The larger the gaming industry gets, the harder it is to push projects through to the finish line. Some projects are cancelled despite huge customer anticipation (such as Star Trek: Secret Of Vulcan Fury). Others, like European Air War, are saved at the last minute by outside-the-box thinking. The DailyWTF recounts such a story, where a new developer thinks outside the box and saves the project.

dupe! heh... obviously you're reading the same websites I am Trixter. Still, I already posted this story in the European Air War forums. :)

Whoops! Shows you how out of touch I am...

well these kind of dupes are okay. The news items eventually scroll down the front page, getting more and more buried. The game forum's subject will always (or until a change in policy) be visible to people looking up information on European Air War.

But where are all the other replies from other Mobygamers... comeon people, this is a fun story to read! :)

Well, I've read it (twice, now :-)), and didn't feel quite competent to comment on it - I don't get along too well with war/flying games, but what the hell. It made me wonder how many other games were pulled up out of a nosedive (appropriate, hey) at the last minute by a single cool feature.

I guess not as many as were worth to be saved.

Another story that comes to mind is not exactly about a game-saving feature, but also involves a last minute rescue. I'm talking about a recent fan-made King Quest 9.

Much later into the development cycle the team behind this project was ordered by Vivendi (current copyright holder of King's Quest series) to abandon all work on it. It caused an uproar among the devoted community that have grown around it. And when everybody though the game was lost for good, Phoenix Online (developer) managed to melt Vivendi's corporate heart and the project was allowed to live although required to remove copyrighted "King's Quest" from the title. As far as I know this case is the first precedent of major gaming company to withdraw their copyright holder's demands.

The game is still in the development, but the demo is out. And it's very good I might say. Check it out, if you haven't already.

I was surprised by the voice acting. King Graham has never sound better, and the introduction was pretty quiet and melancholic also. Beautiful stuff so far.