Geneforge 2 – Infestation Kickstarter One Week Update, $57,630 and Counting

Following a week of enthusiastic crowdfunding, Spiderweb Software’s Kickstarter campaign for Geneforge 2 – Infestation, a remake of the second game in the Geneforge series, is now sitting at $57,630, which is just short of the second stretch goal that will expand the game with a new storyline.

And with three weeks still to go, hitting that goal is all but assured. Which now brings us to the campaign’s first update that shares a quick message from Jeff Vogel and a prototype screenshot.

Here are the text bits:

Greetings, supporters! It has been a week since the Geneforge 2 – Infestation Kickstarter started, and it’s time for the first of several weekly updates.

We are thrilled with how the Kickstarter has gone. It funded almost immediately, and we’ve already reached our first stretch goal. There will be a game (out early 2023), and it will have a new creation to send into battle. After the Kickstarter is done, we’ll begin asking your opinions for what it should be and what it can do.

We’re looking good for our next stretch goal: Adding a new, long quest storyline with a bunch of new sections to explore. Hopefully, it will fund before next week’s update.

Almost all of the design rewards have sold out. We’re both grateful and overwhelmed. That’s a lot of quests, characters, and artifacts to create. Yet, we’re excited about it. We’ve done this several times. It’s difficult, but it also results in a more varied and interesting game. We can’t wait to hear your ideas!

We’re going to spend the next few weeks finding places to spread the news about this Kickstarter. We’d love to reach more goals and add more adventures to the game.

Thank you again for your support! Back to work, and you’ll hear from us next week.

– Jeff Vogel

And if you still want more Jeff Vogel in your life, his blog now has this new article that tries to define the rather nebulous term that is “power fantasy” and its connection to video games and their sales.

A quick excerpt:

What Brings This To Mind, Part Two

We recently released a game called Queen’s Wish 2: The Tormentor. Like most of our games, it is soaked in politics, factions, arguments, and tough choices to make.

I’ve written tons of games like that, where, once you pick a side, you can fight your way to a happy ending where the things you want to happen happen and there are few things to feel bad about.

The difference with Queen’s Wish 2 is that there aren’t happy solutions. You change the world in dramatic ways. However, there is no sparkly ending, where you’re totally happy with the result. You have to make compromises. Bad things always happen somewhere.

I made it this way because it’s honest. I’ve read enough history and lived enough life to know that there is almost never a clean answer. You fight and negotiate and take what you can get, and the best you can hope for is 55%. Honesty is not a power fantasy.

A lot of my fans hate this. And, honestly, they should. By doing this, I’m breaking the Video Game Contract. Video games are at their best when they deliver satisfying power fantasies. I used to do that. It doesn’t feel honest to me anymore.

That is why my brain, at this point, is not able to make all-new games that will be satisfying and successful to my audience. I don’t have more to say about that now, as I’m still working it out for myself.