Geek Haven 2: More Kickass Games on Kickstarter

As promised a week ago, here are even more examples of how crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter are good news for geeky gamers. This week, the democratic fundraising platform appears to have developed a fetish or three, with multiple projects focused on augmented reality, iPhones, colons, and Cthulhu. Oh my! (Best read by your inner George Takei.)

 Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia: From designers Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone, co-creators of Viticulture: The Strategic Game of Winemaking, Euphoria is a dice-driven worker placement board game that captures the cynical optimism of classic dystopian fiction. It’s also the first in a disturbingly long list of current Kickstarter gaming projects that include a colon in the title. But don’t let the smell fool you: beneath its rosy, art deco exterior, the world of Euphoria is as dark as they come. As rival leaders of a utilitarian utopia, 2-5 players will dig tunnels, burn books, and recruit, clone, or subjugate followers in an effort to build a brighter future. The Kickstarter campaign itself includes some, shall we say, revolutionary features, including a money-back guarantee for up to one month after the game has shipped and a total lack of “early bird” discounts. Join hands with the workers of the future today.

 Pixel Press: Draw Your Own Video Game: If you get tired of whipping a soulless, post-apocalyptic society into submission, this mobile app from Robin Rath should help remind you what fun is all about. Designed as an artist-friendly level creation tool for platformers (and featuring, in its title, a colon no less prominent than Euphoria’s), Pixel Press allows you to sketch out the perfect platformer on its specially printed graph paper and turn it into a game in the time it takes to snap a photo. After learning the basic shorthand of the system (slashes and x-marks for hazards, lines for moving platforms), creating the a pristinely perilous platformer is as easy as staying within the lines, while a set of advanced tools allows artists and sound designers to really personalize their pixel creations. It’s still only a quarter of the way to its funding goal, but there’s plenty of time left for this line art LittleBigPlanet to gather steam. Oh poo, that steam metaphor probably should have gone with the dystopia game, huh?

 Quintet for Android: Here’s another project that breaks the usual rules of how Kickstarter “should” work. The game being funded, which looks like a smartphone-driven cross between the real-time tabletop game Space Alert and the Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator, already exists. In fact, you can play it right now, for free, on at least five platforms, including PC and iOS. Perhaps this explains the rather modest funding goal, which will go toward the Android implementation of the game and cross-functionality between all platforms. Even though its funding goal has been met, the campaign gives you a few good reasons (aside from your everlasting generosity) to pledge your money, including a supporter-exclusive three-player ship and a refreshing lack of colons. All hands to battle stations!

 Clandestine: Anomaly: Also known as Augmented Reality: Return of the Colons, this mobile game aims to push the features of smartphones to their limits, combining your device’s camera, GPS capabilities and touch interface to create a narrative-driven first-person tower defense sci-fi game that takes place in your own backyard. To call the game ambitious would be an understatement, which might explain why many backers appear to be wary to add their pledge, or it might be that some people are worried about looking silly running through public parks with their iPads glued to their faces, hunting for “alien technology” with which to construct their defenses against giant CG bugs. Whatever their excuse, the biggest anomaly for this innovative Kickstarter project is the shameful lack of support from a populace of gamers who spent $200 million on Angry Birds alone in 2012.

 Golden Sky Stories: Heartwarming Role-Playing: For another take on augmented reality, look no further than this heartwarming tabletop role-playing game inspired by Japanese manga and folklore. Nearing the end of its funding cycle (and the last game on this list to feature a colon, set right in front of its warm and fuzzy heart), Golden Sky Stories imagines a world in which role-players solve conflicts peacefully, using their brains and natural affinities rather than a +10 spiked club of malice. Players will take on the personae of henge, helpful animals with the ability to take on human (usually prepubescent and adorable) form, and use their magical gifts to solve the problems of the human world. Awwww. If I were running the game, Jay-Z would be a recurring character.  In contrast with Clandestine: Anomaly, this project took off so unexpectedly fast that the creator ran out of stretch goals and had to draft up some new ones (presumably with the help of his magical goldfish). Included among the goodies are a few alternate settings upon which the backers will get to vote. My vote goes to Friendship Time, set in the psychedelic land of Americana.

 A Study In Emerald: Who needs heartwarming chibi-neko when you can have custom zombie meeples? A Study in Emerald, from legendary board game designer Martin Wallace, is a hidden role/deckbuilding/area control game inspired by the short story of the same name by equally legendary fantasy author Neil Gaiman, which was in turn inspired by the works of H.P Lovecraft and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the game, players take the role of either Loyalists, figures loyal to the Great Old Ones who have supplanted humanity’s rulers, or Restorationists, radical freedom fighters who oppose them. The price is particularly steep and the stretch goals are sparse, but it’s hard to imagine many people who would not enjoy a game in which Professor Moriarty can be devoured by zombies, and since the game is not going into general distribution, if you don’t get it now, it might haunt you for the rest of your life. For anybody on the fence, the complete rules and print-and-play files for the art-free version of the game are freely available. Ia! Ia! My dear Watson.

 Shadow of the Eternals: Do you love Cthulhu, but desire more action than simply pushing cubes around a board? Are you itching for a sanity-draining, clue-hunting ensemble historical epic with a strong injection of Lovecraftian flavor? Do you have $1.35 million? Then congratulations, you’re a shoe-in to back Shadow of the Eternals, the episodic PC/Wii U horror title from Precursor Games. Who are they, exactly? Who cares, when they’ve got the creators of cult hit Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem on their team? An unofficial follow-up to the only game to get Lovecraftian horror absolutely right, this might be the only way we’re going to see this dream sequel get made, given original designers Silicon Knights’ legal troubles. The following for the original game was huge, but is it enough to reach over a million dollars in under 36 days? All I can say is: it had better be.

These may be the best of the Gaming projects Kickstarter currently has to offer, but with 364 projects currently running and more being added every day, there’s no way they’re the last. Look for even more Kickstarter round-ups, reviews, sneak peeks and interviews right here in the weeks to come, assuming Azathoth doesn’t swallow us all up in his massive colon…