I covered Super Axe Boy when it was first announced that the project would be coming to Kickstarter. I was not impressed. Now that the campaign is underway, I decided to check things out and see whether it could change my mind.
So how is the game’s Kickstarter page? Does it win me over? Well, using the Kickstarter announcement video as the lead pitch video doesn’t exactly do Super Axe Boy any favours, for a start, as pretty much all of my negative feelings towards the game came from that very same video (I still think it looks like a LittleBigPlanet level). However, there’s plenty of new content to check out in the description.
Something that strikes me as particularly interesting is the revelation that the Kickstarter funding would be going towards graphical and audio assets such as enemies, objects, and levels. Perhaps there’s hope yet for the game’s visual design. It’s in desperate need of a revamp, anyway, as plenty of other games have picked up on that polygonal art style and done it much better too, like Grow Home and the upcoming Kickstarter-funded Home Free.
Aesthetics aside, the core platforming mechanics, so far, aren’t encouraging. Homage or not, none of the gameplay we’ve seen seems particularly creative, and great games have already paid homage to the platformer genre in creative ways. Super Axe Boy, whether by design or not, would be going up against some stiff competition.
Other tidbits from the Kickstarter page are details on the story, which, naturally, is as thin as you’d expect, and the promise of ‘fresh axe chopping mechanics’ such as…attacking enemies. Okay, to be fair to the game, it does mention chopping blocks of wood and using it as a kind of currency to build things. That has potential. It remains to be seen how exactly this mechanic will be implemented, however, and so I would still advise caution.
The project is targeting €25,000, and so far has reached €3,738. With 28 days to go, you are, of course, free to back it. I just don’t think that you should. Not unless developer Matthias Falk makes some radical changes to the game’s design.
Track the progress of the Super Axe Boy Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
