"After being rejected by over 50 publishers," stylish indie RPG smashes its $60,000 Kickstarter in less than 24 hours in a "defiant shout" to the industry

After "years of difficulties" trying to find a publisher, indie RPG/life-sim mash-up Crescent County secured the funding it needed thanks to a Kickstarter campaign that hit its $60,000 goal in less than a day.

Developer Electric Saint says that its game - described as an open-world "delivery life-sim" where you move to an island filled with "witch-tech" broomstick technology - was "rejected by over 50 publishers." Opting for a different approach to getting the funding it needed, the studio turned to Kickstarter - where it hit its $60,000 goal in just 24 hours.

In fact, with more than 1,000 backers at the time of writing, Crescent County is stretching away ahead of that original goal. Currently, it's already closing in on the $70,000 mark. That show of support proves, in spite of all that effort "trying to get their game funded through traditional avenues," that "there absolutely is an audience for the game."

Electric Saint is quick to point out that its difficult road is not a unique challenge. When it announced the Crescent County crowdfunding campaign earlier this week (begging, in the process, for GTA 6 not to get delayed again), its trailer acknowledged that "the games industry is on fire," with art lead Anna Hollinrake admitting that "we just maybe went indie at an interesting time."

"Games funding is really, really tough right now," the campaign points out, with the studio claiming that "we've spent two years and a lot of energy going down this route, and it's been exhausting. We just want to get the game made."

This new show of support (and influx of funding), however, does seem to suggest that Crescent County will, indeed, finally get made. There's no release date in sight at the moment, but the Kickstarter points to an expected delivery date for its pledge rewards of October 2026 - hopefully far enough out from the release of GTA 6 that it doesn't get swallowed up by Rockstar's juggernaut. Between today and next October, however, you can check out the Crescent County demo, which is live on Steam.

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