Witching Hour Studios hits Kickstarter target

Singapore

LOCAL video-game start-up Witching Hour Studios has successfully funded its upcoming game, Masquerada: Songs And Shadows, on crowd-funding platform Kickstarter - and there are still two days to go before the end of its campaign.

The 14-man Singapore company, which shot past its £45,000 (S$88,602) goal as at Tuesday evening, is now looking at hitting "stretch goals" to improve on the game that the team has been developing over the last two years.

Stretch goals are additional targets placed on funded projects, which provide additional items and rewards when the targets are met.

Slated for release in the third quarter of this year, the Steam and PlayStation 4 role-playing game mixes action game-play with traditional role-playing elements.

The team, led by co-founder and creative director Ian Gregory Tan, scored a coup by having attracted a coterie of noted voice talents from the American television and video-game industry.

The list of big names includes Jennifer Hale (Commander Shepard, Mass Effect), Matthew Mercer (Chrom, Fire Emblem: Awakening), Dave Fennoy (Lee, The Walking Dead), Michelle Lukes (Kelly-087, Halo 5) and Rick Wasserman (Imperius - Archangel of Valor, Diablo 3 and Arishok, Dragon Age 2).

Recently, Ashly Burch (Tiny Tina, Borderlands 2 and Chloe, Life is Strange) and American actress-comedienne and writer Felicia Day also joined the voice cast.

Homegrown singer-songwriter Inch Chua, who goes by iNCH, wrote and sang the track, Broken Clay, which is being used on the trailer for the game.

It was not for want of trying that local celebrities do not figure in voicing the game; the plan was to have them, but last year's SG50 festivities meant that they were committed to other projects.

Mr Tan said: "The local actors we were hoping to work with weren't free to fly to Los Angeles to record for the parts." He said that although the additional Kickstarter funds will go into improving the aesthetics of Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, the game itself is complete.

In fact, this third game by Witching Hour Studios won the Best Indie Game award from established Japanese magazine Dengeki PlayStation at last year's Tokyo Game Show.

The studio's other titles are its mobile-only debut, Ravenmark: Scourge Of Estellion, and its follow-up, Romans In My Carpet! mobile game.

The team started celebrating a few days ago, when expressions of personal support for the game came in from Mike Laidlaw of Dragon Age and Ken Levine of Bioshock fame - both well-known names in the video-game industry.

Mr Tan told The Business Times: "Getting funded on Kickstarter is already a monumental task, but to be backed by people so respected in the global game industry is doubly humbling. We could not be happier. The team's morale is at an all-time high.

"Particularly heartening is the amount of support we've got on the home front. The momentum we've garnered from local support gives me hope about what creative endeavours in Singapore can achieve."