Kickstarter campaign for video game based on Pioneer begins January 18, 2022!
From Pioneer: The asteroid mining ship Dream Watcher docked
on the Mars space station Landville, c2183.
Back in January, 2021 I wrote an essay, Pioneers and the Future, touting the coming Kickstarter campaign for a digital game based on my science fiction book, Pioneer, that we then expected to start in only a few short weeks. As I concluded,
Very shortly a crowd-funding project will launch, based on my book Pioneer itself. An adventure video game using a graphic novel style has been under development for the past two years and will launch as a crowdfunding project in just a matter of weeks. Both illustrations in this essay come from that project. The producers will be offering some exclusive and limited rewards for supporters, both from themselves and from me personally, so keep an eye on Behind the Black for announcements. You will want to be the first through the door when this project launches.
Not surprisingly, a number of ongoing issues related to COVID as well as casting forced a delay in that campaign.
No more! On January 18, 2022, the Kickstarter campaign for this new video game, Pioneer 2140CC, based on my science fiction book Pioneer, will begin.
The webpage for the game and the campaign can be found at PioneerSpaceGame.com. The press release can be read here.
Tokyo, Japan – Enterstellar Studios is excited to announce that Pioneer 2140CC, a visual novel style, sci-fi space video game, will launch on Kickstarter January 18th, 2022. Pioneer 2140CC is based on the book Pioneer, written in 1983 by famed space historian, radio personality, and cave explorer Robert Zimmerman, who writes about space, science, and culture at his website Behind the Black. The Kickstarter campaign will run from January 18th until February 24th and offer unique physical and rare NFT (non-fungible token) rewards. A minimum funding goal is set at $73,000 USD
The press release outlines many of the game’s planned highlights, as well as the limited and exclusive rewards available for those who donate to the campaign.
The creator of the game, Aaron Jenkin, has worked with me tirelessly for the past four years developing the game so that it will not only be a great video game, it will also faithfully capture accurately Pioneer’s story, characters, ideas, and fast-paced action. I have been endlessly impressed with the quality of Aaron’s work, as well as the top-notch artists he had brought into the project from day one.
So, if you like video games as well as science fiction, this game is for you! Give it a look, and when January 18, 2022 rolls around please consider donating generously so that Aaron can make Pioneer 2140CC a reality!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Any chance there will be a follow up to the original Pioneer story?
Robert, you are becoming a multi-media magnate.
Two articles from phys.org:”Generating a realistic 3D world-” MIT…and “Technique enables real time rendering of scenes in 3D.” That should be helpful. There is a deep fake of Keanu Reeves at CBR and Hamil’s voice was synthetic as well. Old actors may yet speak anew. Scott Lowther of up-ship.com is a good resource.
I have not played video games in years due to having burned out working in the industry. This looks like a game I could get into. We’ll see when the gameplay movie comes out. I will be backing this as I like good independent game development.
Wow! Congratulations Mr Zimmerman. That is really very cool and will be a great way for your writing to reach a younger generation.
Us older folks need to get the next generation excited about space and science and you will reach a great many via a video game. Congrats again Bob!
Nice! I’ve signed up to be notified when the Kickstarter is available. I haven’t played a video game since the ’80s.
One thing though – on their website under “Story” there is the reference “After gliding across the vast plains of Olympus Mons…”. Isn’t Olympus Mons a (very large) mountain?
Andi: The flanks of Olympus Mons go on for hundreds of miles. The mountain is so large that it is actually not visible from the ground. The curve of the planet hides it. Thus, the flanks are the equivalent of lava plains.
Ahh, ok Robert, thanks for the clarification!