The recent Jem & The Holograms feature film is not what anyone would call successful. With an estimated $5,000,000 budget and a worldwide gross of only $3,000,000 it could be argued that the team behind the film really missed the point. That’s exactly what the all girl YouTube group known as CreatureTubes felt when they released a Jem Reacts video with the original cast reacting to the new feature film.

After a positive response to their video (and likely more viewers than the movie garnered, the group decided to take a step in a positive direction and instead of looking at what didn’t work and focus on creating what they feel should have been the Jem film. But since no studio is going to touch that property for a good decade, the girls are turning towards Kickstarter to make it happen.

Back in the N64 days, Perfect Dark was the shooter that was second only to Goldeneye and that’s probably because it was from the same developers but was a brand new IP that didn’t have the cache that something like the James Bond brand brought to the table. A generation later when the XBox 360 launched with Perfect Dark Zero alongside it and helped hold fans over until Halo made its leap to the generation.

Later in 2010, five years after Perfect Dark Zero was released, there was an XBox Live version of the original Perfect Dark. What other reason could there be for the rerelease of a classic title if not to promote a new one? And then in August of 2013, Rare said they had new ideas for a Perfect Dark game that involved the Kinect (keep in mind this was before the lackluster reception of the Kinect on the XBox One). Since then… nothing.

Some games are defined by very clear mechanics. These games like Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh or even Pokemon come down to two things, the draw and the ability to strategically exploit said mechanics. As with a game of chess, a game of Magic can be decided within the first three turns. Then there are the other games that are all about personal taste and even what some could think of as a trump card can be defeated out of nowhere. Cards Against Humanity and Apples to Apples are two such examples. Ultimate Battle looks to join that group with their Kickstarter that launched yesterday.

Ultimate Battle is what appears to be a nerd’s dream with a solution for solving the most unreasonable arguments. Players draw their own avatar on a play mat and get some weapon cards. They then theorize how their character would kill another using their items then the defending player comes up with how they’d defend it. If they agree that the defense works then the next player goes.

If the argument continues, there is a deck of dispute cards meant to solve the argument fairly, and by fairly it is by completely arbitrary and unrelated methods like Rock, Paper, Scissors or whoever has the shortest hair. It ends up being the best way to solve these kinds of arguments anyway since neither side is going to concede if Batman could use a blue whale to kill the Terminator whose only defense is spiders.

Friends, Shakespeareans, gamers, lend me your ears! IDW Games has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a Kill Shakespeare board game, based on the graphic novel series.

With a goal of $25,000, Kill Shakespeare is the first joint venture between IDW Games and Pandasaurus Games. The campaign includes perks such as lithographs, posters, custom dice and of course the game itself, at a deeply discounted rate. Stretch goals are also in place to expand game content to include additional characters and quests.

The game itself is a semi-cooperative board game where players are one of Shakespeare’s heroes battling against his villains while completing quests from the Bard himself.

About a year ago, crowdfunding was the big buzz word. If you had talent but wanted to remain independent or you just weren’t big enough to make it to the desk of a major studio, developer, publisher or manufacturer, you would head to Kickstarter (or maybe Indiegogo) and put a call out to your audience and see what they could do to help get your project going.

Early on, there were some huge successes with millions of dollars going into funding. But then, you couldn’t escape it. If you were an entertainment writer of any kind be it movie, music or gaming, your email box didn’t go a week without hearing about “the next big thing… that just needs crowdfunding” and quickly that frequency has continued to increase.

If somehow it was possible to ensure that the projects being put on Kickstarter and then publicized everywhere were of a certain quality, this wouldn’t be an issue. But the more I hear about and see the bad ones, the less likely I am to check out the good ones. Now instead of going and browsing Kickstarter on my own, I only head over if someone has directly recommended one to me and that has to be someone I trust the opinion of.

This is especially evident in the gaming category. You have one or two higher profile titles and everything else is derivative and unoriginal fluff.

Normally the Kickstarter Watch focuses on projects that are still in need of funding. This one is another kind of watch entirely since if you’ve been on YouTube over the past week, it’s been pretty much impossible to miss this one: Kung Fury.

Shot in a style very similar to that of YouTuber Mike Diva’s Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon: The Movie, Kung Fury is heavily 80’s inspired with everything from its Ghostbusters-esque power chord to filters on top of filters on top of filters and graphics that’d make the Lawnmower Man cry (one background graphic even looks like the loading screen from the video game version of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon).

Kung Fu, Nazis, Hitler, Thor, a Viking girl with machine guns and dinosaurs. How could this not be awesome. In just over a week, this trailer has garnered just about 5,000,000 views on YouTube.

The Headlocked comic once quoted me, “An intriguing take on an industry that is just as drama filled behind the scenes as it is on television.” Years later and seeing all the work that has gone behind Headlocked, I still hold that to be true. Michael Kingston has created the quintessential wrestling story ithough never being a wrestler himself. Though there are some parts nitpickers may try to poke and prod at, it has come a hell of a lot closer to the wrestling world than any WWE or WCW comic ever did.

With two months time, Kingston has given himself the Kickstarter goal of $16,000 with over $2,000 coming in during the first 24 hours to help fund the second story arc of the comic entitled Headlocked: The Last Territory. Meant to be enjoyed as a continuation of the story or read on its own, Kingston describes Headlocked: The Last Territory:

Often, Kickstarter campaigns come from companies and properties we have never heard of and it has proven itself to be a great source for finding new IPs. But it has also been a way for creators with more established properties to help to find support from their audience in exchange for an actual product rather than just looking for donations. One of these companies is Blind Ferret which has been someone the Flickcast team has been aware of for quite some time. The team behind Looking For Group and the Gutters, we have seen both the comics as well as their yearly booth appearance at San Diego Comic Con. So when it came to our attention that they were doing a Kickstarter to help create a video game based off the LFG property, it quickly shot to the top of our radar.

With the campaign ending at Friday night of Comic Con in less than three weeks, LFG: The Fork of Truth is about a sixth of the way there for its $600K goal. This is one of the Kickstarters that needs support from its audience rather than people sitting back and assuming others will just kick in and they’ll be able to purchase it after the fact.

Usually, our Kickstarter watch has a geeky slant to it. Comics, video games, table top games and even film projects around the geek lifestyle have made their way onto the Kickstarter Watch. But this one is just plain awesomeness.

I am throwing it on the table that if this Kickstarter succeeds, it will make its way right onto the Dude, I Want That website. Everyone travels with their pets in the car with them but there has never been a safe way to have your Doberman sit on your lap while cruising down the highway on your Harley Davidson. That of course is being changed by Greg Hudome at Dog Saucer.

As you see in the cover image and video below, Dog Saucer provides a way for motorcycle owners to transport their dog around in style hooking to the back of their hog. From the looks of it, this is only going to be an option for dogs of a certain size as smaller Chihuahua sized pups can pop right out the back with the way it is currently designed.

There is enough room for a larger dog to turn around and have its head come out of the front or rear of the pod. How safe this is at high speeds is probably debatable but it can’t be much more dangerous than the people who have their little dogs running across their lap, on the wheel or under their feet on the high way.

Nostalgia for retro lifestyle can go two ways. There are those things we fondly remember that when we revisit them they don’t seem to hold up. See the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES as a prime example of something you sunk probably years of your life into only to realize years later that it is a pretty terrible game. But there are others that withstand the test of time and whether it’s 1985 or 2085 are still going to be great games. Games like Castlevania, Super Metroid, Gradius, Super Mario Brothers and others stand that test of time. So it’s no wonder why someone would take the chance at going back if given the chance.

A.N.N.E. is that chance. A.N.N.E. is the brainchild of Moise Breton, the founder of GamesbyMo. With 10 years in developing, A.N.N.E. is Moise’s first time focusing on his own project that combines concepts behind some of the above mentioned titles with bright and vibrant Fez-styled graphics. As you’ll see in the trailer below, the game has a unique feel as it transitions from ship based combat to puzzle solving to exploration and ground skirmishes. And it doesn’t just feel like retro graphics but full on gorgeous pixel art style animation on top of the mashup gameplay.