We've seen some roaring successes in crowd-funded game development this year --on the fund-raising side at least; whether the games themselves will prove worthy, or even eventuate is another matter-- but there have also been some rather momentous failures, and over the weekend, David Crane's Jungle Adventure joined that unfortunate club, attracting only 669 backers, to pledge US$31,208 of its ambitious $900,000 goal --3.47% for those counting.

Nostalgia has been the driving force for many of the bigger-budget Kickstarter game successes, but in this instance, it seems that the developer's chief claim to fame (aside from being a founder of a little publisher named Activision) as the creator of Pitfall, doesn't hold the same kind of clout with modern gamers as the likes of Wasteland, Planescape, Shadowrun or Broken Sword.

A final sombre update on the project's Kickstarter Page had this to say:

This project was as much about bringing game players into the game design process as it was about the game itself. To back the project without a design and eye candy required a leap of faith - belief that my team and I could, and would, make a game that you would be proud to own. Every pledge was a vote of confidence, and I took each one as a personal compliment.

Re-kick it and market it better (as has been suggested)? Maybe. Complete the design and bring backers in for just the production? Possibly. Strip down the design and lower its quality? Never. For now all options (except for lowering my quality standards) are on the table. Making games is what I do, and I'll keep making them as long as you continue to enjoy playing them.

Not having a completed design doesn't seem to have hurt Obsidian Entertainment's recent effort however. As much as we enjoyed Pitfall all those years ago, and recall the unique platformer A Boy and His Blob with fondness, they're clearly not enough to convince today's gamers that Crane is worth betting on for a new game that has a place in 2012. If the Kickstarter is relaunched, it's going to need more than early concept art.