Haunts: The Manse Macabre was one of the Kickstarter games to get funded over the summer, but that has not been enough to keep the game from being in dire straits. Project lead Rick Dakan posted an update to the game's Kickstarter page about the current issues.
The principal cause for our dire condition is that there are no longer any programmers working on the game. Our lead programmer, Jonathan, was always going to move on to something else after a year or so. We had hoped that he would be able to work on the game in his spare time, but now that he’s going back at Google, he has told us that his spare time will be very minimal and not enough to make progress on the game. Our second programmer, Josh, has quit the project entirely to take another job. He does not want to work on the game in his spare time.
Without either of its programmers, Haunted is currently at an impasse, with Dakan talking to other companies and friends to look for new programmers to continue development. He also says that although the Kickstarter money has been spent, he will personally refund any backer who asks for their money back.
Kickstarter has been hailed as a great new way for developers to make the games that consumers want, but publishers do not want to take a risk on. However, problems like the ones facing Haunts show that donating to Kickstarter projects is no guarantee that the project will see completion. Hopefully, for everyone involved, Haunts: The Manse Macabre will find new programmers and get a full release.
Source: [Kickstarter]
