DestinyLeah
Welcome back to the Crowdfunding Roundup, the weekly feature where we bring you three fresh projects from crowdfunding websites. Every week brings three new projects that stand out from the crowd, with no repeats and no shady campaigns. Successful projects will be covered in their own articles as game development progresses towards release. Without further ado, here are this week’s picks.
Ridgewood
Goal: $8,585
Days Remaining: 29
Ridgewood is an interesting game. It places players down in a restricted zone known as Ridgewood, playing as part of a small task force charged with finding a young girl. The girl made it into the zone while walking through the woods with her mother, only to be chased away from the barrier by a crazed man. Mommy dearest couldn’t find a way into the restricted area, so she contacted the task force charged with maintaining Ridgewood’s security. They figured they would head in, since this was only the latest of a spate of reports about blood curdling screams, missing people, and insane people in the woods. Horror ensues.
Ridgewood began as a mod for Killing Floor, and has grown into its own standalone story with full areas and characters that do not exist in Tripwire’s guns-and-ghouls world. Because of the way Ridgewood was built, though, the team have to abide by Tripwire’s EULA, which requires their game be free to play. Once completed, Ridgewood will never be sold, it will simply be available for interested players to enjoy for free. That does leave the small indie team working on Ridgewood in a bit of a lurch, since they will never recoup losses incurred to create their game.
The team behind Ridgewood are asking backers to provide them with $8,585 over the next month to cover the costs of developing the game. There is one reward tier, a simple $6 pledge that gets you early access to all aspects of the game and development process. There is also an open donation area where you can give any amount without a backer reward attached. I am fairly certain the lack of backer tiers, higher levels, and the option to donate with no reward all fall back to the EULA that prevents the team from ever selling the game. While that is a steep hurdle to jump, the concept looks good and the Killing Floor background gives it a lot of potential for enemy types and action. I am interested in seeing where Ridgewood goes.
Miria
Goal: $5,075
Days Remaining: 6
Miria is a cute little 16-bit top-down horror story about a very haunted house. Miria is a young woman heading into unknown territory in search of her brother, who she is used to having to help out of sticky situations. She encounters a world she did not believe could even exist, and must now escape the horrors within. The solo developer of Miria is currently considering several endings for the game, so maybe we will see options for multiple endings based on choices.
Mathieu, the developer behind Miria, is asking backers for just over $5,000 to complete the game. That would speed up development and allow for full-time work on the project, instead of keeping it on the back burner while working to pay the bills. If the campaign is successful, Miria is planned for release this November. Backers can secure a full copy of the game for $11, or opt for early access to the demo for $5. While I am loathe to put up a project that puts its demo behind a paywall, these pixelated sprite games are fairly straightforward. The hard part is in writing a story people will enjoy, and it sounds like Mathieu has several contingencies in line if his backers give poor feedback on the story options. If you like top-down 16-bit games, projects like this are pretty low-risk.
Possessed
Goal: $5,000
Days Remaining: 20
Raise your hand if you liked recent indie release Dusk. Now use that hand to click the title above this video and go to the Possessed campaign page. This game is for serious lovers of cheesy, action-packed horror of years past, with waves of enemies and a ridiculous weapons. The dialogue alone from the trailer is so cheesy Whole Foods tried to pair it with a nice wine. Gordon Ramsey is currently melting it into some pasta. Ritz wants it for their crackers.
Enemies abound in ever single room, parading around in what appears to be a pageant of early survival horror enemies. Nurses with axes and bats? Check. Weird mannequins? Got it. Oversized brutes? Here and ready to rumble. Feel free to mow all of them down with a canister-loaded automatic rifle, or pull some serious crowd control with dynamite. Whatever your preference, it is here. Run and gun, scoot and shoot, hang and BANG, it’s all good.
There isn’t much I can say seriously about Possession. It’s goofy bordering on comedy, packed to the absolute gills with action, and made for a certain kind of gamer. This kind of game is incredibly frustrating, but it is also just about the most outright fun you’ll have playing a game. If the developer can pull off raising $5,000 in 20 days, and then follows the well-worn path of the games he is trying to emulate, it’s a no-brainer for fun.
