The Kickstarter Thread

[AwesomeOcelot]

Only so many (relatively) large independent studios, Double Fine and inXile already double dipping, 2-3 year development cycles, so KickStarter will operate in cycles. Good concepts constantly launching on KickStarter every month: Super Hot, Whitmarsh, The Flame in The Flood, Bedlam but they're never going to get large totals, they don't need large totals, but could still be great games like FTL and Shovel Knight. Uber recently launched Human Resources campaign after Planetary Annihilation release. Uber, inXile, Harebrained Schemes (and a handful of other studios) wouldn't exist in their current form without KickStarter. Are some of these (around ten) indie studios going to be launching campaigns in 2015? We will see if they can get $2-4m again.

[Blarghagh]

It's a considerable percentage of people that get motion sickness, so I just don't see it becoming THE thing.  I am one of them, so I may be biased.  

 

Plus, Oculus support is a plus in my eyes. I was skeptic as hell until I got to try it out. Total immersion is an understatement. The only problem is the motion sickness...

 

I got serious motion sickness five minutes in, but it was so cool that I'm totally willing to take that.

[rjshae]

It's my impression or is Kickstarter kaput?

 

Nope, it's just following the hype cycle.

[samm]

Does anyone else here have a Rift DK? Because it's great Horribly pixellated and at times nausating, but a very fresh and surprisingly natural experience for such a clunky piece of hardware Thanks to OLED really suited for Space Games - haven't felt space that way, black blacks with low persistence really add to it.

 

And there's a suiting, small Kickstarter Project: Darkfield is a CO-OP only dogfight game. Straightforward satisfaction of base gamer instincts and damn nice on the Rift

[TrashMan]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gavan/voxel-quest?ref=category

[Bryy]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gavan/voxel-quest?ref=category

I was completely uninterested... until I started reading more and more and his campaign got more detailed techincally and financially.

[rjshae]

Medusa's Labyrinth is underway.

 

"Medusa’s Labyrinth is a first person horror game set in ancient Greece. The game combines the horror of Amnesia with the sneaking and archery of Thief. The player will have to carefully pick their path through the dark hallways on Temple Island, through catacombs and amphitheatres to solve the mysteries that lurk within the labyrinthine garden at the peak: Hesperides."

 

They're shooting for kr2,500,000, which translates to US$345,000.

[Hurlshort]

Medusa's Labyrinth is underway.

 

"Medusa’s Labyrinth is a first person horror game set in ancient Greece. The game combines the horror of Amnesia with the sneaking and archery of Thief. The player will have to carefully pick their path through the dark hallways on Temple Island, through catacombs and amphitheatres to solve the mysteries that lurk within the labyrinthine garden at the peak: Hesperides."

 

They're shooting for kr2,500,000, which translates to US$345,000.

 

 

Uh...that goal might be a bit unrealistic.

[Humanoid]

What do you get when you mix Unrest with Alpha Protocol? The new project by the developers of Unrest, of course.

 

It's a liiittle bit more traditional RPG than its predecessor, mainly in that you only play a single character this time around, and you have a few of your own character traits. Fundamentally though, it's built on the same engine and you interact with the denizens of the world in the same way.

[Keyrock]

What do you get when you mix Unrest with Alpha Protocol? The new project by the developers of Unrest, of course.

 

It's a liiittle bit more traditional RPG than its predecessor, mainly in that you only play a single character this time around, and you have a few of your own character traits. Fundamentally though, it's built on the same engine and you interact with the denizens of the world in the same way.

A game where you get to play as a KGB agent?  Interest level rising.

[Barothmuk]

It's depiction of the collapse of the Eastern bloc seems questionable but it looks like it could be cute.

[IndiraLightfoot]

An interesting read, posted as an update on Kickstarter itself, mind you, showing how Kickstarter is dying...

 

Its by Augustín Cordes, who is behind Scratches and Asylum:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/agustincordes/h-p-lovecrafts-the-case-of-charles-dexter-ward/posts/1035283

[Althernai]

I think that specific project failed not so much because of Kickstarter's general state as it did because they launched a new Kickstarter before releasing the delayed product of an earlier one. There are companies which can get away with this (e.g. inXile did it with Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera), but there are very few of them and they tend to be relatively well recognized and large enough to field multiple development teams. If only 33% of your original backers return for the new project and you're asking for 2.5 times as much money... well, this is not likely to go well.

 

I don't think Kickstarter is dying, but as time goes on, it will certainly lose the more naive video game backers. You know, the people who are confident that they will receive everything they paid for by the estimated delivery date and then get upset about the nearly inevitable delays. Also, the success of games which has for over $100K will depend largely on previous Kickstarters that have asked for a similar amount.

 

Personally, I've thus far played the two Shadowrun campaigns and am currently in what I believe to be in the early-to-mid game of Wasteland 2. They deliver what they promised, but none of them has been particularly awesome so far (though the Shadowrun campaign set in Berlin is currently my favorite). It's not that I dislike them, but when I played, say, Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment, I really cared about what happens whereas with all of these new games, I do not. I'm not sure why. For example, Wasteland 2 does a great job of presenting its setting and there has clearly been a lot attention paid to details... but the magic just isn't there. It is a good game and occasionally quite amusing so I don't doubt that I will finish it, but I'm not going to stay up at night to play it. Maybe it's just that I'm not a teenager anymore, but then again I still get the same feeling from reading books as I did then so it's more likely that something is lacking in these games.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Althernai: A fantastic post! Thank you!

 

And a section of it, inspired me to make a thread about that magic in a CRPG.

[rjshae]

Maybe it's just that I'm not a teenager anymore, but then again I still get the same feeling from reading books as I did then so it's more likely that something is lacking in these games.

 

But I'll bet your taste in books has changed since you were a teenager. When I go back and try to play a retro game that I once enjoyed, now I often find it to be just tedious and uninteresting. Even replaying BG/BG2 wasn't nearly as much fun. Games have evolved and so have our expectations of them.

[Bryy]

I think that specific project failed not so much because of Kickstarter's general state as it did because they launched a new Kickstarter before releasing the delayed product of an earlier one. There are companies which can get away with this (e.g. inXile did it with Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera), but there are very few of them and they tend to be relatively well recognized and large enough to field multiple development teams. If only 33% of your original backers return for the new project and you're asking for 2.5 times as much money... well, this is not likely to go well.

 

I don't think Kickstarter is dying, but as time goes on, it will certainly lose the more naive video game backers. You know, the people who are confident that they will receive everything they paid for by the estimated delivery date and then get upset about the nearly inevitable delays. Also, the success of games which has for over $100K will depend largely on previous Kickstarters that have asked for a similar amount.

 

Personally, I've thus far played the two Shadowrun campaigns and am currently in what I believe to be in the early-to-mid game of Wasteland 2. They deliver what they promised, but none of them has been particularly awesome so far (though the Shadowrun campaign set in Berlin is currently my favorite). It's not that I dislike them, but when I played, say, Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment, I really cared about what happens whereas with all of these new games, I do not. I'm not sure why. For example, Wasteland 2 does a great job of presenting its setting and there has clearly been a lot attention paid to details... but the magic just isn't there. It is a good game and occasionally quite amusing so I don't doubt that I will finish it, but I'm not going to stay up at night to play it. Maybe it's just that I'm not a teenager anymore, but then again I still get the same feeling from reading books as I did then so it's more likely that something is lacking in these games.

Basically, it's a Hard Truth, but physical rewards are:

1) a bitch and a half to produce and ship

2) not the greatest thing enviornmentally

3) NOBODY LIKES ADDING PHYSICAL REWARDS. THEY JUST DO IT AS AN INCENTIVE.

 

Like, even my friends who have done KS campaigns where the ENTIRE PURPOSE is a physical reward hate adding on stuff to different tiers.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Bryy

[SatelliteMind]

Sorry for ressurecting this but I couldn't find a better place to put it.  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1468280928/shards-online-play-by-your-rules For those of you who are or were fans of NWN Shards Online is looking like the best chance at being the spirtual sucessor at least in the world building and DMing aspect. Its already more than 50% funded and they are going to give players acess to the world editor and server hosting fairly early on which gives the community plenty of time to work out the kinks before official launch.

[babaganoosh13]

Ron Gilbert & Gary Winnick of Maniac Mansion fame want to make a game that looks like Maniac Mansion.

 

Thimbleweed Park

 

It has a goal of $375,000. It's raised just over $9.6K so far. It's gone up $2K in the time it took me to get over here and type this out. 29 days to go.

 

EDIT: $20 gets you the game. $25 gets you the game and absolves you of all guilt for pirating their games when you were younger.

 

Edited November 18, 2014 by babaganoosh13

[sorophx]

arrrrgh not fast enough 

Edited November 18, 2014 by sorophx

[Drowsy Emperor]

I think that specific project failed not so much because of Kickstarter's general state as it did because they launched a new Kickstarter before releasing the delayed product of an earlier one. There are companies which can get away with this (e.g. inXile did it with Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera), but there are very few of them and they tend to be relatively well recognized and large enough to field multiple development teams. If only 33% of your original backers return for the new project and you're asking for 2.5 times as much money... well, this is not likely to go well.

 

I don't think Kickstarter is dying, but as time goes on, it will certainly lose the more naive video game backers. You know, the people who are confident that they will receive everything they paid for by the estimated delivery date and then get upset about the nearly inevitable delays. Also, the success of games which has for over $100K will depend largely on previous Kickstarters that have asked for a similar amount.

 

Personally, I've thus far played the two Shadowrun campaigns and am currently in what I believe to be in the early-to-mid game of Wasteland 2. They deliver what they promised, but none of them has been particularly awesome so far (though the Shadowrun campaign set in Berlin is currently my favorite). It's not that I dislike them, but when I played, say, Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment, I really cared about what happens whereas with all of these new games, I do not. I'm not sure why. For example, Wasteland 2 does a great job of presenting its setting and there has clearly been a lot attention paid to details... but the magic just isn't there. It is a good game and occasionally quite amusing so I don't doubt that I will finish it, but I'm not going to stay up at night to play it. Maybe it's just that I'm not a teenager anymore, but then again I still get the same feeling from reading books as I did then so it's more likely that something is lacking in these games.

 

You can't roll back the wheel of history. The IE type games had their run and they were possibly the best of their kind ever made - but they were also new and innovative at the time. Its important to notice that its two separate things: not only were they peak in storytelling (PST), world size, unique content (BG2) they were also new and extremely polished in all other respects.

 

Not only can you not revive novelty (the design now being old, no matter how sophisticated it is in some respects), its also next to impossible to compete with the peak of anything. 

 

Particularly, if of all things, you're doing a sequel. That is why I said Fargo was full of ****. A decade of nothing then the major "new" idea he has is resurrecting an old game. It was doomed to be sub-par from the start. If he really had an idea he'd be doing his own thing like Obsidian, roll the dice and see what happens. 

 

Anyway, there's no going back (for us). I realized this after playing Shadowrun Dragonfall. That's a game that's very well made overall and I should have been thrilled about it. I did enjoy it... and yet... I too felt the magic wasn't there. 

[Keyrock]

Ron Gilbert & Gary Winnick of Maniac Mansion fame want to make a game that looks like Maniac Mansion.

 

Thimbleweed Park

 

It has a goal of $375,000. It's raised just over $9.6K so far. It's gone up $2K in the time it took me to get over here and type this out. 29 days to go.

 

EDIT: $20 gets you the game. $25 gets you the game and absolves you of all guilt for pirating their games when you were younger.

 

As much as nostalgia tugs at my heart and I love retro and all, I was not pleased when I saw the old skool verb interface.  That is one aspect of old skool Lucas Games point & clicks I most definitely do not miss.  Probably not a deal breaker, but it's a definite minus in my book.  Still, I really don't want them to microwave that hamster.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Keyrock

[Malcador]

I demand the return of text parsers.

[Keyrock]

I demand the return of text parsers.

I grew up on Sierra On-Line, so I have lots of very fond memories of text parser driven games and even I don't think I'd want to play a text parser driven adventure game right now. 

[Malcador]

I grew up on Sierra On-Line, so I have lots of very fond memories of text parser driven games and even I don't think I'd want to play a text parser driven adventure game right now. 

Weakling!

[Keyrock]

 

I grew up on Sierra On-Line, so I have lots of very fond memories of text parser driven games and even I don't think I'd want to play a text parser driven adventure game right now. 

Weakling!

 

I've grown soft in my old age.