Space Odyssey/Kickstarter
Kickstarter games are, pardon the cliché, a dime a dozen. Everyone and their business partner wants to get in on the crowd-funded interactive entertainment business, even if things don't always work out. Coleco failed on Indiegogo, but came to Kickstarter to try again. Kickstarter can be a mixed blessing, for sure: Double Fine mismanaged its successful campaign for Broken Age, while the team behind Banner Saga seems to be using the system fairly well. It's no wonder, then, why celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has jumped onto the crowd-funding service to fund his own new title, a "scientifically accurate" Space Odyssey - The Video Game.
Unlike many science fiction video games, this one will use "scientifically accurate" topics in biology, chemistry, geoscience and engineering to get you to build and explore planetary systems with none other than deGrasse-Tyson as your guide. The astrophysicist's daughter apparently convinced him to create the game, and he's been talking it up since 2016. The development team also includes head of story Len Wein (Swamp Thing, Wolverine) and video game conceptual designer Jimmy Yun (God of War 3, Final Fantasy IX).
In addition to real science, Space Odyssey - The Video Game will also include futuristic concepts like dark matter, solar sails, ramjet fusion and nanotechnology to inform the gameplay. Will it be fun? That's up to the team and its backers. The team is careful to point out that the Kickstarter funding — currently pledged at $58,000 towards a $314,000 goal — isn't for the entire development, but will "grant us the ability to have this community play the game and engage with it while the final build is underway." Backers will get to ask questions and provide feedback to help guide the course of game development.