Welcome back to your sometimes fortnightly weekly series of gaming crowdfunding news. In this week’s round-up: Enjoy a bowl of nourishing Dragon Fin Soup, mine and craft voxels in Planets³, swear you’ve seen that visor design before in Dark Drive and welcome back the relaunched Festival of Magic, now dubbed ‘Earthlock’.

Know of a game or game-related project on Kickstarter, Indiegogo or any other platform that you’d like to see featured? Please email us with a tip!

Previously featured campaigns

• Last May, Chris covered a Kickstarter for Boon Hill, a ‘graveyard simulator’. The creator has been in contact to point out that it’s now on Steam Greenlight.
• Backers fell in love with the fantastic looking Darkest Dungeon – they’ve invented new stretch goals all the way up to £500,000 as the project moves into its last 24 hours
• The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 continues to accumulate a comfortable trickle of pledges – still has nine days left
• StarCrawlers is funded and chasing stretch goals with less than a day to go
• Koe was funded quickly and is seeking money for PS Vita and a post-story battle arena
• Tulpa is a quarter of the way to its goal with a month to go
• Blackmore failed in its funding, but plans to retool and relaunch. The same was true for Space Pioneer and Waves: Arena Tactics
• Sweet Escape reached its goal at the last moment… and then got mysteriously suspended. A Facebook post suggests that they ruffled some feathers with their non-too-subtle King / Candy trademark troll jabs

In progress

Dragon Fin Soup

Goal: $24,000
Deadline: 11 April 2014
Outlook: Off to a reasonable start

There’s a lot going on in Dragon Fin Soup’s pitch, so much that in the absence of any clue as to what the title means, I’m going to take it as a mission statement. This is a fantasy broth of turn-based and action RPGs, mixed with strategy, laced with roguelike elements with a twist on well-known fairytales.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find all that difficult to visualise (and outside of the core, I wonder whether potential players will be scared off), but that’s what a page of gameplay videos, in-engine battles and fine concept art is there for.

Planets³

Goal: $250,000
Deadline: 6 April 2014
Outlook: Another reasonable start, but $200,000 to go

We’ve seen the sandbox-survival genre head in multiple directions since Minecraft debut, with developers inspired to evolve its hugely successful formula in new directions. Planets³ is heading off in the direction of voxels, and allowing just about everything in the game to be constructed – including using building blocks to assemble vehicles.

The scope of the playable universe is particularly  impressive – as hinted at in the concept art above, you’ll be able to see other active (cube-shaped) planets in your current solar system rendered in the sky, reflecting changes as things are constructed by other players on your current server.

Dark Drive

Goal: $20,000
Deadline: 31 March 2014
Outlook: Very little support so far – and won’t receive money unless goal is reached

Weekly Metroidvania in cool-looking pixel-art shock. Yes, we’ve seen this kind of pitch in just about every edition of the GCW, but considering how successful these pitches usually are, I’m surprised to see this one floundering after a fortnight of activity – especially as the gifs and pitch video do a fantastic job of showcasing some excellent retro art, some great animation and solid looking control system. Time to step up the marketing game, methinks.

Earthlock: Festival of Magic

Goal: $150,000
Deadline: 12 April 2014
Outlook: Has already raised more money than its initial attempt.

Previously featured under its current subtitle, Festival of Magic, Earthlock is styled after late 90s / early 00s console JRPGs with all that you find cosy and familiar. I tipped it for big things, and shortly after felt a little silly when creators Snowcastle Games cancelled the project halfway through.

The busy next-gen console launch window was the main factor in the project’s initial cancellation – they had, after all, put a lot of in-engine content together and made a pitch I’d felt was reasonably strong. Nevertheless, Snowcastle have seen room for improvement: asking $100,000 less, they’re now pitching PS4 and Xbox One releases (along with Wii U, and Windows/Mac/Linux). There’s oodles of art, in-engine screenshots, video and an early demo too. Even the new name – descriptive of an Earth-stopping cataclysm in the game world’s past – has helped tighten things up.