The 3D platformer is a genre that’s been around for many years. Dominated by bright red plumbers and speedy blue hedgehogs, it’s a genre home to many legends. Rad will join those legends, with Knick-Knack Games LLC celebrating the genre with its upcoming release, Rad Venture. After launching a second Kickstarter and a new demo, my early impressions of Rad Venture present a promising project.
What is the Premise of Rad Venture?
After finding himself in trouble with the law, Rad must capture a thief with the power to erase magic! To save the day, he must use his magical abilities and more to venture through various levels and collect the stolen McGuffinite crystals, his world’s magical power source.
The premise alone paints a clear image of the tone Rad Venture aims for, channeling the spirit of games like Rayman and Banjo-Kazooie.
Character Design for Rad
This tone is further expressed with Rad’s character design, which exudes a strong personality. It’s as if you combined Sonic’s attitude and 90s style with the perpotions Rayman had in Rayman 2 or Rayman 3. The first demo didn’t have any voice acting, but the voice grunts Rad spoke in the second demo matched his character.
Bringing the design together are his limbless arms. He only has floating hands, helping him stand apart from others in the 3D platforming genre while also expressing the unique magical abilities he can perform.
Collectables/Progression
Similar to Rad Venture’s inspirations, the hero must collect the following across his many ventures:
- McGuffinites – The game’s main collectible and source of magic in the world. Collect these to unlock new levels and progress the story!
- Stardust – Small specks of raw magic. They can be used to purchase things in shops, upgrade your abilities, and more! Better save up!
- Magic Rings – A rare collectible. Only a few can be found in each level. If you find two of them, you can combine them with Stardust to create new McGuffinites in the McGuffinite Fusion Machine!
Rad Venture’s Level Count
The 3D platformer will include the following:
- 1 Hub World
- 4 Exploration Levels
- Optional Obstacle Courses
- 3 Boss Levels
- 3 Bosses
Demo Impressions
Knick-Knack Games released an earlier demo for the first Kickstarter. I was also given access to a new demo that features the Vistabell Hub Level.
Demo 1 – Shiver Swamp and Headline Street: Exploration Levels
Rad first explores the colorfully moody ‘Shiver Swamp. ‘ Tasked with finding missing campers, Rad runs, jumps, and glides across large mushrooms and casams. In addition, Rad can swing on blue-colored objects, and that mechanic eventually combines with a grapple ability. I got through the enjoyable level and was eager to try the next one.
Having his abilities from the prior level, Rad runs and jumps through Headline Street, a level that I immensely enjoyed. Climbing across a construction site and knocking a steel beam down, Rad gets access to the underground sewer, where you unlock a double jump ability. Using his full moveset, Rad jumped and hovered across rooftops. The stage came together at this point, and overall, I greatly enjoyed it.
Once I finished my adventures in the Nior-inspired city, I was eager to see more. These levels are only a portion of the full experience, with these exploration stages connecting with Vistabell, the game’s major hub level.
Demo 2 – Vistabell: Hub Level
The second demo lets Rad explore the vast hub level of Vistabell.
Being a colorful city with many landmarks to find, Rad uses most of his abilities to find McGuffinites and Stardust. Starting the demo, I spotted a bell tower and ran to it. Going inside the location, I experienced a fun platforming challenge across moving platforms and gears, keeping me on my toes as I mastered my hover ability. Getting to the top of the tower, I collected my first McGuffinite, but I still had a massive city to explore.
So, I kept on exploring. And to say I got lost, it was in the best way possible. The best 3D platformers, like A Hat in Time or Mario 64, let players explore the well-designed world at their own pace. And Rad Venture is similar to those titles. It’s rare to have a mixture of Mario and Rayman’s moveset together like this, where you have your wall jumps and spin-attacks but have access to a very generous hover ability. The result is my captured gameplay, where I explored and had fun casually collecting McGuffinites and other goodies.
It’s also worth noting that the game controls well on a traditional controller and mouse-and-keyboard. My controller died when running through a level, and I finished a platforming challenge with keyboard and mouse controls. Overall, I felt both demos were enjoyable. They are a great window into what the full experience can offer if fully funded.
Minor Issues with the Demos
Considering both demos are ‘work in progress’ Alpha builds, these are understandable issues. Two that I came across were controller support for menus and performance woes. The developers pointed out the controller issues when booting up the second demo, but the performance issues are worth noting.
When running around the Vistabell level, some parts with more intense effects impacted overall performance. In addition, the game defaults to the highest settings, so I recommend you set everything to a mixture of Medium and High settings.
Once I did that, the gameplay felt a lot smoother. But as the Kickstarter progresses, I’m positive the developers will update the demo to improve these minor issues.
Kickstarter Plans for Rad Venture
The second Kickstarter is shooting for a $20k goal, with stretch goals promising additional costumes for Rad to wear, post-launch DLC, a cross-over boss, and even full-voice acting.
Why Kickstarter? – Developer Comments
When developers approach Kickstarter for a project, it’s a decision that requires a lot of thought. Knick-Knack Games was transparent with their reasons for using Kickstarter, saying the following:
Creating video games is hard. Like, really hard. We’ve decided to have a Kickstarter for a multitude of reasons. Game development is something we love and are truly passionate about and we felt like this project requires more of a budget to help it reach its full potential. We’ve set out as a team to make the coolest game we possibly can and crowdfunding will help us reach our goal.
It’s also for a personal reason as well, trying to give attention to game development in new locations:
But this is more than just a campaign to fund another indie game. Our goal as a game studio from Michigan is to help push the game development industry in our state and the Midwest in general. So many talented individuals and studios reside in our state and we want not only to make a successful game here, but to also help lift up and support our local developer friends and peers. We hope that having a successful Kickstarter campaign and indie game launch will help shine more of a light on locations with smaller groups of indie developers.
And by far the most powerful statement, the team genuinely wishes to inspire future indie developers:
Another goal of this campaign is to help inspire the next generation of indie developers as we were, back when indies were beginning to become more common and utilizing crowdfunding themselves. This is a huge part of what makes independent game development so great: community. Helping your fellow developers make their dream projects happen, big or small. If we can inspire even one person to pursue their dream of development, we consider that a successful Kickstarter campaign.
In an industry that faces layoffs and further hardship, seeing positive efforts like this is genuinely inspiring.
The Second Kickstarter
This isn’t the first time Rad Venture was on Kickstarter, with this being the game’s second attempt at getting funding from the platform. Knick-Knack Games said the following on that matter:
But we didn’t reach our goal. Since then, we’ve taken a step back to look at what went wrong with our previous attempt and prepare ourselves to try again. We’ve talked to many peers and associates who have Kickstarter experience to help improve this second campaign.
Closing Thoughts and Additional Information
With a new Kickstarter, strong demos for the community to enjoy, and a plan set in motion, developers Knick-Knack Games are ready to get Rad’s next venture off the ground.
Rad Venture is targeting PC as its base platform. You can wishlist the game on Steam, and if you enjoy the demo, pledge for the game’s Kickstarter and follow the game’s Twitter page! Stay tuned for further coverage on Rad Venture here at Lords of Gaming!
