Wasteland sequel to hit Kickstarter

Back in September, I called Martin Haye on Juiced.GS business. In this day of Twitter, Facebook, IM, and IRC, it’s unusual for me to make a phone call to an Apple II user, and I’m always cognizant of the likelihood for intrusion when I do. In this case, I knew Martin was soon leaving on a camping trip, and I didn’t want to interrupt his packing. Nope! He was playing Wasteland, Interplay’s post-apocalyptic spiritual precursor to Fallout. "Oh," I said, "so this is a bad time to be calling." "Well, it’s not like it’s the kind of game that demands uninterrupted attention," he laughed.

Here’s something that does deserve your attention, Martin: having recently developed Choplifter HD, original Wasteland co-designer Brian Fargo of inXile Entertainment is looking to reboot the franchise with a new, Kickstarter-funded game. The possible Wasteland 2 would be faithful to its origins by "focusing on top-down, probably isometric, party based, skill based — where if you’d just finished playing Wasteland and moved onto this you’d feel comfortable." But it’ll stray from its roots by being for PC only, though an iOS edition would be considered.

All this for the cool price of one million dollars — that’s how much Fargo estimates it’ll take to fund the project. That’s ambitious but, as of last week, not unprecedented. Still, it’s a ton of dough to pony up for a game that’s known to modern gamers more by name than by experience. Is Fargo daydreaming? He revealed his intentions after only 48 hours of consideration, after all. Or will we put our money where his mouth is when the Kickstarter campaign supposedly launches next month?

Will you support such a campaign? What’s a new Wasteland worth to you?

(Hat tip to Andy Chalk)