Rock, Paper, Shotgun

When the Doublefine Adventure Kickstarter was in full flow, Castle Shotgun was filled with bemused exclamations. “Where do people find these funds when men such as we can barely afford caviar sculptures?” Jim cried in obvious distress. “Tim Schafer is undoubtedly wearing a money-beard”, Alec grumbled, envious. “We shall never see the like of this again,” came John’s conclusive statement. Then he hiccuped but it sounded a bit like he was saying ‘never’ again quite dramatically. Shortly afterwards, we saw the likes of it again and now Star Citizen has raised more crowdfunded cash than any other game (almost $6 million) and it’s not quite over yet. To celebrate, here’s a nifty video showing what happens to concept art if it eats its greens.

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that you can command your own fleet in Star Citizen? I suppose that shouldn’t really surprise you, given that you can also do everything else ever in the history/future of space in Star Citizen. Unsurprisingly, Roberts is shooting for the stars with this aspect of the space sim to end all space sims (and/or trigger a flood of other space sims) as well, with phrases like “most sophisticated AI that I’ve attempted on any of my games” drawing widened eyeballs. As ever, though, footage of Roberts’ grand schemes in action makes a decently convincing case for cautious optimism. Do some kind of physics-defying space flip past the break to give it a watch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Robert’s space game revival, the ambitious Star Citizen, has raised the $2 million that was needed before the development team could be convinced to turn on their computers and build a galaxy. Because of problems with their own money-gathering droids (they couldn’t gather it as fast as it was being thrown, as I understand it), the project moved to the magical land of Kickstarter as well. A quick bit of advanced mathematics confirms that the $586,615 raised through Kickstarter plus the $1,416,317 figure on the Roberts Space Industries site is more than $2 million. So it’s going to happen. Why should that excite your space-loins? Look here.

Read the rest of this entry »

So it turns out that Chris Robert’s space-faring adventure gave their native pledge-o-matic a bit of trouble, with it falling over and stuff, and so they’ve decided (despite having raised a huge chunk of cash through their pre-order thing already) to supplement proceedings with a Kickstarter. They’re trying to raise $500,000 through the big daddy of crowd-funding, and they already have $100k. Star Citizen, as we explained in great detail here, is a concept for reviving the space game from the man who made Wing Commander. And it’s looking fantastic.

Obligatory Kickstarter video below (you’ve already seen most of it.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Star Citizen – the newest and spacest thing from mighty commander of all wings, Chris Roberts – sounds impossibly good. And I do mean that, but with more emphasis on the “impossible” part than I’d like. No doubt, Roberts is completely brilliant, but he’s proposing a project of utterly mad ambition. Naturally, it’s made me a bit skeptical. That said, an hour-long chat during GDC Online (the full results of which you’ll see very soon) definitely put a few of my fears at ease. Roberts is dreaming bigger than just about any other designer out there, but his pie-in-the-stars ambitions are actually pretty well-grounded in reality. And also Demon’s Souls, surprisingly enough.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I refresh the Star Citizen funding webpage, the number keeps hopping up. I hope my F5 button isn’t logging me in and and increasing my pledge. Soon it will be the size of space, and Chris Roberts will have to crowd-fund another universe to contain his bank balance. He might even use Kickstarter for that, but his game is proving that you can do it without them.
Read the rest of this entry »

As revealed in yesterday’s look at Chris Robert’s Star Citizen, there is a pledge-based pre-order model for the space-shooter, and it’s a “pledge for your ship” model. A clever idea, I think you’ll agree, keeping crowd-funding within the fiction of the game. Mr Roberts explains the idea behind the game in a wide-ranging ten-minute video which you can watch below, or you can step right up and pledge here. They’re looking to raise $2m, but I guess we’ll see about that.

Tonnes more footage from the game in that video, too. Worth a watch, even if you were unconvinced by the first video.
Read the rest of this entry »

(To the tune of Carmina Burana): SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE! SPPaaAAaaAAAAACE!

Earlier today we already revealed and talked about the new excursion into space, Star Citizen, but we wanted to make sure you had seen see spaceships flying and shooting in the single-player game, Squadron 42. It’s the same video from earlier, but it’s looking so good. It’s looking all in-engine game footage, below. Mmmhmm! SppppppppppaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAACEE!
Read the rest of this entry »