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The Daily Grind: Which developer would you like to see on Kickstarter next?
Richard Garriott. Chris Roberts. Brian Fargo. These are just three of the big-name game devs who have taken to crowdfunding in recent months and reinvigorated fans of their earlier work. Roberts' Star Citizen funding drive is the current top dog in terms of pledge money among all Kickstarter gaming projects. Fargo's Wasteland 2 smoked its $900,000 goal by over $2 million, and Garriott's just-announced Shroud of the Avatar RPG achieved over 60% of its $1 million hurdle in less than three days. To make a long story short, celebrity crowdfunding is all the rage, and for today's Daily Grind, we'd like to know which developer, current or past, that you'd like to see enter the fray next. Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Project Awakened seeks fan input about continued crowdfunding
Kickstarter may not have worked out for Project Awakened, but Phosphor Games Studio hasn't given up on its crowdfunding efforts, turning to fans to determine whether it should turn to fans.A survey up on the game's site seeks to determine whether the studio will continue crowdfunding via a direct PayPal campaign, or "continue to work on the project in our spare time," as it had planned to do following the unsuccessful Kickstarter. The results will be tabulated after a week, and a decision will be made based on how much money fans indicate they would be willing to pledge.Along with this new initiative, Phosphor also announced a "Create-a-Player Sandbox Demo," a sort of playable version of its player creation tech demo. "You all loved this video," the studio writes, "now we are going to give that to you this year!"
Garriott kickstarting Shroud of the Avatar multiplayer RPG
Richard Garriott is officially returning to his RPG roots with a new project called Shroud of the Avatar. Lord British has launched a Kickstarter project, and while the FAQ reveals that the new title isn't an MMO, it will have some sort of co-op/multiplayer component. As you might expect, it's a fantasy world with a heavy emphasis on sandbox elements, exploration, combat, and storytelling. Shroud of the Avatar is currently planned only for the PC, though the game's website does allow for possible mobile functionality via stretch-goal funding. Currently, Garriott is looking to raise $1 million over the next four weeks. You can watch his pitch video after the cut. He's also livestreaming at LordBritishPresents.com.
Riot in the streets, at a desk, in your hand: An indie documentary game
"Riots are powerful. They are moments in which lots of different people blend into a unique and cohesive mass to fight for their freedom. It is something that you cannot pursue for yourself, but only for a greater good. How can that not be incredibly emotive?"Designer Mattia Traverso approaches rioting as an intense, human experience, from both sides of the kevlar: Rioters take to the streets for freedom and glory, while the authorities fight back in an equally fervid attempt to retain order. Riots are masses of thousands of stories about people, and Riot is a game about humanity.Traverso, creator Leonard Menchiari and programmer Ugur Ister's Riot has raised almost triple its $10,000 funding goal on Indiegogo, and it still has 10 days to pull in more money. Money that the Italian trio will use to travel the globe, seeking out and documenting riots in Italy, Greece, Egypt, Russia and other countries, interviewing rioters and law enforcement officers, gathering videos, photos and eyewitness accounts – then throwing all of that into the game."Phisically visiting these places and joining the live riots is fundamental," Traverso tells me. "One cannot describe something he does not know, and that is something that the 'serious' movie industry knows very well: You need research. How could we even claim to describe such an important topic without having lived it multiple times or having talked with the rioters or the police?"
Petroglyph puts Victory on Kickstarter, hopes for victory
The stack of games made about World War II is pretty thick at this point, but Petroglyph is hoping to add another game to that lineup with its newest Kickstarter project, Victory. Fresh off of its departure from the End of Nations project, the studio is trying something different with the game's formula. It's a strategy game in real-time, but it's not an RTS; rather, it's closer to playing World of Tanks with control over an entire squad. As the project page outlines, players will be given control of a squad of units, which has to either defeat the enemy units or capture and hold key locations. Units that are killed are gone, with no base management or tech trees to worry about in the thick of gameplay. The game is not being designed as a free-to-play title, but it is meant for online competitive play. If this sounds intriguing enough to cut through the fatigue of endless World War II games, take a look at all the details on the Kickstarter page.
Star Citizen base character model teased
Cloud Imperium has given us our first real glimpse of Star Citizen's avatars. The game's website features an early look at the human male head model that will serve as the starting point for character customization. But wait, Star Citizen is a space flight simulator, isn't it? Well, yes, but players will also have a fully customizable avatar for use in boarding actions and bipedal combat as well as a hangar full of ships. Cloud Imperium says that more character details will surface later this week.
Bartendro cocktail mixing robot lands on Kickstarter, wields Raspberry Pi (video)
If you prefer robot bartenders to lack limbs that could be used against you in the impending robopocalypse, Bartendro might be your kind of bot. After two years of building and tweaking, the folks at Party Robotics have finally polished their Raspberry Pi-powered cocktail-making rig and have posted it to Kickstarter. Born from a need to re-create mixed drinks in perfect proportion, Bartendro uses food-grade tubing, pumps and custom-built electronics to pipe liquids out with a measurement accuracy of a milliliter. According to the projects' site, however, it can't quite handle carbonated beverages in its current state. By using a device connected to the contraption's own WiFi network, thirsty folks will be able to select drinks from a web-based interface. Mixologists, on the other hand, can leverage the control panel to customize cocktail recipes, manage dispensers and even read reports of what drinks were made and how much of which ingredients were used. Both the hardware and the software that make up Bartendro are open source, and the team behind it even wants to create an online drink compendium that's free as in freedom and beer. The hope is that intrepid enthusiasts can hack together mods ranging from breathalyzers to a stirring or shaking mechanism. Early supporters can snatch a ShotBot with one dispenser for $249, a Bartendro with three for $375, a model toting seven for $1,199 and a fourth version carrying a whopping 15 for $2,499. However, crafty DIYers can roll their own system by pledging coin for individual dispensers and the Linux boxes that power them. The group has currently raised over $20,000, but it's aiming for $135,000 to push the bot into production. Click the bordering source link if you're inclined to chip in or hit the jump for Party Robotic's pitch video.
Robotoki's platformer starring a narcoleptic child, The Adventures of Dash
Robotoki is keeping busy: It's working on a zombie survival romp called Human Element, a prequel to that game for the Ouya, and now has a Kickstarter for a cute 2D platformer, The Adventures of Dash. The Kickstarter has 30 days to raise $400,000. If it reaches its goal, Robotoki wants to launch the game in seven months, in November of this year.Led by former Infinity Ward man Robert Bowling, Robotoki's The Adventures of Dash is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer – for PC, Mac, Linux, Ouya, iOS, Android and consoles – starring Dash, a 9-year-old boy with narcolepsy.Dash falls asleep anywhere and for any reason, including at school, in his lunch, while on a walk and in all manner of slightly dangerous situations. When he dreams, the art style of the game changes along with the gameplay. The Adventures of Dash pulls art from a range of 2D artists and throws it all into one game under a semi-seamless plot device.Robotoki hopes to launch Dash on PC, Mac, Linux and Ouya in November, and will then work on building touchscreen controls for mobile. Profit from these initial sales will fund console development, though if the Kickstarter raises more than $400,000, the extra cash will be used to develop and ship console versions day-and-date with the first group.%Gallery-180410%
On the brink: What's next if Project Awakened can't save the world
Phosphor Games has less than 48 hours to raise more than $200,000 for Project Awakened on Kickstarter. If Phosphor doesn't hit that goal, the $270,000 people have already pledged will vanish, and Awakened's current development timeline will be stretched indefinitely.Still, Phosphor Director Chip Sineni is optimistic about Awakened's success."We are feeling stressed, but we still feel there is time for the community to help us make this happen," Sineni tells Joystiq. "We got the Unreal Engine 4 tech demo out, we announced Austin Wintory joining as the composer and a lot of Kickstarters have last-minute surges."A lot of Kickstarters fall short, too: Last year, 2,796 video game projects asked for funding, and 1,885 failed. Of course this means 911 gaming projects succeeded, and those projects earned $83 million overall. Sineni wants to see Awakened in that second group, but the entire process has been a fast-paced learning experience on the whims of crowd-sourced funding. Only (a short amount of) time will tell if Phosphor absorbed its lessons too late.
Yu Suzuki thinking about crowdfunding for Shenmue 3
Shenmue 3 is sort of becoming a possibility again, just in time to make sure that wound will never, ever heal. During the MAGS (Monaco Anime Game Show) over the weekend, Sega legend Yu Suzuki told journalist Sebastien-Abdelhamid that he is considering Kickstarter-style crowdfunding for the long-lost project. With the budget for the first two games somewhere in the $70 million area, that could be one ambitious Kickstarter.Suzuki also said (more realistically) that he wants to continue the Shenmue storyline in an anime or manga. In either case, he'd need to obtain rights to his own license from Sega, something he has discussed in the past. The odd racing game cameo aside, Sega's not doing anything with it.
The Daily Grind: Do you get involved in pre-release communities?
Embers of Caerus has a new Faction Wars competition in the works, and the devs at Forsaken Studios are looking to drum up interest in their fantasy sandbox as well as reward players who are already invested in the project. Personally I like to see this kind of community engagement, particularly when it comes to indie projects, but I'm also somewhat wary of hitching my wagon to a crowdfunded game that may or may not see the light of day (and if it does, it may or may not be what I'm looking for in terms of gameplay). What about you, morning folk? Do you get involved in early pre-release communities, or do you watch and wait? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Skullgirls character crowdfunding breakdown: What that $150K is for
When the developers responsible for Skullgirls were laid off from Reverge Labs last summer, they reformed as Lab Zero Games and pledged to continue working on the franchise, in November announcing that the first DLC character was "indefinitely delayed" while the studio found its footing.Now Lab Zero is ready to get rocking on Squigly, its first DLC character, but it needs $150,000 to make that happen. Lab Zero set up an Indiegogo campaign to get the cash via crowdfunding, a move that puts the amount of money under a public microscope. Some potential players are outraged at the cost of making a single character – Lab Zero CEO Peter Bartholow tells Joystiq he doesn't expect people to understand the budget, but it is "reasonable with all the relevant information."Bartholow breaks down the Squigly budget as follows: $48,000: Staff Salaries – 8 people for 10 weeks $30,000: Animation and Clean-up Contracting $4,000: Voice recording $2,000: Hit-box Contracting $5,000: Audio Implementation Contracting $20,000: QA Testing $10,000: 1st Party Certification $10,500: Indiegogo and Payment Processing Fees $20,500: Manufacturing and Shipping Physical PerksOriginal Skullgirls characters cost $200,000 - $250,000 apiece and the game's total budget was $1.7 million. The salaries in Lab Zero's Squigly budget are reduced, as well, Bartholow says."So, as you can see, over two-fifths of the money is spent on all the stuff we need to do just to get to collect the money and get her onto people's systems," he says. "This is just the reality of crowdfunding and independent console development right now. And also probably why more games don't do what we're attempting, too."
Hardcore sci-fi sandbox Divergence Online returns, seeks crowdfunding
Several years ago we posted about an up-and-coming sci-fi sandbox MMO called Divergence. At the time, the game promised a hybrid interface that allowed players to toggle between an action mode with crosshairs and a more traditional MMO targeting and auto-attack setup. The game subsequently dropped off the grid, but now developer Stainglass Llama and Divergence universe creator Ethan Casner are back with an IndieGogo crowdfunding project and a $50,000 goal. Divergence promises a seamless, non-linear, and modifiable world with skill-based progression and plenty of non-combat advancement opportunities. It also styles itself as a hardcore enterprise with open PvP, lootable corpses, "limited permanent death," and unique races and breeds. Of note, the game will have neither tab-targetting nor auto-attack. You can view Casner's intro video after the cut.
Keyport Slide 2.0 hits Kickstarter, still has a drinking problem
We were sold on the Keyport Slide when it promised not only to banish key-based clutter, but also incorporated two of our favorite things: flash storage and a beer access device. Now, the team behind it has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Keyport Slide 2.0, which is faithful to the original design but adds more scope for customization. Six slots play host to keys (obviously) and a mixture of inserts, such as the familiar USB drive (up to 32GB) and bottle opener, as well as the new mini-torch and barcode holder. The inserts can be switched out easily, and several others are in the pipeline, including a Bluetooth locator, "aftermarket auto remote," pen, stylus, and the pièce de résistance, a letter opener. An important question remains: how do you stuff keys inside it? If you reside in the US, you'll need to fill out a form, send off pictures of your keys, and you'll be provided with blank "Blade" inserts for making compatible copies. It's a little more complicated for international folks, as they'll need to ship out the actual keys for conversion. This all depends on whether you decide to back the Keyport Slide 2.0, of course, and at the time of writing, over a third of its $75,000 goal has been met, just one day in. Head to the Kickstarter page if you're already interested, or check out the video below for the full pitch.
Roberts: Star Citizen to be 'a pretty well-realized world on all levels'
Space sim godfather Chris Roberts chatted up the game journos at Rock, Paper Shotgun recently, and the Star Citizen mogul touched on everything from cutting out the publisher middleman to the potential oversaturation of the space genre to what sets his game apart from the crowd. "Yes, you're flying around in space, but you're also down on planets. You're talking to people. You're trading. I think you're going to feel like Star Citizen is a pretty well-realized world on all levels," Roberts explained. He also outlines his thoughts on the eternal PC vs. console debate, saying that he's always played on consoles as well but prefers to develop on an open platform. "It's not so much about, 'I'm part of the PC master race and you're a puny console person.' It's more a matter of whether you're open or you're closed. It's why you've got League of Legends and all those. They're on the PC because it's open. It's not an issue for them to distribute." There's plenty more, including thoughts on the game industry, the film industry, and of course some crowdfunding discussion. Head to RPS for the full interview.
Infinity update talks 2012 progress, Battlescape Kickstarter
The Infinity website has updated with a lengthy blog post detailing the state of the project. It also fleshes out some details on its upcoming crowdfunding drive. What's Infinity? It's a vast sci-fi sandbox with seamless planetary-to-space transitions and a persistent, procedurally generated universe, among other things. The indie dev team has been working on the project for a number of years now, and it has managed to release a well-received tech demo and a rather spectacular atmospheric flight test. The lack of news updates throughout most of 2012 was apparently due to a substantial amount of work being done on under-the-hood quality and performance issues. As for an Infinity Kickstarter, it's coming (but not before mid-2013). The preliminary details include a standalone called Infinity: Battlescape which is basically a successor to Infinity's 2007 combat prototype. The game will focus on multiplayer combat, it will feature the seamless planetary engine, and it will likely take place in a single solar system. While some in the Infinity community have expressed indifference with crowdfunding a game that isn't the full Infinity project, I-Novae Studios says that Battlescape is more like "a first step to the whole MMO that will be marketed independently even though it shares a lot of content and code."
Vendetta Online adds F2P Kickstarter goal
Guild Software has added an interesting new wrinkle to its Vendetta Online Kickstarter project. That wrinkle is a possible free-to-play tier which will be available to players of the sci-fi sandbox game should the fundraising drive succeed. Guild founder John Bergman states that subscribers will still have the best experience, and he also lays out how and why a free-to-play conversion is fraught with potential pitfalls for smaller indie studios and well-established games like Vendetta. In some corners it is argued that we must accept this new reality, that our MMOs must be designed more as an extension of monetization metrics than for the sake of the actual gameplay. This has never sat well with me; I design for what I want to play, and an experience peppered with carefully positioned opportunities to spend money is not one I desire. Nor do the mechanics or results of paying-to-win fit within my game-view. Many of us seek these games as a means of escape, and little violates that like the pervasive artificiality of monetization, or direct gameplay advantages granted by an opponent's larger financial outlay. Nevertheless, Guild is open to the possibility of F2P, so head to the Vendetta Kickstarter project to read further details.
Star Citizen tops $8 million in crowd-funding
Star Citizen continues to leave other crowd-funded gaming projects in the dust, according to the latest Cloud Imperium press release. Chris Roberts' highly anticipated space sim sandbox just passed the $8 million mark, which means that it's garnered an additional $1.75 million over and above its original Kickstarter campaign that concluded last November. As of today, the project boasts more than 142,000 pledges. Over 3,400 new accounts have been created, and more than $500,000 has been raised in the last two weeks alone. "The amount of support we are seeing from our fans is nothing short of amazing," Roberts says. "Our backers are totally connecting with the development team and it just gets them so excited to come in to the office every day and work to make the next great space sim." [Source: Cloud Imperium press release]
The Daily Grind: Do you care about pre-launch lore?
So I'm kinda interested in WildStar now, and I'm completely obsessed with Star Citizen. What the heck do these two games have in common? Well, not much aside from the fact that both of those wily dev teams are drip-feeding delicious bits of lore to ravenous fan bases. On the one hand I love that Roberts Space Industries and Carbine are devoting time and energy to fleshing out their respective backstories and doling out small details while we wait. On the other hand, there's something to be said for absorbing all your world lore in-game via quests, cutscenes, and the like. So how about it, Massively crew? Assuming you care about MMO lore, do you scarf up all the pre-launch tidbits on your next big thing, or are you holding off until you can actually play? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Gas Powered Games cancels Wildman Kickstarter
With four days and about half a million dollars still to go, Wildman's Kickstarter has been brought to a screeching halt. The latest and last update to the project's Kickstarter page says that the team is focusing on "other ways to keep Gas Powered Games running." Wildman has had something of a bumpy ride. When the game was first announced, studio head Chris Taylor said that he was "betting the company on it." A few weeks later, GPG laid off 80% of its workforce. Now Taylor says that, "If all goes well -- which I think it will -- I'll be able to give you all some great news in the weeks ahead."
