Carmageddon coder seeks gamers' cash for revamp

Fans of 1990s gore-racer Carmageddon had their engines heated up this week when developer Stainless Games called for public funding to help it reincarnate the franchise. The team's KickStarter campaign went live today, asking for a minimum of $400,000 (£248,154) which will be used to develop Carmageddon: Reincarnation without …

[Anomynous Coward]

Woo

hoo!

[Anonymous Coward]

We need more flaming cows!

There just arent enough flaming cows in titles such as COD or whatever other "run around with weopon" games you like.

[Thomas 18]

Kickstarter > Hypercorp Producers

But how reliable will it turn out to be.

[Luke McCarthy]

Re: Kickstarter > Hypercorp Producers

That remains to be seen. None of the several projects I've helped fund have come to fruition... yet.

[Piro]

If it's like the first two..

Bring it on.

[Anonymous Coward]

What platforms?

PS3 hopefully.

[Studley]

Re: What platforms?

Developer response on the Kickstarter comments page (no way of deep-linking directly to the comment I'm afraid):

We’ll be releasing the game on Xbox 360 and PS3. Plus Mac. And other platforms/devices over time. The critical difference that getting beyond our Kickstarter target funding makes is the rapidity with which we’re able to port the game to these other platforms.

[WeeeRob]

I'd rather get a remake of Quarantine!

[Aldous]

i agree, good sir!

indeed one of the most underrated games ever. hardly anyone has heard of it!

[VWDan]

Wow

Now there is a blast from the past - I'm seeing some abandonware in my future.

[Dave 126]

I remember playing Quarentine, and the poster too... maybe I was only playing a demo but all the streets seemed a bit samey. Still... it was a long time ago!

[mvirks]

Obvious sponsors

Should ask Addison Lee for some cash...

[Paul Woodhouse]

meh

Postal2 was better and more shocking fun...

[Tel Starr]

I thought this was another Google Car article at first.

[Glen 1]

do the google cars get the cunning stunt bonus?

[Lee Dowling]

Post I made on the Steam forums about this:

Can't say I have much interest. They "invested" $333,333 (according to their page) just to buy the naming rights and are asking for more than that to actually write the game. That, in their own words, was all their profits from all their previous ventures.

They could have wrote that game with "the in-house tech that’s been in constant development at the studio for more than a decade" for that money and called it anything else (literally, anything else at all), but they've not even managed to get to prototyping the game because it *HAD* to have the same name. Half the entire game budget blown on the name alone doesn't inspire confidence. I assume they think "CoolGameX by the makers of, and in the style of, Carmageddon" would confuse people who wanted to buy it.

They've got a basic engine going (Really? That's all? Physics / 3D engines are ten-a-penny nowadays, the cost of the game is actually in the assets - level design, 3D texturing, etc.), they have minimal game assets ("start creating the initial game assets"!), they only have half the original dev team (Which half? What did they do? Have we got the people who actually made the game, or a couple of people who wrote a few lines in the prototype engine of the original Carmageddon?), but they do have 40+ hangers-on which weren't around back then ("We’re a modest-sized indie developer (around 50 trapped souls)").

Seems to be confirming the stereotype of all Kickstarter projects that I've seen so far. Throwing money at a poorly-managed dev-only project who couldn't get funding through other means and seem to want me to compensate them for the money they've already thrown away on tat.

I'd kill for a proper Carmageddon sequel. But this won't be it. And if it is, it'll be that sequel without my help (or anyone else's) anyway.

I only wish I could sit on my bum for ten years trying to negotiate the sale of a name and then slap it on absolutely nothing that I hurriedly knock up and make money from the whole business. It's a damn sight easier than actually creating a good game and then selling it no matter what the name.

[Thomas 4]

Re: Post I made on the Steam forums about this:

I dunno, I'd have to disagree that all Kickstarter games are like that. Grim Dawn springs to mind - the team developing it (the same guys that made Titan Quest) have managed to make the basic outline of the game including some very solid looking demos of actual gameplay footage and have turned to Kickstarter to get it finished off.

Not disagreeing with your take on the Carmageddon project - if they really did spend 333k just getting the naming rights before doing a spot of code - but don't be too quick to discourage others from looking into Kickstarter games.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Post I made on the Steam forums about this:

How dare you question the veracity of John Videogames!

(See also http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/05/04 )

[Asgard]

WOW!

They are asking for $400k, yet in just one day, they have raised over $100k!

Looks like this is going to get developed and they are going to get the extra money they need to make it a good game. :)

... and about time too. The games publishers have had an iron grip over developer funding for too long. With sites like Kickstarter the developers can bypass the publishers to go direct to the players in great enough numbers to get funding. (So bye bye to companies like EA and about time too).

Now we need the same to happen for Music, Films and sci-fi TV Series where fans all around the world help fund the development and everyone on the creative side can bypass the controlling middle men. So another nail or two in the coffins of companies like Fox, Sky and EA. :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Vaz (not Viz)

Better not tell that bottom feeder Vaz about this.

[1Rafayal]

Re: Vaz (not Viz)

I actually had a catfish called Keith Vaz once. Either due to his backhanders from Filkin or his involvement in taking money to get the Hinduja brothers British citizen ship. I cant remember which now.

The sad this was that the catfish later died after trying to debate video game ethics in the House of Commons over and over again....

[Spoddyhalfwit]

I owe them a drink

I recall playing this game back in the day. Wasn't this the one where you used your windscreen wipers to get rid of body parts that obscured your view? Good clean fun - none of those violent video nasties that today's kids grow up on.

And it turned out to be valuable driving experience for my later life having to drive in the UAE.

[Inachu]

This does not look good.

I am afraid todays computer games will take notice of IOS type of games.

A good example will be:

Oh you want to drive faster than 55mph then that will cost you 100 virtual gold coins which you can purchase at our company store.

Oh special silver virtual paint job on your car that will be 29 virtual gold coins which you can purchase at our website. Oh to use the real fancy ramps and fly through air to the other side will cost you another 200 virtual gold. Then I bet the game will be tied into the cloud somehow so that if the servers crash you lose everything you ever bought for that game title.

[Stu]

Wow

Nice, I loved Carmageddon!

Perhaps this time they can keep the frame rates reasonable. The games always ran terribly on quite powerful systems in the day.

Even if the fps was on average high, there would still be areas which would slow to a crawl.

This is assuming it is designed for, and released on PC.

[defiler]

Re: Wow

That is why I was so thrilled when the Glide patch came out for the original. Voodoo a-go-go. I don't think it ever slowed down (but then it's been a while so I may have my rosy specs on).

[Anonymous Coward]

Rosy specs

No, it really was smooooth with the glide patch on my machine. Only trouble was I moved to Mexico 3 months after getting the game and my computer (and everything else I owned) went "missing" in Mexican customs when I had it shipped over so I never got to play it again. *sniff*

[Old Handle]

Doesn't kickstarter technically forbid "glorifying acts of violence"? I'm not saying the shouldn't allow this project, but it seems silly to have the rule if they don't enforce it.

[Stig2k]

Optional Shmoptional

Sorry if I'm missing something here but how does paying £x up front equate to a 'free copy of the game'?

That reminds me of the huge poster that used to greet me at Colchester station every day that said "Free evening and weekend calls for £15 a month"

[Dave 126]

Lamp posts.

I remember killing lots of people (they were people with red blood, not zombies) with lamp posts. Might even have got a bonus for it.

On the occasions a Warthog becomes my Tool of Destruction in Halo, I think back to those happier times of Carmageddon.

[Bleepo]

my original CD of the first Carmagedon game became bad some years ago :( pledged $15 hoping this makes it to a new release so I can stop driving like a lunatic in real life :p

[That Steve Guy]

Nice!

Now this is something I would love to see return! I had the first two games back in the day and they were a real blast.

It would be great to have this one back and giving the moral outrage brigade something to worry about!

[adam payne]

Awesome

You wasted em!