When it comes to AJ Tilley and his crowdfunding antics it’s usually frustrating to hear more of the same. And of the remaining Kickstarters that I’m still a backer of both have sent updates letting us know what the current situation of their cyberpunk style visual novel Echo Tokyo is. Frankly the news is quite less than stellar. This was the first game of his that I had backed and honestly this is the one fraught with the most problems.
The update reiterated that development of Echo Tokyo will be taken over by Dharker Studio, one half of the now split AJTilley.com, but that’s pretty much something that we’ve known for a while now. What really was news, though, was that they need more money to finish the game. Which is why they launched a Patreon account specifically for ongoing development. The official reason being that those who missed out on one of the several campaigns can now give money per month to get access to the game.
The aim of this Patreon campaign is to give these backers a chance to support the development and allow the studio to offset their ongoing costs to create not just a good interactive game, but an amazing open world visual novel hybrid experience.
Normally I wouldn’t mind seeing a new Patreon campaign pop up but AJ Tilley doesn’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to crowdfunding and then promptly pulling out before it gets a chance to solidify. I’m still confused as to which accounts are still active and which ones are gone. Both on Kickstarter and Patreon. The Echo Tokyo campaign itself has some rather lofty milestones, too. I don’t know much about this site, but offering special artwork a month for $500 increments does seem rather excessive. The cynic in me is also wondering just how long before he takes this one down, too.
Update: As predicted, the Echo Tokyo Patreon campaign is no more. No word yet on why it was taken down, but don’t be surprised if it pops up again in the near future.
