Kickstarter is a great place to start for this article and here’s why; Kickstarter has provided many items to people at reduced costs, funded numerous ideas and our favorite part, have brought many games to life. Most games can be considered indie games which are games that have been created by single people or small groups. Usually the games aren’t super polished but the creators are getting their ideas out there to the population. In some cases, some games have made it to popular stores for sale too.
Hollow Knight
An up and coming game right now directly from Kickstarter is Hollow Knight, a metroidvania style game. Your character appears to be some type of bug-like creature that takes his sword (which is actually a nail) and jumps in to the depths of a place called the Forgotten Crossroads. Your little Hollow Knight fights many different bugs and creatures that have lost their souls after seeking their dreams from the depths below, or so we think anyway. Mapping this is a challenge too. Without finding your friend Cornifer, who creates the maps, you can easily get stuck and turned around. The overall goal is to restore this underground world if you can. But this only leaves one big question that we have so far, what are we? Hollow Knight, if killed, turns in to a shadow that you must go back and get to restore your coins and health, but no other creature does this along the way.
A connection that has drawn me in as well to this game, whether on purpose or not, is the connection that the game is a lot like Dark Souls. A lone creature takes off to fight mysterious things, he has to fight his shade when he dies or accept losing all of his money and ability to restore his health. The world itself is massive as well, dark and sometimes creepy, follows some type of mythical story with mythical beings and much more. The game to me screams Dark Souls and that’s super exciting, especially if you already love those games. But this is the beauty of how Kickstarter works. The team of 3 from Australia (Team Cherry) worked on this game and put it out to the world to enjoy. Just like other games such as 3AM Dead Time and Pinstripe. All of these games took their ideas and released them to the world. Some are even still in development right now.
Since Hollow Knight was released in February 2017, the team has grown to have their game on multiple platforms now such as Steam, Nintendo Switch and Linux. This wouldn’t be possible without crowd funding platforms. Team Cherry even has grown to have their own line of merchandise for the fans that want to go the extra mile and get a super cute plushy of Hollow Knight himself. So the company has really gown in such a few short months. This game shows that others can really make an impact in the gaming world as well as long as they keep pushing forward.
Pinstripe
Pinstripe recently released as well and was well received by big YouTube gamers as well. Not only did the art catch the eye of gamers, much like Hollow Knight, so did the characters. Thomas Busch went above and beyond to put himself on the proverbial gaming map by asking large and well known gamers to do voices for the characters, which no one saw coming. One YouTuber specifically, JackSepticEye, used the game for his channel and made huge announcements to his followers when his voice was about to show up. Fans were over the moon with this surprise!
While the inclusion of famous voices did up it’s profile, it would not have worked if the game itself was not a masterpiece. The story of a pastor looking for his daughter in what might be Hell, the images come alive in a frozen landscape. Music changes as Ted finds allies and enemies along his journey. A platformer with puzzle elements, Pinstripe is a testament to what one man can do. It took five years for Busch to finish the game and the reviews state that it was worth it.
3am Dead Time
3AM Dead time, a pretty creepy horror game was released around August of 2016, but still had a way to go. Started on Indigogo, much like Kickstarter, this game didn’t pass the goal they set out to have. Not all of these games always make it big, but the company Irreverent Software still persevered and kept in contact with its backers and provided content to the game. Players can get up to three friends to play as a paranormal investigation team through the game. I played for about 30 minutes or less, had some issues with the controls (which got reported and fixed) and then scared myself to death and haven’t been back to play alone since. The concept is neat, but the effects are creepy. This game could definitely use some upgrades to the art work and textures but they nailed what a horror game should be, scary. Thanks to crowd funding, I got to experience this game and wouldn’t have if these websites didn’t exist.
Conclusion
Check out Kickstarter and Indeigogo and see what games are available to fund. New campaigns start everyday and you aren’t charged until it ends. You might help some team create a new game for the ages. Take a look, you might be surprised by what you see.
Hollow Knight: http://store.steampowered.com/app/367520/Hollow_Knight/
Pinstripe: http://store.steampowered.com/app/331480/Pinstripe/
3AM Dead Time: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=735777619
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/
