An Indiegogo campaign is currently running for the tactical RPG Paths & Danger:

 Paths and Danger

Hello! Thank you for your visit to our game.

First of all, we'd like you to get to know us a little bit as we are a small team of just two people, eager to make big games. We feel that Indiegogo is perfect for creating 'Paths and Danger' with great detail. We aim to involve you in the game design during this time, carefully hearing your opinions and suggestions.

Paths & Danger is a procedural turn-based RPG.

Join in on an adventure to gather a balanced group of characters to embark on a series of quests for the sake of good or evil. Which side will you choose?

Travel many paths in which you have to deal with random encounters and different situations and make the best of it.

You must hire and recruit new members for your party, each with different skills, to complete the quests. You can also increase the success of your adventures by improving your character's gear and equipment. Plus, pack up all sorts of potions, loot precious gems and gold to help you along the journey.

Main Features

• Lead groups of 30 different characters, each one with unique abilities and weapons 
• Manage your heroes stats to get them stronger
• Deal with dangerous circumstances, events, and quests 
• Solve the story of the mystery surrounding the town of Westwall
• Fight in a strategic turn-based combat system on a hex grid
• Characters with unique traits and features may give or take when you expect less, changing the course of battle.
• A deep atmospheric environment that suits different world places (6 unique types of world places)
• Emerge in a diverse stunning dark fantasy world 
• Roguelike features, including permadeath
• Procedural map generation giving endless replay 
• and count with the traditional RPG elements, loot, inventory, character level up, upgrade on stats, weapon, and armors...

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Kordanor spotted a crowdfunding campaign for the dungeon crawler Inferno - Beyond the 7th Circle:

What is "Inferno - Beyond The 7th Circle"?

Inferno - Beyond The 7th Circle (the final title may change) it's the spiritual successor of The 7th Circle.
The story is quite different and some mechanics have changed, but the gameplay core is the same. It will be published during the last quarter of 2019 or early 2020. It will be available for Windows and Linux.

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Key features of the game:

• First person dungeon crawler. If you've enjoyed classic CRPG from the 90s (like "Dungeon Master" or "The Eye of the Beholder"), you will like this game.
• Turn based combat. Take your time, plan your strategy.
• Deep magic system: learn more than 70 "Magic Formulas" to cast spell and use resources to empower your magics.
• Survive: search for food, clean water and other resources to craft items, weapons, armours and useful items.
• A huge map to explore and infinite random-generated dungeons to visit.
• Improve your skills as you use them. E.G: the more you use an axe, the more you will improve your "Bladed Weapon" skill.
• Puzzle to solve, hidden areas to find, tasks to fulfill, and a lot of demons to kill.

As main difference between Inferno" and "The 7th Circle, the perma-death system is gone. Now the game has a more classic approach with save and load. And instead of being divided into levels, Inferno is based on a single large map, with a surface and different layers of underground that you can freely explore.

An Indigigogo campaign for the Action RPG Sole Descendant has been started:

Sole Descendant

Fast paced action RPG, with an emphasis on medieval combat mechanics and visually rich storytelling.

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Awake and master sword fight in brutal, fast-paced melee combat across an engaging story campaign as the last cursed guardian of humankind. Use all necessary means: devastating sword combos paired with powerful spells. Find answers fighting unique bosses and learn the story of the realm by directly participating and driving in-game story events.

The post apocalyptic tactical RPG Radiation Age is now on Indiegogo:

Radiation Age - A post apocalyptic tactical RPG

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Radiation Age is a tactical RPG game set in a post–apocalyptic world, in which you take control of one of the shelter's inhabitants. While traveling the world, you will face many hard decisions that can significantly influence the course of the main storyline.  The key elements of the gameplay are the proper management of available heroes and their abilities, clever use of structures present on the map and knowledge of the surrounding.

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Thanks Farflame!

An Indiegogo campaign for the Witcher movie Alzur's Legacy has been launched:

ALZUR’S LEGACY (under Polish title “Half Century of Poetry Later”) is a short fan film (about 30’ long) based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher Saga. The project is being developed by an independent group of filmmakers engaged in film, TV and stage play production on the daily basis. The project is being developed as a non-profit endeavour and none of the creators or actors gains financially from it. Copyrights of “ The Witcher” belongs to Andrzej Sapkowski an other entitled parties.

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Thanks Farflame!

Bargeral and Rune_74 informed us that the Action RPG Hero's Song is now on Indiegogo with flexible funding:

 

Hero's Song is a hardcore action RPG and uses the familiar click-to-move and attack controls of classic action RPGs like Diablo III or Path of Exile. Combat takes a more measured pace, giving you time to react to the intelligent tactics of your enemies and to thoughtfully deploy your wide variety of skills and abilities. True to its hardcore nature, combat in Hero's Song is dangerous and has very real consequences including the chance of permanent death. Friendly fire is always defaulted to "on", so positioning and precision are very important considerations. Death will come quickly if you think this is a simple clickfest.

-> Trailer

Black Rune spotted the Indiegogo campaign for the Action Adventure Edge of Twilight:

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(English at 1:42)

The Edge of Twilight series is a multiplatform, diverse-genre series of Steampunk games. "Edge of Twilight - Return to Glory" is a 3rd person action adventure game developed for the PC, Consoles and Nvidia Shield platforms presenting a unique post-apocalyptic, steampunk fantasy world that has been split into separate realms of Day and Night. Players take the role of Lex, an outcast bounty hunter who finds himself caught amidst the clash of two polar opposite civilisations, the industrial Atherns and the spiritual Lithern, the result of impetuous greed for a solitary source of energy.

Project Brazil - the team behind Fallout: New Brazil - will start an Indiegogo campaign for the Sci-Fi RPG Shadow Star -> preview:

Shadow Star is a Science Fiction Role Playing Game that casts you as the Commander aboard a starship exploring the galaxy during an interstellar war between four great empires. Played in a 1st person perspective, Shadow Star focuses on rich character interaction, emergent gameplay, the ship's engineering, and narrative quests as seen from the decks of your vessel. The game allows the player to build their own fleets, manage officers and crews, and explore procedural star systems full of NPCs similar to if Skyrim or Knights of the Old Republic met FTL.

Thanks Couch!

The recently started Indiegogo campaign for Indivisible raised $70K already out of a desired $1.5M in 7 hours, with some 40 days still to go.

Indivisible is a game developed by both 505 Games and Lab Zero. The latter also known (apparently) for the fighting game Skull Girls...

A free PC download of the prototype should help determining if this game is something to throw your money at.

The prototype was funded by 505 Games, and Lab Zero is using the prototype as a proof of concept to raise funds to continue development for Indivisible. Using Indiegogo, Lab Zero seeks to raise $1,500,000 and should they reach their funding goal, 505 Games will match the rest of the development budget needed to complete the game.

Indivisible is a new RPG IP, starring Ajna (AHZH-na), a girl who sets out on a globe-spanning journey to discover the truth behind her mysterious powers. On her quest, she is joined by a variety of unique heroes and gains new abilities to traverse the environments and defeat the enemies they encounter along the way. Built with the unique characters and gameplay depth Lab Zero is known for, Indivisible takes a fresh spin on action/RPG gameplay, featuring a deep storyline inspired by Southeast Asian and other world mythologies. Lab Zero’s trademark feature-quality 2D hand-drawn animation and a lush soundtrack from legendary Secret of Mana composer Hiroki Kikuta further enrich and enhance the game.

Speedstar made a pre-alpha gameplay video for the oldschool game Fantasy Dimension:

Here's the link to the Indiegogo campaign.

A new crowdfunding campaign - Fantasy Dimension - has started at Indiegogo:

OVERVIEW

Fantasy Dimension is:

• Dark Fantasy Theme - no disneyland, no japan.
• Turn Based Tactical Combat - fight groups of enemies, plan every move, choose from variety skills and spells.
• Party Based - specialize up to 6 characters.
• Freedom Character Creation - no classes, create own by mixing any skills and spells.
• 100% Line Art - two color illustration graphics like in old books.
• Imagination - no computer effects, played like a paper game.
• 5 Difficulty Modes - changeable during play.
• Multiplatform - browser based, Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS.
• FREE - ads based.

Game starts with party creation. Player chooses unique traits (they are not available in later progress) and starting skills or spells, for up to 6 characters.

In the town, party buy and sell items, learn or extend skills and spells for experience points, and visit some places. When each member is prepared for combat, they leave main gates, choose 1 of 5 difficulty modes and location type to travel. There is a chance that before they meet the enemy, some event may occur.

On the battlefield, there is turn based combat, divided into whole turns and their phases. On each phase, player or enemy choose 1 of their unused members to do 1 action, which can be basic attack, defense, use of item, use of skill or use of spell. Each skill and spell can be used once per certain number of turns. Side which has more available characters, may have more than 1 move in their phase. After all characters on the battlefield have been used, new turn begins. Winning the battle will result in coins, items and experience points. If player will lost 1 or more party members, then new ones can be recruited in the town. 

To progress each character, player can spend experience points on learning new skills and spells, or extend current. Freedom in character creation allows every party member to have access to any knowledge. There are multi level skills and spells, but most of them do not depend on others to learn. The only thing that can make each character to be more unique are traits set at the beginning.

-> Info from ociebieda

A new game was launched on Indiegogo called Shallow Space: Insurgency, and the  developer is asking for $85,000 to help fund his game. Here is the games trailer.

Shallow Space is an action packed Real Time Strategy space game in a true 3D environment. Players will control a wide variety of heavily customizable ships throughout an in depth story line, skirmish scenarios, co-op, and multiplayer throughout a variety of game modes. With a heavy emphasis on gameplay options, Shallow Space’s asymmetrical balance will ensure plenty of variety and replayability.

Shallow Space has been in development for over a year now, and is quite far along in the development process. In the past year, we have overcome the majority of the major technical hurdles and have a fantastic, playable tech demo in hand. From here, we need a burst of funding to polish up the game, pay some of our contractors, and acquire the needed assets.

I was notified by the developer of a new adventure game on Indiegogo called The Dark Inside Me. Now a warning does apply about some of the games content.

Now why a warning because its made by a director of Gory horror movies.

You awake in a hospital room, handcuffed to a bed. You hear some detectives speaking about you. They are speaking that they are surprised that how you can be still alive after that terrifying event. And one of the said it would be better if they caught you dead. You don’t understand and don’t remember much but to learn first you should find a way to escape.

The first question come to minds is if you are guilty or not? But its much more beyond the guiltiness or guiltless. You have given a chance to face with your past and how far you would go and sacrifice from yourself to enlighten the darkness and fight with your demons.

Perhaps not really RPG news, but it is capable of playing quite a bit of RPGs. If you are old enough to have known and used the ZX Spectrum, this might be an opportunity to play some of the 14.000 games again, that were created in the time, by participating in the Indiegogo campaign, which has been started featuring the ZX Spectrum Vega.

The Vega has been developed by Chris Smith, a former ZX Spectrum games developer who is the world's leading expert on Sinclair Spectrum technology and author of the definitive technical book "The ZX Spectrum ULA: How to design a microcomputer".

 

Retro Computers Ltd is making arrangements with the owners of the software rights to Spectrum games to donate a combined software royalty to a charity – Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. The company’s Chairman, Dr David Levy, had his life saved by the hospital when he was diagnosed with meningitis as a 3-year-old.

The development of the Sinclair Spectrum Vega is complete, and we have a fully working prototype waiting to go into production within the UK. We are making contact with thousands of the original Spectrum game developers in order to secure their permission to use their games on the Vega, for which a combined software royalty will be donated to charity ‒ Great Ormond Street Hospital for children.

Once the first 1,000 Limited Edition Vegas have been manufactured and shipped, and we move on to the next 3,000 units and thereafter to batches of 10,000 or more, the retail price of the Vega will reduce. But even at £100 the cost of the limited edition Vega, with its 1,000 games built-in, represents a huge saving over the cost of the original product plus the cost of 1,000 of the original Spectrum games. What cost thousands of pounds back in the 1980s is now available for around 1 per cent of that amount.

Here is another new game looking for funding on Indiegogo this week. The game is called Planet Centauri and as usual here is a video, and game description.

Discover the secrets that lurk through more than twenty biomes, tame monsters and make them your allies , save the Chloriniens from the Night Walkers , create a community and protect it , create your own weapons, your own armor, your own magic and make the planet Centauri the cradle of a new civilization or your tomb!

The Tale of Three Indiegogo Campaign has earned $1,075 of the games $30,000 goal, and has 31 days left. The developers have posted a few updates since last week.

Check out the Unreal Engine 4 Twitch Broadcast with The Tale of Three .

We have something special for you! Take a look at the "Select a Perk" section where you can find the Special Offer: Digital Copy tier that contains everything from the Digital Copy tier at a lower price:

● Digital copy of The Tale of Three
● Your name as a funder in the game's credits
● Closed forum access and special badge
● Wonderful wallpaper pack

The Tale of Three is a new Action-Adventure Game from a developer called gameDNA studio. They also have a webpage on Seam Greenlight that has more information.

The Tale of Three will be an action-adventure game with some RPG elements, but we won’t hold your hand throughout the story. There will be a lot to discover but nothing will be given on a plate. We focus on a maximum immersion and high level of difficulty like in the old-school games.

If that got you interested they have a campaign on Indiegogo that needs funding.

Welcome to our crowdfunding campaign for The Tale of Three, which is a third-person perspective video game with three playable characters whose fates get tangled up with each other.

If you haven't already seen the trailer, don't wait anymore – you must see it! The video contains actual in-game footage from the pre-alpha version. We realize that it looks pretty raw without some assets, textures, or parts of gameplay but keep in mind that it's the beginning of the development and in the end it will look much better.

Our goal is to create a game that will allow you to take part in an epic adventure with unforgettable characters in the mysterious world. We hope that it will stand out by its original gameplay and high level of difficulty – like in old good games, but with a modern twist.

Among the inspirations we have to mention fables and tales from our childhood like those by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, and many, many others. When it comes to games, we take pattern from Hype: The Time Quest (it's quite old but still charming), the Gothic series, Fable: The Lost Chapters, The Witcher series, and Dark Souls.

So what we want to achieve is to create something that will make us feel the same magic we felt when our mothers and fathers read us stories in childhood, and then when we played games as teenagers. Sometimes contemporary productions look pretty but finishing them no longer makes such pleasure like in the old ones. We would like to return to the roots, drawn from the DNA of classics and make for you something that you will want to play again.

Acoording to this new press release a few veterans fron Square-Enix, Capcom, and Sega are making a new episodic RPG called X-Tactics with a new crowd funding campaign.

Veterans of Square-Enix, Capcom & SEGA, announce X-Tactics crowd funding campaign

Tokyo, Japan - August 08, 2014 - GAMKIN Inc., formed by veterans of Square-Enix, Capcom and SEGA, announced today they have begun a crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo platform for their latest game: X-Tactics. X-Tactics, is an episodic RPG, set in the modern world, that combines tactical gameplay with elements of urban exploration.

The campaign starts today and will last until Monday, September 15. More details about the campaign can be found here: http://igg.me/at/xtactics

“When we set out to make X-Tactics, we didn’t want to make just another tactical game, nor create some sort of perfect tactical experience. Our goal was to create something new.” said Robert Gould, X-Tactics's producer and lead designer. “Leveraging our expertise, we combined equal parts of tactical gameplay like that of ‘Final Fantasy Tactics’ and ‘Valkyrie Chronicles’, with fighting game mechanics and aesthetics, like those found in the ‘Street Fighter’ series, to create a new gameplay experience, that we at least, have not seen done before.”

“It is our mission here at GAMKIN, to mashup our gamedev expertise with other fields. So we are using real world data streams, like weather, and location-based data, to enhance X-Tactics gameplay, creating an urban exploration sandbox mode for our players. This combined with the curated episodic nature of X-Tactics will allow us to build a living game, and allow us to expand the X-Tactics universe based on our community's feedback.”

Regarding crowdfunding, Kengo Okinaga, founder and CEO of GAMKIN, explained that "unlike most other game-related crowdfunding, that depends on funding to start production, we wanted to wait until we had the game’s systems nailed down before starting our campaign, so we could reduce the risks for both our supporters and partners.” adding that “the development team is now focusing on improving features and creating the remaining content needed for release, not simple tasks, but tasks that we feel confident we can handle.”

"We chose Indiegogo as we are based in Japan, and Indiegogo is the best truly global crowdfunding platform out there. And that same global reach will also play an important role to help us build an international community of players that will be able to make the most out of the title’s unique urban exploration features.”

Acid Wizard Studios Darkwood is going to be released on Steam Early Access on July 24th. Incase anyone forgot I covered the game on Indiegogo earlier this year.

Here is a new video and a recap of the game.

Darkwood is a game about survival, exploration and fear set in mysterious woods somewhere in the territory of the Soviet Bloc. By blending RPG, roguelike and adventure elements together with a challenging difficulty, Darkwood aims to please players craving for a deep and rewarding experience.

I found another game on Indiegogo called Devious asking for $32,000. The games developer calls his game a story driven turn based RPG.

Welcome

We kindly welcome you to this campaign to get funding for Devious. We need as much help as possible to make this project see the light of day. Your support is much appreciated as we will continue to grow and make this project a reality.

Of course we encourage you to tell your friends about this if you think they can find it interesting!

But...What is Devious?

Devious is a 2D story-driven turn based RPG game. Basically, we have a mix of many classic RPG elements and a modern plot with a lot of features and twists. We take influences from the most relevant and important RPGs from both West and East. 

Our ideal is to revive the turn based combat that we all love and bring it to computer gaming, wrapping it in with a deep concept, story and beautiful 2D graphics.

The player will take the place of agent David Doyle of the CDA in his attempt to capture a dangerous criminal, with the help of the advanced and classified intelligence system: OUTLAW Project.

We were sent news of the following game called Medieval Times on Indiegogo. The developer OddGames is asking for $10,000. So as usual here is the pitch video.

You are a local peasant (Edmond) from a small village called Mosscroft. Everyday seems ordinary and dull until you are set on a mission by the village noble which leads to unexpected adventures.

Edmond is given the task to travel to the neighbouring village called Fairbridge to find new seeds for sowing. Eager to find some change in his life he gladly accept the task; anything to get away from the farming shores and errands. However, Edmond quickly realizes that life is not so easy on the road. Bandits raid the country side, attacking supply caravans and unproven travellers. He must build up his skills if he is to survive in this unforgiving world…

The developer also offers a demo to help you decide to help find his game.

There is a Medieval Times working alpha demo which you can try for free. However, to get the project finished I need your support. This will allow me to pay for studio rent, additional development programs and equipment. The more money I raise the more creative freedom, and content there will be.

World War Machine is a new Action RPG that was picked from the voters of the Square Enix Collective. The games is asking for $50,000, and ends on June, 24th.

A supremely customizable, highly advanced technological marvel of destruction.

Locate prized items and gather Materials to Craft crippling Weapons, upgrade with ruinous hardware Components and make critical moment-to-moment tactical choices as you campaign through an unforgiving cityscape. A fast-paced, modern Action-RPG, World War Machine lets you adventure solo or party-up to survive the hordes of remorseless enemies.

NOTE: To those who may be wondering, the funding goal of $50 000 we have set is not to fund the game entirely. It costs a lot more than that to make a top quality Action-RPG. We are already partially funded by a loan from the CMF (Canada Media Fund). We simply need an additional push to make the game better. 

We are extremely passionate game developers, each with many years of experience in the game industry. We plan on doing right by every single dollar pledged by putting it directly into the production of World War Machine.

Forward to the Sky is a new game on Indiegogo asking for $3,000 to help finish the games development, The developer Wei Chen describes his game as the following.

Forward to the Sky is a third person action adventure game in the sky tower ruin. The game is Zelda-like, focus more on puzzles also features a mixture of action and adventure gameplay.

I thought I'd check out what is available as games that are tagged with the RPG label on Indiegogo and found out that very few understand how important presentation is.
Here are a few games that I felt might spark an interest amongst the RPGWatch community and of which most will not get funded unless they present themselves a lot better.

Legends of Persia

The storyline revolves around Keykhosro, the son of the Persian prince Siavosh who was killed by Afrasiab, the king of Tooran. In the game you will have to deal with large amounts of enemies and fight bosses in order to be able to deal with Afrasiab.
They are asking for $5.000 AUD (currently at $35 with 50 days left) and with an estimated delivery date of March this year the campaign runs longer, which is somewhat odd.
Not sure how serious they are as they have not added any updates at the moment.

Catharsis

A game labeled as an adventurous steampunk RPG, which will not only release on PC and Mac, but also on Android and iOS.
Catharsis follows the story of four citizens dragged into a conflict to save their nation; Rhogar, the engineer; Kay, his partner mysteriously brought back from death; Ares, a black market dealer; and Mathias; a bartender with a shady past. As they struggle to restore power to their country, they face off against the rich and powerful Count Arthur who has his own agenda for Textoria. 
They are asking for $25.000 AUD (currently at $195 with 21 days left). At the moment their engine is ready and they now need to make the sprites, artwork and music to complete the game.
Like the previous game, they have not provided any updates, so that could definately be improved especially as some basic game information is missing, like how combat works to name one.

Varas - legend of a Thief

A 'retro RPG pc game' is the subtitle of Varas, which is at the very least a referral to the graphics. It is a game about a young boy that is taken to be trained as a thief in which capacity he finds out more about the history of his family.
The description of the game is brief and incomplete and leaves many question unanswered, which is likely to be the main reason that up to now they have only reached 35 Euros from their 4500 Euro goal. With 22 days left they better add some improvements to this proposition or it isn't going anywhere, especially as the market for a game with this graphics style isn't that big.

7

This developer needs funds to hire a development team as he feels unable to finish the game without it. There is a bit of information on the game, but it isn't that readable. It is a rather uninspiring Q&A the developer has with himself. The game is a turn-based RPG/Strategy hybrid using old school 16 bit graphics. The name of the game can be found back in the 7 kingdoms that make up the world of the game. Each kingdom has 7 regions and it it your task to free these regions with your team of 7, while also dealing with the 7 elements.
At the moment the campaign has gathered $61 from a desired $50K and with 46 days to go there is still room to improve the presentation.

Sierra Ops

This is a space RPG, which has already met its goal, but there is still some time to jump on the bandwagon if you like. Compared to the previous mentioned games this one has a much better presentation and some updates with actual information as well.
In the game you are a captain of the "Sierra", a battleship and it is your task to reclaim of the colonies that have separated themselves from the Eart Alliance. You can decide which side to you want to take in the inevitable war.
Sierra Ops is an improved version of an existing game: Operation SD: Space Defense, which is likely to serve as a reference to determine if this can be a game to your liking.

Catharsis is a new Steampunk RPG on Indiegogo asking for $25,000. I have the usual video with a short description below.

Catharsis follows the story of four citizens dragged into a conflict to save their nation; Rhogar, the engineer; Kay, his partner mysteriously brought back from death; Ares, a black market dealer; and Mathias; a bartender with a shady past. As they struggle to restore power to their country, they face off against the rich and powerful Count Arthur who has his own agenda for Textoria

Rippers: Rise of The Great One is a new Tactical RPG on Indiegogo asking for $250,000 to get funded. Here is a video and some game details.

Rippers: Rise of the Great One is a turn-based game for PC, Mac, and mobile devices, based on one of the most popular Savage Worlds roleplaying settings, Rippers. Players take the role of Victorian monster hunters, members of the shadowy secret society: the Rippers.

Valgards Fate is a new mobile RPG on Indiegogo that needs help getting funded. I know what your thinking but it's a mobile game just give it a look.

Hello supporter,

My name is Dirk Nordhusen. I am a 40 years old German guy and in my daily job I'm a professional developer of desktop applications. My hobby though, is creating games for mobile platforms, expecially for Windows Phone.

When I started developing games in 2006, I had the vision of creating my own role playing game sometimes in the future. I made a lot of games since then but I never finished my role playing game. The concept and idea of Valgards Fate grew a lot over the years and I already implemented a lot of stuff and created a lot of graphics, sounds and levels for the game. But it's still not finished.

The problem with such a big project is simple: You need A LOT of assets and a lot of time. The latter is not the big deal, I've been working on games for so long in my spare time, I know I can and I will complete this game. But the assets and all the other things that cost money already ate so much money, I can't handle this all alone.

And this is why I'm asking you for help now.

The video shows a trailer that was made for the Dream Build Play 2012 contest. In the end it says that the game will be available in summer 2012 which was my goal if I had won the contest and got the 20.000$ :)

But in the end I got a place in the top 20 which was a good result for just a demo of a game!

A new game called Void of Darkness has started their Indiegogo campaign. Its worth a look and is described as the following.

A 2D Space Combat, Trading, and Exploration RPG, inspired by Starflight 1 & 2 - For Windows PC, MAC OS and LINUX.

Azurite Games has decided to halt development on Dark Triad: Conspiracy due to financial difficulties. Backers on IndieGoGo will be refunded. The kickstarter was also halted a few months back so this comes as no surprise.

They also posted a unity demo of the game.

We saw that working with XNA would take us another 8 months to add basic features, and this wasn’t feasible due to our reduced budget, until the point that the amount of money that Miguel and I could add has been used up. It’s been 14 months where we’ve spent about $40K and we would need to spend the double to finish the game. Miguel had let go some of his clients to dedicate more time to the project, I left my job to dedicate more time to the project, and made some freelance translations to pay all team members.

But the money issue is a wall that we can’t overcome at the moment. That’s why we have decided, with the utmost regret, to halt the development of Dark Triad: Conspiracy.

First thing we’ll do in the coming months is to refund the backers that supported us through our official website and Indiegogo. Once we’ve done that, we’ll post a note so everybody rests assured of our honestity and can claim if there were any issues in the refund process.

Does this mean the game won’t ever be finished? We can’t ask this question now. What we know for sure is that we already stopped making the game with XNA, as every little feature required weeks or months to be implemented as we said.

We made a test with Unity these last week, and we know that if could give Dark Triad: Conspiracy another try, it would be the way to go. Unity has a stable environment and many add-ons that make things much easier. We’ve made a little tech demo to try it out, with no prior knowledge, and the results are very convincing. We didn’t want to say “Goodbye” or “See you later” without showing you some bits of this test, so we’ve posted a video so you can see the results. There’s no FX, no props, just a small map David Lopez designed for the game. Imagine what we could do with more time... and money.

But, as we said, we don’t have these dollars to move things forward. Maybe in the coming months Miguel and I are able to save up some money to continue the development of our CRPG. Currently, the team has been dissolved, and only our Lead Programmer, Jose Manuel Alcaraz, will stay with us to make some tests with Unity in the coming months. Depending on the results, we’ll see what we can do.

Finally, I want to thank of all you for bearing with us all this time since we started sharing news about Dark Triad: Conspiracy. It would be irresponsible and dishnoest on our side to tell you to keep following up the forums for new updates. We won’t update them anymore for the time being. If we manage to retake the project, you’ll be the first ones to know about it by sending you an email. Nothing would make us happier, believe us. You’ve given us the energy and fuel to try things out until the very end, so we deeply appreciate your sustained support. You are the best, guys, sincerely.

And as I said before, I hope this is a `See you later` rather than a `goodbye`. Let’s see what the future holds in store, maybe a rich businessman from Abhu Dhabi or Qatar approach us, one never knows!

We reported on the Indiegogo campaign for The Black Tower before, but recently we learned that the project is cancelled and won't be coming back.

It is with a lot of sadness that I am here to announce the end of the project The Black Tower. Started by 2 people (graphic designers) in february, and joined by 2 others working half-time (programmer and music composer), TBT was probably too ambitious. I want to make it clear that the project was totally realistic, and we are confident in the fact that we could have made it in its entirety with funds, and I will be the first one to regret that we have to cancel everything. But facts are facts, and we are 99% sure that it is now impossible to realise our dream of reviving these 2.5D J-RPGs that we used to like so much. In 15 days, we haven't reached 1% of our goal, with around 80 contributors for 8k visitors. It is now obvious that, even with the 30 days left, it is impossible to make it.

Five reasons are given on why it failed, one of them being that they could not be on Kickstarter.

As explained through various comments, we didn't choose Indiegogo because we like it more than Kickstarter.

We had to make this difficult choice for 2 main reasons :

- Kickstarter doesn't allow non-US/UK residents to ask for funds, and it becomes very difficult and very long for a foreigner to share their project. I don't say it is impossible, yet it was not compatible with the following point.

- For various reasons linked to some team members, the crowdfunding had to begin in May. From February (beginning of the project) to May, there is not a long period. Understanding how crowdfunding works, finding a good status for us, and starting the procedure to use Kickstarter from France was too slow and we couldn't make it in time.

This is why we chose Indiegogo, and we knew it would become very, very difficult to reach our goal. Because yes, the problem of Indiegogo is that they really not support video games as much as Kickstarter does. Where we reached 1% of our goal on Indiegogo, maybe we could have reached 40% on Kickstarter. We don't know, but it is possible.

Some of you will ask : then why not start a new campaign on Kickstarter as soon as you can ?
Simply because the team will soon be dissolved. Some of us have to find a job to live from, and with the end of TBT, they just can't wait and see what will happen next. As everyone is important in the current team, we can't go further when someone lives.

A new Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign seeks funds to make a documentary about how the gaming industry makes money.

WHAT IS "FOLLOW THE MONEY?

Follow The Money is a new original documentary series from the creators of SHIFT. We'll examine how your money finances the gaming industry by going in-depth  into the cost of game development, the future of Digital Rights Management, and even the struggling gaming press industry.  Free isn't always 'free', and Follow The Money is going to change your perspective of video games as we move into the new generation of consoles.

How to help

Crowd sourcing content is the only way to get indie projects financed. Corporations rely on volume internet traffic for revenue. By speaking directly to a smaller audience, providing content that they want to see, my creative team ensures quality without compromise. 

From the creator of SHIFT. on GameTrailers.com

This new documentary is being created independent any publishing arm. Follow The Money isn't the type of media that would draw enough traffic to generate controversy, but gamers want it.

The developer of Zafira wrote us to inform us he is working on a game about collecting items, exploring, strategy, fighting with other players, crafting items, training various professions and becoming stronger infinitely without grinding 24/7. It is also a browser RPG and its on Indiegogo, where the campaign could use some help as it is currently at $11 out of a desired $35K.

Darkwood the survival horror RPG roguelike game is successfully funded on Indiegogo. Here are the stretch goals.

With 7 days still to go, we have reached our initial funding goal.

ALL THANKS TO YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE!!

We are EXTREMELY excited! We’re gonna celebrate a bit (it’s 1am here) but we’re gonna get back to work tommorow, there are still some stretch goals to be reached!

WE LOVE YOU GUYS

We will be hosting a Q&A session on Raptr (www.raptr.com) on Monday, June 3 from 10AM to 6PM PT!

Not only we will be answering any questions you may have about Darkwood, indie development, crowdfunding, but also the top 5 comments will win COOL STUFF!

You can start asking questions even so people can vote for them, so go ahead and jump to Raptr: http://raptr.com/guteks/news/51a7cf095217df7010...

Remember the game I posted about last month called The Black Tower. Some of you were interested, and others just made fun of the game. Well the developers have finally started their crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

A neo-retro game inspired by J-RPGs from the PS1 era, with a Space Fantasy story.

TBT is born from a novel by Simon Mesnard written in 2011 and self-published, entitled La Tour de l'Espace (The Tower in the Space). He produced the indie game ASA: A Space Adventure, a slideshow adventure based on this book, which received good reviews from the criticism. When many people asked him for a sequel, he already had another thing in mind : reviving his favourite genre of games, J-Rpgs with prerendered backgrounds. The Black Tower !

The game

TBT: The Black Tower is an indie RPG for PC and Mac. The game will feature a vast world to explore through various places that you reach from a Worldmap, with random encounters and turn-based battles. If it sounds quite Retro on the paper, we'd like to add some modern elements to make it sound Neo too. Neo-Retro gaming is something that fits perfectly to our vision of Indie games, and we really hope that you will enjoy TBT for both its old mechanisms and its new opportunities.

Story

Somewhere in the Universe, there is a spaceship called The Ark, built long ago by scientists of another galaxy. Their Ark has a specific mission : finding planets on the verge to die. The Ark releases a mysterious black Cube on each of these planets until one of its inhabitants finds it. Through this chosen person, the aim is to gather the memories and knowledge of a whole civilization before it definetely disapears, and that without interfering with its future. Then the Cube sends the precious data to the Ark, thus repeting the cycle for thousands of years...

Something similar happened in 2011 on planet Terra (a fantasy world, not the Earth !). Astronaut Philip Forté was repairing the old Cobalt-5 satellite for the CSE, when he sunddenly noticed an unknown black Cube drifting in Space. Forté mysteriously disappeared and is now known on Terra as the crazy astronaut who sacrificed his life for an illusion.

21 years later, young Yan Forté - the son of Philippe - chose to live alone as a forest ranger. He doesn't want to hear anything about Space and trains hard to protect nature under the command of Jacob Leclerc, an old soldier who found a nice retreat in the woods. They have a rough life, finding their own food and fighting against wild beasts, but they like it. Everything will change when the Palak'us - pirates - start destroying the trees here and there for an unknown reason. During an investigation, Yan will meet a girl called Ellana, fallen from the sky in a cloud of Yellow Particles. The most disturbing is that she's got a black Die as a necklace, a Die that definetly reminds the Cube found by Philippe...

Spread the word and help support the game. The Potato commands you.

You may recall my post about a game called Darkwood raising funds on Indiegogo. The game has raised just over $39,900 of its needed $40,000 total, with 7 days to go before funding closes. It's safe to say it will be funded.

The develper Acid Wizard also releaed a new trailer showing more gamepay.

Darkwood is a survival horror roguelike game told from a top-down perspective. The three developers are crowdfunding for money on Indiegogo. Give the project a look.

Also if you're unsure what a roguelike is, don't worry many of us are. Suffice it to say it's all about randomly generated levels, and permanent death.

Darkwood is a top-down, oldschool survival horror set in a procedurally generated, open world. It features RPG and roguelike elements, with intense combat and a eerie atmosphere. It's developed by 3 people from Poland, who like to call themselves Acid Wizard Studio, and is currently in pre-alpha stage.

This trailer features basic barricading and energy / generator management at the player's home base.

Follow us at our blog:
http://www.acidwizardstudio.com

Kerberos has updated their Indiegogo campaign for Swords of the Stars: The Pit ($15k/$60k, 5 days left) with the Alpha demo:

Download The Pit Alpha Demo (130M) from the following locations;

[mirror 1]
[mirror 2]
[mirror 3]
[mirror 4]

More links will be added regularly, as new hosts pick up the demo.

This Alpha demo of The Pit provides you with an introductory tutorial and a chance to fight your way down into the first 5 levels of the game! But there’s still a lot more of the game that will only be found in the full version;

• 2 More Characters to choose from… the Marine and the Pilot, each with their own unique advantages!

• Level your character up as you dive down into 25 more levels, each one bigger than the last!

• Dozens more enemies drawn from the SotSverse!

• Dozens and dozens of additional weapons and armors with a variety of special effects, including flamethrowers, rocket launchers, plasma cannons and powered Brawler armor!

• Randomized augmentation effects to make each game unique

• Crafting Mechanics, which let you make special items from bits and pieces of your enemies!

• 50 more items to discover, ranging from the familiar to the ancient exotic tech.

• Dozens of room types containing a host of exotic devices to help and hinder the player

• A fully rendered soundscape engineered by the pros at Power Up Audio!

• And while the demo will try and kill you in many fiendish ways, the final game will also include poisoning, disease, traps, radiation, and more!

A couple of updates showed up this weel on the Indiegogo page for the campaing of Sword of the Stars: The pit. Amongst others the Security Bots are monster of the week and they show what a Liir council chamber looks like (whatever that is). They are also quite pleased that they are approaching their goal.

Here are the bots:

The Pit facility is filled with lifeforms taken from across the galaxy, many of them sentient beings who are extremely intelligent and clever in their own right. Nothing ruins a battery of tests like the specimen getting out of its cage, and so the Bloodweaver has installed extensive security throughout his lab in the form of an army of robotic drones.

Security Drones come in a multitude of configurations suited to dealing with the wide variety of hostile lifeforms kept in the Pit. Ranging from small, fast-moving fliers to hulking, tank-like killing machines, the drones maintain order in the Pit with lethal efficiency.

MONSTER STATS
Name: Security Bot (Light)
Height = 1.3 M
Weight = 50 Kg
Armor = Moderate
Resilience = Low
Speed = Above average
Special notes: This small, wheeled security bot uses to arms that mount small calibre weapons. The standard models use ballistics but there are rumors of a laser variant as well.

MONSTER STATS
Name: Security Bot (Fast Response)
Height = .8 M
Weight = 10 Kg
Armor = low
Resilience = low
Speed = Very High
Special notes: This very high tech, anti-grav security drone designed to respond quickly to alarms. It carries laser weaponry as well as a stun device in order to restrain subject till heavier and better armed security bots arrive.

MONSTER STATS
Name: Security Bot (Medium)
Height = 1.7 M
Weight = 150 Kg
Armor = Moderate
Resilience = High
Speed = Moderate

Check out our Gallery for all the Animated Gifs of our Robot Friends!

Security Bot Concept Art

Kerberos, the makers of Sword of the Starts: The Pit start the week with some screenies and a video from the tutorial level.

Hey folks! Many thanks to those who joined up to support the campaign over the weekend! We are starting the new week with some fun new media from the Alpha Build of the game. :)

We’ve added five screenshots taken last week and a new video, which is basically a quick walk-through of the game’s Tutorial level.

For those who wonder about the personality of “Sergeant Gunny”, your instructor engram…you might notice that his eight-bit portrait looks a bit familiar!

Yes indeed, “Sergeant Gunny” uses an avatar based on Edward Alton MacKenzie, the third Director of Sol Force, former Legator of Ground Forces, and widely known to be the Baddest Space Monkey of All Time.

Happy Monday, and please Share our new goodies. We will also post images and links to the game’s website. :)

The Indiegogo campaign for Swords of the Stars: The Pit is showing several updates, like a monster animation and stats, the first weapon description and adding perks to pledges.

On Indiegogo an update appeared for Sword of the Stars: The Pit we reported about before. In this update a bit more gameplay information is given:

How do the game controls work?

Movement is keyboard-controlled, with standard WASD for directional control, and the spacebar to interact with objects. You use the mouse to control other parts of the GUI.

How does crafting work?

As you collect items, you can craft them in two ways: either transform them or combine them. When you take a hunk of Raw Meat and put it into the portastove to make nice safe-and-edible Cooked Meat, you are transforming the item. When you take the bits and pieces you have ripped off of destroyed enemy machinery and make yourself a Sonic Grenade, you are combining items.

Will there be an Infinite Dungeon Mode with procedurally generated levels that get even more harder (like, how deep can you get?)?

If you ever manage to get to the bottom and find the cure it will open up an infinite mode, but rest assured…we are going to make that very very hard! ;)

What’s the difference between the Marine, the Engineer and the Scout Character?

The Marine is big on brute force. Sol Force Engineers are trained to use finesse, and to work well with machinery and high-tech devices. The Scout is a hybrid, cross-trained to have a wide range of basic skills.

We have gotten word that you can now pledge for Sword of the Stars: The Pit at Indiegogo. This should explain what type of game it is:

Sword of the Stars: The Pit is a fun, fast, light-hearted action RPG, in the tradition of Rogue and other old school dungeon-diving games.

The game will include the following features on release:

• 3 Characters to choose from…Marine, Pilot and Engineer!

• Go up levels and improve your skills as you try and find a way to survive the depths.

• 30 Levels of ancient evil science between you and the cure!

• Dozens of enemies drawn from the SotSverse!

• Over 30 weapons and armors with a variety of special effects including flamethrowers, rocket launchers, plasma cannons and powered Brawler armor!

• Randomized augmentation effects to make each game unique

• Crafting lets you make special items from bits and pieces of your enemies.

• Over 60 items to discover, ranging from the familiar to the ancient exotic tech.

• Dozens of room types containing a host of exotic devices to help and hinder the player

• Many fiendish ways to die including poisoning, disease, traps, radiation, starvation and of course…MONSTERS.

The Pit is currently in Alpha phase, and slated for Beta release in November. The completed game will be available for download in the first quarter of 2013.