Our live radio broadcasts are currently on hiatus while we work on improvements to Sanitarium.FM's core services. For further information, visit our Discord.
It’s time for a look into Kickstarter and what looks interesting in the gaming section of it.
Catching up as we always do with our previously covered campaigns, we start off again with the bad news. A number of campaigns have unfortunately concluded unsuccessfully; these are Forged of Blood, Organism8, The Watchmaker – Time’s Collapse and War of Velana. Forged of Blood’s developers have said that they still feel able to make their game and get it out for the 2018 estimated release date, while the developers of Organism8 are going to rethink their strategies before trying again. The people behind The Watchmaker also remain committed, although they say that development may take a little more time now; and the ones behind War of Velana are also pressing ahead with their game’s development. One other note for the downside news this week – The Unique Adventure has 52 hours to go at time of writing is is far short of its goal still.
However on the good news side of things, a number of our previously looked at campaigns have either finished successfully or have made their goals with time to spare. Those that have finished are Super Plexis, OUTBUDDIES and Maximum Apocalypse. Those yet to finish but doing well are Hellpoint (which I noted last week was struggling but could still make up ground, and it seems it has!), OtterBash!, Ashes of Creation and Forsaken Castle.
First up we have ‘hand-painted’ creepy game about seeking one character’s will to live.
A ‘soul’s light’ is what keeps all of us going, keeps us wanting to live. It’s also what the horror Mr Grinny seeks to steal from people to enter our world and drag people into his own. Each person’s light is hidden in items that have special meaning to them, and enough of those will keep him at bay. The creature is based off the nightmares of the developer themselves, and gameplay sees you using your soul’s light to keep at bay shadowy creatures while still maintaining it long enough to reach an end and take a stand against Mr Grinny.
Soul’s Light has $25,000 goal of which it has raised $5,670 with 18 more days to run.
Next up we have a game set in space in which you control a three-man squad.
A space dungeon crawler-type game, Sons of the Void sees you taking control of the squad in their mission to save the universe from near destruction. Exploration, shooting and looting are all a big part of the game, and since it also lists itself as a roguelite you can expect some roguelike elements to the gameplay. Your squad are part of a group called the Sons of the Void Society, given the task to travel the universe and unite the pieces of the Void to save everything.
Sons of the Void has 30 days to go, and has made €2,212of its €45,000 goal.
This one is a game from a studio formed of ex-Lionhead employees. Nice to see them still in the game… excuse the pun.
Kynseed is described as a “quirky 2D sandbox RPG” and sees you living your life and building a life… and then passing on your ‘kynseed’ to the next generation of your family to continue on with. Farming, blacksmithing, running a tavern and raising a family – it’s all here and it’s up to you how you choose to spend your life and those beyond it.
Kynseed has made £9,146 of its £30,000 goal and has 25 days to go.
PipPow has been made to be “the next big action platformer” and the developers say that they are “creating the adventure game everyone wants, with the combat that feels satisfying.” You play as Victor, our protagonist captured and forced to endure the hostile wildlife of the planet he’s on for the entertainment of his captors, watching through television show PipPow. You must escape without the producers of the show realising what you are doing, so you need to get good at playing to the camera too.
PipPow has a goal of $35,000 of which it has made $150 so far. It has a further 34 days to run.
Right now there’s a lot of big tournaments for all kinds of games going on around the world. ESports are big business but then smaller events are no less important, especially to followers and fan of the game they’re being played in.
Wargaming.net have just revealed the details for the finals of their game World of Tanks, whicxh will gather together 12 teams of the best tank crews to compete for their share of the $300,000 prize pool available. Starting on May 23rd, the twelve teams will kick off with a group stage where they are split into four group of three. The rounds will be the best of five and will crown an overall group winner along with a runner up. The group stage will conclude the next day on the 24th, leaving just four of the teams to compete for the overall grand prize and the crown of 2017’s Final victor. These quarter-finals, semi-finals and actual finals will be taking place over May 27th and 28th.
The location for the finals will be the VTB Ice Palace in Moscow, with the rounds being streamed on Facebook and Rostelecom for those who can’t actually be there in person. And for those people who can’t Wargaming.net will be running contests on social media for follow tank commanders to win special prizes. There will also be two Grand Packs and a Fan Pack available on sale in the World of Tanks Premium Shop, all offering players special team emblems and lapels in support of their favourite competing teams.
Also, Wargaming.net is apparently going to consult Tomato the clairvoyant lobster before the Grand Final on May 28th to predict who the winner will be. Because.
For details on the tournament schedule, current standings and all the teams competing, make sure to check out the official World of Tanks Grand Finals website.
A new law in China has seen Blizzard having to reveal the drop rates of loot boxes and packs of cards in both Overwatch and Heathstone in the country. We got the loot box rates earlier, and now that the pack rates have been revealed it seems that guesses taken about the card drop rates from packs were actually pretty accurate.
Of course, the document that reveals the drop rates is in Chinese but a quick translate works out as reading something like every Hearthstone pack will contain at least one card of “rare” value or better (which is widely known about already); “epic” cards will appear on average around every one in five packs, while the sought-after “legendary” cards have a drop rate of about one in every twenty packs.
Players had already previously done their own research on the rates, with them estimating that the legendaries dropped every 18-20 packs of cards – so if the Chinese rates are true across the board they were pretty close. What else is interesting is that the existence of the ‘pity timer’ is talked about in the last line of the Chinese announcement which reads (roughly translated) “actual odds of getting better quality cards will increase in tandem as players open more packs.” For those unaware of what it is, the ‘pity timer’ is said to increase chances of legendaries appearing in your packs the longer you go without finding one.
While we can’t know if these are just for the China region or if these rates apply across the board, it does seem to correlate with previous player research as mentioned. Even if it’s slightly different elsewhere, it’s just interesting to read.
Outlast 2 released at the end of last month, a sequel to one of the horror hits of 2013 – a good year for Youtubers playing horror games. The second game took the series out of the asylum and into north Arizona and mostly got positive reviews. Of course, despite this there were some complaints about the difficulty and so developers Red Barrels have addressed this in a patch released yesterday.
One of the main complaints about the difficulty level had to do with the speed at which the batteries used in your camera were consumed. Much like the last game, Outlast 2 has a style of ‘found footage’ gameplay, and seeing through the camera especially while using the night-vision capabilities will use up battery life and once they run down you need to change out those batteries so you can see in the dark again. Battery conservation is one of the mechanics but a lot of players felt that Outlast 2’s camera just chewed through the batteries at a fair rate. The patch sees that the camera’s microphone will now no longer use extra batteries so you’ll be able to locate enemies through the walls now without having to be worried about using too much power.
On the game’s Steam community page the devs said that the patch “introduces some minor adjustments to the game’s difficulty in key areas and moments. On Normal difficulty this will offer players a more appropriately balanced experience while still maintaining higher levels of challenge on Hard and Nightmare difficulties.”
