Hiveswap was released in 2017, building off the work done by WP NYC but completely failing to credit them for their work. The new team worked on a version of the game with a completely different art style, meaning years of work had to be discarded. What Pumpkin NYC continued development during most of 2015, until they were dissolved in favour of a completely different team doing exclusively remote work. ( x)ДЄfter repeated delays, What Pumpkin ditched The Odd Gentlemen (possibly due to some shady business ( x)) and moved to in-house development, setting up an office (вЂњWhat Pumpkin NYCвЂќ) in New York City. The Kickstarter campaign was a massive success and raised $2.5 million.ДЄccording to the original plans, the game (called Hiveswap) would be designed by What Pumpkin (AndrewвЂ™s company) and developed by a third party development studio (The Odd Gentlemen) and launched in 2014. In 2012, Andrew Hussie launched a Kickstarter for an adventure game based on his hit webcomic Homestuck. This is a long article, so if youвЂ™re looking for something you can read in a few seconds, here itВ is. (Likely due in part to due to fears of retaliation, due to What PumpkinвЂ™s history of aggressive litigation against whistleblowing or other perceived criticism.) Some tips were submitted anonymously but thenВ researched.

IвЂ™ve contacted them repeatedly, including after this article was published and members of the staff explicitly expressed concern over parts of this article, but they continue to refuse comment.ДЄs part of my research I had the opportunity to speak with former employees from What Pumpkin Studios, but they wished to remain anonymous. Neither What Pumpkin nor Viz Media would respond to requests for comment. All changes will be posted in Appendix IV. If so, please let me know so I can make the relevant corrections. I may in some cases add anchorlinks (dotted) asВ cross-references.Дisclaimer: While I have done my best to verify everything in this article, itвЂ™s entirely possible I got something wrong or missed something significant. Throughout this article, emphasis within blockquotes is usually mine. April 2018: Hiveswap FriendsimВ Launches.What Pumpkin puts Hiveswap on formalВ hiatus.Tech Coast Angels side-channelВ fundraising.January 2016: Secret side-channelВ fundraising.December 2015: WP NYC Dissolve & A New Look.Hey Poor Player: HiveswapвЂ™s JessВ Haskins.

Review Fix: Jess Haskins talksВ Hiveswap.

What Pumpkin is now the developmentВ studio.

Learn about accountability onВ Kickstarter.

The third article, covering some of the fallout and personal drama from all this, is here. The second article вЂњ More on the Hiveswap Odd Gentlemen DebacleвЂќ covers much more detailed leaks about a few specific topics in the story, especially claims about The Odd Gentlemen that were - at the time - rumors. I dug through every page, announcement, interview, blog post, FAQ, and tweet I could find, and the culmination is this the most comprehensive - as far as I can tell - explanation of Hiveswap toВ date.ДЄll additions and changes are posted in Appendix IV.Д®dit: This is the first, historical article. IвЂ™m documenting the story so far so that the Hiveswap Story isnвЂ™t lost to time, and so thereвЂ™s a decent summary of events so far, and maybe even so new Hiveswap fans can catch up. There is also significant pressure on people in the know - even people who just lived through backing the project - to keep quiet about all this, for reasons IвЂ™ll getВ into. This is probably due to the fact that a lot of the key sources are ephemeral - and most of them have been deleted - but itвЂ™s also because it feels premature to write up a вЂњpostmortemвЂќ on a gameвЂ™s development before itвЂ™s even an eighth of the way finished. Right now, this meta-story mostly exists in the form of oral history. The story of how Andrew Hussie burned through a $2.5 million dollar investment over eight years to produce almost nothing is fascinating, convoluted, and poorly understood even among HomestuckВ fans. Rather, the conversation вЂњabout HiveswapвЂќ is dominated by stories about the development and history of the game as a project - starting as a Kickstarter success story but then bouncing from scandal to scandal for years. The real story of Hiveswap isnвЂ™t about the game or the universe.

Hiveswap game background