War Balloon Games explains how it spent the Kickstarter cash raised for iOS and Android space adventure Star Command

Last year, War Balloon Games used crowd-sourcing website Kickstarter to ask eager backers for $20,000, which it would spend creating Star Command - an intriguing cross between Game Dev Story and Star Trek.

The campaign was a success and War Balloon Games managed to amass $36,967. Despite earning more than an additional $15,000, though, the developer has still struggled to fund its game.

"To begin with, we didn't get all of that. We lost about $2,000 to no-shows, just people that pledged and the funds didn't transfer. That got us down to $35k, and kickstarter and Amazon Payments take their portions, which got us down to right around $32,000," the developer explained in an update on its Kickstarter page.

The developer then had to spend around $10,000 on prize fulfilment, such as free T-shirts and posters, which were promised to backers who pledged set amounts of cash.

With the $22,000 that still remained, War Balloon Games bought iPads, spent cash on music and attorney's fees, and splashed a bunch of it on the annual PAX East conference. That left the company with $6000, which was taxed as income.

According to the post, the game's developer has taken on around $50,000 worth of debt, just to keep the project ticking.

War Balloon Games is confident that it will meet its planned summer release window for Star Command, so expect the title to hit iOS and Android then.

Kotaku