Pocket Rumble

After the initial flurry of Kickstarter madness passed, I've been very leery of investing in any more. A big part of that was my choice of projects to back - miniature wargames are finicky products to get off the ground, taste is very subjective, and its hard to always communicate intentions.

An area that I feel much more comfortable investing in (even though I haven't done it much) is in contributing to video game projects that catch my eye. I always had a nerd dream of developing video games, so I want to support those who have the gumption and drive to do so, but may be lacking the capital.

Some amazing games have come out of Kickstarter in the past year, and that trend doesn't look like it's letting up any time soon. One such game is nearing the end of it's funding, and although I usually don't feel the desire to schill for these things I wanted to put the shout out for this one:

Pocket Rumble by Cardboard Robot Games

This game is looking pretty slick, and the idea is great: a new game in the vein of the "blink and you missed it" excellent Neo Geo Pocket Color fighting games. The developers have some excellent ideas for how to create a portable fighting game that maintains the feel of playing a mechanically sound game, while also abstracting out what is necessary to allow it to play well with the often more limited controls on portable systems.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they're going to hit any of their stretch goals so there won't be any 3DS or Vita ports for it promised right out of the gate, but I have a feeling that (considering it's kind of the ideal market for it) these guys will push for either or both of those platforms as soon as they can. 

So if you dig fighting games, portable games, or somehow shockingly both (the Venn diagram on that one is pretty narrow) check it out. This looks like a game to keep an eye on.

EDIT: And it's funded! Sadly they didn't get much beyond the base funding level, but at least they'll have enough to get the project off the ground. Hopefully future fundraising/PayPal donations/etc can give them some more capital to work with. The team has mentioned that they really want to get Story Mode implemented (and that goal wasn't far off,) and they've listened to backer feedback about various features (such as a 3DS port getting higher priority.)

We'll see how this project turns out. Hopefully by this time next year we'll all have a rumble in our pockets.

Er...

Yeah.