FurStarter
Furfunding Week in Review 9-7-14
This week’s illustration is from the children’s book project, Animal Kingdom Construction Co.
Wow! I have no idea what cosmic spigots got turned on, but this week was a flood of interesting projects, after a comparative dry spell. 15 fun projects! There was also a brief flash in the pan when a revival project of the Jazz Jackrabbit video game series got posted to Kickstarter. I was all set to write about it, too! But it was not to be, as the dark goddesses of “Copyright” and “Intellectual Property” whisked it away. Oh well!
Reviews this week: We seem to be having a “Latin” theme: JRPG dreamquest game Sanctum Polis and a long, long review of posthuman tabletop game, HC SVNT DRACONES. If you want me to double the wordcount on a blog entry, give me a really great project with a single mechanic I disagree with…
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For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page! New Projects ArtDomino Ukae on Patreon (Patreon ongoing funding)
Art and manga by artist Domino Ukae.
Pretty raw illustration style…
The Kegel Bear (Ends: 10/1/2014)
A fun read-aloud story about a bear who loves to hug, with built-in pelvic floor exercises for mom! Art by Bill Robinson.
Sometimes I think I’ve made something up and it turns out to be real. Or at least someone else made it up.
Animal Kingdom Construction Co Picture Book (Ends: 10/5/2014)
It’s like a furry “Where’s Waldo”–cartoon animals build a high-rise building!
The Magnificent Race (Ends: 11/1/2014)
A children’s book about cute but somewhat bored-looking lizards on a cross-country hot air race. Go Gekkards!
Zombie Bears: Bearlands, Season 1 (Ends: 10/2/2014)
A post-apocalyse hero, the Bear-with-no-name, defends Bearertown from the hordes of cuddly undead…
I am so very done with the zombie meme, but this is pretty nicely done.
Lionheart Tales (Ends: 10/12/2014)
The continuing adventures of Lionheart, a feline investigative reporter from WAY back in the fandom, the Critters anthology in 1985!
Already past goal!
Claws for Paws (Ends: 10/9/2014)
Premade fursuit parts–claws and jaws and such
So a lot of this is cute, but there’s a really hidulous sculpt that the creator leads with, I personally would not have done that. Just saying.
Magic of Love (Ends: 10/29/2014)
A CGI animated love story: a dog, a fox, an illusionist, possibly a spider.
Eh. This doesn’t look *bad* per se but the business model is ‘$650K goal and Flexible Funding,’ which I reallly can’t encourage.
Big Bad Spirit Wolf Medallion (Ends: 10/2/2014)
A fierce silver medallion for werewolf fans. There is an AWFUL lot of text there for a sculpt of a snarly werewolf.
HC SVNT DRACONES (Ends: 10/3/2014)
Or, ‘here there be dragons.’ A posthuman, anthro sci-fi game.
I like this one a lot, and did a full review of it here. Not a lot of quality furry RPG products out these days.
Fauna Wars (Ends: 10/3/2014)
A pretty woodcut-style card game
Rant mode on: This is one of the worst kickstarter projects I’ve seen in a while. Nothing about the game, nothing about the content, and the business plan says $50K for ~88 cards. Wow. No wonder there isn’t a single dollar in it. But the art’s kind of pretty.
Button Fox Plushie (Ends: 10/5/2014)
A cute little bespoke plush fox with button eyes. The swag at the bottom of the page is supercute!
Sanctum Polis (Ends: 10/19/2014)
A 32 bit JRPG style game with elements of investigation and horror: a young shiba Caxton investigates the murder of his dorm roommate in the real world and the world of dreams.
Part of the kickoff for this was a fan-art competition on FA, here’s some of the results.
Solvang Faeriefest 2014 (Ends: 9/25/2014): A colorful, free festival for fairies and the fey-at-heart in California.
Ducksutes Inc (Ends: 10/5/2014): I don’t know what Ducksutes Inc is hoping to accomplish, but sit sure does involve ducks wearing suits, and that’s cute.
Great Inspirational People (Ends: 10/5/2014): It’s not wonderful, but a cute collection of chibi historical figures, with an adorable Florence Nightingale and Pythagoras. Probably your only chance to see a chibi Frida Kahlo, too.
Retro Reload Gaming Museum (Ends: 11/2/2014): A fun walk-through of ideas for a video game themed-business. No donations thusfar and very little original content, but it’s got some fun 8bit imagery and snack food.
Here There Be Latinate Constructions: HC SVNT DRACONES
Tabletop RPG set in a posthuman future…
Kickstarter ending 10-3-14
The tabletop RPG industry has moved, so far as any real creativity and innovation goes, to Kickstarter. Is this a good thing? Hard to say–given that the vast majority of indie RPGs aren’t going to outlive their first print run, this may simply be selling directly to fans and cutting the retail arm off the hobbistry. One of the downsides is that most new TPRGs have this low-fi, “made for print-on-demand” look to them that’s becoming a part of the new TRPG world.
Not so with HC SVNT DRACONES, which is an amazingly slick-looking product, particularly for what, I assume, is a first effort. All the pages and preview material I’ve seen is of a great-looking, ready for print tome, and I’m excited to see this much professionalism in an anthro RPG (a genre that’s been hurting for a long time for quality product).
HSD is a sci-fi/mystery game with some philosophy and horror woven into the binding. In the distant future of…somewhen…humanity has gone and blown itself up, leaving its legacy to its gengineered children, the Vectors. The technology Earth developed let them not only terraform planets, but manufacture cities and societies, too, and the Vectors–animal/human melds–carry on where humanity is too weak or privileged to settle.
When the bombs finally drop and the sun sets on Terra one last time, the relatively new culture of the Vectors, only some 50 years old, is set free, without a past and without history, to create themselves as they will–like the creator, Pierce Fraser, says, the gift of a blank slate is a terrible burden.
Much of this is explored in the sample chapter, which will give you a sense of the HSD universe’s history and its writing and design aesthetic. I admire the writers’ effort to include a logical reason for furries to exist in an RPG beyond “yes, there are anthro characters.” In sci-fi there’s always some reason, but this is a little richer than “…um…supersoldiers!” and provides a rationale for ‘taurs and non-anthros as well. Overall there’s a bit of the “Race + Clan” approach to character creation, and it’s not a bad approach–family and species to get the broad outlines fleshed out, and a few genetic wildcards like “extra limbs” or “crazy color patterns” to add more definition and specialization. Here’s the racial profile page for cats and dogs, and since it has a shirtless wolf guy on it, I don’t see any pressing reason to go further.
Being a tabletop gaming nerd, i have a few things to say about the mechanics of the game, which are both innovative and oddly early 90s. In a period where indie games are trending rules-light, the character sheet for this one is busy, looking a bit like a cross between White Wolf and Hero. The good: HSD has an innovative approach to stats that adds a lot of nuance–instead of a character being just “strong” or “charismatic”, they have a general “Body” category of stats that can emphasize toughness, agility, strength, brute force intimidation…and the same range for mental, community, and economy. I’ve never seen those last two in a statblock (although “community” assumes a lot of the social skills, economy is new.)
So just looking at the Community stats, a character might be a charming socialite with a lot of shallow contacts, more adept at playing “social chameleon” than, say, running for office (high Community/Dexterity and Community/Acuity); a matron with a powerful web of contacts who’s unshakeable in her community (high Community/Strength and Resilience, low Dexterity); a mob boss with terrible clout and a lot of kneebreakers at his disposal (high Community Strength and Presence.)
Neat!
After that, the system appears to be a “roll a number of dice based on the level of your sub-stat, and add your skill value to the roll.” Pretty simple and straightforward. It seems like it would be easy to min/max with this, but the design of the game is such that there’s usually multiple ways to reach a goal, some more effective perhaps, but still, options.
Where the game seems a little fuzzy and old-school is in the relationship between skills and stats–why is there a “coercion” skill and an “intimidate” skill, particularly when there’s a “force of presence” stat–or, technically, four of them? It seems a bit like having a “Perceptive” stat and then a “looking for something” skill. A touch redundant. The multiple dice sizes is right out of the 90s–not only can you have a range of stats from 0 to 5, but you can also roll on a d8, d10, or d12. I’m not sure this is really a meaningful thing to add, more a complication than anything else. That sort of weird mechanic is why the D20 revolution was such a big thing, and the legacy game systems have all evolved toward fewer dice and fewer variables that accomplish the same thing. Maybe this is unfair, since I’ve never played the system, but I’ve seen a lot of gaming history. There’s always a desire to make a dice mechanic that’s unique to your big new game, but I’m not sure this helps.
For deeper game wonkery you can check Youtube for the HSD combat mechanic videos #1 and #2, but for an allegedly short kickstarter review, to quote Mary Poppins, “‘That’s going a bit too far, don’t you think?’ ‘Indubitably.'”
What’s in the game’s future? Assuming it successfully launches, and it’s done fairly well week one, there’s at least 10 expansion books in HSD’s future, and a stretch goal for a web-based utility. There’s been some talk of a supplement for robots/constructed creatures, the “cogs”, over on Tumblr, there’s a lot more there to explore, and a few more sample pages on the creator’s FA account (but viewer discretion is advised there.)
To wrap up an increasingly long-winded review, I’ll just throw in and paraphrase some of Fraser’s own words about his universe: it may look like a game about animals and getting in touch with your beast side, but it’s not. HSD is a game about finding humanity, unalloyed by thousands of years of racism, sexism, sectarianism, and D&D edition wars. HSD’s big question is, “how do we define ourselves when we lose everything we were, and become only what we are?”
A good place to start building a universe.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
What Dreams May Come: Sanctum Polis
Mystery and magic in a world of dreams, and murder in the world of flesh…
Sanctum Polis: Rest Eternal Memory
Kickstarter ending October 19
NOTE: More than usual, the graphics in this project may change as the project migrates from RPGMaker to Unity. So think of the graphics here as building a sense of the world, rather than truly representing the final product!
NOTE II: If you like this project but don’t have any real $$ to throw at it–or just if you like the project–it’s currently accumulating votes on Steam Greenlight. So go lend them a hand and a vote if you want to see Sanctum Polis on Steam.
This…this hasn’t been a good year for Caxton, a mild-mannered young Shiba Inu. Of recent, he’s been thrown against his will into a tightly-guarded religious reform school, and you can’t get a degree in Computer Science or Radio-Television-Film at Solaris Notre University–no, it’s the priesthood. And there’s a creepy order of robed monk-things that keep you confined to the castle at night. Bummer.
To make matters worse, Caxton finds the body of his roommate, Soul, in the woods, and the aptly-named fennec’s spirit is beseeching poor Caxton to solve the mystery of his murder.
No, it’s not a good year at all.
Sanctum Polis: Rest Eternal Memory is a JRPG-style video game now funding on Kickstarter. It draws inspiration from the Persona series, Suikoden, Final Fantasy VI, and some of the psychological horror of Silent Hill–I feel that most keenly in the game’s weird “cut off from the world” setting.
During the day, Caxton’s world is a reasonable facsimile of normal–he attends a college of a sort, makes friends and alliances, builds rivalries, attends (or skips) class, sometimes goes to detention. Much of the game’s branching plot spins out from these daytime interactions.
At night, it gets a bit weirder.
Fundamentally, Caxton lives in the real world. Sure, 99.9% of the people he meets are anthropomorphic animals, and the occasional human is a reject from the other side of the world, where humans were banished for being terrible dicks (it’s in the minicomic). But it’s fundamentally a non-magical setting–except for Caxton’s ability to explore other people’s minds as they dream.
In that dream world–well, those several dream worlds, there’s currently 10 of them in the works, depending on whose mind Caxton wanders through–SP opens into a fantasy world of magic, exploration, and more than a bit of violence. Here the game turns from a real-life mystery to a more fantasy RPG world, with dungeons to explore and enemies to defeat in a turn-based sort of way. The worlds influence each other–Caxton’s grades and world-happiness give him buffs and weaknesses in his night-time dream adventures.
Overall, while it’s hard to get a sense for exactly what the game will look like–one of the expenses the Kickstarter campaign raises funds for is to move the game from RPGMaker to Unity, which will significantly affect the game’s graphic quality–it looks like a nicely realized world. There’s a host of characters to interact with; at least 10 dreamworlds lurking in the minds of the school’s bishops, each with their own interesting look and feel and secrets and psychoses; and an interesting world that’s a little bit fantasy, a little bit sci-fi. Again, that prequel comic gives a few details on the setting, it’s on the SP FurAffinity page.
Looking at the Kickstarter campaign, the Sanctum Polis team–I want to call them the Sanctum Police–started off with a fan art contest,with some nice results in their gallery–great way to build some initial interest!
The kickstarter–well, it’s a bit complex, but that seems to be the nature of video game project pages–lots of different reward tiers, review videos, and such. Many of the rewards involve a “your character here” as an NPC, and those tend to have strong guidelines on the character (backers at the $2,000, for in instance, are advised to be pigs. Boars rather.) I’m finding myself a bit lost in the rewards, but there’s some clarifying text in the body that helps. (It’s generally useful to keep the backer reward bar as short and sweet as possible, avoid repetition, and carry the bulk of the description in the main body of the project page–but there’s a bit of a wall of text going on in the main body. It’s not overwhelming, but there’s a lot to sift through to find your perfect pledge point.)
There’s several ways for the community to get involved as well–three characters have already been introduced from the fans, like the incredibly cute ram-raccoon (ramcoon? Great horned red panda?) Ephias Belvidea. Backers can also write in-game notes to Caxton, become walk-on characters in the dreamworld or wandering sprites in the University halls–or even, and this is unusual, become villains–monsters, minibosses, even a major bad guy.
Overall, this project is visually appealing, with some loving anthro art and strong, mature story–although it’s hard to know where the look and feel might evolve as they switch design platforms. The creators’ intention was to create something with some of the great elements of their Crono Trigger-loving childhood, but updated for modern gamers. It seems like that’s an achievable goal.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review: 8-31-14
This week’s illustration is from the animation project, Gym Rat Squad.
I have been up to my elbows in smutty projects lately. On and off I’ve been bookmarking and skimming adult projects on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, to see how those projects fly, and what the general range of acceptability is.
Weirdly, Indiegogo allows porn but not nudity–kind of–and Kickstarter allows nudity but not porn.
To clarify, Indiegogo will let you fund almost anything, as long as the content on their home page isn’t objectionable or illegal, but they want to keep their site family friendly. Outright pornography may actually be beyond the Indiegogo pale, I haven’t seen that tested yet (of course, that could be because the pages got pulled down, it’s hard to say.) At the end of the day, though, they don’t want nudity on their page, which seems to be their biggest sticking point.
Kickstarter has rules against pornography, even as a reward/project, so you can’t post a project with pornographic content and just not display imagery. However, they have no problem at all with artistic nudity, even on their project pages. I have seen evidence that male nudity is much less artistic than female nudity, but it’s not something I have the ability to prove.
Anyway, that’s where my head’s been. The world needs to know.
Reviews this week: Cartoon cuteness with Lizardbeth on Patreon, and wacky porn tabletop RPG adventures with FAPP.
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For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page! New Projects
Art
Page Ponies (Ends: 9/25/2014)
Minimalist pony bookmarks
Laura Garabedian’s Art (Patreon ongoing funding)
Laura Garabedian‘s Patreon page, helping fund cards, graphic novels, and other non-commission projects.
Lizardbeth’s Art (Patreon ongoing funding)
LizardBeth‘s Patreon page, funding comics, lattes, and other art.
Mice and Man (Ends: 9/16/2014)
Sentient animals battle and scheme in a post-apocalyptic future
Mungo Moves In (Ends: 9/19/2014)
The definitive comic handbook for adopting or living with rescued cats. Featuring surly, surly Mungo.
Weaselmeizter’s Debute (Ends: 9/26/2014)
A bit TMNT, a bit Rocket Racoon–four weasel bounty hunters protecting the galaxy for criminals.
The Infernal Pact (Ends: 9/29/2014)
A “Grindhouse” style comic miniseries featuring werewolves, junkies, and a deal with the devil.
Tristan & the Cuddly Defenders (Ends: 10/3/2014)
Armed and angry stuffed animals defend cdreamtime from the Bogeyman. More on the Teddy Bear Tales website.
Gym Rat Squad (Ends: 10/29/2014)
Seven rats take on the basketball establishment.
No funding after a full day. This isn’t going to happen. Pity, nice character designs.
Odd Bird Badges (Ends: 10/1/2014)
Stylized fandom badges for Whovians and other fandoms
Deer Neil (Ends: 9/29/2014)
Webcomic, a geeky deer living his geeky life.
This looks cute, but I can’t get any idea of what the comic looks like beyond one image in the video. Creator’s website is kind of useless.
FAPP (Ends: 9/14/2014)
A furry erotic tabletop fantasy RPG. To the best of my knowledge, set in a dark high fantasy world where the gods have decreed that bloody combat and powerful magics shall be replaced by rampant buggery. Masterminded by Lemuel.
Yes, I’m buying a copy of this. No, I cannot explain my actions. Please don’t tell mom.
HC SVNT DRACONES (Not yet launched): A post-human future tabletop sci-fi RPG.
Dreamkeepers: Vol. 4 (Not yet launched): In a colorful world, our alter-egos protect our sleeping selves from nightmare. Vol. 4 coming soon to Kickstarter.
Holographic Brogues (Ends: 9/27/2014): Holographic dress shoes for the super-fancy techno full dress raves!
Gamer Logic Tees (Ends: 9/30/2014): “Find Leaf: Become Raccoon” and other tees based on 8-bit silliness from our cumulative childhoods.
Mulmino (Ends: 10/21/2014): Many of you may remember Mulmino. From your dreams. I’m excited to see the Mulmino return to Indiegogo for another round of inexplicable weirdness and strange reproductive practices. Go Mulmino!
What’s Corbeau Backing This Week?I’ve talked about a few of the projects I’m backing this week, beginning with ongoing funding for Lizardbeth on Patreon, then FAPP, because it was too absurd not to back. So far as non-furry projects go I backed “Summoner’s Circle,” which is sort of like Chinese Checkers meets the Kabbalah meets 16th century demonology. I had no way to avoid backing this project.
YOU SHALL NOT PASS without a sex scene: FAPP
A fantasy tabletop role-playing game in a world gone…porny.
Warning: Images in this post are not safe for work or for people who are under 18.That being said, I would have been ALL OVER THIS when I was under 18.
Offbeatr campaign ending 9/14/14
I have been playing tabletop role-playing games for a long, long time, since fifth grade in fact, which is getting close to 30 years of funny dice with lots of sides. And I do remember playing when I was an awkward 14-year-old, just hit in the face with the frying pan that is puberty–loaded with hormones, playing D&D with a couple other teens ALSO loaded with hormones, none of us really having any great sense for plot or character development, it’s no wonder that most of our sessions had at least one or two very contrived and abrupt sex scenes.
Of course, I’ve outgrown that. Now the sex scenes are a lot more complicated.
Anyway, I never thought I’d say this, but somehow, this project–this weird, weird, project–is making me want to be 14 again. It’s silly and crazed and perverse. Yes, I’m buying a copy.
FAPP–the abbreviation stands for nothing in particular, a riff on the tabletop RPG industry’s love of silly nonsense abbreviations like GURPS, TORG, FUDGE, etc etc–is a tongue-in-cheek, massively over-the-top furry pornographic tabletop RPG (TRPG moving forward). It’s being committed principally by Lemuel, whose FA account is probably the best place to go for daily updates and information about the project, and Min, who goes into detail on some of the monsters and stats.
Bukkake is a stat, and that is beautiful. I have never seen Bukkake in a stat block before.
I know you’re not looking at my sword.
Is it a “serious” game? Hard to say, and I’m honestly not sure it matters. The indie TPRG hobbistry (it’s like an industry but you can’t make money off it) is full of games that tell interesting stories, but the majority of the copies sold will never see a gaming table. Take “Engine Heart,” a TRPG based on “Wall-E” and “Brave Little Toaster.” Never going to play it, love thinking about playing it, never going to sell it to Half Price Books. Game books can be their own form of literature, with all the world building and character building–if not more!–of fiction.
I’d like to apologize for our fighter’s rude entrance, but I have a topical ointment that’ll help.
Characters in FAPP are adventurers in the world of Jizzrel (let’s get our sniggering over with, people, this is a serious review). The Powers That Be have cursed (?) the inhabitants of that benighted, sticky land with crazy powerful sex drives and body parts to match (how that wolf doesn’t pass out from blood loss when he has an erection, I don’t know, possibly he always has one.) At the same time, they’ve warped the world so that swordplay and spellcasting just don’t work. This leaves one obvious, throbbing solution for how to subdue your enemies.
Someday, I will find an office chair that’s comfortable.
From a certain angle, that’s actually a lot nicer than the huge number of critters my 4th level paladin has killed. But you could totally run out of gold pieces buying everyone dinner afterward.
There’s actually plot in there, too. Dark gods inspired by HP Lovecraft have unleashed horrible, sanity-destroying monsters, the sort of epic awfulness that brave adventures strap on their armor and gird their loins–or ungird them, this is that sort of game–to fight. There’s an introductory adventure wherein the party defends their village against an invading army of gnolls, with a supplementary chapter on playing gnolls (I sense a level of wish fulfillment here because the project manager Lemuel is a gnoll, but I’m not complaining, since my mate and I both play gnolls every Friday.)
FAPP is also a kink-friendly RPG, with latex, macros, and whatever else might conceivably float someone’s pleasure barge. It sounds like, while the basic idea is “let’s use sex to defeat the monstrous boobdragon!”, the idea of what sex is is flexible and accommodating.
There are not enough beers in the tavern.
So far as the project itself goes, I’m a little concerned that the amount of member-customized material involved might overwhelm the creators. A recent update to the page said that the main rulebook would need to be split into two volumes, which is great for the backer, but with the cost of goods involved increasing, a small print run, and a discounted price on top of Offbeatr’s hefty 30% fees, makes for a terribly small profit margin. Strictly from a print/publishing perspective, their business model is unclear, and I’d like to see some breakdowns of their goal, cost, etc. It looks like the project launched at the lowest possible goal to get around the voting period and deposit fees–and I can sympathize, those are irritating!–but I don’t have a clear idea of the funding they need to produce the project. It’s not a huge concern–the TRPG hobbistry has some excellent print on demand and digital options that lift the PP&B burden off the indie publisher–but a clear business plan is a definite +1 in a crowdfunding project. [EDIT: Lemuel contacted me to let me know that the books are digital, so that concern over PP&B is not an issue!]
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
P.S.: yes, this entire thing is silly. Absolutely. But what does it say about our culture that sexing monsters into submission come across less mature than the “murder hobo” lifestyle of a typical D&D party? This is leaving me with some strange questions…
Buy an iguana a latte?
Art, reptiles, and webcomics by the creator of “Broken Plot Device”…
Ongoing funding on Patreon
I first encountered Lizardbeth’s work at the dealer’s den at AC, and immediately fell in love with her work. She’s absolutely in the cartoony camp, but with realistic proportions, a lot of great facial expressions, the kind of friendly, approachable stuff that got me into the fandom so many years ago. I got the print versions of her webcomic, “Broken Plot Device,” and unfortunately had finished them all by the time the plane landed.
So I went to the googles. I searched around and found her artblog and her various accounts on FurAffinity, shed a tear that BPD was no longer an ongoing webcomic, and then got inappropriately giddy over her upcoming page on Patreon. Partly because it gave me a chance to throw pennies at new webcomics and projects from an artist I genuinely love, partly because I always get stupidly worked up over Patreon pages, partly because I could fabricate a convincing excuse to commission a cartoon. Yay! Anyway.
If you want to get a feel for Lizardbeth’s work, her FA gallery goes a long way covers a huge swath of time, with art all the way back to 2006 or earlier (and an amazing consistency of style across the years.) Reptile and dragon fans will find a lot to love in her collection, not a real surprise from an artist that represents herself as an iguana. Her artblog also has a few different webcomic projects–“D20 Comics” (characters thrown into randomly-selected scenarios), and some cheerfully self-referential fantasy work.
That being said, her best-known venture into webcomics has to be the anthro-and-ninja and geek life title, Broken Plot Device. With lots of coffee jokes, guest appearances by Doctor Who, World of Warcraft references, entire plotlines based on pokemon, ongoing scenes from conventions, and tabletop gaming geekery, it’s a fun cross-section of The Dork Experience–but with rather more dragons and ninjas and beefcake pirates and robots.
I feel there’s a genre of comics that’s encapsulated in Broken Plot Device–gentle escapism mixed with enough High Weirdness to drive a comedy plotline. Let’s call it “slice of ‘if my life was that cool.'” It’d be impossible to avoid a comparison to Sluggy Freelance, and just as impossible to escape its influence as the strip has been running since 1997 and is arguably the most successful webcomic in the multiverse. There are some parallels–both stories revolve around life in a geeky semi-commune, with characters that, in general, place much higher on the weirdness spectrum than the people likely at your comic shop, though not quite as weird as the characters inside the comics themselves (unless you’re buying a bound collection of the webcomic, in which case this entire paragraph has gotten way too meta.) There’s a McGuffin-crafting engineer, a mage, a self-appointed lady’s man, one or two animal mascots.
But influenced by is not at all the same as derivative of, particularly in the everyman (everywoman? Everylizard?) character of Liz, who’s an island of comparative normalcy that keeps the rest of the cast grounded in something like a day-to-day world. There are plots that dip a toe into real-world relevancy and mature situations–relationship awkwardness, characters forced to be suddenly mature, a coming out story (really, it’s required in every furry slice-of-life, isn’t it?), dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic situation–some real emotion. The art is also several steps above what is usually required in a 3/week webcomic, with lots of appealing and interesting characters, and occasional character development of same–though unfortunately the strip ended after four years, leaving a few loose ends, unexplored origin stories, and the unanswered question of “whatever happened to Sunny’s Roller Derby career?”
Now, nearly by definition, Patreon is not project-focused crowdfunding. It’s usually about “fund the artist” than “fund a specific project.” but Lizardbeth’s Patreon page does lead with a promise to, funding permitting, reboot Broken Plot Device, possibly as a full-color comic. It’s even in bold print. So I do feel justified in lavishing a few hundred words on BPD, since it’s what introduced me to Beth’s work. It’s a reasonably continuity-light strip, you can drop in anywhere, but the art quality sustains itself across the series, so you might as well start at the beginning. Or just buy the darn things in book form.
Lizardbeth’s Patreon page had some rapid evolution. Patreon, if you’re not familiar with it, has a few options on how to request payments–there’s the monthly option, great for regular content providers. There’s also the per-project (per-episode, per-post, per-painting…) option, where donors pick how much they want to pay per project, and the maximum amount they want to pay per month (a good idea if your artist makes, say, haiku. When she first launched her page, Lis chose “per livestream,” which is kind of compelling as a livestream is a great way to interact with an artist (she sings while sketching, BTW. I have mixed feelings about this.) After a while, though, predictability and ease of use won out–better to know how much funding you can expect during a given month, easier to explain to her funders (when asking for money, keep the end-user experience as hurdle-free as possible!), and basing your support structure on your artwork instead of a buggy piece of technology? Better still.
What’s in the future for Liz? She’s got some decent traction for a new Patreon artist, though it’s going to be a slow-growth process. Patreon is an excellent way to get out of a cycle of commissions and into the sort of art that built an audience to begin with, and as her monthly funding grows, we can expect to see a return to Broken Plot Device, as well as some top-secret webcomic projects with a little less fur in them. We’ll see!
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Thank you, Lis, for the illustration!
Furfunding Week in Review: 8-17-14
This week’s illustration is from Roo’s Chibi Character Sheet.
This is a silly little thing, but today I noticed that you can “feature” a pledge level in Indiegogo. Neat! I first stumbled across this in Mordrude’s Monster Manual. Now, normally, the prices and pledges are organized from, you know, the $1 “because you love us (expect NOTHING for your love) down to $27,000 “The creator will donate a kidney to save your child’s life.” But it’s easy to lose the, you know, $45 package that’s the meat-and-potatoes level.
With this bit of functionality, you can shove the feature price up to the top! Nifty :) A really clever little bit of usefulness, there!
Anyway, lots of projects this “week” considering I updated everything last Wednesday…
Reviews this week: Returning to the world of “FERAL” with Dr Dubz, and Mordred’s Monster Manual.
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For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page! New Projects ArtRoo’s DIY Character Concept Sheet (Ends: 9/9/2014)
Chibi character references and designs by MonsterRoo
MegaFauna (Ends: 9/9/2014)
A comic anthology about wild animals, pets and monsters. Not terribly furry, but interesting theme.
Owlgirls #2 (Ends: 9/22/2014)
A return of four creepy avian anthro detectives. Hard to explain.
I was amazed to see Owlgirls #1 at my local comic shop, but my local comic shop spends nearly as much time on Kickstarter as I do.
Feral: Part 2 (Ends: 9/27/2014)
DrDubz’s furry action manga returns for a second round of gritty, urban brutality. Already at goal!
Tricera Hi-Tops (Ends: 9/11/2014)
According to the project page, “solving society’s problem of a lack of wearable dinosaurs.”
Weirdly, this one’s nearly at goal.
Bronies! The Musical (Ends: 9/9/2014)
What can I say that isn’t summarized right there in the title?!
Super Fantastic Jurassick Parkour 4 (Ends: 9/12/2014)
Animation: the adventures of four anthro saurians.
Some projects I include because they’re funny, not because they’re going to succeed. Rather the opposite.
Monkey Horse Cop: Puppets with Guns (Ends: 9/21/2014)
I can’t explain this one. There’s a monkey and a horse and they’re made of foam and fluff.
Bad Decisions (Ends: 11/21/2014): A party game of, well, bad decisions, by Ian Price, who Kickstarted Kitsune: Foxes and Fools last year.
What’s Corbeau Backing This Week?Wondering if I can get enough pennies together to back “FERAL!”
DIY Monsters: Mordrude’s Monster Manual
Tips, tutorials, and walk-throughs for making realistic fursuits on a reasonable budget…
Indiegogo campaign ending 9/5/14
(note: I’m making much more liberal use of images from the artist’s galleries than usual, so worth saying: all images are the property of Mordrude and are used here for promotional purposes only.)
Over the last several months, my mate, Whines, has been working on a realistic hyena costume. For a newbie, the number of little challenges is vast–learning the Henson Stitch, constructing a base, casting a snout, working on cooling…months of work. And there are a lot of good tutorials here and there, but knowing where to look, who to trust, and what questions to ask is just as challenging as any of the many steps to project completion, particularly when one aims for realistic instead of cheerful mascot.
So it’s exciting to see so much advice and experience in one place, in Mordrude’s Monster Manual.
Mordrude has been building costumes for the furry community since 2010, and if you read her Terms of Service (and who doesn’t), it’s very specific in: “No mascots. Nope.” Her gallery and FA account are both chock full of critters, but she’s also generous with tutorials and walk-throughs, like the one below (the original is easier to read, but this will give a sense of her style.)
“Mordrude’s Monster Manual” is–or will be, it’s only $2000 away from its $7000 goal right now–a compilation and expansion of her tutorials, with a lot of depth and walk-throughs that her one-page format doesn’t allow for. A portion of the book is a walk-through of three fursuits (a sabre-tooth, a bull, and a wolf), each one available as one of the pledge points for the campaign. And hey, a signed copy of the book comes with the fursuit! Though at that point, I think your $3500 was probably more about the costume.
Walk-throughs in the book include textured pawpads, patterning, creating removable antlers, start to finish tips for designing, planning, and purchasing–and one that sounds amusingly halloweeny, casting jaws from a real skull.
There aren’t that many books about the fursuiter’s “trade,” and the ones that I’ve encountered have all had that uniquely “Adobe Pagemaker 2.1 on the library’s Mac” look, without a lot of glitz or photography. That Mordrude’s Monster Manual is a photocentric coffee table book as well as a reference just makes the project more compelling, a useful reference and something that’s a joy to flip through. I’m looking forward to this one.
Re-enter the Weaselfox: Feral II
A new contender fights her way toward her goal in a brutal urban arena…
Indiegogo campaign ending 9/27/14
So, I was a fan of Matt “DrDubz” Warwick’s original FERAL project from the moment I saw it on Indiegogo. At its heart, FERAL is a martial arts manga, with one-on-one combat, stuff and people getting all kinds of smashed up, a one-person vengeance crusade, and a solid balance of plot and some glorious brutality. Which, really, I don’t care much for as a category, but FERAL really stood out of the genre. I haven’t seen another furry action title with this level of professional artwork; the protagonist is a strong female lead with some actual, character-defining flaws; and I’m in it somewhere. I’d say where, but my housemate stole my copy. So if you have a copy of Feral Vol. 1, keep it away from wolves.
The campaign for Feral: Volume 2 just launched three days ago, and I’m chuffed to say as of this writing it’s $25 over its $2000 goal! Awesome! It’s also been accepted by the “Go Crowdfund Britain” campaign, a curated list of British campaigns touring around England and pimping local projects. Interesting concept.
Here’s the plot, super-brief: Protagonist Haley Rosa is a fighter and grifter, a new arrival to Alta City. Looking to make a place for herself, Rosa finds her way into the shadowy, semi-legal world of the FERAL fighting circuit–she has the power and skill to claw her way into a place in FERAL, but pride and rage don’t make a path lined with flower petals toward victory–the circuit is as much about honor and sportsmanship as blood and brutality. Rosa almost immediately pisses off the mountainous Dr. Brandt, undefeated champion of the FERAL circuit and nearly as influential in Alta City politics. Rosa has a long road ahead of her.
This is an unusually long post for me, and I talk about this later, but I’ll bring it up now too–check out the $100 pledge point. It’s a commission that will be included in the back of the book–but it’s also a FERAL style badge for your next con. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that before–first, the custom art is a part of the final product (awesome), and you can wear it later? Awesomer.
LOTS More about FERAL on the comic’s website, I also did a write-up of the first campaign, almost a year ago. And you know, while I could gush on about FERAL for another several paragraphs, I’m not–really, it speaks pretty well for itself! This is the third campaign for Feral, all of which have been pretty strong, and it’s rare to see something like this evolve.
Dubz’s first campaign was a forerunner to the FERAL manga (I’ll call it FERAL 0 here), a pilot that was reprised and expanded in Feral 1. A lot of the elements in the campaigns for #1 and #2 are laid out here–the kind of cameo roles you’d hope for in a furry comic project, but limited–one large fight scene for someone with deep pockets. An awesome pledge point–that’s some real screen time! But once it’s sold, no more walk-on pieces, so audience participation in the project is kind of limited.
One thing I see as a common bugaboo for new crowdfunders is a tendency to talk about the creator more than the project, which is the case here–a fair bit about the artist’s journey and process, a bit about the difficulty of juggling a large project against bread-and-butter daily stuff. There’s also a strangely barren look to the campaign–just one pic, giving the overall project a rushed feel. That being said, Dubz did really well, getting over 3/4 of his $4K goal. Pretty strong for a first attempt! While it didn’t make goal–$4000 is hard for an unknown–I’d see this as a successful campaign.
There’s some minor stuff here that evolves over time–Flexible Funding is turned on, which personally I always feel is Indiegogo’s security blanket–it feels good to hold onto, but isn’t something you’d take to a job interview. Still, Dubz says that regardless of funding the project is going to be launched, so there’s a chance that it’s appropriate here. There’s also a very short list of backer awards, a digital bundle, then jumping up to $50 for a signed copy of the manga with some extra goodies, then some “Cadillac” level stuff (commissions, etc.). Not a lot of options for customers doing their christmas smackdown shopping–and no “shopping cart” item that you can take home without feeling some pocketbook sting.
The campaign for Feral #1 has clearly learned a few things about presentation, personalization, and price points. LOTS of walk-on roles available–20 cameo appearances instead of just one long fight scene, and 10+ other opportunities for custom pieces that don’t actually appear in the book. The “cadillac” slots aren’t tied into the book itself–no glorious three-page smackdown with Hayley in the final product, but you get your own stand-alone titles, which is probably easier to manage. Overall, a huge increase in the amount of art on the page itself, more pledge points too. Awesomeness level raised by at least 20%, but overall goal raised to $6000 from $4000. Unfortunately the returns didn’t scale up, about the same amount of money raised from the campaign.Weirdly, there was the same number of backers in both campaigns, but it looks like the $200 commissions, good sellers from #0 weren’t as hot as the $70 walk-on crowd scene stuff in #1 , so those cheaper illos may have actually cost Dubz a bit of money from his overall goal? Hard to say. Overall, with only half the goal met, this doesn’t feel like a successful campaign, from an outsider point of view. The audience didn’t follow the artist with his expanded vision.
Feral #2 is out now, with some ch-ch-changes. I had a chance to see some earlier versions of the Indiegogo page, and it started with lot of fun graphics created for the campaign, giving it a whimsical look and feel–the revision Dubz put together still has some of that unified look, but the art is grittier and more relevant to the dark tone of the book itself. Both are valid options, but for a newbie, this is more informative. Either way, the graphics designed for the campaign really help the professional tone of the project page. Most of the text is focused on the project itself (that’s good!) with lots of gritty details.
Pledge points: Dubz seems to have been compensating for that weird $70 shift with the price points, with an interesting hybrid: $100 commissions that will be included in the back of the book. I’m…I’m tempted by this. They’re also badges, which is pretty neat, since badges are the great furry underground economy. Those have been pretty popular, carrying a lot of the weight of the project’s funding beyond the big one-off $700 price point.
Of the three campaigns, this one has the lowest goal, but it’s fixed funding, not flexible–so Dubz gets about 5% more money from this one. $2000 may not be his ultimate goal–it looks more like at its heart this is a $5000 campaign–but the lower goal costs less to process, with fewer fees, and gives the audience a sense of satisfaction and being part of a winning team, which is a Good Thing overall.
Images used in this post are owned by the creator and are used with something resembling tacit approval possibly. He certainly knows what I’m up to. And THANK YOU for the pic of Corbeau, Dubz :)
Furfunding Week in Review 8-12-14
This week’s illustration is from Deer Editor by Ryan K Lindsay, now on Kickstarter
I can’t tell you how much my heart broke when I went back to Indiegogo and saw that the crowdfunding project for Dashcon 2015 was taken down, probably because it was a scam. I was going to write a rather long post about it, too.
As an exercise to the reader, how could you actually tell a real Dashcon crowdfunding page from a scam, anyway?
Reviews this week: werewolves and scientists in Bleeding Heart, and a handful of assorted bear-related projects
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For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page! New Projects Books/PrintMordrude’s Monster Manual: A Guide to Realistic Costumes (Ends: 9/5/2014)
Anatomy and costuming come together in this neat volumn on realistic animal costume design by Mordrude’s Monsters
Griffin Ranger (Ends: 9/6/2014)
An investigative fantasy novel by Rgibson set in a world of griffins
Sloth in the City (Ends: 9/10/2014)
A sloth goes to explore the big city in this cute illustrated book.
Bleeding Heart (Ends: 9/3/2014)
A graphic novel about an injured werewolf, an amateur mad scientist, and good intentions. Mostly.
Deer Editor (Ends: 9/10/2014)
Part noir, part procedural, part slice of life crime novel, part Bambi. Journalitic editor Bucky investigates a Jon Doe (snerk) killing, and then goes down the rabbit hole of political intrigue and….murder.
Catsville High: The Movie (Ends: 9/11/2014)
Erg :( Another anthro activism animation for all your alliterative needs. Peer pressure, bullying, and really, really bad felines.
I really don’t care for this one, but it’s too interesting to toss.
Let there be Dragons! (Ends: 10/8/2014)
Chainmail and scale jewelry, bracelets, necklaces, with a light dragon theme.
Chibi Pony Adventurers (Ends: 8/28/2014)
Tiny cute little ponies for your tabletop games. There are now more pony miniatures than elves, I think.
Over goal!
Happy Dragons! (Ends: 10/3/2014)
Ceramic dragon statues with big eyes by Nina Bolen
Woolf: The Red Hood Diaries (Ends: 9/4/2014)
A moody, cinematic fairytale platformer with drama and lots of wolves.
Umdlalo (Ends: 9/5/2014)
A beautiful indie RPG/animal sidekick game set in prehistoric Africa
This game’s concept art is BEAUTIFUL but it will never make that funding goal :(
Witanlore: Dreamtime (Ends: 9/7/2014)
Contracting artists for a fantasy RPG set in the world of ursines, humanoid bears in a highland setting
Cat Boop (Ends: 9/13/2014)
Arguably the dumbest video game app of the last two weeks. You bap pictures of kittens with your cat paw. Yay!
Dreamkeepers: Vol. 4 (Not yet launched): In a colorful world, our alter-egos protect our sleeping selves from nightmare. Vol. 4 coming soon to Kickstarter.
…Just for funBear Senpai: Date The Bear of Your Dreams (Ends: 10/9/2014): A dating sim with bears. Real bears. Not those other bears.
What’s Corbeau Backing This Week?Currently we are funding a car and our mate has taken our wallet from us. But if we were funding something this week, it would probably be Bleeding Heart, because hey, steampunk and werewolves. We would also like to scrounge $75 or so for “Bare Strength” for research purposes but there probably haven’t been that many innovations in the cutting-edge field of “men not wearing pants” so that can probably wait.
What big teeth you have…Bleeding Heart
A scientist in training finds a wounded werewolf in the woods, and does the inadvisable thing…
Kickstarter ending 9/3/14
So, this isn’t how I wanted to begin this particular post, but the crowdfunder, Sabrina Cotungo, has a history of working on and in animation (and is a storyboard artist for a Disney series…). Her animated short video, “Kagemono,” features an adorable little fox and what just might be an undead hyena, and I’m so tickled by both that I must encourage the world to see them. It’s a great animated piece, sweet and just a bit haunting, and I can only hope it speaks well for the quality of Bleeding Heart!
But that’s not why we’re here. Although it is a good excuse.
Bleeding Heart is the story of a young scientist-in-training–we’ll call him Henry because that’s his name. He’s got a soft heart and a dreamer’s head, and when he goes into the woods–the possibly haunted, fairy-infested woods–he finds an injured werewolf in the dark forest.
And brings the beast home.
What follows in the short graphic novel is a story of identity, brass goggles (oh, I hope), self-understanding, and possibly a lot of angst about not becoming a monster. The magic of the forest has its own sort of spell, and the further Henry involves himself in the woods and its people, the more his own spirit becomes at risk. Bleeding Heart is the first part of a webcomic of scientists, experiments, and awesome hair–more information on the series “Glass Scientists” on artist Sabrina Cotugno’s art blog tumblr. It’s the solid, hold-in-your-hand book that will kick off the webcomic and introduce readers to the world. After that, we’ll see where Cotugno’s muse takes her.
Wherever it goes, she’s got an impressive head start–after a week, the project reached $10,000, schottischeing past most of the critical stretch goals Cotungo laid out. Unfortunately, she also burned through all her work-intensive, customized pledge points, which is a pity, but the trade-off is that the project’s a winner early in the run, so that’s a good thing. And there’s still lots of nice swag–bookmarks and stickers and all that fun stuff.
So if you like your werewolves huge, salivating, and engimatic, and your scientists gentle and doe-eyed–I’m flashing back to Carlos from “Welcome to Night Vale” over this guy–then Henry and Bleeding Heart has a lot to offer. Although the plot is highly reminiscent of a werewolf yaoi I stumbled across at our local comic store–at least the first couple of pages, at some point in the middle the content went down a different road entirely. Probably.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
…Da bears
I was pretty sure that this week’s main post was going to be about bears.
In fact, I kind of thought it would be about “Bear Senpai” (Kickstarter ending 10/9/14), which has the potential to be a really good joke–a bear dating sim, where you flirt with, say, polar bears. But it looks like it isn’t going to lift itself above “pretty good joke” into actual fundraising territory.
And then, “Witanlore.”
Witanlore
Kickstarter ending 9/7/14
Witanlore has the potential to be one of the prettiest games I’ve seen on Kickstarter in a long time. It’s driven by Unreal4, so unlike a lot of the recent “develop this entire video game from the ground up” crowdfunders, this one’s got a firm starting position, working with a well-supported platform instead of building from scratch. Hopefully Witanlore can emerge from development looking fresh instead of derivative–the concept art looks pretty exceptional, anthropomorphic bears with tribal markings and costumes, rich backgrounds, stoic polar bears, mystic-warrior grizzlies, pandas so zen they may have smoked something illegal, and what looks like a steampunk zombie wolf.
All video games released past 2015 are required to use steampunk zombie wolves in some capacity, for proper meme compliance.
Plot in brief: You are a young Ursine, just on the brink of adulthood. Traditionally, all Ursines go on their visionquest, a fairly cut-and-dried operation–fast for a few days, if you’re a panda smoke more of whatever you’ve been smoking, and then go off into the Dreamtime spirit world, meet your god–not GOD, but your tribal house god–get a few useful pieces of helpful life advice, come back, everybody has a big seafood dinner. This time, however–you ARE the lead character in a video game–your divine program guide is interrupted by visions of a shadowy, malevolent figure (hint: steampunk zombie wolf), an ancient mcguffin, threats to clan and home…all that good stuff. After that, journey of exploration, deep dives into tribal history, fighting against prophecy, and possibly looking beyond the little island the Ursines call home.
And you look pretty damn awesome doing it.
Looking at the kickstarter itself, one major point going in its favor: instead of bankrolling the entire game, Druid Gameworks is focusing their campaign on: art, specifically freelance artists for character and concept art (which I guess is most of the art besides landscape…) With a limited scope to the campaign they can have an attainable goal of $9000–it doesn’t preclude higher goals, but it gives a smaller number that supporters can feel confident in backing. (On the other hand, the rewards lack a certain special sparkle–mostly standard swag and game access. The tee at the highest possible level of support seems just a bit “an hour in the ball pit” to this dog….unless it’s a really good tee.)
Now, if we’re done BEING bears, maybe we can read about them.
Bear Book
Kickstarter ending 10/9/14
I don’t really have a whole lot to say about Bear Book except the screamingly, “read the Kickstarter” obvious. Written by Gloria Bowen and illustrated by Kris Lewis (AKA “Mythmeoi“), a Disney-esque illustrator with a great sense for motion, wildlife, and disgusting cuteness, Bear Book is a children’s rhyming book loaded with bears from around the world. If you want cute, and if you love bears, there is no shortage of either in Bowen’s project.
This should be illegal.
The kickstarter’s standard for a children’s book launch–though it does something that I think you couldn’t do until Kickstarter2.0, which is giving product away to a good cause–the highest pledge levels ($100, $350) are more about giving the book away rather than cool swag, sending copies to libraries, community centers, and so on. It’s nice to see a little bit of outreach in crowdfundingland!
Overall this project is short, simple, and self-explanatory, but the video’s worth a view for the absolute, unadulturated cuteness of the thing. Unfortunately there’s not a lot about the language of the book on the project page, but the artwork has a lot of heart.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review: 8-3-14
This week’s illustration is from the embarrassingly-named “Steamy Chums,” now on Kickstarter
Lots of conversations about Patreon this week–it’s kind of an artist’s dream, to be paid for the kind of work they want to do rather than the kind of work they feel they have to do. I’m not an artist, so if “feel” is inapproriate there, my apologies–but the world of commissions seems like a trap, and maybe Patreon-style funding–not tied to custom work, but to an artist’s commitment to her fans–is a way to escape that trap.
I’ll be writing a long rambling blog entry about Patreon soon, it’s fascinating. As someone who’s currently writing two blogs and always experimenting with a third, it’s certainly got its appeal.
A quick callout for a cute project with a dubious name, “Steamy Chums“–cute little designer toys, patterned after classic stuffed animals with a steampunk edge and a generous dollop of insanity. Onward, marching tiktok bear army!
Reviews this week or week-like cycle: Alectorfencer’s fantasy, “Myre”
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Audio/MusicVaati & Veselekov by Tanooki Suit (Ends: 8/31/2014)
I’m not sure how to go about classifying Tanooki Suit‘s music. Post-Hardcore electronic ambient screamrock?
Okay, the furry connection here’s just the band name, but they’re loud and fun. Enjoying the song Kaiju at the moment.
Punnies (Ends: 9/30/2014)
Intensely silly animal-pun illustrations by Lynn Hunter with a little poetry.
This is much better than it has any right to be!
Myre: The Beginning of A Journey (Ends: 9/17/2014)
Volume 1 of Alectorfencer‘s epic fantasy graphic novel series. Really one of those “see to believe things.”
Check my blog review for more….
Lizardbeth’s Patreon Campaign (Patreon ongoing funding)
Art and illustration from Lizardbeth, possibly with a reboot of the Broken Plot Device webcomic in the works!
Fabulous Foxy Furs (Ends: 8/27/2014)
A mom-and-pop couple making furry accessories with exotic faux furs from New York. More on Furaffinity.
Sonic the Comic Con (Ends: 8/16/2014)
British convention themed around Sonic: The Hedgehog: The Comic. Past goal!
…specific!
Operation Alley Cat (Ends: 8/22/2014)
A very Secret of Nimhy 30-minute featurette of an orphan mouse and a dark underworld.
Hmm. Some of that sample artwork probably shouldn’t have made the cut. Still, good luck. Very Don Bluth!
The Fandom Project 1: Furries (Ends: 9/12/2014)
Part one of a six-part documentary project on major fandoms
High goal and +Flexible Funding is not a good combination, I’d like to see this one come back with a stronger business plan.
The Pen (Ends: 9/14/2014)
Animation: The dirty, dirty lives of a trio of teacup yorkies, of all things…
Werewolf: Full Moon Expansion (Ends: 8/16/2014)
There are *so* many Werewolf projects on Kickstarter…but this one has pretty artwork, so that’s a thing.
I haven’t quite figured out what draws people toward making this game sooo much more complicated.
Rise of the Draconids minis (Ends: 9/6/2014)
Little anthro dragon warriors for your tiny dragon warrior gaming needs
Steamy Chums (Ends: 8/31/2014)
Handmade designer animal toys with a steampunk aesthetic. Lots of foxes!
Gryphon Knight (Ends: 8/31/2014)
A sidescrolling shoot-em-up with warriors on gryphons.
The Clans: Saga of the Twins (Ends: 9/1/2014)
Comedic RPG featuring kitsune, cat-girls, and a few other standards…
Adonia: Age of Elementalists ()
a Trainer/fighting game, but with engagingly anthro beasties.
Corgies are Assholes website (Ends: 8/22/2014)
This ain’t getting funded, but it’s funny. Corgies: overrated jerks, or total asses? You be the judge.
Videos by Ace of Hearts (Patreon ongoing funding)
Fun podcasts and fursuit vids by Ace of Hearts Fox
Power our Tiger Cams (Ends: 8/19/2014): “Help us track the animals” projects are really common, but this one’s unusually well-done. Yay tigers!
…Just for funThe Snow Dog (Ends: 8/9/2014): Children’s theater, a strange frozen story featuring a very intense-looking siberian husky!
Toteme (Ends: 8/31/2014): Quirky and elegant indie iphone/android game where YOU play a totem pole. Live the dream.
Raising the Profile of Video Game Music (Ends: 9/1/2014): An academic analysis of video game music.
Animal Fusion Café (Ends: 9/21/2014): It’s a petting zoo AND a coffee shop. I’m so there. Except it’s in Singapore. So slightly less so.
What’s Corbeau Backing This Week?Current crowdfunding dollars: an ongoing contribution to Lizbeth’s patreon, I’d love to see more of her fun webcomic. A few dollars toward “Widdershins,” a “comic featuring adventure, magic, time travel, and an excessive amount of baked goods.” And a few dollars toward Alectorfencer’s “Myre” as soon as I can convince Paypal I still exist, they don’t believe me anymore :(
New frontiers in lush–Alectorfencer’s Myre
A graphic novel journey into another world with a reluctant heroine and her dragon…
Indiegogo campaign ends 9/14/14
I had the pleasure of seeing Alectorfencer, 2 the Gryphon, and FoxAmoore together to launch this project at Anthrocon. They had graciously agreed to share their space with Amadhia Albee’s Kaze: Winds of Change project, but it almost seemed unfair–they were bringing an entire world to the table.
Myre–name of protagonist, name of series–is a three-part graphic novel series written and illustrated by the phenomenal artist, Alectorfencer. If you’re not familiar with her work, it’s amazing, rich and detailed illustrations right off the front cover of OMG Fantasy magazine. “Myre” is five years in the making, and given the level of love in the work we’ve seen, may be somewhat slow to release as well–but you can’t really argue with beautiful.
The basics: Myre is a dragon-riding nomad, caught in a web of fate and prophecy, on a path to change the world. Simple statement, complex world, again you kind of have to take a look at Alectorfencer’s recent art to see how rich her setting is. (As a slightly cynical aside, I’m a little tired of the hero/heroine template, “X is the only Y to ever Z”, in this case “Myre is the only nomad to ever befriend and ride a dragon,” it’s just a little easy and I personally feel it isn’t that significant of a statement in fantasy anymore, but a trope is a trope, and they look like a neat pair of characters.)
I’m going to have to come back to how magnificent the setting is. And that’s clearly a big sell point, a “Let’s explore this amazing world together.” If you watch the video (music by FoxAmoore), there’s a lot of setting love there, so it’s not just me. Some really amazing stuff–this picture of staggeringly large elephant things sold me immediately, it reminded me of something from one of my other favorite realistic fantasy artists, Wayne Barlow and his “Inferno” illustration series. Maybe not the most flattering comparison points, but it stuck with me.
So far as the kickstarter itself goes, you’re probably too late to pick up some of the amazing customized offerings, maybe she’ll open up a few more of those–but there’s a really interesting perk available to anyone who donates at the…uh…€30 tier, a podcast devoted to exploring the world of Myre, hosted by none other than 2 the Ranting Griffon. Neat! I don’t recall seeing anything like this before, the “access to developer blog” is nice but not exactly unique.
I did find the pledge points a little confusing, partially because there was a lot of copy in each description that could have been a little lighter, partially because some of the goals mentioned all three volumes, but the lower level ones were just for the first volume, and there didn’t seem to be a pledge point for the hardbound release.
There are a few of the perk, “The author will craft you a leatherbound copy of the project herself” left, which would be an amazing treasure for a true Alectorfencer fan. The price point is high, €2000, but within what I’ve come to see as standard for the ultra-rare, “touched by the artist” pledge point.
The real pain point for me, though, is going to be the wait for the books! It’s a long, long journey to finis here, but Alectorfencer’s built a strong base to take her down that road. Good luck!
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review 7-20-14
This week’s illustration is from the cute mythological card deck “Mythic Chibi Playing Cards,” now on Kickstarter
The endless stream of “potato salad” projects seems to be abating on Kickstarter, which is a good thing, although now Indiegogo is being infected with them.
In the final analysis, the only strength Kickstarter has–which is major–is that it sorts things by date. This is super-helpful if you want to see everything that’s being crowdfunded, but with tons of random stuff clogging up the pipe, maybe less meaningful. Indiegogo has a few useful tools Kickstarter doesn’t–an image gallery, the ability to have multiple members of your team, Paypal (in our youth-dominated fandom, this is a minor but solid edge)…I personally think their “flexible funding” thing is not a benefit at all, since people use it as the default without really considering the hit they can take to their credibility and business plan.
Yap, yap, yap. The two platforms seemed to have arrived at a consensus on the “anything goes!” front. This means that Kickstarter will probably be MUCH more friendly to adult projects, which is helpful for many artists. But on the other paw, there really isn’t a “professional face of crowdfunding” anymore, which maybe a sign that the bubble isn’t burst, but maybe the balloon is deflating.
Reviews this week: Zhivagod’s DIY character reference sheet, FCLG’s animated short, and Sand and Shadows, the sequel to “Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb.”
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Art/PhotographyZhivago’s Ultimate Reference Sheet (Ends: 8/18/2014)
A new edition of Zhivagod‘s DIY Character Reference Sheet photoshop project, a walk-through to help anyone make their own anthro reference sheet–with feral options as the stretch goal!
Audiobook: Captive of the Red Vixen (Ends: 8/15/2014)
Audio book version of the furry romance novel from the Red Vixen Adventures series.
Check the author on livejournal.
Children’s Products
Mr Dog’s Christmas at the Hollow Tree Inn (Ends: 8/14/2014)
Victorian-art inspired graphics make this Christmas story lively and intensely creepy. Mr. Dog tells his friends about the story of Santa Claus.
Wuffle the Big Nice Wolf Year 1 (Ends: 7/20/2014)
Friendly, retro-anime wolves, foxes, and other furries by Piti Yindee
I think this was funding on IndieGogo like three months ago, but it’s supercute…
Magicorn (Ends: 8/7/2014)
A soft plush unicorn hood/scarf with golden horn and pastel rainbow mane.
Whimsical Acrylic Charms (Ends: 8/9/2014)
Cute little cartoon fantasy-inspired charms.
I should just go and make charms their own category. Really.
Poke’pins (Ends: 8/12/2014)
Tiny little pokemon buttons by YasukawaDesu
Forever, Rabbit (Ends: 8/11/2014)
Indie film about an introverted fellow who works as a rabbit mascot for a local flower shop, falling in love and/or obsession.
Anime FcLife Ep 2 (Ends: 8/31/2014)
A charming, cheerful animation of a group of furries and their friends, based on the FCLG artist group’s comics. Check Episode 1.
The Deer God (Ends: 7/23/2014)
3D/pixel metroidvania-Ecco the Dolphin game about surviving as a deer.
Much less creepy than Goat Simulator. And well past goal!
Zippin Quest: The Dark Kingdom (Ends: 8/15/2014)
Zelda/Metroid inspired game, a mouse warrior on a 2D quest.
GREAT concept art, but who knows what that’ll translate into.
Inherit the Earth: Sand and Shadows (Ends: 8/19/2014)
point and click game and webcomic in a future where humans have vanished, and the dominant species are tribes of anthro animals.
Sequel to “”
Kaze: Winds of Change (Ends: 8/4/2014)
Illustrated audio drama prequel for the 2004 animated short, Kaze: Ghost Warrior
Full disclosure, this is my pet project. So please donate $32000 right now so I don’t have to do it again!
Blaine Blows His Top Children’s Book Series (Ends: 7/31/2014): A children’s book series about figures of speech, art by Chibi-Marrow
…Just for funPhoenix – Dragon Mutant Vehicle (Ends: 8/5/2014): Every year amazing projects drift across the Playa at Burning Man. Check out this amazing dragon art car.
What’s Corbeau Backing This Week?
Current crowdfunding dollars going to Eliza Rickman’s quirky new album, which I stumbled across in the Night Vale fandom. I’ve got my fingers crossed for Pacific Hotline’s debut album–I *think* they’re both furries, but mostly I love 80s retro! And, of course, Terrene Odyssey, I’ve been watching this project for over a year now and really want to see it take off…finally :) Good luck, Chris!
The Meek Shall Inherit a Sequel: Sand and Shadows
After 20 years, a return to the post-apocalyptic/medieval world of “Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb”…
Inherit the Earth: Sand and Shadows
Kickstarter ending 8/19/14
The year is 1994, and computer graphics are what you’d expect them to be. “Dark Stalkers” spawns a few years of well-justified John Talbain/Galon rule 34, Sonic meets Tails, and things were kind of pixellated and grainy, but we didn’t know any better. Enter “Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb.”
The time: the unknowable future. Humanity is a thing of the past, having, according to Wiki, wiped itself out with a biological weapon. However many years later, Earth’s animals have established a medieval society in the wreckage, and humans are something of a myth, even a religion.
If you haven’t followed the original game, you might want to skim over the webcomic, which expands on and recaps the plot of the game and world. The game’s available online or (I think?) on portable devices, clever people can find a copy somewhere, and a trial version is available on the Kickstarter. The story runs something like, “Rif, a fox, goes to the Big City (well, plot-centric village) to compete in a puzzle contest, but when the Orb of Storms–an old human techno-relic–is stolen, he’s accused, and goes on a quest to find the relic and its thief.” Oh, the puzzles that will be solved.
That was some years ago, and rumors are surfacing about the original orb surviving, and a terrible drought that is almost certainly tied to the orb’s weather-related functions. Rif sets out on another journey, this time with MUCH smoother graphics and a wider world.
At its heart, Inherit the Earth: Sand And Shadows is the child of its ancestor: a point-and-click game, lots of dialog and conversation, lots of puzzles. The original game was set up for a sequel, maybe even a trilogy–what happened to the orb? Where are the humans?–and left on something of an open “The End…Or Is It?” note. So hopefully Sand and Shadows will answer a lot of questions.
The Kickstarter project itself? It’s strong. The pledge points are everything you’d hope for from a video game launch that’s targeting an established fan base. At low levels, some good swag–posters, a reasonably affordable “your character here” in the game as a background element ($600, a good price for this sort of thing, from what I’ve seen), with appropriately saliva-inducing bells at the high end: a speaking role in the game, attending the game’s launch party with travel expenses (!), and other good stuff. The stretchgoals are textbook, but in a good way: mobile device support, extra cut scenes, extra languages (I’d personally want that Android support at a lower level–or even as the starting point, the look and feel of the game really lends itself to portable devices.)
Criticism? I don’t really have any major ones. From an uneducated non-programmer perspective, as I said, I think the game lends itself well to portable devices, and that might be a better starting point, but I’m not remotely qualified to say whether that’s actually a good idea or not. One point made of the original game that may still be true, is that it has some very adult ideas and a “ages 11 and up” target audience, which may not be a viable audience range (particularly with the way anthro subject matter draws the target age downward, at least to the non-furry audience member.)
That, and the goal is going to be a challenge, and a long road. Games can meet the “crowdfunding for the actual cost of the game” goal, Armello managed it, but they had a strong launch campaign and seemed to capture a lot of audiences at once–board gaming convention goers, the greater video game community, and probably some furries as well. With Inherit it seems like their primary ask is to their existing fanbase, and that’s not going to bring in the money to hit that high, $160K goal.
Regardless! If you want to see this project succeed, it’s going to need retweets and reposts. Consider leaving a comment on their main page–that sort of thing helps the project look stronger on Kickstarter’s analytical engine. Talk it up–on the kickstarter page, and on your own social media–conversation goes a long way toward keeping the project viable through the full campaign.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Did you take your insulin? AnimeFcLife V2
The end of a chapter: The FCLG art collective tells its last story…
Anime FcLife! Vol2
Indiegogo Campaign ending 8/31/14
From Tokyo to YouTube, this is the second animated short, and probably the last, from FCLG. Here’s the first one, it’s supercute and reasonably short…
FCLG is an art collective operating in Tokyo specializing in anthro/kemono art. The core team of FCLG you can meet in their cartoon, as they struggle to make a Manga and eat chocolate. I’m not very clear on what actually happened, but there was DEFINITELY manga and chocolate involved. The group’s been around a while, they’ve had a FurAffinity page since at least 2009 so presumably have been kicking around since before then.
I had to look up a few words here–”doujinshi” in particular, which is a general term for self-published amateur comics, magazines, etc etc. Which goes a long way to explaining the video, but there’s elements that don’t translate so well–like how natural amateur manga is in a country where people grow up with anime and manga. It seems like the fanfic community is a close analogy, but nothing is ever a perfect match, particularly cross-cultural fandom references.
Anyway! It sounds like this may be the end of FCLG, as their indiegogo page suggests that this might be their last collaboration, and a bit of a swan song in that regard, and they certainly intend to go out with a splash. If you’re a fan of anime, kemono, interested in the artistic process, or just like brightly-colored moving things–I know I do–check the video, and consider helping FCLG in this one last push.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
DIY Foxes: Zhivago’s Universal Ref Sheet
Kickstarter ends 8/18/14
Reference sheets are expensive. They’re not just a simple illustration of a character, but in many cases an artistic ordeal, an exercise in getting it just right. Every darn marking, the exact eye color, and why does a lion-iguana have a cutie mark anyway?
Zhivago’s reasonably user-friendly DIY ref sheet has been helping furs build their own references since 2012. It’s a complex-but-not-overwhelmingly-complex Photoshop file with lots of options for ears, tails, hairstyles, head shapes, for male and female anthro characters. It’s pretty solid. Granted, if you’re playing, oh, a hairless dog–not that anybody would do that–there’s going to be some challenges, but from what I’ve seen puttering around the fandom, most of the complexity is in coloration, and Zhivago’s got an admirable base to work from.
With thanks to ISinMuffin for the thumbnail of “Gavin”
The kickstarter–which is a great example of a conservative, small-fund project, the sort of thing that Kickstarter2014 really lends itself to–is expanding the concept of the original, with more hairstyles, more “accessories” (tail styles, ear types, etc.), a few more species–and then taking a few steps beyond “more goodies” to add digitigrade vs plantigrade options, back views, front facial views, and even–if the stretch goals allow–feral versions.
Not a lot to say on this “short and sweet” Kickstarter, it’s a nice little project, and fans of photoshop will enjoy poking around with the original until 3.0 comes out! If you’re already looking around for a reference sheet anyway, check out that $200 level.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review 7-13-14
Today’s illustration is from the Kickstarter campaign “Water Dragons and Other Aquatic Creatures” by Jessica Feinberg
Back from Anthrocon! What a treat! One of the highlights for me was an excellent panel on business for furry artists by the artist of the biz/art webcomic, “Three Jaguars.” Her website is totally worth a review, with loads of great advice for artists seeking to monetize, and of course crowdfunding. I figured that crowdfunding would be a major chunk of discussion and made a friendly effort to get on her panel as a speaker, but she wasn’t having any of it. Fair enough, she did a great job, let me talk a bit–I’ll be borrowing heavily from her for Texas Furry Fiesta 2014 though!
Amadhia Albee, animator and creator of Kaze: Ghost Warrior (check it on YouTube) had her launch panel–there was some scheduling SNAFUs and we didn’t make it onto the schedule app, unfortunately, but it was a nice event, and I got to be on stage with her, since we’ve been collaborating on the kickstarter for her new audio drama set in Kaze’s world. After a week, we’re almost to what I personally believe is the campaign’s goal of $2300! So exciting, and SUCH an immense timesink :) This project is the main reason I’ve been slow to update the blog, and I thank you for your patience.
Not a lot to actually say about this one because its’s not officially a “thing” yet, but if you are a fan of AlectorFencer’s furry/fantasy art, you’ll be interested in her upcoming graphic novel project, “Myre.” Overall, it sounds a bit like something from the “Labyrinth” school–creative dreamer gets lost in fantasy world–but instead of a world, AlectorFencer promises us a universe. I’ll absolutely be doing a full write-up of this project, the illustrations are lush and the world is ambitious.
Expect Myre to launch in late July. FoxAmoore and 2 the Gryphon were there for the project’s panel discussion, lots of big names, and an ambitious new book. Please join me in supporting this one.
And a little update from an old friend, the team behind “Terrene Odyssey” is taking another tilt at the crowdfunding windmill for their turn-based, JRPG style game, loaded with dragons and bird-folk and elves and explosions. I’ve been following this project for well over a year now, the team is very enthusiastic and it’s a neat product, particularly if you’re a fan of “Final Fantasy” and other such games. I didn’t do a new article about Terrene Odyssey because I really covered it pretty well back in the day, but did touch up my original review of the project to include their new information. A few months ago they sent me a bundle of swag from the game, one of the “updates” may show me playing merry Christmas in July with the bag of goodies :) Look for a dork with a ponytail, but that may not be helpful. Good luck, guys!!
On a frustrating note, everything I know about Kickstarter is wrong now, they’ve revamped their policies to allow ANY project through their doors, except fundraising for charities. There’s some plusses to this, but in a week it turned my beloved Kickstarter, which gets more of my time and affection than my patient, patient mate does, into a comedy website, loaded with joke projects. The tide seems to be slowing somewhat, but for all practical purposes Kickstarter and Indiegogo are identical now…and frankly, Indiegogo has better tools. I never thought I’d say that, but…strange times.
New ProjectsFor a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Art
Skull Swag (Ends: 8/8/2014)
The latest sticker project from Skulldog, featuring creepy creepy monsters!
Water Dragons & Other Rare Aquatic Creatures (Ends: 8/10/2014)
Rich and colorful and vaguely 80s images of water dragons and other undersea mythologicals, book, playing cards, and more.
Pacific Hotline’s debut EP (Ends: 7/22/2014)
An 80s-dance inspired two-furry group releasing their new EP
Little is Left to Tell (Ends: 8/2/2014)
A “talking animals” style book, stories told by a man with dementia–a rabit that must eat pages from books in order to speak, Virginia the Wolf trying to draw her daughters home with her last novel and holding them captive for readings…strange, magical stuff.
The Book of Dragons (Ends: 8/8/2014)
A colorful graphic novel retelling of Edith Nesbit’s “The Book of Dragons”
Raru’s Gift (Ends: 7/22/2014)
A children’s book about a mother, and grandmother’s, story. Elegant work by a new artist.
Mad World (Ends: 7/30/2014)
Not so furry, but a surreal dream-fantasy about an artist lost in an alternate world.
But there are cat-girls and crow-guys, so it counts.
Samurai Chef V.2 (Ends: 8/8/2014)
Anime action for foodies in “Samurai Chef,” by the art/fashion collaboration “Mayamada”
IdleStatus: Splitting Hares (Ends: 8/8/2014)
Web-to-print comic about a purple hare with dog fangs (?), his love, and a villian. From the webcomic
Awesome Posum (Ends: 8/11/2014)
A natural science anthology collecting short edumacational comics together for your science use.
Cute Things (Ends: 8/7/2014)
Exceptionally cute anime/chibi sculpted charms. Watch the video.
Fish of the World (Ends: 8/9/2014)
Cartoony/chibi anthro kittens and the many ways they use fish in their day to day lives. Bookmarks and charms.
Magnesium-Empire (Ends: 8/9/2014)
Garments (mostly for ladies, unfortunately!) decorated with intricate highly reflective designs. These would look amazing under a strobe light!
No, not furry, but I would totally wear this if I was a skinny raver.
Birds N Bones Jewelry (Ends: 8/16/2014)
Jewelry collection inspired by dragons (and other animals, but…dragons!)
More of the artists’ range of work at their business home page
Simon’s Cat “Off to the Vet” (Ends: 8/6/2014)
A full-color treatment for a new episode of the supercute cat series from Youtube channel
Animating the Soul (Ends: 8/7/2014)
A return to funding for animation/anthro movie about the artists that bring anthros to life.
I believe this is the third IGG campaign for this film, they’ve broken up their goal into bite-size chunks but…donor fatigue.
Wolf short horror film (Ends: 8/9/2014)
A moody psychodrama about a woman who discovers that she can commit an evil act, edited to look like a dreamy 80s low-budget.
I think this is a ‘werewolves as metaphor’ film, but the Kickstarter page itself has great illustrations.
TRIX.IM in Light Magic (Ends: 8/11/2014)
?! I’m still trying to decode this one–looks like an anthro movie filmed entirely in the film clip loops from raves.
I’m really only including this because the video is really, really bizaare. I don’t understand any of it. Old dogs, new tricks and all.
Mythic Chibi playing cards (Ends: 8/4/2014)
Charming anime-esque playing card deck in a world of chibi mythological creatures by artist KIWI
Terrene Odyssey: Turn-based RPG game (Ends: 8/21/2014)
My original review of this beautiful card game here. Tactics game inspired by JRPG style turn-based games with slow experience build, end-boss type mechanics, and so much more!
Strawberry Drellie Plushie (Ends: 8/13/2014)
Cuddly little stuffed fruit-dragons. Avocado dragon at the $20K Stretch Goal.
Amorous (Patreon Ongoing Funding)
Patreon ongoing funding (?) for an upcoming westernized dating sim set in a furry universe, with fuzzier lines between genders and orientations and such. Good artwork and rendering.
Art by Jasonafex
Enter the Dragon (and Bird): Terrene Odyssey
A tactical card game inspired by classic Japanese RPGs…
Note: This is an older post that I’ve updated with new information. FYI. Apologies if there are minor inconsistencies, please review the kickstarter itself for the latest!
Terrene Odyssey
It’s been just over a year since game designer Chris Solis launched Terreria Tactics, Terrene Odyssey’s first incarnation. Now the tactical fantasy card game is back, with a leaner plan, pocket-sized price points, and a strong showing on day one. And it’s still a great game.
Here’s the principle, one that’s going to be familiar to fans of the early Final Fantasy and Ultima-type games: everything comes down to how you build your party, so your winning plan begins on turn zero. Each player (and the game seats two to four) builds a tight four-member party, equipping each member with an item or a command card. Round it out with a location that subtly affects how your characters spend actions and evolve (the same party might play differently based in a ruined city, windy plateau, or fish-market). Bam, you’re ready for your first skirmish.
Just on the surface, there’s a lot to like. First and foremost, the art of Terrene Odyssey is pretty darn cool, particularly for fans of dragons and raptors. You can take a look at Terrene’s Deviant Art gallery or art lead Megan “Megillakitty” Cheever’s FA page for a few more glimpses of the world. It’s not just lizards and birds of course, there’s also humans, aliens, golems, robots, and extradimensional weirdness. But they’re really good dragons.
The game’s rules strongly emphasize player agency (strategic play) over chance. You can get a good look at them on the team’s youtube channel, or just dig straight into the rulebooks–but really, the videos are a better friendly guided tour, whisking you through game play basics, the ten character classes/types, card types, and some advanced concepts to shake the game up–I particularly like the “supply” mechanic, where as game play moves forward, you start with four one-supply-point proles, then advance toward competent “adventurer” type characters that have a modest array of abilities, and finally, three-point “end boss” characters, giving a real sense of an epic, monster-stomp showdown.
The new product structure is built around two sets of two card selections, built within a broad theme–the forces of one of four powerful nobles. Each package has enough variety to build a few different parties and decks, so you’re able to get quickly into play, but can still pick and choose and build to an initial strategy. The price of $20 for one of these two base game packages is pretty much on par with non-collectable card games–maybe a bit easier on the pocketbook than other games of this complexity.
However.
However, those crazy people that crave, nay, live for, completion will want to get the reasonably priced, grand guignol Big Box package, which has six different “vs” decks, a dozen dozen supplemental cards, and a few other bells and whistles. While I love the shopping cart pricing of the smaller packages, clearly, the completionists are winning this round.
It’s been fun to see this project evolve, to see how the crowdfunding approach has shaped the final vision of the Terrene/Terreria. Originally Solis led with some low-price tchoctchkes that really didn’t dip into the game itself, marketing swag instead of the complete package. The cards themselves started at $40, which was maybe a little high for casual interest. This is a strong medium between them, a playable game at low levels–and furries can get JUST the dragons and birds, and take a pass on all those humans. Even the messaging changed, a little less tactics and a little more story, from a hopeful “about the creator” video with extended examples clocking in at well over five minutes to a concise, 1:40 elevator speech that jumps immediately into the meat of the game.
Anyway, do check out the Kickstarter page, and the videos. If you’re on the fence about this project, check out the print-and-play that’s got a whole bunch of sample cards and rules, enough to get a real sense for how a scenario might play out. Or do what I do, look at the pretty pictures and wait for that darn release date.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator. And special thanks to Megan Cheever for “Gold Plz,” the illustration for this post.