KickStarter Kickstarter Watch.

[Zombra]

Officially licensed Jagged Alliance board game Kickstarter

Not gonna lie, I would play it once just in case.

 

[Infinitron]

Soulblight, a roguelike about Real Roleplaying: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1752350052/soulblight/

It all began with a single drop. Form it two primal forces emerged. Forces of life and death. They fought one another in a futile effort to renounce their allegiance, only to realize that to exist separately is against their nature. From that communion the Soul Tree was born and with it the world as we know it.

Instead of XP grinding Soulblight introduces a unique Tainting Mechanic. It represents the process of character’s transformation. To gain power you will have to act accordingly to your hero’s personality. This is what we call “a bit more literal approach to RPG”

We look back with nostalgia at our pen and paper RPG memories. Back then, gaining XP and leveling up was only part of the fun. The thing we were most excited about was actual role-playing. For a brief moment becoming a character with all their merits but also with all their flaws. Sometimes their shortcomings would stand in the way of solving a quest at hand making the game more difficult. But because of that the characters felt more alive and that’s why we wouldn’t have it any other way.

The situation with video games is different. For the most part players can’t miss an opportunity to get precious loot or XP knowing that the game will penalize them for it. That’s why no one expect players not to fight a giant spider just because their character might have arachnophobia. So if we want players to actually roleplay there needs to be a special mechanic that will encourage them to do so. That is how our Tainting Mechanic came to be.

Before entering each level of the Sanctuary you get to choose a Taint that represents a certain personality trait. That choice will shape your future experiences as each Taint unlocks a new way of gaining power - a custom mechanic designed to encourage role-playing. Tainting Mechanics channels your will to survive into actions that are aligned with your hero’s personality. Let’s have a look at some examples:

As you go deeper into the Sanctuary you’ll be able to add more Taints to your character’s personality making the shifting levels of the dungeon itself a skill tree of a kind. However with each new Taint you’re a step closer to the point of no return. Are you sure you know where it is?

 

[Zombra]

If you love RPGs, you're gonna love this!

 

[udm]

Foreplay is an erotic storytelling game for two or more players (including the GM). Whereas most games of this genre are about fighting monsters, winning treasures, and maybe seducing the local tavern patrons, Foreplay is about seducing your friends (or lovers), f***ing their brains out, and maybe trying not to die of exhaustion. Players work together to tell a sexy story while also doing sexy things. Foreplay is the first game of its kind to incorporate real-life sexual activity into its gameplay system. If you have not played this kind of game before (a good excuse to spend extra time rereading the erotic example texts), it is an easy way to learn to role-play, and if you have, you certainly are in for a substantially different experience with this one. Also, if you already have experience role-playing in a sexual setting without the inclusion of a game, this should certainly spice up your options and make it easier to get your fellow players into character.

More specifically, the core mechanic of Foreplay is that all success checks in the game are dependent on a player's ability to sexually stimulate one or more other players, emphasizing communication and consent as a prerequisite to success. The stat system is built around this and the erotic focus of the theme. In designing the game, I asked myself, "Can I design a game with the intention of having the gameplay devolve into an orgy?" Depending on your group, I think the answer is "yes." While the mechanics are designed to play through an entire story, they are also intended to escalate the sexual tension amongst players, likely resulting in players needing to take a "break" after or during the climax before continuing. It's not necessarily required, but it isn't discouraged. The game also scales down for a shyer audience, providing a smaller window of escalation for those who aren't interested in going "all the way." Players of all level of experience or inhibition are given room to enjoy themselves as they see fit.

There's also a strip-gaming mechanic, for some classic adult party game antics and a whole bunch of scenarios and alternate play modes to fit the game to your group, whether that means dialing it back to touchless or turning it up for an elaborate BDSM party, plus tips for preparing your group and agreeing on communal boundaries.

Also, if you'd like a quick sample for free, check out Quickie Foreplay here. It's just the tip.

PnP RPGOTY 2018

 

[CryptRat]

This could be promising, but you play as a pregenerated dude gathering companions and more important they do not detail how the world and various features (story, events, items) are created and/or placed (what's handcrafted/handplaced, what's random, how does the tarot deck work?) so I'm not really sure about what to expect :

 

[udm]

GI Joe-like tabletop skirmish game/RPG. Looks like it may be able to do a Jagged Alliance-type game well, but we'll see. They'll be releasing a Quickstart shortly.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Jenkem]

 

[Dexter]

Infinitron Who this guy? https://www.reddit.com/user/StewartBell

 

[Infinitron]

From 2010: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/119808/New_UK_Publisher_Ant_Games_Emerges.php

Stewart Bell, former managing director of Microprose

 

[Zombra]

Geez, this looks like a MicroProse game.

I'm still mad at them for canning Guardians: Agents of Justice.

 

[Dexter]

http://archive.is/zUR1P

Developer Accuses Project Phoenix Director of Embezzling $1 Million From Kickstarter

Jason Schreier
19 minutes ago

Concept art for Hiroaki Yura’s newest game, Tiny Metal

Game developer Tariq Lacy has accused director Hiroaki Yura of stealing money from a Kickstarter called Project Phoenix to fund his latest game, Tiny Metal. Yura has fired back with his own allegations, accusing Lacy of sexual harassment, which Lacy denies. It’s a back-and-forth mudslinging fight and yet another piece of drama surrounding Yura’s disastrous $1 million Kickstarter project.

Rumors have been swirling about Project Phoenix since it first popped up in 2013, and among independent game developers in Japan, the million-dollar Kickstarter campaign has long been a source of consternation. Promising to “set a new standard of excellence for the Japanese gaming industry,” Project Phoenix raised $1,014,600 from 15,802 backers before failing to meet its deadlines. In 2015, Yura said the game would be delayed an additional three years. And in April 2017, Yura told backers that he planned to release a different game first, explaining that he’d found some investors who would be willing to help back Project Phoenix if this new game succeeded.

That new game is Tiny Metal, which was planned for release tomorrow before it received a last-minute delay to December 21. And Lacy, who worked as a marketing and PR manager on Tiny Metal, took to the Project Phoenix Twitter and Facebook accounts to accuse Yura’s company of running a scam.

Here’s what he wrote:

Two months after I was hired at AREA 35, I had learned that the company funded this project by running a scam through Kickstarter. They gathered several famous creators and ran a campaign known as “Project Phoenix”, then used the $1,000,000 received from the campaign to fund the “TINY METAL” project.

Here’s how it happened: after they received the Kickstarter money for Project Phoenix, they subsequently shut down their original company (Creative Intelligence Arts, or “CIA”), then used that same money to establish AREA 35 and pay for staff, equipment, and an office to make TINY METAL.

The company’s CEO, Hiroaki Yura, asked me to deflect any accusations that this money was from anyone other than private investors; in actuality, Hiroaki only dipped into his own funds and asked for money from private investors after the funding that he had secured for TINY METAL was running low. I refused this request to fabricate and minimize the truth for the purpose of misleading others, then told Hiroaki to remove me from all matters regarding Project Phoenix so that I would not be implicated in this affair.

You will notice progress reports on the Project Phoenix Kickstarter blog, as well as their official Project Phoenix blog. These were written periodically by Hiroaki Yura himself in order to squander doubts that the project was dead. The nature of these blog entries, through their infrequency and intentional ambiguity, reveals to us that the project never was meant to be released. To Hiroaki, this ruse under the guise of a campaign and blog was merely an effective means to receive funding while removing any obligations to investors.

Although the people behind Project Phoenix quickly deleted these posts, they spread quickly amongst backers and observers who have long been frustrated by Yura’s long-delayed project. (I received nearly a dozen emails when it happened.)

When I reached out to Yura for comment, he fired back with his own allegations about Lacy. “The post was posted by a staff whose contract has been bought out due to him being a toxic employee who has sexually harassed our female staff amongst many other problems,” Yura said in an e-mail. “The post is factually incorrect and thus was deleted from our account. That’s all we have to say for now, we’re looking into releasing legal documents and other proofs after discussing this with our lawyer.” Yura added that he couldn’t offer more details but said there were “three witnesses to that happening during that time.”

Lacy denied these accusations, saying in an e-mail, “No, Hiroaki’s statement about me being toxic and sexually harassing a staff member is not true. He is reacting to my statement with libel.” He also sent over a few hundred logs from the company’s Slack chat channel, although upon review, few if any of those logs appear to be relevant to either claim.

Yura said the Project Phoenix Kickstarter money went into the creation of the alpha build, which was poorly received by fans. He added that he’d also invested money he received from other jobs, like his work on the Square Enix game I Am Setsuna. “So in effect, not only did we use up the Kickstarter money and we have the assets to show for it, we also pitched in quite a bit of funds ourselves as apparent through all the videos, concepts, assets, gameplay that we have shown over the years,” Yura said in an e-mail. “Tiny Metal[‘s] initial investment came from a group of investors from Australia. This wasn’t enough however, to finish the development so the rest came through a deal with Sony Music Entertainment.”

This all makes for an ugly, public battle that will no doubt hang over the release of Tiny Metal, and it’s yet another blemish on a Kickstarter project that many backers suspect will never happen.

 

[udm]

Jesus I almost had a heart attack when I misread that as 'Phoenix Point'.

 

[Zombra]

Roguelike faction-based game where you can live or die based on your fashion choices or romantic subtleties. Are you kidding, of course I backed.

 

[Merlkir]

Oh, Jeremy, why you gotta be like that?! I still like your music...
(Probably the most ridiculous and funniest KS I backed)

Four And A Half Years After Raising $121,000, Skyrim Composer's Kickstarter Is MIA [UPDATE]
https://kotaku.com/four-and-a-half-years-after-raising-121-000-skyrim-co-1820800661

 

[Infinitron]

Drama in Patreon land:

 

[Grauken]

Yeah, it's the perfect opener for Kickstarter's Drip, if they act smart Patreon is history

 

[Infinitron]

https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/

We messed up. We’re sorry, and we’re not rolling out the fees change.

Creators and Patrons,

We’ve heard you loud and clear. We’re not going to rollout the changes to our payments system that we announced last week. We still have to fix the problems that those changes addressed, but we’re going to fix them in a different way, and we’re going to work with you to come up with the specifics, as we should have done the first time around. Many of you lost patrons, and you lost income. No apology will make up for that, but nevertheless, I’m sorry. It is our core belief that you should own the relationships with your fans. These are your businesses, and they are your fans.

I’ve spent hours and hours on the phone with creators, and so has the Patreon team. Your feedback has been crystal clear:

• The new payments system disproportionately impacted $1 – $2 patrons. We have to build a better system for them.
• Aggregation is highly-valued, and we underestimated that.
• Fundamentally, creators should own the business decisions with their fans, not Patreon. We overstepped our bounds and injected ourselves into that relationship, against our core belief as a business.

We recognize that we need to be better at involving you more deeply and earlier in these kinds of decisions and product changes. Additionally, we need to give you a more flexible product and platform to allow you to own the way you run your memberships.

I know it will take a long time for us to earn back your trust. But we are utterly devoted to your success and to getting you sustainable, reliable income for being a creator. We will work harder than ever to build you tools, functionality, and income, and our team won’t rest until Patreon is making that happen.

If you haven’t sent us a note yet, or if you don’t see your concerns listed above, please leave us your feedback here.

Thanks for continuing to create. We are nothing without you, and we know that.

Jack

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Merlkir]

They know their audience! (there's a Czech translation! O_O)

Oh man, we're so gonna play this with my flatmate. She loves those movies more than I do.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meriwether/meriwether-an-american-epic/posts/2074830

Meriwether is out on Steam Early Access

Hey backers,

We are very excited to announce that, at long last, Meriwether is now on Steam Early Access! We also have a hot new trailer! You can check out both at http://meriwethergame.com.

You've each been given a Steam key for the game. To redeem it, log in to Humble.com, go to Dashboard->Keys->Reveal Key->Redeem. Note that this is more or less the same build as you already have through Humble.

We are using Steam Early Access as one final opportunity to collect feedback and bug reports from players. Early next year we will do one more final big push to address this new feedback, and then we'll release on actual Steam, to the public!

Thanks for sticking with us all these years!

Josh & the Meriwether Team

edit.

 

[CryptRat]

The small team behind The tenth line launched a Kickstarter for a tactical RPG :

They've got a playable demo.

 

[Abu Antar]

The small team behind The tenth line launched a Kickstarter for a tactical RPG :

They've got a playable demo.

I played the demo. My prediction: I won't like the writing, but it's very likely that I will enjoy actual gameplay.

 

[LESS T_T]

There were only three video game crowdfunding projects raised more than $1m last year (PoE 2, Ashes of Creation, some JRPG-ish based on French web series): http://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/...rowdfunding-estimated-to-have-brought-in-25m/

And tabletop games raised $136m in 2017 in compassion to video games' $25m.

2017 video games crowdfunding estimated to have brought in $25m

The amount of money raised by crowdfunding platforms dipped by less than two per cent in 2017, according to figures from Ico Partners.

In a piece written for PCGamesInsider.biz, the firm's chief Thomas Bidaux says that estimates point to $25m being raised by video game crowdfunding year-over-year. This doesn't include money raised by on-going projects, such as Star Citizen.

Kickstarter is still leading the pack, unsurprisingly, with the company itself releasing figures that point to $17.25m being raised on its platform in 2017. 350 video games project were successfully funded year-on-year, but this represents a nine per cent decrease on 2016.

Interestingly, the campaigns that made in excess of $1m all did so via different platforms.

"There were only three projects that raised more than $1m, and each project was funded on a different platform: Ashes of Creation found its success on Kickstarter; Pillars of Eternity 2 sought its funding on Fig; and Noob The Video game was the first video game to raise more than $500,000 on Ulule, a platform particularly popular in France," Bidaux wrote.

"Noob is the largest campaign the platform has ever hosted. While I won’t go as far as to say that platform doesn't matter - it does - it elegantly highlights that the communities are what matter the most.

"Looking at raw numbers of projects, Kickstarter is still the uncontested leading platform for video games crowdfunding, with 350 video games campaigns being successful there in 2017. That, however, represents a nine per cent drop from 2016, with some of those projects going to other platforms like Fig. There is no growth, then, but there is no collapse either."

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]