14 DAY TRIAL // This Monday, developer Portalarium celebrates one year since the end of the successful Kickstarter campaign that made Shroud of the Avatar possible.
Famous video game designer Richard Garriott is at the head of Portalarium, and in a recent blog post on the Shroud of the Avatar website he revealed that not counting the initial month during which the crowdfunding campaign took place, this March was the highest grossing crowdfunding month to date.
The game managed to raise an impressive $333k / €243k the past month alone, and the fans' ongoing support has allowed the team to expand its size to 31 members and also expand the game's scope, increasing the amount of content and features beyond the initial goals.
One of the features that the developers wished they could have had enough time and budget for in Episode 1 was the addition of mounts, and the devs are now attempting to make up for it by providing players with the next best thing, coconuts that sound just like horses when banged together, perfect for when you want to pretend like you're on a horse.
In addition, the impromptu pool party that occurred during the Release 4 weekend has inspired the developers to create a medieval hot tub that players can make use of when trying to emulate the legendary event. The hot tub is a limited quantity item in the Add-On Store, and allows players to invite their friends over for a hot tub party.
"Wow, what an amazing community we have. In March of last year, when we announced a one million dollar Kickstarter, we could only hope that fans of our past work would want to join us in the mission to rekindle games like we had made with the Ultima series including Ultima Online. We were incredibly pleased to reach two million dollars during the 30 days of the initial campaign," said Portalarium Creative Director, Richard Garriott.
Portalarium plans to celebrate the one-year milestone by rolling out several promotions, as well as the final chance for new backers and current ones to purchase, upgrade or gift founder level pledges. All the pledges contain the original Kickstarter backer rewards at the same price, and after April 7 they will be increased to Benefactor prices, and all the Founder packs will be closed.
"Portalarium is deeply grateful to be working with and for, such an amazing community of gamers / explorers of what can be done in games," Garriot concluded.