The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is done, but wants to do more with Kickstarter
We're in the middle (or perhaps just the beginning) of a point-and-click adventure gaming rennaissance. Telltale Games may be the new Sierra Entertainment. Daedalic Entertainment just might be filling LucasArts' shoes. And now King Art wants to push its own abilities – and broaden adventure gamers' expectations – with The Book of Unwritten Tales 2.
Look, King Art already finished the game. It's done. It's good to go for a 2014 launch. But its $65,000 Kickstarter goal is going to invest in The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 things that normally end up on adventure games' cutting room floor, or not started at all due to monetary constraints.
King Art wants to inject elements that are standard in role-playing and action-adventure games that don't usually make it into a point-and-clicker's budget. Things like optional puzzles, puzzles with multiple solutions, or even strings of side quests taking players off the critical path. I'll admit, nothing roadblocks an adventure game faster than an obtuse, singular solution to a puzzle that should seemingly have secondary or even teriary solutions.
The first Book of Unwritten Tales had a lot of heart, wasn't scared of being self-aware, and plucked tons of fantasy-fiction tributes from geekdom's pop culture library. We don't often go chasing Kickstarter waterfalls here at Gaming Nexus, but King Art is making positive contributions to one of my favorite genres, and already has a completed game, so they get a hat tip here. At the time of this writing, King Art is already 84 percent of the way to its Kickstarter goal with 39 days to go.
Were the Kickstarter to fail, the game would've launched this year. But now, only inches away from its Kickstarter goalpost, release will be sometime in 2015 on PC.
KING Art launches Kickstarter to push boundaries of the point and click genre
London, UK - February 11, 2014: Nordic Games and KING Art have today announced a unique collaboration which will see The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 – the sequel to the much-loved 2009 adventure – released at the beginning of 2015.
Keen to push the boundaries of the niche point-and-click genre, KING Art has also launched a Kickstarter to raise funds to develop additional content for the game.
View The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Kickstarter page here.
Assets can be downloaded from here. (279MB zip file)
“This is a very ambitious project,” says Martin Kreuch, producer at Nordic Games. “The fans have been waiting for a new adventure in the world of Aventasia that continues the story of BoUT 1. We have a long and very fruitful track record working with KING Art, which is why it is important to us to support them in any way that is needed. If KING Art wants to try out something new, why should we be hindering them in doing so? At first, it seemed strange to us thinking about an already-funded game being on Kickstarter, but then we were amazed about the possibility to get direct feedback from the crowd about this additional on-top content and features.”
“We’re thrilled to be working alongside Nordic Games again on The Book of Unwritten Tales 2,” adds Jan Theysen, Creative Director, KING Art. “At a later stage of the development process – production start was in October 2012 – we suggested to Nordic Games to add additional features (multiple ways to solve certain puzzles, optional sidequests with different outfits to customise the appearance of your character etc.) and more community communication to further improve the game. Based on our very positive experience with Kickstarter on a different project (Battle World: Kronos), we suggested involving the community directly via Kickstarter to see if these features are something that gamers would like to see in an adventure game. Every cent from the campaign goes directly into the on-top content and we are excited to see how the adventure community will react to our ambitious plans.”
Released in 2009, The Book of Unwritten Tales was highly acclaimed by press and critics alike. The sequel continues the story of the beloved protagonists of the first part and its add-on.
