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Project Awakened on hold due to 'alternate funding options,' donors receiving refunds
Phosphor Games has cancelled its self-powered crowdfunding initiative for Project Awakened and will be issuing refunds to everyone that has contributed to the drive thus far, according to a missive of the game's official website. "At this time we need to put our funding endeavor on hold effective immediately. Everyone who pledged money will be receiving a full refund," the message reads. "There have been some alternative funding options that have recently been presented to us, so please continue to keep an eye out on our Facebook page for future updates." Phosphor turned to DIY crowdfunding after its initial efforts to raise capital on Kickstarter fell short of the company's goal.
Project Awakened's independent crowdfunding campaign in full swing
Project Awakened came up short on Kickstarter in March, raising $338,498 of a requested $500,000, but the team at Phosphor Games wasn't ready to give up on the game just yet. After a week-long survey that attracted 4,000 responses, Phosphor decided there was enough interest to launch an independent fundraising campaign, with a few new tweaks.Phosphor is using PayPal, one option that Kickstarter doesn't offer its projects, and its first goal is $250,000: the launch of multiplayer, mod-able Project Awakened: Danger Room in November. If Awakened doesn't hit that mark by May 5, all backers will receive a full refund.Donations range from $5 to $10,000, each with unique perks. In Kickstarter-inspired fashion, the Awakened campaign has stretch goals, including for the initial requested amount of $500,000, which sees Phosphor commit to a launch date of June 2014 for the expanded Project Awakened: Subject, rather than the standard window of "around" the end of 2014.So far Project Awakened has raised $44,696 from 764 backers, with 32 days to hit the first $250,000 goal. Check out the fundraising campaign on Phosphor's official site.
Project Awakened seeks fan input about continued crowdfunding
Kickstarter may not have worked out for Project Awakened, but Phosphor Games Studio hasn't given up on its crowdfunding efforts, turning to fans to determine whether it should turn to fans.A survey up on the game's site seeks to determine whether the studio will continue crowdfunding via a direct PayPal campaign, or "continue to work on the project in our spare time," as it had planned to do following the unsuccessful Kickstarter. The results will be tabulated after a week, and a decision will be made based on how much money fans indicate they would be willing to pledge.Along with this new initiative, Phosphor also announced a "Create-a-Player Sandbox Demo," a sort of playable version of its player creation tech demo. "You all loved this video," the studio writes, "now we are going to give that to you this year!"
Project Awakened falls short of $500K Kickstarter goal
Project Awakened, the attempt to reinvigorate Phosphor Games' beleaguered superhero action game, fell short of its Kickstarter goal today, raising $338,498 of a requested $500,000. On Monday, with less than two days to raise more than $200,000, Phosphor Director Chip Sineni told us that if Awakened missed its Kickstarter goal, his team would continue to develop the game in its own time."If nothing else comes up for funding elsewhere – we will keep looking," Sineni said. "We would not be able to promise a 2014 beta, and it would likely take a long time to complete."At the one-day countdown, Phosphor put together a Heineken ad Hello Kitty piano recital video featuring the team drunkenly singing Tom Waits' "Innocent When You Dream." If that can't make a Kickstarter succeed, we just don't know what will.
Project Awakened Kickstarter makes final plea, deploys Tom Waits
This is it, the final day of the beleaguered Kickstarter for the make-your-own superhero game, Project Awakened. To celebrate, or commiserate depending on how things go, the team at Phoshpor Games has pulled out the big guns: A drunken rendition of Tom Waits' "Innocent When You Dream."As of this writing, there are 23 hours remaining with $180,000 left to go. As Phosphor director Chip Sineni told us, "If we don't make the $500K we have to keep making the game very slowly in our spare time, if nothing else comes up for funding elsewhere – we will keep looking." Presumably, they will also keep drinking and singing.
On the brink: What's next if Project Awakened can't save the world
Phosphor Games has less than 48 hours to raise more than $200,000 for Project Awakened on Kickstarter. If Phosphor doesn't hit that goal, the $270,000 people have already pledged will vanish, and Awakened's current development timeline will be stretched indefinitely.Still, Phosphor Director Chip Sineni is optimistic about Awakened's success."We are feeling stressed, but we still feel there is time for the community to help us make this happen," Sineni tells Joystiq. "We got the Unreal Engine 4 tech demo out, we announced Austin Wintory joining as the composer and a lot of Kickstarters have last-minute surges."A lot of Kickstarters fall short, too: Last year, 2,796 video game projects asked for funding, and 1,885 failed. Of course this means 911 gaming projects succeeded, and those projects earned $83 million overall. Sineni wants to see Awakened in that second group, but the entire process has been a fast-paced learning experience on the whims of crowd-sourced funding. Only (a short amount of) time will tell if Phosphor absorbed its lessons too late.
Project Awakened's Unreal Engine 4 tech demo is impressive, gross
We don't know if you guys are aware of this or not, but the human body is a disgusting thing. Even the really top notch, showroom-quality human bodies are essentially sacks of greasy tubes and cartilage. Here to remind us of that fact in stunning detail is Project Awakened's Unreal Engine 4 tech demo, which shows just how elaborate the game's character creation system could be.Now, we doubt Project Awakened will allow players to select from a multitude of different organs or anything, but the super powers shown off are quite impressive looking, if a bit disturbing at times -- we're looking at you, weird split-open-hand-bone-thing.Of course, Phosphor Games will only be able to turn this flashy demo into something tangible if its ongoing Kickstarter proves successful, but with only four days left on the clock, and around $300,000 in funding still needing to be raised, that looks increasingly unlikely.[Thanks, Ryan!]
Project Awakened brings super powers to Steam Greenlight
Project Awakened, the super-powered action game that Phosphor Games resurrected on Kickstarter, now has a Steam Greenlight page, hoping to eventually sneak onto that service. As Phosphor told us earlier this month, Awakened is a PC, next-gen game heavy on customization and kicking dystopic booty with a myriad of interchangeable powers.Get a glimpse of some early super-human combinations in the demo video below, and if you're intrigued, check out Awakened on Kickstarter and Greenlight.
Awakened returns with a new design strategy and funding goal: You
In November 2010, Phosphor Games was quietly shopping around a project called Awakened, a super-hero action title heavy on character customization and creative chaos. As part of its publisher pitch, Phosphor made a demo video for Awakened; it was rough and never meant for public consumption. It showed a city on the brink of man-made annihilation, tanks patrolling streets littered with blood, bodies and fire, and a cast of seemingly ordinary people with supernatural abilities: invisibility, force push, mind control, electric shock, on-demand armor, stealth, accuracy, a tornado.In January 2011, the video leaked."We didn't actually intend it to go out," Phosphor Games director Chip Sineni looks back on the day the video broke on YouTube. "We were kind of embarrassed because it was very rough and there was a lot of stuff that just wasn't ready to show to the public. We were really surprised by how many people were supportive of it."The video, rough as Sineni thought it was, resonated with the gaming audience in a big way. Publishers loved it, too – just not enough to pick up the project. Awakened fell to the back of Phosphor's priorities and out of the gaming industry's eye as the company focused on developing smaller, lucrative games, such as Horn and Dark Meadow for iOS. However, in the few years since Awakened burst into public consciousness, video game funding has evolved, and Phosphor may not need publisher approval to get the game off the ground. All it needs now is something it believes it has already proven – community interest – and somewhere to channel that support.Awakened has turned to Kickstarter.
Phosphor Games' upcoming 'Awakened' looks powerfully promising
We were all set to do a crushingly sad post about "Hero," a really interesting Midway project that got swallowed up by the company's financial woes. (Watch a clip of it here.) ... See? Sad -- right? But before you shed too many tears know that there's one heck of a silver lining: Much of Hero's development team has reformed as Phosphor Games and has begun work on a similarly heroic project called Awakened. Check out this Gamasutra interview with studio head Chip Sineni for the full story.It's early yet -- the game doesn't even have a publisher -- but the concept of a fully customizable super hero and the really stunning trailer we've got for you after the break have allowed us to magically transform our depression into gut-wrenching anticipation. Sure, it's kind of a lame super power, but we figure we have to start somewhere.
