Poncho

A Platformer like nothing seen before, explore this open-world puzzler in multiple dimensions on a journey to find your Maker

Waking up in a post apocalyptic world of overgrown ruins filled with life, a robot named Poncho begins a journey to find his Maker

Humanity has been extinct for centuries, leaving their robotic creations behind to fend for themselves. These robots have formed tribes and communities of their own, trying to make a way of life without purpose now their masters are gone

On your journey, you will have to make some hard choices and ultimately decide the fate of humankind. With multiple areas and paths to explore, you'll never be able to see everything in a single play through. Poncho is about making you feel like a kid again, exploring outside and looking under rocks to see what you find. There's treasure in every nook and cranny in this world, and nothing is quite as it seems... There's always more than one way to accomplish your goals

<span class="bold">Battle Chef Brigade</span>

Play as a magical chef! Hunt monsters and cook them into exquisite dishes to wow the judges and crush your opponents! Cooking in games is always a simple affair, represented entirely by minigame or crafting mechanics. Not so in Battle Chef Brigade. Here, you decide what dishes to make. Each elimination round of the Battle Chef Royale will pit you against an opposing chef in a competition to wow the judges with your tasty dishes and culinary skills and spells.

A fantasy combat game heavily inspired by the Japanese TV show Iron Chef. That's pretty dang cool.

Reminds me a lot of the anime series Toriko. Hunt dangerous animals, kill 'em, cook 'em and eat 'em.

Looks nice. I'll have to keep an eye on it. Thanks for sharing!

My pleasure! As an old Iron Chef fan, I feel I will have to pledge to this one. Just have to to a little more research and then pick a level.

<span class="bold">BEDLAM</span>

A post-apocalyptic roguelike RPG featuring our unique blitz battle system - Inspired by great games like The Banner Saga, FTL and XCOM.

Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King

This game looks so friggin awesome! So much love for the SNES Zelda and some Final Fantasy inspired art too, maybe even a little Mario Bros influence. It's all original Action-RPG/Adventure goodness in the vain of a Link to the Past but I think the combat is way cooler in this.

Check it out!

EDIT: Also, this is done by the creators of the platformer Rocket Rex, which should be coming to GOG any day now. The dev emphatically says that Bloosom Tales will be available DRM-Free at GOG.

<span class="bold">Paradigm - A Surreal Adventure Game</span>

Mechanically, this is a typical point-and-click adventure game. Everything else about the game is quite far from typical. Paradigm is beautifully weird, zany, even creepy, but it looks anything but boring. I'm really stoked for this to be released. The dev says it will be made available DRM-free at GOG.com!

This is Steam only right now.No indication from dev it will be available Steam free :(
Looks pretty cool .Something different!!!.:)backed..!

Turn-based strategy game similar to the classic board game Risk but with a variety of resources management mechanics as well as RPG elements
Highlands

I actually find it quite off putting when stretch goals are listed on Day-1. I understand that they serve (or at least they're supposed to serve) to drive funding, but it still feels like putting the cart before the horses.

As for the missing images, there was another campaign where a couple of the team members were rather shy to show themselves on the Kickstarter page and pitch video.
Not meant to defend this specific project, but I can understand the "not comfortable with the publicity" aspect.

I feel the opposite way. To me the stretch goals show that they have thought through their project and planned it out realistically, and know what kind of game they can make at each budgetary milestone. Unstated goals say to me that they are improvising and doing ad hoc resource allocation, which is not a mature development methodology. It may not be accurate in this case, they may just be keeping them secret to generate interest, but the initial impression it gives me as a funder is that they don't have a clear plan for what they will be doing.

I can understand that. It's just a personal thing that I don't like those anonymous placeholder graphics. Better if they just bullet-listed the others in that case. Then it doesn't give the impression of missing content. It also can create the impression on a casual glance that they have a bunch of unfilled team positions, at least until one reads and sees that these silhouettes match up with existing staff. Again, perception counts in this realm.

Even given these faults, I still would have funded at least the early bird release of the game if they had bothered to consider the wider marketplace of buyers. Oh well.

Hiragana Pixel Party! - A music game to teach Japanese

Think of it as a pixel art version of Parappa the Rapper. A preliminary version has been available for iOS devices (the base game is free with some IAP expansions available), but this campaign is an attempt to take the game to PC, Android, 3DS, and other consoles. Plus, the base game currently available only teaches you how to recognize Japanese characters (its version of letters, if you will). Through the campaign, they are aiming to add a new mode that will teach you full words as well.

It seems like a fun and engaging way to learn the foundations of a new language. Give it a look!

I completely agree with this, my objection lies with them being announced on Day-1. I'd rather they're announced closer to making their funding goal along with some details that support/ justify the amount allocated, not that I prefer they have none and make them up as they go. :-)

I see now what you mean about the images, and I agree that just listing the names and a short bio is more professional.

None of the above ever held me from backing a project that spoke to me positively otherwise. As you say, the #1 factor for backing a solid project is their distribution plans.

Yes, I'm fine with them holding some back, for example as Moon Hunters did, unveiling more high-tier ones as funding continued to flow in. I think it looks unprofessional for them to be listing all those ??? ones. They should just omit them until they are ready to be revealed. The way they have it done now looks more like "What'll we do with this money? Dunno, something cool maybe!"

And a DRM-free release. That's the real deal-breaker here for me. That they say in their comments "We are currently in the greenlight process to be published on Steam, but aside from that there is no extra DRM!" points to them being open to the idea of a proper DRM-free release, but they are solely looking at Steam for now and for that they get no funding from me.