Detective-themed game cancels its Kickstarter campaign; team hopes to raise funds through its own website.

Police Quest's spiritual successor Precinct has cancelled its Kickstarter campaign with two weeks left to run.

The game, which was pitched as an unofficial follow-up to Sierra Entertainment's long-running Police Quest adventure series, voluntarily shut down halfway through its month-long fundraiser. The campaign had raised $85,756 of its attempted $500,000 goal.

However, while the studio was unable to finance the project through Kickstarter, the team still hopes to bring the game to market through fan investment on the Precinct website. The company has reduced its half-million-dollar target to $400,000, and aims to use staggered tiers to earn an initial $25,000 to produce a playable prototype to help entice players to fund the remainder of the game.

"Giving backers an early hands on is a primary incentive for this new campaign. The team hopes that showing their vision through early builds will lead to additional funding for the full game," Jim Walls Reloaded president Robert Lindsley told Joystiq.

Successfully securing a further $90,000 will allow the developers to produce a "vertical slice" sample, while at the $250,000 mark, the team promises to release a "demo" stage. An additional $150,000 will need to be raised in order for the game to see full release. Rather than continuing to build as funds are raised, development will only commence and continue once the next dollar goal has been met.

Lindsley believes that recent "stumbles" experienced by games such as Wasteland 2 and Double Fine's Broken Age, both of which were funded through Kickstarter, have caused backers to be more cautious of the ventures they support.

"All backers will get access to all builds (including the full game) upon completion, regardless of how much they've pledged," Lindsley confirmed, suggesting that anybody who contributes $1 or more will see a return on their investment. Precinct was originally slated for a PC and Mac release in mid-2014, though the developer now says it is unable to commit to a release window as a result of changes to the business model. At the time of writing, the game had received more than 175 pledges, totaling more than $5,500.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot