Code Hero

Code Hero was a planned educational video game by Primer Labs, designed by Alex Peake. The game was supposed to teach players how to write programming languages by having them do so in a 3D world.

Origin
Development on Code Hero began in January 2011, and in 2012 Peake started a Kickstarter campaign to raise $100,000 USD to fund further development of the game over the next six months.

The Kickstarter concluded in February having raised $170,000 USD, at which point $30,000 USD had been raised through their website alongside this.

Background
After failing to deliver the backing rewards by the original date, and not updating the website or Twitter accounts for months at a time, backers began to demand refunds and became concerned that the project was not sufficiently funded.

The original release date of August 31, at PAX Prime, was missed, with an update a few days later saying it would be released within days, a date which was also missed. When supporter Dustin Deckard began organising to seek legal action after another stretch of no communication, Alex Peake released a statement saying that the game was still being worked on and that Primer Labs was “committed to finishing this game.”

Controversy
The game drew controversy following its Kickstarter campaign, when the studio ran out of funds, missed release deadlines and funding rewards, and communicated little with the community. Some financial backers threatened legal action following long periods of no communication.

The Code Hero website was offline for an extended period in 2014, and Peake has not commented publicly about the state of this project since 2013. As of May 2015 the website was inactive again.