We reported about Super Meat Boy Galaxy over the weekend in a post that mistakenly called its creator, Aubrey Hesselgren, a lady. Hesselgren created the Super Meat Boy-meets-Super Mario Galaxy prototype game as a gift for Super Meat Boy co-creator Tommy Refenes, who was celebrating his 30th birthday. As of the time the video surfaced, Hesselgren reportedly had no plans to share the project publicly. But that changed once the video began to drum up interest around the interwebs.
Now, Hesselgren has created a JustGiving page to give players access to the game in exchange for charitable donations. The goal is £10,000, though Hesselgren writes on the page that he'll likely distribute the prototype game to donors even if that's not reached. All money goes to Samaritans, a charity that "provides confidential emotional support for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those which may lead to suicide."
From the project page:
For me, it was just a bit of a throw away experiment. It was never intended as a "pitch" to make such a game (although Tommy and I discussed something a bit like it a long time ago when working on Goo!). The video started to get interest from various reputable web sites and pretty soon, had more youtube views than every original work of mine, combined. As you might imagine, this made me feel... ehhhh... "great".
But developing it into a full game, he said, would take too much time and effort and might not pan out the way he'd want it to. So he decided to release the prototype while raising money for charity. Well done, sir!
Are you interested in playing Super Meat Boy Galaxy? Do you wish someone would make it into a full game?
