Shroud of the Avatar surpasses Kickstarter funding goal

Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, the crowdfunded fantasy role-playing game from Ultima series creator Richard Garriott, surpassed its funding goal today, according to the game's official Kickstarter page.

As of this writing, the game has raised $1,004,482 in pledges of its $1 million goal, securing the funding for its estimated Oct. 2014 downloadable release on Windows PC, Mac and Linux.

On Friday, developer Portalarium, Inc. announced that it added Dragonlance author Tracy Hickman as lead story designer. For more on the game, be sure to read our recent interview with Garriott, who told us, "I believe I now can bring a role-playing game to bear which is yet a new model, that is neither a solo-player game strictly speaking nor massively multiplayer."

Since reaching its initial goal, Portalarium has added stretch goals to Shroud's campaign. The first stretch goal is a Pet System when the campaign hits $1.1 million. The system will consist of social and combat pets, which "players can control using simple commands." At $1.2 million, the developer will add seasonal weather to the game and a $1.3 million stretch goal is teased but not revealed.