So, IndieGameStand has Geneforge 1 through 5 up for the next 70 or so hours for the fabulous price of Pay What You Want! These are some hard old-school RPG games that boast some decision making as well as a intriguing spell system. These games come with STEAM keys as well as GOG keys, provided you pay at least $1 which is well worth the asking price, considering comparable smartphone apps/games provide less value and content in most cases.
Credit goes to NeoGAF and user Toma for bringing this deal to our attention. There's also a great Official Thread for the franchise. Both threads provide great information on what these games are and what they can offer an RPG fan. The fine folks there can more eloquently detail these games than I could hope to do so in a single post, so please, check out the threads and these games.
What better way to get yourself to quit a bad habit than having your beloved technological device nag you about it? Have a hard time nipping that nail-biting habit? How about just doing your laundry every week? Scooping that litter box? Showering on a daily basis?
DropKicker has got your back. With the power to hold a quasi-conversation with you perhaps you'll be motivated by goal-oriented milestones and quick facts that can give you the positive reinforcement you need. Check out the Kickstarter page for a more detailed run-down of what this app hopes to achieve to help you achieve being a better person... or just better at cleaning up your computer desk.
Thankfully, this project is already way over the funding it needed and once you see the above video and some of the images on the Kickstarter page, you’ll be thankful too. There is just something absolutely blissful about an adorable solitary soul left in a world of water and skies to fish their life away. The simple stuff is what makes Sealark worthy of attention.
Joshua Cross, known as Clairvoire, is an exceptional, self-taught, pixel artist who has a humble game in the making. Boasting a partnership with, quite talented, Flashygoodness, Sealark is shaping up to be quite the wondrous title swimmingly. With all the stretch-goals met, backers and future players alike can look forward to season changes, migratory paths of fish and other wildlife, deep sea diving, fishing, and a multitude of other activities. Like a proverbial Harvest Moon meets Steve Zissou, this is most certainly one to keep on the radar.
With about 800% of it's intended funding and 10 days left on the clock, as of now, Sealark will hopefully be hitting PC, Mac, and Linux by July 2013!
A Poke’mon MMO – Not official, but still pretty rad!
The guys over at Pokemmo.eu have a solid foundation for one of the best Poke’mon games ever made and it wasn’t done by Nintendo.
Developed using the Fire Red and Leaf Green version of the Poke’mon franchise they have created an online Poke’mon game that includes Player vs Player Poke’mon matches, in game chat and cooperative play. You can experience the original games with as little or as much player interruption as you would like.
While we haven’t checked the game out yet for ourselves, we can definitely say that if you’re a Poke’mon fan you may want to check it out for yourself and hope Nintendo doesn’t send them a cease and desist letter anytime soon.
It isn’t every day that you have the opportunity to speak to a game designer, but the development team behind Gary Games is giving the public that exact opportunity.
This Friday, the Gary Games team will be available for a live Q & A from 1pm to 3pm (PDT). Follow the link: www.twitch.tv/bmkibler
If you haven’t pledged money towards SolForge then be sure to tune in, you may also want to take a look at some of the prototype cards that they’ve released. It’s worth noting that the Magic: the Gathering (MtG) influence is fairly strong. Here are some examples:
Fire cards in MtG often focused on dealing direct damage to Target Players or Creatures. Not too different from what you can see here.
Forest cards in MtG focused on Creature Buffs
White cards focused on giving players additional life or increasing the defense of white creatures.
While Black cards immediately destroyed target creatures.
As you can see some of these main elements will be prevalent in SolForge, but perhaps it’s just a starting point before they reveal less familiar concepts and mechanics. Regardless, if you already pledged towards SolForge it’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss.
Currently at: $222,747 out of $250,000
Promised Platforms: iPhone, iPad and Android Devices
Starter Deck Pledge Amount: $25
Want more information: SolForge
Expiration Date: September 10th
Phantasy Star Generation:1 Translation Released – Better Late Than Never
A member of Phantasy Star Cave, a Phantasy Star fan site, has recently released a translation to the PS2 remake of the original Phantasy Star. Rereleased as Phantasy Star Generation: 1 in Japan, it was never released and brought to the United States. Thankfully PS Cave member, Kyence, took it upon herself to release it earlier this week.
Footage of the translation can be found on her youtube channel as well as some commentary to explain her process and the reason behind some of the changes she made to the game.
Fans of the Japanese Role Playing genre may find this release to be the perfect way to spend a weekend and learn a little bit more about that ‘other’ JRPG series.
Phantasy Star Generation: 1 was originally released for PS2 in 2003.
Learn more about the translation and download it here:
http://pscave.com/psg1/download/
Here's the second installment of our Weekly update round-ups! Unfortunately, it's a little quicker than last week, but hit the link break below to read about all the status updates of projects that you should probably keep your eye on. Have a fun and safe Labor Day Weekend, World.
Project Giana Updates:
Project Giana is fully funded and is now up for Steam's new community driven Greenlight:
There's a pretty intriguing game on Kickstarter that has a demo! Personally, I couldn't get it to launch, but I'm on a fresh new computer so I'm missing Java and some other knick-knacks, but for those of you settled in with your hardware, give it a shot:
Organ Trail Review – Going One Step Further With A Homage
Organ Trail is a Kickstarter success story that began with a good idea and delivered more than it promised.
Like us, you’re probably tired of zombies. With exception to the Left 4 Dead series or the Walking Dead franchise, we can probably do no better than to stop antagonizing the zombie concept. Ironically, it’s for that very reason that we really shouldn't give Organ Trail a chance that it so beautifully succeeds.
Organ Trail takes a classic game from our formative years, Oregon Trail, and redecorates it from edutainment to pop culture. At the core, the game focuses on the same concept, survival. Like Oregon Trail, the objective of the game is to survive the entire route. At the start you get to name your companions and are given the opportunity to gather the resources and consumables you believe you’ll need to succeed. Spend your limited starting time stocking on food supplies and car parts and you may fail to collect enough money for unexpected emergencies or lack the sufficient number of first aid kits. While on the onset, your early choices may seem extremely valuable, they will appear less significant as your journey continues.
The game stays true to its roots and plays exactly like Oregon Trail, but it’s a homage with a big payoff. Roughly 30-50% of your time with Organ Trail will be spent looking at your station wagon traveling across the United States while your resources drain away. Your gas will plummet, your characters’ health bars will decrease, your best friend will get dysentery and for no reason your characters will break an arm. In these instances it won’t be a bad idea to stop and rest to recuperate health or use a first aid kit. Characters gain more health in cities and you have an opportunity to trade with NPCs, a good way to trade items you have a surplus of, in exchange for items you’re without. Assuming of course, anyone wants your excess (which is not often). If you have any amount of nostalgia for Oregon Trail, you’re likely to get hooked, but these aspects are really only half of what makes Organ Trail worth jumping into.
The other half of Organ Trail is consumed by the game’s ability to coalesce zombie culture from the geek zeitgeist into real gameplay scenarios. If you’ve entrenched yourself within enough zombie games, shows or movies, you will find yourself thinking, ‘hey, didn’t something like this happen in ‘such or such.” Similarly to the characters in the Walking Dead you’ll be defending the wagon from incoming zombies, foraging for food and fighting off fellow non-zombies .
Whether intentional or not, the game’s pace does a great job of replicating what you would expect to happen in a true zombie apocalypse. You’ll forget the zombies are even a threat when you’re fully stocked up on supplies, but find yourself out of food or ammo and watch the pace come to a sluggish halt, the game’s biggest weakness. That’s not to say the mini games are bad. In most cases they involve shooting zombies with your shotgun in a motion similar to Angry Birds, pull back and release to fire. The problem is the frequency in which you must play them. While the game’s mini games are fairly skill based, they range from exceptionally difficult to exceptionally easy, but when a typical turn takes a simple tap, bogging down your journey with mini game after mini game as you try to gather the resources you need to continue quickly wears thin.
Whether you played Oregon Trail or not, doesn’t really matter, if you haven’t been living under a rock, the ‘nods’ to zombie culture is more than enough to help you ‘get it.’ While I played the game on my iPad, I found myself thinking it was more apt for a phone. The game is more fun in bursts than long play sessions and if you know someone that isn’t hugely into gaming, I believe it has universal appeal. For $2.99 it’s easy to recommend.
If there's one genre that has risen from the cold ashes seemingly overnight, it would, without a doubt, be the 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) Space Strategy genre. It is almost impossible to go a month without a new space strategy game being announced, with a vast majority of them heading to PC or mobile devices. In a lot of ways technology has finally caught up to the grand scope these games demand and the end-user can now enjoy a beautifully, truly realized experience. Sins of the Solar Empire is the most widely known today, but there are a plethora of smaller, lesser known titles that have their own unique quirks and gameplay mechanics. Sidius Nova is hoping to bring the grand scale of the 4X to iOS mobile devices. Where most mobile ventures aim for one specific aspect of the genre, Sidius Nova is looking to encompass every aspect that fans of the genre expect.
Spanning from the turn-based Galaxy Map all the way to the micro-managed real-time battles, this game is quite ambitious, to say the least. The aspect that will truly make this shine however is, unfortunately the most costly and surely will require much more than the initial funding goal covers - the potential for multiplayer, and even further, a persistent universe! A wet-dream no doubt for 4X fans, with the scale and intrigue of EVE Online in the portability of an iPhone. Granted, they've almost made their $3,000 dollar goal with just less than two weeks to go.
Lead game designer and programmer, Stefan Schmitt, has prior experience working on: World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, as well as Diablo 3. Ben Jelter will be heading up all the art assets and has a solid background as well; for a two man effort, they definitely have a good backing. Perhaps in the coming days they will unveil some new reward tiers to help boost funding, as currently the incentives to pledge higher are not too enticing. A mere $5 secures a copy of the game while the much higher $50 grants beta access. Some rewards in-between could certainly spark more pledges or increase current ones, provided people perceive purposeful persuasion.
Presently, Sidius Nova is exclusive to iPod Touch and various iPhones. Funding is just above $2,000 of their $3,000 goal, which closes on September 9th. Stetch goals consist of Android support as well as multiplayer integration.
Here's the beginning of our planned weekly updates! Obviously, this'll be a fairly quick read, but plenty packed with images and videos, so click the "Read More" link to jump to all the updates on the latest batch of Kickstarter projects!
SolForge Updates:
Gary Games, Inc. have released full footage of the gameplay of SolForge that was demoed at PAX. It details the turn-by-turn play, when sharing a device. They also added a new reward tier: $60, which gives you $60 in-game currency as well as all previous tier rewards.
Today they updated with a couple new reward tiers: $175, gracing you with $299 in-game currency as well as all rewards in the $50 tier and below. The new $180 level grants you the same, but with a t-shirt! There's also a new wallpaper, for those inclined.
Uberent have revealed a couple of their planned stretch goals. Water drenched planets as well as naval warfare and gas giants with orbital space stations, which both sound amazing!
With less than 30 hours to go, this particular project has seen an astronomically high amount of support (over 820% funded!) and have recently straightened out Paypal pledging opportunities. Accompanying is an early photo of an in-progress x-ray vision for gameplay.
Black Forest Games have released playable levels of Project Giana, so if you're in-the-know have fun with this super early build of a couple of the game's levels.
Less than five days remain on the clock for The Other Brothers, a nostalgic retread of adventure platformers. Starring a mechanic brother duo on a quest to save a damsel in distress, it revels in familiar themes. Their journey goes from junkyards to sewers and beyond. The pixel art is charming and the backdrops appear really well done. Björn Hurri boasts previous Lead Artist roles on numerous AAA titles, such as Dead Space 2, Spec Ops: Front Line, Infamous 2, and Shadowrun as well as securing that position for development of The Other Brothers.
They are just shy of the halfway point in meeting their $50,000 goal currently, but are really pushing the reward tiers, such as putting backers into the game, adding small quests revolving around the big donors, along with t-shirts and art books. The gameplay looks to be a bit more involved than what would be expected in a Mario Bros. game, with enemies taking multiple head concussions before finally succumbing to unconsciousness and simultaneous multiplayer (on the same device). Animations in this early footage seem stiff and are probably place-holders or incomplete at the moment, but the sounds and music up to this point are fitting and pleasing.
The Other Brothers will be headed to iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, Ouya, and potentially consoles or any other platform. Funding closes Wednesday, August 29th. $15 secures 2 copies of the game, perhaps for sharing with a brother. Currently the project has almost $24,000 pledged out of the total $50,000 needed to be fully funded.
The mind behind Binding of Isaac and one of the helping hands for the pulpy Super Meat Boy is rounding up a very tender bundle for his fans. The Basement Collection is an amalgamation of Edmund McMillen’s prior works, creating a nine game pack, all for the small asking price of $4 on Steam. If that isn’t enough to get you to bite, just about every game is going to have something added, such as new levels or control options.
For a lot of people, this is a great way to muscle their way to owning Super Meat Boy for dollar-menu pricing, but it’s all the additional content outside of just the gaming goodness that’ll satiate any hunger pangs. Soundtracks, audio commentary, playable tech demos, development documents, and quite a few things more are all up for consumption when this lands at the end of the month.
The Basement Collection will be available through Steam, supporting Windows and Mac. It will only be $4 and will become available on August 31st. Until then, perhaps contemplate consuming cup cakes, Binding of Isaac style.
Fans of Plants vs. Zombies (PvZ) may want to watch out for this one as it could easily be your next addiction. Evilot is a Puzzle/Defense game coming to Android, iOS, PC, Mac, Linux and OUYA, inspired heavily by Plants vs Zombies. However, rather than protecting your home from waves of zombies, you must play as ‘Count Dolfus’ defending his estate from heroes and adventures that scurry the land of Evilot.
Similarly to Plants vs Zombies, heroes and adventurers cross the screen from right to left in horizontal lanes. To prevent them from reaching the left side of the screen you must lay units in their path to destroy them or slow them down. At a glance the game looks similar to PvZ, however the developers have added a few puzzle mechanics to add a layer of complexity to the familiar gameplay. For example, placing units side by side can increase the unit type’s level; sacrificing quantity of units in lieu of stronger units.
While the examples only show horizontal units, lining them up vertically has the same effect. While their kickstarter hasn’t gone in depth regarding all of the puzzle elements that will be in Evilot, they seem to be off to a good start.
Comparing Evilot to Plants vs Zombies is unavoidable as the games visual presentation is so similar, but with a uniquely cute art style and a solid soundtrack, Evilot is definitely making a case for itself. Plus, we could all use more Plants vs Zombies styled gameplay to begin with.
Evilot is on the path to a full release regardless of whether or not it reaches its funding goal, but they do promise to release a more polished experience if their goal is met.
If the goal is reached they promise to release 50 levels, 15 playable units, 5 summons and over 8 hours of gameplay. Additional money will go towards orchestrating the 11 song soundtrack and adding additional content like more levels and more game modes. For $10 pledgers will receive a digital release of the game for their preferred platform and for $15 pledgers will receive the game on all platforms. Not a bad deal if you opened your wallet more than once for Plants vs Zombies.
KickStarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/syrenaica/evilot
Currently at: $5,211 out of $10,000
Promised Platforms: iOS, Android, Mac, PC, Linux, OUYA
Receive a Digital Copy: $10
Want more information: Evilot
Expiration Date: September 7th
If there’s one game company that has nailed down the retro pixel art aesthetic, it is without a doubt the cast of characters that now make up Tribute Games. These are the guys responsible for the fantastic Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, as well as Wizorb. Now they are looking to pump out Mercenary Kings, an ambitious new Metal Slug-like with weapon crafting and other character building features.
Boasting 4 player co-op along with several “stretch goals” and plenty of weapon choices, the team seems to have a clear vision in terms of goals. Even if they don’t break the other milestone pledges, they’ve stated that they’ll to use the profits from the finished game’s release to work on those features as future DLC and updates. The released gameplay footage already has all the charm and fluidity fans have come to expect from the developers’ previous undertakings and they’ve already surpassed 75% of the funding needed.
This project is a fairly safe bet, considering it’s following in Metal Slug’s footsteps. These guys have nailed writing love letters to genres of the past; from treading new ground in Arkanoid/ Breakout territory, to reveling in the glory of sidescrolling brawlers in Scott Pilgrim. Their track record is clean and quite polished.
Mercenary Kings’ deadline is September 13th, with a goal of $75,000. Currently planned platforms are PC and Mac (post-launch), with stretch goals looking to mobile devices as well as potentially consoles. $15 secures a digital copy, while $80+ gets you early access to a beta.
From bacon obsession to bemoaning RTS recession, Uber Entertainment, the guys behind the recent F2P hit Super Monday Night Combat, are looking to pump some originality into the fairly stagnant genre of real-time strategy games with their current Kickstarter Project: Planetary Annihilation. It’s a spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, an RTS from the 90’s, all about robots destroying one another, but now it will be on an interplanetary scale. Boasting procedurally generated planets, up to 40-player games, massive amounts of units, DRM-free, and LAN support. Uber is certainly cooking up a winning combination.
In just 24 hours they have surpassed $250,000 in pledges of their $900,000 overall goal. Even they know they have something good on their hands, as they have a handful of “Stretchgoals” should the funding continue on in the remaining 28 days. With a plethora of good pledge rewards and an already blazing word of mouth notoriety, it is pretty much a done deal this will see the funding it deserves. The company’s track record is solid and they actually have a decent history in the RTS genre, with certain members of the team having had worked on Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, Command and Conquer, and Demigod. On the project page they make it abundantly clear how involved the community will be both pre and post launch. Custom servers, mod support, custom units, new gametypes, and user generated maps are just some of the early highlights for this project with more surely to be unveiled down the line, with more funding.
One major feature not detailed in the video is the fact that battles can be on such a grand scale to be inter-galactic. Laying claim to several planets, a player will be able to manage several armies around sections of the galaxy as they strive for dominance in true 4X space strategy game fashion. The idea of blowing multiple planets up in a single turn is enough to make the Death Star seem elementary to the amount of destruction this game promises. Though, supporting 40 players at a time brings up a question about potential gametypes, such as a prospective asynchronous method, akin to the recent strategy game, Frozen Synapse.
The official site has up-to-date details for the future Windows, Mac, and Linux RTS. Project funding deadline is Friday, September 14th (Current funding: ~$340,000 as of this writing). People that pledge at least $40 will receive early beta access as well as entrance to a private discussion community.
KickStarter: SolForge - Bringing eSports To Your iPhone
SolForge is a digital card game (DCG) in the works by Gary Games, the development team behind the recently successful deck building card game Acension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. At the moment, Gary Games is looking to crowd fund SolForge and to develop it with the help of Richard Garfield, the father of the Trading Card Game genre and the creator of Magic: the Gathering. If they succeed, this game just might revolutionize the way we look at iOS games.
Whether Apple meant to or not, their industry disruptive iOS devices changed the entire market. The perceived value for certain genres plummeted while other genres got an unexpected resurrection. Puzzle games are definitely a genre that’s a hard sell for the average consumer and it’s unconceivable for publishers to sell them for the standard retail price of $59.99 or even $39.99. Planet Puzzle League for DS was one of the last Puzzle games to retail for normal MSRP and still receive a positive reception. That was released in 2007. Now-a-days it’s fairly common for the iOS marketplace to have an assortment of puzzle games for .99 cents to $4.99.
While Puzzle games must sell more volume to maintain the same level of success, Shoot'em Ups have simply received another source of revenue through the iOS and Android marketplace. Before the success and popularity of the Xbox Live Market place, Shoot’em ups were in a strange place. Few made it over stateside with a positive impression. Einhander, R-Type Final, and Ikaruga are the only ones to come to mind.
With all of that being said, certain genres have flooded to iOS devices simply because ‘it makes sense.’ The down fall of this is that the App Marketplace has become filled with games that ‘core players’ consider ‘casual,’ or simply lacking depth.
SolForge on the other hand is promising a League of Legends type of experience on your handheld devices. SolForge is being crafted with the competitive scene in mind. Traditional tournaments, draft tournaments and sealed deck formats have already been promised. Like traditional trading card games, SolForge players can purchase booster packs, starter decks and can alter their game decks in any way they please to find the most effect strategies.
Also like League of Legends, the game promises to be free-to-play. While it’s safe to guess that micro-transactions will be involved to allow players to spend real cash on cards, they have promised that earning in game currency for said cards will be achievable 'reasonably' just by playing the game. With regular updates and balance patches this could become a game that the theoretical ‘core gamer’ keeps on their radar and plays regularly on their iOS device.
While the majority of the game is under wraps, we can gather some information from the Kickstarter and screen shots from the game in development on how the game is played. Players alternate turns and draw 5 cards when their turn comes up. They play 2 of them and discard the rest. Every 4 turns their discard pile and their library get shuffled into one another.
Players have a 2x5 field in front of them consisting of 5 ‘lanes,’ each lane can hold two creatures. Creature can likely attack creatures in opposing lane, and like Magic: The Gathering, if a player does not have creatures in the targeted lane, then the player themselves take the hit. The objective of the game being to reduce your opponent's health to zero. Specifics of deck size and player’s life have yet to be revealed, but Justin Gary, founder of Gary Games, promises the game will be easy to play, but difficult to master.
If you are a fan of traditional table top games or collectible card games I’d recommend pledging on this Kickstarter. As of this writing the game needs another $150,000 in 25 days and $350,000 to reach their Android device stretch goal. For now, I’d expect this game to get released one way or another and when it does, expect it to change the way we look at our iOS devices.
Currently at: $104,967 out of $250,000
Promised Platforms: iPhone, iPad and potentially Android Devices
Beta Pledge Amount: $5
Want more information: SolForge
Expiration Date: September 10th
At the most basic level, Kickstarter struggles to present projects to people in a way that would encourage them to pledge, or even explore themselves. The site and staff try to spotlight projects for every category, and those invariably get more funding than any of the other comparable projects. Unless there is a big name behind a project (particularly related to gaming-side) to garner attention of outside communities, resulting in plenty of word-of-mouth spreading, they usually go unnoticed and unfunded. The power of spotlighting or even highlighting why people should look at a project is the backbone of Kickstarter's core problem of presentation. The search bar at the top of the site is completely useless. You are either there because a friend or someone linked you to a specific project, or you are blindly scrolling through projects, judging each one by the banner image or project title. Why would anyone know what they were looking for on a website that is full of unheard of projects and concepts? Search should be uprooted and replaced with an “Explore” function.
A website that makes exploring content enjoyable is deviantART. Not only do they provide a thorough browsing functionality, but they provide spotlighting, based on the community and staff, to stir interest as you fine-tune your search. If Kickstarter could have people creating the projects further identify the categories and subcategories that their project would fall into, it would make the exploration aspect that much easier for the potential "pledger". In turn, there would be greater value placed within the “popular projects” spotlight section on the main site, as well as help staff sift through content to spotlight.
A website all about crowd funding without having a way for the “crowd” to connect borders on oxymoron. It appears Kickstarter has a few inklings about what they would want to happen in terms of satisfying the sharing nature of internet denizens, mainly boiled down to Facebook. All that exists now is seeing what your friends have “backed” and then being able to see what you support in return. Incredibly crude, but perhaps they do have more trickling down in the pipeline somewhere. The actual profile on Kickstarter is little more than a way for your wallet to log in. You can send private messages, comment on project updates, post your personal site, and not much else. When it comes to introducing people to things that would most interest them, there aren't many places that can beat Last.FM.
Though Last.FM is strictly for music, it helps the user find anything and everything they could want involving music. Whether it is a new artist or band they may like, albums releasing soon, tour dates in their area for shows they would like, to even people that have similar tastes in music. The number of possibilities for the single user to get pulled into the social web is so easy to accomplish that someone would either have to not visit the site, or rigorously ignore the features that are there solely to improve the user's experience – both online and off. Recommendations could very well make a lot more projects on Kickstarter successful and help backers and starters better communicate and connect. Having recommendations based on projects the user has backed, trending projects for their area/state/region, or even communities within Kickstarter that work together to highlight projects they feel the collective would be interested in would all be a great starting point in terms of incorporating more social networking aspects into the site.
For the most part Kickstarter is still in an adolescent phase and a lot of these things are such no-brainers, they are surely in the pipeline behind the scenes. At least, one would certainly hope so. For now, it seems most people are ecstatic that something like Kickstarter even exists.
