Fntastic, whose name you might remember from the disaster that was The Day Before, is once again asking for your money, this time in the form of a Kickstarter campaign to revive the studio and help it make its latest game.
In a message on X (formerly Twitter), Fntastic implores those who "helped us create Fntastic through Kickstarter" to pledge their "help again to bring Fntastic back".
The studio has created a new official website to herald its return, and it comes complete with a step-by-step plan explaining how you can help Fntastic if you want to, as well as a "Fntastic 2.0" outline in which the studio details how it's going to do things better this time around.
In its plan for recovery, Fntastic pledges to run its business on the three core principles of "honesty", "transparency", and "professionalism", pledging to build trust within its community, actively engage with said community via social media, and end the practice of relying on "volunteers".
The studio says its new mission is to deliver "high-quality gaming experiences, combining innovation, creativity, integrity, and transparency". One rather wonders why that wasn't the plan to start with, but hey.
As well as its plan, Fntastic has also released an FAQ anticipating some of the questions people might have about its return. The studio says that after its initial closure, its staffers "reflected on our past mistakes and initiated significant internal changes".
Fntastic's return this time around hinges on a game called Escape Factory, which looks to be a sort of multiplayer Fall Guys-esque platformer with "physics-based challenges". It looks like the studio's Kickstarter campaign covers both the game's development and the company's return.
In case you need a reminder, Fntastic is the company that created The Day Before, a zombie survival game with a marketing campaign Fntastic itself describes as "embellished" (which is certainly one way to put it).
On release, the game was quickly and widely panned for its lack of similarity to the game trailers and marketing hype promised it would be, and just a few weeks after its launch, The Day Before shut down for good, with Fntastic refunding everyone who bought it.
Fntastic may want everyone reading its new plan to think it's turned over a new leaf, but back in January this year, the studio blamed what it called a "hate campaign" for The Day Before's failure.
In the aforementioned FAQ, Fntastic admits that its team "still consists of the same people who created all of our previous games". Despite pledging not to use volunteers, the studio also says that "some team members are helping out on a goodwill basis".
I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not bringing back Fntastic is a good idea, but if you want to, you can support the Escape Factory Kickstarter campaign here.
