Kickstarter Highlight: Hop For The Best

Kickstarter Highlight is a project my wife and I decided to start in order to bring attention to projects and help smaller indie developers create the games they're passionate about. Although Kickstarter is well-known, oftentimes, videogames go unnoticed or under the radar, and we would love to try and help them get more attention! Today's Kickstarter Highlight is Hop For The Best!

Meet The Team

The developer behind the game — Jacob Lloyd — started his journey when his two children (ages seven and eight) mentioned that they dreamt of becoming game developers someday. Since then, Jacob — who has been a graphic designer for 12 years — began learning coding to teach them when they're older. If you'd like to learn more about the story behind Hop For The Best, check out our interview with him!

What Is The Game About?

Hop For The Best is a platformer that draws inspiration from titles such as Sonic, Kirby, and Super Meat Boy. The title will feature four different game modes that cover many skill levels, allowing for everyone to find a challenge. In total, the game offers 10 levels that are available in Standard, One-Life, and Kids Mode, and 50 smaller levels for Challenge Mode. 

• Standard Mode includes 10 levels.
• One-Life Mode has the same 10 levels but with one life to get through them.
• Kids Mode adds endless lives, slower enemies, fewer obstacles, and multiple checkpoints per level.
• Challenge Mode offers an unforgiving difficulty that spreads throughout 50 shorter levels.

What Makes It So Special?

Aside from allowing you to play an adorable frog named Forgy, Hop For The Best has an attractive graphic style that takes inspiration from old claymation and stop-animation movies such as A Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and Gumby. 

Why Kickstarter?

The developer has mentioned that making the game is quite time-consuming, especially as he's had to juggle his graphic design work into the time. Due to this, the help of backers would allow him to ease the transition from a freelance graphic designer to a full-time developer, accelerating the game's progress. 

Although the developer hasn't revealed the stretch goals yet, he plans to add many more levels (specifically to the Challenge Mode) and a port to Nintendo Switch.

Backer Rewards

Hop For The Best offers a variety of rewards for those that back it, such as early bird incentives, a colouring book, having their names in the credits, access to the digital soundtrack, and more!

For more information on the game and the developer’s plans for the budget — or if you just want to help the campaign out! — check out their Kickstarter and follow the game's Twitter!