Kenshi - Crowdfunding Campaign
 

Open-world squad-based RPG Kenshi has launched a crowdfunding campaign at IndieGoGo to pay for contractors to help round out the game with additional programming, art and sound. Kenshi has been around for a while and can be purchased as an Alpha, so it will be interesing to see how this effort goes:

• Original take on the RTS-RPG hybrid genre. No "hero" characters with artificially stronger stats than everybody else- Every character and NPC you meet is potentially an equal, and has a name, a life.
• You are not the chosen one. You're not great and powerful. You don't have more 'hitpoints' than everyone else. You are not the center of the universe, and you are not special. Unless you work for it.
• Freeform gameplay in a seamless game world stretching over 400 square kilometers. The game will never seek to limit you or restrict your personal play style.
• Purchase and upgrade your own buildings to use as safe fortified havens when things go bad, or use them to start up a business.
• Start with a mining business and build up your own fortress or outpost
• Research new technology and craft better fortifications and equipment for your teams. They need to be ready when an enemy horde is at the gates.
• Carry your wounded squad mates to safety and get them all home alive.
• Variation and possibilities of gameplay. Be good, be evil, be a business man, be a thief, live in a town, live in the desert, join the army, fight the army, travel alone, travel in hordes, build a fortress, raze a city.
• Dynamic, ever changing world. Support or hinder whoever you wish, or keep to yourself, the world won't stop moving. This is not just a "game", you are living and surviving in a simulated world.
• Absolutely no Level-scaling. The world does not level up along with you, and the shops don't change their inventory to only items matching your level. At the start of the game almost everyone will be stronger than you, and survival will always be a struggle.
• Realistic medical system that affects gameplay. A character with a wounded leg will limp or crawl and slow the party down, wounded arms means you must use your sword one-handed or not at all. Lose an eye and it will affect your field of vision. Blood loss means you can pass out, and the blood will attract predators. Exhaustion affects performance and is increased by equipment weight, weather, blood loss and thirst. Severed limbs will need expensive robotic replacements.
• Intelligent AI that allows for characters to reason and work towards long-term goals and desires. Squads work together and carry their wounded to safety. Characters can be setup to take care of micromanagement for you.
• Aid or oppose the various factions in the world while striving for the strength and wealth necessary to simply survive in the harsh desert.
• Independently developed with no design influences, or alterations dictated by men in gray suits who have never played a game before in their lives.
• Original game world. There are no fantasy-knock-off cliches. No magic.

More information.

I got this game during a deal on GamersGate a few weeks ago. It's not much now, but it shows a lot of potential.

Apparently the dev recently quit his day job to focus on the game, so updates should be ramping up (hopefully).

Isn't Vurt working on this project now?

I was interested in this game when it was mentioned here a couple months ago. Not so sure about the Kickstarter like campaign. It's the type of game I might buy but for some reason this project looks like a gamble to me.

Dajjer: All games that arent finished is a gamble, but i'd say projects just showing some concept screens (like most kickstarter games) and a promise of "awesomeness" is a larger gamble than a game that already has a playable alpha..

CountChcula: He will hire me again once there's funds for it. My work for the first region (desert) is finished and is in the game already.

With all the kickstarters going on, I just remembered Kenshi this morning and did a google search on whether it had started its own. It just has great potential. This is one project I'll definitely support.

Already have the Alpha, but definitely hoping this works out. Not sure about the odds of IndieGoGo versus Kickstarter---but here's hoping.

What work did u do ? Graphics ?

Honestly, I doubt that they'll make it. Yes, some kickstarter projects were a huge success, but that doesn't mean that you can take a project/an idea without a huge fanbase and get thousands of dollars for it. It doesn't work that way. Tim Schaefer was famous already and wanted to do something that people wanted to see and already knew. Shadowrun has a huge fan base, as has Wasteland (plus all the Fallout fans). But that doesn't mean that you simply put your idea on kickstarter and get enough money to get paid doing it.

Pladio: yes, the vegetation.

Irian: open world RPG's has a pretty huge fan base + there's an alpha version of the game already, more than Fargo or Schafer had.. It counts for at least something i think. $40.000 might be pushing it i think, but i hope he makes it.

I would probably support the indiegogo project if I didn't buy Kenshi as part of that GamersGate thing a couple weeks back. In any case, I hope it does well. It seems like a cool project, and, unlike a bunch of other Kickstarter projects, this one has already had significant work done on it.

I've bought Kenshi five times already (it doesn't cost much), so I'll pass on this… I'd might reconsider if it was Kickstarter, but Indiegogo is to much hassle.

Having said that, I hope he reaches the goal. It's one of my favourite indie projects, along with Grim Dawn, Dead State and a couple of others.

From what I saw so far, this looks very much like a game I would dream about making; and playing. Of course, I do not share Mr. Hunts passion and commitment to computer games, but still I hope his funding campaign is successful. Considering that the project has progressed far beyond anything I ever saw from the Wasteland 2 campaign, his funding goal is rather modest, so I decided to make this the second game I support (after The Banner Saga).

Why did he not put it on kickstarter ? It seems like that's been getting much more attention than indiegogo…

Probably because he is from the UK, and doesn't want to pay fees for an US -based legal subsidiary, which would be required for him to run a kickstarter project.

it sounds good, however I fear it'll end up as too ambitious…..

His campaign's setup as 'flexible funding' which I believe means that even if he doesn't reach the goal, he'll get whatever's pledged (unlike Kickstarter's all-or-nothing approach)

I wonder if it's intentional. The Ashes - Two Worlds collide guys had accidentally used that format as well, since it's apparently the default for Indiegogo (that project has since been removed from indiegogo, it seems).

True dat, but . . .

When I get the "feeling" the full game will never really see the light of day, I am reluctant to part with my money. Is this a game I would buy online or in the store, absolutley. But is this a game I would fund before completion . . . not so sure.

Well, for what it's worth Mount & Blade did the exact same thing to support the development. You could buy an early version cheap years before the game actually found a publisher.