Independent games are often framed as niche passion projects; artistic endeavors that would flounder under the bureaucratic management of a big corporation. While this is often true, it doesn’t change the fact that many of these indie games have large audiences, most importantly, large paying audiences. And that has been proven true again with Queen‘s Wish: The Conqueror.
Earlier today developer Spider Software Inc. launched a Kickstarter campaign for their upcoming retro role-playing game Queen‘s Wish: The Conqueror. The campaign quickly gained a ton of momentum, being spread around Twitter and Reddit like wildfire. In less than twenty-four hours the game surpassed its $30,000 goal and put itself in a good position to plow through all of its stretch goals without issue. Seeing as the campaign ends on June 29th it’s hard to fathom that Spider Software won’t inevitably hit the $75,000 stretch goal that adds another realm to the game.
At its core, Queen‘s Wish: The Conqueror is a fantasy RPG that makes me nostalgic for an era of gaming that I wasn’t even alive to witness. In the game, you play as the youngest child of the Queen after she banishes you to a violent land called Sacramentum. Whether you wish to restore a colony in Sacramentum, make an alliance with Sacramentum, rebel against your mother, or make literally any other decision is ultimately your choice.
The intricacy and elegance of the game’s systems in conjunction with its retro looks makes it appealing on both an emotional level as well as a mechanical level. While Queen’s Wish: The Conqueror will be playable on Windows, Macintosh, and iPad (with an iPhone port on the table as a stretch goal), I can’t help but want to play it on the oldest, yellowest computer I can find.
This week has been a banner week for Kickstarter games, including an Ace Combat-inspired project that met its funding goal in under a day.
If you’re interested in Queen’s Wish: The Conqueror you can check out the game’s Kickstarter campaign here. While no official release date has been announced, the Kickstarter seems to suggest that the game will be available by May 2019.