Gavan Woolery has, as of today…well, it wouldn’t be correct to say that he’s suspended development on Voxel Quest, because that hasn’t happened. However, his circumstances have changed significantly, and development of the game (and its promising engine) will be impacted, as he explains:

I am out of money and trying to figure out what the next step is. Whatever happens, I am continuing to work on VQ, as that does not cost me anything but time. But I might need to allocate much of that time to a paying job, unless I can figure something else out.

The one thing that I have decided, for certain, is that I am returning everyone’s money: Kickstarter backers, investors, patrons, and preorders (and anything else). Everyone will keep their rewards regardless. I made this decision before I even launched my Kickstarter campaign, although I’ve only talked about it with a few people. I am taking this step regardless of success or failure.

If I have to work another job, I will probably begin this return process as soon as possible (and it will take time to accumulate everything). Otherwise I will begin returning money when profitable. I am still planning to release something in the short term, as well as the source code.

I can understand if anybody is disappointed or angry, but I assure you no one has a heavier heart than I do. I invested over $100k of my own money, debt, and equity into this, in addition to about $500k of work (accounting for overtime and opportunity cost). I spent about a decade working in this area without any sort of return (other than it being “fun”), and over the past 3 years I put in well over 10,000 hours. I dragged my family through all of this as well. Nonetheless, if there is anything more I can do, please let me know.

This is not the end, but it is still a depressing position to be in. Still, I can’t help but be grateful to have been given an opportunity to work full time on something like this.

Voxel Quest was an insanely ambitious project, with the ultimate goal of creating a procedurally generated world…not just in the sense of terrain and scenery, but in the sense of NPCs, dialogue, and (if memory serves) quests as well. To attempt that after raising only $35,000 and change in crowdfunding was always going to be an uncertain proposition; even after Gavan reduced his scope considerably, it was still an uncertain thing. So in one sense, this news isn’t surprising.

But that isn’t to say it isn’t disappointing.