The active Kickstarter projects discussion thread.

[Harry Sunderland]

Super World Karts is nearly at 50%, but Kicktraq's projections are getting less favorable as the initial funding burst has slowed.

LobsterSundew, I read you once said rebooting a failed Kickstarter is usually not a favorable gamble...looking at the trend do you have any insight on how you think this will fair? I know you are quite experienced at watching these things .

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/on ... f=kicktraq

[matt]

I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as LobsterSundew, but I do study A LOT of kickstarter campaigns and read kicktraq religiously until my wife started making fun of me. hahaha

I think they are almost guaranteed to get funded. Most projects that reach 30% are funded (something like 80% of them if I recall correctly). The middle period is very slow for every project (look at Neverending Nightmares if you want to see a depressing trend), but you can make up 30% of your funding during the last 3 days. I think if you have 50-60% of your budget going into your final week, you are all set - especially with a campaign with a budget less than $20k.

Personally, I wouldn't be worried about Super World Karts. Every project no matter how successful has a trough in the middle of the campaign.

[Harry Sunderland]

What made me curious Matt was that the first go-around Super World Karts hit about 70% but did not go for the gold (I have heard the 30% figure you mentioned as well and was surprised the game didn't fund.)

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/oneleg ... -karts-gp/

So while it may look good that Super World Karts is at 50% of it's campaign at only half way through the funding period, I was curious if there may be different standards for a rebooted campaign. You could also think that the campaign hasn't even retained it's initial 73% yet, and I'm sure it's success so far may be biased as the previous backers are likely a significant portion of the current pool of backers.

On the whole, I tend to agree with you Matt that things look much better this time around, but I was curious if rebooted campaigns may have some quirks that we aren't considering.

[ranger_lennier]

Stash: No Loot Left Behind did a hard reboot tactic that I do not like. The idea is that a project can reboot to game the popularity rankings for more exposure. The result is just stalling out again. Another game might be able to use that tactic more successfully, but it feels like this is a tactic that shouldn't be used.
http://i.imgur.com/26ckeaf.png
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/frogdi ... hart-daily

My understanding is that Stash relaunched because Ouya convinced Frogdice to participate in the Free The Games Fund, not as any sort of tactic. They seem to be going through a typical lull in the middle of the campaign, but it doesn't appear they had any trouble getting the original backers to pledge again.

[matt]

A lot of campaigns are successful when relaunched. If you look at the original campaign for Super World Karts, it didn't get any momentum until halfway through the campaign. If you can get 50% halfway through your campaign, I think it's almost a sure thing.

I don't know anything about the campaigns for Stash, but the $100k goal of the original campaign is HARD, so I think going for a lower goal with Free the Games Fund is probably a better move. Interestingly, Neverending Nightmares is no longer the most funded FTGF project. Elysian Shadows has $172k, but they have an almost unheard of average backer pledge of $91 per person. At the very least, I suspect we'll finish with the most backers...

[LobsterSundew]

Adventures of PIP is an example of a rebooted project.

PAX is happening right now, so press will be difficult. There is still a lot of stuff launching.

24 Killers has an interesting art style. I'm reminded on the atmoshpere of some classic PS2 games. It has only 198 backers when I'm posting this.

Madness: Project Nexus 2 is a sequel to a popular Flash game.

Noct has an overhead thermal imaging camera art style to this 2D top-down survival game.

Moon Hunters launched with no linux support, ending in the morning on a Friday and a hole in the rewards structure $70 jump to $115.

Eminence: Xander's Tales has a really good presentation, but the character art uses a vector style that casual mobile games have tired out. It only has 88 backers.

ZVR Apocalypse is a FPS set in a zombie apocalypse.

Fritz's update about why it cancelled was interesting. It was over its goal. Neverending Nightmares was mentioned in the comments section.

The Dark Phantom us an ambitious 3rd person shooter. The graphics are good, but the music sounds like a really generic public domain track and the lip sync could be better. It has been sitting at 12 backers.

Outpost 13 is a pixel art horror game similar to the premise of The Thing.

[LobsterSundew]

I was a day 1 backer on Tetropolis. That campaign has seen a lot of ups and downs. I think it has a difficult task of explaining what the game is to newcomers quickly. It was mentioned at 01:33:37 in episode 56 of the Super Best Friendcast after they saw the game at PAX.
http://i.imgur.com/m7POx8c.png

Ray's The Dead announced its PS Vita support. It finally saw some of the coverage it should have had early on.

Hive Jump is close to its goal and its deadline.

It is a new month, so that means a new wave of projects.

Warlocks has an interesting art style.

Band Saga is musical roguelike. At the end of the video is a Kickstarter parody of the old SEGA screen.

CodeSpells has terrain deformation and altering the property of spells with a type of click-and-drag programming interface.

Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunter Reborn is a dinosaur hunting game.

LOOP: A Tranquil Puzzle Game actually caught my attention for being a project that reminded me of what projects felt like back in 2011.

Jazz Jackrabbit Revival does not look very good. Many clear warning signs.

Reassembly is a 2D space game with customization through assembling shapes. Its pitch video convinced me to back it.

Six Miles Under has 2D silhouettes of characters in glorious combat. It has style, but the characters blend in a lot with the backgrounds which may result in cheap deaths.

A 2D open-world game called Poncho has at 01:14 in the pitch the showing off an interesting background shifting mechanic.

Cube and Me is a pet simulator at first, then a combat RPG.

[LobsterSundew]

Grabbed one of the $20 early-bird slots on the new horror game from the developers of Knock-Knock. It is already at 1,300 backers overall and going strong. Take a look.

Creepy Castle also launched.

[RightClickSaveAs]

Grabbed one of the $20 early-bird slots on the new horror game from the developers of Knock-Knock. It is already at 1,300 backers overall and going strong. Take a look.

This seems like an incredibly well run campaign. The Kickstarter page is very well put together. I heard rumblings about this last year, so it's been a long time in the works. It's actually a remake of Ice Pick Lodge's first game Pathologic, which was a bizarre and technically problematic game with translation issues, but one of the most unique experiences I've ever seen in a video game. I bought it but have never gotten very far. It has quite a cult following too, and looks like they're doing a good job getting the word out as they've gotten to half their goal already.

[ranger_lennier]

I heard about Super III's Kickstarter campaign when Super World Karts announced a playable character from it. It looks like a fun puzzle platformer with a neat movement mechanic where you can teleport to the nearest wall.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/super91/super-iii