Kickstarter - Forsaken Fortress, survival RPG

Bob and Jonah both write in to highlight the Kickstarter campaign for Forsaken Fortress, which is described as a "survival RPG". With 23 days to go, they have $14k of their $100k goal:

A special RPG in which you build your base, defenses,assemble your team, collect resources and survive in a post apocalyptic world.
What is Forsaken Fortress?

Unlike many other existing post-apocalyptic RPG, Forsaken Fortress emphasize on simulation features such as base building, character personality, interaction and resource collection. In the game you need to lead a group of survivors to build your base and maintain its basic functionality such as electricity generation or food storage and at the same time you need to ensure its security by building defenses or setting traps. You will also need to lead your expedition team to the wasteland to gather supplies and to work on missions. You need to assemble and maintain a specialized team which is made up of unique and individual characters and to utilize their professional skills in order to achieve optimized team functionality. Characters in Forsaken Fortress are highly dynamic in their behavior. They have needs, goals and personalities which will influence their daily life and decision making. Some of them may fall in love, some of them may not get along and all these bring life to the devastated forsaken world.

More information.

Sounds like Dead State but with over-the top realtime action combat instead of TB. Not entierely uninteresting, but I think too violent and too Zombie-shoot-em-up in the gameplay for me.
Also they need someone to proofread their KS page.

It looks good to me. I tell you one thing. That's how you do a KS campaign. They had in-game video, screenshots, and a good description on what the game is about. A lot of campaigns that have been starting up didn't show anything. So, i think this one has a good chance.

Originally Posted by DarNoor
It looks good to me. I tell you one thing. That's how you do a KS campaign. They had in-game video, screenshots, and a good description on what the game is about. A lot of campaigns that have been starting up didn't show anything. So, i think this one has a good chance.

And yet they have $14k after 8 days, so maybe it really doesn't matter. It's more about the franchise recognition and/or the developers work in popular games of old.

I like the sound of everything except the combat… I suck at real time squad based stuff and have high chance of rage quit. Seems worth a punt at fifteen dollars though.

Originally Posted by wolfing
And yet they have $14k after 8 days, so maybe it really doesn't matter. It's more about the franchise recognition and/or the developers work in popular games of old.

Popularity isn't what is required, visibility is. Castle Story is being made by newcomers and they received $700k on their Kickstarter. They got that much because they have been showing their games for 6 months and reached lots of people prior to starting the campaign. They didn't have any stretch goals and they were asking for $80k only.

That is the main difference between brand new project with new team and franchise recognition/know developers. The later already have visibility and gaming "website" are more interested in talking about them than nobodies.

Kickstarter purpose have been highjacked when it come to games though. The point was to kickstart projects for people who couldn't find the fund they required. Now, it's just a pre-ordering system…

These guys are really new though, as in "just got out of school" new. Also turned off my real time combat and poor writing.

Mostly tower defense mechanics from the ingame footage.

And another RPG to come, showing that the future belongs to RPG as anything and everything can be labelled RPG.

They lost me as well with the real time combat. Real time party based combat is unbearable IMO. They talk about tactics and positioning but I don't see how that's possible with a party in real time with that many enemies coming at you. Their video didn't show any tactics or positioning either.

Too bad I liked everything else. Maybe if they added pause and scaled down the number of enemies but I don't see that happening.

It looks fine to me. They could perhaps do with a more realistic racial mix of character types though, assuming the target market is NA.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Real time party based combat is unbearable IMO.

This.
I put it on my "might check it later list" as I considered to put in my money anyways if they reach the 230k stretch goal of a sandbox mode. But it's rather unlikely that they will reach that one.
Without sandbox mode and with real time party combat it's not really my cup of tea.

Originally Posted by sakichop
They lost me as well with the real time combat. Real time party based combat is unbearable IMO. They talk about tactics and positioning but I don't see how that's possible with a party in real time with that many enemies coming at you. Their video didn't show any tactics or positioning either.

It definitively looks like a tower defense game. Each party member will play the part of a tower, with different features.

Is positioning involved in tower defense games?

Okay, tactics, that is another question but real time is the way to go delve into tactics.

Originally Posted by rjshae
It looks fine to me. They could perhaps do with a more realistic racial mix of character types though, assuming the target market is NA.

Really, I felt the same way - a little diverersity in the character types will build more realisim IMO. And make it far more interesting for me.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
Really, I felt the same way - a little diverersity in the character types will build more realisim IMO. And make it far more interesting for me.

Or evade realism. The game is set in a post apocalypse world.

I'll pass on this one until it has some time of turn based combat. Got enough to occupy me if they just don't go that way at all.



-Carn

I am tired of zombies and apocalyptic settings. Pick a genre that hasn't been done to death or create a new kind of setting.

Everything looks good….except the combat. Not my thing. Pass. I'll impatiently await Dead State.

They lost me at the real time combat.

I understand those that don't like RT combat but there's no way TB could work given waves of enemies the game shows. Could you imagine TB combat in Fallout or JA2 with 5 dozen enemies approaching you? That would get very old very fast.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
Really, I felt the same way - a little diverersity in the character types will build more realisim IMO. And make it far more interesting for me.

I also affiliate with this opinion.