Energy Hook, a game from former Spider-Man 2 developer Jamie Fristrom's Happion Laboratories based on swinging through a futuristic city with the titular device, took to Kickstarter recently with a $1 funding goal and several stretch goals, a strategy he described to Polygon as a "pre-order campaign."
On the Kickstarter page, Fristrom positions Energy Hook as building on the swinging mechanics that he developed for Spider-Man 2.
"Unlike most movie license games, Spider-Man 2 turned out pretty good, and one of the reasons was its crazy swinging system, a system that I invented," he wrote. "Players who dove deep into the system really got a sense of what it might feel like to swing from rooftop to rooftop, holding onto dear life from a tiny thread, as momentum and gravity did their work."
Fristrom originally planned to bring the game to Kickstarter last December, but told Polygon that he decided that Energy Hook should be playable first.
"And at this point, I've come so far I'm not going to quit, so I launched the Kickstarter with a $1 funding goal," Fristrom told Polygon in a recent email, "since I'm going to finish it anyway, I'm basically using Kickstarter as a pre-order campaign and powering it with stretch goals."
Those stretch goals include leaderboards at $10,000, a Linux port for the Windows PC and Mac game at $20,000, Oculus Rift support at $40,000, a seventh level called "Sky City" at $90,000, an "art makeover" at $130,000 and several more in between.
As of this writing, the campaign has secured $8,248 from 159 backers with 30 days remaining, and a limited tier pledge of $10 promises a digital copy of the game that's scheduled to ship in March 2014. When those run out, backers can get Energy Hook for $15. You can check out Energy Hook in action in the Kickstarter pitch video above.
