Dazed And Confused Star Needs Help Funding iPad Game

Earnest Cavalli

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Jun 19, 2008
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Dazed And Confused Star Needs Help Funding iPad Game

[vimeo=23460730]

Former actor Wiley Wiggins is developing an iPad game called Thunderbeam and he needs your help to do it.

You might remember Wiggins as Mitch Kramer [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0927812/] from 1993's seminal coming of age (with lots of pot) film Dazed And Confused. More specifically, you likely remember him as "that guy who wasn't creepy Matthew McConaughey, neurotic Adam Goldberg or the lovely Milla Jovovich."

More recently Wiggins has turned his creative efforts toward independent game development as part of Austin, Texas-based development collective Juegos Rancheros [http://juegosrancheros.com/].

Wiggins' latest project is Thunderbeam, an iPad game which he describes as "a carefully steeped brew of 70's science fiction from England, Japan and the States- but recast in a grown-up world where death is an immediate, irreversible and oddly-funny reality." He cites Out Of This World and Prince Of Persia as inspirations, though that could simply be a clever gambit designed specifically to drum up interest.

So where do you come in? Despite having the game's basic engine and a handful of art and audio assets completed, Wiggins' development team currently lacks the funding to complete Thunderbeam. Thus, he has turned to Kickstarter in an effort to raise the cash necessary to complete the game [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wileywiggins/thunderbeam-for-the-ipad]. So far the project has pulled in almost $3,000, but that's about $17,000 short of the stated goal. Still, with almost a month left in the Kickstarter campaign, there's plenty of time for benevolent Internet folk to front the cash to get this thing made.

The more crucial question however, would be "why should we care?" Aside from the obvious macroeconomic benefits of funding independent game development, I'd like to see this thing get built simply to see what sort of geek cred Wiggins actually has. That Kickstarter page features a sprite from Mother (aka Earthbound), and the game's art style takes obvious cues from the anime shows I grew up on before I even knew what the word "anime" meant. The way I see it, Thunderbeam is going to be a labor of love handcrafted by nerds for nerds, or the entire thing is going to crash spectacularly. Either way we end up with something entertaining.

Source: GameSetWatch [http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/05/wiley_wiggins_kickstarts_thund.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gamesetwatch+%28GameSetWatch%29]

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Fasckira

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Oct 22, 2009
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I would put money into this... providing I get a small percentage equivalent to the amount put in of all profits.

Otherwise no, Im not giving my hard earned cash to something which has barely any information on it by an actor I dont really have any care for.
 

thenumberthirteen

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Dec 19, 2007
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That sounds pretty cool. I'm definitely hoping that this does get made, and I wish them the best of luck.

Also it's a hobby of mine to continually look in the background of these videos to see what people have lying about their house. I spotted a box of Moo.com business cards on the desk. Which is cool as that's where I get mine from :)
 

RSparowe

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Apr 25, 2011
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That whole interview reeked of hypocrisy.

"The gaming industry is polluted by money..." so please give us money to make our game?
We think achievements are "gross" and turn games into jobs, so instead we're disguising our achievement system by calling it "demerits."

That being said, if Wiggins can get Joey Lauren Adams to do a voice in the game, I'll donate. I'll donate twice if she says "Fry like bacon you little freshman piggies!" Or anything to do with frying and bacon. Or just bacon.

Time for breakfast.
 

rsvp42

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Jan 15, 2010
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I like achievements. I think people that hate them are taking them too seriously. Besides games gave always been quantifiable endeavors, even more obviously so when it was all about points. levels, and high scores in the arcade days.

Good luck to them though, I like hearing about indy stuff.
 

batuea

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Jun 30, 2009
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I will donate money to him IF AND ONLY IF..... He can gives me the buckle pipe that "pink" uses in the movie. Seriously I have been trying to find that one for almost a decade now and have come up empty.
 

The Random One

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May 29, 2008
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This wasn't italicized when it showed up on my RSS feed, so I clicked wondering who that dazed and confused star was.
 

Wiley Wiggins

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May 19, 2011
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Hello, and thank you for the post!

A couple of points to address the comments-

My statement about money and games seems pretty clear to me, game content gets homogenized and tampered with by those who want a return on their investment. Crowd sourcing alleviates that. $20k compared to the budget of a too-big to fail franchise FPS is laughable too.
All our funds are going towards scaling up our animation team from one person working in their spare time to 3 people working full time. Neither I James, or Scott (the lead developers) will be quitting our day jobs any time soon (maybe next game!).

I've had fun collecting achievements in some games. Portal I and II made good use of them. I do hate seeing "percent complete" though. My language may have been too strong- since we are obviously still using achievements, just in a satirical way.

The music at the start and close is our theme song. You can hear the whole thing here:

http://soundcloud.com/the-octopus-project/thunderbeam-theme-song

Thanks again for the post!
-Wiley