Crowd-Funding Games Weekly #3

Once again, here are a couple of games with Linux support currently crowd-funding, as well as some looking back on the projects we previously featured.

Stonehearth

Stonehearth is a cross-platform voxel in which you can build "cities" and castles, craft weapons, and embark on epic quests. Surprisingly good looking thanks to excellent textures, the distinct medieval theme, and with nearly 5 times the $120,000 goal, it's already hit stretch goals for PvP and Co-op multiplayer.

The campaign ends in two-and-a-half days, and you can get a copy of the game for $15 (slated for release in September 2014, which is a good 16 months away). Beta access is $30, and scheduled for December 2013.

Stonehearth on Kickstarter

Ray's The Dead

Convert your victims and discover your past, and the events that lead to your untimely death as you play as Ray, a suddenly-resurrected zombie with a spark of intelligence and a giant light-bulb sticking out the back of his head that is used to control his zombie hordes.

You can pre-order Ray's The Dead for $15, which gets you either a DRM-Free copy for Windows, OS X or Linux, or a Steam key, pending the passing of Steam Greenlight. There is also 500 copies up for an early bird offer of $12. $50 gets you beta access.

Ray's The Dead on Kickstarter

Flashbacks

A.N.N.E was fully funded, raising $100,000 towards a $70,000 goal.

AR-K also raised it's funds, cutting it a little close with $101,564 for a goal of $100,000.

Jagged Alliance: Flashback encountered a surprising drive towards the end of it's campaign, raising $100,000 in it's last three days alone.

Rawbots has seen a surge recently, but still hasn't raised 10% of it's $300,000 target, and ends in less than a week.

Son of Nor has also seen a recent influx, but still has yet to be funded, with less than three days left.

Realm failed to reach it's funding goal, raising less than half of it's target.

Dog Sled Saga more than doubled it's goal, just reaching it's last stretch goal of $14,000.

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Steam Sales

Rochard   -   $9.99   -   75%   -   $2.49

Rochard is a side-scrolling space-platformer with inspiring graphics and gameplay. It's something I'm currently playing through and thoroughly enjoying.

Spectraball   -   $4.99   -   33% off   -   $3.34

A puzzle-solving platformer, Spectraball is the only game on this list I must admit to not having played. For this price, I soon won't have to though!

Steel Storm: Burning Retribution   -   $4.99   -   40%   -   $2.99

Steel Storm: Burning Retribution is a top-down old-school shot'em up. With myriads of levels, enemies, and community content, I don't think you can ever actually say you've finished this.

All offers end 27th May.

Flashbacks

The ever beautiful Realm sadly wasn't funded, raising just short of half it's goal. Jagged Alliance: Flashback gained some serious funds in the last few days and just made it's goal, and anyone that listened to me either got the 4 classic-pack games for $5, or that and Flashback for $25 (I got the latter). A.N.N.E also got funded, barely breaking the $100,000 mark,

Finally, (just in case you're new to my posts) Dog Sled Saga is an adorable 8bit masterpiece, and you can get the game for just $5. Hurry, their Kickstarter only has two days to go!

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Crowd-Funding Games Weekly #2

I'm back again, listing another three crowd-funding games for elementary (and Linux in general) with around two weeks of funding left, as well as some looking back on the projects we previously featured.

Son of Nor - The World is Your Weapon

Son of Nor looks set to be one of those terrifically geeky games, which also features a multitude of co-op opportunities (split-screen, lan, internet). Unfortunately, in my (fairly experienced) crowd-funding opinion, they probably won't get funded.

Son of Nor will be available for Windows, Max and Linuz, DRM Free (nothing about Steam keys, but they're on Greenlight all right) by pledging $15 on their Kickstarter for one of the early bird copies of the game (limited to 300).

Update: It looks like early bird copies are all sold out (there wasn't many left when I wrote this). It's now $20 for a standard copy.

Son of Nor on Kickstarter

AR-K

AR-K is a Saga that is looking to have the second, and maybe third and fourth episodes funded on Kickstarter. They have promised a linux version, but it will require some porting (from Unity 3.6 to 4) and while the first episode is already out (which you can get for free), there's been nothing said about porting that over to Linux.

Overall, this point-and-click adventure isn't for me (they rarely are), but I'm sure there are plenty of you out there willing to pledge $20 for the complete game.

AR-K on Kickstarter

Rawbots

Rawbots is a create'em, program'em, build'em, fight'em game (okay, I made that up). They describe it as a sandbox games, where you get to craft elegant or elephant robots, visually program them, and then basically do whatever you want. FPS, RTS, CTF, or just build as high as you can, it's completely up to you.

$20 bags you a DRM-Free copy, as well as a Steam key (when, and if, available), and 1 Online Multiplayer user. The limit of 15,000 for this "first call" has hardly been dented.

Rawbots is my favourite of this week, mainly because of the creative element. It's like Minecraft, but with Robots! Unfortunately, it is also the least funded of what has rapidly turned into a low-on-funds week (I know how they feel). All is not right in the crowd-funding world.

Rawbots on Kickstarter

Honourable Mentions

There are no honourable mentions this week, as Games on Kickstarter appear to have hit somewhat of a slump. Hopefully the three games i have lined up for next week will fare a little better than those of recent times.

Flashbacks

A.N.N.E has now reached it's Linux stretch goal of $80,000, and has just over two days of funding to go. During that time, you can still join the ranks of over three-thousand others and get a copy (and a Steam key!) for the fundraising price of $10.

Jagged Alliance: Flashback is just three days away from the end of the campaign. Unfortunately, it's beginning to look like this means it's just three days away from not getting funded. Remember, you can get the Classic Pack (that's 4 games!) and half-price off release for just $15, or pony up the full $25 up-front to grab yourself a copy of the game.

Realm site just below £80,000 of a £195,000 goal, with just over two days to go. £10 (~$15) gets you a copy and shows support for a beautiful game, or get two copies for £17 (~$26).

Among the Sleep was fully funded just yesterday, raising $248,358 out of a $200,000 goal from 8,110 backers. General release is slated for December 2013, but do remember that nearly three-quarters of Kickstarter Projects deliver late. In the mean time, you can try out the public alpha.

And finally, for just $5, you really can't go wrong. And Dog Sled Saga looks set to be adorable, as well as being within reach of doubling their goal of $6,000.

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Steam Icons for elementary os

Steam, unfortunately, ships with an oversized, blurry affair of an icon. There was a Bug (#11080517) intended to get this replaced in elementary, but it has been marked as Won't Fix as elementary does not provide icons for third party applications. Fortunately, designers have already created a replacement Icons for Plank and the Panel.

These two source, while much better looking, both have issues with ease of install. One wants you to be modifying icon paths, while the other wants you to execute commands to flush and recreate the icon cache. Individually I can live with it, but downloading and extracting two archives for one program to look a little (okay, a lot) better, just seems silly.

So, I consolidated these two packages into one archive, though you can still visit the earlier links and install them separately if you want. This archive contains a folder you simply have to copy to the root of your filesystem as an administrator, and edit Steams .desktop file, to change the icon name to match.

Download

To edit the steam.desktop file, run the following in the terminal, supply your password, and change Icon=steam to Icon=steam_eos

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop
That's it! Log out and back in or restart to see your shiny new icons.

Credit for Icons: pincolpallo and gazornonplat.

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Crowd-Funding Games Weekly #1

Hello! Welcome to what I hope will be my fairly regular weekly round-up of games coming to Linux through the power of crowd-funding (guitar solo here).

A.N.N.E

A.N.N.E is a traditional 16bit 2D adventure, in which you must save your love A.N.N.E, by running, jumping, shooting, and flying your way across enemies and difficult terrain.

Linux is actually a stretch goal, set at $80,000 (along with OS X support), but with the goal of $70k reached in just three weeks, and another nine days to go for it to get more funding, Linux support seems like an almost certainty.

You can pre-order a copy of A.N.N.E for PC (that's Windows, Linux and Mac) DRM Free with a Steam key thrown in (presuming it gets past Steam's Greenlight) by pledging $10 on their Kickstarter.

Note that A.N.N.E currently has a fixed resolution of 1280x720, which doesn't look to be changing, and may not be playable at anything with a smaller resolution.

Jagged Alliance: Flashback

This project describes itself as "not a reboot, it's a reset!" Good, game reboots rarely work, but if there's one that might, it's the critically acclaimed franchise Jagged Alliance. The 3D tile space turn-based gameplay reminds me of the Xenonauts alpha I purchased a while back.

You can pony up $25 to get a copy for Windows, OS X, and Linux DRM Free, as well as a Steam key upon release, plus the Jagged Alliance Classic Pack (that's 4 games!), or just $15 to get the Jagged Alliance Classic Pack and half price off Jagged Alliance: Flashback upon release (no word on how the reduction will be made).

Realm

There seem to be two trends with Kickstarter game visuals; they're either 8 or 16bit block based side-scrollers, or one of the most artistically beautiful games ever imagined. Realm is one of the latter.

I see no irony at all in the use of the phrase "visually stunning" in their projects description. Unfortunately, this unique beauty could well fizzle out, as, at time of writing, less than a third of the required funding has been pledged.

Realm is another game with 9 days to go that added Linux support after launching, but included in normal release, not as a stretch goal. It is an endearing story of a young girl on a quest to find a magical flower with healing properties to cure her mother, while she encounters a giant stone golem named Toru, a gentle but powerful creature.

As a British project, you'll need to pledge £10 (that's just over $15) to get a download of the full game, DRM Free, Note that Amazon Payments is not an option, and giving actual credit/debit card details to Kickstarter is the only way to pay. Also, while the reward says PC and Mac, they have confirmed that it will include Windows, OS X and Linux.

Honourable Mentions

Among the Sleep is a first person horror in which you are a two-year-old child. Looks like it would appeal to anyone who liked Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Funding ends in 5 days, and you can get the full game upon release for $20.

Dog Sled Saga is possibly one of the most original 8bit games I have seen in a long time. You play a Dog Sled driver who must manage both his finances and in-race goody bag. It's slated for release on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS, and you can get a cross-platform copy for just $5. Also available are name submissions (both human and canine), frisbees, illustrated booklets, and the mandatory beta access and t-shirts. Funding ends in 13 days, so I may cover this in more detail next week.

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