The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

King Art Games is not a new player in the world of Kickstarter. In early 2013 they successfully funded Battle Worlds: Kronos – a turn-based strategy game that featured complex flanking rules and was built upon a beautiful graphics engine. Now with their first crowdfunded game released the team at King Art has returned with a new campaign. They’re working on The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, which is a sequel to their breakout adventure game that garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews.

Second Act

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingartgames/the-book-of-unwritten-tales-2/widget/card.html

After losing their publisher in 2013 King Art decided to independently create a sequel in The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 and they’ve been hard at work readying the game for an already scheduled release. The projected street date for the game is the first few months of 2015 but the beta will be accessible to backers and through Steam Early Access near the end of 2014.

The Kickstarter campaign was not designed to push the sequel over the line but rather act as a method of introducing the game to new audiences and rallying fans already interested in the series. For that reason the money will go towards making the title better and not simply making it feasible. More features, better designs and increased resources are what’s being funded. After they released the first part of the story King Art made a minigame, The Critter Chronicles, that served as a sort of prequel but this edition will be a true sequel continuing the main storyline.

The Book of Unwritten Tales is basically a point and click adventure game meant to be played as an homage to the classic RPG genre

The Book of Unwritten Tales is basically a point and click adventure game meant to be played as an homage to the classic RPG genre. In the story you join three adventurers who have been pulled into a conflict working on the side of good – the “Alliance”.  New details concerning an ancient artifact with immense power were uncovered by a famous archaeologist. Now an evil force fielded by the Army of the Shadows has mobilized to find the artifact to use it for their own nefarious means. You and your band of mismatched heros must intercept the artifact before the forces of evil can find it. Pretty simple right?

For The Players

Well King Art’s original title is actually more nuanced than that, artfully mixing together comedy, action and puzzles. The point-and-click adventure genre is a difficult segment to break into as well because fans are loyal but also critical of new games at the same time. Like any true adventure game the focus was on the story allowing players to interact with an environment while solving the mystery of the lost artifact.

Part of the game’s appeal is that it catered to fans in all age groups with accessible gameplay, fun/challenging puzzles and colorful design elements

Because The Book of Unwritten Tales was an homage you’d see a lot of inside jokes or other details from popular fantasy games, movies and stories. Just some of the geeky properties spoofed included Lord of The Rings, World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and even other RPG games. Part of the game’s appeal is that it catered to fans in all age groups with accessible gameplay, fun/challenging puzzles and colorful design elements. You’ll still control the trio of mismatched heroes but you’ll find plenty of new NPCs to do quests for and ply information from.

Musical Maybe

The sequel will up the ante a bit with new features, a vastly expanded story, new characters and more detailed graphics. Within the game engine King Art’s team was able to combine 3D and 2D elements together using an ingenious projection mapping method that made environments much more detailed than they would be otherwise. Essentially some 3D elements were actually flat objects with shading, perspective and lighting baked in as textures that would morph as the camera moves. This method reduces the computational overhead providing a more seamless gaming experience on all sorts of platforms.

“There are more than 60 speaking roles in the game. Some of the characters are old acquaintances, but you will also meet a lot of new faces.” – The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Kickstarter

So if it’s already being developed and released even without the support from Kickstarter backers what’s to be gained? Supporters will be able to lock in their purchases ahead of time so loyal fans could basically pre-order and get early access to the beta as a bonus. There are also some collectables including plushies and a puppet version of the game’s signature “Critter” creature. Further up the reward tiers uber fans can even pay a pretty penny for a 3 foot tall version of the plushy. Other rewards sprinkled around the tiers include physical copies of the game, artwork, in-game recognition, autographed posters and copies all of King Art’s previously released titles.

>Overall The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 looks to be off to a great start as a hotly anticipated sequel to a much-loved adventure game. King Art Games has already reached their minimum funding goals and at the time of writing they’re sitting at nearly $120,000 with 31 days still left in the crowdfunding campaign. Two stretch goals have been unlocked and the third is tantalizingly close to being reached.  King Art jokingly teases in their proposal video that an entire musical version of the game would be recorded if they went beyond their last stretch goal. As much as I’d like to see that I don’t think it will happen but I’ve still got my fingers crossed.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingartgames/the-book-of-unwritten-tales-2/widget/video.html

Transcendence Trailernomics

Transcendence has had a trailer out for nearly two months now. It was clear at the end of that first preview that we were in for an atypical science-fiction ride with prolific cinematographer Wally Pfister (Moneyball, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) at the helm now as a director. Iconic director/producer Christopher Nolan is also involved as executive producer.  A second trailer has been released and even with talent like that now it’s a bit more muddy where this techno-futurist story will take us.

Translucent

The story of Transcendence deals with The Singularity an idea that humanity is moving towards a point in evolution where we will meld with a vast technological network. The precept states that once we reach this point we’ll no longer need our traditional physical forms. Will (Johnny Depp), a theorist and programmer, who’s a major part of a worldwide collective of scientists working towards an advanced artificial intelligence network. It looks as though they are going to make a monumental breakthrough but overnight a terrorist group attacks and destroys research facilities dealing an almost fatal blow to the entire project.

An idea that humanity is moving towards a point in evolution where we will meld with a vast technological network

The terrorist attacks were meant halt transcendence completely as the group also went after key members of the scientific community hoping to remove their minds and prevent the project from restarting. Dozens of scientists are killed in the process including Will who’s mortally wounded by a lone gunman. With the project in shambles, Will dying in a hospital bed and the hope recreating their work dwindling by the second Will’s colleagues Max (Paul Bettany), Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and Joseph (Morgan Freeman) decide to try something bold to save his life.

Evelyn and Max hook Will’s brain up to one of the remaining computers and download his consciousness into a virtual construct. At first the process seems to be a failure with the “file” showing large portions of corrupt data but eventually it springs to life and slowly starts to take on Will’s personality. Now virtual Will is a growing intelligence that starts to take over the networks surrounding the facility.

Transplendent

With each new system converted to the AI construct the viability of transcendence is proven again but right away Max, Evelyn and Joseph have serious doubts that they’ve done the right thing. Soon enough they don’t have any options left as Will is taking over international networks. Technology all around the World is transforming into a new form of superior intelligence with a very real physical presence. Will’s persona will stop and nothing in its quest for survival including putting his friends lives at risk for what it perceives is a “greater good”.

The first trailer released in December shows an edgy science-fiction movie that isn’t afraid to take on a controversial topic

The first trailer released in December shows an edgy science-fiction movie that isn’t afraid to take on a controversial topic, in fact it could be said the idea is ahead of its time. It hints at a tight knit group of scientists grappling with an issue that’s far more dangerous and real than they expected. Then when will is “downloaded” to the computer it spirals out of control down a path that not even the audience expected. That first glimpse showed just enough of what we might see in theaters this summer but it did so in a way that kept us wondering. It was surprising the directions they took.

Trailer number two changes my perception considerably. There is now far less mystery to be had here. More of the focus is on the period after Will’s construct goes rogue – it also gives big hints as to how crazy technology gets under the guidance of this new super-powerful artificial intelligence. Featured prominently in this cut are semi-autonomous robots and a silvery goo that transforms objects it touches (possibly nanomachines).

Translation

Half of the trailer is dedicated to a point where Will has become so disconnected from humanity that he’s basically deconstructing other organic life. When it comes down to what I want from Transcendence I’d rather have something calculating like HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey than the indiscriminate silver goo from the The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) remake. Instead of a story about the unexpected turn of events and a gripping science-fiction drama we’re now faced with an action flick where Max, Evelyn and Joseph are forced to run away from various exploding or crumbling objects. Sci-fi drama morphs into a tired action/horror film. Not the change I expected to be honest.

Sci-fi drama morphs into tired action/horror film. Not the change I expected to be honest.

Besides the trailers it will still be interesting where this story goes. For Transcendence trying to relate a story to audiences about the ultimate state of human evolution will not be an easy task. There are dozens of interpretations on how exactly we’ll progress to the next stage. The Fountain comes to mind as a movie that attempts it but that was much more a spiritual and emotional film. Splice is another film that tackles the question of humanity’s longstanding quest to become the “ultimate creator” featuring a more contemporary issue. Where Transcendence falls along those lines is still undecided but for now it seems to be somewhere closer to a mashup between Contact, The Lawnmower Man and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Trailer 1

http://www.nerdluster.com///www.youtube.com/embed/280qnrHpuc8?iv_load_policy=3

Trailer 2

http://www.nerdluster.com///www.youtube.com/embed/QheoYw1BKJ4?iv_load_policy=3

The Lego Movie

WB’s The Lego Movie is a proper adventure film for a new year featuring the plucky everyman hero who overcomes insurmountable odds to save the day from a mysterious evil power. At first this story might seem formulaic, and admittedly it is, but it also manages to pull together a set of disparate threads better than most animated films targeted young audiences. It’s funny and energetic from start to finish and includes a pretty smart message about the importance of diversity, friends and family.

Nostalgiatrain

Before we start let’s admit that genuine crowd-pleasing movies really are a tough thing to pull off despite that sensational phrase being thrown around as a descriptor for family films so often. Usually a film will attempt to pander to one single demographic and leave others hanging in anticipation or boredom. The Lego Movie broke out of this circuit and surpassed all my expectations by appealing to my adult nostalgia while also entertaining a theater filled by mostly kids under the age of 12.

I also didn’t think kids would understand a dated joke about the interplay between Green Lantern, Batman and Superman

It’s not that I didn’t understand Lego’s contemporary appeal for a generation that has many more entertainment options. I just didn’t know if a movie could purposefully hit on all the bewildering factors that modern kids seem to cling to without reason or logic. I also didn’t think kids would understand a dated joke about the interplay between Green Lantern, Batman and Superman or the Exogorth scene from The Empire Strikes Back. Surprisingly The Lego Movie manages to encapsulate both those ideas wonderfully.

Through the entire 115 minute ride – and it is mostly a theme park ride – the story mixes together an eclectic collection of characters from all over the Lego universe. The cast includes entities from Star Wars, The Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, DC Comics and an assortment of other pop culture inspired properties. Since this was distributed by Warner Bros. it’s no surprise that besides the main characters most of the supporting cast come right out of their biggest film franchises. This is the movie’s one and only fault, it can’t borrow from licenses owned by other competing companies, so no Marvel minifigs. Lego Batman and Lego Wolverine in an exchange of gruff one-liners will have to wait until another day.

Builderberg

The citizens of Lego city live relatively pointless lives following the daily instructions which are handed down by the Octan Corporation. Each member of the Lego city follows their instructions to the letter. Octan is a conglomerate headed up by the tyrannical President Business (Will Ferrell) a megalomaniac who wants to shape the world in his image. Business seeks out an ancient relic known as the Kragle which has the power to end the world. He finds and then steals it from a Master Builder named Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman). Thus ends our prologue.

Years later we catch up with Emmet Brickowoski (Chris Pratt) an average construction worker who’s content with following the crowd. One day catches Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks), a rebellious minifig, rummaging through his construction site. Emmet is caught by surprise and trips down a cavern accidentally discovering the resting place of the “Piece of Resistance”, an item which can counteract the Kragle. Upon touching the piece he is bound to the block and thrust into a battle for the future of Lego City.

Upon touching the piece he is bound to the block and thrust into a battle for the future of Lego City

Now Emmet must join the conflict with the Master Builders on one side and President Business on the other. On his journey he’ll have to escape the President’s ground forces lead by Bad Cop (Liam Neeson), and bind together the disintegrated Master Builders if he has any hope of saving Lego city.

The most impressive part of The Lego Movie has to be the imagery. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller created a word that is astoundingly realistic – every effect and detail is created from genuine Lego parts and lit to look like it lives in the real world. At points during the film I had to stop and remind myself that this was all computer animated and not some elaborate stop motion film.

Hero Worship

If you’ve played with Legos even for just a day you will recognize the details that Miller, Lord and their team put into the film. Teeth marks on difficult-to-remove pieces, the way the light glints through the transparent plastics, the bumpy surface texture which is the Lego trademark. It felt as the the sets I had as a child were coming to life before my eyes. Apparently the effect was not lost on the younger audience either. I sat in a theater filled with rapt children looking at a giant screen where their heroes were brought to life. I saw parents, daughters and sons bonding over a shared interest that spanned generations and all that happened in just one theater.

Behind each of the blocky faces were a cast of voice actors who filled out their roles perfectly. Will Arnett, Elizabeth Banks, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Will Ferrell, Will Forte and Keegan-Michael Key all played their parts brilliantly but what’s even more impressive is that most of the recording was done in solo sessions.

There is a fantastic ending and a heartwarming message to the film but it could have easily been lost among Emmet’s greater journey

There is a fantastic ending and a heartwarming message to the film but it could have easily been lost among Emmet’s greater journey. I felt as though the story constantly rode a line between Emmet’s story and a narrative about friendship & purpose that went by largely untouched. However ss a family film The Lego Movie doesn’t miss a beat and is a great adventure for kids of all ages. The cast of vibrant characters literally spans generations of Lego fans so there’s something here for everyone.

Wow By Numbers

After more than 10 years of World of Warcraft last week Blizzard Entertainment released some amazing statistics about their landmark MMO. Most of the data surrounds the players that have lived in that universe over the last decade and what they’ve been up to. But beneath all the cheery numbers and minuta there’s hints at big changes coming for the roughly 7.5 million active subscribers still playing the game.

The Wonderful Wizard

Numbers are a very important method by which we measure and apply value to things. Sometimes it’s sad and even unwarranted but scores, reviews, subscribers and engagement are often good indicators of how enjoyable a piece of entertainment actually is. The same holds true for video games, doubly so for massively multiplayer games, so when we get the occasional peek behind the curtains it is usually as interesting as it is revealing.

The infographic was posted to the WoW Europe portal and reposted via the main Battle.net site. It gives a pretty good look inside the statistics at work in Azeroth as everybody plays the game. Within the lengthy graphic Blizzard details exactly how much music, sound effects, spoken words and other content currently exists within the game. This includes all of the expansions each of which comes with their own massive increase in data usage. It’s interesting to note that the install footprint has bloomed from 4gb at launch to over 25gb with all the expansions installed.

Other factoids that are shown include the number of in-game pets, which of those pets is the most popular, how many PVE & PVP battle take place daily, worldwide achievement totals, and the daily auction house transactions. These numbers are all impressive in their own right but the one that stick out for me is how many times the most powerful raid bosses have been beaten. Garrosh has been bested on 400,000 occasions since his introduction in September 2013 which means he’s been knocked out 2700 times for every day he’s been an official raid encounter. The determination and power behind World of Warcraft players is astounding.

Your Little Dog Too

Blizzard has been very coy about releasing subscriber numbers especially since they started losing significant amounts of users at the release of Mists of Pandaria in September of 2012. Since then they have been even more careful when giving out telling gameplay statistics including but not limited to actual subscriber counts. Perhaps the most interesting part of the infographic is the need to mention the lifetime subscriber number as a count instead. That number is reached by also counting trial accounts that opened even if only for the trial period.

Basically World of Warcraft has had 100 million lifetime subscribers since it first opened its servers back in 2004. That statistic is actually pretty impressive in a headline but it looses a bit of its significance on paper once you start to examine the underlying data. That number includes every trial account that was ever activated, every canceled account, and duplicate or overlapping users as well. An individual user’s value also changes for Blizzard depending upon how quickly their account was canceled and the 100 million number doesn’t pay much attention to that fact. Regardless it’s an impressive statistic that shows exactly how popular and far-reaching World of Warcraft is, even today.

What does the future hold for World of Warcraft and its subscribers in the coming years? Well it’s hard to say. There have been rumors of Blizzard eventually making the title free-to-play as they focus on their other newer ventures. From a business viewpoint that is an incredibly risky move as Activision & Blizzard will be very wary of cutting themselves off from that subscriber lifeline that still provides them with such a large influx of monthly cash. As subscriber numbers continue to dwindle they will have to make some hard choices.

No Place Like Home

Since 2010, when the Cataclysm expansion was released, the number of active accounts has gone down noticeably each year from a height of around 12 million users. 2012 to 2013 brought the most significant downturn with the last reported amount hovering around the 7.5 million mark. Is there anything being done to avoid the loss of these users? Yes and No. Little is known about future changes to WoW other than proposed expansions. The free-to-play rumor has persisted but Blizzard will likely just scale back servers and reduce their cost of maintenance instead as subscriber numbers dwindle.

Attention at Activision has turned to newer titles most of which are said to follow the free-to-play or pay-once consumer models. In the future fans of the MMO genre will likely find themselves playing the freely available successor to World of Warcraft in an environment that has a host of microtransactions similar to the way League of Legends works.

Blizzard’s infographic still has a hidden twinkle of hope even after all this bad news. It shows a community they’ve built that spans 244 countries and a game that has touched the lives of nearly 100 million users. Achievements, accomplishments, friends, family, adventures and stories are all encased in that experience and those will last through any transition that World of Warcraft makes. When compared to the rest of Activision’s catalogue, and indeed the greater industry as a whole, it’s impossible to find another title that has had this affect on it’s fans. This truth is what the infographic really shows beneath all those numbers.

Cradle

Mojo Game Studios is determined to show you a new way to explore their distinctly beautiful fantasy game, Cradle. Cradle is their new first-person adventure game, built upon Cryengine 3, that puts you in the shoes of a character who’s somehow angered the gods. Now you must escape the surface of this lush & dangerous world and flee into The Cradle – a mysterious refuge that may hold the answer to your redemption.

Civilization Gone

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1324765189/cradle/widget/card.html

Mojo is a collection of young indie developers based out of Pittsburgh with most of the team having recently attended Carnegie Mellon University. While at the university this group of like-minded gamers came together to start an indie studio and since then they’ve been working together on Cradle, their breakout title.

Now they’re turning to Kickstarter, as many other indie studios have, to crowdfund the next stage of Cradle’s development. Hopefully with a bit of support and a little luck they’ll be able to expand their team and ramp up production. Mojo’s goal is to add to their group’s numbers by hiring a handful of designers and developers so they can release the game at a quickened pace. Often In the world of video games crossing the finish line late can spell doom for a small commercially released project.

You’re not safe until you’ve made it out alive. This is when you stumble across The Cradle. Even once you’ve found safety your journey isn’t over

At first glance Cradle is just an exceptionally beautiful adventure game. Vibrant jungles, detailed ruins and volumetric lighting all frame a world that looks familiar yet something unreal seems to be lurking beneath its surface. Everything is colorful and highly detailed in a way that makes Cradle look like a first-person adventure game version of Trine. This is Anora – a world filled with magic and controlled by powerful forces. Your character is on the run from one of the four ruling “gods” and since each god has his own domain you’re not safe until you’ve made it out alive. This is when you stumble across The Cradle. Even once you’ve found safety your journey isn’t over.

Within the Cradle is dormant god named Aderyn who was banished there long ago by the other deities. The Cradle is a now empty city that was Aderyn’s domain and it barely survives as the last remnant of his works. At one time these structures were the bedrock of civilization and technology on Anora, now they lay in ruins. Aderyn himself was thought to have been destroyed but it is here that you will find a temporary ally in your time of need. If you can help Aderyn return to power he/she has agreed to protect you and fulfill his promise to restore freewill to the population of Anora.

Atypical Role Playing Game

Mojo has painted a pretty heady story but it’s not just empty lore & fantastic promises there’s actual gameplay to back this adventure up. You’ll be able to play as one of five proposed classes each with their own unique style. These characters are very similar to the standard fantasy subset – they include an arcanist, paladin, ranger, druid & swordsman. Mojo has promised that combat & exploration are very atypical when compared to the typical RPG though. In fact they’ve stated in the Kickstarter proposal that they redesigned the way players will interact with the world. In some instances, including combat or exploration, they claim to have completely changed longstanding precepts.

“Not all opponents can be defeated with steel and skill, some must be fought with keen observation and deep thought. Many secrets are hidden throughout the world, and uncovering them will enable players to fully realize the story they’re entwined in” – Cradle Kickstarter

What does all that mean in plain english? Cradle should be an entirely new experience even for avid players of role-playing games or first-person shooters. Portions of the gameplay shown seem to indicate a camera and movement system that offers much more interaction with the environment. How far this goes remains to be seen but it looks as though the player can even select where they want weapons strikes to land in realtime – so instead of slowing down the action you’ll be able to aim for the head or torso adding a tactical element to the game. Puzzles are also a significant part of Cradle, they’re located everywhere, offering alternate paths to completing the game.

Crowdfunding Cradle

We as consumers and gamers are now involved with the development of Cradle strictly because Mojo has turned to crowdfunding for support. Their presence on Kickstarter it not just to raise money though, they also want to foster a vibrant community. Their hope is that even if Kickstarter does nothing more than connect them with new fans that is time well-spent. So far they’ve raised $71,000 and currently have 20 days to make the remaining amount of their $350,000 minimum goal. That’s still a significant hurdle to overcome.

Any support via Kickstarter is always welcomed by project creators but for the consumer-minded person $25 will get you a digital copy of the final game. There’s also a $25 tier that gives you two beta keys but it’s unclear if that level gets you a copy of the game. At the $100 level backers will receive a physical copy of Cradle, a t-shirt and the entire digital collectors edition. Higher tiered premiums include a 3D printed copy of the druid character, posters and in-game recognition.

Interestingly enough some of the high-roller tires already have supporters. Even with just $71,000 dollars raised so far the top tiers combined have contributed almost a third of that amount while only consisting of roughly 9 individuals. In order to reach their minimum goals Mojo will have to attract many more backers over the coming weeks. Right now they have until February 20th at 3:38 PST at which time the doors close and they’ll need to relaunch their campaign. Head on over to their Kickstarter page to see their beautiful concept art created by Josh Eiten and check out Josh’s portfolio as well. Good luck Mojo.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1324765189/cradle/widget/video.html