In 2012, popular YouTube network The Yogscast began a Kickstarter campaign for a sandbox game called Yogventures. It raised $570,000 and went into development at indie studio Winterkewl Games.
Now, Eurogamer reports that Winterkewl is in danger of going out of business, and the project has been cancelled.
“As you may have heard, Winterkewl Games have stopped work on Yogventures – but this is actually a good thing,” Yogscast co-founder Lewis Brindley wrote in an email to the project’s 13,647 backers. “The project was proving too ambitious and difficult for them to complete with their six-man team.”
“While this was Winterkewl’s project, we put a lot of time, energy and effort into trying to help them realise their dream. Since we heard the news, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make sure that you still get awesome stuff and cool experiences.”
“Although we’re under no obligation to do anything, instead we’re going to do our best to make this right, and make you really glad you backed the project!,” Brindley continued.
“So to begin with we’re very lucky to have met a team of really smart guys at Nerd Kingdom who ran their own Kickstarter for a very similar game called TUG (http://www.nerdkingdom.com/game/). They have a larger team of engineers and programmers who are creating a game that is much further along in development.”
According to the email, TUG is in many ways the game the Yogscast hoped Winterkewl would create. “We’ve been playing the Early Access version on Steam and you’ll soon be able to see us playing the game on Yogscast channels.”
All backers and early access buyers of Yogventures, will receive a Steam key that will redeem a full copy of TUG. “Because Yogventures was never completed it’s going to be impossible to deliver the rewards relating the finished game. However we’ll do everything we can to find cool things to take their place.”
(via CVG)