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It gets returned. There are some campaigns on other sites like Indiegogo where whatever they raise, they keep, but for this they only get the money if they hit their goal total.

Unless Kickstarter changed something, they don't take your donations from you at all unless/until a group reaches its goal. So if they're not funded, you lose nothing out of your bank account.

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I backed at the Mechanic level. Approximately $14-$15 US for the game and little desktop goodies. Hope they get funded. It looks like my kind of game.

Hey, Yoda, I see you own the game OXENFREE. It has very positive reviews on Steam. Do you like it? (It's on sale for half price through tomorrow, which is why I ask. Been on my Steam wishlist for a while...)

Dunno, I only bought it a couple of weeks ago. When a game I'm pretty sure I'll like gets cheap enough I just buy it and play it much later. Sorry! But yeah, obviously I decided from the reviews (and the fact that I like having some chill games to play if I'm in the mood for something simpler) that it was worth grabbing when it was moderately cheap, so I'd say it's probably a good buy.

I've seen a couple of gameplay videos on Oxenfree and the writing did nothing for me.

Firewatch is where it's at for 2016 narrative adventures!

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Columnae got funded in time. SO, it's a go. I've picked at the demo a little bit. I'm cautiously optimistic (which is good, since I backed it).

I saw! I was genuinely unsure about this one. I know a lot of campaigns can get half their money at the end, not only because they pull out all the stops, but because people get off the fence about it (and that "Remind Me" option, which I love, starts letting people know when there's 48 hours left). Still, big rush at the end compared to what I expected. Woohoo.

I'm actually a little more tenuous about this project compared to others re: the likelihood of it getting made in something approximating the level of quality we're hoping for. I still think it'll happen, but I think it's less of a slam dunk than most of the projects I back. But I'm okay with that. They do seem to be fairly far along already, anyway, and their delivery date estimate is February of 2018, so they sound clear-headed about how long this will take (earlier estimated dates are more worrisome, I think).

I'm not overflowing with eagerness, but, like you, I'm fine with my backing level. Just enough to get the game and yet not feel too disappointed if it's short or otherwise lacking. I feel more like I'm helping them out than I am buying a game.

Right now it's Obduction that I'm hankering for. About two weeks left! (Your brother's concern seems to be that Obduction might be too short. I figure it takes me forever to complete a Cyan game anyway, so that's not MY concern. Ha!)

This game just keeps on giving. Extend-O boxing gloves and freeze rays? Lovely



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Dropped into Abzu for half an hour. It's very purty. (Haven't found much 'game' so far tho)

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

As a palate cleanser from the last couple of days - for those not keeping up with the No Man's Sky thread, I bounced off that game harder than I expected - I decided to buy a video-game-ass video game!

Ryse Colon Son Of Rome is £3.75 on Bundlestars right now and while I wasn't expecting anything brilliant, I took the plunge.

It's all a bit one-note - an extremely pretty hack and slash game - but I'm rather impressed. As one of the Xbone's original titles, Ryse had a lot of weight on its shoulders and ended up getting a bit lost in the scrum of negativity that was the console's launch.



It's repetitive, but a nice variation on the God Of War/Batman Arkham combat.

What do you get if you cross Crusader Kings with Tinder?



Reigns, you big silly!

It's an excellent, tricky little game. On phones and Steam.

Just infecting the mother thread for a moment:

Everything I'm reading about this suggests it's not going to be a great game no matter how much tinkering they do, but that it could be a pretty good one if they grab the low-hanging fruit of UI improvements, changes to the control scheme/movement, various ease-of-use shortcuts, etc. Pretty committed to waiting on a sale for this, then, or at least a big PC patch.

It's a 5/10 game for me, and that's being generous.

My biggest gripe is that it does nothing well, even the exploration. If you like palette swaps (because that's what the different worlds largely are, and I've played the thing for 30 hours) then you might think you've got variety in the terrain design but I was using a free program called Terragen more than a decade ago to make vistas. Have a look at my DeviantArt gallery from 11 years ago for the SHOCKING PROOF!!!

Creatures are far too Spore-y to be taken remotely seriously and the space stations are awfully uninspired. Your interaction with the galaxy's intelligent life is 2 steps up from a 90s Bethesda game like Daggerfall, although I did see one standing once and not sitting down. Poor bugger must have gotten cramp...

The inventory and crafting system is a joke, you move far too slowly in the world and I've seen better first person combat in PS1 games. Talking of PS1, the 20 year old Colony Wars had more exciting space fighting.

Yeah, 5/10 is generous. You see everything the game has to offer in the first couple of hours and if you're content to repeat the same two or three poorly designed and executed mechanics over and over again you might have fun, but for a full price Sony published title? I expected a heck of a lot more.

The thing that landed (pun foreshadowing!) biggest for me was the RPS review where the author mentioned that landing the ship is frustrating. Big red flag. Landing on a planet is, like, the one action you'd associate with the game, if you had to pick. It should be polished to a high shine. It should feel satisfying and easy and natural and fun. If it doesn't, that means the whole thing's been rushed.

You can get away with short gameplay loops or repetition if the repetitive actions just feel satisfying: good audio cues, good controls, etc. That's the one thing I thought they would nail here.

Thankfully, this is something small enough that it could absolutely be improved by a handful of patches, but until then, I'll wait.

Yep, I can enjoy an 'is that all there is to do?' game just fine when all there is to do is satisfying/challenging/interesting/beautiful. Take Proteus, for example.

It's got garishly coloured worlds and mysterious monoliths out the wazoo but doesn't hint at anything more than a short, barely interactive experience. I loved it.

NMS is also extremely buggy.

EDIT - And the community is kinda weird too. Minutes after Jim Sterling's less than complimentary review went up, his website was the victim of a mysterious DDOS attack...

I think the terrain's a touch up from familiar proc gen mountain-scapes (all be it with naff fuzz cast over it at speed & scale). Maybe I've been lucky, but I've seen some fairly distinct worlds that all sat on the right edge of alien & ludicrous. (Leaning cube land with spiralling worm bridges, your classic floating island land, that kinda thing). Getting a cave network worked in is a neat touch too, even if they're generic internally.

With the palette swappage and fauna the illusion's working for me, even if it's a mightily camp illusion. I may well cap out on oddities soon though on all those fronts.

I doubt you'll be back until major patch time, but if you mean on foot, there's a neat exploit which gives you a ton of speed. Run, forward melee, boost... you maintain the melee lunge speed and fly forwards at a fair lick. Yet it feels kinda fitting. They better not patch it out!

It's made me enjoy land exploration a ton more. Getting lost from your ship is definitely half the fun

I don't find it as bad as him, but the flag is the right colour regardless for broader issues.

It could definitely do with a hover mode, and can't see why they wouldn't. That said it's auto-land is pretty robust for quick set-downs and launches, so it's definitely functional for the most part (plus there's an icon for landing at ports that he's not noticed it seems, although it's a bit meh). Maybe his larger ship has more trouble with landings in the wild? His other gripe is gonna take mods to fix though - there's a buffer that stops you getting close enough to hit the ground. My guess is it's to stop you stunting through still-forming landscapes. I doubt they'll ever voluntarily let us strafe down canyons that aren't quite there yet :/. I'd rather we could, but I don't actually mind it right now - it fits with the 'chill n cruise' vibe.

Definitely a watch and wait one this, ay

After 10 warp jumps I just gave up visiting planets unless I was wanting to advance the story. I think I came across one water planet to offset the dozens of purply blue ones.



Hello Games' senior executive in charge of colour and alien generation surveys his latest garish dinosaur.

"I'll call it 'Noel'" said Posh Paws.

I found out about the jetpack boost by accident, and even became adept at getting it going without sprinting.

Sprinting on the right analogue, by the way? Perverts.

Oh cool, at least you found it. I stumbled onto it too, and was just glad that one unforgivable aspect could buy itself some grace

Yeah I moved sprint to the left. I'm sinister...

And yasss, the beasties are often... ungainly



But I find all that endearing. (The endemic squid-crabs can **** off tho )