Crowdfunding Spotlight - Hamsterdam

In the town of Hamsterdam, the evil chinchilla Marlo has kidnapped people, doped everyone up on booze, and opened casinos & a red-light district. This savagery is bad enough, but the bad guy makes the mistake of kidnapping our hero Pimm's grandpa. Pimm decides to head into town and kick butts left and right in Muse Games' newest title on Kickstarter: Hamsterdam.

This cutesy little title was one of many games available to play at Play NYC. We checked it out in our Coverage Club series after having played it at E3; our Samuel Guglielmo thought it was "a surprising amount of fun". The developers are now raising funds to finish up the development of this game before its estimated release date of March 2019.

Hamsterdam is, quite simply, a game where you need to beat the heck out of the bad guys to the rhythm of the beat. Sure, you could try to button mash your way to victory, but wouldn't it be that much more stylish to keep things in tune? Have a look at the Game Reveal Trailer to get a feel for what it's all about:

Muse Games has plenty of experience with Kickstarter; Hamsterdam will be the company's fourth time running a campaign on the platform. All three of their previous campaigns were successful - goodness knows that Guns of Icarus and CreaVures had a healthy following since those games have launched. I think it's safe to say that they know what they're doing by now. Let's look into what the pledge tiers and stretch goals:

The Hamsterdam Kickstarter has quite a few pledge tiers available - whether you just want the game or you want to pick up some extra goodies, there's something in here for you! A pledge of $5 or more gets you a neat thank-you e-card from Muse Games, a digital wallpaper, and the soundtrack. Upping your pledge to $10 grants you the All-Access Game pass  (that's a copy of Hamsterdam on every available platform!), a digital artbook, and early testing access alongside the previous pledge tier. A $15 pledge adds an exclusive Guns of Icarus costume and the Collector's Edition of every game that Muse Games has released so far.

A $20 pledge gets you the Walk-In Closet package: 4 exclusive outfits for Pimm, the All-Access game pass for Hamsterdam, a digital artbook, early testing access, the soundtrack, and a wallpaper. The $35 Caretaker tier adds stickers, buttons, and a poster for the game into the mix. $50 will get your name in the game's credits and a sweet t-shirt plus everything in the Caretaker tier. A cool $100 will add in your choice of a Pimm Plushy or Pillow. The $250 Citizenship tier lets you name a location in the game and includes everything else in the $100 Squishy tier.

Finally, there are three limited tiers for high rollers. A $500 pledge for the Mayor tier will get your very own character in the game who will wander around in town (and potentially help you in a fight!) in addition to the contents of the $100 Squishy tier. Alternatively, the $500 Ava tier will get you an extremely limited hand-knit Pimm hat. Both of these $500 tiers have only 4 spots remaining. Lastly, there are 3 unclaimed spots for the $1,000 Collaborator tier which gets you everything in the Squishy tier and lets you co-design a skin for the game's hero Pimm.

Hamsterdam has already met its campaign goal of $8,000, but there are a few weeks to go in the campaign and plenty of stretch goals to unlock! The $11,000 Hamme Fatale stretch goal adds a collection of 3 outfits for Pimm to the game. The $15,000 mark brings the addition of 3 survival modes for players on the ground, riding a scooter, and on the side of buildings. $19,000 adds another 3 outfits, and $25,000 ups the gameplay potential with three different endless game modes. The $30,000 stretch goal will add storyboard comics to the game that chronicles the rise of Marlo. $35,000 adds in a survival brawl mode, and $45,000 adds in a game mode where you wreck a statue of the villainous chinchilla Marlo while the citizenry cheers you on.

You have a few weeks to decide whether or not Hamsterdam is the game for you. It seems like the pledge tiers have some pretty good offers, so if this looks like your kind of jam you should check out the Kickstarter campaign and pick out something nice for yourself. Don't forget to head on over to the game's official website to read more about Hamsterdam. The Kickstarter campaign ends on Saturday, September 29, 2018, at 12:02 PM Eastern Time.

What do you think of Hamsterdam? Do you like the idea of a fighting game where you need to match your movements to the rhythm? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out what else we saw at Play NYC by going to our Play NYC 2018 Coverage Hub.