Projecting a simultaneous release on 4 platforms in a year and a half while only asking for 260k is very off. If I had to make a prediction right now based on pretty much nothing, I'd have to say this'll probably turn out to be heavily delayed or a hot pile of garbage. I don't want it to be bad of course, but I don't even think these types of games work too well anymore. Good luck is all I can say.
The final stretch tier, or $1.5 million, is the simultaneous release goal, not $260K.
EDIT: As an aside, all core gameplay single-player stretch goals have been met.
it's kind of nice that you can already see a workable version being played/tested. as much as some kickstarters excite me and i don't tend to be negative towards then, i know more than a few are launched with little more than a few pieces of concept art and an outline of their plans. should be reassuring to the backers.
Why? people still want to collect a trillion different objects?
Sure, why not? It feels lazy and largely pointless when you have stuff like in Assassin's Creed where there is an existing game world made for other tasks and they just plop stuff around randomly with no indication and barely any incentive. However, when the actual focus of the game itself is on collecting all the macguffins scattered around a giant, interconnected level then the levels themselves tend to become weird, creative, and filled with secrets and the macguffins themselves tend to be placed in ways which hint at somewhere to go (ex: how Mario games often use lines of coins to point towards secret passages) or to be placed at the end of a challenge as opposed to simply being in a weird, completely random and out of the way location.
I am definitely worried about just how hard they're leaning into the Banjo-Kazooie comparison on their Kickstarter, but I'd personally love to explore giant, creative stages in a modern 3D platformer if they can pull it off. Even the 3D Mario games tend to completely break up or dramatically change their stages based on which star you choose to go for before even entering the stage, so it's been far too long since we've had something like this which hasn't just been shovelware I think.
wow i'm super excited for this, also David Wise (Donkey Kong Country) is working on the soundtrack with Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie), some of my favourite game music composers!
@seeric: exploring should be enough, or have the reward be something that effects the gameplay. Maybe a metroidvania-esk thing. Maybe even just cosmetic. Just collecting things so that the stat sheet has more numbers is not motivational, to most people, I'd assume.
I'm both excited and super cautious. It's great that they got their funding almost immediately, but I'm worried about them getting way more money than they know what to do with, which could easily be the case. The stretch goals ease my worries a bit, but still.
@hassun: I would think that this was just a way to drum up excitement for the game rather then fund it. They most likely have financial backers(a publisher or something) on the ready to help them out if they can prove interrest in the game. The goal they set for the kickstarter wouldn't even pay salery for a dev team for this year, let alone untill october 2016. Add to that gear, rent, licenses and whatnot and that money wouldn't last for more then a few months, if that, it's not possible that the kickstarter money is their only source of funding.
@pj They mention near the bottom of the kickstarter page they will finish the game at a smaller scale if the kickstarter doesn't get funded, so I think it's safe to assume you're right and that they already have some money.
@quemador: I get where you're coming from but I'm more optimistic about this since they actually have gameplay to show and not just some idea. There's already a nice chuck of work done. I'm not saying that it's not going to fail and Ex-Rare people can do no wrong but I think it's not crazy to be optimistic about this.
@spacecouncil: Well yes, if they do absolutely nothing it's pointless, but usually collectibles in collection-focused games like Banjo-Kazooie, Gex, Spyro, and so on tend to be used for unlocking additional stages, 'true' final bosses, and other forms of actual content. Sure, it feels really pointless when you have something like Psychonauts where there are literally thousands of things to collect and the vast majority of them contribute to absolutely nothing other than a quick bonus cutscene, but most games of this type are better at distributing unlockable content.
As for exploration itself being rewarding, it would certainly be a problem if the exploration and platforming felt subpar and uninteresting, but a tricky vertical platforming section with nothing to collect at the end of it other than a 'nice view' would be nearly as disappointing as having a collectible handed to you without said tricky vertical platforming section. The platforming allows collectibles to feel rewarding and the collectibles in turn give a reason for the developers to fill their levels with platforming sequences and plenty of out-of-the-way secrets in the first place.
Seeing this and hearing people say that the 3D platformer is coming back makes me want to see GB do an Unfinished of the current "A Hat in Time" beta, I think it's rather interesting and have had some fun in the about an hour I've played of it.
Can't decide if I'm going to go in on this yet, I adored Banjo-Kazooie in my childhood, but last time I tried playing it on 360 I found it kind of boring.
Best thing to happen to banjo was nuts and bolts before that it was a average plat former. well at-least some people from Rare still getting to make a game.
First thing I've ever funded, very happy about this, banjo-kazooie and donkey kong country are in my top 10 games ever, seriously I go back and beat them every couple years.
I'll be honest, I don't comprehend the insane amount of hype behind this. Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of the older Banjo-Kazooie platformers, but even if I were, I don't feel like anything significant has really been shown here that isn't just purely leaning on nostalgia.
I feel like they set the bar super low to begin with for the game they're trying to make. Their Kickstarter goal is approximately $270,000 USD, which is insanely low to make a 3D platformer.
Or are the developers located somewhere where the cost of living is dramatically lower than most of the U.S. cities where a lot of game development happens? Because honestly, $270,000 is nothing, and if they had just barely made that goal, I don't think the final game would've been very polished or very long. So thankfully they're blowing past it, but I wonder if this is all a PR move to make their Kickstarter look super successful from the get go when really they rope-a-doped everyone by setting an unrealistically low Kickstarter goal.
I'm really not caring for the art design here. I know the project is in its infancy, but the characters are pretty flat and that jungle/temple world is lacking any-and-all charm.
Or are the developers located somewhere where the cost of living is dramatically lower than most of the U.S. cities where a lot of game development happens?
Rare were UK and they only claim to have 7 team members. It can't cost as much as Double Fine.
"Collect-a-thon" as a pejorative described games that used collectibles in exactly that fashion, to gate content. The offensiveness of collectibles was related to both their quantity and the trivial challenge in collecting them, which reduced a game from a "chunky" experience with minutes-long platforming challenges like SM64, to a continuous flow of seconds-long objectives like Gex. This continuous flow is what invites the comparison to a marathon, where you don't feel you've actually accomplished anything until you reach the end of the entire gigantic set of objectives.
@spacecouncil: Well yes, if they do absolutely nothing it's pointless, but usually collectibles in collection-focused games like Banjo-Kazooie, Gex, Spyro, and so on tend to be used for unlocking additional stages, 'true' final bosses, and other forms of actual content. Sure, it feels really pointless when you have something like Psychonauts where there are literally thousands of things to collect and the vast majority of them contribute to absolutely nothing other than a quick bonus cutscene, but most games of this type are better at distributing unlockable content.
As for exploration itself being rewarding, it would certainly be a problem if the exploration and platforming felt subpar and uninteresting, but a tricky vertical platforming section with nothing to collect at the end of it other than a 'nice view' would be nearly as disappointing as having a collectible handed to you without said tricky vertical platforming section. The platforming allows collectibles to feel rewarding and the collectibles in turn give a reason for the developers to fill their levels with platforming sequences and plenty of out-of-the-way secrets in the first place.
I'll be honest, I don't comprehend the insane amount of hype behind this. Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of the older Banjo-Kazooie platformers, but even if I were, I don't feel like anything significant has really been shown here that isn't just purely leaning on nostalgia.
I was/am a massive fan of the original Banjo-Kazooie games but I gotta be honest, this project doesn't feel quite right to me yet. Feels like it's driven by equal parts of nostalgia and bitterness, and as a HUGE N&B and VP fan I'm having a lot of trouble getting behind a project where one of it's major tent poles seems to be rumblings about how crappy Nuts & Bolts was and how Rare hasn't made a good game since the 64.
I backed it. Went with the tier with the T-Shirt, Digital Deluxe Edition, and the early access Demo. Game looks great already. Super excited to play it.
Log in to comment