The Black Glove kickstarter

[melmer]

Described in its kickstarter summery as a "An eerie, surrealistic, first-person game experience" (i could've sworn the word game wasn't there yesturday, maybe i'm miss remembersing, maybe they updated it. I thought it said "interactive experience") Anyway the long and the short of it is that i dont think that this is much of a "game" and is more an interactive art exhibit.

 

In fact i think i'd much prefer it if they dropped the "game" part of it and just let me explorer an interactive art exhibit. Giving the player the ability to change/create the art kinda cheapens it for me.

 

Oh, i get it now..! This game is about smelling your own shit

[Malfsyde]

I wouldn't mind it being a walking simulator, especially if the alternative is that awful arcade thing. I kinda wished Bioshock: Infinite had throw out all or most of its combat and just let me explore the environment, but then that game would have never be made. I don't know if I want to play this thing, but I do want it to get made.

[Jake]

Questions

- What do you actually do?

A kickstarter creator's nightmare laid bare.

[melmer]

 

Just received this reply, not sure if they'll add it as a stretch goal

 

The current fund doesn't look particularly healthy $96,223 pledged of $550,000 goal with 21 days to go

 

[miffy495]

I am completely amazed that they bothered to respond to "PS4 innit". Good work, sir.

[Murdoc]

Yeah, unless some miracle happens it looks like they aren't going to make it. Even if it wasn't my jam, disappointing it doesn't get made and help employ some seemingly

cool people.

[singlespace]

It's going to be interesting to see what the funding numbers for video game Kickstarters ends up being for 2014. I get the impression that it's considerably less than last year.

[melmer]

New trailer and ps4 tier added

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theblackglove/the-black-glove

Fuck it, I've pledged. I'm the 37th ps4 backer.

I don't think they've got a chance though, they're still at 1/5 of there target, it clearly hasn't captured people's interest.

[singlespace]

It's looking extremely grim:

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/theblackglove/the-black-glove/

[CollegeBaby]

Aside from the Kickstarter boom apparently being over, it looks like a problem of too much money for too strange a game. People fairly critique the typical publisher model for being adverse to risk and a reluctance for projects that have no set precedence, but the crowdfunded projects that make big money (over $500,000) are still the same easy sell projects that bank on nostalgia, existing franchises or otherwise a rather simple idea that is easy to digest. Unfortunately this game had none of those.

[sclpls]

Yeah, it seems like games can have daring experimental ideas, and they can have expensive looking art assets, but they can't have both.

[feelthedarkness]

I backed this out of some sense of sympathy, which I do a lot.

 

The front/back glove effect is really nice, but the other stuff doesn't seem too promising. There is a through line about "creating art" but the little I've seen doesn't make me think that there is some great conceptual work underpinning it. Making a game about making art is tough, unless you're confining the band to craft.  

[Bolegium]

The new trailer showed a bit more of the diegetic arcade game, and implied that it will it wont be simply restricted to being a minigame. I don't like being too critical of that choice before the game is even funded, let alone released, but it definitely is the main thing that makes me lose interest in the project. The weird puzzles in 'The Witness' are seemingly similar, but to me it's very clear that they are integral to the experience of the game as a whole. I still don't get that feeling from The Black Glove, even though they've tried to hint at it. It must be difficult juggling how much information to divulge before you start 'spoiling' the game, but I wish Day for Night were a bit more clear in communicating what they are aiming for. But then I feel selfish and indulgent for wanting them to spell out so much of their game.

 

I think a breakdown of their budget might have helped sell the project better as well, 'Sunset' from Tale of Tales comes to mind as being pretty clear about how they were going to use their funds.

 

Generally speaking much of Kickstarter as it exists now is caught in a strange place between being another pre-ordering mechanism and a genuinely disruptive production/funding facilitator. It seems like it's more of the former unfortunately.

 

I'm not sure about other creative works, but I know that for film/video productions, pitching and applying for funding needs open communication about any and all aspects of your work. That means not shying away from spoilers etc. A lot of Kickstarter game projects are enigmatic rather than open about these things, which I guess is commendably consumer-friendly, but not collaborator friendly at all. I think this needs to change, if for no other reason than to foster realistic expectations for what can be produced.

 

The production of creative works is inherently a much more difficult field compared to that of practical works, as there are so many more things that cannot be quantified. So I understand how difficult it is to get funding and retain creative control, from anywhere. It will be a shame if The Black Glove doesn't get produced eventually.

 

Also I have no idea how game production and funding works, so please correct me when I'm wrong. Film has had a long and established history of studio and independent systems in place, so it might be unfair to compare it to game development.

[Cleinhun]

It seems like they've gone out of their way to make sure people realize the space minotaur thing is an actual game with depth to it and not just a weird pac-man clone, but eehhhhh, it's still kind of off-putting to me? The thing that really irks me about it isn't so much how it'll play, but the fact that it seems really thematically incongruous with everything else they've shown. Like, I kinda feel like the only reason it's an 80's arcade cabinet (as opposed to a magical closet or whatever) is because the devs grew up in the 80's and think 80's games are cool?

[CollegeBaby]

 

It seems like they've gone out of their way to make sure people realize the space minotaur thing is an actual game with depth to it and not just a weird pac-man clone, but eehhhhh, it's still kind of off-putting to me? The thing that really irks me about it isn't so much how it'll play, but the fact that it seems really thematically incongruous with everything else they've shown. Like, I kinda feel like the only reason it's an 80's arcade cabinet (as opposed to a magical closet or whatever) is because the devs grew up in the 80's and think 80's games are cool?

 

Joe Fielder explains here that Space Minotaur was his first game idea as a kid but never got a opportunity to make it. That's an explanation, but I don't think it makes it any less off-putting. I agree, I was more interested in the game when I thought that thing was just minor side content. Honestly the game made more sense to me until that thing came up - it just looked like a Sleep No More version of The Black Lodge if it were a video game - now I can't wrap my head around what purpose it's suppose to serve. Maybe they were expecting it to pull the nostalgia angle? To me it just reminds me of bad Atari knock-offs.

[Cordeos]

The game has been "shelved"

 

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/11/8585293/black-glove-shelved-ex-bioshock

[Vasari]

I heard about this yesterday It's a shame, I love weird ambitious games like this and it looks like they had something special. I hope they get to come back to it soon.