There's plenty in those two pages that makes me worry:

"the engine is designed and structured to support multiple platforms"
In history, such engines have always been crippled by cross-platform limitations

"the Unity Asset Store is a treasure trove of assets (3D models and code) provided by the large and growing community of Unity users"
This means taking pre-made assets which worries me as well. As a designer, I know this translates into weakening your brand and style because you basically introduce foreign elements. Using pre-made code also increases the risks of bugs since you're working with code no-one internally wrote.

"On the Modding front, we always figured we would have to provide custom tools to users, so we didn’t rank modding support high on our list of engine requirements."
Moddable RPGs generally last a lot longer - because Unity is not an in-house engine, I do worry that any mod tools that will appear, will be half-assed. Few games that used 3rd party engines have managed to release decent mod tools after all so I worry about modding.

In the end, Unity is great for the devs since they get support and they can be "lazy" about many aspects but I don't see it as being a good thing for us gamers if they're going to cut corners. The best games that exist, were made using in-house engines and even the exceptions generally worked with heavily-modified 3rd party ones (Half-Life for example).

Again, I'd much rather they stick to 2D instead of having to use a free engine that may affect how the game turns out.

Unreal engine and IDtech say otherwise.

Really? You're going to use the disaster that was Rage as a counter-point when it's a very good example that backs my argument up? ID Tech is one of the best examples you can give of how a cross platform engine is not ideal because it looks at what the other platforms can handle and then lowers the entire potential to that very level.

And if you look at the older engines of id Software and the Unreal engines, you'll find that those weren't cross-platform engines. Only the latest engines are and even they aren't up to do involving the latest PC hardware because they're too focussed on making it work on all platforms.

In the end, I'll remain sceptical - Unity is still cutting corners and I hope they'll steer clear of 3rd party assets and/or code. They got loads of money to do it properly - people aren't funding Kickstarter project to get a weak-assed low-budget game.

In house engines cost a metric fuckton to write and maintain. What's more, you actually need developers who know how to do it correctly, so it doesn't hamstring the rest of your development. Did you want them to spend a million bucks on the engine alone? Because that's what that kind of thing can cost, even for a game like they're describing. People moaned about the cost of the Defense Grid 2 Kickstarter, want to know why it cost so much? Because they were writing a new engine along with the rest of the project.

I don't know that you can categorically say that cross platform engines suck, there's quiet a few good counter examples. Do you think Max Payne 3 wasn't a cross platform engine? RAGE may be Rockstar's in house engine, but it is most definitely built as a cross platform engine. The 20GB of extra textures in the PC version of MP3 quiet clearly demonstrate that it can pump out some serious juice.

I don't think you get my point. It's a combination of cross-platform engines generally cutting corners to work on all platforms (and that's pretty much a given, even with Max Payne 3) combined with them using a non-proprietary engine which they clearly have no experience with.

If you create your own engine, you'll understand what it can do but you'll also be able to design it to your own needs. Using an all-round engine which has a large asset database simply makes me worry that they'll end up cutting corners in areas to save time and money while degrading the game itself.

Yes, your own engine is expensive but they could just make a 2D one which isn't that hard to make compared to a 3D one. I think a lot of people here would appreciate good 2D art more than generic 3D assets thrown in with average dated 3D on the whole. We got too many cookie cutter 3D games these days and too many fantasy games use generic looking settings - we can do without another one.

Sorry bugger cross platform (no offence intended), use something that works the best for PC first. ;)

Not that your suggestion for their game would be "bad", but you don't seem to understand how these studios, even the ones that make their own engines, operate. The devs that work on the games generally do not work on the engine themselves, they have to learn it just like a 3rd party engine. The real crux is that they're using an engine with which they have no experience, in house vs. out of house doesn't matter.

I still don't see or agree with your point that a cross platform engine has to cut corners. I'd like to hear an actual, technical justification for that. That's like saying C or C++ has to "cut corners" because there's compilers on so many platforms. Or Java, lol, the platform that runs everything COBOL doesn't run anymore, if anyone says they "cut corners" I'll just laugh, because I know how much hand waving they'd have to do to come up with their paltry examples.

So actual, technical reasons cross platform engines are inferior or I'm just going to write it off to opinion. You're certainly entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts, and we should clearly label the assertion one way or another, whether we end up agreeing or not.

43,616
backers
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25
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A side note: Double Fine Adventure and Wasteland 2 boxed copies were the best-selling rewards for those projects by a small margin. For this one, it looks like the digital tiers are going to total up to more money than the boxed copies handily.

Me! I'm not a programmer or designer but as a player I prefer good 2D art to generic 3D. I appreciate the art in Inquisitor for example. I don't know what these games will look like with Unity but if it's generic 3D I'll be a bit disappointed. I'm trusting inXile's and Obsidian's judgement for now though.

$100 so far. I don't really care for beta testing that much and felt that cloth maps should be included at $100, they used to be a staple at regular prices back in the day.

If I jump up again it'll probably just be to $250 for a signed copy and book and the other goodies available at $140. I'd go $500 but that's getting pricey for me plus a hardcover book like that probably only costs $80 to print for the amount of pledges for it, maybe less if they get more pledges at that level. Well, I've got a couple bigger jobs coming up. Depending on how they go I might be able to jump up to $500 instead of going out on the town afterwards. I'm leaning towards the bars though, gotta keep morale up and all that.

Well, I don;'t know anything about any of this, so I'll just assume that the professional game developers know what they're doing. Which isn't always a safe assumption, but I am drunk and at peace with the world, and there there's no room for negative thoughts.

Made the next stretch goal! Really, I just want my video game house that I can keep my video game stuff in. Wonder what the Monday thing will be?

dang I just missed the last spot for the $20 pledge. It said 1 of 250000 was left but then it it was sold.
I don't really care that I can't get it for $20 instead of $25, but grabbing the very last slot would have made me feel like I just hit a buzzer-beating game-winning shot in basketball or something.

Keep refreshing the page. People are constantly upgrading their pledge tiers, and when they do the early bird spots will open up.

44,033
backers
$1,829,643
pledged of $1,100,000 goal
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Great interview with Chris Avellone about PE: Time Magazine.