Minis with Enemies: Another Kickstarter Featuring xOrigin Developers
Some of you may be unfamilar with the “xOrigin” term. I’m given to understand that it’s a label that many former employees of Origin Systems use to describe their past affiliation with that great studio. It looks snappier than “ex-Origin”, I suppose, and says the same thing.
Anyhow, I digress. Let’s talk about Minis with Enemies — a clever play on “Words with Friends”, I suppose — which is being Kickstarted right now and will (should the campaign prove successful) be developed by Austin, Texas-based Heatwave Interactive. Deckard brought the project to my attention last week (but of course I didn’t follow up on it, as I was working on other things and just couldn’t find the time), and the Wing Commander CIC posted about it this morning.
The rather ambitious goal of the game is to bring the full tabletop wargaming experience (think: Warhammer) to the PC, as well as to tablets and other mobiles:
Minis with Enemies brings the creativity, adventure, camaraderie and competition of tabletop miniature gaming to life on your PC, Tablet and Mobile devices! For the first time, you’ll be able to experience authentic miniature gaming any time or anywhere with your closest friends and enemies around the world.
Minis with Enemies is everything you want in a tabletop miniature game. Collect, trade and paint hundreds of highly detailed Minis to build your ultimate army. Command your Minis into the depths of the deepest, darkest dungeons and battle your way through Adventure Maps to earn coins, items, and uncover new Minis.
The Minis with Enemies turn-based gameplay, allows you to play multiple games simultaneously alongside or against friends, enemies and strangers on predefined Adventure Maps. Or, take on the all-powerful role of the Game Master and create the adventure of your dreams (and their nightmares) by building a fully customized map using creatures, treasures and tiles you’ve collected on your journeys, or purchased in the bazaar.
Minis with Enemies can be played across all platforms including your PC or MAC, as well as most tablets and smart phones. Our intended desktop delivery platform is Steam.
Heatwave Interactive is headed up by Anthony Castoro, who was a producer and lead designer for Ultima Online, and a QA tester for Wing Commander 4 and Privateer 2. Producer EJ Moreland also worked for Origin Systems, as a designer for the canceled Privateer Online. Senior designer and engineer Tim Schubert worked as a developer for Ultima Online, in several different roles. Designer Todd Bailey worked in a design role at Origin Systems between 1994 and 2000. And community manager Chris “Binky” Launius worked as a QA lead for Privateer 2, and also filled marketing specialist and operations manager roles at Origin Systems.
I used to greatly enjoy tabletop gaming, and though I’ve fallen away from it somewhat, I do think this is a very interesting project indeed, one which I do hope is able to reach its funding goal.
Interplay:inXile ~ Origin: xOrigin?
Yeah, sorta, except they use it as a personal label rather than a company name.
1/38 Studios (38th) and Little Small Games (LSG)? Maybe Bloody Sock Productions (BSP) or Rhode Island Old Timers (RIOT). After I fire myself someday I’ll start a new company called Divide By Zero Virtues (DZV).
The project looks interesting but I’m starting to think that disposable income for donations (not investment) in crowd-funded projects is beginning to wane in the shadow of a semi-saturated market. The idea is great, but it is prone to error and finally being tested after so much media attention. It will be interesting to see how indie crowdfunding efforts culminate over the next few years.
I put forth a call to Congress (USA) to form a small committee of no more than two persons to examine the relationships between successfully crowdfunded projects and corporate contributors with respect to transparency. If some dude in his basement with a webcam gets $500,000, it should be known if he was an actor hired by [Some Giant Corporation] to elicit contributions to an already hugely-funded project. The people should know whether a crowdfunded project is truly independent or a just a spamlike tentacle of a well-funded organization.
Seriously though, the graphics at least in Minis with Enemies are incredible. Imagine that rendering engine on top of old Ultima data. Nice.
Seriously? They didn’t show any actual concept art until update #5 and it is NOT, gameplay-wise, any more a tabletop miniatures game than is the FFG Descent boardgame.
It’s one of the worst Kickstarter pitches ever, in that it is done by actual pros but still shows a decided lack of understanding various subtypes of gamers and utterly failing to actually pitch this well to any potential target audience.
To me, it says: hey, it’s an online-multiplayer game, but not an MMO, and character customization is limited to painting a random char we assign you and you can pay us shitloads of dough trying to pull the character you actually want from virtual boosters, making you feel like you never outgrew YGO, and we call it a tabletop miniatures game but if you think it will play like Warhammer or even just D&D minis, you’ve got another thing coming.
Cruddy crud is cruddy crud is… well just look at how epically it fails to achieve funding.
Ouch. Did these guys slap your mamma or something?
Fact is, this thing could potentially succeed if they had actually defined their target audience and pitched to that, rather than doing a buzz word pitch short on actual information.
If they actually paid someone to come up with that pitch, I hope it was a monkey working for peanuts, because they sure flung shit.
After reviewing the tape, I think part of it is that the marketing team/developers seem distant, disconnected and almost robotic. They don’t need to sing and dance, but they’re not talking from the heart. Even a single dev’s drunken rampage speaking specifically about the project would be more effective.
I’m just sad that my Kickstarter project failed two years ago, but happy that I’m still working on the game. I think where I fucked up was that I didn’t evolve the project page as I worked on the game (few public updates and no media). I have two years worth of media and progress now, but still think of Kickstarter as an ex who dumped me. I’m hesitant to go back for fear of failure and possible humiliation (or failed-IP corpse-looting).
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eightvirtues/sanctimonia
No media except for the manual depiction of the path to the Codex.
They couldnt even be bothered to do their own work on their logo. All of those silhouttes are of Reaper miniatures.
I only browsed over the KS page, but it’s already been cancelled, which is odd since they seemed to have been off to a strong start. Maybe everyone’s BS meters were right on here.
In the past I saw Kickstarter projects submitted and accepted more than once. As in the project failed, was resubmitted later and subsequently accepted by the Kickstarter staff. I’m guessing that’s happening here. Not quite sure why, but it struck me as strange that the same project could crop up again later. I’m guessing if it fails a second time Kickstarter won’t allow a third submission.
If this project does reappear, it might be interesting to see a comparative analysis of the two campaigns.
I’ve seen that done too, but this one was actually cancelled prematurely by the author. No idea how much time they had left. It’s a good idea, and something that NEEDS to happen. I miss the old days of gathering for a weekly game of D&D, but getting people with similar interests and schedules in close proximity to each other is harder and harder. I think Wizards of the Coast had their own version planned at one point also, but I think it was delayed into oblivion.
Ahhh. D&D. Funny that other than in the very beginning (solo campaigns), every time I played I was always the DM. I’ll never forget the time I was describing a scene to my friends half stream of consciousness and I said, “…a bald man with grey hair…”. Everyone laughed their asses off, myself included. Those were good times.
They must have been monitoring the chatter pretty close to have cancelled early. Guess they’re retooling their efforts as I speak.