Kickstarter Weekends: Like Father, Like Daughter; Zombie ApocalyOOPS!

By my calculations (i.e. I looked at the archives) it’s been about eight months since the last Kickstarter Weekend. Aside from the obvious glitches this summer with me working on my novel I think the major reason for this has been that I haven’t been visiting Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites as often as I used to. Perhaps my obsession over them has cooled off. That successful, but ridiculous, Potato Salad campaign that floated around everywhere certainly didn’t make me too eager to visit any projects for a while. I should point out that the most interesting crowd funding project I came across during the off time was Hullabaloo, a steam punk hand drawn animated short film starring a strong female lead character (!) that made 588% of its goal on Indiegogo. I would have blogged about it if I wasn’t so distracted this summer but obviously it didn’t need my help.

Anywho today I’ve decided to get back on the horse, so to speak, and look at two new projects. In this case both of them sort of tugged on my heartstrings as the creators remind me of what I myself might need to do in the near future to see my own dreams and vision come to fruition, more so than the average campaign I cover. But before we get to talking about the new stuff we need to revisits the old stuff…and it looks like there’s a lot of old stuff.

Michigan City Vandals Album Project: Funding Semi-Successful

Final Earnings: $1,150 ($5,000 Goal)

This project failed to meet its $5,000 goal but because the Michigan City Vandals were using Indiegogo it would seem they got to keep what they made (to a point; Indiegogo’s cut was probably pretty steep). As it’s been such a long time since the campaign ended the album has since been recorded and released so I guess it all worked out in the end. I’ve listened to it and I think it’s pretty good. You can find (and hopefully buy) it here.

One Nation - Out of the Darkness: Funding successful!

Final Earnings: $13,515 ($13,000 Goal)

Another close call but the project managed to end in success. As far as I can tell they’re still working on getting the book itself done but I haven’t heard a tremendous amount of things about the comic lately. Of course that’s partly because I sort of forget to keep tabs on it over the summer. Oops.

Water War: Funding Unsuccessful!

Final Earnings: $0 ($30,000 Goal)

This one bums me out but in a way I’m not really surprised. The concept of this film was amazing but the presentation of the project was overly ambitious. With a super long KS video (not to mention several prequel videos!) I imagine a lot of potential backers backed away without giving it a fair shot. Director Josh Nikolas had vowed that he’d try to make the movie even if the campaign failed but I’m not certain what, if any, progress has been made since then. As of right now it seems that my dream of seeing a flick about children shooting each other with squirt guns and being over dramatic about the whole thing will remain just that; a dream.

Robot Heart: Funding Successful!

Final Earnings: $28,914 ($3,000 Goal)

Absolutely no surprise here since the project was funded before I even got to post the last KSW. I do want to mention that since I posted that last KSW one of Kawehi’s video covers (I think it was “Heart Shaped Box”) and went viral and she has become massively more popular and famous than she was before. In fact she’s had another project on KS since the last one and it not only got funded super quickly it made $42,972 ($3,000 goal)! Wow! [EDIT: The new project is still ongoing as of this writing, though not for much longer, and has picked up even more money than originally reported].  Overall this makes me feel really good as I get to see someone I’ve admired do very well after seeing them struggle with their art in the past plus it gives me some hope for my own artistic endeavors.

Then again if there’s one thing I’ve learned this year it’s that "hope" is bullshit and poisonous. F**k it, let’s move on.

Two new projects after the jump.

Zombie ApocalyOOPS! 

I don't think that's spelled right-OH I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE!!!

Goal: $7,000

Deadline: 1:24PM EST, 10/29/14

If there’s one thing I’m known for among my friends it’s my vast love and endearment of the zombie genre of fiction. Of course they’re all wrong; I actually do NOT like zombie related anything all that much and usually don’t go out of my way to see/play them unless I have specific reasoning for it. It’s easy (frustrating) to see why so many people make the wrong assumption about me seeing as I’m in a band called Zombie Apocalypse NOW! and wrote a few songs about the subject. Anyway since I have this reputation every once in a while someone gives me the heads up on something zombie themed.

In this case the game Zombie ApocalyOOPS! was brought to my attention. Created by Nicole Schmult, who it turns out is a “friend of a friend”, Z-OOPS! is a card game that, rather obviously, invokes the zombie apocalypse. Players can play as humans or zombies (but can and likely will switch over the course of the game) with the goal of being the last person standing or being the least hurt when the game ends. I should probably point out that I actually don’t normally love playing card games or board games outside of Table Top RPGs or Monopoly (the most violent board game) but I have to say after checking out the project I was intrigued.

It appears to be pretty easy to pick up but also deceptively complex and strategic due to the event cards that are a core part of the game. Having viewed the “How to Play Video” (which is on the Kickstarter page but take in mind it’s a twenty minute video) the game looks pretty fun and really well thought out. Even a guy like me, who doesn’t play many games like this or even really enjoy human interaction, would likely get a lot of enjoyment out playing Z-OOPS! which makes me assume that normal people with healthy social skills would really love it.

The catch is the project isn’t doing so great. As of this writing of the $7,000 Schmult needs to put the game into production she hasn’t even gotten the first thousand yet. As she has a little over two weeks left things aren’t looking very good. So I ask that you check the game out, watch the “How To” video and see if the game catches your fancy. I think it looks really fun and it thus deserves a chance to be shown to the public in large. And hey if you get your copy now you can tell people you were playing the game before it went big.*

Visit Zombie ApocalyOOPS’ Kickstarter page.

Like Father, Like Daughter 

If you're a superhero who abandoned their kid you might be a shitty superhero

Goal: $5,000

Deadline: 1:37 EST, 11/09/14

Comic Uno is a comic book reviewer on YouTube who’s looking jump into the world of comic book writing. Short Fuse Media is an indie comic book punishing company. The result of these two parties coming together is a new comic called Like Father, Like Daughter. While I was initially unfamiliar with both Comic Uno and Short Fuse Media the basic premise of the book caught my eye. Essentially the comic is about a girl whose father abandoned their family in order to be the world’s first superhero. What we have here is a story where a Superman-like hero is running around being beloved by the people but somewhere he has a kid who knows he’s a good-for-noting deadbeat dad. That sounds like a really interesting read. If done right that could potentially be an amazing read.

I don’t know much more than that since there are not many plot details given for this project, likely due to the fact that they’d be spoilers to the story. As it’s presented it sounds pretty damn cool. Short Fuse Media said in the KS video that they were impressed with the story enough to make Like Father, Like daughter their first foray into publishing which may be an indication of the quality (and as a side note I'd imagine Short Fuse Media will be doing more Kickstarter campaigns for other comic books in the near future). It stars a female character, and as you likely know by now I really like seeing stories with strong female leads, and deals with a subject matter you would not normally see in a mainstream superhero comic (well, maybe in a Green Arrow comic). That alone justifies the price of admission, really.

All I know is that with knowing the premise I have several questions but as they’re questions that I would likely need to read the comic to find out I thus need this project to succeed. So far it seems to be doing pretty well since, as of this writing, it’s made almost $2,000 of its $5,000 goal with nearly a month left to go. I would suggest checking the project out for yourself and if you are as intrigued as I am you should maybe give a pledge.

Visit Like Father, Like Daughter’s Kickstarter page.

If you know any cool Kickstarter and/or Indiegogo projects, or if you have a project that needs support, feel free to post a link in the comment section (though take in mind as moderator of the comment section I have the right to not allow any posts that I am especially against for any reason). 



*NOTE: Actually saying this might make you sound like a pretentious asshole