While we here at Giant Bomb could pretty much give or take the vast majority of video game pitches using Kickstarter as a method of funding, we've silently been hoping for good news when it came to developer Camouflaj's Republique, a PC, Mac and iOS title based around stealth gameplay and what the Kickstarter page describes as "a believable, non-sexualized female lead." Up until this past week or so, it was looking more and more unlikely that Republique would make its $500,000 goal, as it was still at least $150,000 short. Then, somehow, some way, it happened.

With just six hours left on the countdown, Republique crossed the mark it needed for minimum funding. As of now, with just about four hours left, it's up around $517,000, so the end tally could end up being a good chunk higher than expected.

Camouflaj had the advantage of boasting a number of developers from major studios, some of which had worked on franchises like Halo and Metal Gear Solid. During the course of the Kickstarter campaign, voice actors David Hayter and Jennifer Hale came on board, pledging to provide their voices to the game. That gave the campaign a solid shot in the arm, but still it struggled for a good long while, before reaching the goal today.

Granted, Republique is not 100% set now that it has its Kickstarter money. Camoflaj is also working on raising additional capital via other sources, hoping to bring the overall total to around $1 million. That could, of course, fall through, thus making this whole Kickstarter thing a bit of a terrible disappointment. But regardless of what happens, we're sure they'll find something useful to do with your money.

If you haven't read up on Republique previously, their Kickstarter page has a wealth of details to sift through, as well as several pitch videos featuring Hale, Hayter, and others.

While we here at Giant Bomb could pretty much give or take the vast majority of video game pitches using Kickstarter as a method of funding, we've silently been hoping for good news when it came to developer Camouflaj's Republique, a PC, Mac and iOS title based around stealth gameplay and what the Kickstarter page describes as "a believable, non-sexualized female lead." Up until this past week or so, it was looking more and more unlikely that Republique would make its $500,000 goal, as it was still at least $150,000 short. Then, somehow, some way, it happened.

With just six hours left on the countdown, Republique crossed the mark it needed for minimum funding. As of now, with just about four hours left, it's up around $517,000, so the end tally could end up being a good chunk higher than expected.

Camouflaj had the advantage of boasting a number of developers from major studios, some of which had worked on franchises like Halo and Metal Gear Solid. During the course of the Kickstarter campaign, voice actors David Hayter and Jennifer Hale came on board, pledging to provide their voices to the game. That gave the campaign a solid shot in the arm, but still it struggled for a good long while, before reaching the goal today.

Granted, Republique is not 100% set now that it has its Kickstarter money. Camoflaj is also working on raising additional capital via other sources, hoping to bring the overall total to around $1 million. That could, of course, fall through, thus making this whole Kickstarter thing a bit of a terrible disappointment. But regardless of what happens, we're sure they'll find something useful to do with your money.

If you haven't read up on Republique previously, their Kickstarter page has a wealth of details to sift through, as well as several pitch videos featuring Hale, Hayter, and others.

Wait, has republique been funded?

"Camoflaj"?

Good for them.

Though I wonder how they managed to get so many donations towards the end (10 days ago they were only halfway there) . Maybe they chipped in some of their own money so they can keep the rest instead of losing everything? I'd make sense...

It's a good thing Giant Bomb is covering this. I just find it weird that the author is Alex, not Ryan. I guess he hasn't heard about it yet. We should warn him, right guys?

@Maajin said:

I just find it weird that the author is Alex, not Ryan. I guess he hasn't heard about it yet. We should warn him, right guys?

I find it weird that you name Ryan as the author who you thought should've covered this and not Patrick. ;)

@CptBedlam: There's been a huge push in that last 48 hours. I couldn't go anywhere on the internet without tripping over a link to the Kickstarter.

Also there was a thread on the readit, which I think is like 4chan for white kids or something.

Glad they got their money. The whole campaign has been interesting to watch.

In the immortal words of F. Scott Fitzgerald:

Holy. Fucking. Shit. Batman.

I put in my 20 bucks. First kickstarter project i funded. I like the idea of AAA development on the iPad, even though I bet i will end up playing it on PC.

Kickstart ALL the games!

Wow I thought this was doomed for sure. Good for those guys though. They had to be holding their breath.

The reason Republique took so long to get funded is because they didn't promise a PC version until a couple weeks into the Kickstarter. Funding increased by a lot when that happened.

Kickstarter seems to be a PC gamer's domain right now. If your game doesn't at least have a PC version, it's going to be a hard sell.

I'm glad they're fighting the fight, but I don't know how they'll non-sexualize the female lead. I just sexualized a ham sandwich.

Only dropped my $10 a week ago. It's a slick pitch with solid talent behind it. I'm surprised it struggled so long to reach it's goal.

I'm honestly surprised they made it. After the initial Double Fine explosion, I figured everyone cooled down on Kickstarter, and the fact that they raised only 100K their first week (or so) looked like it was a confirmation of their future failure. I'm glad for them that it all worked out in the end. Now that the easy part's over, let's get on with making the actual thing!

Won't be long until Activision announces kickstarters for CoD map-packs now...

I really can't decide if kickstarting games is a good thing or not. My mind keeps going back to the "joke" I made when I was tired of hearing about all the pre-orders and their different bonuses - I had said "Hey! Pre-order our game we're thinking about making, and if we get enough pre-orders we'll make it!"

@ahaisthisourchance said:

Won't be long until Activision announces kickstarters for CoD map-packs now...

I'm sure that if that actually happens then people would kickstart it just to get a cheap 'preorder'.

Good for them, but I don't like the amount of pleading that was done by the press

With the amount of publicity this is getting, you'd think this is the first good game to reach its Kickstarter goal.

...that isn't true, is it? Also, how do I even know it's good? I don't know.

I didn't ask for this. :-/

I'm really bothered by the idea that if they can't get the other half of their funding they just keep our money or use it on something else.

So much respect for covering this after they hit their goal and not before.

I'm glad this got the funding it needed, it looks pretty damn cool. I'll be waiting to see how it develops now :)

So happy! Looking forward to this!

@omghisam said:

So much respect for covering this after they hit their goal and not before.

My thoughts exactly. Added to that, the fact that they've pretty much made fun of all Kickstarter news following the Double Fine campaign. I am fully aware, however, that Alex wrote this article and, to my knowledge, never said anything bad about it- I mostly just remember a lot of ill-will on the Bombcast.

Wasn't this kickstarter being used to gauge interest? Doesn't barely making it even with tons of games press stories written about show that people aren't that interested?

Meh. This was the game that really broke Kickstarter for me. Payton should have been able to raise capital for this title on his own. That $500,000 should have been spent on smaller titles that don't have the connections that he does.

YAY!

Did not anticipate this amount of passion for this project from the public and the press, the whole final push felt a little desperate to me. But good news for the folks that contributed, hope the game turns out well.

Congratulations, gaming industry. You've finally found the ultimate scam to milk the most money from your user base outside of online passes.

Congrats to all the people involved! Very interested in the game. Watching their live stream now. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/republique

@CptBedlam said:

@Maajin said:

I just find it weird that the author is Alex, not Ryan. I guess he hasn't heard about it yet. We should warn him, right guys?

I find it weird that you name Ryan as the author who you thought should've covered this and not Patrick. ;)

I'm guessing you don't follow Ryan on Twitter! ;)

It kinda sad that they are advertising the lead as being "a believable, non-sexualized female lead." It should be the expected norm.

@Tidel: I'd say reddit is kind of like a modernized Usenet, but when it's all imgur.com links, it does turn into a image board.

THAT COLLECTORS EDITION!

PURE SEX!

the font and logo are the same as AGENTS...

@CptBedlam: There's been a huge push in that last 48 hours. I couldn't go anywhere on the internet without tripping over a link to the Kickstarter.

Also there was a thread on the readit, which I think is like 4chan for white kids or something.

Glad they got their money. The whole campaign has been interesting to watch.

@Ujio said:

Congratulations, gaming industry. You've finally found the ultimate scam to milk the most money from your user base outside of online passes.

This is what you're calling a scam? If you want to call something a scam, start with Hardcore Tactical Shooter, a kickstarter just to get the developers money so they can say 'look we got money, now fund us' to publishers.

This is a legitimate and interesting pitch.

@Loiosh said:

This is a legitimate and interesting pitch.

Good. Then they should have no problem securing funding without having to ask gamers to donate money.

Oh wait....

@Sword5 said:

Wasn't this kickstarter being used to gauge interest? Doesn't barely making it even with tons of games press stories written about show that people aren't that interested?

Meh. This was the game that really broke Kickstarter for me. Payton should have been able to raise capital for this title on his own. That $500,000 should have been spent on smaller titles that don't have the connections that he does.

This kickstarter was being used to gauge exactly $500,000 dollars worth of interest. Not only did they manage to meet that goal, the level of positive publicity they were able to generate will only help to improve sales when the game finally releases fully.

You're talking like Kickstarter is a 0 sum game. It's not like dollars spent on Republique is directly taking money away from the various small-budget games on Kickstarter. If anything, it's only helped as they've been constantly pimping the Kickstarters of other indie games during their backer updates.

But you're right, he could have raised the funding himself. Actually he already had plans in the works in case the Kickstarter failed and even said as much. Unfortunately you can't accept large amounts of money on an unproven product for an unproven market and ALSO have the creative freedom to make what you want. I'm glad Camouflaj hit their goal since now we will get to play a big-budget game that is true to their artistic vision, not some mess developed by a committee of investors and focus-tested into mediocrity.

@Ujio said:

@Loiosh said:

This is a legitimate and interesting pitch.

Good. Then they should have no problem securing funding without having to ask gamers to donate money.

Oh wait....

Well, it's not like people who choose to back don't get anything in return for their contribution. Plus, Camoflaj will have complete creative control now which will definitely be better for game.

@CptBedlam: They were pretty much dead in the water until they decided to do a PC version. When they announced the PC version, they went up past half the goal pretty quick. After that, announcing David Hayter and Jennifer hale made them jump another 100k.

Then the gaming journalism community realized it was possible for it to make it, and started pimping it hard. A. because the game looks really cool, and B. because many of them are friends with Ryan and want to see him get to do something on his own.

Seems like a cool game, though they kind of rub that "believable, non-sexualized female lead" stuff in your face. The character wears a hoodie and jeans, I don't see how that makes her "non-sexual". From what I can tell, she's watched over by an all-seeing player who tells her exactly what to do. "Hope is not a marionette for the player to manipulate" seems like a false statement, though maybe I'm misunderstanding the trailer.

The game itself looks neat, I just don't dig the pitch. You could chalk it all up to poor semantics, I guess.

Good luck to these guys, I hope it turns out well. Hopefully it'll get covered when it's released. I'm really interested to see how these Kickstarter games work out long term.

Hope Jennifer Hale doesn't use her man voice.

@Loiosh said:

This is a legitimate and interesting pitch.

Good. Then they should have no problem securing funding without having to ask gamers to donate money.

Oh wait....

@Ujio said:

Congratulations, gaming industry. You've finally found the ultimate scam to milk the most money from your user base outside of online passes.

Doesn't seem like much of a scam, if you're purchasing the game with the money you're "donating." I make the decision to purchase a game as soon as press releases on it, this doesn't seem different. What it does do is allow companies to gauge interest in the product, and it allows the buyers them self to have some sort of input.

Turns out they got most of their Kickstarter funding from Lexis Numérique just because they liked the name.