It's been a long, slow, and ugly process, but it seems certain now that The Stomping Land, the multiplayer survival game set in a land of dinosaurs that raised over $100,000 on Kickstarter, has been abandoned. After losing contact with developer Alex "Jig" Fundora in late 2014, modeler Vlad Konstantinov halted his work on the game in January, and has now moved on to a different game altogether.

"I'm sad to say this but I have to temporarily freeze all my work for TSL project," Konstantinov wrote on The Stomping Land forums in January. "More than a month has passed since the day when I received the last reply from Jig. I've sent him 5 messages and haven't got any single reply." He also claimed that Fundora still owes him money, and that he actually had to pay the texture artist out of his own pocket.

"If this silence continues I will stop my participation in TSL and start taking the necessary measures to cover my expenses (sell the models for example)," he added.

The silence apparently did continue, because earlier this month the developers of Beasts of Prey, another sandbox survival game with dinosaurs, announced that Konstantinov had signed a deal to provide it with new dinosaur models, and had actually already come across with an ankylosaurus model.

Surprisingly, The Stomping Land is once again available for purchase on Steam: Sales were halted in September, although it remained listed, but sometime between then and now, the purchase option was re-enabled. There's been no new activity on either the Stomping Land Facebook page or Twitter feed, however, both of which have been silent since September 2014.

Unfortunately for Kickstarter backers, the likelihood of refunds seems extremely remote. According to another recent forum post, Kickstarter told a backer seeking a return of his money that it had already reached out to Fundora to remind him of his obligations, but beyond that there's little it can do but restrict or suspend his account, so he can't launch any new Kickstarters. That's obviously of little value to the people who collectively sunk $114,060 into this one.

We've reached out to both Fundora and Valve about the future of The Stomping Land on Steam, and will update if and when we receive a reply. But right now, it looks like... the Jig is up.

Thanks to a reader called Russell for the tip, which led to this story.

The Stomping Land saga has taken another twist, as the game is no longer available for purchase on Steam. It's still on Steam, to be perfectly clear about it, you just can't actually buy the thing anymore. Unfortunately, the disappearance of the purchase option was not accompanied by an explanation for its absence, so depending on your perspective, this might be good news or bad news.

The "good news" theory is dependent upon the idea that the developer pulled the game in order to prevent more copies being sold prior to the move to the Unreal Engine 4. That transition was revealed in early August, when SuperCrit founder Alex "Jig" Fundora released a statement saying the game was being moved "to take advantage of technical and creative opportunities" offered by the new technology, as well as continued support from Epic Games.

The "bad news" angle comes from the fact that just before Fundora announced the engine change, he'd effectively disappeared for two months, leaving Kickstarter backers anxious and angry over the fate of their money. Going by the reactions on the Steam forums, this seems to be the more widely-held belief: That the jig is well and truly up, and it's time to start thinking about how to get a refund.

The nature of Kickstarter and Steam makes that outcome extremely unlikely, of course, which may be what's motivating at least some supporters to continue holding out hope. Unfortunately, as a few people have pointed out, if Fundora had pulled the game himself, the great likelihood is that he would have said something about it, which he has not done. Furthermore, despite his insistence that the game is still being actively developed, neither the Stomping Land Facebook page nor its Twitter feed have been updated since May.

That's by no means evidence of malfeasance, but it sure doesn't look good. We've reached out to both Fundora and Valve to find out more about what's happening, and will update if and when we receive responses.

Crowdfunding is a good way to get risky games made, but it's also an increasingly risky proposition for backers. The most recent example is prehistoric survival sim The Stomping Land, which made headlines last week after backers complained of radio silence from studio SuperCrit. The silence follows more than $115,000 pledged for development of the title, which is currently in Early Access, as well as the promise of regular community correspondence and weekly updates. The last anyone heard from SuperCrit was May 30.
Until now. In a statement provided to Kotaku UK, SuperCrit founder Alex 'Jig' Fundora said the reason for the extended silence was a move to Unreal Engine 4. "It has been quiet in The Stomping Land community but that is certainly not the case behind the scenes," Fundora wrote.
"The game is being moved to Unreal Engine 4 to take advantage of technical and creative opportunities, and while the game was so early in development, I didn't want to keep working for years with a game engine (UDK) that had officially lost support by Epic.
"The move has put a bit of more work on my plate, but the already discovered opportunities using UE4 are exciting, and I'm confident fans will be satisfied with the long-run decision."

Kotaku reports that further queries regarding the studio's silence have gone unanswered, while past collaborators have claimed it's not unusual for Fundora to go silent for long periods. But therein lay one of the biggest perils of crowdfunding: studios acquire thousands (sometimes millions) of dollars before a game is made, so the pressure is emphatically on. Silence can be catastrophic to a project, especially when it prompts users to start petitions demanding a refund. Here's hoping it's all smooth sailing from here.

The Stomping Land went to Kickstarter last summer seeking $20,000 and came away with more than $114,000, a big success by any measure. The Early Access launch took place on May 23 of this year and the first big content update, focused on "balancing and optimization," was released a week later. Another Kickstarter update followed the next day, May 30, promising that "development is still in full force" and asking for suggestions on the future of the game. But since then, the developer has gone almost completely silent, and backers are starting to worry that they've been left in the lurch.

The most recent post on The Stomping Land Facebook page, linking to a Reddit AMA, went up on May 30, the same day as the final Kickstarter update. The Stomping Land Twitter account, which is or was run by a PR rep, was active until June 20. The last patch update on The Stomping Lands own forum was posted on June 6, and related or not, the website for Fundora's studio, Supercrit LLC, is in rather dire need of maintenance.

In total, it paints a bleak picture that many backers see as evidence that Fundora has walked away from the project. As Kotaku pointed out, the silence may be related at least in part to the loss of The Stomping Land's PR rep, whose contract expired at the end of May; it's strictly conjecture, but there may also be a connection with a June 17 tweet in which Jig apologized for a Twitter silence of more than a week, saying he had "personal matters to attend to."

Whatever the case, many Kickstarter backers have taken to various forums to express their anger over the current lack of activity, demand refunds and/or attempt to track Fundora down, while a Change.org petition calling for refunds and the removal of the game from Steam has grown to well over 1500 signatures since being launched in mid-July. We've attempted to contact Fundora ourselves to inquire about the situation, but have so far received no reply.

Editor's note:Thanks to the efforts of our community of commenters, a number of inaccuracies with The Stomping Land review have come to our attention. After taking time to investigate we've determined that the review falls short of our editorial standards, and has been removed. We pride ourselves on producing accurate and trustworthy coverage, and are sorely disappointed to have fallen short in this instance. The matter will now be dealt with internally, but we will also be publishing our full review policy in future to make our reviewing processes more transparent, and will assign another writer to review the alpha version of The Stomping Land as soon as possible.