Braben launches Elite Kickstarter
Elite: Dangerous looking for £1,250,000 in funding
Frontier Development has taken to the newly UK friendly Kickstarter to restart work on cult sequel Elite: Dangerous.
The team has 60 days to raise £1,250,000 and in return promises "an amazing space epic with stunning visuals, incredible gameplay and breath-taking scope."
"We're using Kickstarter both as a means of test-marketing the concept to verify there is still interest in such a game that extends beyond the individuals who regularly contact me about the game, and raising the funds to do so," explained Frontier's Braben.
The £1.25 million target will allow it to make the "minimum game" and Braben expressed hope that the funding would go beyond this, to allow for more content and platforms. The game will use artist-directed procedural generation to keep the budget manageable.
"It also means it becomes a viable project to avoid the conventional publishing route - something that I don't believe can deliver a game like this successfully."
With 59 days left to go the project already has 829 backers and £42,851, a total that is rising even as these words are written. One contributor has already pledged at least £5000, winning themselves dinner with Frontier Developments and a star system named in their honour.
"Looking at all the high quality games we at Frontier have produced, from RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 to Kinectimals to LostWinds to Disneyland Adventures, I think the risk of non-delivery is small," Braben reassured contributors.
"We already have a large team who are very experienced at delivering complicated projects, and the key high-risk components (like networking) are already in place. If necessary then we will delay the release beyond March 2014, but I do not believe we will need to do so."
The deadline for funding is January 4 2013.
You can have my money Frontier. If only your deadline was after my wedding next year then you could have more of it!
I absolutely adored Elite, and when the sequel emerged, the amount of gameplay elements completely caved my head in (in a good way!). If I was in my teens or older at the time of release then I think it would have had more play time that and the fact that the physics made space battles incredibly hard.
Looking forward to reading more about how the game is going to shape up and what their ambitions are.
Posted:6 months ago