Not All Video Game Kickstarters Need a Million Dollars: Risk of Rain

Promising student Kickstarter game, Risk of Rain, blasts past $7000 goal.

While most Kickstarter games which get the most attention (Torment, Project Eternity, Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2) tend to be huge titles with massive names attached to them, it is nice to know there is still a space for the little guys to succeed. 

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Risk of Rain is the most recent of a growing string of successful Kickstarter video game projects. The completely unknown two man student team is only known on Kickstarter by their first names, Paul and Duncan. Paul is the PR guy responsible for the Kickstarter campaign and Duncan is both the programmer and artist. Both are students are currently attending the University of Washington. A working demo for the game is available on the project page.

The pair of students set out on Kickstarter with a meager goal of $7000 and a short demo to show off their game, Risk of Rain. Since then, the game has blown past that small goal, and at the time of writing this article (only 26 hours to go) the project has a total of $25,135 pledged by over 1,350 backers.

The game is an action platformer with rogue-like elements. It is a fairly simple and basic 2D pixel art design and promises over 100 items and an impressive horde to fight through. Rogue-like style games have had a recent resurgence and Risk of Rain seeks to help “revitalize the genre with stylized graphics and an intuitive gameplay scheme that teaches itself, rather than having to be taught.”

These students only had two reach goals, $10,000 and 15,000, which they reached handily. The reach goals guarantee new game modes and game “mutators” which will work as unlockable challenge difficulties. Most of the backing came from the basic $10 tier, which includes a DRM-free digital copy of the game on release. Needless to say, at over $25k, this is one pretty damn successful Kickstarter.

Right now Risk of Rain promises 100 items, 10 playable classes, a monster log bestiary, online high score boards, story and survival game modes, a full soundtrack, and more. Be sure to check out the game’s Kickstarter page for more info and a playable demo.

Risk of Rain is slated for release in Summer 2013. Closed Beta starts as soon as the Kickstarter ends.

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