Fan-funded Wasteland 2 gets off to flying start

AS THE Double Fine team celebrates fan generosity in raising Us$3.3mil (Rm9.9mmil) for its next game project, Wasteland 2 sets out on a journey towards US$900,000 (Rm2.7mil) of development funding.

The drive is proposed by Brian Fargo of inxile Entertainment, and Fargo had a hand in producing staples of the role-playing genre such as Fallout, Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, and the Fallout series’s 1988 inspiration, Wasteland.

The sequel will be a post-apocalyptic adventure with an old-school, top down viewpoint, and inxile is asking backers not only for their funds but also for their ideas — just like Slightly Mad Studio’s work-in-progress racing sim Cars.

After 24 hours and with pledge rewards engouraging donations of between US$15 (RM45) and US$10,000 (RM30,000), backers had donated a total of US$600,000 (Rm1.8mil).

Meeting the US$900,000 (Rm2.7mil) target would make Wasteland 2 Kickstarter’s sixth most successful project, behind three ipod-friendly gadgets, a comic book reprint, and the Double Fine Adventure. Of course, both Double Fine’s Tim Shafer and inxile’s Brian Fargo have a rich game development history to fall back on.

Smaller studios aim for more modest amounts with some success: Quebecois team Nine Dots Studio found US$16,700 (RM51,000) via Rockethub for February’s Xbox Live Indie Game Brand, while Cardinal Quest managed to make US$5,000 (RM15,000) of a target US$6,000 (RM18,000) via 8-Bit Funding.

Other hot game projects on Kickstarter include space sim FTL: Faster Than Light, light and sound puzzle Auditorium: Duet, and iphone adventure Monster Guru. — Relaxnews 2012 ++++ kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/