Heatwave Interactive, an Austin-based developer founded by and employing a number of former Origin employees, is offering a new project via Kickstarter. It's called Minis with Enemies and it aims to turn miniature combat games (like Warhammer or Mechwarrior) into a fast, fun video game in much the same way Words with Friends digitized Scrabble. They're looking for $300,000, which is a heady goal... but it sounds like a pretty neat project! You can learn more and back the project here. Their plan to let the community help test the game is also very interesting. The development team includes multiple Wing Commander veterans. CEO Anthony Castoro ran Quality Assurance on Wing Commander IV and Privateer 2 and Community Manager/Designer Chris "Binky" Launius was a tester for Privateer 2. You may remember his quoted hints about the game in Origin's Official Guide to Privateer 2. More recently he has been heavily involved in preserving Origin's legacy, shipping documentation to the Origin Museum and even sending us sketches from WC4 to post. Here is the Minis with Enemies press release: -- Original update published on June 21, 2012
If you're one of the eight million "I AM MAKING A SPACE GAME" people who e-mails us asking to plug your Kickstarter every damn day: the rule is that you have to be a former Origin employee or someone who worked on a licensed Wing Commander product.
This project's an interesting notion, at least. I do worry that they won't get the support they're looking for from the miniatures community. For one thing, most of the miniatures gamers I know are old. I mean, 50s at the youngest. A lot of them aren't very computer savvy at all, and many of them do it for the socialization aspect anyway (i.e. they don't want to talk to their friends through some damned computer). Then there's the whole tactile experience...I've done some miniatures gaming myself (Battlefleet Gothic) and there's a lot of pleasure involved in actually assembling the model and painting it the way you want it. There's no way these guys will be able to replicate the tactile experience of building; they're going to have to be very careful about how they implement painting and not force users into a set of pre-designed palettes. I mean, I painted my BFG models in some non-standard colors (and you should've seen how my wife absolutely butchered those Eldar ships we bought). That said, there's some positive aspects here - no need to consult a complicated action chart every time you want to have a model pick its nose, no need to physically measure out the range to a target, assurance that all the rules are being obeyed. I can see this project as a way for people to get into miniatures gaming - which, incidentally, is traditionally an expensive hobby. And if it's fully customizable, then I can see it having a pretty wide appeal - setting up a game like TacOps using Shapeways-style models would be pretty damned slick. If they're limiting it to just the fantasy genre though......meh. I'm on the fence as to whether or not I want to support the project. Kinda strapped for cash at the moment anyway.
