Playing Those Crowdfunded Games

I'm not against pledging real-world money to a crowdfunding campaign, even if that pledge is essentially a pre-order for a game that doesn't have a release date.  Such is the case when you pledge on one of the many crowdfunding websites, which I have done for several games over the years, thankfully with a relatively high success rate of the game being released on time.  But the gamble of crowdfunding a video game isn't the reason we're here today, instead, we're here to talk about actually sitting down and playing those games once they're released. 

Going back to 2018, I've sponsored/helped fund six games that I thought looked like they'd be fun to play.  But then, why haven't I played them, or at the very least, why did I only start them up and not continue.  I don't think it was a lack of being fun because I did enjoy what I played of 9 Years of Shadows and Lords of Exile, but I've never started Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened.  So for the remainder of our time here, I'm going to go into List Mode with a little bit of commentary.  I'll order games chronologically by the date that the crowdfunding ended along with when I finally received the game and the system I picked it up on, because additional context is always helpful.

Hatch Tales: A Heroic Hookshot Adventure (Formally Chicken Wiggle Workshop) - Campaign Ended: April 5, 2018 ; Rec'd: October 22, 2024 - Nintendo Switch

I'd been a fan of Atooi for several years and have played several of the games that Jools Watsham developed and released over the years.  I received a review copy of his last game, Chicken Wiggle and for the most part enjoyed that game, so when this Kickstarter came about for a revamped game with added features, I thought, "Sure, why not!?"  Well, by now you can read almost anywhere about people being upset at Atooi for the six years between the end of the campaign and when the game was finally released, later evolving from Chicken Wiggle Workshop into what is now Hatch Tales.

Now, I have played Hatch Tales a bit, more so than any of the other games listed below, but that is primarily because The Squire really likes to play it and wants there to be more playable levels on my Switch profile, so every once in a while, I'll boot it up and try to 100% a level or two.  It is a fun game that plays a lot like Chicken Wiggle so I'll give it that, and there'll likely be a Game EXP article later in the year.

Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened - Campaign Ended: 4/14/2022 ; Rec'd: March 29, 2023 - Steam

I had finished The Sinking City about a year-and-a-half before this campaign ended and I was pretty excited to play a Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes game.  I knew about the original game released in 2007 but had never played it, and I do have Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter which I had read nothing but good things, so I thought, "Why not?"  I like what Frogwares had done with The Sinking City and this seemed like another way that I could support this company.

I haven't yet played this, likely because I keep going back and forth about wether or not I should play the original 2008 game first, or just jump right into this one.  And if I didn't already have a copy of it through GOG, I would probably go and buy it right now (as it's on sale for $0.99).  Maybe I will play that one after all.

9 Years of Shadows - Campaign Ended: 4/21/2020 ; Rec'd: November 9, 2023 - Nintendo Switch

I can't remember how or where I first heard about 9 Years of Shadows, but I really liked the aesthetic and I think at the time I was really hankering for a solid Metroidvania that harkened back to Syphony of the Night and the DS era of Castlevania games.  I also loved that the playable character was a woman wielding a halberd.  That seemed pretty bad ass.  That was really it.

I did play the game for a bit after it was released, maybe less than an hour and I enjoyed what I played, but I think I got distracted by some other games at the time, likely still playing Tears of the Kingdom.  Yeah, we'll blame The Legend of Zelda on that one.

Lords of Exile - Campaign Ended: 5/19/2020 ; Rec'd: February 14, 2024 - Nintendo Switch

I first heard about Lords of Exile because the developer, Carlos Azuaga, kept popping up on my For You feed on Twitter (since bought out by right-wing racist-enabling billionaire and first gentleman Elon Musk) where he would ask for comments on various aspects of his game development.  Again, I loved the NES-era Castlevania look of the character sprites, but also that the look of the game wasn't hamstrung but the limits of the NES; similar to Curse of the Moon.

I played the first stage in the game to get a feel for it and was a little surprised that it wasn't quite what I was expecting.  Not just a Castlevania homage, there were mechanics I wasn't expecting that I will get to when we cover it in an upcoming Game EXP article later this year.

Chono Sword - Campaign Ended: 12/10/2020 ; Rec'd: December 9, 2024 - Steam

Just like Lords of Exile, I had been seeing posts by developer SpaceDuck cropping up a lot on my For You Twitter feed and I like the isometric view and the overall world aesthetic.  That was about it.  I watched several short videos showing in-game animations through development and I like it.  So I threw money at 21cDucks.

Being the most recent game I've received, I haven't yet played it.  I know I should, just like every game on this list and it was Chrono Sword that actually inspired me to make this list and in turn, this article.  I began wondering how many games I had pledged money towards and why I hadn't played m/any of them.

Meifumado - Campaign Ended: 03/21/2022 ; Rec'd: July 6, 2024 - Steam

Meifumado like the last two games I saw crop up a lot on Twitter and liked the look of something akin to Blasphemous, set in a post-apocalyptic world, but with a different regional feel.  Granted this wasn't a Japanese company, but one based in Belarus, which therein lies a lot of the issues with this game.  Their crowdfunding campaign started March 1, 2022, less than a week after Russia invaded and declared unofficial war on Ukraine.  As the campaign came to an end a few weeks later, the government of Belarus supported Vladimir Putin's war machine and so economic sanctions were placed on Russia and their supporters, including Belarus.  This meant that foreign money that had been pledged to Old Bit Studio was now being withheld, which is the short of it.  You can read their May 19, 2024 statement on Kickstarter here.

My reason for not playing Meifumado yet doesn't have anything to do with any of their troubles or being angry that this video game developer happened to be from a country that was supporting another country's hostile invasion of Ukraine.  I understand that the game released is not exactly what was promised or by some reviews on Steam simply call an unfinished game.  I just haven't gotten around to it.  And like I've said a lot about other games, you can look forward to a Game EXP later this year.

And that was kind of the whole point of this article, well one of two points.  The first was to put down in a list the games that I've pledged money to, and to say that this is the year that I play all of these games, and gods willing, will write about all of them too.  I haven't looked any of the games up on HowLongToBeat, but I don't imagine that they're any 50+ hour epics in there, maybe closer to 20+, depending on my skill and surviving an onslaught of enemies, especially in the last four games.

But that's my declaration this Friday, January 17th, 2025: I will play all of the games listed here and likely write about them, either in their own Game EXP article or en masse.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

In This Strange Illusion

P.S.  What do you mean the Switch 2 was announced yesterday morning!?  Great, this is going to eat into my crowdfunded game time now.

P.P.S.  And don't get me started on Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs box that I have sitting in my office after playing successfully through the first card once after two failed attempts.  That game ended up being more complicated than I had anticipated and not exactly what I thought I was getting into.  And did I mention that the rules were written in a classic 2015 fashion?  Whooboy and not for people who were not already familiar with Gloomhaven.