Composer says Wii's 'Sadness' was cancelled, releases soundtrack

by JC Fletcher on May 25th 2010 5:00AM

Finally, resolution to a story we've been following for several years -- though it's a bit disappointing. Nibris's Wii horror title Sadness (what did you think we were talking about?) has been canceled, after years of disappearing websites, slipping release dates, nonexistent demos and a generally game-free history.

The news comes from a Polish-language blog post from April, announcing the release of composer Arkadiusz Reikowski's soundtrack for the game. The post notes that, according to Reikowski, the game was cancelled before work on the music was complete. So that soundtrack is basically the closest part of the game to "finished" -- and it's still in a preliminary state itself.

[Via Original Sound Version; thanks, Aquacharger!]

Source

Tags: arkadiusz-reikowski, nibris, Nintendo, sadness, survival-horror, vaporware, Wii

Reader Comments (41)

All you really need is some concept art to get the atmosphere

coolio

It's a shame that there wasn't any substance behind all of nibris' talk. In the hands of a developer that actually, you know, develops things, a black and white gothic horror could have been great. Though, at least all this nonsense resulted in some pretty excellent music, particularly the theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU7IUYM6jvU

Also, did anyone honestly still think that this game was in development (i.e. ever existed)?

Yes, and no, to answer your question.

I know I've done it at least once, where I'm so excited about a creative idea and I get people involved, and plan the whole thing, and even go as far as a mock up . . . only to realize that, sure it's a great dream and I truly wish I could do it, but I'm just not able.

That's my impression of Nibris and Sadness at least. They were caught up in the early hype of Wii, and the burgeoning independent game development 'industry,' and ultimately ran a little too rampant with a great idea they just weren't capable of realizing.

chuck: if you check around some amateur music sites, you'll find that there's plenty more of guys who will take a whack at composing than coding. basically if you have a good mockup of a game you could have guys begging to do the music for a chance of some dough.

a good mockup is already a game though.

;_;

Huh. I'd forgotten this game existed. Ah well, unfortunate--at the time, I felt like Nibris had a really sweet idea going on, but maybe it's better that it didn't happen.

... actually I don't know what I'm talking about it's 3am give me a break

RIP Sadness.

Atmosphere is one thing. I'd imagine they'd also want to know what's going on in a particular scene too.

I mean, if all they had was concept art I imagine all the music in Halo would've been very peaceful and serene in the forest scenes.

Or like, imagine a movie with an epic fight scene but all the composer had to work with was a drawing of two guys on top of a pyramid.

All sound points, but IMO, the best way to approach scoring a project would be to collaborate and develop the score and the game/film/whatever simultaneously. The most common approach is to mostly tackle the music post production, yes, but it definitely isn't the most 'logical' or necessarily produce the best results.

Creating the score beforehand is a little odd, but at the same time, I mad artistic genius would develop the game to the music and perhaps make it better than if the score had been created afterwards.

This sad news about Sadness, makes me Sad !

The scene-specific pieces would come later, wouldn't you think? What sense is it to NOT start on the atmospheric BGMs when you already know what the atmosphere is going to be?

Apparently debug footage was released?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uE_8uX-q_g&feature=related

A "delirium" filter seems like an interesting idea for a horror game.

Curse my non-reading of Youtube comments... It's a fake. Still think this would be a cool effect for "panic" moments.

PROFOUND SADNESS

MY FIGHT MONEY

Emo kids everywhere weep as they have now lost their generation's Breakfast Club.

Writing soundtracks isn't actually something you always need the full product for. If they can give you a well written script you can pretty much nail the atmosphere of the final product just by reading through it and getting yourself in that right mood. I'm no expert on the subject, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night ( also did write a soundtrack for a friend based only on the script. Apparently I got the mood exactly as he imagined it )

Didn't nearly all of the 'hardcore' launch titles (Sadness was one of them) almost completely evaporate once Red Steel bombed? Project HAMMER comes to mind as well. They made new ones of course**, but all the titles that were to INITIALLY show it was more than just Wii Sports completely flaked off.

**Titles like No More Heroes, Muramasa and Tatsunoko vs Capcom.

Well, PROJECT HAMMER was a Nintendo title but they had to cut funding on it and apparently one of the people who were working on it told their class they're teaching they're still slightly working on it about two years ago.

Um. YES, some of the obviously-vapourware titles from unknown developers turned out to be vapourware (as was obvious from the start, or at least from a few months later). Actually, I can only think of this one right now, but there were probably others.

But on the other hand your assumption is misplaced because, NO, Red Steel didn't bomb. The game might have been crap, but it sold 1.2 million copies.

Wii's issues with hardcore sales started well after Red Steel. For example, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (early in the platform's life) sold very well, but Darkside Chronicles sold about half as much (barely half a million), and that's still more than twice what the Dead Space lightgun game did, etc.

Basically, early in the system's life, sales of hardcore games were fine, but nobody released any. Later on a bunch of hardcore games were released, but nobody bought them. Ah well. :)

funny when wii was announced sadness and project hammer looked like the coolest games coming out for it.

maybe the two of you are simply converging on the stiq from two different realities existing simultaneously in spacetime.

This really......

*Puts on Sunglasses*

Saddens me.......:(

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :(

I remember being excited for this.

This saddens me.

LOL @ anyone who honestly thought this Nibrius company was anything more than a sham from the get go.

They have actually made games you know.

Just did a quick search and couldn't find any information on actual released projects. They do, however have 4 announced projects:

Sadness (Wii)
The Children of the Night [5] (Nintendo DS)
ROTR (Wii, Nintendo DS)
Double Bloob [6] (Wii, Nintendo DS)

But none have been released.

They have that one WiiWare in Europe only.

Similar thing happened to Fatal Frame 4...

What do you mean? Fatal Frame 4 was never cancelled. It came out almost 2 years ago.

Well, that sucks. I was really hyped about this game when I first read about it a couple years ago, but I have to say I had quietly given up hope in the last few months. It's a shame. Even the skeptics have to admit that the concept of the game does sound awesome. I hope that one day, if Nibris ever gets their shit together, they might be able to revisit this.

This was expected, but I can't say I didn't had a bit of hope for playing the game someday...
Sadness was indeed released.

I am somewhat amused that the Nibris FAQ page (which only has 3 question/answers) says, "We promise that we will start filling this section before August 2008." The page was last modified on July 10th, 2008.

Yay go me!

However I was greatly looking forward to this game.

Well, I gave up on this title back in 2008. Given what we did see, there's no way anyone could have really said this was going to be a good game.

The amount that was shown was live video and some art. It comes across as they never had a really solid idea to build some mechanics around. ?

On to the next!

Huh. Was actually reading an old blurb about this in a old edition of game informer. From like, 2007, or in that area.

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Composer says Wii's 'Sadness' was cancelled, releases soundtrack

Reader Comments (41)

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