The Day Before dev cancels new Kickstarter, immediately announces another game

The Day Before developer Fntastic has canceled the Kickstarter for its newest game, and announced another project in the same message.

The Day Before developer Fntastic has canceled the Kickstarter for its new game, and simultaneously revealed that another project is in the works. Months after going silent and completely shutting down The Day Before, Fntastic returned with a game called Escape Factory, but it didn’t meet the studio’s Kickstarter funding goal. That’s why the team has decided to “temporarily suspend” development, and reveal a new game at the same time.

When Fntastic first announced it was coming back, that came with some caveats. The team took “full responsibility” for The Day Before, promised “honesty, transparency, and community engagement,” and its new game had an all-or-nothing funding model. That new multiplayer game was Escape Factory, a Fall Guys-esque platformer, and it was going to be funded via Kickstarter.

With 50 pledges, Escape Factory raised just $3,146 of its $20,000 goal. This means all the funds will be returned to backers, with Escape Factory’s development subsequently placed on hold. Before this cancelation though, Fntastic was gauging interest in a new prop hunt game. Over 87% of 1,492 responses expressed a desire in Fntastic to return to the genre, so that’s now the team’s next game instead.

“We have received many requests for a prop hunt game, and after careful analysis and discussion with the team, we have decided that our Escape Factory project has not generated enough interest,” Fntastic writes.

“With this in mind, we have decided to temporarily suspend work on Escape Factory and postpone it until a more appropriate time. As part of this decision, Our Kickstarter campaign has also been canceled, and no funds have been collected.”

In the same post, Fntastic announces that it has started developing a new game. Called Items, it’s an “action-horror prop hunt game” that the team may support with a Kickstarter ahead of launch. “It’s important to us that our players get the chance to play and test the game in advance.”

Fntastic then adds that it will release mobile games “in parallel” to support the development of Items. “All funds generated from these apps will go directly into development,” the team adds. “We believe this will help us create the game of your dreams.”

Items won’t be Fntastic’s first prop hunt-type game either. Back in 2021, the team released Propnight, but servers closed in January of this year after the developer first ceased operations. Fntastic says it also “lost all legal rights to Propnight and The Day Before,” with these new games aiming to be original ideas.

Earlier this year, Fntastic said The Day Before was destroyed by a “hate campaign.” The team released a now-deleted statement that claimed “certain bloggers made huge money by creating false content,” and that some people in fact liked the game.

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