The Kickstarter for Precinct, the “spiritual successor” to the famous Sierra adventure Police Quest, has been replaced by a home-grown, open-ended crowdfunding campaign.
Revealed to the world in July, Precinct is a new game (although at this stage it’s really more of an idea) headed by original Police Quest creator Jim Walls and Sierra veteran Robert Lindsley. The idea is to create a procedurally-correct cop game akin to the first few PQ titles (before Daryl Gates got involved), setting the player against runaway crime on the mean streets of Fraser Canyon.
But Police Quest, with all due respect, is no King’s Quest, and the Kickstarter never really caught fire, raising just $85,756 of a $500,000 goal over three weeks. With just one week remaining, the founders decided to pull the plug – but not to give up on the game.
“It’s clear you love Police Quest and Jim Walls, but there are questions about the project. One of the things we’ve heard is that you want to see more. You want to understand what the game is going to be like. How is it going to play? How is the first-person perspective going to work? What will the balance of action and adventure be?” Lindsley wrote in the last Kickstarter update. “These are all great questions and we want to answer them! So as of today we are shutting down our Kickstarter and launching a new and unique crowdfunding campaign at www.precinctgame.com.”
Rather than having preset tiers, the in-house crowdfunding campaign will allow supporters to donate whatever amount they wish. Everyone who donates will get a digital copy of Precinct, but to ensure that all money goes into the game, no backer rewards are being offered; instead, people will be able to purchase game-related merchandise, including a collector’s edition boxed set, through an online store that will be opened in the next few weeks.
The pledging process is different as well, as the campaign has been divided into four tiers, at $25,000, $90,000, $250,000 and $400,000. Backers won’t actually be charged until the next tier in line is hit, but once a pledge is made, it can’t be canceled. There’s also no time limit; I’d assume that if it tanks, someone will sooner or later decide to shut it down, but it could also be chugging away slowly but steadily six months from now.
More information about the new Precinct crowdfunding campaign, including some fine print you’d probably be well-advised to check out if you plan to pledge (not necessarily because it’s dodgy, to be clear, but just because it’s different from Kickstarter) is up now at fund.precinctgame.com.
Source: Kickstarter
