habibi
1761
On the other hand, this post by PA above on not promoting CU may have attracted more attention to the KS too!
Indeed. PA linked to the Kickstarter and embedded the pitch video. So the article was making a point but compromised by still making it easy to check out the KS. That’s why I think the fan anger was not really warranted. I think it’s a good learning experience for the backers on how to promote a KS in the future.
Wendelius
A nice gamasutra interview with a number of devs that tried crowdfunding:
mok
1764
The comment section of that article makes for an interesting read. It looks like they finally locked it.
It is somewhat damning that their cheapest limited option for camelot isn’t anywhere near filled up.
I’m going to cancel my pledge before it runs out. To be honest, I don’t have much interest in a pure pvp, shadowbane like mmorpg these days. I pledged because I liked DAOC, but once I found out about the new laser focus, I never got around to canceling.
The chance of a mmorpg failing is also likely higher than a single player game, so more risk for less of what I want.
Looking at it more, they have a bunch of people paying a lot of money… For a game like Camelot unchained to have 5 people paying $10,000 each makes me a little suspicious…
Apologies if this was already mentioned: Dream Jumpers is an action-RPG for iOS/Android/PC/Mac. The visual style reminds me of Torchlight.
I was just checking my KS account and noticed I had no more active backed projects. Then I saw this and now I have one more. At least my number of current projects is very low for once…
For people who are familiar with Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard/Luke Crane, the latter has launched a Kickstarter project for an old-school D&D inspired (tabletop) RPG called Torchbearer, derived from the rules they used for Mouse Guard but of course heavily tweaked to better suit the dungeon crawling style they’re going for. The idea is that you are doing the sort of daring dungeon exploration and looting that early D&D heavily focused on, but with much more of an emphasis on exploration and survival, including proper planning and logistics, the risks of actual underground exploration, etc. $15 gets you a PDF version, $35 gets you the PDF and a hardcover (in the US, anyway). The project is entirely about funding the printing and shipping of the physical books so they’ve declined to offer stretch goals (despite being well past their original goal already) and aside from a few signed copies and fancy leatherbound versions (all sold out already) there aren’t any addons or “for the truly generous donor” type tiers either. It’s kind of refreshing.
mok
1769
This is where I think KS shines for boardgames - it gives a greater exposure for new ideas and it can take away the physical risk of getting out a first edition.
Dunno if it’s been mentioned yet, but I figured this might also be of interest here:
I finally got my Cordlites from the Kickstarter. They work but the build quality is just terrible. I was trying to ignore the fact that the 30 pin end on one cable was crooked, but then when I just tried unplugging the cord from the charger, the shroud on the USB end came off. I feel like I paid $30 each for $0.99 cables that have a light.
EDIT: My wife’s iPad slowly lost power while she was using the Cordlite, even though it displaying a charge symbol. My best guess is that because of the electronics, it won’t deliver the full 2 amps from the charger. Even when the light is off.
I guess it’s still usable as an iPod charger, but wow am I disappointed.
There is now a kickstarter for “Moby Dick, or, the Card Game”, in which you compete as rival boats in the New England whale fishery. The line drawings for some of the cards are fantastic.
I think what sold me on it was the discussion in the comments about whether the game was mistitled - the book is “Moby-Dick” while the name of the whale is actually “Moby Dick” - they decided to name the game after the whale.
Also, for the megagenerous - they’ll build you a whale boat. With a gaming table.
I mentioned it tangentially elsewhere but Deadzone is one that I’m watching. It evokes a lot of the old feel of Necromunda (which GW has decided to pull even its existing meager support from) with the fantastic sculpts that Mantic has been delivering lately. Hoping that by the time it closes I’ll have found someone to split the $150 pack with or scraped together the cash for it by myself, because the lower level multi-packs have the two factions I’m least interested in.
Odd. I hadn’t heard of this one so I looked it up but I don’t think I get it. Can’t you just use the device (iphone, ipad, etc) to find the cable in the dark?
The point of the light isn’t to find the cable, it’s to illuminate the socket and make clear which end goes up. I’ve done the bit of illuminating the cable with the device in the dark, and it’s still difficult to plug the device in when it’s dark. Mostly it’s an issue if you have a wife whom you don’t want to disturb, or some similar reason not to turn on a proper light. Since this was a recurring headache for me when I saw the Kickstarter, I jumped on it immediately.
They’re working on Lightning and micro USB versions, but my experience with the Lightning is it’s a non-issue. Mostly it’s that the old 30 pin connector was remarkably difficult to seat properly if you can’t see the socket.
Ah ok, I understand now. The only idevice I have is the one original ipad and that connector has a tactile bump on the top. I could definitely see that being a problem.
I’ve never understood this complaint. As long as you have the orientation correct, there are only two options. If it won’t plug in how it is currently, simply turn it around and it will.
Try seating a 30 pin connector in the dark sometime. Then maybe you will. It’s not just orientation, though that’s an annoyance, it’s surprisingly difficult to line up correctly by feel. It doesn’t slide in the way the Lightning connector does if you’re off, because the edges aren’t rounded, they’re square. It’s also easier to have it just slightly off but not be able to tell easily which direction you need to move it. There are a lot more than two options, since up, down, left, right, and angle are all factors with lots of small variations on “wrong,” and not a lot of feedback if you can’t see what you’re doing.
If this weren’t a common complaint, the Kickstarter wouldn’t have gotten 1200 backers, and sites like Engadget wouldn’t have written about it.
I solve orientation issues for cables using a small piece of glow-in-the-dark tape. Mostly USB, though.
