Fat lady nearly ready to sing for Dominique Pamplemousse fundraising campaign

Written by Jack Allin — August 27, 2012 at 14:20

Indie developer Deirdra Kiai has long been known for quirky, experimental titles, so when turned loose for her first commercial adventure, it's no surprise that she'd come up with a "stop motion musical detective adventure" called Dominique Pamplemousse in “It’s All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!"

The titular star of the game is a "down-on-their-luck private investigator of ambiguous gender only one rent payment away from homelessness."  It looks like Dominique might catch a break when "the CEO of a major record company shows up asking Dominique to locate a missing pop star", but of course things go terribly wrong, and s/he soon "winds up framed for a crime they didn’t commit, bringing to surface their mysterious past and the events that led them to take up shady detective work in the first place."

According to Kiai, just about everything in the game is "made from real, physical things: clay, aluminium wire, cardboard, paper, fabric, felt, duct tape, and whatever else I’ve been able to get my hands on." In addition to the unique art style and stop-motion animation, Dominique Pamplemousse is a musical that aims to "integrate music and singing into an interactive narrative format" with a soundtrack "composed in separate sections that can be played in a different order depending on the player’s actions."

You can already sample this interesting mix of elements in a playable browser-based demo.  Providing more of this bizarre goodness doesn't come cheaply, however, and to help fund the game through to completion, the developer has launched an Indiegogo fundraising campaign.  The goal is to raise $9,500 by August 31, with several thousand left to raise and only a few days reamining at time of writing. Pledge rewards range from $5 for the game itself on PC, Mac, iPad, or "any platform of your choice for which it becomes available" to higher tiers that include early beta access and hand-crafted elements from the game. 

Unlike other Indiegogo campaigns, Dominique Pamplemousse is an all-or-nothing "fixed funding campaign".  According to Kiai, the goal of a successfully funded campaign is to finish the game before the end of the year.  Without crowd-financed support, Kiai still plans to finish the game, though naturally with a much longer development time.  To learn more about the game or donate to Dominique Pamplemousse in “It’s All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!, check out the Indiegogo page for full details.