KickStarter Bloodstained - Koji Igarashi's new metroidvania game

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...he-most-funded-video-game-ever-on-kickstarter

Bloodstained is the most funded video game ever on Kickstarter
Bests Torment: Tides of Numenera with over 30 hours left.

Kz3r0

Fucking Kickstarter fatigue.

This might be the beginning of a new age in Kickstarter - the "ConsoleStarter" console nostalgia age. It's a fresh, untapped market. (presaged by Mighty No. 9, though)

 

[Lucky]

I don't mind console nostalgia if it means that Japanese devs actually start making more games for the PC. The art and slick marketing for this one have me worried a bit though, but the main character does remind me of Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia, which was the best one out of the new DS Castlevanias, so I'm holding out hope for a good game. Plus, coming out on GOG is very nice. Hopefully this kickstarter success will also encourage more Japanese devs to port classics to the PC.

The WiiU port is a waste of money, though. I thought that was flop? Since they already have the Vita, the 3DS would make more sense, although I'd prefer if it they wasted no time on ports at all and stuck to the PC.

 

[Tehdagah]

I want that Roguelike Dungeon Mode.

28 hours to go, though.

 

[Morality Games]

Consoles too strong.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I want that Roguelike Dungeon Mode.

28 hours to go, though.

Any details on what that means? Just a hardcore mode, or would it include procedural generation?

 

[Luka-boy]

Any details on what that means? Just a hardcore mode, or would it include procedural generation?

Here:

"That’s right: Procedurally generated dungeons. In this mode you’ll face a new castle every time, braving its treacherous (and massive) halls for loot, glory, and the simple, satisfying feeling of going where no Miriam has gone before.

Once you’ve explored its passages and defeated its boss, you’ll get a code that will enable you to share your randomly generated dungeon with a friend. (If you find a particularly hard one, you can even share it with an enemy! IGA isn’t picky.)"

"some clarification is in order: the $5mm stretch goal is for a Roguelike Dungeon Mode. The game itself -- everything you've come to expect from an Igavania -- will be unchanged, but we'll be adding a new mode to the game."

 

[Morality Games]

I don't mind console nostalgia if it means that Japanese devs actually start making more games for the PC. The art and slick marketing for this one have me worried a bit though, but the main character does remind me of Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia, which was the best one out of the new DS Castlevanias, so I'm holding out hope for a good game. Plus, coming out on GOG is very nice. Hopefully this kickstarter success will also encourage more Japanese devs to port classics to the PC.

The WiiU port is a waste of money, though. I thought that was flop? Since they already have the Vita, the 3DS would make more sense, although I'd prefer if it they wasted no time on ports at all and stuck to the PC.

Wii U is awesome. Particularly since almost everything else comes out on PCs and the rest of it barely matters.

 

[CyberP]

Procedurally generated dungeons.

Oh for fuck sake. Everything sucks. You're all faggots. Decline is the future.

 

[Morality Games]

Procedurally generated dungeons.

Oh for fuck sake. Everything sucks. You're all faggots. Decline is the future.

Its just a mode.

 

[jaybirdy]

The level designs in Igavanias are so simple and basic that they may as well be procedurally generated.

 

[CyberP]

Crockshit. It has soul. Soul is always lost in level design when it is produced by an algorithm. And the level design really isn't that basic anyway, what the fuck are you on? Of course it isn't that complex either, but I digress.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, parts of the levels are basic. I think while designing they come up with big setpiece rooms first and arrange them to fit the flow of the game, and then they go back and fill in the empty space with connecting filler rooms and little secrets and stuff.

Anyways, a random castle to crawl though would be awesome and add a ton of replay value. I wonder if it'd be a single giant castle though or a series of levels, like in Spelunky? The latter would certainly be easier to make, and probably better for balancing difficulty. OTOH an actual giant open castle to explore generated randomly would be a novel experience, I'd love that shit even if it were severely flawed.

 

[Tehdagah]

Crockshit. It has soul. Soul is always lost in level design when it is produced by an algorithm. And the level design really isn't that basic anyway, what the fuck are you on? Of course it isn't that complex either, but I digress.

 

[Luka-boy]

I find interesting how they're impelenting things that Igarashi liked when he visited the USA to promote the Kickstarter and got exposed to some Western indie devs and their games.

He was impressed by for example Rogue Legacy's exploration based on randomized dungeons, Shadow Complex's use of the background plane and its mini-cutscenes or Shovel Knight's clever visual design that gives subtle hints of what to do and where the secrets might be.

It's now clear that Rogue Legacy is an inspiration for the Roguelike Mode with a procedurally generated dungeon. While playing Shadow Complex Iga mentioned how it was giving him some ideas of stuff that could happen in the background, small visual details, and how Bloodstained could have the camera angle change during the cutscenes too. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Bloodstained version of an Inverted Castle is a transition to a death/demon world like Guacamelee where the basic architecture is the same but still different, only not being able to freely switch from one world to the other all the time. Shovel Knight was likely the reason they had those 8-bit theme stretch goals and also have some sort of cameo in Bloodstained as an enemy design.

Also Iga was pretty good when he played Axiom Verge, you could see he had the instinct to play that kind of game, both the exploration and the shooting parts. Though so far I haven't seen anything in Bloodstained that might be inspired by it. They gave a shout out to Axiom Verge in one update, though.

 

[Ulrox]

I find interesting how they're impelenting things that Igarashi liked when he visited the USA to promote the Kickstarter and got exposed to some Western indie devs and their games.

Yes, I noticed this too. I love this approach to game design.

 

[Ovplain]

Not sure if I should be happy for IGA & CO or not.:S Due to the publisher involvement. Who owns/will own the Bloodstained trademark, the IP rights 'n shit, has that been cleared up yet?:S

 

[Ulrox]

Not sure if I should be happy for IGA & CO or not.:S Due to the publisher involvement. Who owns/will own the Bloodstained trademark, the IP rights 'n shit, has that been cleared up yet?:S

IGA will own it. He said so himself on the reddit ask me anything

 

[Luka-boy]

So the campaign is ending in a matter of minutes. They got at leat 5.7 Million bucks, so they got all stretch goals.

This is the final look of the stretch goals tower:

Spoiler

By the way, Igarashi chose the Knight familiar in the end, after having to choose between it and the fairy:

Spoiler

So you could say Iga gave people the D

 

[Tehdagah]

Decline of Igarashi.

 

[nomask7]

5.5 million?? Does this mean we'll have ten castles instead of one? No, it means "slightly bigger castle". And a "roguelike mode" (what should be an entire roguelike designed from scratch with this amount of money).

It's grotesque how much money they made and what they decided to "use" it for. "A bigger castle." They made 10 times the money they were asking for! I don't know how capitalist logic works, but doesn't this mean they could make 10 games like this? A slightly bigger castle and a bunch of meaningless additions. Ugh.

Who wants to bet the roguelike mode won't be a good roguelike. It's not like they're designing an entire game to be a roguelike, they're just adding a half-assed mode.

Greed is lost potential.

 

[Amn Nom]

5.5 million?? Does this mean we'll have ten castles instead of one? No, it means "slightly bigger castle". And a "roguelike mode" (what should be an entire roguelike designed from scratch with this amount of money).

It's grotesque how much money they made and what they decided to "use" it for. "A bigger castle." They made 10 times the money they were asking for! I don't know how capitalist logic works, but doesn't this mean they could make 10 games like this? A slightly bigger castle and a bunch of meaningless additions. Ugh.

Who wants to bet the roguelike mode won't be a good roguelike. It's not like they're designing an entire game to be a roguelike, they're just adding a half-assed mode.

Greed is lost potential.

It doesn't work like that. Iga had a core castle for the initial goal, and added the others to the point where he felt it was complete enough. You start just simply adding size it is going to be an empty castle with a whole lot of rooms and copy pasted enemies. Instead of more rooms, more enemy variety would make sense given Symphony of the Night was infamous for its variety. The kickstarter goals are a smallish carrot to keep people donating beyond the initial goal. Smaller things can easily be added in so the game doesn't get a bad case of feature creep (Broken Age being broken up is the one that jumps to mind).

Star Citizen looked amazing when they first announced the kickstarter and during the campaign. But frankly, I lost all interest in the game because of how much it raised. What the fuck are they going to do with 84 million dollars?!? If the finished game uses all that money effectively and ends up being the bestest game ever I'll eat my hat.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Seemed obvious that was going to be the familiar; it's more detailed than the other four and he had the final say, so the other 3 were really just red herrings to make the backers think they had the choice. No way it was going to end up third or fourth.

 

[nomask7]

It doesn't work like that.

Not to say it does, but shouldn't it (in an ideal world)? A bigger team, redesign character progression, add monsters, make the game epic with several castles instead of one. You don't have to take ten years to make the game, just get a bigger team now that you have money.

 

[Luka-boy]

They might have significantly more money than 5.7M. Supposedly they already secured most of the funding for the original game idea from an investor before the Kickstarter campaign. Let's say it was 75% of the game's budget, so if the Kickstarter campaign asked for 500K$, in that case the investor is providing an extra 1.5M$.

Of course this is all speculation.

Seemed obvious that was going to be the familiar; it's more detailed than the other four and he had the final say, so the other 3 were really just red herrings to make the backers think they had the choice. No way it was going to end up third or fourth.

I watched the moment when the voting results were announced and Igarashi made that decision and he seemed pretty convinced that the fairy would win and was inclined to choose her. In the end the knight won by a comfortable margin and that seemed to make the decision easy, since I don't see them making the mistake of going against the wishes of a wide majority in their first poll. But it wasn't the massive landslide I was expecting, 2250 vs 3200 if I remember correctly. Never underestimate cutefags.

 

[Amn Nom]

It doesn't work like that.

Not to say it does, but shouldn't it (in an ideal world)? A bigger team, redesign character progression, add monsters, make the game epic with several castles instead of one. You don't have to take ten years to make the game, just get a bigger team now that you have money.

Of course, if we are talking about an ideal world the game would be 10x bigger with the consistency of the core design, have 10x people of the same caliber as Iga's team, 10x more monsters that are all unique, and so on.

However, logistics in regards to manpower isn't an ideal world. Simply multiplying things by X is a bad way of looking at it. There is a recurring theme in most Igavania title's in particular, smart asset reuse. This new game is probably going to be more of that. That bigger castle will need the more expansive bestiary or that asset reuse becomes something out of a Bethesda game. That bigger bestiary needs more artists and animators. Those artists and animators need more level designers to place what they have made into the game. Those all take different amounts of time, so different costs. The cost has to increase proportionally to what you add in or it becomes bloated, or money is left unused. The balance is very thin, so it makes sense for them to play it safe. I would rather Iga be conservative on something he can deliver then Tm Shaefer promising the moon and mucking it up because the man has more ambition then business sense.