Featured Campaigns :
Game : Deadwood: The Forgotten Curse
What it is : Marcus wrote: “When a game suggests it’s “Zelda meets Don’t Starve” folks simply have to pay attention. Those are exactly the first games used as comparison for Deadwood: The Forgotten Curse which has just landed on Kickstarter. Developed by Steamroller Studios, this looks to be a very unique take on the survival/strategy zombie genre. You see, in the realm of Knottington most everything seems to relate to wood. Protagonist Lathe is made of wood (but also a great young inventor). Even the zombies, or deadwood, are wooden beings hungry stealing sap from the living.”
Keep an eye on it in our calendar
Game : The Baader Meinhof Phenomenon
What it is : Marcus wrote: “While triple A titles continue to focus on much the same Hollywood blockbuster-esque storylines the indie community is still pursuing a whole wealth of concepts. Case in point, The Baader Meinhof Phenomenon by Bearded Pixel is the tale of a man who has struggled with drug addiction over the years. Of course, there’s a story which helps explain why protagonist Shawn had this descent to begin with. It all started one night when he was babysitting his young niece. Without explanation, she (and other children in the small town) disappeared. He did not take this well and the resulting emotional turmoil had him turn to drugs for solace.”
Keep an eye on it in our calendar
Game : Indies Crash E3
What it is : Marcus wrote: “Back in 2013 an awesome initiative called Indies Crash E3 brought a few lucky developers onto the E3 show floor. The developers were selected by the votes of the public and not only had their passes paid for but also got to do interviews and demonstrations with gaming press. This was an invaluable opportunity for the selected developers, especially when indie games can so easily fly under everyone’s radar. Indies Crash E3 is looking to come back to E3 2015 via a Kickstarter campaign. By funding its $4,000 goal, folks will be granting more opportunities to at least 5 indie teams.”
Keep an eye on it in our calendar
Game : Holobunnies
What it is : Marcus wrote: “Last year a super cute campaign by the name of Holobunnies launched and caught my attention. Unfortunately, it only managed to raise $7,000 of its $15,000 CAD goal. Now q-bit games have returned to Kickstarter in order to fund Holobunnies for a much more attainable goal than before. Because they know they could make $7,000, they’ve dropped the funding goal down to $5,000 CAD (about $3,900). Chances are we’ll see the game succeed this time! However, the campaign didn’t come without changes. Previously it was touted heavily as a Wii U (and PC) release. Now? It’s PC only, although Windows, Mac, and Linux are all supported.”
Keep an eye on it in our calendar
Game : Melancholy Republic
What it is : Marcus wrote: “This political and tragic tale takes place in Lorna and focuses on the characters Claire and Marianne. Without spoiling anything themselves, the developers have specified that the stories to be uncovered are “heartbreaking.”Melancholy Republic spans chapters and each and every chapter contains its own self-contained narratives among an overarching one. Players will be able to make choices which affect the story’s trajectory as well. Despite the JRPG stylization, it’s not yet apparent if there will even be random battles. They’re certainly not mentioned in the Kickstarter page. If the focus is purely on narrative and exploration that’s a pretty intelligent utilization of the JRPG genre’s strengths.”
Keep an eye on it in our calendar
Game : Spectrum: An Elegy for Piano
What it is : Marcus wrote: “Of course our goal is to return wonderful music and coloration to Timothy’s life. This is carried out through a 2D semi-open world puzzle style. From the general description, puzzles will be related to sound and colors but will not be the same repeated puzzle type over and over again. There are seven areas in all and each will feature unique puzzle concepts. It’s worth noting that the Kickstarter campaign page imagery is primarily concept art. It likely won’t be that difficult to make the actual game look the same, but it’s always good for potential backers to be aware of what exactly is being presented. Since Spectrum: An Elegy for Piano appears in very early development there is also no demo available to play just yet.”
Keep an eye on it in our calendar
Game : CHANGE!
What it is : Marcus wrote: “Meowl Game Company first jumped onto the Kickstarter bandwagon in 2014 to launch a visual novel by the name of Change! Unfortunately, it didn’t garner enough attention and was left unfunded. Now they’re back again to hopefully get their game funded – and it seems they’ll definitely make it this time. For those who missed the initial go around, let’s first explain what exactly Change! is all about. This is an otome visual novel which typically refers to games where girls get to romance the guy of their choice. However, the storyline poses a bit of a twist on this typical formula.”
Keep an eye on it in our calendar
Game : CorgiFields
What it is : Marcus wrote: “Our intrepid Welsh corgi isn’t your everyday pup. Along the way it’ll be able to dig up treasures which can help (or hinder) its goal. Some of the better ones will get great groups of sheep flocking around for easy maneuverability. However, CorgiFields isn’t as calm and friendly as it first appears. There will be enemies! At the very least, there seems to be a wolf which will become quite an annoyance. The wolf is able to “pretend” to be a sheep (by literally wearing a sheep outfit) in order to sneak in and steal some away. Of course, as your goal is to keep all sheep safe, you must protect against wolf interference.”
Keep an eye on it in our calendar
The Rest of the Campaigns :
Cat-Shaped Life : Sure, it’s another in the ongoing trend of household pet simulators, but this is more of an adventure game; so that’s unique!
The Vagrant : A side scrolling action game that has a lot of what appears to be gameplay footage, but no screenshots. That’s always confusing.
Starship Empire : A cool sounding MMO that focuses on deep space ship combat, as well as crew management.
Super Cordon Bleu : A platformer with plenty to take in. Be warned though, there’s no gameplay in the Kickstarter video, you’ll have to look further into the page for actual gameplay footage.
ClutchVR : A driving sim (not to be confused with racing sim) for the Oculus Rift.
Baldric : A fantasy themed MMO sandbox type game. The campaign is full of game images, gameplay footage, and other info.
The Maze : A puzzle game with no gameplay footage and an £80 funding goal.
Dragon Shard : A 3D dungeon crawler where you take control of a dragon.
Fat Carl Conquest : I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this is the most annoying campaign I’ve ever seen.
Quantum Convergence : A JRPG with nothing to go on except for some text on the Kickstarter page.
Train Defense : A really nice looking mobile game that’s a tower defense game, except with a train. Worth a look.
Seagull Assault : You poop on things.
The Romulan Earth War : The developers, who has started a similar campaign every month this year, states that since no profit is to be made on the game he doesn’t need to worry about that pesky Star Trek copyright.
Brad The Lazy : I was tempted to make a joke about this being a lazy campaign for a lazy game about a lazy character; but that wouldn’t be nice.
ZomBlock’s : An online zombie survival game.
Mega Knight : A really cute looking hack n’ slash game.
Puzzle’n’Slash : A nifty looking puzzle hack and slash game with an insane $40k funding goal.
AdventureBar : Someone is asking for $10,000 for this.
Run : $6,000 for this one if you can believe it.
The Assassin’s Apprentice : This might have the all time record for least amount of effort put into a Kickstarter campaign. Amazing.
Centuries : The developer promises Battlefield 4 and Skyrim level graphics, while expressing the need for artists and a computer powerful enough to render the game.
Teatime Samurai : A really interesting looking Robotron clone.
Relativity : The logo reminds me of art I used to make in the mid 90’s. There’s nothing else to this campaign other than a bit of text.
Platformer37 : While the graphics are extremely basic, the game itself looks pretty fun.
M.A.D.N.U.G : A Gundam game that hasn’t been shut down yet.
Octanis: The Legendary Thief : A 16bit RPG with a very humble funding goal.
Face iT : The funding video is a bit much, but the game itself looks promising.
Signal45 : At least the developer took time to doodle something on a piece of paper. That’s about all they’ve done though.
Armed and Gelatinous : Having played this game at GDC, and knowing that it’s coming from an established developers with a solid Kickstarter track record, it’s unfortunate that this campaign is strangely incomplete.
The character on the screen : $10k for some stick figures. Stick figures.
Major Rocks : A nice looking shooter that goes to show that having so many low dollar backer tiers is not a good idea.
One Less Problem : A 16bit rpg with nothing to show.
Beach Survival : Campaigns like this make me wonder why people bother to ask for money.
Spritehaven : An adventure game with faries with nothing to show yet.
BloodLine : Yet another campaign with nothing to show before asking for thousands of dollars.
Blue Screen Of Death : A hacking sim that could use some work on graphics.
In Faith : $50k for nothing.
Pixel Crash_ : A very retro looking twin stick shooter.
That’s it for last weeks Kickstarter campaigns. Watch your wallets!
It was incredibly naïve of the developers of Change to bring out there project last year when they did, especially considering the heavyweights that Sekai Project brought out around that time. Glad to see they made their funding goal, not into Otome’s, but It doesn’t matter. Whatever helps grow the VN community and helps spread awareness as far as I’m concerned.
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