If you were to tell somebody that you opened a charity fund to go toward the development of your arcade game, people would think you were nuts.
"Yer' beggin' fer money to fund one of'em vidyer games?"
"Stop bumming and find a real investor!"
"Use your own money, you slob."
But who’s to say that asking for money from people who want to support your project is a bad thing? If you ask me, both the developers and the fans can benefit from this angle of funding:
- It gives developers a scope of how many people will buy the game.
- The funding goal will almost always include publishing expenses, preventing nosy publishers from having their hand in game development.
- Milestone rewards can be given to individuals who invest enough into the project; anything from a free day-one delivery of the game to an all-expense-paid trip to the launch party for the game.
The most common platform used for organizing a giant crowd-funded project like this is Kickstarter, and let it be known that there are some incredibly promising-looking games being funded and developed through this service. It’s providing a means for Indie developers to flourish like never before, garnering both a dedicated legion of supporting consumers while also creating an even deeper bond with the product. It’s a logical next step in how the business side of media should work: the consumer will fund the project because they want that product to be made. It’s a healthy metamorphosis!
In this article, I’d like to show you three video games that are being developed by small teams of people, but are being funded on this Kickstarter service. I’d also like to show how successful the games are going to be, based solely on the money figures. Without further ado, let’s take a quick look-see!
#1 - A HAT IN TIME
Ever wondered what would happen if Rareware had stuck with Nintendo and adopted their cel-shading engine from Wind Waker? You’d probably get something similar to A Hat in Time, a traditional 3D platformer built around exploration and collection of random whatcha-ma-hoozies in order to advance in the game.
You play as a little girl (appropriately named, Hatgirl) as she ventures across multiple beautiful worlds in order to save her friend who has been kidnapped.
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| This game sure looks familiar...in other news, the game looks fantastic, visually! |
The game itself reflects that of a classic 3D platformer being booted off of a Nintendo 64 or a Playstation – albeit it looks way better than those did back in the day. Hatgirl has lots of cool tricks up her sleeve, such as a hookshot she uses to grapple onto surfaces and swing around! She can also do wall jumps in tandem with these grapple manoeuvres, making her a pretty acrobatic character to control. Many of the worlds she visits are sprawling, multifaceted levels, usually comprising of several large structures that Hatgirl can scale, creating more surface area for these already-enormous areas.
This is the first project being taken up by Gears For Breakfast, a small Indie studio made up of only 13 people and a weird name that sounds like the title for a corny boy band.
The really incredible thing about A Hat in Time is its huge ratio between requested money for funding and how much they received. The guys over at the studio asked for a measly $30,000 for development of the full game – for those of you wondering, that wouldn’t even cover boxing and shipping costs on your average A-Grade video game. How they were even thinking of making this game commercially for only $30,000 is beyond me, but they certainly didn’t have to worry about running out of funds.
Wanna see the figures for how much Gears for Breakfast received from "begging" for money from investing fans? Take a look and get ready to quit your job:
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| ...'nuff said. |
With this new range of cash under their belt, they’ve hired on Grant Kirkhope as composer for the game (Past projects include music for Banjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye 007, and Donkey Kong 64). They also added other features that they wanted implemented into the game, but knew the $30,000 wouldn’t cover. We’ve made their dreams come true as a result of this Kickstarter! I for one think that’s wonderful.
#2 - SHANTAE: HALF-GENIE HERO
Have you ever wanted to take up the role of a scantily-clad genie who transforms into animals by belly-dancing promiscuously? Shut up, of course it's always been your dream. Well luckily for you, you can go and pick up Shantae - a platform game developed for the Gameboy Color in 2002! You can pick it up on Ebay for a humbling price of...uh, well...
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| A great stocking stuffer for this holiday season! |
In all fairness though, this was a great game! I played it for the first time in 2008 when it was recommended to me by someone online, and I was not disappointed. It's a very creative game with a cheeky sense of humour, lots of platforming action, and a story that doesn't get in the way of the game itself but makes itself known. It's, without a doubt, the best Platformer on the Gameboy!
Of course, the game is now available to play on the 3DS EShop for $4.99, so you don't have to sell any vital organs to get your hands on it.
WayForward began development on the sequel for Gameboy Advance, but ultimately canned it because they couldn't finish the game during the hardware's lifespan. The initial concept for the sequel was moved to the Nintendo DS, where it finally finished development on DSiWare under the name, Shantae: Risky's Revenge (It also got ported to Apple products, in case you wanna try it on your iPod!).
Alongside the development of the third Shantae game for the 3DS, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, WayForward is also working on a High-Definition Shantae game to be released on PC and major consoles. This will be the first time the genie strides outside the handheld market, and it goes by the subtitle, Half-Genie Hero!
Wayforward, however, being a company mainly dealing in handheld IPs and licenses for console games, hasn't released a full-sized console game before. How are they going about funding this bigger-budget game, you ask? They plugged away on Kickstarter, of course!
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| Click for a full-screen view. It attains a seamless cartoon-like appearance - gosh, I friggin' love looking at it! |
Half-Genie Hero places Shantae in the traditional side-scrolling environment from past games, but adopts full 3D environments and backgrounds. The aesthetic reflects a pop-up book and I love the style! From what we've seen of the game so far, it looks like a lot of what you'd expect from a Shantae game. It doesn't look stale though - in fact, it looks fresher than ever in hand-drawn HD! You can just tell WayForward's been itching to pull the franchise in this direction from screenshots alone.
And now the moment of truth; what you all have been waiting for: what exactly are the projected and real figures for this project? Well, things get a bit complicated here because of how WayForward is managing funds on the game. See, they originally only accepted donations via Amazon, where instead of pledging money, you bought pre-order packages as indicated by the prize tiers on the page. Want a reserved copy of the game you're investing in? You would "buy" the game early through Amazon and it would count as $15 put toward the Kickstarter fund. Convoluted for sure, but it's beneficial for the consumer too!
However, nearing the end of the campaign, WayForward started accepting Paypal separately, adding the totals of two separate payment methods together, making things more initially confusing for consumers. It's an attempt at making it easier for more consumers to donate, which is ironic.
I have the totals for the donation status as of today's posting, don't you worry! Here they are:
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| For a reference: the original funding goal was $400,000. |
Wayforward is also keeping Paypal donations open for a while longer, so late adopters can still reserve their copies of the game for only $15! As a result of the funds blowing past the goal, WayForward is adding new features previously not possible for the game, such as two bonus chapters added to the game, a new game mode to play as the games villain, Risky Boots, and a costume swap features that gives Shantae new costumes and statistics if you choose to wear them! Projected future features, provided the game receives the funding through Paypal, include voice acting, new characters to play as, and animated cutscenes.
I want a Shantae cartoon, guys - fund for that next!
#1 - MIGHTY NO. 9
I'm not gonna come across like a huge fan or someone really knowledgeable on this specific project, because I'm not. The undertaking is massive though, I must say - I haven't played a lot of Mega Man in my days because I never really got into it, but I follow video game politics pretty closely.
The fact that this game is funded and under development is a huge deal. Like, capital cities declaring bankruptcy-level of big deal.
Keiji Inafune is the game's project director and producer. Who the heck is Inafune, you ask? He's the creator of Mega Man. Mighty No. 9, to put it bluntly, is very similar in concept to Mega Man as a whole. Why would a game director create a new IP almost identical to another one of his creations? Why not just make another Mega Man game? Because Capcom, that's why.
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| The only existing "Screenshot" of Mighty No.9 so far - It's only concept art, actually... |
Inafune used to be a higher-up at Capcom, a famous game publisher, until he decided to leave the company to pursue his own interests. That's what he disclosed his reason as, even though it was essentially: "Screw you guys for not letting me make Mega Man anymore - see ya!"
There was a huge controversy against Capcom a couple years ago because they ceased development on Megaman Legends 3. Capcom reached out to the general fanbase a lot like Inafune did for funding Mighty No. 9, except instead of asking for money, Capcom asked for ideas. Quite frankly, Capcom wasn't picking up anything Inafune set down for ideas and turned to the fans to "appeal to the audience" instead of trusting the veteran game designer's decisions - yep, another example of publishers bullying developers into doing what they wanted.
In order to counteract this poor treatment, Inafune simply left Capcom - and Capcom, a publisher sitting there with an unfinished game and losing their star director for the last 30 years, cancelled the project and killed countless dreams. It's been dark times for Mega Man fans ever since - with the brains of the franchise gone, Capcom has no idea what it wants to do with it. As a result, the executives have just been sitting around, smelling their own farts.
Mighty No. 9 is pretty much Mega Man with an HD coat of paint: you play as a robot gone rogue as he runs toward the right side of the screen, killing enemies, overcoming obstacles, fighting bosses, and taking their powers to learn new abilities - there's not much here you haven't seen before. The staggering part about this whole campaign - even more so than the context behind it - is how much Inafune's new studio raised. Check this out, it's nuts:
...I think the fans are glad Mega Man's being "rebooted."
Now, are there legal repercussions here? After the bitter pill taken between Capcom and Inafune upon breaking off, I could see Capcom trying to file some kind of charge or lawsuit, especially considering how much they're hurting for cash at this time. Do I want to see that? No way, I want to see this project flourish so the fans can finally get what they want. Not to mention, the lawsuit probably wouldn't even go through anyway - there's no real infringement of copyright or major violation. Inafune's studio, COMCEPT, looks like it'll be getting its first full game out, and what a first game to start with!
On an off-topic note, I'd actually love for Capcom to go bankrupt - that way their horribly-handled IPs could be sold off to more capable companies. Phoenix Wright with Sega? Platinum Games reaching out to Okami and Viewtiful Joe? Resident Evil being scooped up by Irrational Games? Oh, it'd be glorious...
This was more of an article to give you guys a taste of the independent gaming scene - it's the future, let me tell you! The Indie scene is popping out even now: where do you think all those great mobile games like Jetpack Joyride and Angry Birds started? The mobile platform is an infestation of simple but well-crafted games made by independent companies. I urge anyone who claims to love games to always dig deeper than they're already searching - chances are, you'll find diamonds in the rough that make you wonder why nobody knows about it. It's something all gamers face at some point!