As I was scouring Kickstarter today, I just kept thinking how great this cesspool of creativity really is. I’m indecisive to a fault, so picking just one deserving project to highlight was decently painstaking. To pick something fully funded or an obscure gem with only a few days left and under 50% of funding? Drama aside, I settled on Soul Saga, by Disastercake.
The Man Behind the Cake
Disastercake consists of just one guy—Mike Gale. From a miniature pony farm in Michigan, Mike made it all the way to Seattle where game development was thriving. As he was growing up, he helped out on the farm and played classic J-RPGs vigorously, inspiring his 
dream to start creating games. Mike began learning to program and figured that Michigan probably would not fulfill his game dev desires.
Enter Seattle after a three-day roadtrip. Within a week, Mike landed a job at Microsoft working on games (wow!). However, Seattle is pretty expensive to live in and, even with his job at Microsoft, Mike couldn’t save enough money or work on Soul Saga. The job was failing him on a few levels, so he finished his time there, pursued a business degree, and slowly gathered art and programing knowledge to really dig into Soul Saga.
A J-RPG Dream
Mike’s passions lie with classic J-RPGs, and so his creation pays homage to the Playstation era games like Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Suikoden, and Persona, as noted on the Kickstarter page. To be honest, Soul Saga has a killer Kickstarter page and has raised $157,914, its goal being only $60,000, with four days left. With these funds, Soul Saga will be available for multiple platforms, including PS Vita, PS4, Wii U, PC, Mac, and Linux. This cross-platform trend may be one reason this campaign was so successful.
In Soul Saga itself, you follow two main characters, Mithos and Elise (plus two more playable characters), in Medonia. Mithos’ goal is to become the greatest Guild Master in their world and break out from beneath his father’s shadow. Elise is a somewhat sassy inventor and mechanic. In the greater scheme of the world of Oterra there are three levels—the Sky Islands of Medonia, the Tempest Reef, and Oterra’s Surface World. The cataclysm ravaged the land and split the world into these three layers.
The story revolves around Mithos joining the struggle to save Medonia from sinking, but for the more selfish reason of bettering his father by defeating the World Eater. Other guild masters and creatures intend to stop him by any means necessary.
What Makes Soul Saga Special?
I want to say this is going to have the full package. First, the story seems solid and piques interest; it’s a little cliché but different enough to encourage you to jump into the adventure. Because Mike is a fervent J-RPG player, he knows what makes a game good, including music, graphics, combat, and art.
The artwork and characters look nice and polished (and very anime). He mentions that he outsourced the artists, and the results are quality and quirky. Next up: the graphics. Obviously Soul Saga is still in development, but for where they are now they look great for just one person. It’s similar to the Tales of… series where the artwork is the characters’ full size, while in-game they are shrunken and “chibi.” However, this may change later. I can’t say much on the environments just yet, but I have a feeling they won’t disappoint.
Music and Sound
When you view the Kickstarter video, you’ll hear a rambunctious J-pop/rock song
characteristic of Japanese games and anime. Personally, I think it’s awesome. Soul Saga’s
theme song, “Dream,” was created by Terry Chandler, while other elements of the music will be taken care of by Aivi Tran. To say the least, she inspires me now. Take a listen to her “Home Above the Clouds” track that represents Medonia as well as her other video game music.
And voice acting fans rejoice! Funding has permitted Mike to add voiceovers to the entirety of the game. Mithos will be played by Todd Haberkorn, who also voiced in Fairy Tail, Full Metal Alchemist, and Sergeant Frog. Elise will be played by the lovely Kira Buckland, of Skullgirls, Mugen Souls, and Accel World fame. With other characters in the mix, we’ll hopefully see other top-notch voice actors on board.
Combat
Like your oldie-but-goodies in the J-RPG genre, there is turn-based combat. According to the page, “Soul Saga uses a battle initiation system similar to Chrono Trigger;” once you physically touch an enemy in the field or you get ambushed, you’re pulled into combat. Puzzle elements come into play depending on the fearsome foe.
As of now, there are four selections to your combat menu: Attack, Skill, Item, Defend. Pretty familiar stuff to seasoned RPG players. You choose your special, character-specific skills according to the situation, dealing more damage than your typical attack. Your strategy depends on the sort of attacks and defenses your enemies possess. If their shield is augmented with fire and you attack with melee, your character will be stunned with fire—imagine him saying, “I’m a little preoccupied here because I’m on FIRE.” Your characters have to work together to keep everyone alive and fire-free.
Additionally, each character has his or her own type of Energy Resource. Mithos’ is called “Focus” while Elise’s is a “Gadget.” They augment your characters’ skills; they aren’t unlike TP or Technical Points in other RPG’s that you have to spend to perform certain actions.
Soul Saga: A Success Story
With the support of over 4,000 backers, Soul Saga was a smashing success. Disastercake has received enough funding to reach more than a few stretch goals with the possibility of a sequel if we speculate on the “Soul Saga: Episode 1” banner. And I really hope it’s successful enough for another, despite not even having played the game yet. All this from one guy essentially, and it’s frickin’ amazing.
Kickstarter vs. The Industry/ies
The indie game industry really is taking the game world by storm. 2013 is the year to make your indie game and possibly throw it on Kickstarter. There are tons of projects thirsting for funding and most hold the promise of creativity and innovation.
As for the giants in the gaming world, it’s looking less spectacular. As I wandered through the projects and viewed their videos, more than a handful were seasoned veterans of game development that decided they wanted to make their own games, including Mike Gale. For example, Satellite Reign, a futuristic “real-time, class-based strategy game set in an open-world cyberpunk city,” is headed by a team of five, one of which worked on Grand Theft Auto IV and the Syndicate series. All are experienced and amazing at what they do; they aren’t the only brilliant minds departing from huge studios for the indie world.
Now, if we move away from digital gaming, we come across the traditional board, table-top, card, and dice games. I believe Kickstarter is a second wind for these more or less fading game forms. Some are admittedly lackluster, but the ones that catch the eye work hard for it and have something special. Because these aren’t as popular anymore, they have to go a few extra miles to whet anyone’s appetite. But because they have to struggle so much, more creativity comes out of their projects.
Either way, indie creators are the beggar-kings of gaming culture. Creating more cross-platform games will help them out even more as well as their bigger counterparts. And Kickstarter, and other crowdsourcing sites, will continue to help out developers and artists worldwide (in spite of any hiccups in morality).
For more information on Soul Saga’s development, check out Disastercake’s website and Kickstarter page.
