Category Archives: kickstarter

Temere: Path of the Fall of the Exile of the Rise of the Time of the Shadow of the World of the Quest of the Hero

Our last not-Kickstarter project didn’t really take off, and after an extensive post mortem we decided it was almost certainly the poor rewards for potential backers that were the problem, so welcome to the not-Kickstarter for Temere: Path of the Fall of the Exile of the Rise of the Time of the Shadow of the World of the Quest of the Hero, a completely not-generic fantasy game with amazing features including:

  • Adventuring!
  • Fighting against things!
  • A story of some sort!
  • Words and perhaps even pictures!

Who wouldn’t want to play that game? Just select your backer level to get in on the action:

Pledge $1 or more: Grudging Thanks – Mrrrmmphthnksiguess

Pledge $10 or more: Whoops, I Clicked The Wrong Thing – No rewards whatsoever, but we’ll stick this in just in case people don’t read very carefully

Pledge $15 or more: Schadenfraude – Zero copies of the game, but a daily update from a random backer as their hopes, dreams and fondly nostalgic memories are slowly crushed by the reality of a game that can never quite live up to expectations

Pledge $16 or more: The Drama Llama – As above, but with a really angry backer who becomes progressively more furious, threatening to sue the developer, Kickstarter and the entire concept of “a game”

Pledge $20 or more: The Massive Game Backlog – A digital copy of the game if you ever really want it, but we won’t actually tell you when it’s available or keep pestering you with updates so you don’t feel guilty that you have no time to actually play it

Pledge $25 or more: The Should’ve Thought About This Before We Launched The Kickstarter Really – A digital copy of the game, and as soon as we can think of something cool then $5-worth of it

Pledge $25 or more: (New option!) Oh, Hang On, There’s Some Stuff In This Draw Here – A digital copy of the game, two biros (one with lid, one without), a stapler (no staples), some bits of string and… erm… I think it’s a plastic bit that came off a torch or something but I’m not quite sure

Pledge $500 or more: Hey Good Lookin’! – Using our finest 3D laser scanning system, YOUR face will be used as the model for an NPC in the game!

Pledge $5,000 or more: The Malkovich – Using our finest 3D laser scanning system, your face will be used as the model for EVERY SINGLE NPC in the game!

Pledge $5,000,000 or more: The Ultimate Package – YOU can design a quest for the game, and an NPC group for the game, and an NPC companion for the game, and write the backstory of the game, and in fact all the other quests and NPCs and companions and monsters, and the class system, and the world and… well, basically, you’re making the game now. Let us know when you’ve finished, will you? Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

I’m a Metastarter, Wicked Metastarter

Hey, you! Remember those games from when you were younger? They were brilliant, weren’t they? Especially that one, you know, the one that was totally your favourite and the best game ever, and you’d play it with your friends and times were simpler then and happier and the sun was brighter and the days lasted longer and everything was better not like these days I mean have you heard that modern music it’s all noises you can’t even hear the words and you wouldn’t dare go out on the streets after dark and you’re stuck in a dead end job and you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking racing around to come up behind you again the sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older shorter of breath and one day closer to death. If only games were like they used to be, everything would be better, but they don’t make games like that any more.

Or… do they? Through the power of Kickstarter a magic time tunnel has opened to the 1990s and every game you ever liked is getting a sequel, direct or spiritual, so KiaSA Productions are getting in on the act as well. Unfortunately we don’t have a solid pedigree of classic games to build on, so we’re launching a Kickstarter for Metastarter: The Nostalgia-Heavy Kickstarter RPG.

Create your party! Roll up a party of one to six game industry legends choosing from classes including Designer, Artist, Programmer, Composer, or advanced classes such as the Maverick Genius who receives a boost to the Add Innovative Features skill, but suffers a constant Wild Overpromise debuff.

Select your portfolio! Make deep tactical choices as you select the back catalogue of your team; did they produce a couple of mega-hits, or a long running series that was generally favourably received? Oddball cult favourites, or lots of mainstream sales but little longevity? With a limited number of Cachet Points you’ll have tough decisions to make.

Get Kickstarting! Once the team is assembled select a classic game genre that’s far less popular these days, and launch your Kickstarter! Set a target amount, create a promotional video, decide whether to include ‘A Secret Moonbase (on the actual moon) For All Players’ as a $2.4 billion Stretch Goal, and watch the money roll in!

Launching the Kickstarter campaign is just the beginning of Metastarter, though; fight for industry press coverage, try and create a buzz via social media, deal with trolls who still hold grudges over a patch that fixed an exploit on one of the team’s previous games in 1994, face the logistical issues of shipping the $417 reward level unique limited edition hand-drawn commemorative tea-towel and napkin set around the world, can you beat the $3,336,371 top score? Find out, in Metastarter: The Nostalgia-Heavy Kickstarter RPG, not coming soon to Kickstarter or any other crowdfunding platform!

Also be sure to look out for the sequel, Releasing A Kickstarted Game To Inevitable Disappointment As Nothing Can Possibly Live Up To The Idealised Perfection Fans Have Had In Their Heads For The Last Ten Years, due in 12-18 months!

Thought for the day.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but for me Kickstarter is beginning to feel like a number of one night stands. Drunk with beneficent gamer’s glee, I’ve sowed my arbitrary funding oats across a number of projects now, but at mostly $10-$15 a shot I’m starting to lose track of what went where and with whom.

More to the point: in nine or so months I’ll start getting these strangers turning up, informing me that at some point in the past we were intimately involved, that I ‘gave them a donation’, before handing over a little bundle and telling me that ‘here, this is yours’.

I think the idea is pretty much Analogy Complete – it even has that layer of built-in guilt, considering that they did all the hard work over the subsequent months, and I just happened to be there at the start, throwing my sponsorship seed around with wild abandon.

Hmmm, perhaps I should instead start selecting the ‘No reward, I just want to donate’ option, the Kickstarter equivalent of donating to a sperm bank.