This is gonna be quick since I’m at work, but time is of the essence!

Gravitaz only has about 24 hours to go in their Kickstarter campaign and they’re short of their goal. They need a push from fans of futuristic combat racing!

Here’s a press release they sent out today:

GRAVITAZ Recognized By The International Game Developers Association
GRAVITAZ Kickstarter featured alongside the likes of Banner Saga, Wasteland 2, FTL

DENVER, CO (May 9, 2012) � The GRAVITAZ team was honored today by the International Game Developers Association. The GRAVITAZ Kickstarter, set to raise funds for the high-speed combat hover-racing game, is now in the International Game Developer Association�s recommended projects list. GRAVITAZ can be found alongside such previous Kickstarter successes as The Banner Saga, Wasteland 2, FTL, and Auditorium Duet. (www.kickstarter.com/pages/igda)

�The Kickstarter is going to come down to the wire, but there�s still a shot,� says Megan Fox, one of the programmers behind GRAVITAZ. �If even just 2,000 discover the game and plunk down $10 for a copy, we�re there, that�s funded. The Internet is a mighty big place – surely we can find 2,000 more fans of high-speed combat racing.�

Learn more about how to bring futuristic racing into the present at www.GravitazGame.com.

Emphasis is from me.

If you’ve any interest in this style of game, the now’s the time to come forward and pledge!!

I’ve mentioned Kickstarter project Gravitaz a few times now and I’ve formed kind of an emotional bond with the team. That’s one of the awesome aspects of Kickstarter, I think. You get (ideally) frequent updates from the developers and you’re along for the ride, cheering them on when things go well and wondering what went wrong when they don’t.

We’ve got another update this week, though it’s mostly for fun. The team went out to a go-kart track for research:

The sad truth is that I don’t think Gravitaz is going to make its funding level unless we can find a new audience of fans who’re excited about the game. With 8 days to go they’re around $18,000 short.

But the take-away from this video is that even if the Kickstarter campaign doesn’t make it, Gravitaz will live on; it’ll just take longer to make. You can’t help but admire the determination that so many Indie game developers have. I was glad to hear this news because Gravitaz is a game I want to play:

In GRAVITAZ, players fly jet-propelled hover vehicles for fame and glory on the rough-and-tumble courses of the world’s first antigravity racing league. Players compete with computer and ghost opponents against time on delicate tracks scaffolded over the faces of skyscrapers and down through city streets with a diverse pool of vehicles, from scratch-built garage projects to high-end sponsored racers. It�s like nothing else on earth – neither go-karts nor Formula 1 can prepare the racers for what they�ll meet on the track.

But it isn’t over until it’s over, and if you’re a fan of combat racing and want to play Gravitaz sooner rather than later, it’s time to step up and pledge. Then tell your friends about the project. Let’s get this thing funded, people!!

A couple weeks ago I posted about Gravitaz, a Kickstarter project from Glass Bottom Games. Gravitaz is a futuristic combat racer for PC/Mac/Linux.

Today Glass Bottom Games and Logitech announced a new promotion. If you pledge at the new $65 level you’ll get not only a copy of Gravitz but a Logitech Wireless Gamepad F710.

Now to be clear, this isn’t saving you big money or anything. You could just buy the F710 for $50 and pledge $15 to Gravitz and wind up with the same swag, but by doing the whole thing through Kickstarter Gravitz gets all your cash to put towards developing a kick-ass game; Logitech is content to walk away from this deal with the good feeling of having supported a small game developer.

If this new deal interests you, act fast. They started with 20 of these gamepads to give away and as of the time of this writing, 6 are already spoken for.

Here’s a dev interview where the team shares a bit more about their plans for Gravitaz:

Here’s the latest project to coax me to click that seductive “Pledge” button over at Kickstarter: Gravitaz. This is a near-future racing game similar to Wipeout. Of course, if you’re not a Playstation person you might not know what Wipeout is, but I think the early gameplay in the video below pretty much sums it up: high-speed, low-friction racing with weapons.

So why did I back this one?

First, Developer Glass Bottom Games is made up of industry veterans, most of whom were working on Lego Universe before forming their own studio. I’m confident they can deliver the product.

Second, they’re not asking for a lot of cash: $25,000 is their goal. We can hit that easy!

Third, their pledge levels are really low. It only takes a $10 pledge to get a digital copy of the finished game (PC & Mac are the initial target platforms). After that you can get all kinds of extras, but $10 is pretty damned cheap.

Fourth, full disclosure, I follow Glass Bottom Games co-founder Megan Fox on Google+ and she’s good people. I want to see her studio thrive.

And fifth and most obvious: I want to play this game!

If they go past their initial goal they’re hoping to bring the game to iOS too (what, no Android love??). I’m hoping we go sailing past that puny $25K figure and get to the kinds of numbers where we backers can start chanting “TRACK EDITOR, TRACK EDITOR, TRACK EDITOR” (it sounds good chanting that, right?).

Anyway, check out the early gameplay in the video, read the pitch over on Kickstarter, then decide if it’s worth $10 to play the game they’re describing. To me, it was worth $30.