We’ve reached our base goal for Small Time Criminals! But there’s still plenty more to do. Let’s talk about stretch goals – including two new ones we’ve added today.

The accepted (not to mention tried and tested) wisdom when crowdfunding is to set your goal at the minimum amount of money required to make your project happen. In the case of Small Time Criminals, we came up with a real shoestring budget that would nonetheless allow us to create a great, working experience for players.

Now, thanks to our wonderful Pozible supporters, we’ve blown past that! This extra money will not only allow us to improve on the basic aspects of the game, but also to achieve some of our stretch goals – things we always knew we wanted, but didn’t know if we’d be able to afford. Already this extra support has allowed us to budget for laser tripwires, a pressure-sensitive alarm setup, improved technology including headset radios for players, and the first of several alternative narratives, allowing us to bring in extra writers to create multiple games inside the one space.

With the campaign going strong, it looks like we might hit our last couple of current stretch goals! So we decided to go back to our wish list and add a couple more things that can make Small Time Criminals even better. Here they are:

$11, 400 Stretch Goal: THE DEAD OF NIGHT

At this level, we can add to our infrastructure budget to dramatically alter the ambience of the bank. While it was always going to look like a real space and feel like the home of corrupt scumbags you were happy to rob, this extra money will allow us to purchase flats, light boxes and other theatre trickery to realise the dream of ETERNAL NIGHT: even during daylight, your heist will be able to take place well after working hours! The space has a lot of windows, so this is no small undertaking…

$13,400 Stretch Goal: SMALL TIME CRIMINALS: THE SERIES

Robert Reid directs the action in a promo video for Small Time Criminals, featuring Kevin Turner, Kat Yates, Jack Beeby and James O'Donoghue.

Robert Reid directs the action in a promo video for Small Time Criminals, featuring Kevin Turner, Kat Yates, Jack Beeby and James O’Donoghue.

The bank will be filled with characters who you’ll meet through the debris of their working life: post-it notes, emails, official documents and more. But if we reach this goal, we’ll bring them to life! We’ll hire actors and make a web series of four 5-minute episodes chronicling life in the bank: the drama, the cruelty, the dashed hopes of escape and crushed dreams of avarice. There might even be some joy amongst the corruption! You won’t need to watch the series to play the game – but if you do, who knows what kinds of clues you might find?

Small Time Criminals will open in Preston in April, and is crowdfunding on Pozible until March 17, 2016. Find out more and pledge to support the project at pozi.be/smalltimecriminals.