I wasn’t a Kickstarter backer of the Ouya, because I thought an Andoird-powered gaming system sounded pretty dumb. It wasn’t until I started hearing about how it was pretty great for emulation that I started considering it. Then over the summer I got a $100 Amazon card and it was burning a hole in my pocket, so I ordered an Ouya. I’ve been meaning to write up a review for months, but I hadn’t used it much until the past couple weeks.

When I first got it, I loaded up a bunch of ROMs, from NES all the way up to Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1, onto a flash drive and dove into setting up emulators. Some are obviously just ports of Android apps and have very crappy UIs, but there are a few that are very nice and look great on a TV in your living room. Overall, they worked well, but N64 and PSX games were a lot more flakey.

I thought for $99 it wasn’t a bad little gadget to get if you wanted an easy (and couch-friendly) way to get ROMs on your TV. The made-for-Ouya games I tried were horrible, and so I wrote off that whole aspect of the console. Then last week I played Towerfall with a friend.

Read More

Well, this is awesome. Brian Adams of Cool and Collected has been planning a really-for-real magazine project and just launched a Kickstarter campaign to get it off the ground. Brian is an excellent graphic designer and obviously knows how to lay out a magazine. Look at those comps, they look gorgeous!

The magazine will cover collectors and their collections. Brian has a knack for finding people with awesome collections, and is also the head hauncho of The League of Extraordinary Bloggers, so he shouldn’t have a problem finding a steady stream of contributors. I think the idea of a magazine for collectors funded and created by collectors sounds great, and I can’t wait to read it. Here’s the Kickstarter video:
Read More

Note: This post isn’t meant as an insult to the developers of Robots Love Ice Cream, I’m just using the game as an example to get a discussion going on Kickstarter.

Today I was going about my boring daily routine and I got to the part where I dig through my dresser looking for a tshirt to wear. I pulled out my Robots Love Ice Cream shirt and suddenly I thought, “Hey, wasn’t this from a Kickstarter for an iPad game? Like two years ago?” I hopped on Kickstarter today to check, and sure enough it was. In fact, Robots Love Ice Cream was the third project I ever backed on Kickstarter, and it’s funding was completed un July of 2011. And the game still isn’t done.

This got me thinking hard about Kickstarter and how I see myself using it in the future. When I paid $60 to back this game, I never would have guessed it would be over two years before I’d be playing it. I’m sure it’s really hard to make a game like this and it takes a ton of time, but paying that much money for a game that you might not even like (and I’ve payed $59 less for games I haven’t liked) isn’t something I’ll be doing again any time soon, unfortunately.
Read More

I enjoy Kickstarter. I take pride in helping subsidize others’ creative goals. It’s even more satisfying when the project closely aligns with my interests and I get a little something in return for my contribution. I’m not rich, mind you—far from it. We’re talking less than $75 with an average of around $10 per project.

I joined the crowd-sourcing website back in early 2010. The first project I backed was Dear Mr. Watterson, a promised “cinematic exploration of Calvin & Hobbes.” I’ve been a huge fan of Bill Watterson’s comic, and newspaper comics in general, for as long as I can remember. The film seemed a worthy first choice to support.

Kickstarter was relatively new when I joined so I didn’t know the negatives inherent to the site. When I contributed to Dear Mr. Watterson, I had no idea I would have to wait nearly three and a half years to see the end product. I pledged my money on Jan. 11, 2010 and finally received a Blu-ray copy of the film in the mail on June 15, 2013. Kickstarter certainly isn’t for people expecting instant gratification.
Read More

For a big portion of my life I’ve called myself an “aspiring cartoonist.” Since I was very young I’ve had a fascination with comic strips and comic books. I’ve drawn cartoons for my family and friends over the years. I was even a cartoonist for my tiny college newspaper. Motivation and a plan of action are the only things that have kept the word “aspiring” in my self-appointed title.

The Kickstarter-funded documentary Stripped looks to have the game plan I’ve been searching for. Cartoonist and filmmaker Dave Kellett is directing this self-proclaimed “love letter to comic strips.” It steps inside the business of drawing pictures for an audience. The 8-bit infused trailer grabbed me hook, line, and sinker. Needless to say I contributed to this project as it enters its final push toward completion.
Read More