
Notable Kickstarter projects include:
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Anime
- Time of Eve was hoping to raise 18,000 dollars for an English subtitled release on Blu-ray. Instead it got over 10 times that and hastily added more subtitles, a dub, artbooks, merchandise and shorts.
- Little Witch Academia, and its sequel The Enchanted Parade.
- Under the Dog, an OVA set in a near future world, where the UN trains augmented assassins.
- AnimEigo completed a wildly successful Kickstarter for a blu-ray of the original Bubblegum Crisis. They are onthe way to achieve the same as of this writing for Riding Bean.
- Funimation recently launched a campaign to fund a new dub for The Vision of Escaflowne that includes scenes that were removed from the original Bandai release.
Comic Books
- Archie Comics was attempting to use this to help its "Riverside Reborn" Continuity Reboot by using the funding to get three titles - Betty & Veronica, Jughead and Life With Kevin - out the door faster. Controversy over it caused it to be shut down five days later.
Film
- Cans Without Labels, a short from John Kricfalusi tributing the frugality of his father through George Liquor.
- The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened?: a documentary made by filmmaker John Schnepp detailing the history of the failed Superman movie, Superman Lives - the infamous film that refused to have Superman fly, have him fight a polar bear and deal with Brainiac and his "gay R2-D2 with attitude" robot sidekick.
- Dude Bro Party Massacre 3, a feature-length Adaptation Expansion of a 5 Second Films short.
- The Gamers: Hands of Fate, as well as the mini-series web video spin-offs (see below).
- The storyboard animatic for a CG feature film adaptation of The Goon.
- Harbinger Down, a horror film about a research team of college graduates who stumble upon the wreckage of a Russian ship and discover that the crew were performing experiments on tardigrades which are rapidly mutating. The film is being produced by special effects legends Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. and there will be absolutely no CGI creature effects.
- I Am Big Bird - A documentary about Carroll Spinney, the last original Muppet puppeteer, who has played Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969.
- Kung Fury
- The Last Days of Coney Island: An animated film by Ralph Bakshi. A crime drama set in the 60s, his first film in 21 years, it had been in development since the mid 90s.
- "Manos" The Hands of Fate HD Restoration: It took nearly five years and a legal battle with Harold P. Warren's son (where it was discovered that the film was never copyrighted), but it finally came out on October 15, 2015 thanks to Synapse Films
.
- Rocky Horror Saved My Life: A fan documentary about The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It exceeded its goal by about a third.
- Thanks Killing 3
- Upldr
- Veronica Mars (The Movie): The fastest funded film project on Kickstarter at the time after being fully funded with a million dollars raised in under 11 hours.
Literature
Music
- Animusic 3
- Savlonic's debut album Red.
- Theatre Is Evil, an album by Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra. Notable for surpassing its $100,000 goal to the tune of $1.2 million, and the album debuted on the Billboard top 100 Album list at number 10 due to the immense number of Kickstarter pre-orders. (Later provoked a bit of a controversy online when Palmer invited local musicians to play with the tour gratis.)
Tabletop Games
- 7th Sea: Second Edition was the first tabletop RPG Kickstarter to raise over a million dollars, with a final total of $1.31 million - over forty times its original goal of $30,000.
- Apocalypse World 2nd Edition
- Conan, a minatures-based board game from Monolith. Not to be confused with the other Conan KS here, which is a tabletop RPG.
- Darklight: Memento Mori
- A new series of sourcebooks for Delta Green that managed to raise $362,324, several times its original goal of $40,000.
- Dreadball, a sci-fi sport board game from Mantic Games. Like the Reaper Miniatures one further down this page, they used Kickstarter to fund and release the game and expansions far faster than they would have through traditional means. It also influenced development at points - the community's response to one MVP, Mee-Ken Judwan, led to the creation of the Judwan species as a team for the Season 2 expansion, for example. And much to the backers' delight; the game is far from being merely Blood Bowl In Space.
- Dreadball Xtreme, a sibling game focused on illegal, backalley games of Dreadball sponsored by crime-bosses and those who aren't happy with the DGB regulations, is also being funded via Kickstarter.
- Ehdrigohr, a Tabletop RPG inspired by Native American Mythology.
- Exploding Kittens: A card game, from the creator of The Oatmeal. Recently overtook Reading Rainbow as the most backed project of all time.
- Flash Point: Fire Rescue and multiple expansions for it.
- Kingdom Death: Monster: A boss rush style tabletop horror game set in an original universe by Adam Poots.
- Mekton Zero: Funded in 3 days just before Memorial Day Weekend.
- Monsterhearts: Second Skins: A set of additional playbooks (character archetypes) added to the base game.
- Numenera
- Onyx Path Publishing have done a good number of Kickstarters, but the big ones are those for deluxe corebooks for third edition Exalted and 20th anniversary editions of the Old World of Darkness games (Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming, but not Vampire: The Masquerade, which got funded before they went onto Kickstarter).
- Reaper Miniatures: Rather than expand their Bones range over several years, they used Kickstarter to try and expand the range a bit faster, with the newer models from the range being the rewards. They originally asked for $30,000 with a rather nice selection of models for a $100 pledge. As of this edit, they have nearly reached the $2.15 million mark and by expanding the $100 level reward with each stretch goal, those backers are now getting somewhere in the ballpark of 200 minis. As Tycho put it
; "It’s a good thing that the Bones line being funded consists of plastic minis, because if they fulfilled this order in pewter or white metal it would influence the tilt of the earth, killing billions."- It worked so well a second campaign was run for another wave of new minis. This was followed by a third campaign to convert their CAV skirmish game to Bones material, and then again by a third general Bones minis kickstarter.
- Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, a tabletop RPG from Modiphius.
- Tephra, a steampunk roleplaying game, was published in 2012 after a successful Kickstarter campaign that enticed supporters with advanced copies of their special promotional supplement, the Adversary Book, which contained a list of non-player characters to use as antagonists in sagas.
Video Games
- Among the Sleep: A Survival Horror game where the player controls an infant.
- Aquanox: Deep Descent, a reimagination of underwater sub shooter series from the early 2000's.
- Armello, an Anthropomorphic fantasy turn-based game when you control heroes competing to succeed the King as he is corrupted by Darkness.
- Armikrog, a Spiritual Successor to The Neverhood by Doug TenNapel and others.
- The Banner Saga: A Role-Playing Game made by former Bioware staff.
- The Bard's Tale IV: The long-overdue sequel to The Bard's Tale Trilogy.
- Barkley 2
- Betrayer: A Deliberately Monochrome Survival Horror game from former developers of First Encounter Assault Recon.
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: A Spiritual Successor to the Castlevania series by creator Koji Igarashi. On the penultimate day of its campaign, it had become the most funded video game on Kickstarter, beating Torment: Tides of Numenera, which held that record for over two years, and on its final day, became the first videogame project to achieve over five million dollars in funding.*
- Broken Age (a.k.a. Double Fine Adventure)
- Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse
- Boot Hill Heroes
- Buddy & Me
- Carmageddon: Reincarnation
- Children Of Zodiarcs
- Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
- Chroma Squad
- City of Titans, a Spiritual Successor to City of Heroes.
- Combat Core
- Cryamore
- Darkest Dungeon:
- Dead State: A turn-based Role-Playing Game, set in Texas after the zombie Apocalypse hit.
- Defense Grid: The Awakening 2
- Dex, a Cyberpunk Metroidvania / Role-Playing Game hybrid.
- ''Dyscourse:
- Distance, Spiritual Successor to Nitronic Rush.
- Divinity: Original Sin, a prequel to Divine Divinity and Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga.
- Divinity: Original Sin II, the sequel to D:OS.
- Dreamfall Chapters, a sequel to the traditionally-funded The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey adventure classics.
- Dropsy, a surreal adventure game.
- Edge Of Eternity, a JRPG-like game featuring music by Yasunori Mitsuda.
- Elite: Dangerous: David Braben, one half of the team behind the groundbreaking Elite space trading/combat sim, successfully reached his £1.25 million goal for ''Elite:Dangerous''
. - Elsinore, a narrative-driven Adventure Game based on Hamlet and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, gameplay-wise, starring Ophelia stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, struggling to prevent the infamous tragic ending.
- Video Game/Eterium: A combat-oriented Space Sim.
- The Fall: A side-scrolling Adventure Game / Cinematic Platform Game, where the player controls AI a suit, after its pilot lost consciousness from his wounds.
- The Flame In The Flood, a roguelike survival game set along a river in Post Apocalyptic America.
- Flight Rising: A web game about breeding dragon pets.
- FTL: Faster Than Light: One of the first games from the site to actually get released.
- Freedom Planet: A speed-focused Platform Game
- Ghost Song: A Journey Of Hope: A Metroid Vania style romp.
- Godus: A god sim from Peter Molyneux.
- Grave: A surreal, open-world Survival Horror game.
- Grim Dawn, an Action RPG developed by some people from defunct Iron Lore Entertainment. It will use the same game engine as Titan Quest and will be set in a Victorian Era. Expect to be Darker and Edgier and Bloodier and Gorier.
- Guncraft: A hybrid of Minecraft and Counter-Strike
- Guns Of Icarus Online
- Hand Of Fate: A hybrid of Hack and Slash and Card Battle Game genres: every new game, two decks of cards combine randomly to form a level a player then has to fight through.
- A Hat In Time, a Collect-a-Thon in the style of Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie.
- Hero-U, a Spiritual Sequel to the Quest for Glory series made by the Coles.
- Hex, a TCG MMORPG hybrid by Cryptozoic Entertainment
- Homestuck Adventure Game: Reached its goal within two days, and ultimately raised over 350% of its $700,000 goal. It is to be set within the universe but not following the main canon.
- Hot Tin Roof The Cat That Wore A Fedora: Retro 3D Noir Adventure Game.
- HuniePop: A Puzzle Game hybrid.
- Hyper Light Drifter: A 2D Action RPG with a wordless narrative.
- ''Jotun: A 2D Action RPG about a female Viking warrior.
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance: A medieval but decidedly non-fantasy RPG from the creators of the Mafia series.
- Knock-knock: A hand-drawn Survival Horror game with a side-view perspective from the creators of ''Pathologic.
- Labyrinthine Dreams: A Puzzle Game created in RPG Maker.
- La-Mulana 2
- Last Dream: An expansive non-linear Role-Playing Game created in RPG Maker.
- The Legend of el Lobodestroyo Vs. la Liga de los Villanos
- The Long Dark, a first-person survival game set in the wilds of northern Canada after an apocalyptic event.
- Lords of Xulima, an old-school Western RPG in the vein of Might and Magic
- Magicite
- Massive Chalice, Double Fine's second KS entry.
- Mercenary Kings: A Retraux 2D shooter with action film inspirations and Item Crafting.
- Mighty No. 9, a Spiritual Successor to Mega Man led by Keiji Inafune himself. The fourth highest-funded console game so far.
- Nefarious
- NightCry, Hifumi Kono's spiritual successor to his Clock Tower series.
- Night In The Woods
- Ninja Pizza Girl, a Platform Game that deals with bullying.
- Obduction, the Spiritual Successor to the Myst series and made by the same developers.
- Pale Blue
- Paranautical Activity: A First-Person Shooter / Roguelike with voxel graphics.
- The remake of Pathologic, a 2005 game about curing plague in a remote town in the Russian steppe.
- Pillars of Eternity, pitched by Obsidian Entertainment under the provisional title "Project Eternity", managed to reach its $1.1 million goal within roughly 27 hours, and ended up making almost 4 times its original goal, beating the Double Fine Adventure as the most funded video game Kickstarter on its final day.
- Planetary Annihilation, a Spiritual Successor to Total Annihilation and the Supreme Commander series.
- Planet Explorers
- Project Awakened
- Project Nimbus
- Project Phoenix, the first big-name JRPG pitched on the platform.
- Puzzle Clubhouse
- Red Ash: A pseudo-sequel to Mighty No. 9 and Spiritual Successor to Mega Man Legends. It's only reached roughly $500,000 raised out of its $800,000 goal, but Comcept intends to publish it regardless of whether the crowd funding is successful or not, having secured the backing of Chinese company FUZE Entertainment and repurposed the Kickstarter funds towards stretch goals.
- République: An episodic Stealth-Based Game.
- Resonance: An Adventure Game published by Wadjet Eye Games, narrated from four different perspectives.
- RetroBlazer, as its name implies, is a throwback to classic first-person shooters such as Quake and Doom with some exploration and RPG elements. It unfortunately only reached $4,483 out of its $110,000 funding goal.
- Satellite Reign, a Spiritual Successor to the Syndicate series, bringing it back its Action/Strategy roots and adding some RPG elements.
- Saurian, a simulation game where you play as a dinosaur from hatchling to adult in the Hell Creek Formation during the late Cretaceous.
- Shadow of the Eternals, a Spiritual Successor to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
- Shadowrun Returns: An isometric Role-Playing Game and the first digital adapdation of the setting since the 90's. Performed well enough to
- Shadowrun Online.
- Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, the first HD installment of the Shantae series of Metroidvania games.
- Shenmue 3, the long-awaited third entry in the series. It was announced at Sony's E3 2015 press conference as a PlayStation 4 title (though it will also be released on PC), but Sony is not funding it at all. It will only come out if the fans are willing to fund it (at least two million dollars worth). The goal was hit within 8-9 hours, making it one of the faster Kickstarters to achieve that amount of funding. It was also inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest game project to reach $1 millon. In its final days, the campaign became the first video game project to reach 6 million, and thus the most funded game on Kickstarter, beating Bloodstained.
- Shovel Knight, a retro action platformer featuring a a knight who wields a shovel.
- Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, the Spiritual Successor to both the classic single-player Ultima series and Ultima Online.
- Skyshine Bedlam: A Turn-Based Tactics hybrid, made on the engine of The Banner Saga and set in a Post Apocalyptic world.
- Son Of Nor, an Action-Adventure about a mage with telekinetic/terraforming powers fighting to protect humanity.
- Soul Saga, a JRPG-like game by the Disaster Cake
- SpaceChem, a sci-fi Puzzle Game with significant basis in real-world chemistry.
- Star Citizen: Initially, Chris Roberts tried to crowd-fund it through his own website
, but so many people tried to pledge that the server couldn't handle it and crashed. To address the site's instability and make up for lost time, he started a Kickstarter project as well
. - Stasis, an isometric, Sci-Fi Horror Adventure Game set on an out-of-control ship drifting across Neptune.
- Stonehearth:
- Strike Suit Zero: a combat-oriented Space Sim.
- Sunless Sea, a naval Roguelike set in the Fallen London universe.
- SUPERHOT, First-Person Shooter where time within the game only progresses when the player moves.
- Super Retro Squad
- The Tale Of ALLTYNEX, a Vertical Scrolling Shooter series about evil AIs bent on destroying humanity. More specifically, the English-language localization; the games were already complete and the funds were simply used for bringing the series to the West.
- That Dragon Cancer
- Toe Jam And Earl: Back in the Groove
- Torment: Tides of Numenera, the Spiritual Successor to Planescape: Torment based on Numenera. Fully funded in just six hours and went on to become the most funded video game to date on Kickstarter, having surpassed Project Eternity by $200k on its final day. Kept that record for two years until Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night surpassed it.
- Town of Salem: A Web game where the players can assume roles of Townies, Mafia or Neutrals, then struggle for power with their chosen faction through day and night.
- Undertale, a meta RPG where every encounter can be spared.
- Underworld Ascendant, a continuation of the Ultima Underworld series.
- War for the Overworld, a Spiritual Successor to the Dungeon Keeper series, unconnected to but fully endorsed by the latter's original creators.
- Wasteland 2, pitched by inXile Entertainment in the aftermath of "Double Fine Adventure"—in short, what Double Fine started, inXile codified. Wasteland 2 was the first big-name Western RPG pitched on the platform, even though it was quickly overtaken by even bigger projects like Pillars of Eternity and inXile's own Torment.
- We Happy Few
- Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem (formerly known as Umbra), a Diablo-like Action RPG using the CryEngine.
- Xenonauts
- Yogventures!, a cancelled video game that would have been based on the characters and personalities of The Yogscast.
- Yooka-Laylee, a Spiritual Successor from former Rare employees who worked on such games as Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie. Hit its £175,000 ($270,000) goal within thirty-eight minutes and made £1,000,000 in just twenty-one hours.
- Zombies, Run!
Visual Novels
- CLANNAD: An official localization by Sekai Project
- The Grisaia Trilogy: An official localization of the Grisaia visual novels by Sekai Project, consisting of...
- Lovely Little Thieves, a Visual Novel following a group of teens exploring an abandoned mansion in the middle of nowhere. Mentioning its Slasher Movie roots would be redundant after this introduction.
- Queen at Arms
- SC 2 VN
- Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem, a self-pitched BioWare RPG-meets-Otome Game, set in an original fantasy Constructed World and focusing on political intrigue and romance at a diplomatic summit.
- An official English localization of the Muv-Luv series, notable for being Visual Novel project to raise over a million dollars in funding.
Web Video
- Bee and Puppycat
- Dick Figures: The Movie
- The Gamers: Humans & Households
- The Gamers: Natural One
- Reading Rainbow: LeVar Burton brought up a Kickstarter to help resurrect it as a web series, even providing a large library of interactive books and video field trips to promote literacy to deserving kids across America. Its $1 million goal was funded in seven hours, and has finished with almost $5.5 million in total (including an extra million from Seth MacFarlane, of all people).
- Tropes vs. Women in Videogames
- Mystery Science Theater 3000: Creator Joel Hodgson brought up a Kickstarter to help resurrect it as both a web series and hopefully a full-fledged TV series (and to see if he can one-up LeVar Burton in the process). At $6.3 million, it surpassed Reading Rainbow and didn't need Seth MacFarlane! This is also the most successful crowdsource funded video project of all time.
Webcomics
- Awkward Zombie: Volume One
- Brawl in the Family: Volume One
- Deep Dive Daredevils: A Diesel Punk webcomic about the USS Custer and its brave crew.
- Erfworld, four times. The first was a project to make a motion comic from Book 1
, that ended up funding several other goals. The second, an alphabet book
featuring characters and creatures of the world. The third, a set of lapel pins
featuring the battle crests for the seven major factions in the world. The fourth project is currently underway, with the goal of funding production of Book 3
. - Girl Genius: The Professors Foglio sought funding to print volume 12 of the comic, and ended up with enough to reprint the entire run. It's currently the fourth most funded Kickstarter in the comics category.
- Johnny Wander: To finance the printing of the third paperback volume.
- Penny Arcade Sells Out: Rather than one specific project, PA is looking to get the fans to pick up the site's operating expenses for a year. If successful, then they can work on projects for the fans instead of for advertisers.
- Downloadable Content podcast season 2: "Funded" at $10, reflecting the creators' desire to restart the podcast.
- The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive
Western Animation
- The Saga of Rex: a traditionally-animated film project based on a graphic novel by Michel Gagné (whose references include The Iron Giant and Prelude to Eden).
- SWAT Kats: Revolution: An attempt to revive one of the most radical cartoons of the 90's.
Other Projects
- The Ouya: An open, hackable console based off the Android OS which retails for $99. Its controller features two analog sticks, eight buttons, and a touchpad screen.
- Potato salad note
- RiffTrax wanted to live-Riff Twilight in August 2013. They asked Kickstarter users for $55,000 so they could get the rights from Lionsgate. They ended up with $264,860. The studio declined, so the guys ended up taking on Starship Troopers instead.
- RiffTrax returned to Kickstarter when they wanted to get the rights to live-Riff Godzilla (1998). (After Twilight, they made sure that the studio was already OK with the plan as long as the check cleared.) They asked for $100,000, and got it in a couple days. So they announced (again, after checking with the studio first) that if they reached $250,000, they'd add a live-Riff of Anaconda to the schedule. Final total: $265,011.
- TV Tropes (yes, this very site) launched a Kickstarter on November 30, 2014
, seeking at least $50,000 to improve the site and the servers it's on. It was part of a change of leadership with the original creator and founder stepping away from running everything behind the scenes. In the words from the staff:After 10 amazing years, it's time for TV Tropes to grow a beard.- On December 8th, the $50,000 minimum funding goal was achieved.
- On December 26th, the first $75,000 stretch goal was achieved, allowing the team to get more servers, hire a part time programmer, and work on an API.
- On December 30th, the last day, and with at least four hours remaining, the second and final $100,000 stretch goal was achieved. The staff will then work on Season 3 of Echo Chamber and a vlog series. In the end, $105,186 was raised from 3,109 backers (not counting any Pay Pal donations).
This website provides examples of:
- All or Nothing: A project will only take its backers' pledged funds if it reaches its funding target. If it's so much as a dollar short, it gets no money at all. This is to prevent backers from wasting money on a project that ends up becoming underfunded and unable to be finished.
- Honest Axe: It has been repeatedly shown that Kickstarter backers are on average a lot more forgiving towards projects that publicly explain why and how they failed to reach certain promised goals and deadlines than towards the ones that try to gloss over their mistakes with standard PR lines.
- Loophole Abuse: Project creators regularly find ways to bend the letter of the Kickstarter rules
- Exactly what qualifies as a "creative project" is vaguely defined enough that someone made potato salad fit.
- It's also possible to run a Kickstarter to start a business, provided the business produces something sufficiently creative, a video game studio, or a distribution platform for music, or a food truck, or manufacturing and selling a new gadget.
- Kickstarter doesn't allow porn, but that applies only to live-action; games and comics with drawn sex scenes have been able to draw plenty of funding.
- Soliciting donations for charity is not allowed either, but one of the late reward items in The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive included Rich Burlew just coincidentally already planning a donation in that same amount to a charity.
- At one point, Kickstarter only allowed projects to be funded in US dollars, and required someone in the USA to receive the funds, via an Amazon Payments account.
- During this time, projects frequently opened up PayPal donation drives for those who couldn't contribute in US funds or via Amazon, but only after the main Kickstarter drive was fully funded. This was officially discouraged (since Kickstarter takes a percentage of the money), but they couldn't really stop it since the PayPal donations were supposedly coming from people who were unable to contribute on Kickstarter in the first place (until Kickstarter opened things up to make foreign contributions and projects possible).
- At least one project had to scramble to move to Indiegogo when it was realized that such a lump sum would cause major financial problems for the designated receiver.
- Exactly what qualifies as a "creative project" is vaguely defined enough that someone made potato salad fit.
- Self-Deprecation: The pitch-videos that tend more towards the humorous side of the Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness usually include this in spades. The one for CLANG
being a prime example, even getting an "it takes time" joke out of Gabe Newell. - Sturgeon's Law: As with everything, most submissions are not funded for good reason. Whether or not the trope also applies to the things that do get funded is a matter of debate.
- The aptly-named blogs Your Kickstarter Sucks
and Kick Failure
spotlight some of the more outlandish examples. - Retsupurae (or more specifically, those done by slowbeef and Diabetus) have made Kickstarter Nonstarters a semi-regular feature, where they spotlight a few ridiculous gaming concepts (though try to hide people's identities as much as possible outside their faces).
- The aptly-named blogs Your Kickstarter Sucks