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The Funding Crowd 29 (Feb 24th - Mar 9th)

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The Losers

· It was always going to be a tough ask, and sadly the wonderful spirit behind Shattered Time wasn't enough to capture the imagination of the crowd-funding public at large. It failed hugely, claiming only $3k from its $100k target. Daniel Swiger claims to have learnt a lot from its failure, however, and we have little doubt that he'll be back once he's refined the scope of his project.


· Our second sad loss to the world of future gaming is Catapult for Hire. Tyrone Henrie is less upbeat about his failure and wonders whether he'll be able to bring his cel-shaded, projectile-throwing puzzler to light at all. Being unable to work on his project full time will require a full rethink of how this one pans out. We'll bring you whatever news we hear on this one. A real shame.



The Winner

· Needing just $1000NZD to secure its funding, 39 days to Mars was never really in doubt. However, it's great that it secured that crucial $2000NZD stretch, since it means that we Linux users can get a taste of co-operative, coffee-break puzzling action.








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· Starting with a project that needs our help, the visual novel Dysfunctional Systems has achieved over half its target, but still needs a push over the next two weeks to cross the finish line.


· The space adventure, Star Crawlers only has a couple of days still to run, but completed its target $65k with over a week to run and has veritable feast of stretch goals planned out. The team has these goals set at relatively tiny increments, clearly in the hope of securing more funds. Well worth checking this one out as your pledges will still make a big difference to a fantastic looking game.


· Meanwhile, the excellent-looking Galactic Princess has made its target with over a week still to run, so there's plenty of time to get some stretch goals sorted! They've already nailed two, which add a fair bit of content and customisation to the game, and the next stretch goal takes it even further with additional mechanics to expand the game in new directions.


· And finally, after its stellar start, in which The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 doubled its target in just 5 days, things have finally settled down for the KING Art team. Making an additional $50k in the last fortnight is still great, but they're now trending to a more reasonable quarter of a million and not the frankly insane half million they were initially on track for.








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Writing about Earthlock is tricky. There's just so much to tell you about, we're not really sure where to start! The big, geographically diverse, experienced team behind it? The fact it looks like a wonderful combination of Final Fantasy and Zelda? How about, despite being a Biggie, its achievable, low target of just $150k? Or the fact it's been in development for over a year now, so not only is there a ton of great footage, but it's also very clear that the backstory is well developed and the characters already fully rounded out? Or the fact that there's a preview demo already out for Linux? Or even the fact that the studio is employing the same art studio that worked on Broken Age and The Walking Dead? So, indeed, where to start?

Earthlock: Festival of Magic will be Snowcastle Games second endeavour. Their first was an iOS educational game that launched in 2011 and won awards that same year. Needless to say, this will be a fair step up from that initial game. As before, they're again using Unity, so that familiarity is likely the reason that we're getting some Linux love this time around.

The game itself is based on the magical world of Umbra, which one day, for reasons unknown, stopped spinning. As the game describes it, "Volcanoes awoke and oceans moved. Kingdoms and civilizations were buried or drowned". The game is set in the only habitable regions left between the two shattered sides of the planet.

The game mechanics revolve around a free-roaming element, à la Final Fantasy, but without that game's infuriating random battles. Combat is turn-based, again like Final Fantasy, but uses an innovative pairing system, in which characters pair up into teams of Protector/Attacker. This gives your party dynamic a new edge as you meet new characters that could be recruited. Different characters will create new combos depending on their pair/partner, giving access to new abilities that may be vital strategically.

Finally, your home village will incorporate some crafting and harvesting elements. What you craft or harvest back in your village is literally the ammunition and spell abilities that you can cast in combat, so there will be an investment in doing this right.

Backing this unique and imaginative game would normally require a $20 pledge. However, there are still over 500 early bird pledges available at $15, so head on over to Kickstarter and have your Amazon Payment account on standby! The game has already been Greenlit on Steam, so your pledge can either ask for DRM-free downloads or a Steam key, your choice. It's already raised over $30k in two days, so it looks like a sure bet. With your help, it will be.









And there you have it! Tight, laser beam focus on a small handful of the best crowd funding projects worthy of your attention. And of course, your money. We hope you enjoyed it and we hope we'll see you again next time! And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, we hope you'll consider joining the team - just send a private message to one of the team who brought you this issue, muntdefems, scaine, Speedster, and S.D, or simply reply down below about joining up.

Until next time! ;)



. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
A Linux user for more than 15 years, I've just recently rediscovered the passion for gaming. Couldn't have chosen a better time than now: the [second](http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/linux-techdemo-available-for-race-the-sun-.1752#4850) Golden Age of Linux gaming.
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10 comments

HadBabits Mar 10, 2014
I backed Galactic Princess, everything else I'll keep an eye on :p
q4a Mar 10, 2014
Liam already wrote article about Proven Lands, which is on Kickstarter now, but there is no mention about this game. It's a bit strange.. or you don't want to duplicate it?
Speedster Mar 10, 2014
Quoting: q4aLiam already wrote article about Proven Lands, which is on Kickstarter now, but there is no mention about this game. It's a bit strange.. or you don't want to duplicate it?

No, it's more a matter of timing...

By the time Liam wrote that article, this article was close to the target publishing deadline. Definitely by the time I noticed Proven Lands, this article's text was complete (aside from errors caught during proof reading). So I think that's why Liam didn't add it to the list of nominated games, unlike Heart & Slash which he nominated 3 days ago, before the writeups had been done.
s_d Mar 10, 2014
Well, we can always add it to the next draft, and report on it's progress in a couple of weeks :D

q4a: Always feel free to suggest additions! As Speedster mentioned, the article was essentially all written up yesterday, and we (or at least I) simply never noticed Proven Lands. We love to have the community suggest projects to us for future coverage (unless they're really hard to write about, haha).
Liam Dawe Mar 10, 2014
We also do need deadlines and cut-off points otherwise articles constantly get pushed back for "just one more..." :)
scaine Mar 10, 2014
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I backed Earthlock (thanks again to Q4a for that one) and have just backed Nothing to Hide. I'm also swithering over Star Crawlers.

It might have been a slow start to 2014, but there's absolutely cracking stuff coming out now.
Liam Dawe Mar 10, 2014
Nothing to Hide is a really good cause.
Disharmonic Mar 10, 2014
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If anyone wants to pickup the first EP of Dysfunctional Systems to try it before you pledge, you can get it here alongside a couple of other Linux games(check out the Capsule bundle) https://www.indiegala.com/weekly. This will be live for another 20 hours
s_d Mar 10, 2014
Quoting: liamdaweNothing to Hide is a really good cause.

It's soooooo close!! Less than $5k to go :)
Speedster Mar 13, 2014
Looks like Nothing to Hide made it!

I've gone for both Star Crawlers (love the name!) and Earthlock, which looks like it has a fighting chance to be one of those rare high-goal projects that manages to get funded
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