Welcome to This Week in Kickstarter, where we sort through the many projects on Kickstarter and show you some of the best, worst, and most interesting of the Video Game and Technology ideas.
Allison Road – First Person Next-Gen Survival Horror
A first person survival horror, in the same vein as P.T.
Allison Road is a narrative driven survival horror game made by experienced veterans in the entertainment industry. The game bares a noticeable resemblance to the Silent Hills teaser demo "Playable Teaser" aka P.T.
The game seems to be set mostly within one house, at least going off the game's description. It features intractable objects and puzzles to solve, all while keeping a watch out for Lily and other "dark entities" that lurk within the walls of this haunted house in the suburbs of Manchester, UK. For more information on the game, TechRaptor wrote on the game's Kickstarter launch.
Allison Road certainly looks the part of its horror predecessor, but has more than that it needs to live up to. The visual effects are certainly impressive. I think the most grabbing image, by far, has to be the swaying spiderweb shadows cast by the hallway light. Still, P.T. only needed to be a demo, Allison Road needs to be a game. That means a narrative through line that should (at least somewhat) see resolution. That means new and interesting puzzles and gameplay challenges. That means pacing over the course of its campaign. All this is achievable, and I look forward to seeing what this team can do.
Make sure to check out our interview with Allison Road's Project Lead.
PUGZ – World's Smallest Wireless Earbuds Charged Through Phone
Bluetooth headphones you can charge while you wear them
PUGZ are a unique set of Bluetooth headphones that let the user charge them as they're wearing them through the phone, and even use them as they're charging. The PUGZ use a special, self guided magnetic connector for charging they call "The Squircle." You can charge your PUGZ through a number of devices including a computer, AC-adapter, Android, and iPhone. These headphones are designed to stay in place and are workout friendly. The headphones also include volume controls, as well as play/pause/skip functionality and start/end calls.
I love when Kickstarters are willing to have fun with their trailers, and really advertise their product, not just tell me about it. Using only 3% of my battery is a pretty decent trade off, and of course being able to charge these headphones alone makes them stand out. My number one complaint about my Bluetooth headphones has always been that if they die I'm headphone-less till they're charged again. The shape and color variety of these headphones, combined with their utility, make them a must have to anyone who is looking for some new Bluetooth headphones.
The Dark Inside Me
A 2.5D psychological horror game
The Dark Inside Me is a psychological horror-adventure game based on "dynamic interactive scenario" made by horror film director Akçay Karaazmak. The game is set in 2.5D as well as a 3rd person point and click style camera. Karaazmak aims to reflect real characteristics of a player through the game and see how far they will push their own limits through the stages of the game.
The Dark Inside Me is based on a dynamic scenario, game-flow changes according to player decisions, how they deal with situations, and when they solve puzzles. The game's puzzles can be solved in more than one way, and each method affects the rest of the game.
I always enjoy seeing point & click style games are still around and kicking on Kickstarter. That style of game hasn't gotten enough attention in the last couple years. The project looks ready to disturb me at every possible second. And by disturb I mean the "make me feel weird" genre of horror. To be honest, I've never been a fan of this genre, as it tends to rely heavily on visuals to get a reaction out of you, and seems to think if it puts a sexy woman and violence together the result will scare me. I trust a horror director knows what he's doing ... with horror. But games and movies don't translate easily (still waiting on that Oscar movie based on a video game), so telling me you have experience making movies just tells me you don't have as much experience making games. But I'm being a pessimist, I'll be waiting to see how this one turns out.
Unique – Make any Watch a Smartwatch
Turn your classic watch into a smartwatch
The Unique is a watch strap that adds smart watch functionality to your regular watch. Inside it's leather band it conceals bendable electronics that give you added functionality.
The strap houses a discreet, multi-color LED, vibration alerts, and gesture recognition. You can receive notifications, reject calls, send pre-written texts, monitor your fitness, store your security and transport passes, and be reminded if you are about to leave your phone somewhere.
One of my first thoughts watching this was "this is how it should look." I mean that in regards to smartwatches. Watches have always been a cool accessory, and own a smartwatch is like investing in a (let's face it) bland but super functional watch. Here you can keep the *ahem* unique watch face, but still maintain the basic functionality of a smart watch, and I love it. I'm not sure how I would use it to send prewritten messages, and that sounds like a recipe for accidental texts.
A Credible Tale
A modern homage to SNES classics
In A Credible Tale, players will explore a hand-drawn 3D world set in classic Japan. Players can build and defend their village from supernatural invaders in battles that require planning and perfect execution. You'll take on hordes of yokai (supernatural beings) in a real-time combat system ala Secret of Mana or A Link to the Past.
Players will build their village and explore during the day, but when night falls they must defend the village.The game promises endless synergistic possibilities through skill and weapons customization. You can choose from more than three distinct player characters. The game also claims to teach a bit of Japanese and folklore.
I love the adorable, sunset drenched art style of the game. Everything is saturated in a warm glow with striking black outlines and a fast, anime style intensity. The world has some beautiful scenery to explore, and really evokes that old school Zelda feeling at some points. The game has a demo out now for Mac and PC if you'd like to try it.
Skreens lets every device stream at once with NO lag!
A new way to experience gaming, web, social, and TV together on one display.
Skreens is a new way to view all the content you want, all from the seat of your couch. PS4, XBox, PCs, cable box, Roku, Apple TV or whatever else you've got can be set up and switched between, allowing you to view all your content, at once, on a single screen, with no lag.
You can stream a let's player while playing the same game, or monitor a Twitter feed while a new episode of a show is live. As they say in the video, you're already doing this (just on different screens) now you can have it all in one place.
Personally, I don't like browsing the web on a TV screen. I don't know why, maybe its because the a lot of the web is reading based and I just don't want to read Twitter drama on my TV. That aside, having a way to easily and intuitively manage the size of these displays is really cool, and would definitely be handy if I'm playing a game while watching YouTube, or if I watched sports, watching football while playing Madden (do sports people do that?). I might recommend this product to some people, those being people who own a TV that's at least 50inches. Under that, this would become pretty cluttered pretty quickly. I think it speaks volumes that there isn't a single small monitor in this video, instead it's all above average size TV's.
Disclaimer: The author (Bryan Heraghty) does not back any Kickstarter projects he writes about, nor are any of these inclusions sponsoring TechRaptor. These projects are included solely because the author thinks they are interesting.
What are your thoughts on some of the Kickstarters we saw this week? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below! If you have a game or technology Kickstarter you think deserves attention, you can either comment below, email TechRaptor, or tweet @techraptr or @greyhoodedbryan your suggestion!