Much Delayed Two Guys SpaceVenture Project Offers Five Nights Spoofing Cluck Yegger Minigame To Backers
Clucking Difficult Times
Sometimes it's tempting, as both a Kickstarter backer, or just observer, to let rip on projects that are months or even years late. One project that's extraordinarily late, and one I backed in the early heady rush of Kickstarter retro-excitement, is Two Guys SpaceVenture. From the original creators of the Space Quest series, they surfed the wave created by Tim Schafer, then many of the old Sierra gang, and managed to squeak through a half million dollar project. Aiming to create a spiritual successor to their hit-and-miss adventure series (Activision own the rights, despite almost certainly never planning to do anything with them), they pledged to have the game out in February 2013. Well, yes, that somewhat missed. Rage?
Perhaps. But the good news is that while the most recent release date is an astonishingly distant 30th November 2016 (an epic three and a half years late), they've created a mini-game that's to be part of the final release - Cluck Yegger In Escape From The Planet Of The Poultroid - and are giving it to backers today. And it's a spoof of Five Nights At Freddy's.
Cluck Yegger is, bizarrely, a game about mutant chickens, and promises (optional) jump scares. Just in time for Halloween it seems.
If you backed the project long, long ago in June 2012 (maybe check your email - you could well have forgotten you did in the maelstrom of '12's Kickstartering) at $15 or higher, you should have received a link to the game. If you didn't, then the game is on Greenlight and they're after votes. Clearing Greenlight with this will likely make getting the full game onto Steam a lot easier, too.
As for rage? Well, the three-man team behind the game have been extraordinarily honest about many of the setbacks to development, and they're primarily personal. In a September update they told of the utterly terrible news of Scott Murphy's mother's developing Alzheimer's and then dying this Summer, Mark Crowe's wife's being diagnosed with a malignant tumour and her subsequent (thankfully successful) treatment, and Chris Pope's need to return to other work in order to pay the bills in the face of so many delays. So yeah, try and hold a grudge now.
Fortunately they state they're not out of money, and that work continues as they put very difficult pieces of their lives back together. And they're committing to their 2016 release date, which is - while obviously very annoyingly for backers yet another huge slip - at least a realistic distance away.