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It’s time for your weekly round-up of Kickstarter gaming campaigns that have caught my attention.
First though I will update you on some of the campaigns I’ve previously covered and this week the news is unfortunately mostly not that good. A lot are struggling to reach their goals, and one has even finished short of their target. Struggling right now are INTERSTELLAR ROGUE, Sons of the Void, Lost Cities and BLANK – all with less than 10 days to reach their goals and some with a lot less then that. As well as that one campaign has concluded unsuccessfully, Soul’s Light now still in process but being slightly delayed by the failed campaign.
However there is also some good news. One campaign has not concluded successfully, with Forsaken Castle having reached its goal long before the end. Other campaigns doing well right now include Ashes of Creation, Kynseed and Trouble For Hire all of which have bypassed their funding goals. I can’t wait to see all these games take shape in the future.
First up this week we’re starting with a post-apocalyptic boardgame.
Badlands is a game for 2 to 4 players, set in a wasteland after an apocalyptic event. Each player controls post-nuclear survivors and has to help them survive through expeditions, trade, fending off enemies and other such tasks. Each game comes with 4 settlement area boards, a central badlands board in which play takes place and miniature player pieces. There are also cards and other things included to help with the actions that take place in the game.
Badlands: Outpost of Humanity has a €25,000 goal, of which it has made €12,926 with 24 more days to go.
Next we have another physical game, this time based off the beat ’em up genre of video game.
Street Masters is a game that is inspired by the likes of Street Fighter and its ilk, with about 65 different miniatures included the developers have tried to make a game that combines “the concept of a tactical combat board game with the flexibility of an intricate card game”. The game includes two playable ‘modes’ – Arcade in which players can customise their own ‘levels’ as well as Story which will let you go through pre-planned scenarios.
Street Masters Rise of the Kingdom has made $35,863 of its $60,000 goal. It has 25 more days to run.
Third, I chose one that I usually wouldn’t – a dating sim game.
Before you wonder, Two Scoops is a game I’d heard good things about previously. The game follows the protagonist as they start their new job at an ice cream palor. The game is a graphic novel as well as being a dating sim and your player character has only a week to prove they are capable of filling the shoes of two employees who are going away next week. With four romance options, there’s a chance that they will all be fleshed out nicely to set the game above other dating sim games.
Two Scoops has 24 days to go, and has made $8,310 of its $25,000 goal.
Finally we have a rogue-like with added PvP gameplay.
Ash of Gods is a game that is described as “a mix between a roguelike role-playing visual novel and an online turn-based strategy game” and will be coming to many platforms if all goes to plan. These will include Windows, Mac, Linux, XBOX, PlayStation®4, Nintendo Switch, Android and iOS, with PC being the one that the team is aiming for as being the first platform to release on. This means the game will be coming to Steam, DRM-free GOG, Humble – all of which are also listed.
Ash of Gods has made $19,895 of its $75,000 goal with 25 days to go.
A lot of big games and some of the smaller ones nowadays use some form of anti-tamper or copy protection tech in their games to prevent games being ripped and pirated online. Such protections have their upsides but also in the case of a few, legitimate players see them as being a bit of a barrier to them as well if the tech goes wrong.
So the news that developers of Rime, Tequila Works, might remove the Denuvo protection from the game if pirates manage to crack it is welcome to some but mainly confusing. It’s quite the surprising move, considering most companies wouldn’t touch it after the game was released unless it was negatively impacting on the game in some way.
This was announced over on Rime’s Steam forums by Tequila Works’ staff member Dariuas, who said that the inclusion of Denuvo had been a hotly debated topic in the studio. They decided to include it to “preserve [the] quality in Rime”, as cracking the game runs “the risk of creating issues” with the game’s graphics and audio, as well as being a way to stop pirated copies emerging of course.
However, if pirates do break though Tequila Works will “release a Denuvo free version of Rime and update existing platforms.” With Denuvo still being pretty good at keeping pirates out in the first month of a game’s sale but not so much beyond that after it’s been worked on, Rime could be going anti-tamper free sooner rather than later.
The responses to this have ranged from bemusement to utter outrage, with the Steam Thread being locked down due to the sheer amount of angry replies. Who knows how the move will work out in the long-term for them?
It’s probably going to lead to a lot of pirated Rime online in just over a month though…
If you’re a fan of The Witcher 3 and were looking for something new to add to your collection, listen up. It’s just been announced that CD Projekt will be releasing a special vinyl soundtrack for the game with 35 tracks including four that were previously only exclusive to pre-orderers of the game.
Made together with Spacelab9, the soundtrack will come with two silver vinyl discs along with a slip-cover that shows off a Leshen rampaging – with the four exclusive tracks Fields of Ard Skellig, Ladies of the Woods, Merchants of Novigrad and Hunt or Be Hunted being unavailable on the normal digital versions of The Witcher 3 soundtrack.
Also, if you’re looking for something much more collectible there will be a limited three-disc version released which also contains the soundtrack from the Hearts of Stone expansion. There will only be 500 of these special editions released to the public, so needless to say they’re probably going to be quite costly.
The listing for the standard vinyl edition is currently up on ThinkGeek now, with the release set to be June 2nd. It’s going to retail for about $30, which isn’t a terribly bad price. As for the special limited three-disc version, Spacelab9 have said that it will be available via Gaya Entertainment, so if you’re wanting that one be prepared to check there on the 2nd next month.
