I'm hoping backers are getting onto Fangamer/505 about the Strategy Guide issue and how's just a glorified user manual and not a proper guide as it promised. There's also the issue that backers like me that haven't even gotten the Artbook and Guide yet. I'll see if I can contact Fangamer or the Bloodstained Discord about that.

Sadly you are not missing out on much atm. The Artbook has vertical and horizontal lines through the artwork on certain pages and some pages are not even numbered. It really is disgusting to see what should of been a work in progress thrown out to customers, but that I what I believe happened. The Artbook only comes in at 35MB btw with the "Strategy Guide" being at 9MB.

Well I've contact Fangamer about the issue through their support e-mail, namely letting them know about the poor-quality digital artbook and half-assed digital "strategy guide", hopefully they'll get back to me soon.

Yeah, I did the same with a list of the issues that plague the Artbook. I went through the damn thing page by page and it just kept getting worse. This sadly includes a page where they just dropped the artwork on the page and left it overextending past their borders and meeting the edge of the page. This clearly was a half baked attempt at finishing the digital content on time. There clearly is no polish and it shows at how sloppy it was put together.

Funny enough I went back to look over the campaign backer rewards and they refer to the strategy guide as a retro strategy booklet, whatever the fuck that means. I still find it more to be an instruction manual than a strategy guide, even if it would of been a mini one (hence booklet?). Not what I was expecting at all.

I don't expect anything from Fangamer today because of the holiday, being the 4th and all. I just hope that they do not have an extended holiday weekend for some odd reason. Otherwise that might be why the Artbook was in the rushed state that it was in. I have yet to hear anyone else mention the digital rewards atm, seems like most are preoccupied with the physical good which are also cheap as fuck from what I have heard. Seems like all backers of this project got screwed one way or another. Not exactly happy about the whole Curse of the Moon debacle, but there is nothing to be done about that.

Could be worse. We could have been like the Shenmue III PC backers and how they've been cucked by Deep Silver and how they're forcing Epic's terrible platform on them without the option of a changing platforms or a refund. It still pisses me off that Inti Creates screwed backers of Bloodstained as well as IGA over thanks to their backwards way of thinking of DRM and priacy prevention. If only we can make a petition to make them see how stupid their logic is when it comes to the PC platform really is and give what people like me asked for, a DRM-free version of Curse of the Moon (among other games they're shilling out to Steam and its DRM).

Actually Shenmue III got a forced refund for the people that want one. Was news a couple of days ago. Have a feeling that it was because of FTC and European/Australian consumer protection complaints.

Let's just say that it doesn't seem likely for us to see COTM here. Sadly that is all anyone can say about the matter.

Also I think that giving IntiCreates COTM was an olive branch for pulling them from ROTN. They were supposed to be lead devs on the project otherwise. Too much negative thought concerning they developed MN9 and that tainted the project.

The hate for Mighty No. 9 is fucking pathetic, ungrateful assholes bashed Inafune to oblivion and still do this petty shit even after he has been given the Gunpei Yokoi treatment by Level-5, over a game that's not even that bad as they are making it out to be like a bunch of drama queens and entitled twats from /v/. At least that game is actually DRM-free on Steam, unlike their creator's pet (a.k.a. Gunvolt), and if Inti Creates did loathed Mighty No. 9, they wouldn't have asked for the rights to use the characters for Mighty Gunvolt Burst.

Okay, this might be nothing, but it is a cause for concern considering the quality of the Artbook. The credits list the following people from Fangamer that worked on the Artbook:

Layout & Asset Editing: Steve Campos
Copywriting & Editing: Dan Moore
Design & Art Direction: Tony Kuchar
Cover Artwork: Jon Kay
Production Management: Audrey Waner

Then I remembered that the Kickstarter campaign page listed all parties that worked on the project and that includes Fangamer employees. So who exactly are these people within Fangamer and what are their listed roles on Kickstarter in comparison to the Artbook credits?

So, I am going to work backwards on the list and move to the top.

Audrey Waner who is listed as being part of the Fangamer Design (Design, Assets, Merchandise) who is specifically listed for Merchandise. She is listed for Production Management in the Artbook. Nothing out of the ordinary there, moving on.

Jon Kay who is also listed as being part of the Fangamer Design (Design, Assets, Merchandise) this time for the Logo. Cover Artwork isn’t exactly a stretch from Logo design. Fair enough.

Tony Kuchar who is also listed as being part of the Fangamer Design (Design, Assets, Merchandise) for Campaign Assets. He worked on Design & Art Direction for the Artbook. So far, so good.

Dan Moore who is listed as being a part of Fangamer (PR, Campaign). This is the same man that they have listed for Copywriting & Editing. Wait, what?????

Steve Campos who is listed as being a part of Fangamer (PR, Campaign). Listed for Layout & Asset Editing for the Artbook. Okay… I can say that Steve is one of the individuals that I have spoken to when I was having issues with the Campaign quite a few times. He was actively doing PR when the Curse of the Moon debacle happened.

So was the rest of Fangamer stretched too thin so they had members of the PR/Campaign team throw together the Artbook and they all signed off on it? I was seriously confused when I made the connection and figured that I should look into it as it just didn’t seem right.

Like I stated before, perhaps it is nothing, but it does raise questions about why the Artbook turned out the way it did, especially with members of the PR team doing major work on it.