There once was a time when having little to nothing to show for a game seeking funding through Kickstarter would have had no problem reaching five or six digits but that was nearly four years ago. These days the discerning backer needs something to see to make him or her want to give their hard earned cash to a project. Even with a demo visual novel A More Beautiful World has next to nothing to prove its worth. And, for the record when I tried to download it I couldn’t. Maybe it was just my connection at the time but that’s certainly a cause for concern.

A More Beautiful World

Here’s what we know about A More Beautiful World. Violetta is a witch in a world that’s all but forgotten about magic and she’s on a journey to meet new people and stuff. Other than that all we really know about the game is that it’s a “kinetic visual novel” that’s pure dialogue. The pitch video is just the trailer and there are no screenshots to show off at all. I had to go to the company’s Web site just to grab the couple shown here. For the most part the front page of the campaign is barren. It’s short and tells me nothing about what to expect from the full title. Even if I can download the demo I’m not sure I’m willing to sit through an hour for something I know nothing of.

A More Beautiful World

I don’t want to be overly negative towards A More Beautiful World, and I’m sure it’ll be a great experience for those that want this type of story, but Afterthought Studios are living up to their name here. The pitch is little more than an afterthought. It feels like they did the bare minimal research on how to run a successful campaign. That said, if they were to maybe reach out to someone with a little more experience in the matter they might be able to garner more interest. I might even give them a second glance if they do.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The developers for A More Beautiful World had contacted me and thanked me for the critique. They made adjustments to the pitch and it does indeed look a lot better than it did at the time of this writing. They also provided multiple download links for the demo which I will take a look at. The last thing that I want is to give any indie developer a bad reputation. I apologize if this has offended anyone.

About the Author

Serena Nelson

Serena has been a gamer since an early age and was brought up with the classic adventure games by Sierra On-Line, LucasArts, and Infocom. She's been an active member on Kickstarter since early 2012 and has backed a large number of crowdfunded games, mostly adventures. You can also find her writing for Kickstart Ventures and evn.moe.

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