Kickstarted?

I just did something that I don't normally do; I backed a game on Kickstarter.

It's called Strafe and reminds of the shooters I used to play avidly in my youth.

The only game I've backed thus far has been Wasteland 2, which turned out alright, but there have been cases where games seriously underwhelmed, or even worse, didn't even get made.

Peter Molyneux got in some bother recently (well, a while back actually, but it came to the fore recently) when he over-promised on a Kickstarter game, then neglected to deliver some of the incentives used to lure in high-tier backers.

Tim Schafer massively under-quoted on Broken Age, but at least he was able to get away with it because of the studio's own ability to attract funding, but players are still waiting for the second half of that game.

It's examples like this, and those even worse, when games get abandoned and never see the light of day, that make me hesitant to recommend backing games on the crowd-funding site any more; there's just too much risk.

However, my concern is eased somewhat in this case because the Kickstarter for Strafe actually offers a free playable build of the game, so you can try before you buy, so to speak. I'll suggest you give that a look, or at the very least click through the link below and take a look at the attached trailer.

http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/291314/Playable+build+of+Straf
e+available+as+Kickstarter+nears+end/