sd_ks

Mmmm... bulgogi! Yumm!

Hot damn, I can't believe this thread is still going strong! Man, that just made my night... face lit right up with a smile

Yeah, I've been following that one (literally) for years, Jean-Luc! It's basically Quest for Glory with a badass female lead. The crew pulling it off are pretty legendary in retro-adventure circles and one of the artists, Fizii is a background artist on a similar KS that I backed last summer, Quest for Infamy. QfI, has a similar formula, but you play a villain instead of a hero \m/

Man, I don't know... I've never seen a "perfect" formula for stretch goals. You put platform expansions first, then all your initial backers (who "believed" before their platform was supported) get upset that the content expansions are too far away. You put content expansions first, and then those playing on the ports won't pledge. Do either, and your FIGS+R translations are at the end, and you lose a measure of interest from French/Italian/German/Spanish/Russian fans... people drop pledges over this stuff. It's a problem. The "best" of both worlds I've seen is a combination of content and platform expansion on each stretch goal. So, first you get 5% more content plus Linux (unless that was built-in, then substitute iOS). Then, another 5% plus Android. Then, 10% plus consoles (including OUYA, since you'll have Android already, and be doing a console control port for PS/Xbox/WiiU). Something like that. Thing is, hardly any projects skyrocket that way; and the ones that do, tend to be so expensive that these stretch goals would be like $100K each, or something. I think... good stretch goal structure is a wicked hard problem.

Yeah, good point Gauddlike... I'm not going back to edit the ones I've already posted, but I'll definitely do that in the future. I was kind of hoping that this thread would "take over" all the Kickstarter mentions because... well, on other forums, I've seen dozens and dozens of individual project threads build up a page or two of posts, and then die. Then the off-topic is littered with like 50 old KS threads nobody looks at (plus there's always that contingent of haters... even on forums for a dev who got their big boost from a KS campaign!!). I just love the whole Kickstarter concept so much that I want to do my part to try to keep it from becoming an over-saturated, politicized thing. I'm hoping that we don't ignore promising projects, but also take care in promoting them, so it doesn't become shameless spam.

Xenonauts is squarely aimed to be an absolutely killer game for us core, niche, old-school X-COM audience. Also, for us Linux folks, it's the only real option to have that experience (Goldhawk has committed to an in-built winelib version, with winehq Platinum Level type of stability/functionality). I can't wait to see what the community comes up with... There's a lot to be excited about!

New first-person horror adventure, called Asylum, running on Kickstarter. It's from the designer of the not-very-well-known horror game "Scratches" (which has a cult following). It's got that creepy atmospheric thing going on, which is supposed to be influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and his moody atmospheric brand of horror (although no specific Lovecraft mythos). http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/agustincordes/asylum-kickstart-the-horror It's already Greenlit on Steam, and they've promised DRM-free versions as well. Also, the team has open-sourced the game engine they've based Asylum on, called Dagon, and put the code up on Github! It's cross-plat Win/Lin/Mac, and looks really pretty. They have an interactive teaser (like a mini-demo) posted on the Kickstarter page, so fans of that kind of horror adventure can check it out.

Yeah, man. Same with the Russonc's indie obsession! And I can't begin to count the hours spent on FTL... holy crap. I love that Kickstarter is like a blender for completely mad game ideas. You just don't see this stuff anywhere, right? Like Legend of Dungeon which is an retro pixel art arcade beat 'em up roguelike dungeon crawl on Win/Lin/Mac, with hilarious power-up items (Cthulhu Hat of Protection, a Fish Hat, crazy weapons, etc), that programming team is going to port to that open-source Kickstarted console, OUYA! Or, Super Comboman, side-scroller cartoon beat 'em up with a focus on crazy gamepad move combos, destructable environment and where your power-ups are like collectible stickers you'd see school kids put on their notebooks. Oh, and the hero is like an awesome chubby Hawaiian dude with a talking fanny pack (I'm not joking). Or Distance which looks like an amazing sci-fi Tron-like arcade racer where giant glowing circular saw blades can emerge from the track and cut your freaking car in half... Or Jack Houston and the Necronauts which is a stop-motion-animated point & click graphic adventure rooted in 50's sci-fi like that of Edgar Rice Burroughs (or Perry Rhodan, for fans of classic European sci-fi)... Where else would all this awesome crazy shit come from? How does any of this even exist? Edit: BTW, those are the funded ones... I'm not talking about a current campaign, all those games are actually getting made...

Sorry I'm so late here... is this thread toast?

Thanks, oasis789... I'm always up for a new kind of RPG/adventure hybrid (loved the demo for Quest for Infamy), and I was a huge QFG fan back in the day. I always wanted to see what Lori and Corey could do with modern tech and a sweet budget... looks like they'll get one of the two!

Quest for Glory devs Kickstart “Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption” Many of us fondly recall the amazing Quest for Glory series of graphic-adventure/RPG hybrid games, created by Lori and Corey Cole at Sierra On-Line, during the 90′s. It was one of the very first adventure games to include RPG elements like character stats, skills that improved with use, and a combat system. It was hugely influential on the early PC RPG genre, and has had lasting effects into the present day. Most of all, the games were hilarious, drawing from a kind of silly, but dark, humor that the Cole’s have become known for. The duo have returned to bring us a game more on the RPG side of things, but retaining a strong adventure puzzling element, called Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, and has partnered up with Aussie developers Brawsome (known for the Jolly Rover adventure game, as well as the award-winning MacGuffin’s Curse) to develop the game, and have targeted Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux! Support the Hero-U Kickstarter by talking about this story-driven RPG with your friends. Check out the pitch video, homepage and some of the updates! We need your help to get this unique game off the ground and into our homes.

I thought I'd mention another, albeit very different, action/adventure game project with RPG elements, whose art direction is endearing and quite unique. It's nothing to do with Xenonauts, nor sci-fi in general, but it's a neat looking cross-platform project (Win/Lin/Mac). Lots of copy/paste following here... Papier Adventure on Kickstarter Papier is a game that takes place in a world of paper, sketches and ink. Where imagination and adventure are everything! The game immerses you and your character, a boy named Papier, into a world made of paper that combines the latest of game technology with the aesthetic of hand drawn surfaces. The outdoor scene at the end of the project video demonstrates the unique look and feel of the game world. While Papier's powers will be essential to success in this world, it is the choices you make that will have far reaching consequences for Papier, the characters he meets, and the unfolding of the world of paper. The world and story of Papier is for those who really dig worlds of imagination and fantasy. We're super excited about the story, characters, visual style, and entertaining touches that will make this a special game to experience, and we can't wait to share it with you. If we were to mention influences to give you an idea of what to expect, they would be the work of Tim Burton, the whimsically portrayed Hans Christian Andersen (you know the one with Danny Kaye?), and Roald Dahl. You get the idea. All aboard the escapism express! Here's a great interview with the project creators Reddit AMA

BTW, Nexus 2 is up on KS now... Looks like they need a metric asston of money though

Hey, I totally hear you, man! It's got one day left now, and the Revolution Software guys have added a crap-ton of new swag, new reward tiers, and dropped a hell of a bomb on us... if there's enough interest, they'll greenlight Beneath a Steel Sky 2 which was one of my most favorite games, adventure game or not! Yeah... at first, I was blown away by it being announced as a distant stretch goal (out at a million or so), but now they're basically saying "come tell us how much you want it, we're listening." So, anyone who wants to see that happen aught to pledge at least a dollar and post in the comment thread that Steel Sky was the bomb, and that we need to make that shit happen NOW.

Wow... that was surprisingly easy. Humble Bundle store, for the win it seems! That took like twenty seconds to buy & download

Speaking of retro-styled games... UK fans of adventure games might remember the Broken Sword series, from indie developer Revolution Software. I'm a US American, but I fondly remember the first two in the series (before publishers made them take it all 3D and console, and I had no console!). Revolution's Charles Cecil is Kickstarting a whole new mythology to explore in this installment; rather than continue the Knights Templar theme which he brought to the public in the 90's, the new one delves into Christian Gnosticism and other weird stuff, which aught to make it a lot of fun! The same voice actors have been recalled for nearly all of the localised versions (including English) and the voice actor for George Stobbart (Rolf Saxon) is active on the KS comment thread, along with the lead developer, Tony Warriner himself. Which is awesome; they're both really nice dudes, BTW. Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse It has approximately another week on it, so go pledge if you'd like to pick up a copy and some seriously nifty swag! Also, I MUST HAVE FTL ON MY LINUX BOX. That is all.

Yep! Backed. But now, their PayPal is closed, so nobody can do anything to help that game until it's released (and then... go buy it!!).

Interesting; that would surprise me. HD Interactive (and the franchise) seem to follow the traditional publisher-funded route, and (IIRC) the intellectual property is owned by Activision, who tend not to be all about developers acquiring their own funding. Though, that was a gorgeous looking game.

In the grand tradition of replying to one's own posts, I'll kick off the generic crowd-funded project thread with a couple of picks that I've chosen to back; Quest for Infamy and Jack Houston and the Necronauts. Both are small independant studios building retro-styled point-and-click 2D adventure games, both have a twist (more than one, actually). Here's the pitch... Jack Houston and the Necronauts This "fantastic adventures/amazing stories" homage to the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Venus series is a pulp sci-fi inspired adventure game where you portray Captain Jack Houston Jack’s journey on our neighboring planet of Venus. But this isn’t the lifeless planet we know today; this Venus is a sweltering vine jungle teaming with strange beasts of horn, tooth and claws, as imagined by science fiction authors and artists in the first half of the century (the legacies of whom include John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, etc). The backgrounds & animated sprites are going to be based on real stop-motion animation footage. This technique is pretty expensive, though, and so the project needs at least $56K, which I'm a bit worried about him raising. However, he's put together a hell of a pitch video, which is definitely worth a peek, and the reward tiers look fantastic. Quest for Infamy Remember playing and enjoying Sierra's Quest for Glory series? Or, if not, are you a fan of point-and-click adventure games, but felt a bit restricted and wished they would include a touch of an RPG twist? This game delivers that in spades, as a loving tribute to the QFG series, along with three character-class based "braided" storylines (that is, the puzzles branch based on class, but probably merge based on the overarching plot). There is a light combat system, and all of the classic adventure gaming elements. In addition to the RPG twist, and this is my favorite part, they've turned the QFG morality play on it's head, and turned the player character into a villain! Yeah, you play the badass on a quest for power and money, something I've always wanted to do in QFG

Folks, it seems that Kickstarter (and IndieGoGo) are here to stay... to that end, and to keep Off-Topic from becoming a Dead State of Double Fine Wastelands, where our SpaceVenture is Skyjacked from the Kinetic Void... I thought it would be good to consolidate all crowd-funded game projects to a single thread that can grow forever, rather than dozens upon dozens. It would also help prevent it from feeling like our community is being spammed by well-meaning but overzealous fans (much as we were when we were out promoting Xenonauts during the tougher early days of the campaign). The threads that have already been made can probably be left alone. Moderators could choose to merge future threads into this one before they grow too large. If a project is so captivating that it threatens to take over this generic thread, a mod can split it off (i.e., it earned the right to stand alone). Also, this opens the doors to non-game projects, such as films, gadgets, etc. See something interesting? Want to share with the rest of the squad? Here's the place to do it.

Ok! And if anyone gets grumpy, I'll just tell 'em that Gorlom sent me ;-)

Do Kickstarter projects count for this thread, or are we only considering awesome, retro-styled games which are already available for pre-order? I'm a little frustrated at the way we introduce new KS projects in these forums... it seems that the fashion is to create an individual thread in "off-topic" per project. This seems like overkill, to me, and that a single "promising kickstarters here!" thread would suffice, rather than littering the forums with pages and pages of KS projects here and there that may or may not fund. I admit being guilty of posting a KS thread here (mostly out of the same frustration... followed by cheerfully following the convention set by others), when I promoted the SpaceVenture project (which funded, BTW, partially because of Xenonauts backers, YAY!). The crux here is that I've backed two very retro-looking projects; one fully-funded, but still in progress (Quest for Infamy a Quest for Glory homage where the player is a villain rather than a hero), and one announced yesterday (Jack Houston and the Necronauts). I'd prefer to just make a mention in a longer "follow this for cool KS projects" kind of thread (similar to this one we're in right now), but I'm not finding such a thread

Running Desura on Linux here, and have never had that problem (I have about two dozen games through that service). This is not to say that I've never had any problems, but never the "stuck at 90-some-odd-percent" problem. Once I had to re-download a game I'd already downloaded; it began, proceeded and finished, and after completion, it wasn't "ready" in the game list. I kind of looked at it for a minute with the "WTF?" face... and told it to do it again. Then it worked fine. It was Frozen Synapse, if I recall correctly... Other than that, and a couple of other small, odd quirks, I'm extremely happy with Desura.

Just an update here for Xenonauts backers that also supported the SpaceVenture project; it funded two weeks ago! Man, that was a nail-biter, though, with 30% of the funding coming in the last 4-5 days of the campaign. Major thanks to all of the Xenonauts people we saw come over there; it was really fantastic! So, this means that it's highly likely that there will be a game. The Two Guys have set up a site for updates and such.

Not to mention, in the case of an extraterrestrial invasion with huge mobilization, large troop commitment, and devastating losses in the field, it's possible we'd get our heads out of our asses and find a combat MOS for tough ladies! I don't know about you, but I've definitely met big strong women I wouldn't pick a fist fight with (and I'm not a small dude at all). I'd much rather they be out gunning down ET baddies than playing gofer & support roles