Why This Game Kickstarter Only Lasted A Week

A little over a week after its official Kickstarter launched, the video game adaptation of fictional Reddit story "Mystery Flesh Pit National Park" was abruptly cancelled on November 28. Per the official update posted to the Kickstarter page, Village Fox Media — the intended developer of the project — cited poor funding progress as the reason for the quick cancellation. "Unfortunately, it looks like we're not going to make our goal," the update read. "As much as it hurts to [let] it go, that's just how things happen sometimes. Instead of dragging it out for the remainder of the campaign, we're being proactive in moving on to other projects."

According to "Mystery Flesh Pit National Park" creator Trevor Roberts, the video game project was "overly ambitious." He claimed that "fan feedback" and "internal disputes," among other aspects, were to blame for the canned Kickstarter. "When I am not the one directly responsible for overseeing its creation, I cannot ensure its quality," Roberts said in a since-deleted post on the official "Mystery Flesh Pit" website (via Kotaku). "After this experience I can firmly state that there will be no endorsed videogame adaptions of the 'Mystery Flesh Pit' as long as I am alive."

On November 29, Gavin Richardson of Village Fox reached out to Kotaku to respond to Roberts' statements. The developer asserted that ending the campaign "was not a mutual decision per se" and that the project's cancellation was ultimately up to Roberts. "I think Trevor just got in a little bit of a pessimistic spiral and let it get the better of him," Richardson told the outlet. "Again, no hate. It's a lot of pressure to put something like this out there, and I was certainly feeling the pressure as well."