Comic ConQuest first met its funding goal in October of 2013. The developer, Sleepy Giant, had funding, an amazing team, and tons of hype surrounding their clever IP. The premise was solid, a tactical-based RPG that takes place inside an enchanted Comic Con where your costume decides your powers. Kickstarter named it a “Product We Love” and early previews (including ours) all saw the game’s potential ready to take off.
Roughly two years ago the game’s planned release date came and went. Inexplicably, Sleepy Giant seemed to have vanished, their formerly active social media accounts going silent. After the missed release date the devs made one last backers only update, presumably, based on backer comments, explaining that the project was going to be canceled and that everyone should request refunds at that point. Those who hadn’t officially backed the game never received any explanation for the game’s sudden ghost act. So, what happened?
It’s not unusual for a game release to be delayed. However, this was only about 7 months from the date of funding, so it seemed a little soon for them to have thrown in the towel. Some backers even offered to hold off on getting their contributions refunded if it would allow Comic ConQuest to continue. Their offers were never publicly addressed.
I reached out to former Sleepy Giant CTO and Co-Founder, David Lee who said that the project had officially been canceled through Kickstarter, although he couldn’t verify if all the backers had successfully received refunds since he wasn’t part of the publishing side of the company. Lee told me that after the campaign was canceled the company, “made a pivot into mobile tech and have since been acquired.”
Initially operating under the name Adaptiv.io, the company is now a part of Swrve, a mobile marketing automation platform. This seems so far removed from the fun loving Con-nerds behind the preview videos. These guys seemed to be having just as much fun creating the game as everyone expected to have once it was released.
Honestly, I’m sad to discover that this idea died on the cutting room floor. Comic ConQuest had so much going for it and now it will never see a release date. The concept was fun, the costumes were wacky, and again, people were genuinely excited about the game. This wasn’t a team of nobodies either. They had some major power-players working on this, folks who’d done work for some high profile games in the past.
The best explanation I can piece together from reading past interviews with Lee, is that they were trying to build this game as a sort of passion project on their own while still tackling projects for other companies, (Disney, Bethesda, Activision). When projects started to end and cuts had to be made, they just couldn’t keep it going.
The Kickstarter campaign page is still there, waiting for updates that will never come. Sleepy Giant’s social media pages also still stand as a tribute to the game Comic ConQuest could have been.
