Masquerada: Songs and Shadows seeks a final push on Kickstarter

We first encountered Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, “an RPG about masks and magic,” in early 2015. It caught our attention with a bright, colorful isometric visual style, and its real-time-but-also-pausable combat, which we took a closer look at last August. It was originally slated for release this spring, but developer Witching Hour Studios is hoping that a Kickstarter campaign will enable it to spend a little extra time on the game, to “add the final touches."

Because of that, it's taking a run at Kickstarter to secure sufficient funding to really tie it all together. “With your money, we’re going to continue iterating on the hundreds of combat encounters in the game to ensure they are balanced in a deeply satisfactory way for all skill and character configurations. And we’re going to throw more tweaks and layers at our visuals, so that things don’t just shine, they’ll be eye-popping,” the studio wrote.

The campaign goal is £45,000 ($65,000), and it's running for an unusually short period of just 14 days: Witching Hour said most Kickstarters are funded in their first and last three days, so it “decided to go with something shorter and punchier to really get the best out of our time.” The campaign comes to an end on May 5, and if it's successful, the game is expected to be ready for release this summer. For now, you can try a free demo of Masquerada: Songs and Shadows on Steam.

[Note: Cassandra Khaw, who is an occasional contributor to PC Gamer, also works for Masquerada's publisher Ysbryd Games.]

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.