That’s some News to wake up to. Michael Rud Jakobsen wrote on behalf of Playwood Project ApS:

Unfortunately, we are today in a situation where we have to consider and realize the harsh truth that it’s very unlikely that we will reach the campaign’s main goal. There’s much to consider and there’s many reasons as to why this may be the case and we have already learned a lot, both about our community and about how WARTILE is seen by those who didn’t back the project.

„Unlikely“ is not „impossible“ and since day one I had an eye open on Kicktraq to see where it’s going. And my guess was „it will be close, but they’ll make it“. Mostly because most Kickstarter projects gain momentum in the last 3 days.

But that probably the problem when hitting the goal just by a bit: there is no room for fault tolerance. We had this problem with another Kickstarter. Rocket Ranger Reloaded had a goal of $89,999 and got $90,715. But they didn’t really get $90,000 as an update on the 21st september 2015 told us:

We reached the goal but not far beyond our target. Also we did not get some bigger payments from backers from the higher levels. We lost about 30k on money that we did not get (Credit cards payment where refused). But we still had to pay Kickstarter and Amazon Fees. [Sven from Cinemaware]

Simple math: one third missing. That’s a chunk of change. And I guess that is the reason for Wartile being cancelled. Just a too big risk.

I, for my part, hate seeing that project being let go and „going dark“ but I hope the guys at ApS get their feet on the ground. Michael Rud Jakobsen ends his note with this:

Again we are sad and incredibly sorry to disappoint all of you backers, and everyone else who believed in us, but going forward, we take with us a lot of knowledge about ourselves as developers and of WARTILE as a game. Be sure that we will rise again, stronger and better as we aim at the future.

Until we meet again, do keep spreading the love for cool projects.

So go and subscribe to their newsletter, follow their Facebook and Twitter accounts or email them if you want to happen to have $100,000 laying around. ;) Or maybe Daniel Kayser can help. He’s Product Marketing Manager at Unreal Engine.