No ?
Well, take a look here:
Kickstarter campaign
Exclusive preview
"Combat Operations" is currently under development. The idea is a operational level WEGO wargame that gives you the option to resolve tactical battles manually, using your favorite bordgame or Battlefront's "Combat Mission" and input the battle results back into the game.
The developer asks for 32.000 $ till Sep 22, currently there are only 35 backers pledging less then 4.000 $.
The kickstarter campaign will fail...
Like many others i always wanted to see a serious hardcore wargame on Kickstarter and i always thought i would back such a campaign instantly, i will not back "Combat Operations"...here is why:
First of all, all the developer has currently are mockups done in photoshop (see the picture above),
the game concept, "algorithms" and some unspecified team.
There is no actual ingame footage, no "proof-of-concept" demo version...
Instead, Matt created a list of the "core features" that sound ambitious even for experienced wargame developers.
The game will have a scenario editor, singleplayer (you need a A.I for that), multiplayer up to 16 players and he already talks about six DLC's and versions for mobile platforms.
Matt is not a game programmer/developer himself and its unclear if any of the "several local volunteers" in his team ever had anything to do with game programming/development.
Thats his first mistake, he has nothing to show besides mockups basically everyone could produce in under one hour with photoshop.
It would be a different story if a guy like Dave O'Connor (Panther Games/"Command Ops") would come up with such a Kickstarter campaign, he has the expertise, he is well known in the community and last but not least he has already proven he can produce a working wargame.
The next thing are the confusing rewards.
Only people who pledge at least 60 $ get the actual game (if it ever gets made and released).
If you pledge at least 35 $ for example, you only get a DLC of your choice not the core game.
A non existent DLC for a non existent game !
It gets even more silly...if you pledge at least 250 $ you get the core game + six DLC's...yeah, six non existing DLC's for a game that only exists on paper !
His second mistake, confusing and exaggerated rewards.
His third and biggest mistake in my opinion is that he was not able to get the wargaming community excited about his project.
Currently there seem to be 35 people who are excited, thats not enough.
But to get the people excited about something you need more then photoshop mockups and feature lists, you need ingame screenshots or actual gameplay footage...even if its crude Alpha stuff.
If your name is John Tiller or Dave O'Connor or you are a experienced indie game developer you dont face this kind of credibility problem.
I hope this does not sound too rude towards Matt, its just my opinion about his Kickstarter campaign.
I wish him all the best with his project and i hope we will see some more sophisticated campaigns in the future, my wallet is ready !
Whats your opinion about the Kickstarter campaign, do you support it ?
3 comments:
Great article. I also have this under my eyes but I refrain from supporting it for exactly the same reasons you mention. It goes only till 22.09. and theres so much money missing.
I read your review and frankly have to agree with the majority of it. The whole thing seems like nothing more than a mod project that someone just happens to want financed (and we all know how many mod projects see the light of day – only a fraction). You are spot on in your reference to someone with street cred such a Dave O pushing something new on KS, but an unknown with a vaguely defined “Team” and (at best) confusing KS rewards simply does not cut it. If this thing ever comes to fruition I will give it an honest look, however I have yet to pull the trigger on “War in the East” at $79 and that thing is beyond polished. So I look at the total cost structure of this rough effort and have to wonder whose college education he is trying to fund.
Florian, please contact me at realandsimulatedwars at gmail dot com
Thanks,
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