The following happened throughout 2024.
The beginning of the story, was finding out about the game, this happened to me, thanks to the musician Bees and his “BastProcessed” music YouTube channel.
Originally listening to his take on the Sonic Mania, when searching is channels for more gems, I came across “Drift Stage” which I had never heard about before.
Upon researching, I came across the news article from GamingOn Linux: “When Kickstarter goes wrong for indie games: Drift Stage“
After that, it was clear to me, I had to get in touch with Charles “DelkoDuck” Blanchard, trying to find out whether the game had any future, and also if not, whether I could help in any way, shape or form to resurrect the game from the dead.
Googling a bit revealed a rather old but still working email and a reply back from Charles, wondering how I came about to find this very personal email address.
After a bit of chit-chat back and forth, I learned more about the troubled past of the game and what lead to its demise and falling apart of the team.
Giving him hints and some contacts of possible publishers I knew he could try approaching to help finishing the game and checking on him, whether an interview for our podcast or a presence at Gamescom would perhaps offer a helpful push for him to pursue completing the project at once.
Turns out neither of those would be seen as a viable thing to do, which lead to further hibernation of the project and an official announcement of the game’s state on Steam: PDF
