Be the AI in an unconscious spaceman’s suit. That’s clearly been as enticing a pitch to everybody else as it was to us, and former Company of Heroes designer John Warner has seen his new project carried upwards on a wave of cash. More than $19,000 CAD in pledges has ensured that his inspired merging of Super Metroid and Monkey Island will come to pass – and the game has gained 500+ new developers in the process.
“I’m absolutely overjoyed with the amount of support that the online gaming community has shown over the last week,” Warner told PCGamesN. “I have a huge sense of gratitude for my backers; It’s funny, I used to have a cynical view of this idea that Kickstarter backers are there building the game with the developers, but it’s true – I’m not just getting random excitement.
“When someone shares with me their interest in the project, it gives me a new lens to look at the game through that undoubtedly will make it better in general.”
In the last week, Warner has been offered or prompted to come up with solutions to design challenges he’d wrestled with for months.
“I’ve never been more excited and optimistic about this project,” he concluded. “This whole experience has been a blessing.”
And there’s place yet for another $41,000 CAD, if anybody’s offering. $23k will pay for comprehensive voice-acting and a beefier soundtrack. $27k will mean more cutscenes and an extra lick of polish to all animations and in-game FX. At £32k Warner can justify both widening and deepening the game’s design, $35k will have the game text translated to French, Spanish, Italian and German, and $37k will see the game engine overhauled to support Linux.
$60k, finally, will help Warner launch The Fall on every conceivable platform left – and everything beyond that will be used to develop future episodes in the series, “regardless of the financial success of episode 1”.
Phew. That’s an ambitious target, but there are 22 days left on the clock. Do you think you might be a convert still?