Troubled Haunts Kickstarter saved by volunteers

Troubled Kickstarter Haunts: The Manse Macabre is back on despite the departures of all the title’s programmers, the game’s creator has claimed.

The development of the game will now continue as an open source project after calls from backers for the move, making the game’s code freely available to developers.

The title was thought to have been canned last week after programmers working on the project at Mob Rules Games quit the developer with work yet to be finished on the title, whilst the Kickstarter funds were also thought to have run dry. The game’s crowdfunding campaign had raised $28,739 from 1,214 backers in July, surpassing its initial $25,000 goal.

Creator Rick Dakan said that around 30 programmers, many proficient in the game’s coding language GO, have applied to help finish the project. It is not clear however whether these developers will be paid, although potential coders have been referred to as a “community of volunteers”.

He added that he was currently in the process of setting up the infrastructure for issue tracking, source control, documentation wikis and other tools necessary to complete development, which is expected to begin again “within the next week or two”.

The Haunts creator also said that Atlanta-based independent game developer Blue Mammoth Games had shown interest in assisting with the project, but would only get involved toward the end of development to facilitate the retail release, promotion and distribution of the game.

“There are still a ton of details to be figured out about the licensing (we may end up adopting a slightly different open license if it needs to be more open), credit, business model, etcetera,” said Dakan.

“Plus setting up the issues list, organise the priorities for what needs to get done, establishing a public knowledge base, and more. This is just the beginning, but I’m excited about where it’s going and enthusiastic as hell about the support we’re getting.”