Kickstarter - The Thread.

[tazelbain]

Players who die in-game die in real life.

Gonna need a bigger budget.

[ghost]

I like my Iron Die dice. They're metal and don't seem to fuck up tables. No hard edges on the ones I got at least. But let's be honest, I'm waiting for these:

http://dicepl.us/

I thought you were waiting for these.   

[Fabricated]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1548272412/radio-the-universe-0

 

Neat. I think I'll wait for it to actually come out.

[Sky]

Some people have been talking about this card game KS, which is up to over 2400 cards at the $125 pledge level.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1325766284/up-front-the-card-game

List of what's unlocked thus far: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/889065/so-you-think-youre-ready-for-the-kickstarter-ok

[schild]

I don't think I'm going to support Up Front. The game came out in 1983. Which basically assures that it's a clunky, rules-added, overly complex mess. Cards that look like this:



Well, they make my fucking skin crawl.

[schild]

Just gave the rules a once-over. I'm right. It's a mess.

[Sky]

I watched a good bit of the video. There seems some decent stuff, but I kept thinking 'this game needs dice'.

The cards don't bug me, they're fairly straightforward even after just watching the KS video. Similar to Sedition Wars' tactical data cards for the minis.

[Quinton]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/JoshuaACNewman/mobile-frame-zero-rapid-attack?ref=live

Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack

Giant robots! LEGO®! Strategy and tactics!

MFZ is incredibly fun -- I played a bunch of games while it was in development and now the final 253 page rulebook is out (PDF available for free, CC noncommercial, hardcopy preorder or paypal donations also available if you want to toss some money their way): http://mobileframezero.com/mfz/

[MisterNoisy]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/JoshuaACNewman/mobile-frame-zero-rapid-attack?ref=live

Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack

Giant robots! LEGO®! Strategy and tactics!

MFZ is incredibly fun -- I played a bunch of games while it was in development and now the final 253 page rulebook is out (PDF available for free, CC noncommercial, hardcopy preorder or paypal donations also available if you want to toss some money their way): http://mobileframezero.com/mfz/

Oh wow, this is super neat.  I love building small-scale LEGO mecha MOCs - combining it with tabletop gaming means I'm sort of obligated to support this.

[UnSub]

I feel like I'm seeing a re-run of OUYA, but GameStick has already hit their target (and nearly doubled it at this stage.

[Margalis]

What if you could play a tablet/phone game, except tethered to a TV and minus a touchscreen, thus eliminating the only two reasons you'd ever want to play a tablet/phone game???

In a couple years smartphones/tablets/etc will have better video out options and these things will be irrelevant. If you want to play your iPad games on a TV you'll just buy an iPad with the right video out option.

That said this strikes me as more grounded than Ouya, but the concept seems fundamentally off to me. The whole selling point of mobile gaming is the mobile part. You already want a phone or tablet and hey, you can play some mostly shitty games on them as well! Who wants to buy a system that only plays those shitty mobile games but not mobile, and as an added bonus doesn't come with the primary input device those games are designed for?

[Quinton]

Yeah that's my big questionmark for Ouya and its ilk.  You can handwave about the huge amount of content, but apart from games that were ports from gamepad style console devices (and there are a bunch of those), most mobile games don't seem like they'd translate well to TV+controller without a bunch of work.

These things will make fantastic emulator platforms for early consoles, but it's unlikely anyone will be able to negotiate suitable licenses with the owners of those classic titles (who all are busy trying to monetize their back catalog through their own consoles or channels).

Sadly, the chosen chipsets are rather underpowered for driving 1920x1080 displays -- bigger titles (more AAAish stuff) probably will require a fair bit of love to get reasonable performance which seems unlikely unless they manage to get a *lot* of units in the field to justify such efforts (10s of millions I'd expect).  Lack of local storage (8GB of flash) is also a pain for larger titles.

[UnSub]

For the companies behind them I don't see their hardware as being what makes their business work; it'll be how much of a share of the Android market they can grab and the size of their customer base. Think Steam sales, but on Android.

[Quinton]

They've got the usual new-platform chicken-and-egg problem in that they need to convince developers to publish in their markets and adjust their applications to work on those devices, and developers go where the volume is.  They've got to convince users to buy these consoles, and users buy consoles for the apps that run on them.  About as many new Android phones and tablets are activated every hour as Ouya consoles were pre-sold in their kickstarter effort.

On the plus side, the delta between Android-on-phone-or-tablet and Android-on-Ouya is mostly going to be about controller support, which is not a huuge amount of work, but going from 720p to 1080p on the same CPU/GPU (say games that run fine on a Nexus 7 now, but have to perform as well pushing ~2.25x the pixels around) can be some effort if you don't already have performance headroom.

I'm curious to see what retail price they end up at for their final hardware -- presumably they hope to sell a lot more units longer term than the 50-60k they pre-sold.

EDIT: Of course the flip side is in a new ecosystem (even if small), with a smaller app catalog, it's easier to stand out, so one might see early developers hoping to capture a much larger chunk of sales.  Hard to predict, really.

[Trippy]

Ouya is now available for pre-order on Amazon for $100. There's conflicting info about the expected ship dates for pre-orders. Some place are reporting that pre-orders from the Ouya site are expected to ship in April but the site itself lists June. June is also the month retailers (Amazon, Best Buy, Target, etc.) are expected to get the product.

[Viin]

I think kickstarter backers get them in april/may with public retail in june (including pre-orders not on kickstarter).

[JWIV]

Probably one of the quieter studio departures I've seen - Jon Shafer just announced the formation of a new studio to basically create a 4x Indie game

Polygon article - http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/2/6/3950722/they-could-be-heroes-conifer-jon-shafer-at-the-gates

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates?ref=live

At the Gates is an empire builder similar to Sid Meier's Civilization. Starting with a small tribe, you must explore the world, exploit its scarce resources, and eliminate or outsmart potential enemies. The game starts simple but grows in complexity until you command a mighty economic and military powerhouse.

Over the course of a single game your tribe will migrate to more lush and bountiful lands, conquer and barter with other clans, work alongside the Romans, learn from them, and finally destroy them. Along the way, you'll need to master the art of war and craft cunning plans to strengthen your kingdom - all while enduring the worst mother nature can throw at you!

[Sky]

Got the hell away from Stardock, apparently.

[Tebonas]

That alone should earn him some money.

[Sky]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/461687407/kickstarter-open-source-death-star

[Lucas]

Ragnar Tornquist back to what he does best  :

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/redthread/dreamfall-chapters-the-longest-journey

We've brought back the core team members from Dreamfall: The Longest Journey to make Dreamfall Chapters, including award-winning writer and designer Ragnar Tørnquist, creator of The Longest Journey saga; Dag Scheve, co-writer of Dreamfall; and Christer Sveen, art director on Dreamfall.

In addition to creating The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, Ragnar is the creator of acclaimed PC MMO The Secret World. He also co-created the Anarchy Online universe and penned the novel Prophet Without Honour.

Joining the team are lead designer Martin Bruusgaard (Age of Conan, The Secret World), technical directors Kjetil Hjeldnes (The Longest Journey, Dreamfall, The Secret World) and Eigil Jarl Halse (Dreamfall, The Secret World), artist Sigbjørn Galåen (Dreamfall, Age of Conan, The Secret World), producer Rakel Johnsen (Age of Conan, The Secret World), and programmers Quintin Pan (Age of Conan, The Secret World) and Audun Tørnquist (The Longest Journey).

The Dreamfall Chapters team is a highly experienced, talented and passionate bunch who know, respect and love The Longest Journey universe, and who are both grateful and excited to finally be able to continue telling the story we began way back in 1999.

[Sky]

You must back this now. Snooze and lose, I warned you!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1730070783/doing-time-boardand-dice-game

[schild]

Creators face would make a good avatar.

[ezrast]

As I said in another thread, I've consistently seen great results from webcomics related publishing projects (and have some really wonderful hardcover editions of some great comics on my shelf as a result).  I have every faith Ryan's crazy hamlet-as-choose-your-own-adventure is going to be hilarious and I love that as the money has stacked up he's folded it into improving the existing reward tiers (full color, more illustrations, prequel adventure, extra goodies) rather than just cashing the check.

Paying off already.

[Sky]

Bryan from Reaper linked a few interesting articles for the doom crowd.

http://albinodragon.com/shipping-call-it-the-fastest-bankrupt-kickstarter/

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-one-stupid-mistake-and-35000-from-kickstarter-made-an-average-guy-bankrupt-2013-1

http://hive.slate.com/hive/made-america-how-reinvent-american-manufacturing/article/the-lost-lockpick

[shiznitz]

The second one is priceless.  What an ignorant tool.

[shiznitz]

You must back this now. Snooze and lose, I warned you!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1730070783/doing-time-boardand-dice-game

How can someone nearly illiterate make a good boardgame?

[UnSub]

The second one is priceless.  What an ignorant tool.

Depends who you are talking about. The article linked talked about a pledger named Neil Singh suing the project creator and bankrupting the company, but Singh has come out to say all he went for was his money back and the project creator was bankrupted by his debts to his credit card company.

If you are talking about Seth Quest, I agree. You don't mix business money with personal accounts. And perhaps you plan things out before you take people's money too.

[Trippy]

In some states like California if you are effectively a sole proprietor it doesn't matter if you have a business structure like an LLC set up you are still personally liable for all debts.

[shiznitz]

The second one is priceless.  What an ignorant tool.

If you are talking about Seth Quest, I agree.

We agree.

[Sky]

Another one bites the dust. Outed as a reseller.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/75321040/free-roll-machined-gamers-dice/comments

[ghost]

In some states like California if you are effectively a sole proprietor it doesn't matter if you have a business structure like an LLC set up you are still personally liable for all debts.

Most business loans will be structured this way, as well. 

[Sky]

The guy who bit the dust trying to resell dice on KS (and then cancelled his project and then his account and a bunch of stuff related to it)?

http://youracnehelp.brannelsolutions.net/bui-e-launches-innovative-ultra-thin-and-precision-crafted-minimal-wallet-line-good-for-pimples/

http://www.indiegogo.com/BUI-EWallets

Bets on it being flexible funding (guy gets the money whether the project funds or not)?

After all, we all need a wallet that is good for clearing acne, right?

[MahrinSkel]

Looks like he's still covering his tracks; the Indiegogo page is now set to 'draft' mode and not visible to the public.

--Dave

[Sky]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/springboard/emperors-new-clothes