Within an hour of the Project: RUDRA campaign launching it had already received a ‘Projects we Love’ badge from Kickstarter. But almost a week later and things are looking pretty bleak with only 1% of the $75,000 goal reached. Why aren’t backers as impressed as the staff at Kickstarter seem to be?
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Vjs-hVxro[/embedyt]With some cool anime characters, funky soundtrack and a well-presented Kickstarter page I can perhaps understand why Kickstarter awarded the badge to Project: RUDRA. At first glance it does look pretty good. But if you take a closer look at the gameplay it seems to be a fairly rudimentary platformer (although with some combat aspects). In fact it would probably look more at home on a mobile device.
I don’t mean to unduly criticise the game though. It’s well animated and the four characters do seem to genuinely affect how the game is played. Plus the fact you can switch between them on the fly is pretty nifty. But ultimately I don’t think the game is impressive or unique enough to justify that lofty target. Which is a shame as developer Nick Savino acknowledges it’s a crowded marketplace. But unfortunately he seems to think RUDRA in its current form is good enough to stand out.
Nick is perhaps overly optimistic due to how committed he is to Project: RUDRA. From the dedicated website it’s clear he’s been working on it for some time, and has built up an interesting backstory. But potential backers like myself can see straight away it’s never going to get $75,000 and so don’t bother backing it at all. While if it had a (far) lower target and some cheaper pledge levels I’d definitely be tempted. Hopefully Nick will take that on board if he ends up having a second stab at crowdfunding it.
