The last update on the Dashkin Kickstarter was all the way back in January 2013, but is this Kickstarter dead? Well, yes and no. We can be rather certain that the near $30K raised to make the endless runner will not bring us the game we wanted. However, Dashkin is not fated to disappear entirely, it just won’t be a game.
The main character (Bitey) was lovable despite being rather mean to the other residents of Brackenwood.
Way back in 2010 a cartoon called The Last of The Dashkin appeared on Youtube. The cartoon was part of the Brackenwood series by former Disney animator Adam Phillips. The cartoon was open ended and full of promise. It was meant to be the prelude to a free running game called Dashkin. It sparked a lot of interest and had a dedicated fanbase over on its website, Bitey Castle. The game went into development with the support of fans of the animation. This is prior to the Kickstarter ever launching, and back then things were looking promising. Adam approached Sean McGee (the name you see on the Kickstarter) to help him develop the game.
Things were going alright until…
Things were going well and Adam had connections. In fact, if Adam had started the project a little earlier we might have it in our hands right now. At the time he was working with EA2D, who offered to help make Dashkin a Facebook game (you know, the ones you get a hundred request to play until you unfriend everyone who plays Farmville). Eager for the extra hands, Adam and Sean got to work redesigning the game to include microtransactions. Things would have been perfectly fine if EA2D hadn’t turned into Bioware San Francisco and essentially vaporized, leaving Adam with not even half complete game. This is when they went to Kickstarter.
Despite the huge amount of support, it seems that Adam simply miscalculated how much was needed. After reading through an update he posted on the Bitey Castle website, I’m guessing that they didn’t account for Kickstarter taxes and the cost of rewards when establishing their goal. Inevitably, they ran out of money again and took part-time work, still hoping to finish Dashkin. However, it eventually became clear that they didn’t have the time or the money and that all they could do was work to fulfill the backer rewards sans the game.
It became clear they wouldn’t be able to finish the game.
Adam plans to clean up the source files and release them to the fans, including the unfinished game. Perhaps the community will tinker with it and eventually create the Dashkin Adam originally wanted. Adam himself said he aimed too high with Dashkin, and if it had been on a smaller scale it would have already been released.
This isn’t the end of the story, though. A short time after Dashkin’s cancellation was announced Adam posted another update. He’d set up a Patreon to continue making animated works about Dashkin and had been fairly successful. Perhaps one day he will decide to return to making the Dashkin game, but I don’t think it is needed. Watching those little flash films is what the fans cared about, and honestly I don’t think this free-to-play game was what they truly wanted.
I love gaming, it is both my hobby and my job, but Dashkin was meant to be an animation I think.
I think Patreon is a better format for Adam. He does seem to blow his budgets when he has full access, so maybe a limited amount each month will stop him getting too ambitious. What do you think of this whole Dashkin debacle?Comment down below!
