Back in March Aftertype Games had launched a Kickstarter for a strategy RPG called Bloody Monday!!. Unfortunately, a month later it didn’t get funding. They have since rebranded it as Spinal Blast and relaunched with a second attempt. You can find our previous coverage here.
So, now that that’s out of the way, what exactly is Spinal Blast? At its core the game is a turn-based strategy RPG along the lines of Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics. But, what really makes this game unique is in its use of psychiatric and psychological themes. For you see you’re battling in another realm called Psychoreality.
The story of Spinal Blast revolves around the crew of a starship as they decide to take a shortcut to their destination through a wormhole. Not a good idea as Ulyss and Tay get separated from the rest of their crew and lost in the weird dimension. They then embark on a quest to find their missing crewmates and escape back to their own reality. Not gonna be an easy task.
Traverse the land of Psychoreality as our dynamic duo recruit army and take it to the enemy on standard grid-based battlefields made popular by the genre. Raise your Anger, Stress, and Sorrow stats to transform into fearsome mind-related beasts and unleash amazing psychological attacks on your opponents.
Another interesting aspect of Spinal Blast is that you can collect treasure and coins both outside of battle and during. The truly unique aspect of getting loot is the use of Rorschach ink blots. What you get is based on what that character sees in the random pattern.
So, if you’re a fan of games like Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics, and are a fan of psychology, then you certainly can’t go wrong with Spinal Blast. Hopefully they’ll make it this time.
Track the progress of the Spinal Blast Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
I backed it the first time..but i think it is too much of a niche to be made. It is a kind of games asian loved..! Westerners not so much..
What a terrible period to launch a crowdfunding campaign, I get that nobody could have predicted the Shenmue Kickstarter, but that thing is going to suck up all the attention away from other projects like this.
What’s interesting is that a lot of people will say that it’s good for other campaigns, because it brings more people ot the site. However, I think it, combined with the madness of E3 announcements and such has taken the air our of the room for anyone hoping to launch a campaign this week. I’m guessing we’ll see quite a few next week from people that showed off their stuff at/around E3 and such.
I half agree with you, I think projects like Shenmui III contribute by bringing new people to the website. However how many of those new people exploring the site after there initial pledge, and how many of them remain, is even more important for the developers that come after. Sucks for the current ones though!