The Underworld Ascendant Kickstarter campaign reached its $800,000 milestone today, meaning that both Companion Creatures and Enhanced Music will be added to the game.

The next stretch goal — at the $850,000 total — also features enhancements to the game’s sound:

With this next $850,000 stretch goal, we will be able to add more sound effects to the game, as well as a more sophisticated dynamic contextual in-game audio system. These additions will help make the Stygian Abyss come more alive… and our dreams at night more troubled.

The same stretch goal will also see the Stygian Abyss itself grow:

When this Stretch Goal is reached we will also build in the Stygian Abyss a new area, the Resonant Caves. This natural wonder seems always to have subterranean airs wafting through it chambers, which softly sound starkly enchanting melodies. It is said that those adventurers who listen and learn to play these melodies will gain a certain magical sway over the subterranean airs.

And, as an added bonus, if we reach $825,000, halfway to the Dynamic Music and Resonant Caves stretch goal, we will add another new area to the Underworld, one that is both beneficial and extremely dangerous, The Forsaken Webway!

There are only nine hours to go in the campaign, and the rate at which the project accumulates both backers and funds is going to have to increase by a fair bit in order to make the next stretch goal.

That said, it is within the realm of possibility that the $850,000 goal could be reached…and if not, OtherSide Entertainment have announced that they will continue crowdfunding the game at its website, and that the stretch goals they have outlined will remain as crowdfunding goals:

We’re also going to continue to crowd-fund the game, so that we can reach at least a few more of the Stretch Goals that are not reached during this Kickstarter. Understand that when other developers have done crowd-funding following a Kickstarter that the pace of funding nearly always slows way down. So it will likely take many fold longer for us to move through the upcoming stretch goals than the pace we’re on now.

A slower pace is fine. Nearly all of our efforts have gone into running this campaign the past month, and it’s time to shift focus to actually making the game now. The other consideration is that we want to do our best to get the game released by November 2016. Doing so means not extending out beyond the end of this year trying to reach new stretch goals, as otherwise we’d keep adding new features to the game and just extend the release date. So we’ll see what Stretch Goals we can reach before the end of this year, then lock things down, and focus on balancing and polish and refinement — which take considerable time to get right.

It’s worth noting that Shroud of the Avatar has gone on to raise more than double what it made on Kickstarter through its website-based crowdfunding efforts. It’s thus possible that OtherSide Entertainment will be pleasantly surprised at how much additional support the accrue once their Kickstarter campaign ends; some people prefer not to use Amazon Payments for these sorts of things, but will happily contribute via PayPal.