Project Rap Rabbit hangs in balance after Kickstarter falls short

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The Parappa the Rapper-inspired rhythm game accrued less than a fifth of its pre-outlined goal.

Those of you old to enough to remember mid-90s console gaming will probably recall the hype that enveloped NanaOn-Sha's Parappa the Rapper—a music rhythm game that laid the foundations for the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band further down the line. I myself played it, hated it, and traded it for Suikoden at the time, however understood why NanaOn-Sha and iNiS J—whose combined catalogue also includes Gitaroo Man, Vib Ribbon and Elite Beat Agents—took to Kickstarter last month in a bid to revive its legacy. 

Project Rap Rabbit was to be a similar "rhythm-action" music game that asked for £855,000. Yesterday, upon the campaign's closure, it'd raised just £162,057—less that 19 percent of its goal.  

So what comes next? The project's creators issued an update via its KS page yesterday lamenting the failed campaign and thanking fans for their support. That can be read in full over here, however it's worth noting the ambiguity of certain parts, with two sections in particular seemingly at odds with one another. 

First, its creators say this:  

"Your excitement for Project Rap Rabbit has been wonderful to behold, but today we must sadly accept that our crowd-funding journey must end here. We knew that sourcing funds for a high-quality rhythm-action game would be tough, and though we knew that Project Rap Rabbit would be an incredible game, unfortunately we weren't able to do enough to prove that to the wider world.

"We sadly are not in the position to be able to fund further production for a future crowd-funding relaunch involving a title deeper in development, and wouldn't want to scale back our vision. As a result, work on Project Rap Rabbit cannot continue at this time."

But later say this: 

"Though our Kickstarter campaign hasn't gone the way we'd intended, our early stages of development have left us more determined than ever to bring Project Rap Rabbit to life. While you didn't see Project Rap Rabbit at any conferences or booths during E3 week, we had a very, very busy E3 filled with meetings about our vision for the future of rhythm-action."

The update concludes by saying: "We sincerely hope this isn't the last time you'll hear of Project Rap Rabbit." 

I guess time will indeed determine this one's future.

Joe Donnelly
Deputy Editor, PC Gaming Show