Backers are the bane of any true republic. These unelected individuals buy their seats with cold cash, and begin throwing their enthusiasm around almost immediately. Their suggestions are often helpful – a fact which only serves to highlight their cunning – and quickly adopted by developers. A trusted PCGN source once swore blind he saw a backer eat a baby without even checking to see if anybody else wanted it first.
On the day of Republique’s iOS release, Camouflaj co-founder Ryan Payton has promised them another chance to flex their powers.
A PC and Mac version of Republique was one of a few pledges Camouflaj made in the last days of their close-cut Kickstarter campaign to secure their $500,000 target. The team eventually garnered $555,662 to finish their touch-based stealth game – but have never issued a release date for the adapted desktop version.
“Part of the reason is we needed the team to focus on iOS first,” Payton told Eurogamer. “I didn’t want to create this Frankenstein design of a game that could support both PC and touch. That would have been a bad move.”
A sensible enough sentiment – but Payton acknowledges that PC backers have had to be “patient” with him and his team: “And we appreciate it”.
“Now episode one is out the door we can have a serious conversation with our backers asking them whether they’d prefer we just get episode one out the door for PC knowing there are going to be these incremental episodes,” he said, “or do they want us to finish the iOS version before we put all of our effort behind the PC and Mac version.
“Ultimately it’s going to be up to the backers because they’re the ones who have got us this far.”
My guess is that a palette trained by The Walking Dead and countless alpha indie games will see PC gamers leaning towards the first option – an early episode with the promise of more to come. What do you lot reckon?