The Crowd-fund Funstravaganza - Mega Crowd-fund Drive

We've covered a lot of titles at the crowd-fund funstravaganza and there has always been a bit of a trend. While there have been games like Takedown and the upcoming episodic Day One: Garry's Incident giving potential pledgers something a little different, you usually don't even see FPS games on crowd-funding sites. Even FPS Russia: The Game isn't an FPS - it's a free to play mobile side scroller with in app purchases. (I honestly have no idea how it succeeded.)


Day One: Garry's Incident is no ordinary FPS

The reasons for this are simple - people can get First Person Shooters almost anywhere and publishers are not afraid to back them. Clive Barker's Jericho, Darkest of Days, even Singularity - all were published. The projects that follow the crowd-funding route tend to come in two flavours - either they are a new company with very little experience and a lot of passion, or they are making something publishers tend to shy away from, like a Rainbow Six/SWAT 4 tactics based FPS, or Canada's episodic version of Far Cry 3.

At first the titles we saw were Adventure games - otherwise known in publishing circles as money repellant. We saw the Double Fine Adventure and the Homestuck Adventure Game and a slew of other less successful projects - now the selection is much smaller, although you can still check out the ridiculously bizarre Ritual Dementia and the less bizarre, but more horrifying looking Asylum.

Then we began to see RPGs, old school style RPGs by the likes of Chris Avellone and Brian Fargo. They made way to strategy titles and space sims which have now made way to JRPGs. Kickstarter lets fans of niche genres finally make games they always wanted to make, but never could. This latest genre swell - JRPGs - is accompanied by another major trend however - the second 16-bit era.


Not quite 16-bit

Well, 16-bit isn't entirely accurate. There are still fans of 8-bit pixel art and some of the newer wave of high quality pixel art is better described as 32-bit. It's the sentiment that matters however. The 16-bit era saw a drastic increase in the quality of art in video games, which had been hampered by technology. This new burst of 16-bit/32-bit pixel art is fueled not by technology however, but by confidence. Artists who joined the scene over the past couple of years are getting more confident in their abilities and making more advanced art.

It's not just tied to art however, as many of the projects have roots in the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo. Freedom Planet dubs itself a blend of Megaman, Sonic and Gunstar Heroes into one furious and fast paced Mega Drive style platformer. At $16,851 of its $2000 goal it is obviously going to get made - currently they are attempting to reach a stretch goal of $20,000.

Cryamore is an action-adventure inspired by games like Secret of Mana, Metroid and Brave Fencer Musashi. While it is thoroughly anime (which will no doubt put some off) it looks outstanding and the music is amazing (check it out here. Currently at $108,701 of its $60,000 goal it has several stretch goals, including Android, OUYA and iOS support at $150,000 and PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Linux versions at $225,000.


Cryamore definitely has a Secret of Mana vibe.

Lastly, The 90's Arcade Racer attempts to take back all the damage Gran Turismo did to racing, with its realism and wheels and gear shifting... things. Screw it, I don't know anything about cars. Gran Turismo changed things though, I know that - and The 90's (sic) Arcade Racer is an attempt to change them back. Currently sitting just below its £10,000 goal, you can get a copy of this Daytona style madness for £10 and £30 gets you a physical copy of the game.

I have to say, I greatly prefer this 16-bit nostalgia to the 8-bit nostalgia before it, probably because I've spent a lot more time playing Mega Drive and SNES games than any other system. Also because it doesn't look like garbage. I wonder how long until we move onto the PSX and N64 era of nostalgia? Have you seen any recent crowd-funding projects you think are worth backing? Let us know in the comments below.