It has been a rough couple of months for Ouya’s Free The Games Fund. After the first three potential games reached their funding goals under heavy criticism and claims of fraud, with one campaign being suspended by Kickstarter, another being canceled by the creator and the final gracefully bowing out of the funding race, we had thought that perhaps no games would ever qualify properly.

Of course, while all of those controversies raged, there was one game that kind of silently slid by in the background, Neverending Nightmares. This game slid by slowly gaining enough traction to remain relevant in the eyes of the media, but not so quickly as to gain the attention of those attacking the other campaigns. It even had a lofty goal of $99,000. Many thought it wasn’t going to make it as it was still far short of its goal when the last week opened up. But a miracle happened and the game was fully funded in the last remaining hours.

I tried to stay optimistic for my videos and updates, but about a week ago, I had almost given up on our project. We had 52% of our funding. How could we possibly get the rest in a week? Then it seemed to get worse. 4 days ago, we only had 64% of our funding. Could we really raise that much funds in one final push? Now I know the answer.

YES!

Wow! You guys are the greatest backers any kickstarter project has ever had. I really mean that. I actually slept really poorly last night, so I am having trouble making sense of anything, but all that I know is I am extremely happy and I have you to thank!

So not only has Nevernending Nightmares reached its funding goal, it marks the first real success for Ouya’s Free The Games Fund. And boy is it a big one. There doesn’t appear to be any reason why Ouya won’t be matching the funding of the game either. It has met all the requirements needed as of the last round of rules updates.

After all the controversy over the fund, this is the kind of press that Ouya needs. Nightmares represents the type of game that Ouya was hoping to get initially, a critically acclaimed, fan loved game for its console.

We wish Matt Gilgenbach the best of luck with the development of Neverending Nightmares.