Kickstarter

Unsung Story, by Little Orbit, is the game I never thought I would see. It was due to be released five and a half years ago, but is only hitting early access on Steam now with a lot of work ahead of it. I had written it off. But, here it is – mostly. When the Kickstarter campaign for Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians launched, it pretty much promised to make exactly the game I wanted to play. A tactical adventure crafted by the master Yasumi Matsuno, legendary designer of Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battle Let Us Cling Together, Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen and Vandal Hearts, among others. This is a genre he created – and now he was back with a game that moved a step beyond his earlier triumphs. Square grids? Unsung Story would use a hexagonal grid. Job tree? Unsung Story would use a job decagon, with ten different qualities coming together to form a unique job. ...

[gallery ids=“11249,11250,11251,11252,11253,11254,11255”] Finally got into the Alpha for Star Command Galaxies, a game I kickstarted a few years ago. This alpha build lets you set up a kitchen, then beam down to a planet where you get killed by aliens. I did, however, manage to set the planet on fire first. From the forums, I think it’s safe to say I’ve seen most of the game as it exists at this moment. ...

Crayon Chronicles I should have called this “A Child’s First Roguelike”. Or, “How to get through school with only an Owl on a Stick”. Whatever. Outer Grid Games’ “Crayon Chronicles” is a short, sweet RPG that combines a whimsical art style with easy gameplay and a few chuckles to make the best roguelike I’ve played all year. Roguelikes are games based off the old mainframe RPG Rogue. Games of this sort share some tropes; randomly generated levels, turn-based gameplay, a single life and a near-unobtainable goal. These games can be won, but the point is usually to survive longer than you did the last time. Winning is almost beside the point. ...

Code Hero Alpha Last year, or maybe the year before by now, I helped fund an innovative game on Kickstarter, Primer’s Code Hero. This game would teach you to create your own games using the cross-platform Unity game platform, UnityScript and JavaScript. UnityScript, JavaScript and Flash’s ActionScript are all closely related scripting languages, so knowing these things would be a Really Good Idea. Instead of a more traditional approach, Code Hero is the world’s first FPC (First Person Coder) game. You don’t write a game. You create a game around you. With your Code Gun. ...

Ballpoint Boss Back when this was called College-Ruled Universe, it was one of the first games I helped fund through Kickstarter. It was a pleasant little R-Type-style shooter, written in Flash by an art student, Leo “Zigzag” Dasso, who had built an entire world, in Flash, out of the casual doodles he drew during classes. He had a friend compose an atmospheric soundtrack and put it on Kickstarter. I thought it was an amazing game, not so much for the mechanics, but for the pure expression of art. The funding goal was low, so I put in a few bucks, and the project was successfully funded. ...

College-Ruled Universe I used to doodle a lot as a kid. I’d draw up adventures where, typically, bad things would happen to my kid sister. If those drawings had come to life… well, I would have a very angry sister today (sorry, Val. At least I am comforted knowing you will never read my blog). Artist Leo Dasso had a different vision. While doodling in class one day, he was inspired to turn his doodles into space ships, cities and extremely weird bosses and wire them up in Flash to make an abstract and visually striking side-scrolling shooter in the vein of R-Type and the old Treasure bulletstorms. He tapped a friend of his to do the music and called the game College-Ruled Universe. ...