ReRoll, the RPG that literally promised the whole word, is cancelled

I remember writing about this one. With ReRoll, indie studio Pixyul had a grand vision of capturing the entire world through the use of cameras and drones and creating a massive RPG out of its findings.

Many gasped at the idea at the time, but we all bought into it because of the massive breaks indie games were seeing through the Gold Rush days on Kickstarter. It was a year in which even the most cynical of gamers were willing to accept that anything was possible with the power of other people’s money.

Pixyul did not secure its money through major crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, but it did take contributions through its official website. And now, sadly, the game has been cancelled with a long letter of apology to fans and backers on reddit.

We embarked on the quest to find investors and publishers to secure ReROLL’s funding. To secure meetings with top executives at the different events (GDC & E3) we were assisted by an agent that allowed us to meet and pitch to basically everyone in the business. Publishers and investors were excited about the concept. Unfortunately, for many of them, we realized that we were either too expensive for some and not enough ambitious for others (we believed that we were crazy ambitious already!). We did secure a few publishers that wished to pursue the discussion. For months and months we worked on the different pitches. Working with our agent, we specifically adapted our pitches to each potential publisher. Making sure that each pitches were tailor made for our eventual partner.

Darn shame. It sounded like a good idea, but like so many crowd-funding campaigns, its ambitions vastly outgrew its budget. Luckily for Kickstarter, it can’t take the blame for this one.