The Gameshelf

You may have heard of Kickstarter. A number of independent game developers have used it to fund various projects. Here's another example, and I'll let Heather speak for herself:

Before You Close Your Eyes is a game/interactive story about personalities
and consequences. It is intended as an immersive, story-rich vehicle for
introspection and understanding the choices made by others. It is
presented in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style and will be available on
iPhone, Android and Web.

I am attempting to fund this project on Kickstarter, which is a cool web
platform for "crowdfunding". Crowdfunding is what happens when lots of
people are willing to put their money behind something that they love and
think should exist in the world. The Kickstarter model works a bit like a
PBS pledge drive. Backers declare how much they would like to contribute to
the project and receive 'Thank You" gifts that the person asking for funding
had defined.

You can take a look at my project site here:
http://bit.ly/dreamgame

Just about 10 hours to go, and she's raised $8010 out of her $8500 goal (which represents 2 months of time to work on the game). And as with most Kickstarter projects, lots of fun gifts for pledges of various amounts.