Kickstarter Games, have you supported before? Share new ones!

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I’ve recently been introduced to a new Kickstarter project that really picked my interest, courtesy of Get Indie Gaming coverage of the new indie releases. But what are we talking about? It’s called Temtem, and it’s a Pokemon inspired Indie Monster Master MMO (MMMMO?).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cremagames/temtem-massively-multiplayer-creature-collection-a?ref=home_recommended_logged_out

Personal Story Time

I’ve always wanted a Pokemon game that you could play with other people and I’ve never really got it from the official Pokemon games, I was a huge fan back when I was but a little furball, keeping up with the new releases of handheld devices and new games was a bit tough. The Pokemon Go craze wasn’t something that I was interested in, it wasn’t really a pokemon battle game. The closest I got to that dream was when playing Pokemon Revolution Online, a fan-made pokemon MMO and I’ve enjoyed every second.

Temtem is a fresh new adventure with most of the interesting features that the Pokemon Universe has provided and a bit of their own, the team behind seems to be a really talented one and ready to give the love this title deserves, I’m really inclined to give them my support. They are Crema, the developers of today’s Chrono Deal: Immortal Redneck. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about their Kickstarter project and Kickstarter itself. And give their project a small boost perhaps?

Tell me, have you backed a Kickstarter before? Or any other crowdfunding campaign? Do you have any recommendations that you would like to share with others and get some more backers, maybe one of your own?

In my case, I’ve only backed once, for the upcoming IGAvania Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. A record breaking campaing at the time that I’m eager to play. But, I’ve missed some other Kickstarters that I wish I was aware of them at the time of their campaing. It’s not something I can do all the time too, the currency conversion is a problem for people like me when we want to support indie developers this way.

Cuddles to @YQMaoski for the inspiration to create this discussion topic, check the other ones aswell: https://206.81.1.216/t/you-must-play-this-seriously-while-it-is-on-sale/10564 and https://206.81.1.216/t/new-releases-that-you-really-want-top-o-wishlist/10533 :wink:

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Temtem looks super adorable! I usually don’t do multiplayer games, but this might be an exception.

Likewise, I had was pretty loyally following Pokemon since Pokemon Blue/Red/Yellow. I have loved all of the games I played then, but of course multiplayer was never an option. I stopped playing a few generations in, and I can’t remember why. Perhaps it was due to not having any Nintendo handhelds beyond the GBA. I eventually acquired a DSLite but I stopped playing Pokemon.

Hehe… regarding backing kickstarter, I backed Mighty No 9. That really didn’t work out. I didn’t really have enough money on hand for a number of years, so with one disappointment, I have backed off from some others.

This is a really nice topic! :hugs:

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Star Citizen - By far the most money I have ever put into a game pre-release lol

Recent game that I backed

Current game that I am backing and the kickstater ends today

Other than those I do have tons of Early Access games that I have bought on Steam.

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My advice would be to take all campaigns with a grain of salt. Out of 9 games that I have backed;

  • 3 have matched my expectations of them and the promises made by the developers.
  • 2 others were garbage, with the feel that the developer lost interest in the project half way through.
  • 1 does not work at all thanks to the developer using hacked DLL files.
  • 2 games I am still waiting for, even though the promised delivery date was 2014
  • 1 I still hold out hope for (Prey/Praey for the Gods). Looks sweet and is only 6 months overdue

The problems that some developers have is they can bloat their games with stretch goals, not understand the scope of the project they are attempting, or just are unable to budget correctly ∗cough∗ Double Fine ∗cough∗.

Best to think of KIckstarter projects as a lottery ticket. If you have the disposable income and are happy to spend it knowing you may not get a return, go for it. You may get lucky.

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I’ve backed 4 projects over the years and haven’t really gotten anything yet.
24 Killers I have no idea why I backed it and it’s probably not coming out. I am getting updates a few times a year but there’s not much in them.
Drift Stage This is one that I really hope turns out well. The original demo was excellent and felt great. It would be neat if it finally came out this year after the delays.
Orange Juice Plushies Not a game but game related. Fruitbat has been reliable over the years and I’m pretty sure I’ll get my Star Breaker soon enough.
Mighty no :man_facepalming:t3: Yeah I’d rather it have been actual vaporware.

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Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Is that how that goes? Doesn’t seem right.

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That Marie plush looks sweet as. :heart_eyes:

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They’re still up for pre-order on indiegogo if you want one.:+1:t3:
Poppo is actually shipping to backers within June according to an email I got today. SB was a later unlockable so I’ll have to wait some time.

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Successful campaigns I’ve backed:

TANK, a graphic novel in 4 parts. Pretty good read but short.

Lonely Mountains: Downhill, a mountain biking game. Pretty fun, although the full game has been pushed back a few months for the devs to rework the mountain system to allow multiple paths. Very active discord filled with mountain biking enthusiasts.

All Walls Must Fall, an amazing cyberpunk Neo-Berlin tactics game. Throughly happy with this one.

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness, recently ended. We’ll see what comes of it.

Jaws of Extinction [Reboot], also a recent one…not impressed with the demo so far. Might regret this one.

Backbone, also recent. Hyped for this one. Really really hyped. I love noir and dystopian themes and this looks like it can pull it off. all fingers crossed

To Trust an Incubus, lovely lovely smut.

☆◆◇Sakura Tempest ◇◆☆, more smut… there’s not nearly enough gay smut on steam.

Ghost Theory, the idea for this is awesome. Using photogrammetry to recreate reputed haunted houses to explore. The devs have been very very quiet though, so maybe they’ve succumed to the inhabitants of the places they’ve been photographing…

隣人-Neighbor, resurrection of a lost japanese horror game. The almost weekly videos of each newly cast voice actors is a reassuring touch that it’ll produce something.

So far so good!

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@YQMaoski When I played R/B/Y it wasn’t with a GBC of my own, it was from a friend that lend me for a week. I’ve gathered all batteries I could just to play the games to the max in that short time. It was such a luxury having a GameBoy, hehe

@Tencore They look quite insteresting, Wild Mage and “Monsters can be dynamically sliced into pieces” sounds like fun. :rofl:

@LordAo Oof, it’s one of the risks, yeah, Bloodstained at first didn’t look much like what they’ve presented but after sometime following the progress it’s turning into something I’m more pleased with. I’ll keep your advice in mind for future projects, thanks.

@Truly Drift Stage link doesn’t work, now I’m curious :thinking:. I have a friend who loves 100% Orange Juice, he’ll probably love to have one of these, lol

@orbus I’ve seen Lonely Mountains featured on Get Indie Gaming and since then I’ve added to my wishlist. Will keep an eye on the tactics ones too, I’m very into the genre. You got a pretty big list of backed games as well, you guys are crazy. :laughing: I have yet to touch any VN games I own, I guess I haven’t got into the mood of playing them and all the backlog games

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Man Temtem looks great! Definitely gonna keep an eye on that. Thanks!

I was about to ask you how you did it and how you dealt with the currency conversion and stuff, especially now when the dollar is all over the place. Exactly because of this I have an ‘unused’ Kickstarter account. The dollar is insane and the bank rates even more so, sadly. ):

RIP us.

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Doing it out of love! Although I have to content myself with the lower tiers, if I didn’t have the currency problem I would support more campaings for sure. Being able to help design something for the game is what I always wanted to do, but alas, it’s always only available to the highest of tiers :sweat_smile:

Me everytime I see the high tiers

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I’ve been burned on Kickstarter for a while. The only exception I made was Psychonauts 2 and Phoenix Point… and I missed both anyway. :expressionless:

My general rule is that I’ll buy into Early Access. If it isn’t already in a somewhat substantial state, there’s not enough for me to put actual money on the line for. The only real exception I have for that are the sort of all-star developers, like Gollop and Schafer.

On that note, here’s why I don’t trust Kickstarter: it’s not enough. You either have your campaign succeed with barely any money (a safe crowdfund) and have to pull funds from everywhere later, or you set the bar to what you need and fail hard (with the exception of Wasteland 2, which went on ahead and made its budget anyway). Fig is a much better platform. The longer campaigns, investor plugins, and everything else it does make it ideal for something as expensive as game development. That feels like an ACTUAL alternative funding method, and Kickstarter just doesn’t feel up to the task IMO.

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It’s interesting because I only had knowledge of Kickstarter and Indiegogo previously. Like I said, it isn’t something I’m able to look for every time. I’ll keep my eye on Fig as well, thanks for the info!

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Why would your exception be one of the most notorious companies to ever screw up a kickstarter?
I mean I can understand the desire for psychonauts 2, truly I do, but why would anyone ever trust Schafer with money anymore?

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They did kind of pull a magic trick to save Broken Age. The real reason I trust them is because, like it or not, they did fulfill their Kickstarter.

See, it’s interesting talking about the entire Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter, because it’s just such a confused story. The original goal: making a cheap point-and-click adventure, and documenting the entire process of making a new game. Then, they put it up and literally broke Kickstarter.

The problem is they got enough money to say “we have enough to take steps further,” but not enough to really fund a game of the scope they pushed for. I’ve also played Broken Age to [mostly] completion, and I really did enjoy it.

More than anything, the major Kickstarter fails seem to kind of throw around blame pointlessly, or simply say “this did it!” Not the case with Double Fine. They fulfilled their promise to document the entire development process, made even more important because they scaled things up to the point where DF’s future was staked on the game.

It’s been a great long while, so the documentary they made is now available on YouTube. It’s very well-done and doesn’t really try to hide anything.

I can see why Schafer set out to make Fig with the way their Kickstarter endeavors turned out. I always felt like Kickstarter seemed like a terrible place to fund games-- it seemed like the successes were in spite of using it, or just getting that tiny last bit of funding, instead of actually helping new projects take shape. It can’t handle game production.

More than anything, the reason why I still defend Tim Schafer to this day is the fact that Broken Age pulled through. Part 1 was almost universally praised, and while Part 2 received a lot of criticism for the way it ends (not really something a budget change could help), it was a subjectively great conclusion. The problems people had with it weren’t really a fault of their budgeting, but rather gameplay decisions that didn’t sit well with everyone. I actually found the puzzles to be quite logical, even after they ramped up the difficulty.

Fig is just generally a better platform. Higher goals don’t really have a problem there, and there’s a reason games like Pillars of Eternity 2 migrated to Fig.

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Well first off I strongly disagree with your main thesis that they saved Broken age and that they delivered on their kickstarter. The fact that they failed to deliver the full game with the money collected is damning in and of itself straight up on it’s own. That part 2 ended up hinging on the sales of the first part put the pledges of everyone who kickstarted it in additional jeopardy that should never have been the case.

The first part was alright, nothing exceptional by any point and click standards but it had an interesting concept and promised an intriguing story. Puzzle wise it was kind of bland and uninspired though, this continued in part 2 but here also the writing and the intrigue vanished and we ended up with a whole heaping load of trite BS and a complete failure to fully explore the setting and wrap up the plots that part 1 set up.

The reason I say they failed to deliver is because when they posted this kickstarter they promised “making a cheap point-and-click adventure” to use your words. What everyone expected was a good old fashioned point and click adventure game from Tim Schafer from Lucas Art’s golden years. THAT is what was promised, that is what was kickstarted for and it is by no means what was created.

Sure to some extent it is understandable. They ran into a situation that had never happened before and had to figure out how to handle that. I maintain that it was handled poorly and that the fallout of this event has ruined kickstartering games entirely.

If you put out a vision for your game and ask for money to create that game then that is the game you should create. Even if you end up getting more money than you could ever have imagined out of it, every person who pledged to buy this game from you wanted that vision that you presented. Not what you think you might be able to make instead, if only you had $3 mil.

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My bad, I fixed the url.:ok_hand:t4:

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I do not use kickstarter but maybe these fellow spaniards get funding of a couple of my friends (who are Pokemon fanatics) who maybe want to do it.

I like pokemon, rpgs and so but, being honest, the key part was the trading cards for me. And that void was replaced by Magic The Gathering.

Pretty cool post still, I’m glad I got to know of this!

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960

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