Back to Back: indie RPGs to fund

It’s been a little while since we last peered into the realms of crowdfunding. After going to sleep for the month of December, it’s time to revisit Kickstarter and Indiegogo and see what exciting new indie RPG projects have appeared, questing for our hard-earned money!

But first: of those projects that we looked in on back in late November, let’s see which ones made it. It seems that Blacksea Odyssey, The Dark Unknown: A Quest for Art, Indivisible, and Trabel hit their funding goals; while Aderyn’s Cradle, Cycle Of Tyrfing, Dark Flame, The Great Whale Road, Realms of Magic, Seafarers of Oceanus, and Stories Of Eternia did not.

Now, then–on to the new projects!

ChemCaper – a 3D jRPG that aims to educate players about chemistry. It’s a little vague on the specifics of its mechanics, but I gather that this will be something of a Pokemon-style collect-a-thon, where the monsters in question represent elements of the periodic table, with properties that reflect the properties of their associated elements. This one’s raised close to $32,000, and needs to reach $50,000 in the next 16 days to get funded.

Children of Zodiarcs – a 3D sRPG with “collectible cards and craftable dice.” Basically, it’s Final Fantasy Tactics with a combat system that sounds extremely similar to Blue Manchu’s Card Hunter. This has already raised about $69,500 out of its $34,422 goal with 25 days remaining.

Consortium: The Tower – a planned second entry in the Consortium trilogy, and follow-up to 2014’s Consortium (widely regarded as an ambitious marriage of FPS and wRPG set in a densely detailed, small location). Unlike the first game, this one is planned to take place in a tower that you must infiltrate; this entry will reportedly have more influence from Deus Ex, although unlike the most recent iterations in that franchise, it will be possible to beat this game solely through dialogue. Consortium: The Tower has raised about $67,000 out of a $309,510 funding goal, and has 25 days in which to raise the difference.

Hero’s Song – a 2D action RPG. It bills its pixel art as a main selling point, and the art is indeed quite  nice (though I confess that I find the character animations a little underwhelming). This one has pulled in over $133,000 thus far, but with a whopping $800,000 funding goal, they’re going to need some major help to get funded in the next 23 days.

Kim – a 2D, top-down, open world wRPG set in colonial India. You play the Rudyard Kipling character Kimball O’Hara, and other characters you meet are based upon the stories of Rudyard Kipling as well. Combat is real-time-with-pause and conversation is branching. Interestingly, you cannot die in this game, but time is limited–your playthrough ends when your protagonist reaches the age of 18. Kim has raised roughly $4,600 out of $7,471; 22 days remain.

Project Resurgence – a 3D, party-based, isometric wRPG that lets you resolve quests nonviolently and play out combat in either turn-based-with-action-points or real-time-with-pause fashion. This one has raised $106,000 out of its $160,000 goal with 16 days left on the clock.

Shadows of Adam – a 2D jRPG with an original engine and some nice original pixel art reminiscent of the SNES era. This one has a free demo which you can play right here. Shadows of Adam has raised about $5,250 so far, with 24 days left to reach its $20,000 funding goal.

EDIT: Looks like I missed one!

RPGolf – an open world…golf RPG. I confess, I’m not 100% clear on how exactly they’re hybridizing these genres, but I gather that you are making shots in an attempt to sink your ball into a cup, and you explore and fight monsters while walking to your ball in between shots. Leveling up your character will improve both your traditional RPG abilities and your golf abilities. It’s a crazy idea, but I’m curious to see if the developer can make it work. RPGolf needs to raise about $19,500 in the next 41 days to hit its funding goal.