One of the biggest changes to how games are developed coincided with the rise of quick, accessible Internet. Before you could only release a game when it was 100% complete (well, at least playable), as they were only making physical copies that couldn't be changed. Nowadays you can buy physical or digital but it has meant that people and companies can release a game much earlier to secure more funding. Most games make the vast majority of their money in the 2 weeks after release, which can be a couple of years after development has started.
So, if you are able to spread it out a little more this is a big help, especially if you are just starting out on your own. There are two main versions, the biggest of each is Steam's 'Early Access' and Kickstarter, the project funding giant. Early Access is a game released early, typically in its Alpha stage with a road map of future development and completion date. Kickstarter is basically a pitch for a product, saying that if you pay the base amount you will get the game. With most titles there are additional perks for paying more money, such as having your name in the game or some clothing merchandise. Games also tend to have stretch goals meaning if a certain level of funding is reached, additional features will be included in the title like a new dungeon or an additional language.
These have been around for a while now and both types of funding have their own positives and negatives. Each have risk as the games may not end up as you expected or worse, not at all. So below I talk about some of the titles that have been funded this way.
Kynseed
One of the titles that shows a tonne of promise is Kynseed, a Stardew Valley like simulator that in both style and game play, very recently added to Early Access on Steam. It revolves around planting a mystical acorn, the Kynseed, that grows into a family tree that manifests into many choices. The tree grows as time goes on and if this sounds familiar it’s a mechanic that Peter Molyneux promised but failed to include in any of the Fable games.
Amazingly a bunch of the people working on those titles created a new company, Pixelcount Studios to base a game around this very idea. At its base you play a child who has to complete tasks such as farming or fishing to gain funds and create a family. The brilliant part is that when you die you become one of your children! It has Typical Day/Night cycle with seasonal changes ala Stardew which works very well. This title has a huge amount of ambition and has the basics there already. Though the devs readily admit there is a lot to do.
I am very hopeful this is going to be an onion. Layer upon layer steadily added until it's one hell of a game. This is a great way of creating a game, its playable and should in theory only get better with more features. Of the little I have played the most surprising part was just how funny it is. Whether it is in conversations with NPCs (Non-Playable Characters), tasks in the menu or just the hint giving signs left around by the developers it has made me laugh a lot. In particular 'Use a tin bucket to get water. Don't use the poo bucket!' had me laughing hard. There is some farming you can do as well as a few fetch quests for the people but it is a sparse game at the moment.
Still it is an interesting start and I cannot wait to see what the developers do! There's nothing better than coming home and finding a new update on a game like this. As with most early access games this one is cheap now and I assume will rise in price on release. I would recommend jumping in now!
Monster Crown
Aptly after just completing the newest Pokemon game I can talk about a Kickstarter game that I backed. Monster Crown, made by Studio Aurum is a Monster Taming game inspired by those little Pocket Monsters. They loved taming and fighting them but they were disappointed with the breeding aspect, that you always just got the species which the mother is. So, they based the game about making true cross breeds of the monsters. With over 200 types to collect, that is a lot of combinations! You have an incubator with six slots so you can keep breeding on your travels.
As with any game like this you head out to explore the wider world, follow the story and fighting people along the way. The art style looks a little old school but suits it. It feels very Gen 2 Pokemon which is no bad thing. There is a huge amount of potential. The game was successfully funded back in May and hopes to be out in February next year. Several stretch goals were reached so new areas and languages are going to be included. The depth looks really cool, supposedly a huge story!
Over the past few months I have been receiving email updates which have been very detailed in keeping me up to date. They talk about new areas or mechanics that have gone in, what the future plans are and a section at the bottom detailing several monsters. Amazingly they have let backers download a beta version to play themselves. I have deliberately not played that much as I want to enjoy the whole finished product. The fights are turn based combat and being so used to playing Pokemon it feels a bit odd but I am sure I will get used to it. I picked the Switch version and I am really hyped for the release. Being a huge Pokemon fan (See 'This Week') this certainly ticks all the right boxes. You heard it here first!
The Long Dark
Now I had completely forgotten I had picked up Hinterland Studios, The Long Dark. This title was actually on Kickstarter and then eventually entered Early Access. You are a pilot who crash lands in Canada's frozen wilds after a global disaster and must survive. It's a big open world (good) with a first-person view (fuck yes!!). It was billed as another survival game but one that wanted greater depth and a brilliant story mode. For realism, you have to account for body temperature, hunger/thirst, fatigue, wind chill, wildlife and calorie intake while trying to survive.
You can hunt deer but defend yourself from bears and wolves. Scavenging is a must to stay alive, particularly wood which is necessary for fires to keep you alive at night. Items degrade over time and either must be repaired or replaced. Amazingly you can get ill from disease or even food poisoning! There are plenty of game modes to aid different playing styles but the really interesting part is the Story Mode. Releasing episodically this builds on the foundations created and honed by the studio. It's a fantastic way to go about making a game, get the game play working and refined, fix the bugs then add on the story making it work with the title's mechanics. You don't spread yourself too thin and over promise.
Besiege has adopted a similar plan, the physics are all done for the weapons you create and now they are adding additional items and creating many more levels. Genius. As for The Long Dark, Survival then story has worked really well. And with a rumored Nintendo Switch version in the works I am really excited for this game! And as shown above it looks absolutely stunning. I love the art style and cannot wait to go and explore more!
PUBG
No doubt a bunch of you at some point have been playing the second biggest (but original) Battle Royale game. PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds has defined gaming over the last few years, casting a large shadow over all FPS titles. It has now been usurped by Fortnite but this is the game that kick started it all. It has quite a convoluted story, originally started by Brendan Greene as a mod of Arma 2 it eventually got made standalone at the Korean games company Ginno Games with Greene on board.
His ideas inspired by the Japanese film Battle Royale and the Hunger Games book series leaves 100 gunless people parachuting into a large map to battle away to come away with only one champion, Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! Usually in online multiplayer games most players will find a place to hide and snipe everyone else. On a massive map this would cause a single game to go on forever so the great idea was to make a reduction in the size of the map players could survive in. By shrinking this down further and further it would make players come into conflict and ensure there would be just one winner. It was a huge hit, spawning countless imitations. It is fun but it is stressful. The tension when you approach a player who is obviously way more armed then you is crazy. The game started on early access quite basic with only a few guns and a single map but over time added vehicles and eventually new maps to fight in.
The game stayed buggy and with huge sales the company had massive pressures to keep making new content. This meant less things were getting fixed and new features were making it worse. So, they decided to launch the campaign 'Fix PUBG', which meant months of just solving all of the performance issues. Now compared to the other games in this list I can't say I particularly liked this method. Though it was pretty effective it should just have been done along the way like any other project. It meant players were not getting anything new. Fortnite on the other hand while free regularly gets new stuff to keep players coming back for more. The most damning aspect was playing recently I had an extremely obvious text overlay issue when selecting first or third person before a match.... There is still a long way for this to go.
So, as you can see, these systems work for some games. There are a tonne of others like Subnautica and Besiege but then there are others that disappoint. We Happy Few had a lot of potential but missed the mark, ending up a bit different to what people expected. And that is one of the hardest things in this industry. Expectation. It's very hard to live up to. Still at least these games were actually made and finished. There are so many more that have failed to get over the line, it is worth knowing when thinking about buying one of these games but don't let that put you off. Early Access games are a slow burner, you invest in it to begin with and as time goes on the game improves. Buying earlier is cheaper so you are getting a head start! And remember you are often helping to support small developers, typically indie that otherwise couldn't fund the project. They need you and you go a big way to help making the game!
A couple of tips though. Depending on your preference there are maybe some types of games to avoid. Anything Horror or Story based, as once you know what is going to happen once in a half-finished game it's probably not going to be any different in the full release. By all means buy it and give it a go but it might be a good idea to hold out finishing the content. Websites like Rock Paper Shotgun have an entire section 'Premature Evaluation' purely dedicated to reviewing a game in its early state which are well worth a read before you buy. But the biggest one is just be patient. Game development is a rocky road and there will be issues. Sure, there could be game breaking bugs and crashes but they should get fixed. Stick with it and you will find some gems way ahead of everyone else! So, readers, what early access and kickstarter games have you been playing?
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