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'Not the end' for The Other Brothers, as Kickstarter project fails

Development team starts an Indiegogo project, instead

'Not the end' for The Other Brothers, as Kickstarter project fails
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| The Other Brothers

The Kickstarter pledge drive for pixel-art platformer The Other Brothers has failed, after falling well short of its ambitious $50,000 goal.

The Other Brothers is an episodic platformer that follows the exploits of mechanic duo Joe and Jim. When a mysterious dame named Tavy is nabbed by mafia goons, the brothers set off to track her down.

The game - which is all hand-drawn in gorgeous pixel-art - was aimed towards iOS, Android, Ouya, and all PC operating systems.

That Kickstarter money was supposed to let indie studio 3D Attack bring in professional translators, record an original soundtrack, buy a bunch of phones for testing, purchase Unity licences, and generally wrap up development.

"$50,000 may sound like a lot, but it is exactly how much it costs to develop a video game like this," the team explains. That money covers Unity licences and preventing the four developers from going hungry.


The Other Brothers's Kickstarter pledge video.

But, despite the backing of over 1,000 people (including the infamously philanthropic Markus Persson of Minecraft fame, who allegedly dropped $5,000 on the project), the Kickstarter only managed to bring in about $30,000 before time ran out.

When a Kickstarter project fails to meet its goal, no credit cards are charged and the project organiser ends up with nothing.

In a comment on the Kickstarter project, a member of the team wrote, "This is not the end of The Other Brothers as we stated many times before we will continue and we hope you are all with us on Plan B."

Plan B, it turns out, is an Indiegogo campaign - another crowdsourcing platform that, unlike Kickstarter, lets project organisers walk away with whatever has been donated, regardless of whether they hit their goal.

While most Kickstarter-related news focuses on widely successful projects that bring in millions of dollars, the crowdfunding platform actually sees more failures than successes. According to Kickstarter's own statistics, only 34 per cent of projects in the 'games' category manage to score funding.

Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer