Disastercake, AKA Mike Gale, is set to see his dream game project become a reality. Soul Saga ends its Kickstarter with $195,528. This is far past the $ 60,000 initial goal, although it doesn't go all the way to the $ 250,000 stretch goal. Gale has opened up Paypal as an alternate avenue for more backers to join in, and with an additional $ 2,000 raised in Paypal, he has decided to build the game all the way up to Garen's Saga, which is the $ 200,000 stretch goal.
To be brief, Soul Saga is a story based RPG featuring turn based combat and environment based puzzles. Gale explained in his initial Kickstarter pitch that he has already been working on the game in secret for years,taking on the roles of game designer, programmer and technical artist. He has also been paying for the art design in the game out of his own pocket.
Gale explained in a personal blog post he decided to move to Kickstarter and work on it full time so he can facilitate the game's shift to full 3D, and just build it up as originally envisioned it. With the initial $ 60,000 budget, he will be able to add in a soundtrack by Aivi Tran. Succeeding stretch goals have also allowed him to add in voice acting, an airship system for combat and exploration, a job board to add sidequests, more weapons and a bigger party, more enemies, a chance to build a Guild Hall and enter into Guild Battles, ports to Wii U, Vita and PS4, and finally, the Atelier of Souls and Garen's Saga.
The Atelier of Souls is a location, an additional tower where you will have to split up your party to fully explore it. Garen is the main villain of the game, and Garen's Saga will allow you to see parts of the game through his eyes, and even play as him.
The Soul Saga project is definitely promising to be a very great game, and possible additional funding through Paypal may allow Garen to go all the way with the stretch goals. This is the kind of fairy tale story crowdfunded games need after the recent spate of controversies. Let's hope this one finishes production without hitches and we all get to play it soon!
