Every Kickstarter Weekly feels like a journey to me. Whenever I explore Kickstarter’s majestic, user-friendly (for the most part) landscape, I discover sights to behold. Like any traveler, I only wish to share my findings; and thanks to the power of links, you too can behold these projects for yourselves. Just take a look at these two games I brought back from my 16th adventure: Proven Lands and MyDream. Coincidentally, both are about exploration, although each game has its own approach. If you would like to join me on my Kickstarter adventures, then you can begin by reading more about these two exotic games!
Proven Lands
Project by: thesetales
Goal: £299,000
Current Funds: £21,000
End: April 9, 2014
Space is the final frontier. I think. Someone might have said that once on TV. But in Proven Lands, you explore a planet that’s constantly changing thanks to procedurally-generated content, ensuring that space will always be the final frontier–because we’ll never fully explore it, you see.
Proven Lands is the latest procedurally-generated sandbox Kickstarter project; however, it does have a plot. You are a heartbroken astronaut who crashes into an unexplored planet. Left with only your wits and grits, you begin a journey of survival by exploring the foreign environment and adapting to its harsh nature—just like thesetales’ favorite works of science fiction. The team has five episodes planned, each of which features new aliens, items and quests.
Proven Lands does not take science lightly. For each procedurally generate planet a player explores, he or she needs to consider basic biology, physics, and chemistry. This will come in handy when studying the land’s flora and fauna. Players will also have to take into consideration the astronaut’s current mood. If the astronaut is bored or depressed, he or she may not be ready to deal with an alien ambush. You can also study alien behavior so you know how they operate, resulting in better plans of attack.
This is a project that I recommend for readers to see for themselves. While Proven Lands won’t boast the most powerful graphics, it definitely has the atmosphere that depicts an unexplored environment with a thriving ecosystem. The Kickstarter page features beautiful concept art of cutscenes and environments; I find the underwater planet type especially tantalizing to explore. In the meantime, thesetales has provided potential backers a playable demo on their Kickstarter page.
MyDream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d1chbzKIDo
Project by: MyDream
Goal: $100,000
Current Funds: $74,576
End: April 12, 2014
Perhaps you like the idea of exploring new exotic worlds, but you’re not a fan of procedurally generated terrain—you’d prefer terrain you or your friends can alter. Perhaps you’re looking for something similar to Minecraft except more visually appealing. In that case, you should consider the Kickstarter for MyDream, a cooperative MMORPG about building your own dream world.
Players begin in their voxel dream world with some simple instructions. By doing following these instructions, players can solve problems to obtain rare treasures. These treasures become more difficult to obtain, so you’ll need to recruit some players to help you out. Eventually, MyDream hopes you feel empowered enough to branch out on your own, creating not only your own quests but the world in which they occur.
MyDream emphasizes cooperation. The game will feature a leveling system that rewards players for helping each other. They hope to reduce griefing by including a reputation system. Cooperating with players not only ensures a safe environment for players to create, but it hopefully ensures quality user-generated content, adding considerable value to MyDream.
MyDream is an interesting alternative to both Minecraft and the traditional MMORPG. It infuses RPG elements into Minecraft, but you won’t be defeating monsters or engaging in PvP. Players can only benefit from helping each other. I recommend checking out the YouTube video I attached to this article before you check out the video on MyDream’s Kickstarter page; it shows off far more interesting environments than the minute long trailer allows.
Other Projects
Have you seen any interesting projects on Kickstarter that you think deserve mention? Are you a developer who is currently running a Kickstarter campaign? Let us know in the comments section, or send an email to garrett@thekoalition.com.
