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GTA clones have been Making Waves lately
and Brazil seems to be leading this
trend after 171 another brazilian-made
GTA inspired game is turning heads in
the Gaming Community it’s called impunes
a project that’s coming from the creator
of mix mods one of the largest GTA
moding websites on the internet this
game has been in development for well
over a decade and yet it’s still not out
so what exactly is going on and what is
impunes anyway impunes is an indie open
world role playing game set in Brazil
that’s kind of like GTA but with a more
arcadey Minecraft twist to it unlike
most games said in Brazil that showcase
Rio and other famous areas impunes takes
you to a less explored part of the
country Canario a fictional city located
in the Santa Camilla region which is
inspired by the real life Brazilian city
of balneario cambu and it’s being
developed by a super small but highly
experienced team this includes Christian
farius a senior programmer at a
Microsoft MVP and Link 2012 the creator
of GTA’s mod loader all led by valer Jor
the team’s leader is a big name in the
GTA modding world with over 500 mods
created in the past decade mostly for
San Andreas and while you might have
just heard about this game as I
mentioned earlier it’s actually been in
development for over a decade impune
started development all the way back in
2014 which is crazy to think about
because the game is far from being
finished yet but back then it used to be
a totally different game it wasn’t even
called impunes it started out as a top-
down mobile game called 2 ND short for
two nibble toop down to nibble being the
name of the studio behind the project
the game was inspired by GTA Chinatown
Wars and the whole idea was to make a
mobile game that truly captured the
essence of Brazil everything from its
luxury Lifestyles to its struggles with
poverty with a GTA style freehand
gameplay for a few years the team worked
on this little project but it wasn’t
until 2017 that they decided to actually
put a name to this game calling it
impunes and around the same time the dev
started sharing the early gameplay which
really didn’t get much attention at all
and seeing how the game couldn’t get any
traction the project was put on hold by
2019 the team decided to instead shift
their focus on another one of their
games for a while and during that time
they realized impunes needed to be
something bigger and better a simple
mobile game wasn’t going to cut it for
them fast forward to 2020 the devs
finally decided to make the jump and
impunes got a full reboot it was now
going to be this GTA style third-person
PC game with completely overhauled Maps
better textures and better game
mechanics instead of a small mobile game
but the development couldn’t resume
until 2022 that’s when Junior and his
team decided to go all in with it and
over these past two years they have made
significant progress with the
development of this nowall Brazilian GTA
and that brought impunes more attention
from GTA fans and content creators but
not all of it were positive tying your
game to a massive franchise like GTA is
a bold move it gets people talking but
it also paints a big Target on your back
and impunes wasn’t immune to criticism
one of the biggest controversies came
from the 2-year development pause which
didn’t sit well with many people
including the game supporters some
called it a scam questioning whether the
game even had a future and those who had
supported the game felt understandably
frustrated and just like most Indie
Games impunes faced claims of being
nothing more than an asset flip getting
most of their assets from marketplaces
instead of creating their own now the
devs haven’t denied this at all in fact
they’ve been super transparent about the
assets they’ve used even breaking down
costs and resources for the support and
honestly I think that’s totally fine for
a small Indie team pre-made assets save
time and money these are key resources
for a team without AAA funding so it’s
fine in my books as long as they’re not
stealing content some fans have also
shown concerns related to The Game’s
lack of a big overarching story and yeah
it’s true impunes doesn’t have a grand
plot but according to the devs that was
never the point of it this game is all
about building a community-driven
experience mixing content created by
players with what the devs bring to the
table it’s a different take but it’s
also a risky one and let’s not forget
the drama surrounding Junior himself if
you’ve been around the GTA modding scene
for a while you probably know this guy’s
name Junior was banned from the GTA
forums over accusations of plagiarism
and stealing mods of course he denied
the claims saying he never plagiarized
and didn’t get the chance to take down
the mod in question regardless the
incident added fuel to the fire with
many questioning his credibility thus
affecting his projects this whole
negative press certainly affected impe’s
crowdfunding leading to to more people
getting skeptical and less willing to
trust the project despite this the
developers have remained committed to
finishing the game aiming to release a
playable version by early 2027 as much
as I admire the team’s passion and
dedication behind impunes I can’t help
it have some serious concerns about its
future from what I’ve gathered the devs
and artists have been working on this
project for free even paying for the
game’s expenses out of their own Pockets
at times that’s an admirable level of
commitment but for a project this
ambitious it’s just not sustainable in
the long run if we look at their
crowdfunding it turned out well below
expectations the devs launched a
campaign on the Brazilian platform apoa
setting a goal of 40,000 Reis which is
roughly
$6,500 for a game of this scale even
that Target was incredibly low
unfortunately the campaign didn’t even
come close raising just 30% of their
goal around
11,600 Reis or just under $2,000 they’ve
mentioned receiving some additional
donations outside the platform bringing
the total to 17,000 Reis but that’s
still not even close to covering the
bare minimum needed to manage the game’s
development expenses with the campaign
failing to meet expectations the team
decided to shut it down entirely for now
and carry on development with money from
their own Pockets or relying on
donations outside of the platform and
again while their passion is commendable
this approach makes it clear that
impunes risks being stuck in development
hell for a very long time the devs seem
to understand this and are planning to
launch a Kickstarter campaign aign in
hopes of gaining the support and funds
they need to move forward with the
project but even with a successful
Kickstarter the road ahead won’t be easy
though it should give them the necessary
resources to hire a more permanent staff
to FastTrack the development process
originally they planned to release a
demo of the game in 2024 but that was
super unrealistic or a bit too
optimistic from their side and looking
at the current stage of the game from a
few months ago I can tell the game’s not
coming for at least another few years in
light of everything the road ahead looks
really challenging for Junior and his
team development so far has been bumpy
with no permanent staff supporting the
project long term Junior’s essentially
been a oneman army which is both
impressive and concerning at the same
time unfortunately the game hasn’t
gotten much attention and most of the
feedback it has received has been from
people judging the game prematurely
comparing it to 171 which is way ahead
in both funding and active development
time the crowdfunding hasn’t worked out
too well either without the funds to
hire a proper team the game’s progress
has naturally been slow but despite all
of that Junior is still pushing forward
he’s not aiming to create the next GTA
or a deep single player story instead
he’s focused on delivering a Sandbox
Adventure much like Minecraft where
players can decide what to do and how to
play with a highly customizable
experience it’s a bold approach That
Could set impunes apart if the team can
pull it off to keep the project alive
and hopefully attract some big
supporters Junior has some ambitious
plans first he’s working to expand the
team and register the company in a
foreign country probably Estonia he said
to avoid Hefty Taxation and to gain
better resources and reach a broader
audience and unlike their past campaigns
they’ve decided to offer actual rewards
for people supporting them in their next
crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter
this will offer the backers actual
incentives like legal contracts for
investors that could guarantee a
percentage of the game’s profits for
those who offer substantial fundings
that sounds like a pretty good move and
could definitely attract potential
investors who are willing to take a
chance on this upcoming project as
someone who’s been part of the GTA
modding Community for years I have high
hopes for impunes but I’m keeping those
hopes realistic the developers have
promised players that they’ll get a
chance to test the game when it releases
to the public on Steam sometime in 20207
while I’m not entirely sure how they’ll
manage to pull this off given the
current pace of development they’ve
shared a clear picture of what fans can
expect from the demo it will feature
only a part of the map with limited
weapons Vehicles characters among other
features there won’t be any storyline in
the demo but players can look forward to
nonlinear jobs and quests however don’t
expect voice acting or cinematic
cutcenes the dialogues will be subtitled
only it seems the devs are aiming to
keep things realistic and avoid over
promising which is a smart move
especially given how even AAA Studios
sometimes fall into that trap the game
will no longer be coming to mobile
platforms instead it will be launching
exclusively on PC via steam with the
possibility of joining consoles sometime
in the future while 2027 feels like a
long wait I appreciate the team’s
transparency about their progress and
their cautious approach to setting
expectations and while I’m rooting for
them I can’t help but feel that Junior
and his team may have started off on the
wrong foot reaching out to YouTubers for
promotion while the game was still in
such an early stage of development
wasn’t the best move instead their focus
should have been on presenting a
playable demo to the players to build
some trust adding to the challenge the
game currently has extremely limited
reach so most people don’t even
understand the core idea behind it when
someone hears about a GTA like game set
in Brazil it’s only natural to compare
it to 171 whereas the developers are
actually going for something totally
different a more customizable experience
that doesn’t depend on a traditional
story but instead features modular
missions and tasks created by either
them or the community that said the game
is still far from finished so it’s too
early for me to pass judgment however I
do think that if two nibble can secure
proper funding and assemble a permanent
team to work on the game they might not
create the next GTA but they could
definitely deliver a unique
community-driven open World experience
but before we wrap this up I’m curious
what do you think about impunes had you
heard about this project before or is
this your first time learning about it
all the research for this video was
quite challenging since most of the
information about the game is only
available in Portuguese while I’ve tried
my best to get everything right there’s
a chance I may have misunderstood or
missed some details if you know more
about this game or spotted anything I
got wrong feel free to let me know in
the comments below blow

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMusft_QXeo