Explore the dark alleys of Harbor Prime and diverse locations in both physical reality and the wild reaches of cyberspace. Discover the truth behind an enigmatic AI striving to reach the Singularity, a theoretical “event horizon” in which artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence and all bets about the future will be off. How will you play your part in the story?
This is the teaser of Dex Cyberpunk, a 2D action role-playing game, developed by Prague-based Dreadlocks Ltd. They successfully reached (and surpassed) their goal on Kickstarter. Originally, the team were shooting for 14.000 pounds and at the time of writing some 1.600 backers had pledged more than 26.000 pounds. The campaign ends tomorrow, 12 December.
“We have already raised 170% of the initial requested amount [at the time of the interview],” said lead designer Jan Jirkovsky. “This is a great result considering that we are a small Central European studio.”
The core three-member team spent the previous month preparing the campaign and actually running it was time-consuming as well. “Kickstarter is a highly competitive environment where getting noticed is not as self-evident as one might expect,” said Jirkovsky. Also, he is well aware that the raised money won’t be spent on the further development of Dex alone. “You have to consider the manufacturing and shipment costs, taxes, and fees.”
“The main advantage [of the campaign] is the supportive Kickstarter community,” he said. “Nowadays, this approach is important – involve the community early on, consider their feedback and make the game not for the gamers but together with them.”
Jirkovsky seems to have an agenda for next months to come. “Develop, develop, develop. It’s time to get back to our main job,” he said. The raised money will be used to hire some 30 English-speaking voice actors and compose an original music score to add more personality to the game. “We need to improve and polish the game, work with the community to implement feedback and deliver a great game experience,” said Jirkovsky.
A downloadable copy of Dex is available for 7 pounds, the physical edition – for 30 pounds. The game is being developed for Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA. The Beta build of Dex is scheduled for April/May 2014. The release date for the full version is in June.
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