With all the quality reviews, delightful columns, and hard-hitting game journalism you can find here at GameCola, it’s sometimes hard to believe that the site’s written by regular people like you and me, and not a race of evolutionarily advanced superhumans. To help bridge this divide between staff and reader, we’ve set up this column so you can get a look at our staff’s personal opinions on serious issues. Serious issues like the following:
This month’s question was submitted by Christian Porter, and it is:
What game series/genre/studio/etc. would you like Kickstarter to resurrect next?
Matt Jonas
Cheetahmen
So we got off on a bad foot with three mediocre platforming games. Why not get someone talented to program it, and make it a Final Fight clone? We’re talking side-scrolling beat-’em-up action with three players, controlling the Cheetahmen as they battle their way to Dr. Morbis. Think of the humour that would resonate from one last hurrah: a Cheetahmen game that doesn’t suck balls.
The game would be made better with Eat Lead-style fourth wall references. The Cheetahmen could argue between the three of them as to who is responsible for the shitty games that they have starred in.
Lights… Camera… Action 52.
(Matt is a staff reviewer and news blogger.)
Mark Freedman
The Guardian Legend
This was an amazing NES game! Combining elements of Zelda, Metroid, and rail shooters, it improved upon them all. A great level of difficulty, a world map, and incredible graphics and sounds. You play as an intergalactic babe who transforms into a spaceship! What more could you ask for?
Maybe a simpler password system.
I’d love to see a sequel or remake.
(Mark is a reviewer and the author of “What the Crap?”)
Elizabeth Medina-Gray
The Longest Journey
I LOVE The Longest Journey. I would even go so far as to say that it’s my favorite point-and-click adventure game (even beating out King’s Quest and Monkey Island…crazy!). And although I was pretty wary about playing the sequel, Dreamfall—because it added some dubious non-adventure-game things like combat—it also turned out to be a really good game, with compelling characters and an interesting story. UNFORTUNATELY, Dreamfall ends with a major cliffhanger. As the series stands now, the story is totally incomplete, and one of the main characters may or may not be dead! From what I’ve read, the creators planned to release a third game to finish up the series, but that game isn’t even on the horizon yet. So, if it’s a question of funding, this sounds like a job for Kickstarter! I need to know what happens in the story, and I don’t think I’m the only one.
(Lizo is a Staff Editor and the former author of “testgame.exe: Making the Adventure.”)
Kate Jay
King’s Quest
I’d love to see a Kickstarter campaign that revives the old King’s Quest games. I have vague memories of what the actual plots were, and slightly more lucid memories of getting lost, but what I clearly remember is having a ton of fun playing through all of them. A revival—be it just a repackaging of all of the games or a full out revamp of the series—would be awesome!
(Kate is the author and illustrator of “The Gates of Life.”)
Daniel Castro
BrĂĽtal Legend
Well, since Tim Shafer is the one who essentially kickstarted Kicstarter, I’m sort of hoping that Double Fine eventually gets around to making a sequel to BrĂĽtal Legend.
Maybe they could make the real-time-strategy element work fine…Double Fine! Or maybe they should just skip it altogether and focus their efforts on the things that actually worked in the original.
(Daniel is the author of “Don’t Be That Guy.”)
Paul Franzen
Phantasmagoria
You’ve heard of King’s Quest, right? That old-school Sierra adventure series about magic and dragons, fairy-tale creatures and damsels in distress?
Phantasmagoria is made by the same people, except that its tone is slightly different—instead of a kid-friendly world of wonder and delight, it’s about live-action people getting stabbed through the mouth with garden shovels. It’s a series of (two) FMV point-and-click adventure games featuring brutal, graphic FMV violence, with characters getting possessed by soul-stealing demons, slowly becoming creepier and creepier throughout the course of the game until they murder just EVERYONE. They also have neat puzzles to solve and whatever. They’re the BEST, and I’d love to see what kinds of horrific (in a good way) things a developer could do with Phantas’s particular brand of FMV in 2012.
(Paul is GameCola’s Editor-in-Chief, as well as a video talkthrough-er and a news blogger and reviewer.)
Christian Porter
MacVenture Games
I’ve always felt the ICOM/MacVenture series of first-person adventure games (Deja Vu, Shadowgate, Uninvited) met such an untimely demise—especially considering they died in the early 90s right around the time adventure games were really starting to come into their own. I’d love to play a new one—and not necessarily a sequel; a completely new IP would suit me just fine, as long as it brings the same serious-with-a-hint-of-dark-humor adventure that I so miss.
Until then, at least we can watch Deja Vu on the GCDotNet YouTube channel.
(Christian is the creator of “Top of the Heap,” “Power Gloves & Tinfoil Hats,” the video series “Speak American,” and also some other stuff.)
Nathaniel Hoover
Down with Kickstarter
Simply hearing the word “Kickstarter” is making me ill these days. I’d like to see Kickstarter resurrect a self-sufficient videogame industry that can produce what fans want to see without actually involving the fans, leaving gaming to be the antisocial pastime it was always meant to be.
(Nathaniel is a reviewer; author of “Flash Flood,” “The Archive Dive,” and the “Sprite Flicker“ webcomic; and creator of fine videos.)
Have a question you’d like answered in a future Q&AmeCola? Ask below in the comments, and your question just might make the next edition.
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@Kate: With any luck, thanks to Telltale we won’t have to resort to Kickstarter for King’s Quest (although there hasn’t been any news on it in a loooooong time): http://gamecola.net/2011/02/omg-telltale-developing-new-kings-quest-games/
@Christian: A first-person adventure game in the style of Deja Vu sounds like a job for GameCola Studios.
Couldn’t be that hard with modern game engines. Just static pictures, mostly.
When do we start?
Immediately. The world needs this now.
I bet we could do it in AGS. It’s built for third-person games, but just make the main character’s sprites invisible, and all the sudden it’s first-person!
I’ve made a small game in AGS before. Its a nice engine. I’m trying out one called Wintermute right now for a project I’m working on. That’s a nice one too.
So far AGS is the only one I know how to do anything with. I was SUPER proud when I made the one little dude follow the other little dude around automatically.
Kate: You are SO in luck. On top of what Paul said, you can find the King’s Quest Collection (collecting games 1-7) for cheep on Amazon and Steam, and AGD Interactive has VGA remakes of the first three games:
http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/games.html
Infamous Adventures released their own remake of KQIII as well:
http://www.infamous-adventures.com/kq3/
So, there’s plenty of King’s Questery to be had!
Matt: If Cheetahmen II is sufficient for you, then perhaps you may be interested in what was started just last night http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/343248998/cheetahmen-ii-the-lost-levels
Also, after doing some research, apparently kickstarter has some negative effects on the board game industry, huh.
I hate that this Kickstarter project was just announced. I also hate that it’s a waste of time and my idea is much better.
I COULD DEAL WITHOUT THE ALL CAPS PERSONALLY. I can’t even read it.
Yes yes I understand I jumped the gun because I made a connection and didn’t really take the time to check for quality and actually having much to do with the post. Aside from the ALL CAPS MODE MAKING THINGS DIFFICULT TO READ. The actual product they plan on creating is solely for NES, completely eliminating anyone who does not own an console that is (though a great console that one should be proud to own) inherently outdated. If they really wanted to “spread the joy/ hatred of Cheetahmen, they would make it as simple as possible to own the game regardless of if you kept a console that is over 25 years old (though is still great) , rather than furthering the already somewhat alienating style of Kickstarter project. Also, saying that people will buy it so that they can finally afford Cheetahmen for a collection and not even play it seems really presumptuous; I don’t think remaking a rare and expensive collectors game makes the value of those games go down at all, those rare Cheetahmen II games will still be expensive because they are the real deal. Besides, even if it was a matter of making a rare game accessible to the public, it would then just diminish what little value the game actually had since part of their shpeel is that this game is rare so now you can play it.
And again I go off on a tangent. Well, again, I apologize for not really looking into what I was “promoting” I guess. This is what happens when I do something first thing after I wake up.
Hey, no need to apologize for sharing! It was a cool, relevant link. …Even if I couldn’t read it, the pictures were nice.
Actually, now that I think about it, it may very well have been written by the Ominous Voice from Gamera Obscura.
RATS! I’VE BEEN DISCOVERED! CURSE YOU, FRANZEN!
Ya know right after reading this comment and going back and seeing what you really meant in your post, yeah sorry, you were suggesting something completely different. I just got caught up in the fact that I had just heard about something that had a lot of coincidence with what you said. Didn’t mean to put a damper on your day… apologies around.
Can any of you can make the voice of “the sun”? I’ve heard that’s pretty much a kickstarter stopper:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1820893788/katalyka/posts/239764
Anyone? Nathaniel…?
Is that picture really from Phantasmagoria or is that just what happened the last time a GameCola writer asked Paul for a raise?
Sorry. Non-disclosure agreement is in place. …and if we break it, that DOES happen to us. Err… I mean… eep!
*runs*
Phantasmagoria was inspired by my HR practices. …Or, maybe it was the other way around. Either way.
So what did Jeff get? The garden shovel through the mouth or a soul stealing demon? Or perhaps you just made him sit through the fourth Indiana Jones movie :)
Please Aubrey, he’s not an animal. It was the shovel, not crystal skull.
I have to agree with you, Nathaniel. While I think Kickstarter can be used for good, I feel like a lot of people out there just say “I want to make something but don’t want to put any effort into it! I’ll just get people to pay me for something I haven’t made yet!”
Some of my friends have asked me why I don’t do a Kickstarter for my XBox development… But, I don’t make games because I want to get rich. I make games because I want to make games. It would be cool to make money at it, so my strategy is to make games that are actually good.
I’m just gonna toss out some impossible suggestions:
1) A new Konami Ninja Turtles arcade title:
Yeah, I know “Turtles In Time ReShelled” and all that, but seriously – I mean, I thought Konami did a great job with TMNT III: The Manhattan Project and Turtles In Time is phenomenal (whether you know it as “the sequel to the arcade TMNT” or “TMNT IV: Turtles In Time” or “That game that was remixed into The Hyperstone Heist”). I think it impossible but I would love to see a new TMNT game, headed up by people who grew up with and loved Turtles In Time and the O.G. TMNT Arcade. Keep the core gameplay mostly unchanged from Turtles in Time but maybe take some cues from Streets of Rage or Final Fight 3? I know *I’d* be on board…
2) Another Street Fighter II:
Yeah, why not? I mean, SF IV is great and all, but why not take another stab at re-re-re-re-re-rebalancing SF II? I’m positive there’s still life left in the old girl – maybe properties from SFII: The World Warriors with the speed of Turbo but the Super Combos from Super Turbo? I’m terrible at this balancing stuff but *someone* should be able to do it.
3) A New Battletoads:
Some sort of reverent take on the original but maybe rejigger the Turbo Tunnel so that the end of the game isn’t some impossible thing only tobe observed in YouTube videos? Perhaps with the aesthetics of the arcade BT?
4) A New King’s Quest:
You guys seem to have covered that, truly, but I’d just like to add that I would never say no to a new KQ game that borrowed its look and feel from the sublime KQ VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow or KQ V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder.
On a related note: “Graham – watch out! A POISONOUS snake!”
5) A new 16-bit Mega Man X:
Ah, this is just me wearing nostalgia goggles. What I want is an MMX title that gives me the feeling that I got when I first played the original MMX. And that game already exists – it’s the original MMX. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with MMX2 or MMX3, per se, other than they’re just very safe, competent sequels- they follow the standard set by the original MMX to a “T” and take very few risks.
Alright…. That should do….
*begins holding breath and hoping that any of these actually come into fruition even with the knowledge that they never will*