Takedown hits its Kickstarter goal

Talk about cutting it close. After languishing well below its $200,000 Kickstarter goal for almost a month for its proposed tactical shooter Takedown, developer Serellan finally made its number with less than three hours to go. The devs can credit a more in-depth Kickstarter page and a last ditch promotion effort with only a week to go in the campaign.

The finally funding tally was $221,833, and included some large last-minute donations, including one for the maximum $7,500 pledge. The difference between this Kickstarter campaign and previous successful ones is that these funds will only take the game to the Alpha stage, with private funding being sought to take the game to completion.

Serellan and front-man Christian Allen can now start work on the game, planned for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The team includes developers from such games as Ghost Recon, Halo: Reach, Rainbow Six and F.E.A.R.

The whole project was originally in doubt as funds for the game were slow to come in. But a change to the Kickstarter page (complete with better game description and a tongue-in-cheek interrogation video), as well as a tweet from Minecraft dev Markus "Notch" Persson, helped push it over the top. As with all Kickstarter projects, had Serellan not reached its goal, it would have received nothing.

The PC version will be first-person, and first in the development queue. The PS3 version will be third-person and the Xbox 360 view will be determined by feedback from fans. The goal is to have the game ready for release in June 2013.