The Reticule

Steph wont be here again this week so it’s fallen on me to take the reigns for this instalment of crowdfunding round-ups. With so many indie developers and so much opportunity these days to fund your project in various ways, it’s important to stick out amongst the crowd, have some individuality and above all provide a pitch that shows quality and professionalism (at least that’s what I would look for), so for this weeks pick I have been looking for just that. Admittedly I have already been following three of these games through development but the others show just as much promise.

In Progress

Dead Synchronicity

Goal: $45,000
Deadline: April 12th
Outlook: Will need a strong second half if it’s to reach the funding goal.

Dead Synchronicity developers Fictiorama Studios certainly know their stuff when it comes to adventure games. Their developer blog frequently mentions classics of the genre and well known modern games when talking about influences and reasons for making the choices that affect their game. Dead Synchronicity has a strong art style and mature and interesting theme, coupled with old school 2D style visuals.

Fictiorama Studios are comprised only four members, three of which are brothers and two of those brothers whom play in the band Kovalski that provide the music for the game, the fourth member of the team providing all the art for the game. It’s clear that these guys have a passion for their creation and it’s great to see that they hold all the control and can develop freely. There’s currently a demo available for the game here, it’s worth checking out for yourself.

Chaos Reborn

Goal: $180,000
Deadline: April 17th
Outlook: Optimistic. Although it’s a high target, there are big names behind an impressive pitch.

I’m sure many of the people who contributed to this Kickstarter stopped the pitch video around the sixteen second mark (where you may recognise a certain someone) and instantly offered wads of their cash for Julian Gollop to make this game as fast as possible. If the fact that Ken Levein is a fan of this game is not enough for you then you may notice that the game resembles another recently released turn-based rpg by the name of Blackguards. Julian Gollop, the original creator of X-COM has been working with strategy and RPG games for many years and while Blackguards was a valiant first attempt at a genre, it missed out on certain aspects that Julian and his team would no doubt be able to implement.

Bizenghast

Goal: $125,000
Deadline: April 18th
Outlook: Things don’t look hopeful.

Despite the impressive team behind this game the vision of the game itself isn’t clearly portrayed in the pitch video with a quote from the funding page going so far as to say “Ten years after its start, Bizenghast is back… as a possible video game”. Perhaps this is why Bizenghast has been doing so poorly with it’s Kickstarter, or perhaps not enough people know that the game actually stems from a graphic novel series with a cult following and a novel spin off series. Either way developers Cosmic Forces are going to have to up their game in a big way in order to hit that lofty goal.

The Red Solstice

Goal: $50,000
Deadline: April 20th
Outlook: Poor start.

Despite already being greenlit on Steam (is that easy these days?) the Kickstarter campaign for The Red Solstice has gotten off to somewhat of a bad start. Almost all of the 230 backers have contributed at the second lowest bracket, which doesn’t shock me as the RTS genre is already packed with great games such as Star Craft and Total War. To succeed in this area you need to bring a game of immense quality and proficiency and while The Red Solstice may become this in the future, it seems people would rather leave it alone until that time comes.

Funded

Duelyst

Goal: $68,000
Deadline: April 10th
Outlook: 12 days left and already $27,000 over their target.

Deulyst is a turn-based strategy game in which two teams face off against each other on a grid based arena with the goal of killing each others General to win. There are multiple different types of units with varying abilities, different game play modes and a beautiful art style that make this game a very attractive prospect. Stretch goals includes more content and support for PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, although the goals for these might be a little too high to be manageable in the given time frame.

The pitch video is simple but shows the basics of gameplay and some more of the beautiful art. From what I gather about Duelyst from the Kickstarter page and pitch video, it seems like the kind of game that would be easy and fun to pick up but would take a great deal of thought and time to master properly. It plays into the hands of the game that there are industry veterans behind it that have worked on such games as Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft. This is definitely a game to watch in the future.