It's been a hot minute since Kickstarter was the powerhouse funding tool for indie devs. In 2012 Double Fine's Broken Age Kickstarter was such a smash hit it boosted the crowdfunding odds of every other game on the platform. But after a few heady years (and some frustrating post-funding fumbles) the platform became less potent for developersespecially during a time period where venture capital was pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into small-to-mid-sized studios.But the funding boom has gone bust. And Kickstarter is suddenly back in the conversation. Frogwares hit its funding goal for The Sinking City 2 in under two days. Playable Worlds has raised $550k just a third of the way through its campaign for Playable Worlds. And Aesir Interactive, makers of Mongolian horse-riding sim The Legend of Khiimori is already past the $100k mark just a few days into its campaign.It's not life-changing cash$100-$500k from two to three thousand backers won't buy boats. But it's a spark that can light a fire. And if there's one company looking to strike that light, it's NEARStudios, the team of ex-triple-A devs making the woodland fantasy RPG Hawthorn.NEARStudios co-founders Heather Cerlan and Jason Richardson are living a tale of the times. They're ex-triple A, bootstrapping their dream game, getting lots of verbal praise from potential funding partners but no hard cash. The team decided to turn to Kickstarter before their 2024 studio debut, but after the announcement went wide (and they scored a cool 200,000 wishlists on Steam in the process), they realized Kickstarter might not just be a last-ditch effort to find fundingit could be the best way possible to bring Hawthorn to life.Related:Hawthorn hits with players, but not with fundersCerlan and Richardson had different paths to the game that became Hawthorn. Richardson's been stewing on the idea of a "cozy" co-op game for some time. In his days at Funcom he'd search for games that he could play with his wife, his kids, and his friends, but nothing hit all three groups. Iron Gate Studios' survival crafting game Valheim was a close match, but it wasn't quite what he was looking for.Richardson's spent years in the world of multiplayer game design, and began noodling on a woodland creature co-op game that would fit his family. Elsewhere, Cerlan was dreaming about striking out on her own with a new game studio making games that bring people together, and as she and Richardson compared notes, they realized they were on the same wavelength.In Hawthorn, players create characters based on several woodland animals, each with different affinities and weaknesses (owls can easily fly, otters take to the water, mice to the fields, etc). The diversified roles let people with different playstyles play together, and the woodland-themed vibe (inspired by the likes of Redwall, Watership Down, Beatrix Potter, etc.) is meant to stand out from the rest of the survival genre, which tends to tack toward Fortnite-adjacent cartoon characters, pixel art aesthetics, or hardcore grittiness inspired by the likes of Rust.Image via NEARstudios.Image via NEARstudios.The pair spoke about how "nostalgia" was a key theme for the team, but it definitely seems to be nostalgia with an edge. To a woodland creature, corn stalks are as tall as trees, rivers can be as big as lakes, and predators the size of titanic beastsbuilding a home in the forest can feel like carving a safe haven against the pounding rain.It's a vibrant pitchone that hits with players (Cerlan described pitching her game to prospective fans at TwitchCon and MAGFest, and feeling relieved when their faces lit up at the premise)but never that quite clicked with investors. The gap in enthusiasm was confusing, to say the least. Maybe it's because their team of ex-triple A workers is assembled from rank-and-file devs, not studio or creative leads?Maybe, said Cerlan. "We were the people on the ground floor, the cogs in the wheel," she said. "I don't know how much that played a factor in us trying to get funding, but on the flip side that was really, really good because we had a team of folks that could get in the editor and do the work."Because they could all "do the work," Richardson said they kicked open the door with a more robust gameplay preview than he's seen from other venture-backed studios. "I've heard stories from other startups that had money, or had vision, or had executives, but just didn't have gameplay," he said. Those studios struggled to find the "soul" of their gamebut as Hawthorn's debut showed, NEARstudios seems to have found something that clicks.The nitty gritty of pivoting to KickstarterDon't just take the 200k wishlist stat as a sign of life for Hawthorn. Cerlan recalled the day the video went wide, waiting for the embargo to breakand a feeling of anxiety as few outlets picked the story up (sorry guys, we needed a few hours). But stories did drop throughout the day, and shortly after, videos from content creators followed.Scan the comments of videos about Hawthorn and you'll find frothing enthusiasm for the game's similarities to Brian Jacques' Redwall book series (and yet not a "Eulalia!" in sight...). Here, Cerlan had to fess up: she hasn't read Redwall, though it's an inspiration for other NEARstudios employees like Richardson and community manager Daniel Warren.But hard work always comes after days of heady player praise, and for NEARStudios, that work came in the form of expanding what will go into their Kickstarter. First, they had to field surprise interest from publishers. Now that they'd landed wishlists and a few thousand views across TikTok, YouTube, and beyond, maybe they were a more appealing catch than before?Possiblybut the pitches they received didn't reflect it. Richardson and Cerlan expressed frustration that the publishers who'd reached out offered what seemed to be very unfavorable terms. Certainly nothing that offered more stability than Kickstarter would.Expanding a Kickstarter's scope isn't just about updating pitch documents and stretch goals. Marketing plans need ironing out, budget tiers have to be set, and maybe most importantly, the cost of backer awards needs to be assessed. Several Kickstarter creators have pointed out the amount of revenue you pull in from a campaign isn't just slashed by taxes and the platform cut, it's neutered by how much you spend on backer rewards.Cerlan said the studio's still working on those challenges, but they came armed with key advantages. First, they've spent the entirety of development not just building content but assessing what kind of game they can produce at different budgets. As experts like Finji CEO Rebekah Saltsman have explained, it's best for devs seeking funding to plan out what they can accomplish at different budget tiers. "We have a $6 million budget, we have a $3 million budget, and we have a $1.5 million budget," Cerlan explained. It's a jumping off point for establishing what the team can accomplish if it hits the campaign's base goaland then what's physically possible with the ascending stretch goals.Image via NEARstudios.Image via NEARstudios.On the topic of backer rewardsthe pair admitted they needed expert help here. One NEARstudios employee is a former senior finance manager at Zenimax (the Microsoft-owned parent company of Bethesda Softworks, where Cerlan and Richardson were both previously employed). "That's our biggest concern, being able to deliver what we say we're going to be able to deliver," said Cerlan. "You're really putting almost your entire roadmap out for the public to see, and that's terrifying because development is hard."And then there's one final twist with going to Kickstarter. The upside of Kickstarter is that your players can fund development directly in exchange for pre-ordering the game (and maybe picking up a few goodies for an extra purchase). For a multiplayer game like Hawthorn, it also helps to have an excited batch of players ready to leap in and build a landing pad for newcomers.The problem is when your game launches, you already have their money, and not many will plan to double dipso your launch sales have to attract a healthy amount of new players, or you've essentially cashed in your chips early. "Our hope is that this game is broadly appealing enough that like, Kickstarter is just going to be like a drop in the bucket," said Cerlan. If the Kickstarter is successful, NEARstudios will have enough funding to bring Hawthorn to Early Access. If Hawthorn can get to Early Access, the team can market it through Steam festivals and attract more player attention through demos.If that seems like a lot to pull off between the initial announcement and the Kickstarter debutit is. Cerlan acknowledged that after NEARstudios' big public debut, they chose to seek out more friends and family investments to build out their runway. The adage is unfortunately true: to make money, you have to spend money.What does a resurgence of Kickstarter mean for the game development community?There are probably dozensif not hundredsof small teams like NEARstudios in the same rickety boat. They set out to make their dream game right when investment funding dried up. They pitched, and pitched, and pitched, but got nothing or worse than nothing back from partners. And now with time running out, they're looking at funding opportunities that let them speak directly to players.It's a hell of a gamblebut sometimes you have to roll the hard six.NEARstudios' journey also invites the industry to think about what it means that Kickstarter and other platforms help developers raise funding that "they wouldn't get from publishers or investors." In 2012, that statement was a question of logistics as much as it was company strategy or taste. In 2025 it has a more glaring meaning.]It makes me think of an exchange I witnessed between an investor and an indie game dev at a DICE Mixer in 2022. "I'm looking for funding," the indie dev explained."Are you making any blockchain games?" the investor replied. I wouldn't even say he was being cynicalhe was soliciting a sincere pitch. Yet for all his cheerfulness, a dour mood fell on the group.At this year's DICE conference I happened to pass that same investor taking a meeting at the Aria Starbucks. The developer he'd spoken with three years prior was also at the event, still searching for funding. Would that conversation look different now? Was this investor's portfolio more diversified, with a number of small-to-medium sized investments sitting alongside the AI slush?Maybeor maybe not, if all the conversations I had with a number of talented devs were anything to go by. So many had stories like NEARstudios'. Pitch after pitch after pitch, only to receive mild praise or underbaked offers in return. There's sturm and drang about needing to make "safe bets" but it's funny how "safe bets" still look like millions of dollars poured into the same kinds of companies they spent the last half-decade swinging and missing with.Richardson and Cerlan aren't former Zenimax executives or fabled creative directors. They're people who make games. And they and others like them are turning to Kickstarter not just out of a sense they can speak directly to players, but because they've been turned away by those with the keys to the cash vaults. If the Kickstarter boom pays offif they, Frogwares, Playable Worlds, and other studios find success on the platformit should be seen as a mark of shame on the financing world.Are games like Hawthorn really such a huge risk? A few million dollars to deliver a woodland creature fantasy that's been the backbone of literature for centuries? Does our industry really believe great games can only come from people who held senior roles at financially successful juggernauts? When I check in with teams like NEARstudios, I worry they're fighting to survive in an industry isn't just bored of creativity, but downright hostile to it.The "soul" of Hawthorn, as Richardson put it, is that it's a game about small creatures with different specialties banding together to not just take down beasts, but to support one another and build a thriving community in a hostile world. May we all root for the mice, the otters, the owls, and the snakes trying to survive and thrive in these stormy times.