March 2013 – Tim Garris

I’ve been on a bit of a Kickstarter spree recently, largely due to getting my tax return this month. And since most of these get better the more people donate to them, I want to take a minute to point out each of them and talk about why they’re exciting to me.

Enemy

[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1209639165/enemy width=480]

This one actually just ended, so I’m a terrible promoter. I found out about it pretty late though, and luckily it did meet its goal. Still well worth checking out. I love turn-based tactical games like this, and when you add retro-gaming nostalgia and destructible physics-based environments, I’m paying attention. It’s definitely the smallest project I’ve backed, but the developer seems devoted, the game seems pretty far along, and the price was pretty reasonable, so I took a shot. Really looking forward to getting to play it.

Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey

[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/redthread/dreamfall-chapters-the-longest-journey width=480]

I never played the original Longest Journey, but I enjoyed the heck out of Dreamfall on the original Xbox. These are intelligently designed adventure games with really original, intricate and mature storytelling behind them, and I’m pleased as proverbial punch that the series is getting continued. As you can probably tell by the over million dollars raised for it so far, many others are as well. The Kickstarter has a little over a day left to go, and around $150,000 to go before reaching a stretch goal that adds back in a lot of content they had to cut from their plan for budget reasons. Hoping they meet that, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy the final product regardless.

Delver’s Drop

[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixelscopic/delvers-drop width=480]

This is a game I saw briefly at PAX Prime last year and resolved to keep an eye on, so I was on board early once they started their Kickstarter campaign. The art style is charming and the gameplay is a lot of fun for anyone that likes top-down dungeon crawlers like the classic Zelda games. I really like that they’ve got puzzles in the mix, so it’s not just combat and avoiding traps. What impressed me most though is how much more polished the Kickstarter footage looks compared to the build I saw last August, which already looked quite good. Excited to see what the finished game will be if this is how much they’ve accomplished on their own without funding.

Story War

[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cantripgames/story-war-the-storytelling-party-game width=480]

I am so super excited about this one. Cards Against Humanity has been a mainstay at parties I’ve been too recently, because that’s just my crowd. I love the social atmosphere and discussions that such games generate, and Story War takes that a step further by actually building the discussion over which card is best into the gameplay. Not to mention that it’s a game about telling a fun, creative story with comical fantasy motifs, which taken all together seems like a card game custom-designed for me. I actually put quite a bit of cash into my backing of this one, and I’m comfortable with my decision to invest in it because I know from what I’ve seen that I’m going to get a lot of enjoyment out of this game. In fact, I don’t want to wait for my physical set, and will be printing out the PDF version as soon as it becomes available!