Summer is finally here, and it’s time to enjoy our favorite outdoor activity: playing video games on a handheld under a tree. This month, there are simply too many exciting new crowdfunding campaigns popping up on Kickstarter, so it’s time for a supersized edition of Crowdfunding Chronicles! Prepare a cool glass of iced tea (or an equally cool juice box) and read on…just don’t spill your drink all over the grass. It’ll attract wasps, and I don’t believe they’re too fond of video games.
Wicked Night: Holy Knights
Campaign Ends: June 27th
Platform: Windows
Make way for the next strategy RPG from BlindCoco Studios, developers of Gales of Nayeli! First revealed at Indie Quest 2026, Wicked Night: Holy Knights is a new game inspired by SRPG favorites like Fire Emblem and Shining Force, featuring crisp pixel art backgrounds and attractive anime-style character portraits.
The game is set 25 years before Gales of Nayeli, though there’s no need to have played the original to understand this one. Fortunately, all backers will receive a free copy of Gales, so there’s really no excuse to miss out!
Recruit over 30 characters, including a centaur warrior named Ginger (take note, Shining Force fans), a slime girl (who can become a mime girl, depending on your choices), and a knife-wielding dog named Winchester. He’s definitely the star of this adventure! Each character has their own class tree, with distinct portraits and animations for each class. Meanwhile, units that fight together will develop friendships (and perhaps romantic relationships), leading to new abilities, classes, conversations, and more.
If you’re looking for a retro-style SRPG, you can’t go wrong with another solid entry from BlindCoco Studios. While a release date has not been announced yet, rest assured that Winchester will be waiting for you, tail (and knife) a-waggin’.
Colossus: Eternal Blight
Campaign Ends: June 28th
Platform: Windows. A Switch version may be possible if stretch goals are met, with other consoles under consideration.
Prepare for a tale of brothers and blight in Colossus: Eternal Blight, a pixel graphic action RPG where you decide who to save and who to leave to the growing darkness.
A sinister Blight is once again spreading over the land, infecting and changing everything it touches. The game’s young protagonist, Lucian, wants nothing more than to join the Knights of the Order like his older brother, Lance, until one day, Lance disappears. Set out to find Lucian’s brother, purify (or ignore) NPCs, and uncover the world’s long-hidden secrets!
Explore four continents filled with Zelda-like puzzles and dungeons, and enjoy fast-paced combat that takes advantage of parries, counterattacks, and chain dashes (a la Hyper Light Drifter). You’ll have a choice between three character classes and multiple skills to customize Lucian the way you see fit, with each class bringing its own rage mode to the action.
Inspired by Zelda, CrossCode, and Hyper Light Drifter, Colossus: Eternal Blight looks to be another solid entry in the genre. I appreciate the mix of colorful pixel art and anime-style portraits, set against a dark, intense storyline, and I look forward to seeing which NPCs I can leave to the blight. I mean, save! Oooops…
A Fighter’s Nova: Mindara
Campaign Ends: July 2nd
Platform: Windows. Console versions are expected, though this will depend on which platforms are available by the time development is complete.
Who put a fighting game in my JRPG? Montreal’s BadRez Games, that’s who! Prepare to embark on an epic adventure filled with martial arts mayhem in A Fighter’s Nova: Mindara.
As the novice (but very eager) fighter Maya, you’ll join exiled wolf man Mindara and head to a famed martial arts tournament in the mysterious city of Ihora, home of Mindara’s former tribe. Onwards to glory, revenge, and perhaps the chance to change the world!
Explore a vibrant 3D environment, make new friends, build skills together, and get ready for tag-team battles against the bad guys! You can choose to enjoy the arcade-style combat either on your own or with a real-life friend, and for those of us who don’t like fighting games, you can play through a story-centered mode instead.
A Fighter’s Nova: Mindara looks to be an especially exciting adventure for fans of shonen manga and anime, with its stylish world, special fighting moves, and even black-and-white manga-style cutscenes. If you want the fast-paced action of Dragon Ball Z mixed with your favorite JRPGs (Mindara himself immediately made me think of Breath of Fire IV‘s Cray), put on some hand wraps and get ready to punch some…gamepad buttons in December 2028!
If you don’t want to wait that long, the devs released a demo on Steam as part of Next Fest, and we even wrote up some impressions on it last weekend!
P.S. I should also note that Secret of Mana‘s Hiroki Kikuta will be helping out with the soundtrack. Much excitement!
Tideborne Haven
Campaign Ends: July 2nd
Platform: Windows. Switch and mobile versions may be possible depending on the campaign’s success, or on Steam sales if the appropriate stretch goals are not reached.
Fans of Stardew Valley, Dave the Diver, and even Sierra’s Ecoquest won’t want to miss Tideborne Haven, a detailed ecology-themed life sim inspired by real science. Bring a polluted island and its struggling community back to life, and save the nearby coral reefs, rainforest, and wildlife in a game that will have you adventuring (and farming) both on land and underwater!
As a new arrival to the island (and its next caretaker), you’ll be presented with a plethora of in-depth systems to manage its ecosystem. Farm coral, clean beaches, and rehabilitate wildlife alongside usual life-sim staples such as crafting, decorating your house, and building relationships. Then, take some time to rebuild a museum, unearth the island’s mythology, and dive into a beautiful and dangerous underwater world. You never know what you might find…just be careful of hurricanes and shady jerks!
Make friends with (and possibly even romance) a cast of over 40 islanders, and unlock new areas and storylines by completing their quests. Most of the villagers are polite and good-natured, but there are a handful of dastardly dudes, including a corrupt businessman and the smuggler known as Victor Black. Could one of the islanders be working with this shady chap? Could you also end up working with him? The answer is yes, but the cost may haunt you for years. Save the island, or drive it further into ruin for a quick buck… all of your choices, from how you take care of the island to your social circle, will affect how things play out.
Tideborne Haven‘s lead developer has been growing coral for over 19 years, and now brings his knowledge of marine biology to your computer screen. Check out Tideborne Haven if relaxing life sims and marine life speak to your interests, or if you simply want to stroll through a beautiful pixel art jungle and pass by a family of capybaras. I know I do.
Disclaimer: While it’s possible some of us at RPGFan may be backers of the games mentioned in these articles, this does not influence our coverage or our featured game choices. We make our selections simply based on the active campaigns we feel our readers might find interesting, and we are not given special access or perks by the developers.
tl;dr: We think these games show potential and want to share them with you.
