In Tim Schafer’s first post-funding update for his Kickstarter-funded old school adventure game, he’s stunned and overjoyed that the project attracted over $3 million in funding for a desired level of just $400,000. A recently cancelled game had left the future of Double Fine uncertain; there would have to have been layoffs, but now it’s all saved. Double Fine’s success led to equally successful Kickstarters for such nostalgic titles as Wasteland, Shadowrun and even Leisure Suit Larry.

There’s a lot of excitement and discussion over a new era of gaming, where the players essentially pre-purchase games before they are developed (or in many cases, even thought about much). Is it sustainable?

In the video, Schafer mentions offhandedly that their recent Brutal Legend game cost $20 million. $100,000, on the other hand, would fund a simple iPhone-like game. $3 million, then, would fund a game a seventh the size of Brutal Legend, or a really, really good iPhone game.

The DF Kickstarter attracted 87,142 backers after a HUGE media push. Schafer mentioned that Full Throttle had been considered a success when it sold a million copies, but that Game of the Year Grim Fandango was considered a failure at just half that. The Kickstarter attracted a _tenth_ the number of backers as copies of Full Throttle sold.

Double Fine will have to attract many multiples of new players once their game has been released in order for Kickstarter-funded projects to be more than a stopgap development effort in between bigger budget games for AAA developers. $3 million is record setting for a crowd funded project, but just pennies compared to big budget games.

Crowd funding, whether via Kickstarter or some other means, might keep the lights on for established game developers. The real puzzle is how to use this to fund amateur game developers and make available games that would never have been made.

For unknown developers, the outlook isn’t that great. I’ll be going over the projects I have backed and those I have NOT backed in the next few days, but what looks easy if you are a well-known game developer is less so if you’re just getting your start.

A great idea isn’t enough.

I’m a big fan of ABC’s Shark Tank. Hopeful entrepreneurs try to attract funding from one or more investors, who (as the show’s narrator relentlessly repeats at the opening of each show) are deciding to spend their own money on someone else’s dream.

When someone comes to them with a finished or nearly finished product, have some sales behind them and a plan to expand and to spend an investment wisely, they usually get a deal. Come with an idea but little ability to execute and there’s rarely a happy ending.

The makers of FTL, a very indie game from a couple of developers in Shanghai had a video, a live demo of the game thus far running on OnLive for awhile, and an award at the Independent Games Festival; they got funded.

Your World, a random collection of inspiration from pretty much every game this guy had ever played or thought of, looking for $1.1 million and little ability to execute… probably won’t be funded. I’ll be writing about this one later.

Kickstarter offers a new way of getting products funded, but in the end it doesn’t change the world. You still need to have people with a vision and the ability to execute. There will always be room for new game developers to get a couple friends together and build something amazing on nights and weekends, then put it into the world via Kongregate, the App Store, XBLA, Indie Bundles and so on. If you build something great, and have a way to get the word out, people will want to play your game.

Wenn der blaue Schleim jemand angreifen, stirbt jemand

The screenshot tells the story. Me and Wenner unconscious, Sheeoil dead, only Bryn alive to finish the fight against the ravenous but somewhat stupid blue slime. And what of Splug? What of the goblin who gained our trust and betrayed us, literally backstabbing us?

What of Splug, indeed?

Splug

After we finished scraping off the lizard-bug juice from our boots (Bryn, Sheeoil) and feet (Wenner, myself), we decided to go have a look at the corroded bronze door near which Wenner had discovered some tasty and deadly pudding. The door had words scraped into it, “Do Not Enter!!!11!!! SRSLY!!!!”, but we’re not big on warnings and text speak just enrages Bryn, so we were hot to see just what was behind that green door.

We were stunned to see something in front of the door — Splug. Splug, the goblin we saved from the hobgoblin torturer (who apparently was moonlighting as a goblin torturer, just for Splug). Splug, who offered to carry our stuff and heroically guard the rear of any battle. Splug, who stabbed our faithful wizard and ran off. Splug, who has had his name mentioned in this post enough to be the number one search result on his name from now until eternity. Let this be a warning to any future adventuring parties — Splug is Bad News.

Now, I’m a paladin. Lawful good, totally crazy about Bahamut, hate Tiamat with a passion. If you behave honorably to me and my companions, I will defend you to the death. But if you betray me… well, justice demands you pay for your crime. When Splug decided to sink a dagger in Bryn’s back, he made my list. My short list. We could map this place or not, but Splug was not going to live to spread his treachery.

When Splug saw us, he spun, ran through the metal door, slammed it behind him. We could hear the pitter patter of goblin feet stumble down some wooden stairs, a muffled scream, and then — nothing.

Wenner listened at the door and heard nothing more. He opened it — slightly — slipping through and hiding in the darkness. We could all have hidden in that darkness, the only light was a dim blue phosphorescence coming from the water of an underground lake that cast no light by which to see. Even Sheeoil’s keen elven eyes could not pierce the gloom.

Wenner tracked the footprints in the disturbed fungus to the bottom of the stairs, where it met the unmarked stone of the natural cavern floor. He calls the rest of us down. I lit a sun rod to illuminate the room.

In the sun rod’s light, we could no longer see the glow from the lake. It looked just like plain water. Nonetheless, we decided not to go swimming just yet. Wenner followed the cavern wall south… and then let out a yell.

Sounded like he yelled “SPLUG!”

We all rushed that direction. Wenner wasn’t going to have the honor of killing Splug alone. Some kinds of fun must be shared!

When we get there, Splug was gasping and gurgling and obviously terrified, as he should be. His day of judgement had come. However, it wasn’t us that frightened him. He begged our protection, he threw himself at our mercy, he stole glances at the water and tried to shrink back further into the nook in which he’d squeezed himself. Wenner deftly tied the goblin fast with his rope.

“Good,” I said. I drew Lifedrinker from its scabbard. “Splug,” I said, “You have lost your honor. You have come to the end of the path you have chosen; make your peace with whatever gods you worship, for you will soon meet them. Wenner, hold him still.”

Wenner nodded curtly.

Splug didn’t seem aware of his fate. Looking out past we who’d come to kill him to the water behind us, he let out a shriek and fainted.

Soundlessly, the dim blue glow of the lake coalesced and surfaced — a blue slime appeared. With a gurgling sigh, it burped an explosive orb of acid at us all; the acid began to burn Wenner and Sheeoil.

We all turned and made a mad dash for the stairs, Wenner dragging Splug behind him. The blue slime was faster than we were. It formed two pseudopods, hit Wenner with one and curled the other around Splug. The goblin was slowly being dragged toward the slime.

I could not abide that. Splug deserved an honorable death. Wenner shrugged away the slime’s acid and tried to stab Splug. I tried to decapitate the goblin. Sheeoil, burned by acid, seared Splug with sacred flame. Still he lived, awake again, screaming. It would be a mercy killing.

Bryn’s force orb went wild, disappearing into the darkness. The slime slammed Splug to the ground and burped another stink bomb at us all. All except Bryn, who smartly stood well out of range on the stairs, casting from safety. Splug flailed desperately against the slime.

Wenner saved again against the acid, drank a health potion and ran away to the south, no longer part of this fight. Who does Wenner look out for? Wenner looks out for Number One.

That’s our rogue, and we love him for it. Love him!

With Splug trying to fight the slime, I thought we should accept the help. If Splug survived, we could still kill him later.

Sheeoil and I, unhappily within range of the slime’s pseudopods, do our best to bring the slime down, but it only seemed lightly damaged. Bryn hurled spell after spell from the stairs, but the slime just had too much health. This just did not look like a fight we were going to win.

The slime slammed Splug against the wall. Splug went limp. Freed by the slime, his still body fell to the ground.

Meanwhile, Wenner explored the rest of the cavern, as much of it as he could see without actually getting into the water. He could faintly hear waves lapping against the rear wall of the cavern, but it sounded as if there were a closer shore than the far wall.

Back at the slime, things were steadily going from bad to worse. I was knocked unconscious, but a miracle saving throw vs death brought me back to semi life. I crawled up the stairs to safety with Bryn. Sheeoil joined us, and it was clear the slime could not leave the water. We sat and discussed our task, Splug’s fate and other cheerful subjects while Bryn cast various magics at the creature. I tossed a few javelins in the slime’s direction.

Finally, the slime was bloodied. It disappeared into the water and into the darkness.

We couldn’t just let it escape like that. I crept to the shore and splashed around a bit. The slime returned with incredible speed, knocking me nearly unconscious again. Bryn hit it with another spell and it disappeared. Bryn cast magic missiles blindly into the darkness without effect. Wenner returned from his explorations and made sounds in the water.

Again the slime came, knocked the thief into oblivion, left when fired upon by Bryn. I used my heal skill to stabilize Wenner, then made a noise in the water. The slime came back and knocked me out for good this time. Sheeoil stabilized me, then was knocked out by the slime. Unfortunately there was nobody to stabilize him.

Bryn used Cloud of Blades to churn the water and lure the slime back to the shore, then burned it with magic missiles. This was not a fast way to kill it. Unstabilized and with bad luck in saving throws, Sheeoil died. Eventually, so did the slime.

With the encounter ended, Bryn was able to get Wenner and me conscious again. There was nothing we could do about Sheeoil. Wenner and I cautiously explored the lake and discovered a small island, on which was a half-dissolved corpse, a small amount of gold, a goodly amount of silver, a shield that hummed with power and a sealed scroll case.

I claimed the shield… of course. I don’t crave wealth, but I do feel a responsibility to keep the party safe, and to do that, I need better gear. We were no longer just fighting kobold minions.

I got Sheeoil’s corpse on my shoulders, and we headed back to Winterhaven.

–

We met Splug, but his death was empty. Was justice served? We had our first death, due mostly to impatience. We figured out early on that the slime wouldn’t leave the water. We could either just let Bryn kill it, or try to lure it into melee range and unleash hell on it. The result was 3/4 of the party out of the fight, and Bryn killing it anyway.

We played healing entirely by the rules, which was a problem. Back when we first started with D&D4E, we kinda thought Healing Surge was a kind of self heal you could pull out whenever you needed it. We were wrong. Healing Surges are a counter; it represents the number of times you can be healed between rest periods. It’s not itself any sort of heal. Everyone gets Second Wind — a heal they can cast on themselves. As a paladin, I get a second heal in Lay On Hands, which I can use a number of times per day as my Wisdom bonus, which is +1 — so once a day. In earlier encounters, before I read this, I figured I could Lay on Hands as often as I liked as long as I had healing surges left, which was totally not the case.

Most of Sheeoil’s attacks generate temporary hit points, which are useful but not real heals. He only has a few real heals. He ran out of those, I used both Second Wind and Lay on Hands just keeping myself alive, so basically, even with 1 1/2 healers, we can’t really take the kind of damage long fights put out. Both the pink pudding and the blue slime couldn’t be affected much with bladed weapons or acid spells, which took our DPS down quite a lot.

We did make it through — barely — but now we’re forced to return to town, rest up, then head back to the Keep and finish the adventure. I kinda have to call that a bad ending. I don’t know what the penalty for a resurrection will be for Sheeoil, but back in AD&D 1.0 it was a permanent loss of a constitution point, which is really nasty.

While in town, we’ll have to figure out how we’re going to survive other fights where we can’t use bladed weapons or must fight from range. And deal with the wrath of Lord Padraig, who will likely wonder, loudly, why it has taken us so long to map the Keep.

FTL

I’m a big fan of ABC’s Shark Tank. I make no apologies, I like “some” reality TV. I don’t talk about it much on the blog anymore because I don’t think people are all that interested, but I still watch. If it’s a decent show and it’s shown on Netflix or Hulu Plus, it’s something to watch while gaming.

Anyway the premise of that show is that five actual real businesspeople, the “sharks”, listen to pitches by would-be entrepreneurs, the “chum”, and if they like what they hear, they invest. It’s an American version of the UK’s “Dragon’s Den”, a show I have not seen.

I don’t have millions of dollars, but I do have a few, and right now some of them are being sent to entrepreneurs who pitch their products on Kickstarter, asking me for my money, in return for rewards. Largely, I have been investing in gaming products.

I was checking up on the progress of some of my investments today when Kickstarter suggested I take a look at FTL, a kinda retro space based rogue-like.

They had me at “space based rogue-like”. So after I invested, guaranteeing myself a DRM-free copy of the game when it is completed in August, I took them up on their offer to actually play the game in its current shape… on OnLive.

OnLive is a service that lets you play games as a stream. You don’t have to have the actual copy of the game, or even hardware that can run the game well. All you need is a fast internet connection. OnLive runs the game on their servers and streams the sound and graphics to you (hence the requirement for a fast internet connection). They had FTL up as one of their independent games festival winners, I played it a couple of times.

The game isn’t really a rogue-like. There’s no way to save and death means end of game — but that’s where the rogue elements end. You don’t get the treasure with the odd names you have to figure out. It has real time combat, not turn based. You don’t have a character on the board. I’m not really sure why they call it a rogue-like.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t a good game, though. You’re given a ship with some crew and a number of ship’s systems, which must be kept in good repair, by sending crew to repair it in real time. Your job is to keep the ship intact, the crew alive, the energy allocated, the missiles loaded and so on as your ship, the Kestrel, struggles to keep ahead of the rebel fleet. The enemy, when you encounter them, can target specific ships systems, set fires, hole the hull and so on. I was happy to see I could extinguish fires by venting the atmosphere into space :)

You’ll meet allies and enemies as you warp through the sector to the exit system on each level. Take too long exploring and the rebel fleet will catch up to you and kill you. Take too little time exploring and you will miss friendly encounters which can result in new crew, weapons or other helpful items — or in unexpected calamity.

Goodbye.

The demo ends after finishing two sectors. To make you understand just what sort of worm you are, you’re destroyed by the ultimate power of destruction in the universe, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It’s a cute little game. Not a rogue-like, but it looks like it’ll be fun. It’ll come out on Win/Mac/Linux.

I was very impressed with OnLive. I’d always assumed I wouldn’t have the internet connection speed to handle it, but it worked very well for both FTL and Assassin’s Creed II. I tried their 30 minute free trial. No loading or patching or anything, just went right into 16th century Florence… after the prologue. I was very impressed.

Into the Kruthik Lair

I knew it was going to be a weird night when everyone broke out the hoodies. That’s something you get when you play face to face (via webcam, but still)… Weird stuff can happen.

After some debate, we chose to explore the southern passage instead of seeing what lay behind the metal door. We had mapping to do, after all. The darkness swallowed our discussion. We voted to send Wenner ahead to explore. The vote was 3-1.

Wenner glared at us for a long moment, then melted into the darkness with such skill that he might have been snatched from the dungeon by some hellish force. “Would you take a look at this!” he called from some distance in front of us. I sparked a sun rod and we followed him down the hall.

There was a pit in the ground, surrounded by the shattered flagstone of a false floor. We leaned over the side — at the bottom was a six-legged lizard-like creature, not too unlike a basilisk. “Someone should go down there and search the creature,” said someone. All eyes were on Wenner. The halfling sighed heavily.

We tied a rope around Wenner and lowered him into the pit. The creature had been dead for weeks. A hand stuck from beneath its belly; Wenner shoved the swollen carcass over to reveal a goblin, likely dead at the same time as the lizard. The goblin had been running from the lizard, and both had fallen into the pit and died. The dead goblin wasn’t stone, though, so this couldn’t be a basilisk.

Bryn remembered the dented silver mirror in his pack, the one we’d gotten from the dragon bone excavation up above. If we did encounter any basilisks, maybe there’d be something we could do. Whatever we came up with, it would probably involve Wenner somehow. He’s just so _versatile_!

Wenner had some potions in his arms when we hauled him up. “Healing potions, I think,” he said. “Want one?” I shook my head. Lord Bahamut has promised to keep me safe if I keep him in my heart. Besides, Wenner likely needs them more.

We come to a room; low, narrow tunnels lead off in several places into the east wall. Someone small could likely crawl into one. Sheeoil peeks into the closest one and sees nothing but darkness, but he guesses a certain six legged lizard could have crawled from it.

Holding the sun rod high, I walk to the middle of the room. The floor cracks beneath me, then breaks, and I fall into a deep pit. I jump up and haul myself out.

“Well,” said Wenner. “Let’s do this.” We play the rope out carefully (the rope that was still tied to Wenner from the critter pit) as he crawls into the tunnel. It was too dark for even halfling eyes, so he reached out, trying to feel anything that might be a trap… or treasure. What DOES treasure feel like? Wenner risked striking a small light.

Staring right at him, just inches from his face, were the eyes and sharp, sharp teeth of a monster exactly like the one in the pit, except all too alive.

When Sheeoil heard Wenner’s surprised squeak, he pulled hard on the rope. Wenner popped out of the tunnel like a cork from a bottle. “See something?” asked Sheeoil. Wenner opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t make a sound. He could only point at the tunnel.

While the rest of us stood on either side of the tunnel entrance to take on whatever would come out, Wenner fled to the far side of the pit in which I’d fallen. “Oh, good plan!” I shouted. “When it lunges for you, it’ll get trapped and –”

Wenner smiled, then faded into the darkness. “Bad bait,” said Sheeoil.

The Kruthik Young tore from the hole, turned and saw Sheeoil. It swiped but missed. It was followed by a smaller Kruthik that also turned to attack the elf. It, too, missed.

Clearly, our kruthiks were a mutant six-legged variety.

Sheeoil kills the kruthik hatchling with the light of a sacred flame. I hit the young kruthik with a bolstering strike, leaving it wounded and marked. Wenner took a moment deciding not to continue exploring while the rest of the company took on the monsters. He ran up and stabbed the youngling with a sly flourish; the kruthik staggered, bloodied.

Angered, the kruthik turned to Wenner. My mark exploded, further wounding the creature. Another round of combat and it died. I pick the sun rod up and we go exploring a little further. As I stayed back a moment to shine the light in a dark corner, the others followed the southern passage as it bent toward the east.

A kruthik hatchling popped out of a tunnel and threatened the others. I, hearing nothing, sauntered casually up to the rest of the group. Seeing the hatchling, I rushed it and killed it with a single swing of Lifedrinker. Two more hatchlings arrive.

They die from single hits. They were dying so quickly that Sheeoil stepped back so that Bryn could try to crush one with his Staff of the War Mage. He swung and — missed. Missed?

Oh, look, all our stats have been reset to the default levels. We spent a couple minutes filling them back in.

Bryn actually _hit_! The hatchling died with a squish.

The passage widened into a room, too dark to see the other side. All we could see was a shadow… that moved, and leapt into the light. It was the largest kruthik we’d seen. Long, elongated spines ran along its back. The spines flared up as it sized us up. The kruthik shot quills from its spikes, but all of them missed.

Now it was our turn. Sheeoil seared it with sacred flame. Bryn pounded it with a magic missile. Two younglings crawl from the darkness — nicely gathered for a shot of my acid breath. I spit acid at them and it hits on each, but for only very minor damage. Wenner sliced a youngling with a sly flourish. Sheeoil missed with his sacred flame.

And then Bryn let loose with a thunder wave. Electricity coursed through the adult kruthik’s body. The magic slammed the kruthik back into the darkness; we heard a crash and then a high, piercing wail of pain from it, but it did not come back out of the darkness.

One of the younglings began to dash away; running after it, I crashed through the false floor into another pit. This one was a little too high to jump from. Now I knew how the adult kruthik felt. Wenner kindly used a positioning strike to knock one of the younglings into the pit with me.

Bad new for me, good news for Wenner. He was bloodied from the fight, and Sheeoil’s divine magics weren’t delivering the heals like they should.

After the rest of the company finished with the last youngling, they briefly discussed trying to pull me out, but I’m too heavy. Angry at being left, I manage to jump up high enough to pull myself out.

We find the adult kruthik lying wounded at the bottom of yet another pit trap. It glared up at us, trying desperately to not show how wounded it was. With both the youngling and adult kruthiks trapped, it was easy enough to kill them from safety.

Wenner found some rubble in the corner. He tried to hide a small chest in his pack, but it was too large to go unnoticed. He called us all to it and opened it — it was full of gold and gems. The local Temple of the Dragon Lords is going to get new altar cloth!

Spent from the battle with the kruthiks and the battle before it with the ochre jelly, we headed back to the metal door, thinking to keep an eye on it as we rest. We came around a pile of debris and saw…

SPLUG.

… just as we saw our murderous hobgoblin, he saw us, ran through the doorway and slammed the metal door behind him.

We spiked the door and settled down for a rest.

—

Seeing kruthiks die as they get knocked into pits? Priceless!

Two weeks until we meet again.