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[nenjin]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/combitstudios/river-city-ransom-underground

WHACK! SMASH! BARF!

Oh yes. The Nintendo brawler that ate up much of my childhood is coming back, officially licensed from the owners of the IP for Kickstarter action. What will this remake bring to the table?

You're backing a 2.5D open world beat'em up with RPG elements, just like the classic game, for the Windows platform. We're making River City bigger, adding more stores, items, and bringing the cast and crew into the modern era. You'll reunite with old friends (and punch them in the face), meet new ones, and play through an epic story in an urban, open world. Yes, the game will feature local co-op play, and online co-op depending on our distribution partners on launch day.

We've evolved combat based on the mechanics of the golden age of console fighting, and we're pushing to get sophisticated, crafty opponent AI into the game. You're not safe standing on your bench anymore!

I'm sold. Backing at $15 (in Canadian dollars) gets you the game. You can get 2 copies of the game for $30, and 4 for $40 to share with your friends. In-game skins for weapons and characters, and game perks start a bit after that. Physical swag starts at $100. Digital immortality begins from there on.

Estimated ship date is Q3, 2014.

With only two week to go, it seems in danger of not making its goal. So if you love 2d fighting games, co-op beat 'em ups, and making people barf, plant your pledge directly in its face.

[Neonivek]

So River city Ransom Underground is when our two leads have become washed up middle aged men?

[nenjin]

It would appear so.

[Yoink]

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh yes!
Yes. Yes, I must give money to this. This is excellent.

I'm not even old enough to be nostalgia-ing over the original game- I played it later via emulators, and it's good enough to stand the test of time. River City Ransom is awesome.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Love it, except they need better pixel art. That's the kind of complete garbage I could draw! And you know how people always say that about simple-looking art? I mean I have actually done pixel art that looks an awful lot like that stuff.

[Ant]

Hell yes. Now to lottery stall or something.

[nenjin]

So I actually got around to giving this a closer look (snuck up on me while I was on the road.)

It's looking pretty awesome. The Kickstarter video is very well done, funny, unfortunately a little light on gameplay. But what it shows, omg. It looks great, slick, rich and <adjective>.

There's more than 2 characters, more like 8, each with their own unique fighting style and abilities. (I believe I saw Capoeira in there.) There's 4 player co-op as well.

The more I look at this project, the more I must have it! Funding for it has kind of tapered off and it still has halfway to go. Check it out, back it, tell people about it! SMASH! I've decided to go in for $100, both to get a few things the 4-pack doesn't offer and because I think this project is really worth it. It'll be the 2nd Kickstarter I've donated that much to, if that says anything.

[EuchreJack]

Dude, where are the weapons?  I loved hitting people in the face with stuff!

[nenjin]

A bump for great justice. 7 days to go and it needs a little over $60,000 to get there. Good people, gamers, brawlers and nostalgians, back this game!

[nenjin]

$33,000 and five days to go.

[Azurestrike]

This is so close to getting funded, if anyone has been on the fence, now's the time to really decide if this will go through or not.

[nenjin]

This is so close to getting funded, if anyone has been on the fence, now's the time to really decide if this will go through or not.

[nenjin]

Phew, funded!

[nenjin]

Reporting back on this since I noticed a little activity in my email.

They're a bit behind schedule according to the private backer forums. Something about the core code becoming slow and cludgey, so they brought on someone to act as lead developer to get them back on schedule. No announced movement on the release window, which was pretty nebulous to begin with. Given that they haven't even said they're in alpha yet, and there's to be a backer beta, I'll be surprised to see this in 2014.

Reading through the forums, I'm a little surprised that what they're showing still seems like so much early work. Despite being funded close to a year ago (jesus has it been that long?) they don't actually have any real video to show, just some gifs of indevelopment work. They're still working on things like meshes for vehicles and large objects. My sense as well is that is their tool chain has shifted a couple times, which usually necessitates redoing a lot of work. What they've had more to show of any anything really is the physical swag....printed game covers, novelty cartridge cases, ect....

Couple preview soundtracks.

Arcade Ambiance sounds: https://soundcloud.com/dustincrenna/rcru-preview-sounds-arcade-ambience-k900

Quick montage of some in-game effects: https://soundcloud.com/dustincrenna/rcru-sound-effects-audio-montage

They haven't shown off a ton of game areas, but they say there are 3 districts to the city and one district has 60 screens in it so far. Which sounds really awesome but alas, isn't the kind of tangible development progress that feeds the soul.

I guess it was easy to assume, based on the campaign material, that they had more prototype work done. I haven't exactly lost heart in this project, but it's a little disappointing to have so little to look at after such a long wait.

[Ant]

so glad this ain't dead!

RCR ftw.