With under a week left and less than 2% of the $30,000 target raised, it’s safe to say The Ambassador Kickstarter has failed. Considering it’s been nearly three weeks since the solitary update from creator Ryan Throw he’s presumably conceded defeat as well. But as he’s made clear, the failure of the Kickstarter won’t stop The Ambassador from being made. It’ll just slow it down.
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt0EL1B9iA4[/embedyt]With several years experience of making games for fun, Ryan had been hoping a successful Kickstarter would allow him to work on The Ambassador full-time. As it is he’ll have to continue development on the twin-stick shooter part-time so that December 2017 release date is out the window.
Time Not Well Spent
All of which is a bit of a shame as the game itself looks promising. There’s a definite similarity to The Binding of Isaac in terms of style, but the time-manipulating mechanic is more distinctive. If more had been made of this element during the campaign then it might have been more successful. It would also have helped if some more varied environments had been showcased, and some more colorful enemies would have helped. They’ve got some great names (Lazy Gary and Sploosh are my favourites) but they’re all a bit… grey.
Despite the positive qualities that The Ambassadordemonstrated, it’s fair to say the Kickstarter campaign was hugely disappointing. Ryan seemed to give up quite early as well – his only update came after six days when he seemed to already have accepted defeat. It seemed a bit early to do so, particularly as the content of the update was quite positive. The Ambassador was successfully Greenlit on Steam, where the community were impressed with what they saw. It’s unfortunate that success wasn’t replicated on Kickstarter, but those that are interested will still be able to experience the finished game – eventually.
