Crowd funds ‘Mega Man” creator

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By Josh Alfrey

Fans are funding the dream of “Mega Man” co-creator Keiji Inafune with his new innovative project, “Mighty No. 9.”

After Inafune’s departure from video game company Capcom in 2010, he created his own development company, Comcept. Inafune is most known for his hand in creating largely popular game series like “Dead Rising” and “Mega Man.” Since he does not own the rights to “Mega Man,” he decided to make a character in his spirit, Beck, the “Mighty No. 9.”

“Mighty No. 9” is a Japanese side-scrolling platformer similar to games like “Mega Man” and “Super Mario World.” Since Comcept is a new independent developing company, it decided to involve KickStarter.com to help fund production.

Comcept used this format of funding to its greatest extent, listing a goal of raising $900,000 for the game. The project reached that goal on Sept. 2, only two days after being posted to the site.

Since then, the KickStarter project has blown up. As of Sept. 9, the project has raised more than $1.9 million. After more than doubling the goal, the fans of games are seeing benefits coming in.

Comcept has given updates on its development every week and has confirmed which goals fans have reached: Reaching $1.35 million ensured there would be a port for Mac and Linux users. After raising $1.75 million, Comcept agreed to create a making-of documentary.

With a large amount of support for “Mighty No. 9” coming from the gaming community, Comcept added even greater goals. If $2.2 million is raised, the developers agreed to make the game playable on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. If crowd sourcing raises $3.3 million, the developers agreed to bring the game to the next generation in Playstation 4 and Xbox One.

My personal favorite Kickstarter goal Comcept set comes when $2.75 million is raised: The developers came up with the idea to create an online co-op multiplayer mode for the game if that goal is reached. This is something not often seen in classic side-scrolling games. Bringing multiplayer action to this already exciting-looking game certainly makes me want to put my money behind it.

The progressive cash continues to flow in to this Kickstarter and Inafune’s dreams for “Mighty No. 9” appear to be infinite.