The Crowdfund Watch: May

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Armello (iOS, Linux, Mac, PC)
League of Geeks
Kickstarter page
Progress: $198,421 AUD pledged of $200,000 AUD goal (4,075 backers) 4 days remaining

Armello is an interesting card and board game hybrid that comes to us from Australian outfit League of Geeks. It's an animal/fantasy fairytale setting and originally positioned as a tablet game it's now also heading to Steam (PC, Mac, Linux) - check out the video below where we talked to one of the developers Trent Kusters to learn more at last year's GDC.

Outlook: It's not far away from being funded. Not far at all so things are looking good for Armello. And likely backers are now hoping it'll reach the first stretch goal adding a winter tile set for the board ($225,000). Armello is one of those projects where the creators have been working on it while keeping their day jobs, and the goal is to be able to fully focus on the development down the stretch towards the proposed March 2015 release date.

Outcast Reboot HD (PC)
Fresh3D
Kickstarter page
Progress: $246,972 pledged of $600,000 goal (4,975 backers) 4 days remaining

The HD-remake of open-world classic Outcast quickly got a lot of attention as it launched on Kickstarter. The old game may not have sold a ton, but it was a pioneer in many ways and the cancelled sequel is still an open wound with many. As members of the original team reacquired the rights the saw potential in launching a Kickstarter to fund the game.

Outlook: While the project was off to a great start it soon lost steam and the $600,000 goal looked overly ambitious. With more than 50% to go and just a few days remaining of the campaign, we're sure Plan B is already being prepared. And while we're sure Fresh3D would prefer to go at this alone, it's also the kind of project that they'll probably be able to find a publishing partner for. A second Kickstarter, perhaps with a more modest goal would also be an alternative. It's not all bad news though as the game was quickly greenlit on Steam.

The Universim (Linux, Mac, PC)
Crytivo Games
Kickstarter page
Progress: $157,931 pledged of $320,000 goal (6,134 backers) 20 days remaining

It's difficult to break through the noise with a novel idea on Kickstarter these days, but Crytivo Games certainly managed to do this with The Universim. It's described as being a "next generation Planet Management God - Game in development by Crytivo Games and designed by Alex Koshelkov".

Outlook: Kicktraq has it tracking towards $420,000 currently, which is certainly encouraging even if it's still a long way towards securing the funds. As you'd expect there are plenty of stretch goals that could come into play, but backers are probably most interested in the last one - multiplayer ($920,000). It's going to be tough to get there, but hopefully we'll get multiplayer one day.

The interim:

Chaos Reborn (PC)
Gollop Games
Kickstarter page
Funded: $210,854 pledged of $180,000 goal (5,051 backers)

Well, we've covered Chaos Reborn in great detail (here), but since it fell between chairs we thought we'd include an "interim" entry for it as the campaign proved successful. The re-imagined version of Julian Gollop's (Xcom) old game certainly looks very promising. The campaign managed to sprint passed its target in the final few days.

"Chaos Reborn has been funded with just 34 hours to go on the clock. Thank you to everybody who backed the project and promoted it. Thanks to my team for working after hours to make the prototype possible, and providing all the art and publicity material during the campaign. And thanks mum for being such a vocal supporter!"

Last month's Crowdfund Watch:

Planets³ (PC)
Cubical Drift
Kickstarter page
Funded: $310,708 pledged of $250,000 goal (10,357 backers)

Pronounced "planetscube" this 3D open world voxel-based RPG managed to get a big following of more than 10,000 backers. The team is now taking some time to regroup before starting full production in June (some had to quit their day-time jobs first), but they teased something really interesting - an insanely interesting proposition of colliding worlds with this image.

Epoch: Return (PC)
Innate Games
Kickstarter page
Cancelled (March 17): $26,158 pledged of $150,000 goal (398 backers)

Epoch: Return is the first game in a proposed series from Innate Games that's headed up by a couple of Bioware vets Nathan Moller (creative director) and Cookie Everman (lead writer). The campaign was cancelled shortly after it began after it became apparent it would not be successful.

The candid and straight message from the team read as follows: "When you're in a relationship and you start to notice all the little things that are wrong with your partner, it means you've lost the love, if you ever had it. There are a lot of little things we'd like to change about our campaign, but at the heart of it all, we failed to make people fall in love with our idea the same way we love it.
For that reason, we are going to end this Kickstarter campaign immediately. We are unhappy with the way we represented the game, and are going back to the drawing board. It was a hard decision to make, but we are confident it is the right one."

Proven Lands (Linux, Mac, PC)
Thesetales
Kickstarter page
Cancelled (March 26): £23,372 pledged of £299,000 goal (1,192 backers)

Proven Lands "a 3D science-fiction sandbox survival game", from Thesetales never reached it's goal on Kickstarter. In fact, it never came close to the ambitious target. But it's not all doom and gloom, far from it. "Another interesting thing is that we have a few publisher offers on the table and a Humble store waiting to be launched - I actually like the guys and the idea behind Humble Store a lot. We did great on Steam Greenlight (greenlit within a few days!). So, we'll move forward, one way or another. I'm making the feature list more reasonable for a smaller dev team. It is just important now to slow down a bit in order to make the right decision." The current plan is to launch on Humble Store within weeks and continue talks with potential publishers.

Duelyst (Mac, PC)
Counterplay Games
Kickstarter page
Funded: $137,707 pledged of $68,000 goal (3,578 backers)

The vibrant Duelyst reminded us in its style of Bastion, with the promise of squad-based tactical combat with ranked competitive play. Duelyst always looked on target for its modest goal and managed to double up the $68,000 target.

"This project would never have gotten off the ground without your encouragement, comments, support, pledges, and shares. Thank you for helping us achieve our personal dreams and goals.
As early backers and supporters, please remember you've helped to create something from nothing. Without you, there would be no Duelyst."

Sadly the campaign fell short of the $150,000 stretch goal of a PS4 version, but hopefully we could see one in the future anyway. You can follow the progress on the official website and the game is scheduled for release in December, 2014.