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Megatokyo Launches Visual Novel Campaign on Kickstarter

Artist Fred Gallagher began a Kickstarter fundraising campaign for a visual novel of his Megatokyo comic on Tuesday. The campaign will fund the first of a planned three-part visual novel series covering the original webcomic's first six volumes with new content added. The game will be playable from the perspective of Piro and Largo with full color artwork.

The project has seven stretch goals. After meeting the initial goal of US$20,000, each stretch goal adds an additional playable character in increments of US$5,000. Additional playable characters include: Kimiko Nanasawa, Erika Hayasaka, Miho Tohya, "Ping," and Yuki Sonoda. The US$75,000 stretch goal will fund the second visual novel with all seven playable characters and the final US$500,000 stretch goal will add adult content.

The campaign reached its initial goal of US$20,000 and met the US$30,000 stretch goal in under 24 hours. As of this writing, it has also achieved the stretch goals for all additional playable characters.

Gallagher launched Megatokyo as an online comic in 2000, and Gallagher continues to release new web installments two times a week on his own. The story tells the misadventures of two foreign otaku stranded in Japan and the unusual characters they meet in and around Tokyo. In addition to the current English releases from Dark Horse Comics, the title is published in German, Polish, Italian, French, and Japanese.

Thanks to John Hoffman for the news tip