Niten, the Japanese island walking sim created by Donald Macdonald, was unsuccessfully funded on Kickstarter. It managed to raise roughly £6,015 of its goal of £15,000. I had a chance to cover Niten and correspond with Donald over the course of the last few weeks, penning a short piece on Donald’s love for old school martial art movies and 80s arcade games that inspired him to create the walking sim. In the final stretch of his campaign, Donald began posting a text-based adventure on the Kickstarter site where backers voted on which part of the story would next be released.
Donald Macdonald (creator of Niten)
He also sent me a few beautiful Niten wallpapers, which my editor Greg has posted on Cliqist. It’s been a long campaign for Donald, and even though he is disappointed that he wasn’t able to fund the game, he stated that “in a lot of ways it was an absolute success as it opened many doors and enabled a lot of exposure for Niten.” He also assured supporters in a backer-only email that Niten would be finished regardless and that everyone who supported him would receive a free copy of the game upon completion—which he speculates will be roughly December 2016. He has no plans to return to Kickstarter anytime soon, but he does have some final words to share with everyone who pitched in, “I’ve loved doing this with all of you and once again thank you all so much, you made this experience really awesome. All the best.”
The issue i had with this project is that even now. I still don’t get what this is about.
Can’t really argue with you there. As beautiful as the game looks, there are a ton of campaigns that have videos that simply show beautiful environments. I have a feeling Niten is better than those in a lot of ways, but at a glance it doesn’t stand out. It needed to show some game.
Dawnyaa maybe this urban dictionary definition will help shed some light:
“A walking simulator is a type of video game which lacks many of the
traditional aspects of a game (such as a goal, win/loss conditions, any
kind of game system to interact with) despite taking the form of a video
game. The phrase implies that there is basically nothing to do in the
game other than walking around.
A: I sent you a new game on Steam, check it out.
B: Gone Home? That’s not even a game, it’s a walking simulator.”
You see, even the fact that it is a walking simulator. When i took a look at the campaign after reading your first article about it/ I didn’t get it. Aside showing beautiful picture the description doesn’t explain anything. If you didn’t tell me it was a walking simulator i wouldn’t know.