Project Rap Rabbit, the rhythmic game from the creators of Gitaroo Man and PaRappa de Rapper has ended its Kickstarter campaign without achieving the funding goals it had established, putting its development on hold. A new message from the developers on the campaign’s website talks in length about the state of the project and how the team are planning to keep the development alive.
The game is an ambitious rhythmic title in which players build their own raps depending on the lyrics they use. It combines these unique mechanics with a charming artstyle, mixing hand drawn traditional Japanese designs with modern-day elements. Multiplayer rap battles are also an important part of the title.
It was supposed to be released primarly on PS4 and PC, although a recent update had lowered the goals to develop a Nintendo Switch port.
However, the creators admit that such a singular and ambitious project was not going to find financial support easily, and since they don’t want to scale down their goals, they must halt the development for now: “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.”
However, the team is ready to explore other options to continue the project in the future, and in fact they say they have had “a very, very busy E3 filled with meetings” about their proposal and the future of the genre. So here’s hoping they do find a way to fulfill their vision in the near future.
