Back in the beginning of the year The Dark Inside Me, a point and click horror game, was crowdfunding on IndieGogo. It had 78 backers and 1,117 USD raised within a month. A trailer was released, a good handful of images were shown, and Akçay Karaazmak, the creator, was sending updates to his supporters. It looked like a promising game, very dark and gruesome, but for the right audience it had serious potential.
Then suddenly, The Dark Inside Me went dark.
The last update seen on IndieGogo was that the game had been Greenlit. The updates stopped, and the campaign officially closed on February 10th. I imagine it left many backers wondering what the heck happened. I have never backed a game before (although I have been wanting to ever since I started exploring them), but if you are a loyal backer and give part of your money for a game, you expect the developers to at least give you some communication in return. At least I would.
Fast forward almost a year, and it’s September 22nd. Hmm, What do we see here? The Dark Inside Me pops up on Kickstarter with almost all of the same info seen on the IndieGogo page, but with some minor changes. This time they have a demo released, as mentioned on the first update. Also, their IndieGogo page estimated it would be finished by the end of 2015. On their new Kickstarter, they estimate it wont be finished until the end of 2016.
I did some innocent Twitter stalking to see if there was a reason Akçay Karaazmak, or anyone working on The Dark Inside Me, had not reached out to their backers. Turns out, Akçay Karaazmak had tweeted here and there from January to present day. Not very many tweets, mind you. About one to two tweets every other month, which seems very slim for developers trying to get their name out there. They all revolved around the same topic, which was working on the demo:
Perhaps the creators had nothing else to update their backers on, except that they were working hard on the demo for seven months? Afterwords, all tweets starting September 22nd have been about the newly released demo and Kickstarter page. I can only make assumptions, since I did not find clear answers. Some games dont make it through, we all know this. Could it be possible The Dark Inside Me had some turbulence along the flight to completion, and they gave up hope with crowdfunding? Maybe their old goal of $100,000 on IndieGogo was too ambitious, and that’s why they retreated for a while (given their new goal on Kickstarter is $39,587).
Personally, I anticipate trying out the demo myself. It should be flawless after seven months of quiet, seclusive work time, right? I’m still confused as to why The Dark Inside Me would lack updates for such a long period, but probably not as confused as their IndieGogo backers are.
To see where they’re at now, visit their new Kickstarter page or Website.
