Retronator

You know I can’t resist to talk about a point-and-click adventure, even if I don’t finish nearly as many of them as I enthusiastically support on crowdfunding platforms.

Beyond The Edge Of Owlsgard is the latest such gem, developed as a passion project over the last 4 years by the german solo dev Hans a.k.a. WatchDaToast. His pixel art skills and affinity for Saturday morning cartoons are self-evident, and what is great about this project is that it’s pretty much done. It’s aimed to release at the end of this year, with most of the remaining effort and the call for funding going into a fully-voiced experience in both English and German.

If you want to help make this dream come true and get a copy of the game on release, give Hans at least $23 over at Kickstarter. And if you’re not sure yet, first play the demo on Itch (Windows, Linux), and then do what’s good for you.

Since Lospec launched in 2017 with its limited-color palettes list, the site quickly grew into the best resource for digitally restrictive art as it elegantly calls art forms such as pixel art, voxel art, ASCII/ANSI, low-poly 3D, chiptune and anything else digital that purposefully uses restrictions, often inspired by technologies of the past.

After adding an extensive database of pixel art tutorials and many other features such as an online pixel art editor, a merch shop, and user accounts, the site’s creator Sam ‘@skeddles​​’ Keddy would like to go into full-time development on the next big feature, the Lospec Gallery.

The idea is to have all the pixel-art-specific features of galleries such as Pixel Joint (sharp pixels with integer magnification scales), but open to everybody without purist requirements, as well as extended to other digitally restrictive artworks that also lack a dedicated place on the web.

Check the video on top for details or hop directly over to the Kickstarter campaign where you can show support for this very much welcome effort for our community. The project’s base funding has already been reached, but plenty of stretch goals remain for things to get even better (2021 release date, 3D and audio display types, personal portfolios, collaboration features, an API …).

Freshly launched on Kickstarter, Dwerve is a tower defense-dungeon crawling combo with a lovely, smooth pixel art style. We’ve seen the tower defense mechanic mixed previously in Aegis Defenders (a platformer), but this time we get to experience it in an RPG with a ¾ top-down look and plenty of action.

A bunch of well-known pixel artists have ties to the project. Leonard ‘Sun Pixels’ Leon is behind the wonderfully big dialog portraits, Enchae does various stuff from enemies to environments, but most of all, Dwerve is shaped under the hands of Peter 'Pixel Pete’ Milko, who has a substantial following on his very educational YouTube channel. Besides him, Percy 'PJ’ Legendre is responsible for designing (and also coding) their brain child to life.

It makes me very happy to see the Kickstarter campaign already funded, which will move PJ and Pete from 2 years of previous development (on the side of freelancing) into full-time status. If you’re into action RPGs with a bunch of strategic defending and towering and storytelling to go with it, you can support the project on Kickstarter ($15+ for the game, macOS, Windows, Linux, with stretch goals for additional platforms).

Sabotage Studio won’t have trouble funding a prequel to their debut title The Messenger as they’ve already gathered close to half a million dollars on Kickstarter for their next project, Sea of Stars. The Canadian indie team is shifting from side-view platforming to a top-down turn-based RPG, inspired by Chrono Trigger and the like (they even have the Chrono series’ composer Yasunori Mitsuda on board as a guest).

I especially wanted to mention the title since the visuals not-only look 16-bit gorgeous, but are also somewhere close to Pathway’s dynamic shading wizardry.

If you check the trailer closely, it doesn’t look exactly as precise as Pathway’s completely volumetric approach, but even if it’s using a somewhat more faked technique, it looks darn proper. Even better, daytime changing is an essential gameplay mechanic that underscores the story of solstice warriors who manipulate the powers of the moon and the sun to their advantage.

There are plenty of other things to be excited about, such as freely traversable levels (climbing up ledges, diving off cliffs, swimming …), but I’ll let you explore those on your own on the project’s Kickstarter page.

My ultimate respect always goes to works of entertainment that are able to get me sooo interested in something that I literally have to stop the movie or game and go to Wikipedia to immediately learn something about the subject. For example, when I saw detective Miller in The Expanse pour his drink diagonally due to being on a rotating space station, I had to jump to the Wiki to check the physics and read about the Coriolis effect. But no piece of fiction has ever directly asked me to go use Google and educate myself … until I played the demo of Chinatown Detective Agency that is. Hat off to you, General Interactive Co.!

I’ve posted artwork from this upcoming point-and-click adventure previously (glowingly pixeled by Ricardo Juchem), but I didn’t really know how much down my alley it would be until I got my hands on the preview. Fans of the Carmen Sandiego series will be rewarded as the story has you travel around the world, solving crimes as a private detective Amira Darma. Her office is in Singapore’s Chinatown district (hence the name) which the adventure uses as a central point you always return to. I don’t personally care for the dystopian near-future setting (I’ve already had my share of negative future predictions and then some), but the educational/explorational premise of the game which requires you to hone your real-world research skills is just too good to miss out on. As the team says, “you’re not just playing an investigator, you’ll have to become one yourself.” Kudos again!

If you’re as big a fan of learning with video games as I am, check out more details about Chinatown Detective Agency on its freshly published Kickstarter Page where you can also play the demo yourself. Can’t wait to see this get funded!

Here’s a quick shoutout to Rose of Starcross before its Kickstarter campaign runs out (last few hours as of posting this). There’s much to love about this action adventure/RPG:

• the pink/purple color palette that’s present literally in every shot of the game,
• the delightful chiptune soundtrack,
• the fact that it’s all developed, drawn, designed, composed by a single person (that would be Peyton Burnham),
• the self awareness that it’ll take 3 years to develop (estimated delivery date is December 2022) on top of the 3 years that have passed since the game’s first, unsuccessful Kickstarter (a.k.a. Behind the Rose),
• the fact that Peyton didn’t give up and kept at it to get to this point and finally get funded, including the learning journey that’s evident in the progress of the art and editing of the trailer …
  

Go check out the Kickstarter campaign to see if the gameplay also matches your video game taste and help another indie get closer to making their dreams come true.

I’m guessing most everyone in the pixel art scene has heard of Battle Axe by now, at least those keeping tabs on the OGs of pixel art. Henk Nieborg is definitely one of the legends, being responsible for the beauty of plenty Amiga games in the 90s. Lucky for us he continues to use his love and skill for pixel art to these days and contributes to indie projects such as Tiny Thor and Xeno Crisis. It was exactly from working on the latter that the partnership to produce Battle Axe was born with Bitmap Bureau’s Mike Tucker who will now help bring Henk’s creation to life, as did Henk wonderfully for Xeno Crisis (I’m still to play and write a review for that one … one day).

Battle Axe is in its last days on Kickstarter, so head on over to see the classic arcade gameplay take place over Henk’s colorfully polished tilesets. Let’s hope he will keep giving us insights into his creative process during the development as it’s a real privilege to see someone with his amount of experience do their magic (below is the first timelapse from his new YouTube channel).

I gave a talk about Crowdfunding today. I was working on it for the majority of this week and during my research I found some ongoing projects to write about (on top of a couple already on my TO-DO list). Brace yourself for an overview of Kickstarter projects in the next few days!

First up is Seablip, a real-time tactical RPG fought across pirate ships and coastal towns. The environment art alone is enough to get me intrigued, with a happy, sort of a Stardew Valley of sea plunder vibe to it. The Kickstarter video is quite worth watching so head on over to the campaign page to see how the gameplay looks in practice. There are 3 days left to join in with the support and the game already cleared its $10k goal. Aye!

Last 2 days to back Rubi: The Wayward Mira on Kickstarter. I don’t have much to say since I’m not personally super into platformers/Metroidvanias, but it makes me happy to see @8pxl​’s clouds in a game. Jubilee is a background artist on the team, besides Arcade Hero (environments, VFX) and Clement Wolfram Swennes a.k.a. Atnas as art lead and project co-developer. The art is super polished (as standard for the genre by now and frankly required due to high saturation of great quality games of its type) so get the demo and check the campaign page yourself to see if the science+magic story or ability-based progression spark enough joy for you to pitch in. It’s been already successfully funded, so development will definitely continue.

I wanted to share the quite striking visuals from My Work Is Not Yet Done, an exploration/survival/simulation/horror game by Spencer Yan a.k.a. @spncryn. 

The purely black-and-white look resembles the original Macintosh with its high resolution traded for the lack of colors, here wonderfully used to accentuate the darker nature of the game. It works even creepier with the tense music and fast-cut editing, so enjoy exploring it in full form either on the Kickstarter page (where the game was already fully funded) or in the trailer below:

I also really appreciate Spencer’s thoughtfulness, putting attention to things like alternative distribution models ($20 on Steam, pay what you want on Itch, free through open source) or exclusivity of rewards. His Kickstarter updates dive deep into details, as does his personal blog/diary here on tumblr. An all-around interesting person and project to follow and support.

I can barely afford to back Kickstarter games these days, but I’ve been waiting for Theropods since I first came across the Flash prototype 3 years ago. That version was developed in 2 weeks for the 2015 Adventure Jam and it was the cutest, short point-and-click thing with just situational puzzles instead of dialog trees. Fast forward till a couple of days ago when a campaign for a full fledged release finally launched on Kickstarter and I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t send some love their way.

The plot for the big release has been expanded with a yellow rock that falls from the sky and attracts bloodthirsty barbarians, as well as the arrival of a mysterious sci-fi traveler who has slim hopes of returning home. All of which of course—as the game name suggests—on a dinosaur-rich planet, making for an incredibly charming combination, if a bit unnecessarily tinted with the good vs evil language.

The lead pixel artist behind the game is Sarah Duffield-Harding a.k.a. @tinystuffz​​, with adventure-games specialist @mattfrith​​ on the backgrounds (I’m sure you remember my feature of his work from all the way back in 2014, right??). The awesomeness of the duo is self-explanatory from the screens above and even more so from the generously long game trailer:

Together with the campaign comes a new demo (windows only) that feels a bit more dark than the jam game, but offers just as good demonstration of how the dialog-free puzzles play out. The animation experience of the project creators (besides Sarah also Kostas Skiftas) really shines through as the villagers get themselves into entertaining situations, falling out of trees or climbing onto each others’ shoulders. It’s also really pleasing how you can instruct other characters to help you solve parts of the puzzles.

The team is planning for at least 2 more years of development and hopefully they can well surpass their 20k € goal so that they can afford to make full-time development possible. You can help in that endeavor yourself by visiting their Kickstarter campaign and reserving a copy (currently $14 early bird, later $17 or more).

Just a quick post in case anyone’s into isometric spaceship colony sims, Space Haven (@spacehavengame) from the Finnish studio Bugbyte is in its last day of the (well overfunded) Kickstarter campaign. The graphics are quite high res and on the side of pre-rendered 3D, but still very charming and fitting to the space theme.

Head over to the campaign page if you want to support the game and get a copy ($20 or more, Windows/macOS/Linux).

DON’T GIVE UP: A Cynical Tale is no stranger to Kickstarter. The game made its crowdfunding debut in November 2017 under the name Cynical 7 and I loved it! It features a refreshing story about an anxious game developer and his struggles through life, with art that reminded me of my favorite Cartoon Network shows (but in pixels).

The first Kickstarter didn’t make it, but the second one under the new name fittingly did (don’t give up!). The game made a bit over $5k, which is not much even for an indie budget, but the game’s creator Tristan Barona a.k.a. @tacopizzacats made the best of it and brought the game close to completion and demoed it at the recent PAX South. With the warm reception it received, Tristan is running a new Kickstarter for people who haven’t heard of the game before and want to help it get some additional polish in the form of new character portraits, music, and improved boss sprites and animations.

The new campaign page has a lovely interview with the author as well as a demo, so go check that out and possibly grab a copy ($10, Windows/macOS/Linux) to enjoy at the end of the year.

Chained Echoes from coder/artist/designer Matthias ‘Ark Heiral’ Linda is a colorful delight to look at. The game combines your favorite anime subjects—fantasy and mechs—into a world of dragons and technology that you’ll navigate with classical JRPG fashion of exploration and turn-based battles.

The trailer itself is an animated treat with big illustrations that make you excited about customizing your robotic companion and steampunk airships. If this all sounds like a fantastical adventure to you, head over to the game’s Kickstarter page to reserve yourself a copy ($19, Windows/macOS/Linux). Only 4 days left!

If you wanted to double-down on Lunark, @johanvinet​‘s Flashback-inspired cinematic platformer, now is the time. 

As a Valentine’s Day special, 3 new tiers are available on the game’s Kickstarter page, each giving you another digital copy of the game for $13 extra. This way you can game together with your BFF or get yourself both a PC and a Switch copy. Oh yeah, Switch was confirmed!

If you want to get a better feel for the game’s chill gameplay, check out a full playthrough of the prototype:

Great music, sounds and ambience complement small details such as dirt falling off platforms, and birds scattering after shooting a gun. Together with the small resolution and distinct color palette, this is one of the sharpest art directions I’ve seen in a while!

Make this game a reality here.