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.

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.

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.

This is probably one of the geekiest posts we’ve ever put up here, but that’s okay as we often love some hot tabletop gaming action. To make said hot tabletop action even hotter, you really need some cool terrain pieces to visually enhance your adventures.

Fortunately, the gang at Dwarven Forge has got you covered. If you haven’t checked out their Kickstarter campaign yet, you should. These things look great, are durable, modular and will lend that extra flair to all your tabletop gaming sessions. And really, who doesn’t want extra flair? I know we do.

This is what Kickstarter was made for. Take that money you were going to give to Zac Braff and instead, give it to something really cool with perks that will last a lifetime.

Plus, because their Kickstarter is sure to be funded, your donation could get you a veritable treasure trove of awesome gaming pieces. Something every geek needs in his or her bag of tricks.

So, what are you waiting for? You get to support an awesome Kickstarter campaign and get some amazing stuff for yourself. What could be better than that?

[Via Geek Dad]

The little tower defense game that could keeps on trucking with the official announcement of the sequel to Defense Grid set for 2014. Way back in 2009 during Comic-Con, I got the chance to get hands on with the original Defense Grid before it went to XBox Live Arcade.

Though not being a tower defense guy, I couldn’t stop playing (until the game beat me into submission). Then with the “You Monster” DLC pack that put even more levels, but this time with a Portal theme, at my disposal, I was hooked again.

During our Kickstarter Watch, we put a spotlight on Defense Grid in hopes of helping Hidden Path reach their goal that would eventually lead to the release of Defense Grid 2. Though the million dollar goal wasn’t hit, this bit of news was released yesterday:

Most of what you have seen in the past on the Kickstarter Watch has been gaming related. For the most part, we don’t even get a chance to look at every Kickstarter campaign email that gets sent to us because there are so many out there. But when we got the press release about Legends of the Knight using Kickstarter to help them finish off production, there was something special about this project that made us click through and watch the trailer (which you can see embedded at the bottom of this article).

Growing up as lifelong comics fans, it was impossible to not know who Batman was. Whether you were a Marvel guy or even didn’t like Superman because he was just too powerful, almost everyone in or around the industry has a soft spot for the Batman.