KickStarter Kickstarter Watch.

[Rahdulan]

So, this The Dark Unknown: A Quest for Art. Opinions? At least it did well.

The Dark Unknown is a free old school RPG inspired by and in the style of games such as Ultima. You play as a young hero of the realm, the younger child of the King, called upon when your brother declares himself in rebellion. Fight monsters, learn spells, solve puzzles and figure out the true meaning behind these events. It has been a personal project of mine for over 8 years now, and as it nears completion it is time to put all the pieces together.

 

[Bester]

Some shameful shit there by russian vtmb modders.



Decent environments and 3d models. Shit animations. No game engine. Character creation - probably yuma or some shit like that. No gameplay (not even gameplay ideas lol). Totally inadequate plans. Inadequate attitude. Some sad street hopper in a gold chain as american community manager. Plans to buy motion capture. Lol.

They should've made that VTMB mod that they wanted to make in the first place instead of deciding to take on nothing smaller than an MMO lol.

 

[StaticSpine]

Some shameful shit there by russian vtmb modders.



Decent environments and 3d models. Shit animations. No game engine. Character creation - probably yuma or some shit like that. No gameplay (not even gameplay ideas lol). Totally inadequate plans. Inadequate attitude. Some sad street hopper in a gold chain as american community manager. Plans to buy motion capture. Lol.

They should've made that VTMB mod that they wanted to make in the first place instead of deciding to take on nothing smaller than an MMO lol.

 

[Infinitron]

Sensible Soccer spiritual successor

Kickstarter failed: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-11-26-jon-hare-cancels-sociable-soccer-kickstarter

Jon Hare has cancelled the Sociable Soccer Kickstarter after it got off to a slow start.

Hare billed Sociable Soccer as a spiritual successor to the Sensible Soccer games and asked for £300,000 to fund development of a download release on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016.

But after just £32,498 was pledged by 1767 backers, it was clear Sociable Soccer's Kickstarter wouldn't make it, and so Hare brought it to a close.

Speaking to Eurogamer following the Kickstarter's cancellation, Hare said Sociable Soccer had generated "a great press buzz", but described the "missing link" as "persuading enough readers from press articles to click on the link to view the Kickstarter page in the first place".

So what happens now? Hare has a prototype of Sociable Soccer that "already plays amazingly well", he said. The announcement of the game has attracted the interest of a number of mystery publishers, too, so we'll see where that goes.

"Much more than that I cannot say at the moment, except that development is continuing at full tilt and when we get nearer to confirming how we will be bringing the game to market we will be sure to let you know," Hare said.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/355308040/music-for-cats-0?ref=home_popular

I saw a study proving that owning a cat will literally make you insane overtime. I guess this confirms it.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[a Goat]

So, this The Dark Unknown: A Quest for Art. Opinions? At least it did well.

The Dark Unknown is a free old school RPG inspired by and in the style of games such as Ultima. You play as a young hero of the realm, the younger child of the King, called upon when your brother declares himself in rebellion. Fight monsters, learn spells, solve puzzles and figure out the true meaning behind these events. It has been a personal project of mine for over 8 years now, and as it nears completion it is time to put all the pieces together.

Jester/guard sprites are basically 1:1 Ultima 4/5 maybe with more colours.

Still the guy didn't asked for much, worked on it for a while, it's okay I guess.

I'll try out music for cats once my cat comes back from hunt.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Not games related but still...

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/19/9759834/zano-drone-bankrupt-liquidation-kickstarter

Europe's biggest Kickstarter has gone bust after raising $3.6 million

After launching its crowdfunding campaign last November and raising more than £2.3 million ($3.6 million), Europe's biggest Kickstarter campaign has told backers it's shutting down. The Torquing Group originally billed its Zano drone as an "ultra-portable, personal aerial photography and HD video platform," that fit in a user's hand and beamed straight images back to their smartphone. But following multiple delays and the resignation of the company's CEO last week for "personal health issues and irreconcilable differences," the Zano looks dead for good.

In a statement sent to the project's backers and republished by Ars Technica, the company said it had "made the difficult decision to pursue a creditors' voluntary liquidation." It noted: "We are greatly disappointed with the outcome of the Zano project and we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us during this difficult period, especially our loyal employees whose commitment has exceeded all expectations."

Of the 15,363 drones sold to the project's 12,000-plus backers, the company claimed to have shipped "over 600 Zanos" as of October 13th. However, a report from BBC News on the first drones off the assembly line noted that they fell far short of the company's promises. The aircraft had poor battery life, low picture quality, and lacked the autonomous features — including commands such as "follow me" and "hold position" — that were prominent in the company's campaign materials.

Frustrated and disappointed backers have been complaining on Facebook and Twitter, calling the project a "fraud" and the company's employees "scammers." Many individuals who preordered the drone are demanding their money back, but it's extremely unlikely this will happen. As Kickstarter often notes in the wake of failed projects, backers are not shoppers, and they are taking a risk even when they give their money to a fully-funded campaign. One of Zano's backers was so disappointed that they made a parody video of the drone (the "Fano Flying Box") as a reminder "not to invest in future in crowdfunded schemes based on slick video presentations."

A backer of the project, Louis-Philippe Loncke, told The Verge that he felt deceived, as the Zano had been presented as a nearly-finished product, needing only money to go into full-scale production. "If the drone was already, let's say, 70 percent functional," says Loncke, "Then why do the people who receive their Zano complain that it doesn't really fly?" He adds that he thinks Kickstarter is partly to blame for not properly vetting projects, and suggests the company could use the money it made from the campaign (it takes a 5 percent fee on successfully funded projects) to audit the Torquing Group.

Unfortunately for crowdfunding fans, this isn't even the first Kickstarter disappointment of the week. The creators of the Coolest Cooler campaign recently started selling their product on Amazon rather than shipping it to backers, just in order, the company said, to "keep the lights on." As ever with crowdfunding campaigns, backers need skepticism as well as optimism when putting their money behind non-existent products. At the time of writing, the Torquing Group had not responded to The Verge's request for comment.

 

[Excidium II]

lolz. That one was kinda obvious though.

 

[Excidium II]

So, this The Dark Unknown: A Quest for Art. Opinions? At least it did well.

The Dark Unknown is a free old school RPG inspired by and in the style of games such as Ultima. You play as a young hero of the realm, the younger child of the King, called upon when your brother declares himself in rebellion. Fight monsters, learn spells, solve puzzles and figure out the true meaning behind these events. It has been a personal project of mine for over 8 years now, and as it nears completion it is time to put all the pieces together.

Jester/guard sprites are basically 1:1 Ultima 4/5 maybe with more colours.

Still the guy didn't asked for much, worked on it for a while, it's okay I guess.

I'll try out music for cats once my cat comes back from hunt.

The KS is for grafics so I imagine those sprites are placeholder.

 

[kazgar]

This is great:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/charlielyne/make-the-censors-watch-paint-drying

 

[Infinitron]

Psychonauts 2 Figstarter: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/psychonauts-2-figstarter.105100/

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The KS is for grafics so I imagine those sprites are placeholder.

Nope. KS is for art for manual and cover of the game box.

Just what, exactly, is this money for?

Art! Well, to be more precise:

• Approximately 25 more black and white pieces, ranging from 1.5"x1.5" to 4"x3", to be used as chapter headers and illustrations
• One large color piece, to be the art for the cover of the game box

I would love to have Indi finish illustrating the rest of the Almanac, the in-story book that will be a part of the game. But artists need to eat, and this is a free project that I am making on my own time. With your help, we can have Indi's art making the Almanac as good as it can be.

 

[Excidium II]

Ooh. Odd.

 

[LESS T_T]

Drama report: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1945059142/elysian-shadows-next-gen-2d-rpg/posts/1438772

[...]

TEAM DRAMA

I never really know what to say when stuff like this happens, but I feel an obligation to be completely transparent with our backers. My father and some of my colleagues think posting intimate team drama is unprofessional, and they would probably be right... Only the majority of our fans are what we would consider friends, and you all know we aren't some big AAA studio with PR reps. We're a bunch of dudes with a dream. You've seen us grow up on YouTube, you've seen us pour our hearts and souls into this project, and we have alwas communicated on a very real, imtimate level with you... I feel like throwing our hands up now and saying we're too "professional" to be sincere and transparent is disrespectful to our fanbase... So I'm fine with being judged as unprofessional.

Tyler Rogers, our gameplay engineer, left us not long after the last Kickstarter udpate. Only he didn't just leave us. He ripped his server out from under us, took Patrick's bed, took monitors, and took routers, without even so much as a minute's heads up to commit code we were currently working on. Normally I don't like to advertise team drama like this, but this was a pretty signficiant setback for us. We lost a significant amount of time and momentum having to redo our setup. This was a pretty large financial setback we hadn't planned on, and now in addition to creating a cross-platform engine and toolkit to compete with Unity2D, I'm also charged with all gameplay programming and scripting.

Setting up the new studio and getting back to work, the same day Tyler quit.

I'm sure his rebuttal will be that Patrick and I were "mean" to him towards the end of his days, and he would absolutely be telling the truth. He was the one who once told me that a man should let his work speak for himself. With this in mind, please rewatch the last 6 chapters of Adventures in Game Development. He had a grand total of one scene of progress to show off during this time period, which was only after insisting and begging after he would usually disappear for 2-3 days at a time for every day or two he worked. Between amazing progress on the engine, tools, and graphics, it has been insanely demoralizing for Patrick and I to work ourselves literally to the point of illness and not see any of our hard work come together during this last year into a cohesive gameplay experience... Combine this with the ever-lingering anxiety of knowing 2k people supported your dream and are expecting a game from you, then sure, I could see "mean" being used to describe us urging him to show up for work and threatening him with his job if he didn't... seems legit.

Just one of the many times I caught Patrick napping under his desk.

Yes, many of you probably think this is my fault for hiring someone incompetent to do such a fundamental task, and honestly, this is something I've beaten myself up over for the last several months since his departure. He wasn't just an "employee" of Elysian Shadows any more than I am. He was my best friend, and this was a dream we shared and fought for together for YEARS. He was just as invested in this project emotionally and financially as any one of us, and this was never about employers and employees--this was a band of brothers. In the end, I'm glad he decided to leave of his own free will, as much as he did it in an exceptionally unprofessional manner, because I don't know if I would have had the resolve to actually kick him off... and just for the record, it was easier for me to redo his work than it was for me to use it. Not a single line of code remains in the project from Tyler, and this has been a clean break.

[...]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Irenaeus II]

Le retarded cro-mag face

those of us remaining have been slaving away every day in a state of silent depression

#LMAO I love Team Drama, keep it up

 

[WhiteGuts]

NOT PATRICK'S BED NOO

 

[nikolokolus]

These fucking Millennials and their goddamned feelings. Here's a tip faggot: shut the fuck up and get back to work. Shit happens. It always happens and it will continue to happen.

P.s. Patrick, you should have listened to your father.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2015-11-12-project-phoenix-delayed-til-2018-backers-demand-refunds

for the past two and a half years, the game didn't even have a programmer.

 

[almondblight]

http://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2015-11-12-project-phoenix-delayed-til-2018-backers-demand-refunds

for the past two and a half years, the game didn't even have a programmer.

Yeah. Especially because:

$1,014,600
pledged of $100,000 goal

 

[Kz3r0]

Psychonauts 2 Figstarter: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/psychonauts-2-figstarter.105100/

Rejected.

 

[Infinitron]

Ultima Online fans might want to take a look at this: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stratics-com-because-we-ve-all-been-there#/

 

[Jools]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1873107026/aviary-attorney/

Play the role of bird-brained lawyer, Monsieur Falcon. Take on clients, collect evidence, and deliver justice to the guilty!

A small, niche project, but I really like the way they both came up with a unique art style and cut costs by making up almost all graphic and sounds out of public domain works by great artists.

The idea for Aviary Attorney came about after we discovered the beautiful but mostly forgotten artwork of J. J. Grandville. After having to abandon traditional newspaper caricatures due to government censorship, Grandville moved towards creating more whimsical and surreal lithographs for fiction writers. Among other works, he produced the bizarre drawings for "the Public and Private Life of Animals".

With careful scanning and animation, we were able to give life to Monsieur Falcon, Sparrowson, and all the other characters through Aviary Attorney. In fact, nearly every part of the game is drawn from or inspired by the public domain. The backgrounds and items have been borrowed from a range of 19th century illustrated books. The music takes the form of transcriptions and adaptions of French romantic composers, most notably Camille Saint-Saëns. Even the font is over 100 years old!

Update.

Released 18/12. Seems fucking epic.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Is it realistic? As in, can you buy the judge?