The Funding Crowd, a weekly review of Linux crowdfunded games

Welcome to The Funding Crowd, in which every Wednesday I'll try to review the latest news regarding the crowdfunding of Linux games.

Here there will be room for everybody: from the 6+ digits, AAA-ish projects by professional studios, to the humble one-person teams asking for $1,000 to make their dreamed game come true. However, the focus will be primarily put on the latter rather than on the former, and the reason for this is two-fold:

• They need the publicity more than the others.

• Chances are there're already articles on this site covering the big fishes, so it all would be a little redundant.

With this consideration in mind, let's start with a brief recap of the current high profiles:


The Biggies



Stonehearth: with still 21 days to go and more than a quarter million dollars raised, this sandbox/strategy/crafter/builder is the most successful campaign right now. It didn't include Linux support from the start but the stretch goal was achieved a couple of days ago, so it's worth checking.
(More details in this article)



Jagged Alliance: Flashback: a very interesting proposal, to respawn a classic strategy franchise with renewed looks but the same gameplay. It started off quite well, but having crossed the half point of its campaign it's still slightly under 50% of its goal, so it really needs more support to become a reality.
(More details in this article)



Among the Sleep: during its first hours of life, this immersive first-person horror adventure seemed likely to become the next big Kickstarter thing but it unbelievably lost momentum up to the point of being right on the pace of barely reaching its goal.
(More details in this article)



Road Redemption: 3 days to go and still $45,000 remaining out of the total $160,000. Certainly another one that wasn't expected to be on the verge of failure at this point, the spiritual successor to Road Rash needs more nostalgics of the 90s to make it to the finish line.
(More details in this article)



The Realm: at the start this beautiful point&click adventure included Linux support as a stretch goal, but after seeing the interest shown by the community the developers decided to support it unconditionally along the other platforms. The bad news is that it still has a long way to go to reach its funding goal.
(More details in this article)




Wow, this section took more space than anticipated, and theoretically the second one should constitute the bulk of the article! So just for this time, to avoid a TL;DR reaction from the readers, I won't get into much detail about each one of:




The Hidden Gems





C-Wars is a pixel-art roguelike with a RTS combat system. It's got less than 3 days to go but it's already gathered more than 200% of its goal, enabling a number of stretch goals such as achievements, playable bosses or a survival mode. Plus it features some guest stars from other games, such as Esmy from Cryamore or the Knight from Shovel Knight, and there's even an alpha version to try out! For $10 it can be yours DRM-free and a Steam/Desura key, depending if it gets greenlit or not.






This one I'm truly amazed nobody has written anything about it here. Chasm is an ambitious $150,000 project, consisting on a 2D-metroidvania platformer mixed with some Diablo-esque mechanics for good measure. And yes, it's another pixel art game (I've got a soft spot for them, what can I do?)
It achieved its funding goal a few days ago, and doesn't look like it can reach many stretch goals (most probably only the first one: achievements). It supported Linux right from the start, it also has a playable demo and you can get hold of a DRM-free copy (along with an exclusive in-game sword) for $15.






As a former Magic: The Gathering® player I couldn't help noticing Keepers of Grimoire, a free-to-play trading card game. Besides, it's not like there's a saturation of this kind of games for Linux. Unfortunately, with 10 days remaining and less than 20% raised, it doesn't look like this project will get funded. And it's a real pity because it promised quality art, entertaining game modes and also mobile support to play anywhere you wanted. Let's just hope the developers will continue working on it even if the campaign doesn't succeed.






Even though there aren't any game assets to be seen in the campaign page, 42 Light Years inmediately got my attention. I guess it must've been a certain AnotherWorldly atmosphere the concept art emanates. But the parallelism ends right here, because this game is built around puzzle-solving and is slow paced in nature.
It's still 12 days until the end of the campaign, but there's a long way to go fundwise. I suspect it might have suffered from being an Indiegogo flexible funding campaign (with its consequent uncertainty), which may have prevented many people from backing it (yours truly, for starters). Still, the pledge to obtain a copy of the game is only $5, so it may be worth a try.






Yet another retro, pixel art, chiptune 2D platformer, Rex Rocket features a whole load of levels, puzzles, enemies and bosses, as well as a wide variety of weapons and grenades to fend them off. It doesn't support Linux right away, but it has already achieved the main goal and it's well on its way to reach the relevant stretch goal. Your pledge to secure a copy of the game will get it $10 closer to the Linux port.






And finally, my particular favourite of this batch. You'd never guess it: another pixel art game! But this one is not a puzzle-platformer of any sorts. Instead, Dog Sled Saga is a combination of a racer (Canabalt-style), a breeding game (think Pokémon) and a management simulator, in the form of a dogsledding game. Its mechanics seem simple enough, but there's more to them than meets the eye, and it will purportedly take quite a long time to fully master them.
With more than half of the campaign to go, it has easily surpassed the initial funding goal and it's well into stretch goal territory. Dynamic music and day/night+weather effects have been achieved, and there are many more interesting features to be unlocked with your pledge. $5 and it'll be yours!




And that's it. I've left out many games, both from the Biggies and the Hidden Gems categories, due to the monstruous length of the article. I'll try to bring some of them back next week, unless there's an unexpected avalanche of interesting new crowdfunding projects. :) Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.