The game that you’ve been eagerly anticipating, The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 – Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie – Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa – or Barkley 2 for brevity – has achieved tremendous success on Kickstarter. It astonishingly surpassed its $35,000 goal within less than a day. Currently, the total stands at $39,444, and it’s steadily ascending.
If you can’t slam with the best, then jam with the rest.
For those who are not acquainted with Barkley 2, it is the successor to the fan-created 2008 RPG Barkley, Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden. This game, in itself, was an unofficial sequel to the actual 1994 SNES and Sega Genesis basketball game Barkley Shut Up and Jam!
Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden was an outrageously hilarious parody of sports tie-ins from the 90s, similar to Space Jam. It chronicled the tale of the legendary basketball star Charles Barkely in a post-cyberapocalyptic world where basketball had been prohibited after Barkley executed a “chaos dunk,” leading to the demise of millions. Beyond its sheer audacity, it was lauded as an exceptional RPG in its own right.
This sequel centers around an amnesiac named X114JAM9 who emerges from a basketball-induced coma and embarks on a quest to find Cyberdwarf, a b-ball guru from the initial game whose skin is entirely composed of basketballs.
“Barkley 2 is a story of coming of age, a narrative about love, hope, betrayal, and redemption. It is a tale about identity and sacrifice, a story of wayward jocks striving for a purpose. It is a chronicle about the trials of our dystopian future, and most crucially, it is a story about You,” wrote the series developer Tales of Game’s on its Kickstarter.
Mechanically, Barkley 2 is an open-world action RPG. Tales of Game’s noted that it will place a “significant emphasis on exploration, choice, character development, and discovery.” “It amalgamates the focus on strong characters and narrative of Eastern RPGs with the non-linearity and openness of Western RPGs, drawing inspiration from the finest ideas in titles such as Realms of Arkania, Fallout, Dark Souls, Romancing SaGa, Dark Sun, Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall, and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.”
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Those who contribute $10 towards this epic sequel will obtain a PC download of it upon its release, which is approximated to be in December 2013. A pledge of $15 grants players a “secret tip,” of which there are hundreds. And those who offer $25 will receive all of the aforementioned plus a digital soundtrack.
Surprisingly, for $1000, someone purchased the opportunity to pose as Tales of Game’s for an interview with the gaming press. The impostor will remain undisclosed before and after, so even we might end up interviewing the fraud. Hopefully, we get the fraud.
Elsewhere, Tales of Game’s announced that it has released a Mac port of Barkley: Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden on its official site. Both versions can be freely downloaded here.
Tales of Game’s is currently engaged in establishing stretch goals and noted that the $35,000 requested would merely suffice for full-time work on the game for a few months.
“Every solitary dollar that we receive directly converts into additional time that we can dedicate to Barkley 2, signifying that it will become even larger, better, and more amusing,” stated the developer. “We have colossal aspirations for this game, and the more you are capable of contributing, the more our ambitions will be realized.”
