videos, hasn't posted a single Facebook update (except to beg for money, lol), no longer participates in our private development forum (which is where the majority of ES is developed), and has not contributed a single blog or article to this site. You are giving him too much credit.

Any association made between the above "donate" button and ES is very disturbing and feels pretty wrong to me. I don't wish to taint our work by begging for your sympathy or money. The only reason I am even letting Marcel do this much is because I pity him as my little brother. He has every right to sell his old Blitz Editor. We aren't using it, and he wrote every line of it. What he doesn't have a right to do is market this campaign as though you are donating to a functional, contributing member of this project.

So now you know the truth... my conscience can rest easy. If you wish to donate, do so knowing the full extent of the situation. You are not donating for ES or towards ES. You are being charitable to Marcel and only Marcel.

And this I have no problem with. I've been there and sometimes it takes some serious help to get out. Actively contributing at the moment or not, he was a sort of inspiration in getting me into coding, and without that old level editor showing me that blitz was a good way to learn I probably wouldn't have gotten into programming in the first place. I think if someone else on here posted wanting some help I would help them out as well. This is a community and if a member has provided content and helped out newbies getting into programming I would definitely help them as well. But I'm glad you're setting the record straight Falco. Keep in mind I donated to help out Marcel and not for ES related paraphernalia, as I'm sure most others did

Edit: Also I already have or have had most of the programs Marcel is offering. You guys were pretty generous back in the day. I got some serious hours out of that Space game he wrote lol

In light of Falco's post -- if you feel you donated under false pretenses or otherwise misunderstood the purpose, e-mail or PM me (e-mail preferred) and I'll gladly pay you back.

MarauderIIC wrote:In light of Falco's post -- if you feel you donated under false pretenses or otherwise misunderstood the purpose, e-mail or PM me (e-mail preferred) and I'll gladly pay you back.

A most generous offer, especially considering you've received nothing in return.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

How many of you got what was promised?

None.

I don't have internet. People stopped donating, because of you. I can't afford to go out and buy a pack of DVD's. I used their money on gas, and food.

It's sick and sad to say, but Marauder has offered to repay others.

He is a true friend, as are those who donated.

You?

What the fuck are you doing?

Arce wrote:None.

I don't have internet. People stopped donating, because of you.

People stopped donating when I told them the truth? Hrmmm... Sounds absolutely terrible!

Arce wrote:I can't afford to go out and buy a pack of DVD's. I used their money on gas, and food.

So you took people's money, promised them something in return, and now you aren't delivering? I believe that's called thievery.

Arce wrote:It's sick and sad to say, but Marauder has offered to repay others.

You're right. It is VERY sick and VERY sad. He was not happy to do it, and I heard you still haven't thanked him to this day. It is absolutely pathetic that he had to do that on your behalf, because he knew you wouldn't come through.

Arce wrote:He is a true friend, as are those who donated.

They didn't donate for you. They donated to get something in return.

Arce wrote:You?

What the fuck are you doing?

Exposing your scam.

And after aaaaaall this bullshit and all of these excuses, you are still such an arrogant asshole that you don't even apologize to these people? You feel like you have nothing to be sorry for?