Kickstarter - Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall RPG

Hopefully Superfly Johnson will have a cameo.

On a more serious note. I'm not sure about this one. I think the pitch was alright but I have never heard of Brenda Brathwaite before. No doubt both she and Tom are old school and have worked on some great titles in the past. All in all I would have made an insta-pledge if it was Anachronox 2 but for now I'll definitely follow it and see what happens.

If its done with the Unity engine integration between platforms is not as difficult as it once was (excluding PS3). I wonder if there's some sort of remote save game approach they are considering.

I'm a fan of Brathwaite, so I'd like to see what can happen here.

Isn't it interesting that crowd sourcing is all about marketing? You have to put together the perfect pitch for mass audience. Credentials aren't enough.

note: old school is so passe these days. I note this on their page "We are 100% indie and dedicated to staying that way. "

People were tripping over themselves to donate to Project Eternity because it's Obsidian despite knowing almost nothing about it, but now we're not sure about this one because there's not enough information?

Originally Posted by stealth
I have never heard of Brenda Brathwaite before.

Brenda Brathwaite = Wizardry 8. Nuff said…

I contributed to the project, as I'm a huge Wizardry fan.

That said, I'm pretty sure Brenda's role in Wizardry 1-7 was just to write the manuals, play test the games, and talk to people on the old phone hint-line (at least for the early games). Even as of Wizardry 7, her only listed credit was for writing the manual and documentation.

I know she has Designer credits on Wizardry 8, but I also think it's fair to say that a lot of Wizardry 8's design, though uncredited, really follows from D.W. Bradley's work on Wizardry 5-7. The races, classes, magic system, mix of fantasy and sci-fi, the major NPC factions, and even most of the story components like the Cosmic Lords, Cosmic Forge, Astral Dominae, etc. was his work.

Again, I contributed to the project and am hopeful, but I'm not sure how much design experience Brenda really has.

There's the Romero factor to consider, apparently.

Originally Posted by joxer
ROMERO IS STILL ALIVE?! :shocked:
You saying we're gonna get Daikatana2 for $1M and Daikatana3 for $2M?

Honestly, with the sorry state that PC gaming is in these days, Daikatana 2 doesn't sound so bad.

Originally Posted by JDR13
People were tripping over themselves to donate to Project Eternity because it's Obsidian despite knowing almost nothing about it, but now we're not sure about this one because there's not enough information?

Let's compare them:

Obsidian:
- working title
- old-school RPG
- fantasy world
- Infinity engine
- their own character system
- soul related magic evoked PST or MotB in my mind

Loot Drop:
- old-school RPG
- turn-based
- the rest is so vague that it could describe ANY RPGs ever made

Disclaimer: I've never played Wizardry, but from what I've seen it wasn't for me anyways.

Anachronox was never an old school RPG.It was a western JRPG.

Not a convicing pitch.

My message to Loot Drop

As much as I want to back this project, right now it is way too vague for me to consider funding.

You have NPCs, character creation, progression, and party members. Great. So does Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age 2. What makes this an old school RPG? Your promised features are so generic, I can't get a feel for the type of game you want to make. What conventions are you going to give us, that modern publishers won't? What perspective will you be using? Isometric, top down, or first person? How will the game play? Brenda is known for Wizardy, an Old School first person party based RPG known for it's challenging difficulty and extensive skills and options, but Tom is known for Anachronox, a funny JRPG styled game. Well, which is this one going to be? (Sell me the first game you hope to make, not the two stretch goal games).

I'd love a Wizardy, Might & Magic type Old-School RPG since right now Kickstarter has Baldur's Gate style isometric RPGs covered (Project Eternity) and Wasteland/Fallout-esque RPGs (Wasteland 2). But right now I'm not sure if that's the type of experience you are selling or not.

I'd like to support this project, but I just can't right now with the information you have available. What style of game are you providing, that I can't get from publishers? What niche or fanbase are you targeting? How does this game differ from the other big name RPGs that are funding themselves through kickstarter? A little clarity will help. Thank you.

Their response:

Our options depend a lot on how much money we get. And what backers want the most! We'll likely post a video talking about them. Thanks for your comments!

Yeah, I'm going to have to pass on this one until they decide to release more information.

Terrible responce.It feels like a money grab without any real plan.

Thanks for posting that jwmeep… I backed under an initial "oooooh, wizardry!" euphoria, but given that response it's clear they have absolutely no idea what they are making. This is nothing more than a blatant money grab, with what they want to make a distant afterthought.

Very poor, pledge revoked.

Originally Posted by Ashbery76
Anachronox was never an old school RPG.It was a western JRPG.

So (western) JRPG can't be old school despite being made before 2000?

Sounds to me like they saw Project Eternity and thought, "Hey, we can get a ton of money too!" before they even figured out the first thing about the game. Well, other than "it's old school and turn based and got stuff".

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
Sounds to me like they saw Project Eternity and thought, "Hey, we can get a ton of money too!" before they even figured out the first thing about the game. Well, other than "it's old school and turn based and got stuff".

The game is scheduled to release before Project Eternity (January 2014 vs April 2014). They have "domain backing" from other developers, which mean they have talked to others about this first (Noch is in the video too, the guy live in Sweden…).

Originally Posted by azarhal
The game is scheduled to release before Project Eternity (January 2014 vs April 2014). They have "domain backing" from other developers, which mean they have talked to others about this first (Noch is in the video too, the guy live in Sweden…).

That makes it even worse. What did they intend to accomplish by showing Noch?

I agree this is way too vague to get excited about or pledge for right now. I don't see much of a "vision" behind this project yet. Project Eternity at least shows us some kind of vision even though it is somewhat vague as well.

It's funny how the very small or one-man projects doing old-school RPG Kickstarters (Paper Sorcerer, Arakion, Malevolence etc) have a much more coherent vision in their pitch than these bigger studios.

Originally Posted by arthureloi
That makes it even worse. What did they intend to accomplish by showing Noch?

Lots of people pledged because Noch said it was going to be awesome (he's also the 10k pledger). Maybe you should ask yourself why is Noch friend with these people.

Although, it might have something to do with Command Keen Standard Galactic alphabet being in Minecraft.

Originally Posted by azarhal
Lots of people pledged because Noch said it was going to be awesome (he's also the 10k pledger). Maybe you should ask yourself why is Noch friend with these people.

Although, it might have something to do with Command Keen Standard Galactic alphabet being in Minecraft.

In my opinion Noch brings the wrong kind of public to pledge, which brings the wrong kind of expectations about the game. I imagine it should not be just about bringing in famous people just to rake in money.
It looks like a desperate money grab to me.

Originally Posted by jwmeep

Their response:

Our options depend a lot on how much money we get. And what backers want the most! We'll likely post a video talking about them. Thanks for your comments!

Looks like rule #1 for crowd funding salesmanship is don't run a war based on poll results.

Here's a really got article behind David Crane's failure to get a modern Pitfall game backed.

He cites many of the things the comments here and on the comments for it - he was vague. And from the article, he says it was deliberate.

BTW, I've met David Crane personally and I had some great conversations with him about the old days of gaming. Long after he left Activision he has always kept busy continuing to write video games - he was at the forefront in the early 90's of making some of the earliest browser games.

Edit: Have we already written this off? How much of crowd funding based on the emotion of the crowd - the mob mentality?

Wizardry 7 is one of my all-time favorites - great world and fun mechanics, the ability to change classes and keep the last class' ability allowed for epic characters. Backed it for that alone.