SELF-confessed nerds Carl Benjamin, Russ Jarvis and Giuseppe Constantino are appealing for donations to boost the chances of Swindon spawning its first commercial video game.

Necromancer, a mobile game for touch-screen devices, has been created by Other Worlds Software, which is based out of Carl’s home in Westcott Street.

The trio are seeking donations from the public on Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website, with £8,000 the overall target they are seeking.

The creators had already attracted £905 when the Adver went to press, with 22 days to raise another £7,000, which will go towards covering costly software licences.

Should the target be reached, the game will be released on the Google Play store, Apple’s App Store and Steam for desktop computers.

“We have become a lot more realistic about where we can take this game. We have been developing games for five years now,” said Carl, 34.

“We decided to put our other projects on hold while we stuck at this and put all the resources we had into it. We are not expecting to get rich from this, but we would like for the success of this to fund any future projects we might have.”

Swindon Advertiser:

A screenshot from the game in action

The game, which allows the user to play as a villainous necromancer and destroy the survivors of a zombie apocalypse, will retail for no less than £2.99.

And Carl believes 15,000 sales would be enough to secure the future of the game and Other Worlds as creators moving forward.

Carl said: “We just want to take control of our lives.

“The donations will depend on the press coverage, we are doing what we can to generate interest. Everyone who has seen the Kickstarter page has said it looks good.

“Everyone who donates a minimum of £5 gets a copy of the game, so they should see it as simply buying the game in advance.”

Other incentives for bidders with particularly deep pockets include mugs, t-shirts, your name in the credits of the game and, if you donate £500 or more, having a lead character on the game named after you.

“The first thing people say about the page is that it’s a very realistic goal we set ourselves, which is promising for our chances of meeting the goal,” said Carl.

“A lot of other projects pitching for money on game development seem to be asking for tens of thousands of pounds, so ours might seem a little more welcoming.”

Donating at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/80652106/necromancer.