Kickstarter, particularly for games, has seen a ton of press in the last year, with all the exposure leading to even more community funding for awesome games that may not otherwise have been made.<\/p>\n
However, as many of those games are now well into development, the first not-so-Cinderella stories begin to emerge.<\/p>\n
It appears that the turn-based haunted house game Haunts: The Manse Macabre may never be released, despite reaching $28,739 on the community funding site, with an original goal of $25,000.<\/p>\n
Rick Dakan of the game\u2019s developer Mob Rules Games has said that two of the programmers had abandoned the project (of a team of only four). Both programmers have taken jobs elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately both Dakan (the designer) and Austin (the artist) don\u2019t have enough programming know-how to complete the game.<\/p>\n
“Although I know some small amount about how the level programming works, I’m not capable at this point of fixing the bugs I know about,” Dakan explained. “This is further complicated by the fact that the game is written in the Go programming language, which is not widely used, limiting the pool of potential new programmers.”<\/p>\n
However, there may be hope yet as numerous coders have offered their expertise. “I’ve had a lot of interested emails from programmers offering their help,\u201d Dakan said. \u201cThank you all very much! There’s a lot to sift through and I’m not sure what the best way to proceed will be, but I am very encouraged by these offers and want to try and figure out the best way to take advantage of this opportunity.”<\/p>\n
Dakan also received an offer from indie developer Blue Mammoth Games to finish up the game, but nothing is certain just yet.<\/p>\n
While obviously a lot of the Kickstarter money has already been spent, Dakan made a very noble offer to his backers. “I will personally refund out of my own pocket anyone who wants to withdraw their support, no questions asked,” he said.<\/p>\n
However, Dakan promised that the game will be completed, and asked for patience from the funders and fans \u2013 and it looks like he has been heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo far the fan reaction has been amazingly supportive and generous. The vast majority of messages and comments have been positive. Only three people have asked for their money back so far, with a total of $30 refunded. Since I was fully prepared to be refunding thousands of dollars today, I’m feeling amazingly grateful to everyone who’s decided to stick with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With all the great Kickstarter success stories and excitement over the crowd-funding site, it\u2019s sad that this is likely to be not the first time something like this happens.<\/p>\n
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