First I wrote about the Skyjacker demo, which reveals a rather slick space sim that’s already quite a ways along in development. Then I noted that the Kickstarter for the project was being rebooted. Well, now the new Kickstarter campaign is online, and the reward tiers make a lot more sense. If you are interested in flying some spaceships around and blowing things up, you should take a look. The demo is also still available so you can try it out before you decide about making a pledge. The developers warn that the demo is a work in progress, and that they will be adding better voiceovers, improved HUD and menus, additional flight models, and a lot of bugfixes for the final version.
Tag: Space Sims
With regards to my last post about Skyjacker, it looks like the developers have decided to scrap their current Kickstarter project so they can start a new, better one. The news comes in the project’s latest update, although the current Kickstarter project still appears to be active. No word yet on when the new Kickstarter project will start, but I’ll keep an eye out for it. In the meantime, anyone’s who’s interested in some space sim action can still check out the playable demo.
Ah, demos. They were these things we used to have that let you try out part of a game before you decided to buy it. Now, there are so many inexpensive games available digitally that most developers don’t bother making demos. But there’s a good reason that the Russian developers of Skyjacker made a demo: they’re not quite done with the game yet, and they’re looking to crowdsource some funding through Kickstarter. That’s been quite successful for some other game ventures, as you may have heard.
Of course, after Tim Schafer’s success there’s been an explosion of Kickstarter proposals for new games. So what makes Skyjacker stand out? Well, for one, it’s a space sim, which is a classic genre that essentially hasn’t seen any new games since 1999’s Freespace 2, considered by many to be one of the best games ever made. Skyjacker’s developers are also talking up some cool features like fully destructible spaceships that can be blown apart one piece at a time, freeform gameplay that lets the player pick and choose missions and develop their own relations with various factions, and a bunch more. And, unlike most Kickstarter projects, there’s already a fully playable demo. I downloaded it, dusted off my flight stick (literally; it was dusty) and took it for a test flight.