Welcome back to This Week in Kickstarter where we take a look at some of the best Kickstarter projects out there. We apologize for missing last week, but we’ll hope you forgive us as we’re back now with our usual mixture of Games and Technology. Guild of Hunters starts us off today, a co-op playable game that promises to mesh Legend of Zelda and Monster Hunter
Guild of Hunters is a new hack and slash adventure game that you can play with your friends balancing action with dungeon exploration and puzzles. Created by a new team in Ignite Games they hope to bring these styles together both in game play and artistic vision.
Guild of Hunters has 4 different characters traveling together and working together as they explore, face enemies and battle dangerous bosses’. At the heart of the game play is a quick paced, team work focused action game play that aims to be fun for everyone. Crafting different weapons and using different set ups you use combos and team up to do all sorts of work taking down bosses. In the video you see one of them working with explosives and putting them down, so that the giant hammer wielder hits the bomb so it flies off into the boss.
In the game you play a hunter, one of the surviving humans on Azkel. When the dragon Zoragon came and brought his army of minions the peaceful land wasn’t ready for it and it was torn asunder. Billions died as the evil dragons reign of terror began. Seeing the situation, those few exceptional people – those with a gift at fighting and a will to defend their land came together and made an alliance. Calling themselves Hunters they have only goal – to kill all the monsters, up to and especially Zoragon himself!
Guild of Hunters has just begun its Kickstarter so it’s a little tough to track where it’s going. They cancelled a previous attempt because of it going nowhere a month ago and doubled down on getting the game ready for prime time and laying the ground work for it. They also have a promotion on for the really early birds – up to 100 backers can get the game for only $2! They are currently on Greenlight
We go from co-op hack and slash to the survival horror of, Kriophobia.
Prepare for a game that isn’t action based, and that returns to the idea of horror being more then jump scares or a set piece for action. So often ‘horror’ has come to mean one of those two things – walking around loaded with a shot gun to shoot the villain – or silly things jumping out of corners to manufacture a scare.
You play as Anna in Kriophobia, a geologist measuring seismic activity in the remote Zhokhov Island in northern Russia. Working with a small team Anna is there with the ship gone away for at least seven days. It should be fine… until Anna and her teammates fall into a sealed military complex. Nothing prepared her for that after her past traumas and members of her team getting injured – and Anna has to struggle to get out. The games art particularly stands out as exceptionally impressive on seeing the shots from it. The fixed camera angle and the 2d/3d comic book style looks absolutely gorgeous especially for such a project. The Kickstarter video shows the process they go for, first creating it and then running the character through it to get all the angles and further iterations giving some details on how they’ve made it. The music from the sample they put on kickstarter is wonderful as well and a key part to building a horror atmosphere.
Kriophobia’s campaign doesn’t end until January 3rd, so there’s plenty of time to go. However, with only about $4000 of its $50 000 goal raised so far it is going to be a major uphill battle for them to make it. They are currently on Greenlight. Flipping an opposite direction from a horror game, we go to the Visual Novel CLANNAD which is Kickstarting an official English translation. CLANNAD is one of the most popular Visual Novels of all time and was made by Key and released originally in 2004 in Japan. It has been released in Japan several times over the years on other platforms such as the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita. It is needless to say, a big deal over there and has had fan translations in the past but Sekai is the first to attempt an official translation.
CLANNAD is a drama and romance visual novel where the player takes on the role of Tomoya Okazaki. Tomoya is a delinquent and emotionally-distant student, in large part due to his mother’s early death and his father’s subsequent alcohol usage, and abusive behaviour. On his way to school one morning, the story kicks off with him meeting Nagisa Furukawa, who is in his year despite being a year older due to illness. Working together on some things, Tomoya gets to know her some more and they create a new drama club after finding to Furukawa’s dismay the old one was closed down. CLANNAD will be fully voiced in Japanese with English subtitles and will have HD 1280 by 960 visuals. That was its first stretch goal after all which with over 25 days to go it has hit after well surpassing its original $140 000 asking price. It is right now over $280 000 and closing in on its second stretch goal of adding the PSP and Vita side stories. Over in Tech we’ll stay a bit on gaming with the eROMP an android powered handheld console emulator. eROMP is designed from the ground up for gamers allowing Android games as well as play ROMs on emulators for 14 different systems. Hold your breath here for a moment as we list them off as it’s a lengthy list: Capcom 1-3, Final Burn Alpha, International Games System, Neo Geo, Dreamcast, Famicom (NES), Super Famicom (SNES), GameBoy Advance, GameBoy Color, MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), Sega Megadrive (Genesis), MSX, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, PlayStation Portable, and WonderSwan Color. eROMP runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and has a Quad Core A9 1.6GHz processor, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 8GB flash memory, MicroSD slot for 32 GB memory, 7inch touch screen of 1280 x800 resolution, and has a battery life of up to 6 hours of active gaming use. For a handheld device that makes it relatively powerful and able to run the systems its wanting to emulate – though one has to be careful when emulating to always use legally acquired ROMs and follow the local laws. There are numerous ones available depending on the system. It also answers the question about some mobile games having controls that weren’t best suited to the phone. Playing your favourite Android games on a proper gaming device instead of a phone may make some games that are annoying on phone much more enjoyable to play. eROMP is seeking a large goal of $950 000 and seems extremely unlikely to make it given that it currently has under $500 with over 25 days to go. A project with that type of target needs a fast start to have any chances of making it.
Voiceboard promises to help change how you present by creating top of the line software to go with newer technologies in voice and gesture control. Voiceboard is designed to work with powerpoint presentations to bring them to the next level. Using a Nod Ring for gesture control, and a high quality Bluetooth wireless microphone it allows the user to move about and speak while presenting and move the presentation along naturally without having to click something or hit next on a device manually.
Voiceboard though uses those technologies via its own software which is what allows it to use these and some other high tech tricks with a normal PowerPoint presentation. Spend a moment or two and import your Powerpoint into Voiceboard and the programs power will be at your fingertips. Beyond just moving the slide it has interactive maps that you can command with voice and show them during your presentation exactly what you are talking about, so they no longer wonder what that area you are talking about is. Live webpages opened instead of screenshots that are static and don’t let the audience see what is going on, or even put in a 3d model that Voiceboard can put together. Voiceboard has made over $23 000 of its $45 000 goal and has 30 days to go, giving it plenty of time to meet and surpass its target without any issues. Thanks for joining us this week – check out below for whats come before and see whats gone on and what might have interested you!
Previously on Kickstarter Momentum failed to make its goal with no updates since the campaign ended. Catch Monsters also failed to meet its goal it’s sad to say. Kelvin and the Infamous Machine has made its goal and at the time of writing was aiming at its second stretch goal of voice acting. Epic Manager made its goal and got its first two stretch goals made including the crafting system! Aerannis didn’t move much from last time, and hit its Alternate path but not its side story with over 11k Late to the Party failed to reach its goal but has pledged it will be back. Thimbleweed Park is approach $500 000 and its $525 000 stretch goal with under a week to go to add voice acting. Americana Dawn is at just over $20k of its $70 000 goal with 10 days to go, making it unlikely to get going. InnerSpace made its goal and is good to go exploring! Everykey made its goal with some room to spare. Stove Lite made it as well, getting 5k over its asking amount. GameThing failed to make it but is still allowing those who tried to back it to buy it at kickstarter prices on their website. Mousr made its goal and cats everywhere can look forward to their new toy. Point picked up a cool $238k on the whole, making well past its $50k goal. Genesis and SNES Component Cables made its goal and a couple of stretch goals as well. Nimble VR is in its closing hours and has made its stretch goal with over $130k. FonePhrog appears to be dead at $330 dollars and has croaked its way off of future updates. Hush is at over $460 000 and is on its way to its $500 000 stretch goal with 10 days to go. Playmute was cancelled with is developer promising to be back again on Kickstarter.