Why James Pond’s creator supports its Kickstarter revival

After the aquatic, 16-bit platformer James Pond debuted in 1990, creator Chris Sorrell thinks that the franchise “seemed to have been run into the ground,” he told 100 Percent Indie.

But when Gameware’s P. J. Belcher contacted Sorrell with the idea of crowdfunding a successor, Sorrell saw an opportunity to get the series back on track.

“Initially I had major reservations, mainly due to my disappointment with how the James Pond brand frankly seemed to have been run into the ground,” Sorrell said. “However, P. J. is newly involved with Pond himself and did a great job of convincing me that he genuinely sees this an opportunity to get things right, make a truly brand new game and create something that properly lives up to people’s best memories of the originals. On that basis I agreed to offer my support to the campaign, and — if we’re successful — to work with Gameware to create the new game.”

The Kickstarter campaign for the new James Pond game launched earlier this month. As of this writing, it’s received £13,762 in pledges of its £100,000 goal from 253 backers with 24 days remaining.