Declaration of Independence

The Death of a Manifesto

Yet Costikyan's "fire and brimstone" public persona is hard to connect with his vision for Manifesto. His GDC rant blasted the industry's penchant for endless imitation, but instead of hosting games that defied genres, at Manifesto he sought to revive old ones like adventure games and turn-based strategy. He denounced casual games, but conceded to hosting some as long as they weren't solitaire clones or other "match three" titles.

When the site launched in December of 2006, it was underwhelming. There were only a handful of games to choose from and no more than a few that seemed worthy of any currency. Some top-notch indie games were making their way out into the wild, but Manifesto wasn't hosting them. Darwinia was sold on Steam. Braid, which Costikyan once cited as the kind of game he wanted to host, went to Xbox Live - but not for another two years. The publisher of Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, a turn-based space strategy game, locked up the distribution rights, forcing Manifesto to host the game's predecessor instead.

Still, Manifesto Games had a couple of real keepers at launch, including The Shivah, a Monkey Island-style murder mystery starring a New York City rabbi. It was the quintessential indie creation, with a taboo topic (religion), an outdated but cherished genre (point-and-click adventure) and an obscure developer at the helm (Dave Gilbert, who converted his amateur creation into a commercial product on press buzz alone).

Manifesto launched Gilbert's career. "My games did very well through Manifesto, always in the top ten," he says, "and they really gave The Shivah the initial push that it needed, so I'll always be grateful for that."

Aside from the buzz around The Shivah and some press on Manifesto's launch, the site didn't make a huge splash. In the intervening three and a half years, he and his band of merry revolutionaries were often seen, hat in hand, looking for spare capital to help get the word out.

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Then, earlier this year, Manifesto went dark. Phone calls and emails stopped being returned. Something was afoot. John Graham of Wolfire Games, whose rabbit ninja fighter Lugaru was a Manifesto launch title, hinted that Manifesto wouldn't host the upcoming sequel Overgrowth due to a lack of acquisitions funds, but that was all he knew. Then Costikyan himself broke the silence:

"Since I'm currently in the process of shutting the company down, I can't say I'm all that eager to talk," he wrote in response to an email requesting comment.

Fortunately, Manifesto's President, Nathan Solomon, was able to explain in more detail. "My own perspective would be that Manifesto needed both the expertise and contacts that [Business Developer Bill Folsom] and Greg brought to it, plus either money or significant technology resources to achieve its potential," he says. "And it never had the second half of that equation."