Kickstarter Watch 3/23/16

Each week, Rectify Gaming looks through the indie games in development on Kickstarter and brings you the best looking, most promising, and most interesting of the bunch. Here’s what we like this week:

Tidepool, a codeable world for kids

Developed by: Immuexa

Tidepool is a 3D multiplayer game world, where kids of all ages collaborate to make interactive stories in the manner of Zork or Monkey Island. Built from scratch with its own game engine and server, Tidepool has a handmade aesthetic to encourage all to draw. Kids learn to program in Tidepool in a natural, conversational way. Integrating a unique AI, children learn to code using natural language, learning what words work and what things do, much like learning to speak and understand as a toddler. Players can create new content for others to use, gain in-game currency, and interact with other players.

Why it’s worth a look: It’s a new world in the age of the Internet, one that standard educational models have struggled to keep up with. Little wonder that people have started to take things into their own hands. Tidepool represents an effort to bring coding, a bigger part of the modern world than most realize, to the formative years of education and development through video games, online collaboration, and crowd development. A playable alpha for Tidepool is available now for free at PlayTidepool.com.
Funding Status: Raised $2,779 of its $18,000 goal from 40 backers with 20 days to go.
Release Date: June 2016
Links: Kickstarter, Official Website.

S.E.N.S. VR: A VR game in a graphic maze

Developed by: Red Corner

S.E.N.S. VR puts the player in a strange environment with a simple rule: follow the arrows. Sometimes they appear, sometimes they have to be found. S.E.N.S. VR looks to create a simple, intuitive gameplay environment in virtual reality, heavy on exploration and getting lost in a universe that doesn’t follow any rules. It seems evocative of Antichamber, in which walls may not be walls, optical illusions abound, and typical spatial physics in three dimensions seem more like a fairy tale.

Why it’s worth a look: It’s been an arms race the past few years in VR, with major players like Oculus and HTC Vive developing feverishly to be the first to win a market share of an eagerly awaiting player base. Even Samsung has created a simple cardboard rig to put their phones into in order to recreate the experience of an Oculus or Vive. It’s only fitting, then, that indie game development for these platforms be right behind. A game about exploration of a VR universe fits that bill nicely.
Funding Status: Raised $2,063 of its $16,665 goal from 53 backers, with 38 days to go.
Release Date: May 2016
Links: Kickstarter, Developer Website

Bloody Chronicles

Developed by: Igrasil Studios

Bloody Chronicles is a gritty visual novel about an orphaned detective working for an organization that solves crimes labeled unsolvable by the police. Featuring a rich and varied cast of characters, each with their own stories and motivations, an episodic release format heavily relying on player choice, and beautiful East/West fusion artwork, Bloody Chronicles looks like a deep and fascinating game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om17fsvbsD8
Why it’s worth a look: I’m not going to pretend to know, well, anything about Japanese gaming. But the interest shown in Bloody Chronicles cannot be ignored, no matter how interested I am in it personally. Greenlit on Steam in only four days, those interested in anime and manga would do well to have a look.
Funding Status: Raised $12,086 of its $30,000 goal from 305 backers, with 33 days to go.
Release Date: March 2017
Links: Kickstarter, Official website, Steam Greenlight