Day for Night Games, an offshoot studio formed in the wake of Irrational's layoffs, failed to crowdfund first-person adventure The Black Glove. In terms of how far short the game was of its goal, it's a case of not gloving one hand, let alone two. After a month of campaigning, The Black Glove amassed $216,517 of its $550,000 target, which equates to less than half.
Despite the setback, Creative Director Joe Fielder vowed to "fight like hell" to keep the game alive. Day for Night, largely headed by former BioShock devs, is talking to publishers who've reached out in recent weeks. Fielder added the studio is also exploring other ideas.
"We asked for the total we needed to guarantee that we could self-publish the game within a year with 6+ hours worth of content for $20," Fielder told backers. "If we turned around immediately and asked for less without having secured the rest of the funds necessary, we wouldn't be able to guarantee our Kickstarter backers that we could deliver the game."
He added it may be "weeks or months" before the studio has more news on the project.
The Black Glove is billed as an "eerie, surrealistic" adventure set in a 1920s theater that's skirting the boards of reality. To peel through the madness and mystery lurking behind the curtains, players must use a "powerful artifact" - yup, the Black Glove - that sounds like it's to the space-time continuum what a coat pocket is to loose earphone wires.
While some games can't stop the flow of funding - Star Citizen, we're looking at you - our Crowdfund Bookie data from June 2013 to May 2014 showed a general decline in backing. By the end of the Crowdfund Bookie year, amounts pledged per person were dropping and projects were earning less relative to their stated goals.