It's a huge sandbox space exploration game with a little modding thrown in. You can play as a smuggler, pirate, bounty hunter or merchant in a full, multiplayer universe. There is also going to be a single-player, Wing Commander-esque component too, called Squadron 42. It sounds a lot like 2003's Freelancer, which sort of delivered on the promise of GTA-like sandbox gameplay transposed into outer space.
Star Citizen appears to take place on a far bigger scale though, with its talk of a persistent world (players can summon help if they find themselves in a sticky situation, or man turrets on other players' ships), and already the gameplay videos are looking amazing.
6. Sir, You Are Being Hunted
Developer: Big Robot
Goal: £40,000
Pledges: £92,551
Sir, You Are Being Hunted is set in a procedurally-generated sci-fi vision of the British countryside, in which robots stealthily hunt one another, smoke pipes and drink tea.
The game is already nearly finished, but the Kickstarter campaign was launched to provide a vital extra layer of polish. More 'tweedbots' will be added, and animations and AI will be improved. This is exactly what Kickstarter is great for - providing just enough cash to finish a proven project.
Sir, You Are Being Hunted's take on the stiff-upper-lipped ruling classes looks to provide and unique and fun environment.
7. Antharion
Developer: Orphic Software
Goal: $10,000
Pledges: $22,508
Despite its bland looks and clichéd exposition (the king's been murdered, blah blah blah), there's a lot to like about Antharion. It consists of a huge world of over 100 dungeons, with 20 cities and 50 unique monster types, and its action point-based combat system sounds solid and exciting. There's also a huge amount of depth in the customisation and NPC design.
8. Maia
Developer: Simon Roth
Goal: £100,042
Pledges: £140,481
Sitting between The Sims and The Thing, Maia sees you excavating an underground base to protect a group of colonists from the harsh alien world above. Of course, the world below is equally harsh, and subject to alien attacks and seismic activity.
Maia was initially developed by one man, Simon Roth, and the Kickstarter funds are going into expanding the core team.
9. Dysis
Developer: One Dimension Games
Goal: $5,000
Pledges: $27,522
Pitched as a combination of FPS and RTS with a touch of Minecraft's world manipulation, Dysis takes place in a world where you can strategically control an army, or zoom in to third-person mode and take out enemy robots one at a time.
10. Neocolonialism
Developer: Seth Alter
Goal: $10,000
Pledges: $6,631 to date
Neocolonialism is the practice of controlling countries using capitalism and business in lieu of military or political control. The game lets you do just this.
11. Radio The Universe
Developer: 6e6e6e
Goal: $12,000
Pledges: $78,938 to date
It's nice to see something genuinely weird on Kickstarter. Radio the Universe takes the cuteness of the original Zelda and melds it with some sort of esoteric and horrifically weird anime. Resplendent in its juddery 8-bitness, it sees a cute female protagonist take on a sinister world of machines that look like prototype dot matrix printers, rejected on the grounds that they look too damn scary.
Developer 6e6e6e (see, WEIRD) reckons the game "will take -16,777,216 years to complete," and that "players who die in-game die in real life." We're at once gently intrigued and utterly horrified.
12. Barkley 2
Developer: Tales of Game's
Goal: $35,000
Pledges: $120,335
Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden quickly became the stuff of internet legend when it was released in 2008. Set in a "post-cyber apocalyptic Neo New York", the game features former NBA player Charles Barkley performing a slam dunk that kills most of the people in attendance.
The sequel (snappily titled Barkley 2 - an RPG Sequel to Shut up and Jam: Gaiden) is set in the year 666X, and sees you take the role of a young man held captive by a malevolent AI called Cuchulainn and then set off on a JRPG-style adventure to find a Cyberdwarf. Right you are.
