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Welcome to your weekly look into the gaming side of Kickstarter campaigns.
Starting with our catch-up, and the good news we have one campaign that has finished successful, a few that are winding up having met their goal and one big piece of news – the Elite: Dangerous Role Playing Game campaign is live again! A post dated March 3rd thanks everyone for their support over the last few weeks, but has little more detail. Either way, it seems the intellectual dispute has been resolved and with all its previously raised funds still in place – it’s going to finish successful.
The campaign that has finished this week that were successful is Sunless Skies, to no great surprise. As noted before this is a game that is sequel to a successful previous game from Failbetter, Sunless Seas and we can probably expect more of the same just higher up in the Sunken London alternate history. A bunch of campaigns are on the edge of finishing too having reached their goals. These are Banner Saga 3 (again, a sequel to successful previous games), RUiN, Die For Valhalla and UNAUTHORIZED.
However, there are also a lot of previously covered campaigns that are also getting close to finishing but have a ways still to go to reach their goals. The time left varies between 32 hours to eleven days, but all are in danger of not finishing a success. These campaigns are Aegis: Innocence (with 32 hours only), Xenosis: Alien Infection (previously called Xenomorph which is how I listed it last week), Daymare: 1998, SmuggleCraft, FictionSphere and Deep Forest. One campaign has also finished without raising its total, Pillow Zombies TD.
First up we have a board game about creatures of lore defending their homes against villagers.
Village Attacks is a game for 1-5 players and sets you in the role of folklore creatures who have to defend their homes against the villagers coming up from the village to attack them. The castle in question is where all manner of evil things live and spawn, threatening the world and now the villagers aim to destroy that which lets evil prosper. The game is a co-operative one and while the villagers alone are weak, the heroes and other travelling ‘good’ aligned who have joined them are not. Work together and win if you can, for if the village reaches the heart of the castle before you kill enough to break their morale – you lose.
Village Attacks has a £72,000 target and has smashed through it. It has 26 more days to run though, so if you fancy backing it go check it out.
Next up we have a turn-based RPG based in a “morally grey world”. Sounds interesting.
Forged of Blood is a tactical, turn-based RPG game in which you are fighting to reclaim your lost throne and a kingdom. Your choices will apparently not have a definite ‘good’ or ‘bad’ answer or decision, and you must choose. The game is a 3D isometric game, and your positioning around opponents and the battlefield will have an effect on how well you do in battle. There will also be choices in how to build your characters’ skills as you progress through the game.
Forged of Blood has 59 days to go and has made S$ 3,950 of its S$ 150,000 goal so far.
Next is a metroidvania with a light dusting of survival to it.
Organism8 is a science-fiction game, where you play as galactic PMC corporal Yulanna Carter on a mission to investigate a solar system that has halted in space time. The game is a singleplayer experience and like many metroidvanias will be a hard game, so if you enjoy a challenge this might be the game for you. Wildlife in the game will act on urges such as a need to eat, drink and keep warm, and some of that is also essential to keep an eye on for Carter too – for example she needs to keep warm.
Organism8 has made CA$ 75.00 and has a further 58 days to make its CA$ 15,000 goal.
Lastly we have a game set in what the campaign page calls a “retro futuristic world”.
Narita Boy sets you as a digital hero, journeying through many different dimensions in your quest to save the Digital Kingdom. Your quest is a search quest, as you must find the techno sword which is said to be the only counter to the threat currently at the Kingdom. Taking inspiration from retro and retro-themed games such as Castlevania, Another World, Double Dragon, Superbrothers, Sword and Sorcery as well as paying homage to the 80s with a retro synth touch.
Narita Boy has a €120,000 goal and 20 days to go. It has made €74,406 so far.
In what might be a legitimate leak of information, the first two DLC heroes for Ubisoft’s For Honor season pass have just been posted online. The screencaps look like internal ones and have been posted by a user onto the For Honor subreddit.
User Bones404 has made the post in which the two heroes, the Centurion and the Ninja are revealed to be the first two new heroes joining the roster. The Centurion wears heavy armour, complete with a large face-covering helmet that has an armoured mask, the only the hilt of his weapons in view but people are guessing that it could be either a hasta (a Roman thrusting spear) or a pilum (a Roman javelin). The Ninja is your typical shinobi design, wearing the ninja mask, leather armour and wielding what looks to be a kusarigama or chain sickle. This means that it’s likely the Ninja will fight at somewhat more of a distance, which would make sense.
Evidence to support this leak’s legitimacy stems from the fact that the silhouettes seen on the artwork for the season pass do match up with these two characters in the screencaps, and both would fit in nicely with the existing factions in the game. However, if these leaks are legitimate they’ve been taken from an unfinished version of the updated game, with the place where a character usually has “Hybrid”, “Assassin” etc listed being filled with “Scrubmode” – which is likely to be some sort of placeholder name if this is from an official source.
However, others have speculated that maybe these two will be part of a forth faction, a possible Mercenary one. This has come from the fact that according to the screenshots, both of these characters are being listed on a row separate from the other three rather than next to the factions you’d expect them to be aligned with. It’s possible however that the DLC characters might just get their own section on the screen though, so don’t expect there to be a forth faction added. It’s not a certainty.
Like all leaks of information, take this with a pinch of salt until something official comes out. It is exciting though, For Honor was amazing fun in the open beta and these two should liven things up a bit if they’re real.
They do say that when one door closes another opens… or in this case when one indie developer with a problem with review videos goes away, another one appears.
Today on the discussion page associated with their simulator game Airport Master, STiCLi Games posted up a topic entitled “IMPORTANT! As per EULA you can only make YouTube videos with our written permission!” Airport Master is an Early Access game right now, which requires you to agree to a third-party EULA to play it. Usually this wouldn’t be an issue, but in the aforementioned discussion topic the developer lists a part of that EULA agreement that they claim means they’re allowed to tell people they cannot make Youtube videos about their game without first getting permission from the developer:
4. TRADEMARKS AND RIGHTS TO THE SOFTWARE
The End User recognizes that all of the rights associated with the Software as well as the rights related to the trademarks, royalties and copyrights, are the property of STICLI Games and are protected by international laws and treaties. Any use of Copyright Holder’s trademarks, imagery content, videos, graphical elements, names, plot in any activity (including but not limited to: producing 3d party video content, electronic and on-paper publishing, creation of promotional content etc.) is only possible with prior written permission of Copyright Holder.
That means you MUST obtain prior written permission from us before uploading any videos to YouTube. Otherwise, you are breaching the EULA and we can terminate your software license without refund and fire a copyright strike on YouTube.
So, to all Youtubers, please write us and apply for your written permission before publishing any videos about Airport Master!
This should instantly throw up red flags for gamers, as policing who can and can’t talk about your game is often linked to a developer wanting to hide that their game isn’t very good. Of course, this is an Early Access title so you’d expect it to not be finished, but if the game is at that supposed level why restrict access? It doesn’t make sense, unless the developer doesn’t want bad press cutting their sales or really doesn’t understand how a EULA and Fair Use works.
And in case you’re wondering just why they’ve chosen to post this statement to their game’s Steam page – look no further than Mr. Jim Sterling. Is this all beginning to sound familiar?
Sterling’s video has been hit by a claim already, and instead of the usual DMCA claim Sterling says that he has been hit with a trademark claim. For context, this would mean Sterling would have to be doing something using a symbol that meant he could be confused with whatever trademarks STiCLi has on Airport Master… which he clearly isn’t.
Right now, reviews for the game are mixed to say the least. Most reviews have sunk at least a few hours into it; but reading through the reviews even the ones that are ‘positive’ recommend waiting until the game is more finished, with many containing the phrases “tech demo”, “very early access” and “glitchy” – and a few say that the game really has been released much too early with planes vanishing only to never return making the game “unplayable”. Others say that there’s really not much gameplay available – and the game costs £11.99 in the UK so that’s not encouraging.
For now, STiCLi has time to reverse their course. Maybe they’re literally just small developers who released their game a bit too early, don’t understand how fair use works and they will actually turn Airport Master into something decent worth the price tag. I really hope that is the case here.
However, history has taught us that indie devs who decide they are above criticism often don’t learn their lesson. Tangling with Sterling or any other Youtube critic with a big audience often results in their loss of reputation in the lesser case, and at worst the entire studio going under (as happened with Digital Homicide).
All we can do now is wait and see what route STiCLi choose to take.
As far as the lifetime for games, GTA V has had a long one. It shows no sign of slowing down either, as Rockstar continue to develop and release new content for the highly popular GTA Online, and they’ve just revealed their content plans for the next few months of it. And if you’re a long time GTA fan, there might be something here you’ll like.
Fifteen new stunt races were released this week as part of a special event, and soon GTA Online will be gaining a new ‘Cunning Stunts’ circuit to race in. These race types will focus around the ridiculous and extreme vehicles added a few months ago which include the Rocket Voltic (a car with a jet engine strapped on) and the Ruiner 2000 (which is literally KIT from Night Rider – really). Each track will be making use of the vehicles’ unique abilities, so this ought to be good fun.
Rockstar are also planning to listen to fans who have asked them to bring back some of the most requested cars from previous GTA games and put them into GTA Online. These include the Infernus and Turismo Classic, vehicles made famous back in GTA 3. Further throwbacks to older GTA games are coming with new Adversary modes for GTA Online too, including a 2D inspired Top Down gamemode as well as a “gallows humor take on dodgeball” called Resurrection.
And future updates will add to the weaponry available too, with the Gunrunning update adding new missions, weaponized vehicles and militia factions into the mix of anarchy that GTA Online already is on many server public and private.
GTA Online has been going a long time already. It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop any time soon either, with all this coming up.
