Kommunity Kickstarter Katchup Kollektiv: 2013 - September 2017

LarsWestergren 2017-08-05 19:59:37 UTC #1341

Neil de Grasse Tysons “Space Oddysey” made it by the way. They clarified some things, it seems discovering alien civilizations is a possible end game scenario, so inter-civilization combat is not on the table it seems. Still a very ambitious title, it’s going to be interesting how it goes.

Harold Halibut did not make it. The AdventureX narrative games convention in London made it and will be done!

Speaking of that, if you are a fan of games with good writing, say from Obsidian, Failbetter Games or dontnod, and also like neat cardgames, there is a really cool Kickstarter coming soon, I’m as excited about it as Pillars 2 and Pathfinder: Kingmarker.

Baines 2017-08-06 14:43:57 UTC #1342

I mentioned in another thread that the dev studio involved is pretty big warning sign. All those games presented on the Kickstarter page? Those are all big budget AAA studio series that Big Red Button employees worked on before moving to Big Red Button.

Big Red Button itself has not established an impressive track record. They spent years failing to get any projects. When they did finish their first game, it was the heavily derided Sonic Boom. Sonic Boom did so badly that they switched to making a couple of movie tie-in “VR experiences”, before finally making a Google exclusive VR game.

simonferry 2017-08-07 09:52:40 UTC #1343

Great idea, but too many rules(((

LarsWestergren 2017-08-08 15:17:38 UTC #1344

Sometimes failing is a really good way to learn how to get better. But as I said, I consider it a high-risk project, I hope for everyone’s sake they haven’t bitten off more than they can chew.

Ok since he isposting about it himself, I guess the upcoming Kickstarter itself isn’t a secret. The stuff I was so excited about is Cultist Simulator by Alexis Kennedy, one of the founders of Failbetter Games (Fallen London, Sunless Sea. I tried the alpha demo after Alice wrote about it, and loved it (despite an annoying bug that made the game UI much bigger than my screen so I had to scroll like crazy to access all elements of it.

It is a cardgame, but it plays nothing like Fallen London. Instead of limited turns each day which you usually use to grind some resource, there is a round timer ticking down alarmingly fast. There are cards representing resources and actions. Clicking on a card (say “A Note”) may reveal text you have to read. Dragging cards into special action boxes (“Dreams”) executes actions, which may reveal new cards etc. So it is a little bit like the dialogue countdown in Alpha Protocol - you have to decide how you want to role-play your character, and also figure out (almost intuitively) how to combine cards to find new actions to take, like get a better job, or discover a dark ritual…

If you like role playing games, good writing and atmosphere, or original mechanics, keep an eye out for this one. First game that made me sign up for that Thunderclap stuff.

AshEnke 2017-08-08 20:23:02 UTC #1345

I tried the prototype, didn’t understand any of it but in a weird kind of way it made me even more interested in the game…
I signed in to the newsletter and I’ll look forward to the kickstarter !

Internet 2017-08-09 11:07:21 UTC #1346

LarsWestergren:

Sometimes failing is a really good way to learn how to get better. But as I said, I consider it a high-risk project, I hope for everyone’s sake they haven’t bitten off more than they can chew.

Ok since he isposting about it himself, I guess the upcoming Kickstarter itself isn’t a secret. The stuff I was so excited about is Cultist Simulator by Alexis Kennedy, one of the founders of Failbetter Games (Fallen London, Sunless Sea. I tried the alpha demo after Alice wrote about it, and loved it (despite an annoying bug that made the game UI much bigger than my screen so I had to scroll like crazy to access all elements of it.

It is a cardgame, but it plays nothing like Fallen London. Instead of limited turns each day which you usually use to grind some resource, there is a round timer ticking down alarmingly fast. There are cards representing resources and actions. Clicking on a card (say “A Note”) may reveal text you have to read. Dragging cards into special action boxes (“Dreams”) executes actions, which may reveal new cards etc. So it is a little bit like the dialogue countdown in Alpha Protocol - you have to decide how you want to role-play your character, and also figure out (almost intuitively) how to combine cards to find new actions to take, like get a better job, or discover a dark ritual…

If you like role playing games, good writing and atmosphere, or original mechanics, keep an eye out for this one. First game that made me sign up for that Thunderclap stuff.

Color me excited! My wife lost her job so I can’t pledge to a kickstarter right now. However, I love the idea.

LarsWestergren 2017-08-09 12:20:20 UTC #1347

Sorry to hear that. I’ll keep a copy for you if want, if there is a tier that gives spares.

This thread has reached 300 000 views, so that’s nice. Not nice is that development on The Mandate appearently has stopped.

But there are other Kick/Fig starters that seem to be progressing great, my favs include Divinity: Original Sin 2, Pillars of Etermity 2, Battletech, Jenny leClue, We Happy Few, Underworld Ascendant.

Now the first Fig funded games have started to be released.

Bounty Battle on Fig, an indie fighting game with characters from lots of great indie games, like Guacameelee, Undungeon, Owlboy, Darkest Dungeon, etc. 20 days left, 93% funded.

davey 2017-08-09 15:57:02 UTC #1348

[The Iron Oath](http://Turn-based Tactical RPG) is a turn-based tactical, dark fantasy RPG that just launched.

Recruit, manage, and embark on missions with a roster of adventurers, testing the limits of their mortality. Every decision made carries weight and can have a minor or major influence on your characters and the world that surrounds them. As you and your guild progress, the world changes dynamically, enabling new storylines to discover and resulting in a unique experience for every playthrough.

Just launched today. Nice 2D pixel art style too. Offering a DRM-free or Steam key for $15.

Internet 2017-08-10 11:41:46 UTC #1349

Naaah, we’ll be fine. Thanks though. Anyways, I keep banging on about this, but the Mandate’s troubles seem typical for games that go to kickstarter, but get a large portion of their funding from publishers. Or the ones that go to kickstarter looking for publishers. Clang had this problem too. Publishers are not incredibly reliable sources of funding at the best of times, and being silent partners means that their reputation isn’t threatened.

Iron Oath has some great art.

Internet 2017-08-17 00:25:57 UTC #1350

Okinawalooks like a lot of fun. It’s a ninja beat-em-up.
Suplex Saga aims to be luchador themed Super Mario RPG.

davey 2017-08-21 14:48:49 UTC #1351

Celestian Tales: Realms Beyond is the second part of a planned trilogy. I’ve found the first part “Old North” and its prequel DLC Howl of the Ravager to be a pretty enjoyable JRPG. Decent story, characters, and art, and far less mindless grindy combat than the typical JRPG. Combat system is actually pretty fun, with a nice variety of special abilities and tactics.

With a few exceptions I generally dislike JRPGs because of the repetitive gameplay, very linear structures, and tendency to have very cliche plots with super young or otherwise immature characters. Celestian Tales features a more mature story, with a few choices that give it some depth. And the choices you made in the first installment should have some consequences in the 2nd part. IOW it’s a JRPG for WRPG players who generally don’t like JRPGs.

icemann 2017-08-21 15:29:55 UTC #1352

Here is an unusual one, but a goodie.

Orchestral remastering of the soundtrack to Wing Commander :).

I’ve listened to one track from ocremix by the “Fat Man” (the guy who did the music for 7th Guest and other tracks from Wing Commander) which was pretty good.

spadanco 2017-08-21 18:36:13 UTC #1353

It was really great

LarsWestergren 2017-08-27 16:38:34 UTC #1354

**News

**In case you missed it, the first Fig games have finally come out, and one of them at least (Kingdoms and Castles) has given investors 100% profit so far with the possibility of more to come. This of course doesn’t mean all Fig games will do that any more than all stocks will give a profit just because some have. But maybe it will finally ease the mind of some of the people who scream “scam” as soon as Fig is mentioned. You can still invest in Pillars of Eternity 2 and Phoenix Point (disclaimer: I have invested in PoE2 and Psychonauts 2, and have a vested interest in Fig succeeding).

**New
**
Missing - the complete saga. An RPG to raise awareness of trafficking. $42,112 pledged of $50,000 goal, 3 days to go.

Initiative - Aerospace Business & Mars Colonization. Aims to be a modern and more advanced Kerbal Space Program. $14,567 pledged of $55,000 goal, 26 days remaining

Maelstrom - Fantasy Naval Combat. $19,017 pledged of $75,000 goal, only 14 days to go, so this will be an uphill battle.

Scrimish: Pillars of Eternity Decks. A card game, not computer game. Scrimish is like a simplified version of the classic boardgame Stratego. Attack opponent card stacks. Higher numbered cards beat lower numbers, with some special rules (bows always win when attacking, always lose when defending). Kill the oponent’s companion (a named hero from Pillars of Eternity like Eder or Pallegina) to win. Lords of the Eastern Reach is a lot more complex, and really fun, so I was hoping for something a bit meatier like a naval combat board game this time, but I take what I can get, I really like the PoE world. $16,320 pledged of $4,000 goal, 41 days remaining.

Lust for Darkness. A psychological and sexual horror game. Huh. Brave or stupid? I don’t know if it is intended, but it could be argued that they depict intersex or transgender bodies as horrifying in the trailer. Or maybe not, though they are in a horror game, their framing may not be that, but part of the erotic elements of the game. If it’s the first, that’s honestly pretty shit in my opinion. I guess we will have to wait and see. Lots of people seem to want the game at least. Inspired by Giger and Lovecraft among others. Going to be interesting to see if they have any positive depiction of sex and lust, or if they are going all in on icky body-horror. By Kickstarter veterans PlayWay (911 Operator, the Car Mechanic games, Hard West, Uboot, Agony). CA$ 13,408 pledged of CA$ 8,000 goal, 34 days left.

Ongoing

The Iron Oath. Tactical turn based RPG, looks like it might make it, $39,511 pledged of $45,000 goal, 11 days remaining.

Celestial Tales. The JRPG that aims for a bit more mature protagonists and story than is usual in the genre. $8,873 pledged of $15,000 goal, 23 days to go.

Upcoming

Cultist Simulator. Bring the dawn trailer. Reaallly excited about this one. Kickstarter will start 1 September, next Friday. Aiming for a Q2 2018 release (I’m guessing a year from now, earliest).

The Good Life. By Deadly Premonition director Hidetaka ‘Swery’ Suehiro. Fig campaign launches in 6 days. Alice wrote about it on the frontpage.

Succeeded

ScalaQuest - the RPG aiming to teach the Scala programming language while having fun.

Bounty Battle - the fighting game starring numerous indie game protagonists.

Baines 2017-08-27 19:08:25 UTC #1355

While it is good news for Fig backers, I don’t know that I’d consider Kingdoms and Castles as an all-clear signal for Fig. It was pretty much a perfect scenario. It was a modest scale game that asked for relatively little money ($15,000) and was released within seven months of the campaign’s end. It also showed substantial investor interest, raising over $100k during the campaign and another $100k after the campaign ended, which seemingly did not lead to over-promises. With such a quick release, it didn’t have time to go off the rails or to blow up its budget. The alpha was apparently out within weeks of the campaign’s end, and the game saw multiple alpha and beta updates over the few months before its final release.

It, however, isn’t necessarily indicative of other Fig titles.

Picking a random example due to having a similar goal, I find the campaign for Trackless. Trackless asked for $20,000, and originally aimed for a quick release (campaign ended in Nov 2016 with a planned Q1 2017 release). Trackless didn’t see the same level of interest as K&C though, as it only barely cleared its goal. Trackless has also already missed two release dates. (At the beginning of Q2 2017, the dev posted that he clearly wasn’t reaching the originally promised Q1 release, and then promised a Q2 release. Q2 ended with no release and no updated release date. Q3 started with a cut down beta, which was followed by a promise to add more content to the game to address tester concerns.) The dev is also considering spinning a promised physical reward (a Tarot-based card game) into a larger scale Kickstarter of its own.

Random game #2: Outer Wilds – Asked for $125k and barely exceeded it, back in Sept 2015. Outer Wilds is not a “modest scale game”. Initially promised a Q2 2016 release, it currently has no release date. The way that I read the updates, I’d guess it won’t see a(n uncompromised) release until 2018 at the earliest, if it doesn’t push into 2019 or 2020.

At the least, there don’t seem to be any signs of money funneling, which is something people were concerned about after looking at the details of how Fig was set up. With so many Fig campaigns active with so many unrelated developers, attempts to redirect money would probably blow up in the face of Fig anyway.

TechnicalBen 2017-08-29 09:21:46 UTC #1356

This is going to be massive (this video is not much, but check out the others) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hKzIWOMuMk

icemann 2017-08-31 11:27:43 UTC #1357

The Wing Commander soundtrack KS that I mentioned earlier was a success. Ending on $16,552 of it’s $15k target.

icemann 2017-08-31 18:05:12 UTC #1358

And I just received an email from itch.io that is of note to this thread. Hell this is worthy of being on the main news page.

On November 21st 2013, a Kickstarter by “Maksym Pashanin” by the name of Confederate Express was successful, raking in $39,739 (according to the Kickstarter page for it which you can find here).

I was one of the backers.

We got 10 updates total after. The final few being months apart. Maksym took the money gained from Confederate Express and attempted to use it fund another game (which I can’t recall the name of, this was back in 2014), which he got caught out for. We then never heard a word again.

Until today 3 years later.

I received this in my email today from itch.io:

Kilobite has sent you a message about Confederate Express

What a year!

A total solar eclipse, Donald Trump becomes president, and Confederate Express is coming back from the dead like a malignant brain tumor!
To kick off this exclusive bi-centennial update, here are some tasty news for you!

We finally have something to show you guys other than a bunch of gifs and one-liners. This time, it’s an exciting opportunity to experience an early version of our highly-anticipated masterpiece, Confederate Express! Complete with a revamped custom high-performance framework False2D™, 42,000 hand-drawn animation frames, and an ocean’s worth of pixelated blood.
Proceed with caution, as flying chunks of zombie flesh might petrify even the strongest minds!

**Development:**
**Confederate Express** is approaching the end of its production cycle, and we are trying to polish the general core gameplay elements. To minimize redundant feedback, this *early version* contents have been limited to:

[LIST]
[*]**macOS** **build only**
[*]1 playable character (Jackson)
[*]4 powerful abilities
[*]2 enemy types (Zombie + Stalker)
[*]3 playable levels
[*]core mechanics: gold collection, experience accrual, interactive environment
[/LIST]
As development continues, the game's content will expand gradually (including a Windows PC build), up until we put together a final version of the game. You can follow progress on our DevLog: [https://kilobite.itch.io/conex/devlog](http://email.itch.io/c/eJwtjcsKwyAUBb8mLsVHzNWFi3aR3yh61SgxNTRS-vm1UBg4MIszaMMp_UWCVeATKVYwDkxLzkECA8olYwYocBBSG3FfhDKrUdPMSsdMSyPZglI8-sXgjIt0XnhmnNcpGY86IZ9Jtbn385rkbRLrYC-1-dIj_X8Mhe0ZP2NDfNe2kZfNDffqnmGUcuuHK5ViO0i3mzviI_7EF0fWOR8)
All proceeds collected will go directly towards development of **Confederate Express**, including contractor fees for our sound designer, AJ Lornie.

Rewards:

Every backer with a pledge of $25 $10 and higher will receive a key to Confederate Express early version available for download at kilobite.itch.io/conex. In addition, a Steam key will be provided to unlock a full version scheduled for release this January. Target platforms are macOS and Windows PC.
Our goal is to accumulate as much feedback as possible; so please do not hesitate and contact us via info@kilobite.com (no leasing agreements please)
Also, please join us at private developer’s forum, exclusively at kilobite.itch.io/conex/community
And as always, thank you for your long-lasting support!! Appreciate ya!
Kilobite

What an absolute joke…

LarsWestergren 2017-09-01 10:08:31 UTC #1359

NewCultist Simulator is up! £3,469 pledged of £30,007 goal, 29 days to go. (Edit: And its off to a great start, now 2/3rds funded. Mentioned on RPS frontpage. )

Ongoing

The Iron Oath just passed 100%, 6 days left to unlock stretch goals.

Celestian Tales is 2/3rds there, just need around $4000 more to make it, 18 days to go.

Skywanderers the sci-fi sandbox game which TechnicalBen mentioned above seems to have fans. Already €20,012 pledged of €15,000 goal, 28 days left.
**

Completed**

Missingmade it, the game about a young girl being trafficked into brothels. Made to raise awareness of trafficking.

**Other news
**
Just 2 weeks now until Divinity: Original Sin 2 comes out. The trailers look great, if the plot has improved over the first as much as the graphics and game systems seem to have, this could be a classic.

LarsWestergren 2017-09-01 18:34:56 UTC #1360

Wow yeah I remember that one. Wonder why they went back to it? Attempt to salvage what little personal reputation remained?