Development in Haunts: The Manse Macabre video came backed by the crowd-sourced funding site Kickstarter has stopped, as its programmers have quit.

More than 1,200 people backed the video game when it ran a funding campaign via Kickstarter in June 2012, but Haunts: The Manse Macabre now faces the worst case scenario for a successfully funded Kickstarter project. All programmers have quit, and the project's director is out of Kickstarter funds.

Haunts: The Manse Macabre is a turn-based horror game where players can either play the role of the residents of a haunted house or the people exploring it. Design director Rick Dakan and his developer, Mob Rules Games, turned to Kickstarter only to fund the last stage of production.

Kickstarter is a popular venue for creators to crowdfund their projects with donations from numerous people. Mob Rules Games asked for $25,000 to finish the game, and 1,214 people poured a total of $28,739. Not even successful funding, however, can guarantee the success of a project.

"The principal cause for our dire condition is that there are no longer any programmers working on the game," Dakan explained in an update on the Kickstarter page. "Our lead programmer was always going to move on to something else after a year or so. We had hoped that he would be able to work on the game in his spare time, but now that he's going back at Google, he has told us that his spare time will be very minimal and not enough to make progress on the game. Our second programmer has quit the project entirely to take another job. He does not want to work on the game in his spare time."

According to Dakan, all of the game systems and mechanics are in place, but the current build is still marred with bugs and glitches.

In an update blog post, Dakan said he plans to keep fighting to finish the game and mentioned Blue Mammoth as a potential partner.

"I am currently in talks with another game company owned by some old friends and coworkers of mine, Blue Mammoth Games," he wrote. "They have expressed an interest in taking on Haunts. Austin and I would continue on in our roles, although we would both be doing so in our spare time. These new potential partners won't be able to make the decision for a few weeks at least and then after that it would be months before anything came out. Still, I think it's our best shot at this point."

While most of the game's Kickstarter backers have been very understanding and did not want a refund, the project's failure highlights the risks of crowdsourcing. Project backers do not get any guarantee when they decide to invest their cash into an interesting product or idea that may or may not work. Most people understand that their investment comes with a risk, but so far no precedent has shown how project leaders and backers would react in such a situation.

Though the Kickstarter money is long gone, Dakan said he will personally offer his own money to any backers who want a refund, and he will give up any future revenue from the game to the publisher that eventually releases it. Only two people have taken up his offer for a refund, said Dakan.