Recently there was good news in updates from two long-delayed Kickstarter campaigns I’ve backed and another thing I backed just ended, so why not do another review of projects I’ve backed that I’m waiting on?
One of the ways you can review your backed pledges is by going to the pledge page on your profile. It’ll have a list of your active pledges, all the things you’ve backed (“successful pledges”), and a really annoying section called “unsuccessful pledges”. I hate that last section — it “includes dropped pledges and pledges to failed or cancelled projects”. I hate that section because I have one, and only one, project listed there, a project I cancelled my pledge to because we had a financial crunch right at that time. So it just sits there, Kickstarter reminding me of that one time we had an emergency that caused us to cancel our luxury expenses because there was this Thing going on.
I suppose it’s like when you’re on facebook and they keep trying to get you to be friends that ex that cheated on you in college or how it reminds you that four years ago you had the cutest dog ever, not knowing it’s been dead for months and you were just about over the loss.
Thanks, computers! You’re awful.
Anyway.
So way back in the early days of Kickstarter, Far West held the record for the biggest RPG campaign with just over $49k pledged. I’ve always thought it would eventually be released, but in the far off future. Definitely not in 2018. And then two months ago I was discussing the game on twitter and Gareth popped by to say that Far West will be released, this year. “I’ve been through way too much, and I’ll be damned if it’s not for nothing,” he wrote. And then yesterday he posted an update about the game which revealed what he’s been doing this past year: he’s redesigned it to be a game he’s proud of and the full manuscript is to be sent out to backers in July. The game is to be based on WEG’s d6 system, which I recall enjoying in a quite cinematic Star Wars campaign back before I could grow facial hair with any reasonable consistency.
Will Hindmarch’s Project: Dark continues to move forward. Last year, Will was partnering up with someone to make the project come into play, and then that partner unexpectedly died. A few weeks ago he came with news of a new partnership with a publisher. A recent update (Monday) had more information about some layout and graphics in the book. When Will is excited about the project, he seems to update his backers on a more-frequent basis. I can tell that he’s working well on this and, like Far West, I have no doubt we’ll eventually see the final thing. (I’m hopeful with the recent updates that might be this calendar year!)
The Guide to the Village by the Sea, the other long-overdue project (initally estimated to arrive in March of 2013) hasn’t had a backer update since late May of last year. That short update was about how one developer on the team was replaced and once the new person “has been able to look over all the material and talk to the team, a new projected finish date can go on the books”. While I’m still interested in the project, if a finished version ever shows up, it’ll be a happy surprise. I’m officially moving this to the “I don’t think it’ll ever get done” category.
To more recent fare!
Sentinels of the Multiverse‘s final expansion is over a year overdue, but the fine people at Greater Than Games have been keeping backers updated. I’m expecting that to arrive in July. It might be a race between this and Far West that month.
Eclipse Phase‘s second edition was estimated to be out last August, but I know how busy the Posthumans are. There’s still some playtesting going on and we’ll see when it’s done. Like most projects, I’m cool for things to be done when they’re done.
Cortex Prime should be out, but it’s running a bit late. I’m expecting this to hit in June or July.
Beasts of Balance should also be out, but it’s running a bit late too. I’m placing this in a race with Cortex Prime.
And then there’s three other outstanding pledges that seem to be on track for December (Good Dog, Bad Zombie! and a new Fate Dice campaign), and one in September for a computer game that still looks like they’ve got years to go. Active pledges are three items, one of which is just a buck to support the creator, one of which is to come out this August (Pride Check! Pride Dice Enamel Pins), and the last to come out next August. That last one is Sentinels of Freedom, a video game based on the Sentinels of the Multiverse IP. I’ve played an early build of it and, based on Battletech’s development cycle, I’m quite confident they’ll hit their August 2019 goal, give or take a few months. Playing SoF and watching Battletech come to market is also why I don’t think the Achtung! Cthulhu computer game will hit their August 2018 goal.