Miniature Mondays: Pretenders to the Throne
This week was slim pickings. There are still plenty of projects up on Kickstarter that involve miniatures, but this week no new projects that projects purely in that vein were posted. Oh, there were a few quasi-mini projects on the recently launched page, but nothing that quite hit the sweet spot.
What do I mean by that? Well, you’ll see after the break.
The High Cost of Grim Darkness
Blog deal in outrage. It’s what they were made for really. As hard as we try to stick to stories about awesome news stories or amazing Kickstarter project’s we always seem to come back to the things that piss us off. Earlier this week Chris touched on the outrageous business practices of Games Workshop, and I admit that it is easy to hate them. It’s also easy to love them. I for one cannot decide if the appropriate metaphor is that of an abusive spouse, or drug dealer, but try as I might to quit them, I keep coming back for more.
Passion is the common thread though, and though I sometimes hate the company, I am certainly passionate about the world that they have woven.
VR, AR, and a wearable future
Immersive computing is critical part of the cyberpunk canon. A shiny metal skull plug and a coaxial cable is all it takes to launch the cybernaut into the virtual ether, with full sensory immersion into a virtual reality. It’s been an essential theme of the cybernetic future since the genre’s inception. Hell, I’m writing this in 2013—in 1998, I was sure I’d be ‘jacking in’ by now. So imagine my disappointment at having to type this post the old fashioned way… While full neural interfaces are not coming along quite as well as I hoped they would, it has still been an extremely exciting week for virtual reality. A couple of very cool technologies—including a Kickstarter done good—made the headlines this week and have given me renewed hope that stuff will continue to get a whole lot cooler.
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Click below the fold to find out what revved my engine this week.
I’m a Backer: Albino Dragon
Normally I take Wednesdays to tell you all what project I am backer and why you should to. This week, I’m not going to do that. This isn’t the first occasion I have missed a week, though. Normally when I choose not to extol the virtues of a project on my unsuspecting audience (that would be you,) it is tell you why none of the projects measure up for one reason or another.
This week I want to instead recommend a creator to all of you, and let you know about their current project, and why you should keep your eye on them going forward. This week I want to tell you about the awesome individual’s behind Albino Dragon.
Why is it so damn hard to find good gaming fiction?
I think we can all agree that fiction based on licensed properties tends to be… how do you say… lacking. Sometimes, however, there are books that rise above the rest. Maybe they improve our understanding of a world that we can only otherwise access through a video screen. Maybe they fill in the details between roleplaying game supplements, or drive metaplot in an interesting directions. Fiction definitely has a place in the gaming space.
I just wish it was easier to find…
Miniature Mondays: Slow Week
You know how sometimes everything happens at once? This has been one of those weeks. Causes are manifold, with components that are both personal as well as professional, but that’s life, right? Fortunately Kickstarter decided to take it easy on me, and only one miniature related project has launched this week. This is quite the slowdown from average so far this year of 3-4 a week. Maybe I’m not the only one that has been having a rough week?
Want to see how Steampunk makes anything more popular?
Kickstarter and Publicity
A successful crowdunding project is a symphony of so many different things. The project must be desirable, or else why would anyone support it. The creator must be credible, or even the best project will seem more illusory than real. The pitch must be convincing, or else no one will be able to see the greatness of book inside its half-hearted cover.
Lastly, and most importantly – the crowd must find your project, or all your other efforts will be for naught. That is where publicity comes in.
A Kickstarter Implosion
It’s not news that most successfully funded projects on Kickstarter fail to deliver on time, for a bevy of reasons. So many projects are tied to cottage enterprises, or entrepreneurial endeavors, that a certain amount of leeway is due—novices, getting their feet under them, chasing their dreams. And sometimes, successful projects just seem to spin off into the nether, ne’er to be seen again. Dwimmermount is such a project.
Peek below the fold to learn about a project off the rails.
I’m A Backer: At the Gates
As many of you know, I have had a hard time finding a project I could support whole-heartedly the last few weeks. I continued to back projects, it’s true, but at low levels and without the kind of enthusiasm that would be needed for a real recommendation.
Fortunately this week that has changed for the better, and I have found a quality project to share with the rest of you. This week I am a backer of At The Gates, an innovative new strategy title on Kickstarter.
Sailing the seas of piracy in a Shanghai shopping center
During my recent assignment in Shanghai, I found a little time to engage in the business traveller’s favorite pastime: shopping. When you go some place interesting, the people in your life expect gifts. Plus, a big part of my job is about understanding how people live, and an important element of that is having experiences and understanding them in context. So taking time out to shop is really part of my job, you see (that’s my line and I’m sticking to it). In urban Shanghai, shopping is an adventure unto itself; a journey into an ambiguous netherworld, with connotations for manufacturers and content producers alike.
Look below the fold to understand why.
Caffeineforge 