Broken Sword 5 Annnounced! Kickstarter Project.

[DazJ]

Revolution have announced it, finally.

You can watch the trailer/pledge, here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/165500047/broken-sword-the-serpents-curse-adventure

I'm loving the style. Very Runaway.

Excited? I am! I can't wait for this.

[Stupot]

Yeah, Charles Cecil keeps delaying the announcement.  It's getting quite annoying actually.  He keeps talking about 'getting the video right'.  I could be wrong, but that sounds to me like a Kickstarter campaign is in the pipeline.

[Paul Franzen]

Please, just no crate puzzles! ANYTHING BUT CRATE PUZZLES.

[CaptainD]

Please, just no crate puzzles! ANYTHING BUT CRATE PUZZLES.

I heard it was subtitled "George, Nico and the Never-Ending Crate Puzzle" featuring 64,000 levels of procedurally-generated crate puzzling goodness.  With a smattering of storyline every 2,000 levels. 

[Stupot]

I'd probably still play it :-/
Cecil did say that any new BS game would go back to 2D, which I think is a great move. Not least because it's more likely to run on my peice of shit laptop :-/

[CaptainD]

Thumbs up to 2D!  I hope they follow through on that.

I also hope they don't force another love interest into the fifth game.  The ending will hopefully be less nonsensical than the third and fourth games too!

If they can do something like the first game, great.  If they can do something like the second game, absolutely fantastic.

[DazJ]

My biggest fear is that the 2D will be the new 'Flash-style' animation/drawings as seen in the Director's cut of Broken Sword. It sticks out like a sore thumb and really takes away that look of the first 2 original games.

[DazJ]

It's been officially announced:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/165500047/broken-sword-the-serpents-curse-adventure

[Stupot]

Kickstarter. I called it!

Kind of wish it wasn't coz I haven't really got money yet, but it's not really a problem. I'll probably pledge anyway.

I'm on my phone so havn't seen what it looks like yet. Might add some further thoughts a bit later.

Looks brilliant. I'm loving the effect of the characters. Happy days!

[Anian]

There wasn't a publisher who'd fund this?

Kickstarter is a double edge sword kind of, you'll probably get more money when you can offer goodies for donations, but also if you don't succeed, then good luck finding somebody who'll publish it. Plus of those 400k, I'm guessing a 100k goes to Kickstarter and goodies production.

So I guess 2.5 is the optimal work process for adventure games. The style is okay I guess, I like it more than the Runaway style.

[m0ds]

Looks great. Glad it's 2D!

BS made by RS funded on KS (from the US).

I say ye-ess!

[amateurhour]

Felica Day just retweeted the kickstarter info, so I'm guessing that will trickle down to Wil Wheaton and Chris Hardwick and by the end of the day about three million people will have heard about it, so that's good news.

[Peder 🚀]

Looks brilliant. I'm loving the effect of the characters. Happy days!

The characters is actually putting me off pledging money to this one :-/.
Doesn't feel right imo.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Neko looks fine but Stobbart looks just plain lousy.  What happened to his chin, for one thing?  It's like they're trying to merge almond-shaped anime character styles with Broken Sword characters and it isn't very pleasing.  Also, it makes him look way too young, especially for his voice.  I'm not sure why they can call this a 2d game when it uses 3d rendered characters that look rather lazily produced.  Just because it's a fixed angle doesn't suddenly make it a 'traditional 2d game'.

[Anian]

Neko looks fine but Stobbart looks just plain lousy.  What happened to his chin, for one thing?  It's like they're trying to merge almond-shaped anime character styles with Broken Sword characters and it isn't very pleasing.  Also, it makes him look way too young, especially for his voice.  I'm not sure why they can call this a 2d game when it uses 3d rendered characters that look rather lazily produced.  Just because it's a fixed angle doesn't suddenly make it a 'traditional 2d game'.

Thing is, they use 3d because I guess it's easier in the long run (you can change camera views on different scenes and still have a sprite for every occasion plus for the cutscenes. But yes, it is annoying how they still call it 2d, although the characters lost their 2d sprite charm. Such characters always seem slightly stiff to me (hand drawn sprites always look a bit more flexible and alive), and when they show the disney-like storyboards, where George's face has all the cool hand drawn expressions, the difference gets even more noticeable.
Even so, I do like the renderer they're using, might be one of the best looks for a cell shading rendering I've seen in a while.

p.s. *cough*It's Nico, not Neko*cough*

[Chicky]

'it's in 2D' *shows concept with 3D characters*

I can't believe they could make such a monumental cock up, the characters look awful and the animation belongs in the 90's! This is not what i expect from an independently developed Broken Sword title, 1 and 2 are masterpieces, 3 was somewhat bearable and 4 was a joke. The beauty of broken sword was in the production value, hollywood standard animation and beautiful hand drawn backgrounds. Why show the storyboards, the concept art, hell they even showed a flic book animation of George, if you're just going to stick in some cop out 3D renders? Surely 90% of that development team can see that poorly animated 3D characters in a hand painted 2D environment stick out like a sore thumb.

I'm sorry if i come across a little riled up, but this is a massive disappointment.

[ThreeOhFour]

My reaction to seeing George was the same as ProgZ's. There's something weird going on with his face there.

[Stupot]

I really quite like the effect. Admittedly, I was also expecting hand drawn characters in the style of 1&2, and would have preferred that, but I agree with Anian that it's a really cool use of cel-shading style. And it's still 2D, they haven't lied about that. And bear in mind it's a work in progress.

[Azure]

I agree his face looks odd, the design looks very like those french anime inspired shows you get now rather than the classic Western animation/comic book style of the originals, the clips from the original really show that up. I wonder if enough backers comment they will change it? At least with 3D you can can do that. Stil will back, at the end of the day I'm about the adventuring most of all.

[Stupot]

I wonder if enough backers comment they will change it? At least with 3D you can can do that. Stil will back, at the end of the day I'm about the adventuring most of all.

Looks that way. From today's update: "A few people have asked for an indication of the final look for the characters [...] we are still working on our graphics technology."

[amateurhour]

Does anyone know if they built their own engine (like Skygoblin did) or used an existing one to make it portable to other platforms? Or I guess the easier question is what engine did they use to port the directors cut to the iPhone?     

[Mati256]

Yes, the look of the characters is also putting me off. But I will probably pledge anyway in the end.

[Yeppoh]

Yay! I did some character designs for this game! I was actually surprised they included some of my concept arts of the new characters in the video.
I really hope this project will be funded. I wish to be able to design some more.

[Anian]

Wow, in 7 days they got $320k, that's rather impressive.

There's an update comment from Cecil, where he says "Where possible, we will release the game without DRM," what does that mean? I thought it was a given to have the game without DRM, since you've basically paid off the game from the launch and the rest is profit, right? I'm not advocating piracy or anything, just saying it'd be kind of dickish to put DRM on a KS funded game...then again, DRM is usually dickish as is.

[amateurhour]

I think that means if you buy the game from them directly, it would be DRM free, but if you get it off steam later on, it wouldn't be. I would just chalk it up to them playing it safe with their wording

[Technocrat]

I've a shameful confession, I've got to catch up on the first four before I can get on to this one!

[Anian]

I've a shameful confession, I've got to catch up on the first four before I can get on to this one!

Well, Steam (and maybe others) have a trilogy bundle, you won't miss anything with the 4th, it's nothing special (although it's ok). Just play the 1st (Shadow of the Templars) so you know how the main characters met and then you'll want to play the 2nd because it's more of the same awesomeness.

[Azure]

I've a shameful confession, I've got to catch up on the first four before I can get on to this one!

If you're wiling to back the higher tiers you get the older games as part of it. But really 1 & 2 are the best, 3 was meh and 4 was OK.Play #1 for sure though.

[Jimbob]

Stretch goals announced....

BASS2 after a million ...

That's BENEATH A STEEL SKY TWO.

(although why they don't Kickstarter it separately I don't know...)

[Babar]

Hahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahhahaha....they're such cheeky bastards.

I bet they'll reach a million now. Not sure I approve of their tactics...if I had the money, I'd ALMOST be persuaded to fork some over, even though I don't care much for Broken Sword....

[Frodo]

Stretch goals announced....

BASS2 after a million ...

That's BENEATH A STEEL SKY TWO.

(although why they don't Kickstarter it separately I don't know...)

If they do a seperate campaign for BASS2, I would back that for sure.  Not too bothered by Broken Sword though.