With 22 days still left on its Crowd-sourced funding drive, InXile Entertainment’s Kickstarter project for Wasteland 2 has now raised an additional $600,000 above it’s original $900,000 goal. As the funding continues to steam ahead, the financially-invested fans are understandably asking where all these extra funds are going to be going and the very humbled Brian Fargo continues to post updates on their evolving intentions.
The first benefit of the extra funds is that it has now confirmed that the game will be made available on Mac and Linux Operating systems in addition to the intended PC. Brian mentions that they are also still considering a tablet offering, but that home console versions are not happening because they “want to avoid any elements that could distract” — referring to spending valuable development time adjusting interfaces to fit TV screens and control pads
The console interface is quite different when you consider the input device and proximity to the screen whereas the Mac and Linux are pretty much identical to that of the ‘PC’. We will consider a tablet version due to the similarity of the screen and interface but even on that we need to do a bit more research.
Fargo also rules out an outright multiplayer or co-op component, maintaining that the game will be too narrative-focused to work multiplayer in, but that are interested in some manner of social interaction:
We like the concepts of dropping notes into the world for your friends who are playing the game, or perhaps we may allow you to send an item their way from Ranger center to help them out. We are fleshing out the ideas but intend to increase the social aspects of the game without diverting it from being an old school RPG and without hurting the balance.
Reactions from fans that have contributed funding has been mixed, but Fargo insists that they’ll at least be attempting to democratically approve such controversial features with the public before implementing them:
I think some people are overreacting to the word “social” which I can kind of understand. But here is the bottom line. We will post a description of our thoughts in the forums and if YOU the fans still don’t want it then we will not fight the majority.
The blogs also include some feel-good moments of the crowd-sourcing exercise, including a fan that purported to have pirated the original Wasteland so pledged a cool $10,000 to the cause and word that if they hadn’t have reached their funding goal, a “wealthy software industry individual who is a passionate fan” was prepared to cover the shortfall.
Watch the new video below for another light-hearted video about the game’s development philosophies and ambitions.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-baSDDJ14&w=480&h=274]