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The only smaller kickstarters I backed were dead state (released but p bad) and Maia (developer claims it’s released but it’s as unplayable as it was in the initial demo)
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Mar 20, 2023 09:24
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Most of a year later my post remains almost identical, although I didn't realize SpaceVenture still had a loving stupid twist in the can.secretly best girl posted:This did make me check in on the claw game handjob fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Mar 20, 2023 |
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Mar 20, 2023 09:38
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DoctorTristan posted:The only smaller kickstarters I backed were dead state (released but p bad) and Maia (developer claims it’s released but it’s as unplayable as it was in the initial demo) I’m still miffed about Maia, as I bought the drat thing on steam. I thought it would become better!… nope. It’s weird and not in a good way.
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Mar 20, 2023 11:06
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StrixNebulosa posted:I’m still miffed about Maia, as I bought the drat thing on steam. I thought it would become better!… nope. It’s weird and not in a good way. It’s quite an amazing in a way - years and years of releases with patch notes like ‘added drill press’, ‘doors will now degrade over time and need repair’, ‘solar panels will now generate research (TODO: any use at all for that research)’ and never a ‘colonists will no longer starve to death standing in a fully stocked kitchen’ or ‘game is now very slightly fun to play’
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Mar 20, 2023 11:47
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secretly best girl posted:Most of a year later my post remains almost identical, although I didn't realize SpaceVenture still had a loving stupid twist in the can. They've been promising a patch for the backer release to fix more of the bugs and that's not happened either
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Mar 20, 2023 13:19
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I backed a stack of games kickstarters that never delivered, Witchmarsh and Sealark in particular stung. I don't back games kickstarters any more. Oasx posted:Star Command was supposed to be released in 2012, the last update from the creator was 2020, I assume the game won't be finished. Same 
Hollandia fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Mar 20, 2023 |
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Mar 20, 2023 13:36
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My misses were Barkley 2 (lol) and the cool looking retro racing game Drift Stage which if I remember right died because it was an artist and programmer and the programmer up and quit. edit: what the hell Drift Stage released early access back in January? Looks like it's just whatever had been done when development paused like five years ago.
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Mar 20, 2023 16:15
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Despite the occasional failure I do think crowdfunding has been a net positive for the industry. Some of the best/most acclaimed games of recent years were crowdfunded (Hollow Knight, FTL, Shovel Knight, Undertale, Divinity: Original Sin, etc.) but even putting those aside, I've often had it happen where I finish some random game and watching the credits I'll see "Thanks to our backers" go by and think huh, this game was crowdfunded then, I had no idea. And it happens so often. I feel like the high profile failures can make it easy to forget that many (most?) games do release eventually, and are mostly drama-free. That's an absolute ton of games that otherwise might not have been made, I'm glad they're out there. I honestly wish I had the money to back more than I do.
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Mar 20, 2023 16:29
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Only Kickstarter game I really missed on was Liege, launched just a few months shy of 10 years ago. The creator claimed as recently as a few months ago that he was still working on it, but there haven't been any substantial updates in years.
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Mar 20, 2023 16:44
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Lets see: Moon Intern: This was before it was generally realized that 40K was not enough to fund a team, and that when they say this is all they need to fund it's usually a lie Barkley 2: We love to see it Roam:The creator had a meltdown over the release of 'How to Survive', believing they had stolen his idea. After that simmered, there was legal trouble with one of the former dev team members that they used KS money to pay for. That Which Sleeps: The main dev lied massively about the state of the game and all the youtubes were potemkin villages and all the crazy emergent stuff the alpha testers were reporting was aspirational goals and there were no alpha testers. The other guy on the project had never actually seen the build. At least it inspired Shadows of Forbidden Gods, a solid one-man game that does 90% of what Sleeps wanted although comparatively kinda cruddy art and fluff writing Project Resurgence: Turns out 180K is not enough to fund a team either Southern Monsters: "In february, I was diagnosed with ADHD-" Nighthawks-The Vampire RPG: Kickstarted in 2018, they still post semi-regular updates including one in february, I'm still counting this one though as two years in they posted an update that was "we think we've figured out the combat" anyway I don't back things anymore
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Mar 20, 2023 17:23
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Sway Grunt posted:Despite the occasional failure I do think crowdfunding has been a net positive for the industry. Some of the best/most acclaimed games of recent years were crowdfunded (Hollow Knight, FTL, Shovel Knight, Undertale, Divinity: Original Sin, etc.) but even putting those aside, I've often had it happen where I finish some random game and watching the credits I'll see "Thanks to our backers" go by and think huh, this game was crowdfunded then, I had no idea. And it happens so often. I feel like the high profile failures can make it easy to forget that many (most?) games do release eventually, and are mostly drama-free. That's an absolute ton of games that otherwise might not have been made, I'm glad they're out there. I honestly wish I had the money to back more than I do. Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 were crowdfunded, and I consider those to be some of the best crpgs ever. And I’m not exactly angry over having paid 20$ ten years ago for a Kickstarter that didn’t get finished.
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Mar 20, 2023 17:41
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Oasx posted:Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 were crowdfunded, and I consider those to be some of the best crpgs ever. The crpg revival of the past decade is pretty much entirely due to Kickstarter/crowdfunding. PIllars of Eternity 1 and 2, Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2, Wasteland 2 and 3, Bard's Tale IV, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Encased, Shadowrun: Returns, Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Hard West, Solasta: Crown of the Magister, Atom RPG, Lords of Xulima, and UnderRail. You could also throw in a few more that weren't Kickstarterd but definitely got made because of the resurgence in interest.
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Mar 20, 2023 19:32
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January 5th, 2022: "From this point on I will start providing an update once a month regardless of content that can be posted." mhm Anyways I have enjoyed backing some video games via kickstarter (Shadowrun Hong Kong) but not others
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Mar 20, 2023 19:42
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MST3K and Rifftrax are not gaming but good Kickstarters.
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Mar 20, 2023 19:45
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In hindsight Tim Schafer accidentally designing 3x too much game and having to explain once again that no, you should not believe a word Peter Molyneux says were the real highlights
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Mar 20, 2023 22:21
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I've only backed 3 things, and for two of them I honestly didn't care if I ever got a release: Wonderful 101: I figured backing an already finished game was a sure bet, and I was right. COVID caused absolute chaos for physical rewards tho. It actually worked out for me, cause I ordered the physical Switch version, and delays got me the Steam version for free so hey that's a win. Flowstone Saga: I only backed cause a friend did some work on the game and I wanted to support her, looks like it's stuck in directionless indie development hell. Cosmic Frontier: Override: It's actually a modern rewrite of the Escape Velocity: Override engine, by the original dev. It would be nice if this came out but eh, I backed to give the dev a few bucks as thanks for the original. Stuck in 'I underestimated dev costs so I'm working a day job' hell.
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Mar 20, 2023 22:56
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My favorite type of Kickstarter game update: "I have decided to switch engines and genes. This game will no longer be the top-down high speed action game you funded but a 3D experience that explores the emotions and journey of the character"
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Mar 21, 2023 00:22
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I'm pretty sure Friday Night Funkin is gonna be the next high profile failure, because man is that hitting all of the Classic Old Kickstarter problems headfirst.
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Mar 21, 2023 00:47
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Yeah I still backed it for a copy of the game but when I saw all the random bullshit rewards being floated I knew they were going to be in trouble. Still, what's out is good so if that's all we get I'm happy with it since it's led to a massive sufficient mod scene
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Mar 21, 2023 00:49
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fez_machine posted:This is going to be a very good schadenfreude Kickstarter  
fez_machine fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Mar 21, 2023 |
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Mar 21, 2023 00:52
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I've been pretty bad with physical merch. I don't know the situation with those developers, but it *is* generally ill advised to send surveys out until you are 100% ready to produce the items with whatever manufacturer you're using. With Dropsy it became an enormous mess with people moving/changing email addresses/changing legal names/whatever because I sent out surveys right after the KS came out. I couldn't even make the posters without a finished worldmap, which I completed years later as the game was developed. A good quarter of the posters I sent out for the Dropsy Kickstarter were returned to me and emailing everyone to get their current address was a torturous process. There are still around ten returned posters at my dad's house waiting for people to claim them. This was further compounded by Kickstarter's survey system being a bit crusty. It would've helped to have been able to send a direct message to backers asking them to make sure their survey info was current. I asked in an update but people don't read those, understandably. About 10% of our backers just never filled out the surveys and sometimes I'd get an annoyed message from those folk asking "Where's my stuff?!" which made it even less fun. If I crowdfund again I'm definitely finding someone to handle that for me and adding that to the total budget. Still haven't sent any Hypnospace merch either because I'm still working on it. I promised what was effectively a second smaller game as a physical edition pack-in. It's a neat project nonetheless and I hope people feel it was worth the wait. Fangamer are now helping with shirts too which is a major load off. We did finish two good games, so at least there's that. 
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Mar 21, 2023 11:32
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BattleMaster posted:My favorite type of Kickstarter game update: "I have decided to switch engines and genes. This game will no longer be the top-down high speed action game you funded but a 3D experience that explores the emotions and journey of the character" I can't remember the name of the game but I can picture it in my mind perfectly - it looked really great and then they pivoted to 3D for no reason and it looked awful.
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Mar 21, 2023 13:29
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Groovelord Neato posted:I can't remember the name of the game but I can picture it in my mind perfectly - it looked really great and then they pivoted to 3D for no reason and it looked awful.
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Mar 21, 2023 13:48
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No Wave posted:Risk of Rain 2 No that one is good they probably mean the hyperspace drifter sequel that is for some reason a 3D procedurally generated action platformer
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Mar 21, 2023 14:16
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Risk of Rain 2 is very good and I have way too many hours in it. The game I'm thinking of started as a really active 2d top down game where you had a huge scythe and then transitioned to a 3d game that looked nothing like that.
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Mar 21, 2023 14:34
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Groovelord Neato posted:Risk of Rain 2 is very good and I have way too many hours in it. The game I'm thinking of started as a really active 2d top down game where you had a huge scythe and then transitioned to a 3d game that looked nothing like that. I know the one you mean, that was a complete bait and switch lol
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Mar 21, 2023 14:35
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Kologeon.
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Mar 21, 2023 14:51
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Owl Inspector posted:Kologeon. Thank you - knew it started with a K. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cleK6Sv2lfw This was what they changed it to: 
Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Mar 21, 2023 |
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Mar 21, 2023 15:02
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I'd never heard of it until just now and I'm already disappointed.
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Mar 21, 2023 19:59
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Groovelord Neato posted:I can't remember the name of the game but I can picture it in my mind perfectly - it looked really great and then they pivoted to 3D for no reason and it looked awful. Yeah it was Kologeon, I don't know if any other game went down that path but I wouldn't be surprised. Probably a case of the author's interest shifting to be like the last game he played. He probably played some fast-paced top down action game before writing the campaign and then got big into some kind of narrative/walking simulator type games midway through development. Seems like something that could easily happen to solo developers. I never backed it or even heard of it before this incident but I too felt the pain the backers must have felt. Just the most powerful way of destroying a project, even more so than the sole programmer leaving.
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Mar 21, 2023 20:19
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Everytime I get an update about Unsung Story I'm always surprised it's not dead. Just kill that drat thing already there's no way it's not going to be total poo poo at this point anyway.
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Mar 21, 2023 20:46
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BattleMaster posted:Yeah it was Kologeon, I don't know if any other game went down that path but I wouldn't be surprised. Probably a case of the author's interest shifting to be like the last game he played. He probably played some fast-paced top down action game before writing the campaign and then got big into some kind of narrative/walking simulator type games midway through development. Seems like something that could easily happen to solo developers. My assumption in cases like this are that they discovered their initial thing was way harder to make than they thought it would be so they moved to something that they felt would be easier to do.
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Mar 21, 2023 21:51
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i remember when kologeon first was announced and thinking "this gameplay looks all flash and probably isn't very fun to actually play" so i didn't back it dodged a bullet on that one. didn't they say some "this was always the plan" garbage when they showed off the 3d change?
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Mar 22, 2023 14:37
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ninjewtsu posted:i remember when kologeon first was announced and thinking "this gameplay looks all flash and probably isn't very fun to actually play" so i didn't back it According to the story I saw looking for the screenshot of the 3rd version the 2d pitch didn't fit the vision they actually had.
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Mar 22, 2023 15:06
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Ithaka of the Clouds' campaign was 10 years ago! Some semi recent comments about remastering the old games, but I have to expect nothing at this point. quote:Ithaka of the Clouds is the story of two Trolls and their journey across the Lands of Dream, inspired by the poetry of Cavafy. It was successfully crowdfunded in 2013 and is set to be released in 2014.
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Mar 22, 2023 22:18
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Gaspy Conana posted:I've been pretty bad with physical merch. You realize, of course, the instant you finally get the final item out the door, all the people clamoring for their physical rewards are just going to go back to bugging you about Dropsy DLC.
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Mar 22, 2023 23:29
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EricFate posted:You realize, of course, the instant you finally get the final item out the door, all the people clamoring for their physical rewards are just going to go back to bugging you about Dropsy DLC. We released that last year!
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Mar 23, 2023 00:55
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ninjewtsu posted:i remember when kologeon first was announced and thinking "this gameplay looks all flash and probably isn't very fun to actually play" so i didn't back it
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Mar 23, 2023 01:24
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For those who remember Project Phoenix, someone released an old interview that was never published until now: https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-man-behind-the-usd1-million-vapourware-rpg-project-phoenix It’s very interesting to read this in hindsight knowing that the project would be a massive debacle and never released!
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Mar 23, 2023 05:36
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Original_Z posted:For those who remember Project Phoenix, someone released an old interview that was never published until now: Notably, the interviewer is the author of The Untold History of Video Game Designers which had its own contentious kickstarter campaign.
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Mar 23, 2023 05:55
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