ChillCrow Makes Massive Kologeon Changes And Kickstarter Backers Are Furious

Developer, ChillCrow enchanted backers with a Kickstarter project for their mystic 2D action adventure title, Kologeon. The game featured a procedurally generated pixel art world full of demons and spirits. The campaign raised $35,415 with the help of 1,268 enthusiastic backers. After the most recent update however, many of those backers are feeling burned.

After securing funding for the project, ChillCrow hasn’t revealed much progress beyond some concept art and animation mock-ups. Still, the initial campaign had showcased enough lightning quick combat and diverse environments that backers were more than happy to give the devs time to work. Unfortunately, ChillCrow used this time to dramatically change the game, without so much as a word to their fan base.

Original Kologeon art.

Having spent the past few months working on a demo to try to lure a publisher, ChillCrow finally released some new game art. None of which bares even a passing resemblance to the version of Kologeon featured in the campaign.

New Kologeon

What You See Isn’t What You’ll Get

Citing difficulties in conveying the gameworld they desired with 2D limitations, ChillCrow completely revamped Kologeon as a 3D experience. With an entirely different art-style than originally promised. The current art work is unrecognizable as the project backers pledged toward. Even the player character looks completely different. Backers are not pleased about the changes.

Even the handful of backers who think the 3D images look acceptable aren’t overly pleased with ChillCrow’s handling of the change. Returning after months of silence to present a wholly different game is pretty shady, even if you like the new art. For those (like myself) who aren’t impressed by the new graphics, it’s an even more difficult pill to swallow.

Bait and Switch?

Adding to the backer discord, a few have begun to question ChillCrow’s intentions with the campaign. They were awfully fast to begin work on a demo to woo a publisher. A demo paid for by backers who thought they were getting an entirely different game. This has lead to some speculation that Kologeon wasn’t nearly as far into development as the campaign implied.

New Protagonist

Honestly, I don’t blame backers for being suspicious. The change is so drastic from what was promised in the campaign, you have to wonder when ChillCrow scrapped the promised version to begin work on this. Whenever it was, they certainly didn’t bother touching base with their supporters beforehand. A mistake that may prove very costly to them going forward.