Kickstarter can rattle your faith in humanity a little sometimes. The Long Dark, for instance, seemingly had everything. An intriguing premise, wild ambition, and the legacy triple-A chops to pull it off. And yet, despite all that, potential backers passed it by for weeks, leaving it cold, starving, and alone. It just wanted a hug, you guys>. Well, that and $200,000. Fortunately, with only a few days left on the clock, Long Dark hobbled past its goal, and now its crowdfunding drive has closed out with a grand total of $$256,217 in Canadian monetary units. What happens now? Er, in a rather Star-Citizen-esque move, more funding apparently.

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There’s a lot that can be said for the life of a successful triple-A developer. Job security, financial stability, and having your name in the credits of a game that sells millions of copies are all nice to have. So why would someone in the enviable position of being one of those big-name developers decide to quit their job and make an indie game with a few friends instead?

It turns out there’s quite a few reasons, actually. Mitch Bowman spoke to three gentlemen from Hinterland Games, a new indie studio put together by a handful of long-time industry veterans, to find out what they are, and how they’re affecting the development of The Long Dark.>

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The Indie Royale returns with The Stuffing Bundle, which makes me think of stockings brimming with gifts rather than breadcrumbs and sage shoved inside a carcass cavity. My headline-dominating opinion is that the three released chapters of The Dream Machine are the stand-out content and on this very site you can read what John and I said about the game in the dwindling days of 2011. The remainder of the stocking is filled with Children of the Nile, Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Puzzle Agent 2 and Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery. As I write this, minimum price is £2.99.

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