Hero’s Song Kickstarter cancelled

Ouch! I did not see that coming. I didn’t back it, even after the lower tiers were added, deciding I’d check it out when it released.

I suppose it looks terrible if a Kickstarter fails… but then cancelling it after one week can’t be spun positively either. The project couldn’t generate excitement in proportion to its desired funding level…?

Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen had a Kickstarter that failed, and it’s Patreon site looks deserted, but it seems to be moving along.

Project: Gorgon had a few Kickstarters fail but their most recent one succeeded. I backed it and log in here and there – ok honestly I’ve just been doing client upgrades but one of these days I’ll wander around again.

So I’m not sure what it means for the project. The team said they needed $800K to finish the game, and now they’ve said they don’t need that money since their investors are backing them all the way.

I think what they’ll do is try another Kickstarter after a few more months, when they fix the mistakes they alluded to: more gameplay, physical items (?? not sure what tchotchkes they think will pull more people in), and better tiers (it was earlier access and then various permutation of design an item in the game).

Hero’s Song

I’m a fan of roguelikes – starting years ago when I played a lot of Moria. I keep an eye on the genre and currently have a bunch installed on my computer:

• Angband
• Brogue
• Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead
• Cogmind
• Forays into Norrendrin
• Sil
• The Ground Gives Way

Through Steam I have a few more:

• Caves of Qud
• Crypt of the Necrodancer
• Faron’s Fate
• FTL: Faster Than Light
• Neo Scavenger
• Project Zomboid

I’m being loose with the categorization but these I feel these mostly fall into the roguelike category.

I don’t actually play all these regularly, and if I’m honest many are around for nostalgic reasons. I’m spoiled too and the ones with fancier graphics than ascii graphics see more play.

Anyway, so I read the new about Hero’s Song. An open world rogue-like fantasy game done in 2D pixel art style. with pixel art – cool!

The Kickstarter page doesn’t mention what platform is supported, but since the video shows brief clips of Visual Studio on various monitors, I’m guessing Windows will be there. 😉 I see Wilhelm noticed this and Smedley’s response that Mac and consoles will also be supported.

This looks like a game I would enjoy. The pledge tiers seem kind high, minimum $25, next smallest increment $50?! For that much in a Kickstarter money raising situation, I have a few questions.

I’m curious how the servers will work – will Pixel Mage run a few “official” servers, or will there only be player-servers? I’d hate to lose access to my char when somebody goes on vacation for a few weeks and hibernates their computer. Or just decides to shut down the server. A corollary question is: how solo-able is this game – if I don’t feel like putting a server up 24×7 for others, can I just populate a world and fiddle around on my own?

What happens when your character ascends? The video says that they become some sort of god and other can use them in the creation of worlds. Okay, that’s awesome, what does that mean for me, do I reroll? Do something like DDO and reincarnate (start over but with a few more points to allocate for attributes)? I’m used to having an end in roguelikes (you defeat Morgoth in Angband, escape to the surface in Cogmind, cross the galaxy in FTL, etc.) so if it really just means your character has some kind of score calculated and posted on a high score page, that’s fine. I just want to know.

I might wind up waiting for the release to buy it for $20.