Fuckstarters – MRAAKTAGON

Fuckstarters 2016 edition

A year ago I posted about fucked kickstarters that I made the terrible mistake of backing. I want to post again because some of them have become unfucked, made progress or are now even more fucked than before. I backed a couple more since and I want to add one I’m really sad about being fucked as well.

First let’s get Star Citizen out of the way. From the Kickstarter viewpoint, there hasn’t been an update since 2013: that’s almost THREE YEARS and no updates. I realize there are other channels they are going through, but my policy is this: deliver me your finished game and we’ll call it a day. Based on kickstarter, this has never happened, and the backers on kickstarter have been abandoned. The last time I installed anything Star Citizen it did not work at all. There have been big articles on the internet the last couple months on issues surrounding development– bottom line is: I kickstarted this game and haven’t been contacted via kickstarter for three years. Poster child of Fucked.

Second, River City Ransom. This is fucked as it’s shockingly late at this point (2014), and updates aren’t looking very good for completion. This is not an easy game to make but you know who did it? Behemoth with the Castle Crashers! It can be done. Where is it? is it Fucked forever?

Third, Exalted 3. There’s no book. Nothing has come in my mail box. The rules are out in PDF form and despite them not being all that great, (what did we expect, seriously….) they are better than 2E’s. The art, even with all that budget, ALL that fucking budget, is weak compared to 2E though. Those things aren’t the issue, the issue is that I don’t have the book I paid for nearly four years ago. Fucked.

Fourth, Bulldogs! 2nd edition. It’s a year late now. I shouldn’t have backed this as it uses FATE, which we had a brief affair with for five sessions or so, and like everyone else, we realized that FATE quickly becomes a total waste of time. FATE is useful in that it influenced other games, but itself is just not worth bothering with. Despite that, I like the Bulldogs! universe and adventures– it just needs a better system to go along with it (Mythras? Sci Fi 13th Age? Numenera???). Fucked.

Fifth, Thirteenth Age in Glorantha. While I don’t think I would ever game using Runequest in Glorantha as a GM, I’ve played some con games and am intrigued by the setting due to King of Dragon Pass. This is over a year late! What’s the deal? FUCKED.

Last is going to be nearly a year late, and that’s the 4th Edition of Dungeon Crawl Classics. I talked to Goodman at Gencon and saw the proof version of the book and had a fucking orgasm right there over it. It is a massive tome. Ridiculous really. Technically this is a fucked kickstarter, but like 13th Age Glorantha, it’s just real fucking late: it will happen.

Here are kickstarters that have become UNFUCKED in the last year.

Moongha Invaders – this took a long, long time to come, but it did and it’s a great game. If you can find this, for sure pick it up. It’s a Martin Wallace jewel. UNFUCKED.

Double Six dice rollers. Came late in 2015. Great dice, was just very late. UNFUCKED.

Two UNFUCKED Kickstarters

Last week I posted about my fucked kickstarters— ones that got funded but have not delivered either anything (Exalted 3rd edition) or what they originally promised (Star Citizen).

The next day I got my doublesix dice so, while a bit late, that was a SOLID kickstarter. The dice, which are D12’s with D6 dots on them, are cool and should save the Talisman boards from the harsh pockmarks that my 2nd edition board has all over it (and other games). If these come out in stores, you should get some.

Secondly, after three years, my copy of Moongha Invaders suddenly arrived! Again, this is a Martin Wallace game, so I was looking forward to it but after so long, you sort of don’t know what will happen. It looks great and the box weighs a TON. It also came with a couple counters for STUDY IN EMERALD, which is now on the must buy list… dammit.

I must say that these two kickstarters had solid communication to the backers, not often, but whenever there was an update it was clear what the problems were (mostly quality and production problems) that had been going on and what the delay was, in addition, CLEAR statements about what was happening next and mitigation plans. While I feel a little pissed that part of the reason Moongha was late was because Wallace was moving to New Zealand, he told people that was what was happening and so I really can’t fault the man. The kickstarters for both of these likely started as a labor of love and then it was a terrible, terrible grind.

So great surprises!

Lastly, while I was putting up my short bit on Star Citizen, The Escapist was busy on a series of articles about not only how FUCKED people are thinking this kickstarter is, but quotes from ex and current employees who KNOW it’s fucked. In addition there is a rebuttal from the lead designer (the Wing Commander guy). I backed this thinking it would be a modern version of Freelancer, but alas they tried to do far, far too much.