{"id":55975,"date":"2026-01-21T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=55975"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:02:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T07:02:34","slug":"this-is-not-a-scam-im-putting-my-life-on-the-line-japanese-youtuber-who-crowdfunded-320k-game-development-budget-addresses-controversy-after-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/this-is-not-a-scam-im-putting-my-life-on-the-line-japanese-youtuber-who-crowdfunded-320k-game-development-budget-addresses-controversy-after-project\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is not a scam, I\u2019m putting my life on the line,\u201d\u00a0Japanese\u00a0YouTuber who\u00a0crowdfunded $320k game development budget\u00a0addresses controversy after project\u00a0halts\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Narunii, the\u00a0Japanese\u00a0Soulsborne\u00a0YouTuber\u00a0who\u00a0crowdfunded $320k\u00a0to make\u00a0his own dark fantasy action\u00a0game, has published an apology video\u00a0regarding\u00a0the\u00a0troubled project.\u00a0This comes after his\u00a0previous\u00a03-hour-long\u00a0video\u00a0(in which he explained\u00a0ongoing issues with development)\u00a0caused\u00a0mixed reactions among\u00a0Japanese\u00a0users, with\u00a0some criticizing him for \u201cnot being apologetic enough.\u201d\u00a0In the new update,\u00a0Narunii\u00a0addresses\u00a0points\u00a0he, in his own words,\u00a0\u201cfailed to convey\u00a0properly\u201d\u00a0in his original video.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u524d\u56de\u5927\u708e\u4e0a\u3057\u305f\u52d5\u753b\u3067\u304a\u4f1d\u3048\u3067\u304d\u3066\u306a\u304b\u3063\u305f\u3053\u3068\uff06\u4eca\u5f8c\u306e\u52d5\u304d\u306b\u3064\u3044\u3066\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l6H9JuJQ5Fc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As we\u2019ve&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-youtubers-300k-crowdfunded-indie-passion-project-stuck-in-production-limbo-after-dismissal-of-game-director\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">previously covered on AUTOMATON<\/a>,&nbsp;Narunii&nbsp;(or The Lore Knight)&nbsp;is a popular Japanese content creator who decided&nbsp;to give game development a shot back in 2023.&nbsp;His pitch for&nbsp;Chikai no&nbsp;Fuchi, an&nbsp;original dark fantasy action game&nbsp;(with music by Dark Souls&nbsp;composer&nbsp;Motoi Sakuraba)&nbsp;drew a huge amount of interest,&nbsp;ultimately&nbsp;raising&nbsp;about $320k through a&nbsp;crowdfunding campaign on CAMPFIRE.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, after missing its&nbsp;initial&nbsp;release window in 2024,&nbsp;Chikai No&nbsp;Fuchi&nbsp;was postponed indefinitely,&nbsp;and come&nbsp;December 2025,&nbsp;Narunii&nbsp;(who is the&nbsp;game\u2019s scenario writer)&nbsp;revealed that the project suddenly remained without its director and programmer,&nbsp;which meant development was at a complete standstill.&nbsp;The YouTuber also explained that&nbsp;he&nbsp;lacked technical knowledge in game development, making it difficult&nbsp;to even&nbsp;assess the project\u2019s progress. To make matters worse, he eventually found out that work on Chikai no&nbsp;Fuchi&nbsp;had not progressed significantly at all&nbsp;in&nbsp;the past two to three years of development, and that what little code was written for it would be better off rebuilt from scratch. Meanwhile, of the funds raised through crowdfunding, only about \u00a510 million remained.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u3010\u8a93\u3044\u30ce\u6df5\u3011\u30c6\u30a3\u30b6\u30fc\u6620\u50cf\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cZNp0d_lI2o?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In his new video from January 20,&nbsp;Narunii&nbsp;apologizes numerous times, explaining that in his original video, he tried&nbsp;to convey his situation in a composed manner&nbsp;so as to&nbsp;not cause doom and&nbsp;concern, but that this resulted in&nbsp;his feelings of remorse towards backers not being conveyed properly. Additionally, he announced that he will not be returning to his usual YouTuber activity for at least a month, due to the whole ordeal taking a bigger toll on his mental state than expected.&nbsp;He suggests he experienced a&nbsp;\u201cpainful betrayal,\u201d but that he&nbsp;is not able to&nbsp;divulge any details about it,&nbsp;perhaps referring&nbsp;to some kind of internal strife related to Chikai no&nbsp;Fuchi\u2019s&nbsp;development beyond the disagreements&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-youtubers-300k-crowdfunded-indie-passion-project-stuck-in-production-limbo-after-dismissal-of-game-director\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">he&#8217;s&nbsp;already talked about before<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for what happens from now on,&nbsp;Narunii&nbsp;reiterated that far from giving&nbsp;up,&nbsp;he intends to make sure the game is completed and released, no matter what. \u201cThis is not a scam, I\u2019m putting my life on the line&nbsp;for this project,\u201d he commented.&nbsp;His strategy will be to compose a small but elite team of developers to restart work on Chikai no&nbsp;Fuchi, as well as to look for a generous patron willing to give the project extra financial backing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<br><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/youtuber-who-crowdfunded-320k-to-develop-dream-game-promises-to-respond-to-refund-requests-sincerely-amidst-standstill-but-wont-give-up-on-co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTuber Narunii promises to \u201crespond to refund requests sincerely\u201d amidst standstill, but won\u2019t give up on completing it<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following his 3-hour-long video explaining the issues with Chikai No Fuchi (Oath Abyss)&#8217;s development, Narunii has posted an apology video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":55977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,62,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-55975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-indie-games","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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