Be Excellent To Each Other

I remember my Megadrive owning friends waxing lyrical about it, but when I got it on the Amiga I was disappointed. You could overtake the race leader at about 60% of the track, then had a tedious empty road drive to complete the race.

I remember that if you wanted to come first, you didn't fight anybody, because that just slowed you down.

Once you realised that, the game quickly became pointless.

Popbitch want 25 grand to develop a tablet app of their website:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1632536729/popbitch-the-next-generation

Seems reasonable and I don't think they'll struggle to get it given their track record. It's not like flicking coins at a man with a history of getting bored with something very quickly is it?

Richard cheese has raised $21000 towards a $19000 kick starter goal so that he can get corneal transplants.

That's probably the most depressing thing I've read all week.

Knock yourself out

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/i-nee ... -operation

His real name?

Oh dear. Those were some vindictive parents.

I remember really trying to like it, but it just was so boring...

No Second Prize on the other hand...

No. Intentional stage name.

Not Ecco the Dofflin. I fear they might've set too short a time on this one for that amount of money. But the line



makes me quite interested.

The Frank Sidebottom doc has just gone onto Kickstarter. You know it has, it really has. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/126673955/being-frank-the-chris-sievey-story

5pm on the first day, the Frank Sidebottom Kickstarter has already hit 8 grand (target 20 grand). Luckily they already have some stretch goals!

It is somewhat ironic that since Sievey died penniless, all the projects associated with him have had no trouble getting funded. That includes the statue, the film, and hopefully the documentary!

This could be the first Kickstarter that I actually contribute too. I'll see how flush I feel in the next week or so.

Already on 10 grand now! Halfway and day one isn't even over!

The first stretch goal is important as it will give them the money to get clearances for lots of fantastic TV show clips from shows Frank appeared on to include in the doc. Think that's fairly important as my first exposure to Frank was on Number 73. Although 73 is a bloody minefield apparently if you want to get hold of clips due to missing paperwork and ('Sinister Mickey Mouse Company' - Ed) apparently junking lots of episodes.

Stonehearth looks pretty. Seems to be Minecraft/Dorf Fortress/Settlers all mashed into one lump. Already reached its goal with 28 days left to run too.

Ma Squirt played Settlers to death back in the day - this looks like the sort of thing she'd absolutely love. I may well hurl $15 in it's direction!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1552445321/deus-ex-machina-2

Hope he remembers to put some gameplay into it this time instead of just blinding everyone with celebrity voices.

WTF? This shit is why I hate Kickstarter.

"We need £24,500 to perfect the user-options, gameplay and scoring with your help, before we release the final PC and Mac versions.
£23,000 to complete the prototypes for the iOS and Android mobile versions.
£8,500 to customize and personalize the opening and closing sequences for all versions with the names and images of our Kickstarter backers.
£4,500 to remix the ultimate in-your-head soundtrack for all versions.
And of course we'll need to pay Kickstarter, and some fees, and some minimal packaging costs for your lovely rewards, around £3,500."

So you need kickstarter money so that you can pay for kickstarter, and add the kickstarter backers names to your product?
And 24k to perfect the product? How about releasing what you actually have now, so people actually have a product to use, and use the cash from that to perfect it and then release an update?

Have got round to bunging the Frank Sidebottom project 30 quid for the Blu-Ray. Although the target has been met, the more money they get the more clips of Frank on TV they can buy in. However this isn't cheap so pledge if you can!

warioware crowdfunding parody, made me smile a bit http://gameandwario.nintendo.com/crowdfarter/#2

Frank Sidebottom Kickstarter is now just a couple of grand short of hitting the 40k streach goal that will enable them to buy in all the required archive TV footage. But only 30 hours to run!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/126673955/being-frank-the-chris-sievey-story

Giant Inflaitable Lionel Ritchie Head -http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daveglass/lionel-richies-head-bestival-2013

Hello!

Oh I want this. I might try and get my mum to buy it for my dad so I can admire it.

The Spectrum Bluetooth keyboard is funded just as allegations of royalty irregularities surface:

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=46365

Wow, really nice. I love the all black one.

Lot of complaints about the Ouya and that was one of the biggest funding's on there

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ou ... e/comments

Are you dropping hints for me since it's Valentines day coming up?

I still look on confused by the whole ouya thing.

Another dev has posted this morning saying Elite have never paid him taking the total on that WoS thread alone to 4.

Whole thing stinks to high. The company accounts are also interesting.

https://www.duedil.com/company/01840901/elite-systems-limited

The story has developed throughout the day with more people coming out of the woodwork including Odin who also say they have never received a payment.

If any of you have pledged on it, please consider withdrawing your pledge.

I can't read that, what is the kickstarter?

Malc

The Kickstarter is this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/952953995/bluetooth-zx-spectrum-recreating-the-sinclair-zx-s

Concerns had already been raised to the deaf ears of backers that since iOS can't read key up events the keyboard would be useless for gaming. But now it's come out that at least 6 developers who Elite have licensed games from have never been paid in over 3 years. Other people claim games are being sold for which there is no permission.

Meanwhile Steve Wetherill of Odin has issued a statement:

http://stevewetherill.com/2014/01/30/public-statement-on-elite-bluetooth-spectrum-kickstarter/

It all stinks right from the fact there's no guarantee it will work properly through to there being a queue of people Elite owe money to.

There's now less than 12 hours for people to get their money out.

and more:

http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk/gibber/2014/01/the-elite-bluetooth-keyboard-breaking-down-the-problems/

Heres the thing I don't get: the 48K keyboard was shite, due to being low cost. Why now spend huge amounts of money for a not overly aithentic crap keyboard.

Retro cool, innit.

Like your mum

Reading the comments of some the backers, I'm not sure some of them actually understand what they are backing anyway. Perhaps its language difficulties but some of them appear to think they are backing a whole new Spectrum rather than a device that will probably only work with Elite's own emulators (both of which I have and neither of which I am a fan of).

Feex.

Which is stupid because 1) the rubber keyboard was always shit and 2) you could buy a broken Spectrum on Ebay and nail it to your wall for far less than one of those devices.

This custom controller Kickstarter went well:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1703567677/icontrolpad-2-the-open-source-controller

Never turned up.

It is a bit confusing I think. They do specifically mention a couple of times that it's a Bluetooth keyboard, but they spend a lot more time talking about the "recreated Sinclair ZX Spectrum" or, more often, simply the "Bluetooth ZX Spectrum" which implies the device has the functionality of an actual ZX Spectrum when obviously it doesn't. I'm not excusing anyone who throws money at the internet without thoroughly checking what they're buying first, but if it was me I'd have used the word 'keyboard' every time I said 'ZX Spectrum' just so no one was in any doubt what I was selling.

Which is weird because its basically the bottom control panel of the Pandora (so already built and designed) and I did have the V1 of it at some point in the past so they knew how to make it all - i assume just really badly run (and given I put down cash for a Pandora from them which took years to arrive that would not really surprise me)

Everything on there is as muddy as hell. They fudge absolutely everything so it's vague and open to misinterpretation.

They even name drop people in such a way that if you don't read carefully you'd think they might be involved.

Sadly my understanding is that once it is funded, that is is. Even though there is time to go.

If the devs had flagged it all earlier, there would have been a much better chance of stopping it going through. But sadly they've got away with it despite the best actions of us meddling kids.

Will it ever turn up? Dunno. Will it ever work as people seem to hope it might? Dunno. Will the developers ever get their cash? Dunno.

Best things the devs could do is take legal action to pull their games so that Elite have nothing to sell other than an emulator and a box full of shattered dreams.

Why don't they all band together and take the baddies to court?

They've only just started talking to each other in the last few days. The catalyst was that first post on the WoS thread.

As I say, if this had happened this time last week.......

Backer claims Elite are sending updates asking for more cash due to people pulling out due to "hard times":

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1586115706/comments

Meanwhile the statement on the situation that Elite promised at lunchtime has failed to materialise so far. What's the reckoning it pops up with just enough time to reassure people wavering but not long enough for people to respond to whatever it says?

Claim its a misunderstanding and that they had all the cheques just waiting but were out of stamps or similar and make that statement at 21:00 tonight (since the whole kickstarter finishes at 22:00)

I also do not expect the actual keyboard will ever come out.

Indeed. All it's going to take is a couple of creditors to come a knocking, that 60 grand will get a big dent in it and that will be it. After all the nice people in China who will be making the tooling (the expensive bit) will be wanting cash up front.