Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter has ended, and it's been a big success.

22,322 people backed the new RPG, raising nearly double - $1,919,275 - the original $1 million goal.

Donations are still open via the Shroud website, where an additional $138,328 has been raised.

Shroud of the Avatar is both a single-player RPG and a persistent online game. There's an offline mode and there are three online modes, and the latter can be freely switched between.

You'll even be able to play the Single-Player Online mode offline for a time, then reconnect to the persistent online world after a plane or train journey.

I spoke to Richard Garriott about his new game a couple of weeks ago. There's a tonne of information on the Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter page as well.

Shroud of the Avatar will be a PC (Windows and Linux) and Mac game. Its estimated time of release is October 2014.