Life Imitates Art: The Black Glove Shelved
Metaphysical oddities
The Black Glove was a fascinating-sounding idea from a group of former Irrational Games folks, a game about fiddling with the history and fates of troubled artists in a metaphysical theatre by using a magic glove and an arcade cabinet. Magic! What they showed looked weird and interesting and exciting but my heart sunk a little when developers Day for Night Games took to Kickstarter seeking $550,000 - it simply seemed too high for a niche idea, even one so sumptuously-realised.
Alas, the Kickstarter fell short. They kept working on it for a while, but sadly have now "shelved" the idea. Shelved, not cancelled - they hope to return to The Black Glove somehow, some day.
Co-founder Joe Fielder explained in the announcement:
"As you'll recall, we began The Black Glove shortly after our previous studio shuttered, working on the game in our spare time while juggling freelance assignments.
In October, we attempted to use raise the funds to make the game via Kickstarter. It didn't work out, so we decided to explore other potential opportunities.
We put together a gameplay demo that showed how you used The Black Glove artifact to explore the narrative rich environments of The Equinox and unlock its secrets. We brought it to GDC and PAX East and showed it to publishers behind closed doors.
We garnered some interest, but didn't find the perfect glass slipper we were looking for and, understandably, began to lose key people to full-time work elsewhere.
We've invested thousands of hours and considerable thought and emotion into the project, so it’s hard to step away, but it's not forever."
Fielder says that they intend to return to The Black Glove "when we can do it right". The confidence is nice, and I'd very much like to see that happen, but I suspect that "when" may be more of an 'if', given the game's string of troubles.
Ah, what could have been! What might yet be!
