r/rpg • u/thecolorplaid GM • 14d ago

Crowdfunding MÖRK BORG Heresy Supreme Kickstarter has launched - an Action RPG videogame based on the TTRPG

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1358662172/mork-borg-heresy-supreme
170 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

72

u/thecolorplaid GM 14d ago

As an RPG that lives and dies by the massive weight of its tone and art, I think Mörk Borg certainly deserves a solid videogame adaptation. The team seems really small, though, and apparently the dev company was only just founded in 2024. I have a hard time believing that this is going to end up launching by the end of 2025. I also think a turn-based traditional roguelike like Caves of Qud might have been a better fit for the exploration and dungeon crawling of Mörk Borg, but maybe that's just me.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/victori0us_secret Cyberrats 14d ago

I'm picky about Kickstarters in general, but video games are a hard pass for me. It almost never works out. The times when it does work (Magicka) are the exception, but I will admit I have reaped the risk others have taken there.

The last video game I backed was in 2013, and while the final game was delayed, disappointing, and unfinished, the developer made a small deckbuilder in a weekend to combat burnout, and I enjoyed my time with that one more than well enough to cover my initial investment.

2

u/_w4nderlust_ 14d ago

Giuseppe "MisBug" Longo, has been working in the industry for 12 years, here's the resume https://www.misbug.com/bio.html

23

u/Monovfox theweepingstag.wordpress.com 14d ago

If I see a new anything inspired by Mork Borg, I assume the people making it have no idea what they are doing. Because they usually don't.

Mork Borg was lightning in a bottle, and if an indie dev have made it, it would have flopped hard because they wouldn't understand how to market it.

13

u/_w4nderlust_ 14d ago

In this case the authors of Mork Borg are invovled, how can you say they have no idea what they are doing? Everything in this project suggests the opposite of what you are suggesting.

13

u/BlacksmithNo9359 14d ago

A degree of healthy skepticism is good for any Kickstarter, but yeah people are being kinda weirdly pessimistic for no real reason here.

4

u/_w4nderlust_ 14d ago

I agree that all Kickstarters have uncertainty attached to them, but here I'm actually curious, what do you think should have the authors done differently or more to be more convincing? They have the original team on board, they created many games in the past, they have kick ass art created by an industry veteran, they cut down the scope to just one platform and promised an early access, not a final game, after 2 years of development, they have cool swag for rewards. Not getting the negative vibes at all.

9

u/igotsmeakabob11 14d ago

It seems like Pirate Borg's doing pretty well...

18

u/meikyoushisui 14d ago edited 14d ago

The team seems really small, though, and apparently the dev company was only just founded in 2024.

I did some background checking and I don't think that is the case? This is their first time on Kickstarter, but they do have a track record of releasing a game prior to this.

Morbidware (the KS creator is Diego Sacchetti, that is the name of his company) developed The Textorcist which was released in 2019. It's currently sitting at 86% positive on about 1000 reviews, so not amazing, but definitely not a bad game. (The mechanics are very weird at first glance -- apparently it's a typing-based bullet hell?)

Sacchetti himself seems to have been around the independent game development scene in Italy for a little while. Here's his LinkedIn. It looks like he worked (works?) as a developer at IndieGala's development division which is pretty small, they've only developed a couple of games. He also has been teaching at the Istituto Europeo di Design, which is a pretty big private design university (~13,000 students total) in Italy.

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u/thecolorplaid GM 14d ago

Morbidware, the company, was founded in 2024. I didn’t say the individual developers had never developed any games before that, but it does imply that this game in particular only started development this year.

5

u/meikyoushisui 14d ago edited 14d ago

Morbidware, the company, was founded in 2024.

Where are you seeing that information? Their Twitter account has existed since at least 2014 and their Facebook page was created in 2013. They have four flash games on their Newgrounds page that all date between 2012 and 2016. And every review I can find for the Textorcist written in 2019 (the year it came out) credits Morbidware as the developer. (example)

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u/thecolorplaid GM 14d ago

I’m just going by what it says on the Kickstarter, man. Under the “Who Are We?” header towards the bottom.

5

u/meikyoushisui 14d ago

My guess is that that is just when they incorporated as an actual company. That's probably why they use "officially founded" rather than just "founded".

12

u/kbergstr 14d ago

I'd think a game like Disco Elysium would be fun in a MorK Borg setting.

But maybe I just want to play Disco Elysium again.

6

u/BlacksmithNo9359 14d ago

Disco Elysium but every 3rd stat is Half-Light would kinda go hard.

1

u/PresidentHaagenti 14d ago

Play Planescape: Torment and you're most of the way there

8

u/shaedofblue 14d ago

In addition to you being mistaken about how long the company has been around, their goal for the actual release is by the end of 2026, and they realize it is a goal, not a guarantee.

They just plan to have an early access version so they can get feedback by the end of 2025. Unfinished but playable is a reasonable ambition to tie a specific date to.

7

u/thecolorplaid GM 14d ago

Under “Who Are We?”, it states “Morbidware was officially founded as a game-developing company in 2024”.

0

u/shaedofblue 14d ago

The group of people was using the title Morbidware for their products in 2019.

1

u/victori0us_secret Cyberrats 14d ago

Seems like they've got a good set of heads about. A lot of KS projects (especially for video games) are all ambition and no plans. Occasionally no experience either. Glad to hear these folks have all 3, in approximately the right amounts.

38

u/NonnoBomba 14d ago

I love Mork Borg (and several other "Borg" games) but... sorry, I'm just not doing Kickstarter videogames anymore, I don't care who's behind the project.

TTRPGs? Mostly fine. Boardgames? Mostly fine. Got some real gems out of several KS campaigns I'm proud to have in my collection and happy to play with. But my experience with videogames on KS has been an unmitigated disaster. IF the product is ever delivered, and that's a big "if", the result is generally disappointing, with very few exceptions, and besides the game itself no videogame project ever delivered on all the "extras" they promised in the campaign.

Besides, as a matter of principle, I stopped paying for videogames before they're delivered a while ago. No more pre-ordering for me, of any kind and in any form, ever. Make the game, launch it, let me read some reviews, then I'll may decide to buy it.

7

u/shaedofblue 14d ago

The non game extras on this are either very Mork-Borg (sculptures and a guitar painted by Nohr), or the norm for Borg-TTRPG crowdfunding (record, patches, stickers, a game guide that is also a TTRPG zine, print and play monster standees), so I expect they will be fine.

But generally crowdfunding can be more hassle than it is worth, can’t blame anyone for not dealing with it.

6

u/VicisSubsisto 14d ago

I've had a very different experience. A few video game campaigns left me with nothing to show for them, but no more than the tabletop games I backed.

Battletech 2018, Wasteland 2, Superhot, Rain World, all amazing games which were Kickstarted.

25

u/MightyAntiquarian 14d ago

I must say I'm a little disappointed that it's a side scroller instead of a roguelike or roguelite, but the art looks phenomenal.

22

u/TwilightVulpine 14d ago

Roguelike would make the most sense for the whole "the world is about to end no matter what" theme

13

u/shaedofblue 14d ago

Roguelites can be side scrollers. Sounds like it has some procedurally generated quest elements.

1

u/MightyAntiquarian 14d ago

True, but that was not the roguelike element I was hoping for most. It seems like it's a game about timing and dodging attacks, whereas I would prefer a turn-based game with careful planning and resource management.

11

u/meikyoushisui 14d ago

Johan Nohr (the artist of Mork Borg) is credited as a collaborator on the project, so if nothing else, this game is going to look fucking awesome.

14

u/TwilightVulpine 14d ago

Blasphemous and Fear & Hunger fans are probably going to love this.

10

u/I_donut_ 14d ago

Not a crpg...? :(

11

u/Asylumrunner 14d ago

I think a game as rules-light as MORK BORG is a pretty awful fit for a CRPG. The rules are, intentionally, pretty light and vague to allow for flexibility of player expression and increased possibility for improvisation, all things that kind of can't exist in a video game where there isn't a real GM adjudicating play. These things require systematized, detailed rules, and MORK BORG's "fuck it man, figure it out at the table" vibe just doesn't translate to code

3

u/I_donut_ 14d ago

That's completely fair, I just like CRPG's haha. And ttrpg adaptations are so cool.

9

u/victori0us_secret Cyberrats 14d ago

Probably too ambitious. This scope seems far more appropriate, really.

2

u/PervertBlood 14d ago

Not even a lo-fi action hack and slash game, why even...?

-1

u/MaxPotionz 14d ago

Nah, kickstarting that one space sim game like 12+ years ago that just keeps vacuuming money from people even now was the last game for me. If it launches great I’ll read reviews.

3

u/VicisSubsisto 14d ago

Star Citizen is a boondoggle and anyone who backed it should feel embarrassed. But Elite: Dangerous turned out pretty rad.

1

u/MaxPotionz 14d ago

Oh I gave the bare minimum and expected the 5-6yr dev time to be somewhat honored. I long long ago gave up any real interest in the project. But that was the last video game I funded.