Fundbetter: End of Year Roundup

We welcomed 5 games into the Fundbetter fold this year. Here's an update on each at the turning of the years:

Voyageur | Bruno Dias

Voyageur is a literary RPG where you take the helm of a trader-vagabond vessel, looking for adventure, wealth, and answers in an infinite galaxy full of procedural cultures and civilizations.

Developer Bruno Dias has made huge progress on Voyageur since we announced funding, and we're delighted to have new screenshots to share.



Voyageur is currently in closed beta. Follow Bruno's devlogs as he prepares for launch in the new year.

Voyageur Website | Voyageur on Twitter

Astronaut: The Best | Universal Happymaker

Sadly, Astronaut: The Best's Kickstarter was unsuccessful, meaning that they aren't receiving Fundbetter funding anymore. But! We still treasure their particular flavour of weirdness and we're pleased and heartened to see that development continues on this utterly unique title.



Catch up with their latest blogs to hear more about how going through the Kickstarter process is helping them improve the game. Oh, and they've also made a delightful little Christmas text game for you.

Astronaut: The Best Website | Astronaut: The Best Twitter

Big Mike Lunchtime's Business Training '95 | Nate Crowley

A few words from Nate:

So far, my work on Big Mike has taught me volumes about the difference between learning to write choice-based narrative, and learning to make a game.

Originally, I had hoped to complete Big Mike in around 10 working days, spread in one- or two-hour chunks over three months. This proved to be a near-impossible model: working sessions were gulped up by efforts to get round technical issues in Twine, rather than actually writing the game.

It was frustrating, and made me feel anxious – after being used to working at a galloping pace on prose fiction, the pace of work felt treacly as running in a dream.

Nevertheless, after a frank chat with Failbetter – as patient and understanding a parent as I could hope for – we have relaxed my schedule. This winter I am getting my head down, playing with Twine, and building my fluency for a renewed assault on the job.

The characters, the story, and a lot of weirdness is already there – and soon I’ll have the skills to deliver the technical structure they deserve.

Come the start of spring, I’m looking forward to announcing a new release date, and inviting you into my wonderful #Business nightmare.

The Edgelands | Marshlight Software

An update from The Edgelands' creator, Andre Bowman:

If I squint at it in the right sort of light, touch wood, rub two black cats together at midnight under a new moon and don't even think about walking on any cracks in the pavement, then The Edgelands feels like it is nearly finished. Ignoring the seemingly endless list of things that need fixing or tweaking, and the ever expanding army of critters that still need to be added (have I really not put those bats in yet?) - the game is nearly finished. Almost nearly finished, let's go with that.

The environments all exist. The dialogue and interactions all (mostly) exist. You can pretty much play through from start to finish, if you're willing to forgive a few missing elements and lack of final polish. You can roam fields and marshes, herd sheep-like creatures, poke about in musty cellars, talk to all manner of local inhabitants and even attend an unlikely art exhibition.

As my first time making a game, it has been something of an intense learning experience. The main thing I've discovered is that everything takes much longer than I think it will, particularly in the case of hand drawn assests and frame by frame animations.

Writing dialogue sometimes flows happily and other times is a complete nightmare, and apparently I have no control over which of these situations will occur at any given moment. Lastly I've learnt that forcing myself to step away from the game for the occasional day off is extremely hard to do, but very very important.

The Edgelands will now be released on 14th March, 2017. In the meantime, you can enjoy evocative gifs from this rustic, magical tale on twitter.

Marshlight Website | Marshlight Twitter

Hearts Blazing | Games by Playdate

According to Games by Playdate's twitter, the physical copies of this storytelling card game are now safely in the US and being prepared for shipping, and copies are available for sale on their site. Hooray!

Games by Play Date Website | Games by Play Date Twitter

Bonus update: A House of Many Doors | Pixel Trickery

Technically funded long before Fundbetter was even a twinkle in our eye, A House of Many Doors by Pixel Trickery, aka one-man development band Harry Tuffs, is preparing for release on 3rd February 2017.

View on YouTube

You can wishlist HOMD on Steam, if you so fancy. If you like Sunless Sea, we'd wager you will like this one.

Pixel Trickery Website | Pixel Trickery on Twitter