Hello and welcome back to the world of crowdfunded visual novels, and Novelly Funded! Many visual novels, like books, create brand new worlds, characters, and storylines for us to fall in love with. However, sometimes all you want is to spend more time with the same fictional universe via additional books, movies, or even TV shows. Fans of comics are everywhere but for the most part they don’t get to experience their favorite one in a different form of media. That is all changing as visual novel adaptations for popular series are finding huge success on Kickstarter!
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Megatokyo
Developer: Fred Gallagher
Development Status: In development
Megatokyo is a web series that has been running since 2000. With such a long lifespan, it has developed a massive fan following over the years. Readers often asked, “will there ever be a game?” and they finally received an answer – yes! The Megatokyo visual novel covers the same storyline of friends Largo and Piro who take a trip to Japan only to find themselves stranded in the country. Only this time around, you get to experience the story from their shoes.
Because Megatokyo’s scope is so massive, the visual novel is divided into three parts. Part One covers chapters 0 to 4 and Part Two contains chapters 5 to 10. Part three is where fans should really get excited as it branches off from the existing comics to provide players with something completely new. Thanks to nearly $300,000 in funds, the game is set to include seven playable main characters, five extra characters, and all three parts. All told, the Kickstarter campaign raised so much money that it is looking to be a Megatokyo fan’s dream.
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Starfighter
Developer: HamletMachine and Date Nighto
Development Status: Currently funding – Demo
Webcomic Starfighter has been around for a while now as a thrilling, dramatic, and sexy sci-fi tale. The series focuses on a Fighter and Navigator team of Cain and Abel as they enter into dangerous missions throughout space. The visual novel will pull from these roots but do so in a different manner. Players enter as the latest Navigator on board but will meet up with many characters familiar to fans.
Some might think the audience for a gay-centric sci-fi webcomic might cater to a very niche audience, but that audience has proved themselves to be massive. At the time of this writing, Starfighter’s Kickstarter campaign backers have chipped in $120,000 which is 170% of the goal! Players of the visual novel are assured it will be just as exciting and romantic as the comic it’s based off of, which means Starfighter is a game for anyone over the age of 18.
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Swords of Edo
Developer: Face2Palm
Development Status: In development – Demo
Swords of Edo is a three volume graphic novel (four if you count Chibi Wars) that recently saw completion. The story takes readers to an alternate history where Japan has kept itself isolated from the rest of the world. Because of this, the samurai way of life is still alive and thriving in this modern day Edo. Of course, there are also monsters and magical spells involved too. Samurais who protect their country against threats are known as Justicar.
To become a Justicar, you must go to a special academy. In the visual novel Swords of Edo, players will assume the role of Asumi, an assassin. Her mission is to discover the people behind a string of terrorist bombings in the nation. For fans of the series, this all takes place before the first volume of the graphic novel. Asumi heads undercover into the prestigious school in hopes of discovering the truth. She can make friends or enemies within the school but will she succeed in unmasking the terrorists? Players will find out once the game is available!
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These are just a handful of visual novel adaptations of existing properties that have been crowdfunded. With tons of comics out there it’s just a matter of time before even more excellent projects pop up! If you’re excited to discover even more visual novels then keep an eye on Cliqist for future issues of Novelly Funded!
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[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/marcus.jpg”]Marcus is a fellow with a love for video games, horror, and Japanese food. When he’s not writing about games for a multitude of sites, he’s usually still playing one. One day when he became fed up with the way sites would ignore niche titles he decided to start his own site by the name of Pixel Pacas. Writing about video games is something he hopes to continue doing for many years to come. Some of Marcus’s favorite games include Silent Hill 2, Killer7, and The Sims. [/author]
