Jan 172015
I’m no stranger to Kickstarter-backed games. Whether it’s successful projects like A Hat in Time, Cosmic Star Heroine, and Soul Saga, or failed endeavors I still have my eye on like H. P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, quite a few have caught my attention enough for me to support theme.
And now I’ve found another one–The Dekker Records: Thunder Stone Blues.
The Dekker Records, by All-Father Studios, is an unusual mash-up. While on one hand, it’s a traditional role-playing game in the style of classic JRPGs (though one that pokes fun at the genre, similar to Zeboyd Games’s parodies), it’s also a noir mystery.
In the world of The Dekker Records, adventurers and heroes form traditional JRPG parties and go on quests. Thunder Stones, as well as classic healing magic, are used to resurrect fallen adventurers–until now. The Thunder Stones have stopped working, and even healing can’t be relied upon.
You play Dekker, a private investigator called onto the scene to find out what’s wrong with the Thunder Stones.
Gameplay merges the two genres just like the story does. You’ll explore the world, talk to NPCs, and fight turn-based battles, but you’ll also search for clues to solve the mystery. Dekker can expend “Inspection Points” to check out areas of interest, find evidence, and learn more about what happened. Her Inspection Points are replenished through use of Satisfaction moves in battle.
Satisfaction can be used once a character takes enough damage, along the lines of Final Fantasy’s Limit Breaks. Each character has his or her own Satisfaction attacks.
Now, descriptions and even gameplay videos can only show you so much, which is why I’m delighted All-Father Studios went a step further and provided a demo for The Dekker Records. The demo will give you well over an hour’s worth of gameplay to see if this mystery noir RPG is something you’d be interested in. It sure convinced me!
The Dekker Records has until February 19 to meets its $11,000 funding goal, much of which will go toward art and music assets. Check out the Kickstarter and share your thoughts in the comments below!
“We would still have to work full time but additional funds would give us a cushion to cover unexpected costs or longer development times.”
Not my idea of a “stretch goal”.
Yes, this game has atypical stretch goals… although on one hand, I approve. Sometimes stretch goals make me nervous, because it feels like the dev is becoming too ambitious. These feel more practical.
Maybe they should ask for $20,000 to begin with?
And make it less likely to be funded at all? 😛
Hi, one of the founders of All-Father here. In hindsight “stretch goals” might not have been the right term, but we wanted to give our backers a good idea of where any money above and beyond what we were asking would be going. The $20,000 wasn’t anything special (our other markers have some sort of reward in getting the game to you even earlier) and was mainly added to avoid any kind of shock in the jump to $40,000.