I’m a Backer: Fargoal 2
Welcome loyal readers to another weekly installment of “I’m a backer!” I know you’ll all be pleased to know that since we last we spoke, both “Mars needs Mechanics” and “10,000 Hours” have made their goals and been funded successfully. I’m sure the trend will follow with today’s feature: “Sword of Fargoal 2.” This game is a sequel to a remake to a bona fide classic video game. The creator of this project, describes the original game as “an extremely popular “Roguelike” dungeon crawler game with random dungeon generation and tons of replayabily.”
In the interests of full disclosure, I have already made it clear that I am, shall we say – predisposed toward’s Roguelike games. With that in mind, by all means let’s dig right in.
Casual Gamer Review: Guild Wars 2 (Part the Second)
So, last week (alright, the week before last) I started a two-part review of Guild Wars 2, the latest massively multiplayer game to pique my fancy. In that review I discussed the PVE elements of the game—the casual-friendliness, the engaging crafting, the creative questing system… All of the stuff that carebears like me enjoy in our games. Of course, sometimes my inner grizzly comes out and wants to tear the stuffing out of that lime green, shamrock-sporting freak. And that means it’s time for some good old fashioned, noob pwning PVP action.
Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (part 2)
It was the best of books, and the worst of books… Last week I told you about one of my favorites, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This week I will continue the theme and tell you why that tired old line, paraphrased from Dickens, is as true about this comic trilogy as it ever was in A Tale of Two Cities. The sad fact is that trilogies seem tailor-made for uneven performances – just ask fans Star Wars or The Matrix; there just seems to be something about the format that is doomed to failure. In The case the trilogy currently under discussion though, we have – in my opinion, one good book, one great book, and one self-indulgent book.
Alan Moore’s career in the comic book industry is both storied and stormy, and much of that is reflected in this series in particular, as it was printed at several different publishers. I won’t bore you with the details, but they are available here if you are interested.
As before I will limit spoilers to specifics available only at the very beginning of each book, with broad strokes thereafter, so as not to discourage you from going out and reading these books if you have not already.
The End of the Beginning
The starting line is almost in sight! That sounds like an odd statement, I know, but there it is. With so many new comic books coming out every month for the last half century, you wouldn’t think that it is this difficult to make one. I certainly didn’t. So many things must be done before so many other things can be – it might as well be ballet choreography But on the bright side, we’ve got a great team, and a solid plan, and even if it is taking a little longer than expected, it is going pretty smoothly.
So, the plan is still to launch our Kickstarter Project for The Wardenclyffe Horror sometime in early October, with an exact date contingent on several factors. As most of you know, we already have a wonderful artist on-board and most of the details ironed out in terms of advertising, pitch, and strategy. In the next week or two we will likely post the most recent incarnation of our pitch video and the link to our Kickstarter project for some thorough peer review and proof reading.
If you want to know more about how things are coming though, and maybe even see some pictures – keep reading.
A Swiftly Flowing River
It’s like the famous quote, credited to Heraclitus, “You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.” This statement about the transience of life is both true and profound, but it is also an excellent description of Kickstarter these days. Every day you step back into the stream of Kickstarter projects by clicking the ‘recently launched‘ button, you are presented with a list of brand new projects to flip through. Somewhere upstream the snows are melting or thunderstorms are pounding the landscape because the waters, they are a rising!
I’ve been a daily clicker for a while. I remember distinctly a day in early August – just before this blog got started, I was disappointed with the amount of new projects that had appeared on my tablet when I was doing some morning reading in bed. There were only 8 of them (though the average seemed to be 20 or 30), and none of them interested me. Now though? I would say that the site is averaging over a hundred projects a day for the last week.
As always, I have some theories. Interested?
The Cost of E-Books and the Future of Digital Comic Books
Most of of what I read and the discussions about the problems of the digital age seem to revolve around privacy issues, identity theft, and how the new iPhone’s connector doesn’t work with the rest of the iGadgets. The first two are of course serious problems, but generally we are living in a truly amazing time. Someone in grade school today might never have to buy an actual college textbook.
I have for some time been working on digitizing my life. That stack of boxes there? That’s all that is left of my once formidable library – the tablet (also pictured) holds the rest. I’ve always been a gadget aficionado and early adopter. I owned one of the first commercially available MP3 players of all time, and haven’t purchased a CD in over a decade; it was a natural extension to buy the iPad on day one, and start moving my library over as well. Since its release I don’t think I have purchased a single physical book. I recently read a great article that reminded me of my greatest frustration when switching to a minimalist, digital lifestyle: the outrageous price they try to charge you for pixels and bits.
Requiem for a (Poison) Elf
I’ve decided to lau
nch a feature where I talk about the small press comics—of the past and the present—that inspire me with their creativity, excellence, or general funitude (it’s a thing, look it up). A week ago, I talked about ElfQuest, one of my perennial favorites. In that post, I promised a post on one of my other favorite small press, elf-centric comics, Poison Elves. This is that post.
I’m a Backer: Mars Needs Mechanics
Last week we discussed the ambitious project, 10,000 hours and why I thought it was worth your money. It continues to hover at the half way point in its progress toward getting funded with a few days left on the clock, so its outcome is uncertain. Moving from video games back to board games this week I present you with the outstanding project, “Mars Needs Mechanics,” an economic board game with steam punk themes that you might someday find at your FLGS nestled between Acquire and Power Grid.
Though perhaps not for everyone, this game falls well inside the Euro Game spectrum with its lovely art, crunchy rule set, emergent behavior, and interesting theme. Continue past the break, and I’ll let you in on all the juicy details.
Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (part 1)
The closest comic book in genre, if not plot, to our upcoming project – “The Wardenclyffe Horror” is “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” and its incredible sequels. Though I’m sure many of our readers have already familiar with this classic, I thought i would make sure everyone had the opportunity. The point of this blog post is two fold: to convince you of the greatness of this comic book and to differentiate it from the terrible movie by the same name. In this spirit, I will be discussing pertinent facts, but avoiding out and out spoilers as I would like you to read this fine work yourself, rather than take my word for its quality.
Because I do not wish to write, and I doubt that you wish to read, a post with a word count measured in the thousands rather than hundreds, I will divide this subject in to two parts. The second post will discuss Parts II (my personal favorite) and The Black Dossiers, will be written in the next few days, and I will hold off on writing anything about Century (part III) until it has been released in its entirety.
Want a taste of things to come and an introduction to one of the most interesting super hero groups around? Read on.
Barriers to Entry: Is it too Easy to Start a Kickstarter project?
More than half of all Kickstarters fail. Both this subject and its associated statistics have been reviewed pretty exhaustively by anyone with the inclination to do so over the last year or so. I myself made a post earlier this month about failed Kickstarter projects, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. Instead, I am interested in how many projects deserve to succeed.
Who am I to decide that? Who is anyone? Isn’t it about letting the market, the crowd, decide which products deserve to succeed or fail?
Let me clarify – I am not judging project based on whether or not I like it, if I think the world needs it, or even if I think their pitch is good. What I want to know is how serious developers are about their own projects. To some people, Kickstarter is nothing more than a source of free money, and they are just throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks. This is the idea I would like to explore, how to separate passionate creators from the also-ran’s.
Caffeineforge 