Hey, party animals. I'd like to make my pitch for you to back "Free Stars: Children of Infinity" on Kickstarter.
This is a sequel of a 90s-era DOS classic (Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters), developed by an indie studio composed of many of the original game's creators (who managed to regain IP rights). The franchise was a favorite of mine, growing up, and I'm excited to see a proper continuation of its story finally on the horizon.
You may be confused as to why I'm suggesting you back a game that Kickstarter claims is already "fully funded". Isn't that just a preorder with extra steps? Isn't "never preorder a game" a lesson we've learned painfully, hard knock by hard knock?
The reason is: if we fund this game enough that the developers don't have to worry about how they'll afford to make their next game… then two years after release, they'll open source it.
…we talk plenty about game preservation on this website. About the necessity of "circulating the tapes", copyright law or no, to avoid the creative works we love becoming lost media.
But the other side of that equation is that, for a video game, you don't just need to preserve the game itself; you also need to preserve something it can run on. You either need an emulator for the kind of computer that existed back then, or a port to modern hardware. And the best way to ensure that "a port to modern hardware" is possible… is to have the code available, open sourced, and replicated across all the dozens of Linux package managers out there.
Backers may have already funded the development of Free Stars: Children of Infinity. But we haven't bought the game yet. To fully buy it off? To free it for the world? 10% funded.
I'd like to ask you to consider backing the game – even just as a $30 preorder – to help get that number to 100%.
Thanks for your consideration.