Our regularly revised feature keeps you up to date on the Kickstarter games worth watching, and helps you track projects both before and after they’re funded. New this week is an LGBT gamer convention, traditional Japanese woodblock art based on retro franchises, and a game about ducks.
Welcome to the Kickstarter Compendium, a gathering of games and game-related projects that we’ve come across that deserve your attention. The crowd-funding model for video games has resulted in some amazing new game ideas in recent months, and new projects are going up on a weekly basis that deserve your attention.
The only problem is keeping track of it all – what’s worth watching, and what are these different projects about? As an ongoing feature, our Kickstarter Compendium is your guide to games seeking funding through Kickstarter. After funding projects are complete, this feature will also track what games (and game-related projects) got funded and what games didn’t, and where possible, offer links to the projects as they are developed.
Games Seeking Funding
Bad Dudes 2
Developer: Pinstripe Games
Fundraising Goal: $80,000
Funds Due By: August 8, 2012
Bad Dudes 2 is the sequel to Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja, the cult beat-'em-up arcade game from 1988. The sequel intends to be fully licensed, and the plot will once again revolve around Blade and Striker rescuing the president.
Bad Planet
Developer: Red Fly Studio
Fundraising Goal: $575,000
Funds Due By: August 16, 2012
Bad Planet is based on the 2005 comic book with the same name. The game will be released episodically, and players will play as the Convict, an alien trying to save Earth from befalling the same fate as his home planet – utter destruction at the hands of creepy spider aliens. Combat will be third-person, over-the-shoulder, and gory.
Castle Story
Developer: Sauropod Studio
Fundraising Goal: $80,000
Funds Due By: August 26, 2012
Castle Story is a creative sandbox game. Similar to popular sandbox games such as Minecraft, Castle Story allows players to explore vast worlds and build whatever they like. However, Castle Story has worked in a unique strategy element by requiring players to build complicated, firm, well thought out structures in order to withstand the hordes of enemies who come out at night.
Defense Grid 2
Developer: Hidden Path Entertainment, AMD, and Razer
Fundraising Goal: $250,000
Funds Due By: August 14, 2012
The team behind the original, well-received Defense Grid, wants to build an expansion for the first game, and to create an all new sequel. The first Defense Grid is a strategic tower defense currently available on Steam.
Duck Quest?
Developer: Waffle Friday Studios
Fundraising Goal: $500
Funds Due By: August 31, 2012
Duck Quest? is an 8-bit online flash game about a duck who has lost her baby chicks in the park. The development team also hopes to make iOS and other mobile versions of the charming title.
Echoes of Aeons
Developer: Alchimia Studios
Fundraising Goal: $50,000
Funds Due By: August 16, 2012
Alchimia Studios wants to make a digital cutout and frame-by-frame, hand-painted action RPG for iOS, Android, and PC. The game will feature more than 20 hours of gameplay, a crafting system, and skill trees.
Epic Skater
Developer: UpUpStart
Fundraising Goal: $50,000
Funds Due By: September 6, 2012
Epic Skater is an iOS and Android game being developed by former Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero title developers. It is a side-scrolling skateboarding game that utilizes touch screen mechanics. The team is intending to make the game available for the Ouya as well.
Gaymercon
Project Type: Convention
Fundraising Goal: $25,000
Funds Due By: August 31, 2012
Gaymercon is an upcoming gaming and tech convention to be held in San Francisco during the summer of 2013. It is intended to be a convention that is safe, welcoming, and celebratory of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender gamers, as well as straight allies.
Jetpack 2
Developer: Adept Software
Fundraising Goal: $10,000
Funds Due By: September 8, 2012
The sequel to the 1993 shareware, Jetpack, Jetpack 2 again allows players to use the level editor to create their own trials. The game will also employ a real physics engine (unlike the first game), and will feature a soundtrack.
Knock-knock
Developer: Ice-Pick Lodge
Fundraising Goal: $30,000
Funds Due By: September 11, 2012
Ice-Pick Lodge is creating a game based on files they claim to have mysteriously received from an anonymous person back in 2011. The game plays as a series of nights during which the main character is forced to play hide-and-seek with terrifying monsters who make their way into his house. The art is gorgeous, the monsters are sufficiently creepy, and the whole premise sounds like a real-life Creepypasta.
The Other Brothers
Developer: 3D Attack
Fundraising Goal: $50,000
Funds Due By: August 29, 2012
The Other Brothers is a pixel-art game based very loosely on the Mario Bros. The main characters are Jim and Joe, who run a mechanic shop. Joe's had his eye on Tavy, who is suddenly, unfortunately, and predictably "stolen" by mafia thugs. It's up to Jim and Joe to save Tavy in this familiar damsel-in-distress story.
OUYA
Project Type: Console
Fundraising Goal: $950,000
Funds Due By: August 9, 2012
OUYA is a new console powered by Android. It will be completely open in terms of software development (anyone can publish to it), and hardware hacking (which won't void your warranty). Developers like the creator of Prince of Persia and companies like Mojang and thatgamecompany have expressed their excitement for its possibilities and its potential competitiveness in the console market.
Project Giana
Developer: Black Forest Games
Fundraising Goal: $150,000
Funds Due By: August 31, 2012
Project Giana is the placeholder title for the followup to the original 1987 Great Giana Sisters, a Mario parody game that was eventually pulled off the shelves by Nintendo's legal arm (though a DS version was released in 2009). Project Giana is a platformer that asks players to control two different Gianas; one's cute and the other's a punk. Players can also switch between the nightmare world and the dream world in order to solve puzzles.
Project Lodus
Developer: Leviathan Interactive
Fundraising Goal: $50,000
Funds Due By: August 14, 2012
Project Lodus is a co-op action RPG set in a pseudo-post-apocalyptic cyberpunk world. The game will feature a loot system and its combat will be choreographed for multiple action sequences. Player-characters begin their stories at age 15 and progressively get older as the game continues.
QONQR
Developer: QONQR, LLC
Fundraising Goal: $25,000
Funds Due By: August 17, 2012
QONQR is a location-based MMO game for iOS and Windows Phone in need of a map-driven interface so that players have the ability to "capture" buildings and other landmarks in their actual area (such as the airport across the highway from their house).
Rack n Ruin
Developer: N/A
Fundraising Goal: $30,000
Funds Due By: August 31, 2012
Rack n Ruin is being developed in-part by a former Blizzard employee who worked on StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, and WoW. It is a 2D, top-down, action adventure game that lets players turn areas of the world dark and nightmarish by corrupting each area's local shrine. Rack n Ruin's visuals are hand-drawn.
Shadowrun Online
Developer: Cliffhanger Productions
Fundraising Goal: $500,000
Funds Due By: August 14, 2012
Shadowrun Online is an MMO for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android tablet, and is set within the popular pen-and-paper Shadowrun universe. It will feature PvP, co-op, and turn-based tactical combat. Players will have the option to play as a mage, a shaman, a street samurai, or a hacker. The game can either be free-to-play, with premium content costing about $10-$12 per month, or be bought for $25 up front, with the option to purchase additional campaigns later.
Steam Bandits: Outpost
Developer: Iocane Studios
Fundraising Goal: $30,000
Funds Due By: August 19, 2012
Steam Bandits: Outpost will be a free-to-play game that requires additional money only for decorative accessories – not for actual gameplay. It's a town-building game similar to Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, but set in a steampunk fantasy universe. The development team is comprised partially of people who were laid off from Obsidian, including Obsidian's lead producer.
Super Motherload
Developer: XGen Studios
Fundraising Goal: $50,000
Funds Due By: August 12, 2012
Super Motherload is the followup to the 2004 free-to-play mining game, Motherload. The development team is partially comprised of people who previously worked at Bioware.
Super Techno Kitten Adventure
Developer: 21st Street Games
Fundraising Goal: $100,000
Funds Due By: August 7, 2012
21st Street Games is the developer behind the popular XBLA/iOS game, Techno Kitten Adventure. In the sequel, as in the first game, players maneuver a kitten wearing a jet-pack, flying through colorful techno worlds. Kittens are now customizable, and the game will feature multiplayer and co-op.
Tales of Fallen London: The Silver Tree
Developer: Failbetter Games
Fundraising Goal: $10,000
Funds Due By: September 2, 2012
The Silver Tree is a standalone prequel to the browser-based RPG, Fallen London. The game is text and image-based, and the story is nonlinear. Each player has a deck of cards which determines the trajectory of their game's story. The Silver Tree will be free-to-play, with the option of purchasing new story content and the ability to make moves faster.
Ukiyo-e Heroes
Project Type: Woodblock art
Fundraising Goal: $10,400
Funds Due By: August 30, 2012
Ukiyo-e Heroes is a series of prints inspired by video games and drawn in traditional Japanese ukiyo-e-style. Prints based on Star Fox, Metroid, Kirby, Zelda, and other games have been completed and will be turned into woodblock prints by a Japan-based master woodblock craftsman.
Volgarr the Viking
Developer: Crazy Viking Studios
Fundraising Goal: $18,000
Funds Due By: August 23, 2012
Volgarr is a 2D side-scroller with hand-drawn pixel art. The development team promises it will be a punishing game, with difficult bosses, challenging environments, and an angry Viking.
Wicked Crush
Developer: N/A
Fundraising Goal: $15,000
Funds Due By: August 15, 2012
Wicked Crush is a 2D platformer. The final game will come with at least 100 floors. The game's most standout feature, though, is one that allows people to create their own dungeons, which are then sent to other players online. If players die while traversing other player-created dungeons, the original creator will get a large amount of in-game gold, encouraging people to build punishingly hard levels.
Wisp
Developer: Overzealous Studios
Fundraising Goal: $4,000
Funds Due By: August 18, 2012
Players move a small ball of energy through a 2D world that looks a little bit like space/microbiology. The development team promises that the platformer's puzzles will be challenging to modern gamers.
[NEXT UP: Peruse the numerous games that have been successfully funded through Kickstarter, and track their progress after funding is complete]