It's time for your weekly Kickstarter update ladies, gents and people in between and as far as previously covered campaigns, this week has seen a massive wave in funding cancellations.
Crematory Bot and Fathoms were both cancelled because they were looking likely to not reach their goals, something that both Dusty Raging Fist and Super Axe Boy did, with neither making anywhere near close to their targets in the end. Also cancelled this week were A Princess to Save Me and Chronicles of Time. Princess was cancelled because they felt that their campaign page was not good enough to show off to the public and that people would want a better quality of art and gameplay footage before they would fund the game. Fair play, they have said that the game is not dead so hopefully it'll re-emerge at a later date. Of Chronicles I haven't yet found any publicly released statement on its cancellation, which came soon after I'd published last week's article.
Also in trouble are Econia, Vanity's Dawn and Cold Blooded, all having a lot of ground to make up with very little time for each to do so. If any of them make it, I'd rather it be Econia, that game sounded interesting.
It's not all bad news though, Pankapu: the Dream Keeper has 19 days to go still and has reached €31,874 of its €40,000 goal, so it's likely that we'll see this game make it to the finish line in the end.
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Bellus Mortem
This is a little game about wizard cats. Colourful, charming little wizard cats.
A spellslinging arena game, the goal of Bellus Mortem is to knock your opponent out of the ring without going out yourself. The game has apparently already been made and has basic AI, so the funds being raised is to help them put in online multiplayer and a little going towards advertising to hopefully attract more funding (from a publisher I'd assume). There's also a demo available at IndieDB if you want to try before you back.
Bellus Mortem has made $175 AUD of $15,000 with 29 days to go.
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Kick Ass Commandos
This one is a pixel shooter, and honestly you can tell from its title what sort of a game it'll be.
Kick Ass Commandos lets you grab your weapons (guns, rockets, flamethrower; whatever your poison) and assault the enemy base and rescue more commandos who will join you in your reign of destruction. The developers of this campaign also seem to be aiming to meet their target before Christmas so they can give their Backers the Early Access game key as a present. Sweet.
They could do it too, with a $250 target and 33 days to go, Kick Ass Commandos has made $47.00.
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Poltergus
This one is a Staff Pick, and a point-and-click game.
Join Gus, the talking dog and Nancy, the ghost as they team up to go ghost hunting in their very own ghost hunting reality show! Because it is meant to be a reality show there will be jumpcuts and the narrative will proceed in a linear fashion intercut with behind the scenes stuff and interviews. If you're interested in games that play with the narrative of a game, maybe give this one a look.
Poltergus has made $3,678 of its $35,000 goal and has 27 more days to go.
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The Odds Game
I'll admit it, I included this one because it reminds me of student life. Not that I ever did anything like these dares myself, but it is a game that'd appeal to that kind of audience.
The Odds Game is a card game that has players reading off challenges from cards and rating how likely they'd be to do that challenge. If their number matches the one on the card, they have to do that challenge. Of course, there are some cards to screw around with other players, known as the 'Dicey' cards that can force other people to do the challenges with you, let you skip it entirely or permanently make someone your reluctant teammate in doing challenges.
The Odds Game is 26 days away from finishing and has made $1,234 AUD of its $3,000 goal.