Indie game studio Italic Pig officially reached their crowdfunding goal within the first 48 hours of their Paleo Pines Kickstarter campaign. As of this news post, funding has reached over $136,000 from an original goal of $102,000 (converted to USD).
The campaign is funding a community-driven expansion, literally dubbed, “Player Choice.” The developers surveyed their players to determine which content was the most desirable. Though the expansion is also funding overall game improvements and optimization.
The main funding goal, which has now been reached, will add the Spinosaurus, and add more dreamstones. Dreamstones are needed to befriend dinosaurs, effectively raising the player dino-cap. The funding goal also includes “significant optimization across the entire game.”
The crowdfunding campaign features three stretch goals, with the third being the obvious big chunk of new content that the developers hope to create.
Stretch Goal #1 adds automated poop cleaning, while Stretch Goal #2 adds dino skin tracking, a compass, time skips, inventory expansion, and more. Seems like the kind of stuff that should be part of a free update. The developers have been clear that they’ve simply run out of money to continue working on the game — hence, crowdfunding.
“It’s a tough industry, and even with a successful launch, getting a green light for significant new development can be incredibly difficult,” explains Kevin Beimers, CEO, Italic Pig. “We diligently pursued additional funding, approaching over 50 publishers in our efforts to secure the resources needed for this expansion or a sequel, but to no avail. That’s why we turned to the very people who made Paleo Pines a success – our players. This Kickstarter isn’t just an option; it was truly the only way for us to bypass these traditional funding hurdles and work directly with our community to bring their most requested features to life, ensuring the future growth of Paleo Pines.”
Stretch Goal #3 is where the real new stuff lies: an entirely new swamp zone, with new quests, resources, and collectibles. It’s far from a guarantee, however. The campaign will need to pull in an additional $250k. The campaign has about three weeks remaining, ending July 31.
Pledge rewards include stickers, pins, game keys, T-shirts, posters, or just a donation supporter pack.
Paleo Pines is a dinosaur-themed farm sim, where players find and befriend cute dinosaurs to help out on the farm. It’s available on Steam PC, PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox, and rated E for Everyone.
