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Crowdfunded 'Outer Wilds' drops Steam for Epic Store exclusivity
It's not surprising to see Epic snapping up exclusives for its Games Store, but now it's making moves on crowdfunded titles. Mobius Digital has revealed that its space exploration title Outer Wilds (not to be confused with The Outer Worlds) will be a timed exclusive for the Epic Games Store, with other platforms "coming later." While that wouldn't be so much of a shock with a conventional release, many people pledged money to the Outer Wilds campaign in 2015 on the assumption they'd get it through Steam on launch day -- they now don't know how much longer they'll have to wait to play on their preferred platform.
Speculative gadgets at the Future Interfaces Group
To try to get a glimpse of the everyday devices we could be using a decade from now, there are worse places to look than inside the Future Interfaces Group (FIG) lab at Carnegie Mellon University. During a recent visit to Pittsburgh by Engadget, PhD student Gierad Laput put on a smartwatch and touched a Macbook Pro, then an electric drill, then a door knob. The moment his skin pressed against each, the name of the object popped up on an adjacent computer screen. Each item had emitted a unique electromagnetic signal which flowed through Laput's body, to be picked up by the sensor on his watch.
Fig's new fund helps indie games get to Steam
Crowdfunding and investment site Fig is offering successful indie developers a little extra cash to finish games and get them on Steam. With the $500,000 Fig Finishing Fund, developers that hit their funding goals and attract at least 1,000 backers will get at least $20,000 from the investor-based fund. They'll be able to use that cash to finish their games, add more languages and get them up on Valve's brand new Steam Direct program coming this spring.
'Rock Band 4' is coming to the PC with your help
If you wailed when you heard that Rock Band 4 wasn't coming to the PC, it's time to wipe those tears away -- you now have a chance to make it happen. Harmonix has kicked off a crowdfunding campaign to bring its latest music game to Windows systems through Steam. So long as the company reaches its $1.5 million goal by April 5th, you'll get a version of RB4 that transcends what you can do on consoles. You'll get to directly sell your own songs through Steam Workshop, for example, recreating Rock Band Network without all the overhead. It'll support a mouse and keyboard outside of songs, too, so you won't have to fiddle with your plastic guitar just to change settings.
'Psychonauts 2' is really, actually, totally happening
You made Psychonauts 2 happen. The $3.3 million Fig campaign's been fully funded and now perhaps the hardest work for developer Double Fine Productions is ahead of it: finishing the game. In the video below, studio founder Tim Schafer says that the campaign will run through next Tuesday, though. "Every [additional] dollar we make goes into making the game better, giving us more time to polish and making the game great," he says. "We don't just want to make Psychonauts 2, we want to make an amazing Psychonauts 2."
Take a trip through the minds behind 'Psychonauts'
Cult classic Psychonauts getting a crowd-funded sequel was perhaps the biggest news out of this past week's second-annual Game Awards. But what about the game that came before it? The one that's celebrating its 10th birthday this year? That's where "The Color of the Sky in Your World" comes in. It features a who's who of Double Fine employees past and present as they talk about the process of making the game, including creative director Tim Schafer and producer Greg Rice.
Double Fine is making 'Psychonauts 2' but it needs $3.3 million
Psychonauts 2 is happening. It's a sequel to Double Fine's first-ever game, a quirky, beloved, 2005 platformer about a team of psychic spies-in-training. Most of the pieces are in order -- the concept art is in, the characters are rendered, the narrative is prepped and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer is ready to roll. The studio needs just one more thing before diving into development: $3.3 million from investors and fans.
You don't have to be a millionaire to invest in Fig's next video game
Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter don't deal in investments: Backers pledge money to a project and that's generally where their involvement ends. No purchasing shares, no percentage of final sales. Video game-funding platform Fig, however, combines this traditional form of crowdfunding with actual investment -- and it will allow unaccredited people to invest in its next campaign. This move opens up investment to people who aren't SEC-accredited, meaning they don't make at least $200,000 a year (or have a minimum net worth of $1 million). "We believe that fans, in addition to having the opportunity to participate in the rewards-only tiers, should also have the opportunity to buy shares and participate in the financial success of a title," Fig CEO Justin Bailey says in a press release.
Invest in the development of your favorite video games with 'Fig'
When Double Fine launched a Kickstarter campaign for an unnamed adventure game in 2012, it changed the gaming industry in a huge way. The project asked for $400,000 but raised more than $3 million in about a month, setting records at the time and jump-starting the video game crowdfunding craze. And then, in 2013, Double Fine announced it needed more money to finish its adventure game, now titled Broken Age. Even with millions of dollars, widespread publicity and thousands of fans, Double Fine ran into costly issues during development, and not all backers were receptive to the studio's reasoning. Some of them wanted more say in how the game was made, seeing their donation as a legitimate stake in Broken Age's development -- something that the Kickstarter campaign never promised. Flash forward to August 2015: Former Double Fine COO Justin Bailey launches Fig, a video game crowdfunding platform that offers investment opportunities with cash returns and promises to provide backers with an inside look at how game development actually goes down.
Experimental UI equips you with a virtual tape measure and other skeuomorphs
While companies like Apple are moving away wholesale from faux real-world objects, one designer wants to take the concept to its extreme. Chris Harrison from CMU's Future Interfaces Group thinks modern, "flat" software doesn't profit from our dexterity with real-world tools like cameras, markers or erasers. To prove it, he created TouchTools, which lets you manipulate tools on the screen just as you would in real life. By touching the display with a grabbing motion, for example, a realistic-looking tape measure appears, and if you grab the "tape," you can unsheathe it like the real McCoy. He claims that provides "fast and fluid mode switching" and doesn't force designers to shoehorn awkward toolbars. So far, it's only experimental, but the idea is to eventually make software more natural to use -- 2D interfaces be damned.
ALARMclock forces you to seize the day by telling you how many you have left
"Nothing gets you up in the morning like the things that keep you up at night." So goes a tagline on ALARMclock's Kickstarter page. Sure, we've seen other bedside timepieces that encourage alertness by making you use brain or body, but as its creator Fig says, ALARMclock doesn't wake you up, it "efficiently ends dreaming." Hazy images of flying unicorns will soon dissipate as ALARMclock reminds you of your "financial instability, social insecurity and fear of death." Simply made from a bamboo enclosure and 32 x 8 LED display, the heart of the sadistic clock is a WiFi-connected Raspberry Pi. Using a computer or mobile device, you can ask ALARMclock to pull your bank account balance (or other depressing personal finance info), aggregate the number of (virtual) friends you have or, worst of all, estimate your remaining life expectancy. A "morning dose of cold hard reality" is available for the next 20 days to pledges of $85 or more over at Kickstarter. While Fig is listed as the maker of ALARMclock, we can't help but think Aperture Science is involved somehow. Check out the pitch video to see what we mean.
