The holidays were good to Next Car Game and its particular vision of motorized mayhem. After Bugbear Entertainment's Kickstarter to fund its latest racing game fell short of its goal in November, the developer asked for support through the project's website . Backers there have contributed more than $490,000, well clear of its original crowdfunding goal.

With a scheduled release window of "early spring," the studio released a playable, early-access version of the game to right before Christmas to its supporters. A separate free "technology demo" has also been available from Bugbear if you sign up for the developer's newsletter, with more than 50,000 downloads already taking place, according to VG247 .

"Since it was the first time we were going to show the game to everyone for real, we were very anxious to hear the feedback, but we really couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present: the response has been great!" reports Bugbear on Facebook . "Although our game is still at a pretty early stage, and as such, contains missing features and numerous bugs, you have been loving most [of] what we've got. We've also received a plenty of smart suggestions for future improvements, some of which will find their way into the final game."

For more on Next Car Game, check out our recent hands-on report on the kind of wreckage you can expect to see. If nothing else you can take a look at just how much carnage you can cause with Bugbear's game engine, which is also demonstrated by the developer in the video below.