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The thread for pimping Kickstarters.
So, I've been really active on Kickstarter lately, and I've found that there are some projects I want to spread the word about, most of which I'm backing, some of which I'm not, but want to provide with some support anyway.
I'm going to try to stick to projects that haven't gotten huge amounts of publicity, FWIW.
So, first off, Dust, a short movie. I feel obligated to put it first not just because it looks excellent, but because it's kinda on the fence whether it'll succeed. The principal photography is finished, but the Kickstarter is for the (evidently fairly essential) post-production effects. Anyway, I really want this project to happen, so I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd all pledge, pimp it or both.
Next up is the Nesl. I don't actually have much to say about it except that it seems kinda helpful if you're as disorganized as I am or have a lot of cords, but I put it second because it's the only open project I'm backing that is neither Dust nor fully funded.
A project that's kinda odd, but caught my interest, is PennyGems. Game tokens/counters made of pennies, with stickers on each side and polyurethane domes over both stickers. Beautiful, convenient, absurdly durable (one of the tests the guy did on them involved dumping them in hydrochloric acid). A bit expensive, but very cool. If you're outside the US and Canada, you can get an international package, which includes the necessary pennies.
A much smaller project that I nevertheless think is pretty nice: Ghost PokeZine. Just a little booklet with illustrations of the 28 Ghost Pokemon. Backers can also get personal drawings of whatever Pokemon you want (for me, that'll likely be Shedinja).
Finally, a bonus. One I'm not backing, but that looks pretty cool. Last night, Nova posted a link to Business or Pleasure, a lesbian romance short film. Again, not going to back it, and I don't know its odds of success, but I think it's nicely emblematic of what Kickstarter is for: getting things done that wouldn't have gotten funding otherwise.
mod edit: changing thread title from "ClockworkUniverse (and I guess other people if they want to) pimps Kickstarters." to "The thread for pimping Kickstarters.".
Comments
Dust looks really awesome. And it does seem awfully on the fence...~$30,000 in 8 days is a pretty tall order, if not impossible.
Unfortunately, I can't pledge to anything. It's not that I have no money to my name at all, but I have no money under my full and independent control, and no regular income to offset any losses. My parents would have to approve any pledge and they don't even know what Kickstarter is. I'd have to explain that it's not a scam and then basically beg them to be allowed to get involved. And they probably wouldn't approve. My mom doesn't give a damn about sci-fi/fantasy media, and my dad...well, both of them probably would say someone who's not making any money and doesn't have that much saved money shouldn't be spending it on a kickstarter.
Besides, I would want to pledge at least $100 because I wouldn't settle for anything less than Blu-Ray. DVD isn't good enough, and a digital download is useless to me. My computer wouldn't be able to handle it, and why would I watch something on my computer when I've got a ~65" TV at home?
The only Kickstarter I even have any familiarity with otherwise is Penpal, which is well over fully-funded and will probably start turning up in bookstores some time within this year. It's a novel developed from a series of six stories posted to Reddit's "nosleep" (disclaimer: I have nothing to do with Reddit and know very little about it), the first of which, "Footsteps", could function decently as a standalone creepypasta. I normally don't go for the creepy stuff, but it's pretty well done and I'm intrigued by the prospect of seeing it in finished form. For this I'd love to be able to pledge $75 because then I could get six collector cards with parts of a map on the back (plus a bunch of other stuff I don't even want), but again, I don't have any way to do this.
What is Kickstarter, a method of funding indie projects...?
Pretty much.
It's been big news, particularly in the gaming community, for the last few months. You've got people like Tim Schafer and ex-BioWare project leads using it to fund new titles sans traditional publisher.
Someone's sure to get a kick out of this.
Yeah. One major thing to note about it is that you're not investing, but rather buying something (generally a copy of the thing being made or something like that).
FWIW, my profile.
I've put in money for all the real big name stuff: Double Fine, Wasteland 2, Banner Saga, and Shadowrun.
Also, this managed to beat all of them O_o.
^ That looks pretty amazing.
I would probably use Kickstarter frequently if I had more reliable sources of income. As it is, I still donated to the Order of the Stick drive.
Don't you start again.
^^Makes sense. It's a very nice product, by an established company, that almost anyone in the US at this point would benefit from, with a fairly expensive pricetag.
What's annoying is that standing between me being home free and able to ask my parents about this is a period of about two weeks, containing finals. And Penpal and Dust are going to be gone way before that. I just wish they could be there a bit longer!
As it is, I could try right around now because now it's just a full-on study period with plenty of extra time, but...my mom instinctively freaks out at important times like this at anything that isn't studying.
So, just bumping the thread to mention that Shadowrun Returns has 11 hours left. If anyone wants to get in on that but hasn't, now would be the time.
Not sure about that penny counter thing. It might fall under the thing where it is illegal to deface currency, which is normally one of those laws that never get's enforced, but here they are running a business around it. Then again those penny flattening/printing machines that crop up at tourist traps, so who knows.
The laws regarding that are actually more specific than "defacing currency." One of the laws specifies doing so specifically in order to prevent someone from spending it, while the other specifies doing so in order to commit some kind of fraud. This falls under neither (and is far less close to the former than the penny flattening souvenier things, as you could just take the stickers off, albeit with some difficulty, if you really wanted to). It's covered in that project's FAQ.
That's actually covered on its' page.
^ damn it
How the hell did I ninja you? I actually did more research than the guy running the project did for the FAQ. And I'm usually really slow about stuff like that.
Well, I loaded the page a couple minutes after Alkthash posted, scrolled back up the page, read through your post until I found the link, opened the link, and read through their page until I got to the FAQ.
Fair enough.
I'm just surprised because, like I said, I'm usually really slow about stuff.
Okay, I just ran across Serpent's Tongue and holy fuck.
It's a trading card tabletop RPG in which you use a (small) constructed language to cast spells.
I...just...holy fuck. WANT.
The amount of content the $45 version (the multiplayer core set) has is amazing:
Anyway, I said I'd explain how boosters worked differently from normal ones. Basically, each one has a code that you can redeem online for points, which can be used to buy any card (except like kickstarter exclusives and such). This is meant to make rarity less important.
Squad Wars looks like a pretty epic spacefighter game.
^Looks fairly cool. How long has it been going?
Looking into Serpent's tongue more. Apparently the default campaign is 40 hours and can be played without a GM. Also, balance is done based on how gramatically complex spells are. And you actually store your deck in the hardbound spellbook that comes with it.
Oh, and by the way, if Serpent's Tongue hits $60k (and it will; it's almost there and getting money quite fast) all backers will get a printable beta to tide them over until the final release.
Also, the hourglasses I mentioned, as it turns out, were replaced by an electronic timer.
In other news, ST has me really excited. Is it obvious? :P
Huh. ST does look cool, but the whole having to say incantations aloud when playing makes it seem a bit ridiculous. Then again, trading card game, so already pretty ridiculous when you sit down to think about it.
It's a balancing factor to combat the flaws inherent to TCGs. There's nothing to stop you from building a deck of the rarest and most powerful spells, but if you're only getting them right part of the time, an opponent playing out of the core set would be able to crush you with no problems.
Also, it sounds really immersive.
Ooh, lets summon all the Magic the Gathering fans on the forum and see what they think of Serpents Tongue.
As for the balancing thing, doesn't that work only if you have a third person with a list of the incantations to tell you if you've got it right? I mean nerds(target audience for this game) tend to be really good at memorizing things, so not sure how much of a limiter it really is.
Still, for $45 that is a great deal. Maybe a 50/50 split between that and Dust when I get my paycheck.
I barely even know Amanda Palmer and I'm suddenly really excited about this. I think it might just be the enthusiasm all over that page, but the collective idea mentioned near the end has a lot of potential.
I don't know who that is, but I'll put a dollar on it.
It's printed on the back of the card, which your opponent can see, but thanks to the way cards are stored, you can't (until you cast the spell; then you can check it).
^^ She's half of the Dresden Dolls, which has some good stuff. This is the only thing of hers I've listened to in recent memory. Also, she's married to Neil Gaiman.
@INUH:
As opposed to a traditional TCG, where the opponent without good cards has to rely on, you know, playing better. (Well, I guess in this game memorizing the spells properly falls under "playing well".)
Though I do think the game looks cool.