Ravensdale - Black Forest Games to Kickstart?
 

Remember Ravensdale? We saw a fascinating glimpse of the steampunk action/RPG from a tech/concept demo back in 2010 but, of course, Spellbound went under not long after completing ArcaniA. Reincarnated as Black Forest Games, they have gone on to successfully Kickstart the adventure/platformer Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams and things are looking up.
Thomas sends news after noticing this post on their Facebook page:
More information.

Ooh! The world needs more steampunk RPG's!

IMO, ArcaniA's dirty secret was it wasn't the worst game ever made. It was overly simplified and it certainly wasn't so Gothic a game. But it wasn't actually bad. Technologically sound, decent graphics, responsive (if easy) gameplay. I figure with less publisher meddling and more time (which this game has already had) these folks could pull off much better.

Spellbound were also responsible for Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood and the Desperados games, which were excellent tactical squad games (not quite RPGs but great fun nevertheless). Also looking forward to seeing what they can pull off with Ravensdale, hopefully the fact that they successfully delivered Giana Sisters will work in their favour.

Agree with both of the above, though I still dislike ArcaniA for the (lack of the) quality of the writing. At any rate, Spellbound was a solid developer and BFS looks like they are doing a good job and have already delivered one successful KS project, which surely puts them way ahead of the game.

The video of Ravensdale looked nice, so I'll definitely keep an eye on this.

Apologies if I missed it, but where is the link to the video/demo?

Edit: Thanks, saw the video from the linked presentation - looks very nice and indeed 'Steam' powered!

By the way. Does someone have a link to a list of successfull Kickstarter games? And with successfull Kickstarter games I mean: funded _and_ released.

All I know is:
Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams
FTL Faster Than Light
Resonance

Some others were scheduled for recent release (Malevolence for instance?) but I dont think they are…

Also PvP game Chivalry:medieval warfare it received good reviews and it's been on top 20 most played games on steam since it came out.I didn't back it or played it because Medieval PvP isn't really my thing.

I greatly enjoyed Arcania personally, and I honestly think a lot of issues came because of Jowood - the game clearly has a rushed feel, especially concerning the second half of the island (and the less said about the cut ending later sold as a a two hours "add on" the better).

Ravensdale certainly looked interesting, so here's hoping they manage to do it.

-Sergorn

Finally it seemed like everyone here hated Arcania. It wasn't great but for what it offered the game wasn't bad. The Gothic name should of never been used.

Ravensdale looked like an improvement on the same engine but in an unused setting we rarely see. I'm hoping they manage to do it also.

o_O


(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RavensDale)

Rather I think it shouldn't have been called "Gothic 4". Taken as spin-off kind of thing, I thought it was rather respectful of the Gothic universe and brought new interesting things to the lore.

But calling it Gothic 4 brings expection such as open ended gameplay, virtual world aspects and so on. (Even if it realy feels to me they had some of this stuff implemented and had them cut at the eleventh hour)

Basically they should have stuck to calling it "Arcania - A Gothic Tale".

-Sergorn