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XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
Goddamn so many Kickstarter games! I can hardly keep track of it all anymore. There needs to be some kind of Kickstarter Gaming Calendar somewhere that just lists successfully funded projects and projected release dates. I bet there are some projects that are pretty far along by this point, no? Does it just seem like this all started quite a while ago because I'm measuring it in Internet Time, and it's really only been a few months? Jeeeeeez I want these games.

Also, really interesting to see more and more games get successfully funded while more and more huge gaming MegaCorp studios get shutdown/massively downsized. Seems like there's at least a few of each every week, last month or so.

Tufty posted:

Ok everybody. We have just over 20 hours to get Crystal Catacombs another $25K so it has co-op multiplayer. GO!

Man, co-op would seriously differentiate that game. I wish I still had money. On another note, drat, a bunch of those enemies are pretty much straight-up ripped out of Metroid. Which I guess would bother me a lot more if it wasn't a $7500 game, and it didn't also include really loving awesome and original looking enemies, too.

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XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Shalinor posted:

Just watch IndieGames.com, IndieGameMag.com and TouchArcade.com - almost any funded Kickstarter game mentioned in here would become an indie game of note that indie press would track post-funding.

Yeah, I suppose there's no real meaningful distinction between Kickstarted indies and non-KS indies. It's either a game worth watching or not. Still, it'd be fun to watch how well games from the KS scene are doing. Anyway thanks for the reminder, I haven't been going to ig.com much lately. Crazy poo poo there every day.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Star Guarded posted:

Has this been posted? Sorry if it has, but it looks really cool:

Moon Intern

Watch the video - it's rather hard to explain. Kind of a randomly generated, serialized 2d action/sidescroller with base build elements. They're asking for 30k.

Ok yeah that looks freakin' awesome. I really like their lo-fi retro style. I guess it's hard to say it'll be good without getting a chance to feel the combat or see many puzzles. But with the way they're structuring the game, even if the gameplay is just average, it would make for a fun game. Random story-modules is a great idea. Sounds very Skyrim.

I'm also way into this idea that's starting to show up on KS of using the backers to crowdsource NPCs creation. Yeah, lots of projects have had an "add you name to the game" tier, but this is a little different. I wanna say Cult had a similar system? I want to see a game that includes this as one of the lowest tiers, though; either at the pre-order tier or just above it. A game with hundreds of NPC's based on real individual humans just sounds cool to me.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
Well, it's not as if they really wasted the money. I'll do a similar breakdown to what they did, based on how it looks to me. (I'll sum it up at the end since I tend to write like a crazy person)

Now, on their checklist they claim they only ended up with $4k for game development. Wait, what about the other $16,000?? How could they raise $37,000 and only spend $4000 on the game itself?! What the gently caress?!

Calm down, calm down. Let's look at their numbers. Subtracting what it cost to run the Kickstarter (fees, prizes, tax, etc), they only actually pulled in $20,000. You can criticize them for handling the prizes sloppily, and it seems like that's a valid point, and it's one they owned up to themselves.

Another mis-step on their part was apparently getting overly cautions with legal matters, which led them to spend another $4000 just in that area. They owned up to this as well, but again, as with the prizes, it's not all wasted money. They just spent more then they probably needed to. Hardware purchases are basically a "business expense", too, so let's lump in the iPads here for $5000 spent on business stuff.

So, if you take the $20,000 they raised, and subtract the $5000 in business expenses, you're left with $15,000. However, since they claimed they only spent $4000 on game development, that still leaves another $11,000 unaccounted for. Where'd it all end up?

Well, problem number one is that $4000 number is only accounting for the money they spent on internal development. They also put $6000 into outsourced music. It's absurd not to count asset development as money that was "spent on the game". So take that money and add it back into their estimation of how much they were left with to develop the game, and now you're at a $10,000 total. Still low, but much less insane.

And the rest? PR expenses. $2K spent on ads, and $3K spent on going to a con to promote the game. $5K total. And, hell, with how much buzz this game has going for it at this point, I can't say I think that was money poorly spent.

Conclusion: Not much money was actually wasted. They raised $37,000 total, but had to give $7000 away on various fees - Amazon, Kickstarter, and Uncle Sam all want their cut. Of the remaining $30,000, they put the vast majority, two thirds of it, straight into their project, and used the remaining third on prize fulfillment. Could they have produced those prizes for less money? Almost certainly, they say so themselves.

But did they just "squander all the money"? Nah, that's a really skewed view of lovely situation. They only spent $10,000 on prizes, with the majority of the money, the other $20,000, going into the project. $10,000 went into development, $5000 into PR, and another $5000 on business expenses. Doesn't seem that irresponsible to me.

XboxPants fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Jul 9, 2012

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Der Shovel posted:

I'm not going to go into that, but again: the amount of money they are asking to "port the game" from iOS to PC and Mac is 3x higher than the amount of money they got initially, which included all the startup costs, lawyers and all that poo poo. It's 25x higher than the 4000 they spent on pure development. That figure is so inflated it's almost funny.

10,000, not 4000. So 10x, not 25x. But yeah I got no idea why they need that much money for a mobile->PC port. That... no idea.

Harlock posted:

I really don't see why they could have waited until the game officially launched to unveil plans to expand. That just makes me believe that development is already in trouble if they need a cash infusion right before the game's actual soft release (August).

It is weird. I mean, aren't they planning on making any money on the actual launch of the game?

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
Just thought of something else, they're not gonna get that full 100k. They payed $7000 on their earlier $37,000 project, if you use the same ratio, they'll collect less than $80,000 from this one if they hit that goal.

Also consider the "we've already sunk $50,000 into this" statement.

In the end, they've put $60,000 into the mobile version. They're asking for $80,000 to port it. Now, instead of asking 25x how much they spent before, they're asking just 1.3x. Also they're gonna have to pay for prizes, some of the money is going into finishing development of the mobile game, and it might even be closer to an equal amount for the port as for creation.

Which still seems absurd.

But not crazypants absurd.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
Just saw comment by the Star Command guys on their new Kickstarter in regards to WHY SO MUCH MANEY:

Star Command Dev Guy posted:

Also remember your support is going probably 40% PC port and 60% PC CONTENT additions - ala more aliens, more missions, more explosions, more dog poop.

Yeah that probably would have been a good thing to mention in the actual Kickstarter main post or the video god drat.

Sure, they sort of... vaguely imply the PC version may be better in one way or another... but with how shady everything feels with everything they really should have just laid this out to begin with. It is not clear from their KS at all that they plan on increasing the scope of the PC version this much. It should be.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
Is it really that unlikely that it would cost a million dollars to run their site for a year? This is not a rhetorical question, I actually don't know that much about hosting costs. Does that sound about right?

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Rime posted:

Guys, guys guys, I think we're all missing a boat here:

Super. loving. Motherload!

Like, it seems as if you're being sarcastic here, but I loved that game and this actually looks pretty loving awesome. Sign me right the hell up.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

MikeJF posted:

Castle Story, a game I've been following the development of for some time, just submitted to Kickstarter, apparently. Awaiting approval now.

Wow, that one completely left my brain. I too remember thinking it looked awesome. I think I was looking at it around the time of the Voxatron Humble Bundle when I was looking all over at voxel games. I hope he was able to put up a reasonable funding goal! (i.e. less than 100k)

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
This could have potential: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iocainestudios/steam-bandits-outpost

The project lead describes it as "steampunk fantasy Animal Crossing meets Pokemon with airships and floating islands". It's free-to-play, with various pieces of flair you can buy as the monetization scheme.

The developers have some decent history, with a couple ex-Obsidian folks on there. Yeah, the soem of the art style makes it look like loving Farmville but they are pretty adamant that's not the case. They elaborate on that issue here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/wvzeh/i_was_the_lead_producer_on_the_fallout_new_vegas/c5hl9kp

Right now there's only the vaguest gameplay info out, but it looks like they might throw up another video focused on that to clear up the differences between this and a Zynga game.

I'm not sure about the tier rewards, either. I guess they're okay, but it really feels like it hurts the project to not be able to include a "pre-order" tier.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1829034266/volgarr-the-viking

Holy poo poo this game looks loving awesome. It's already at over 30% and it just launched today. They're gonna need them some fuckin' stretch goals.

2D slash-em-up like Golden Axe, or Rastan. There's tons of gameplay footage in the video so you should just go watch that. They've really put in a lot of focus on mobility, making the gameplay fluid and generally awesome. Basic things like being able to move while swinging your sword, dodge-roll, double-jump/sword-spin move (think Samus' screw attack), stuff like that. There's a throwing spear secondary-weapon, and it also sticks in walls to create a platform to let you climb to higher areas.

The power-up/upgrade system is pretty kickass, too. It's a great middle-ground between something complicated like Symphony of the Night and a really simple like, say, Mario. They specifically mention Ghouls & Ghosts armor system as an inspiration, and it's basically an elaboration on that. There are various gear pick-ups that you can get, and they visibly show up on your character, shield, bad-rear end viking helmet, etc. It helps get rid of messy HUD elements when you can just see everything at a glance, and helps make you feel more Viking. Apparently you also get different special attacks along with the gear, but they said they're saving that for later.

God drat, for $10 I'm backing this poo poo so hard. Predicting they're gonna need to come up with some stretch-goals sooner than later.

For added Viking, check out the stellar theme music: http://soundcloud.com/kochunhu/v-lgarr-themes-warrior-theme

XboxPants fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jul 24, 2012

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Shalinor posted:

Either way, game looks completely metal.

To me, the thing that sells this the most is that the head guy's name is "Kristofor Durrschmidt".

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

SupSuper posted:

Wow that looks absolutely fantastic, I'm a sucker for platformers and the shifting mechanic looks really great in action, with everything smoothly changing instead of just swapping in place.
No kidding; the way that when you shift & do the badass fireball move & at the same time it switches to the kickass metal-ized track looks like something that would be a very visceral experience. The enemies seem stupid as hell, though. Hopefully that's just 'cause it's early though either way, that's not a showstopper.

Squidder posted:

A bunch of guys I used to work with just put up their Kickstarter for Eternal Fate yesterday. They're showing it at Quakecon and I'm sure they'll post in here if you have any questions about it once they get done for the night.

That actually looks like it could be really cool. Reminds me of that Warhammer moba-type game, but with a world, towns, etc. If they do a better job than the Warhammer guys did, it could be really cool, like a fantasy SMNC.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shoreboundstudios/shadow-remnants also just popped up. Looks much less polished than the best KS projects, but I'm a huge sucker for tactical RPG's like FFT & Disgaea, and if you are too you might wanna give it a look. The terrain deformation stuff looks cool, anyway.

edit: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elizabethsampat/tales-of-fallen-london-the-silver-tree/
oh wow

I guess this is a new entry in some kind of already popular flavor-rich browser-based card-story game? These guys just launched at they're already at 170%+ funded. Granted that's only $17,000 but it looks like this'll be another one to blow past their goal.

XboxPants fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Aug 4, 2012

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
Rush Bros is actually starting to look pretty cool, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG9-tMs6jtU

I don't think I've really seen a music-based platformer before. I guess Bit Trip Runner would be similar to what they're doing here, and that was a pretty great game. But they got the "load in your music library" feature and level elements will then coordinate to the beat of the music. Their first level looked fairly questionable to me, but this one actually shows some promise, especially since they acknowledge that the current art they have isn't really workable. With really stylish art this game could be great, but it hasn't really gotten any attention yet.

XboxPants fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Aug 4, 2012

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
New KS up called "Flight of the Wisp", another small game, only asking for $10k. 2D exploration game, you play a wisp of energy and can turn into various elements in the environment to solve puzzles. For example, they show you turn into water and spray that element on a steel door, then you find a busted cryo tank, turn into the liquid nitrogen or whatever, then freeze the door and it expands, causing it to shatter.

It reminds me a lot of that Puddle game that just came out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgX9S6Qsf0c

Honestly I like this Kickstarter if only for because almost the whole video consists of gameplay from the actual game.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

TychoCelchuuu posted:

They really inspire confidence with their company website. What other projects have you worked on? PHOENIX DAWN STUDIOS. Who works at your company? PHOENIX DAWN STUDIOS. Will you even tell me anythi- PHOENIX DAWN STUDIOS. For all we know, PHOENIX DAWN STUDIOS is just this dude in San Diego making his first ever game. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but I'm a little wary of giving anyone money when I don't really know who they are. Not sure a physical reward at $35 is a great idea either but since they're just postcards I suppose they can just hope that not many people pledge. On the plus side, they're definitely hitting everything that's hot in video games right now: steampunk, escape from a sinister abandoned laboratory, begin the game with no knowledge of what your purpose is, physics based puzzle sidescroller... the keywords flow abundantly!

And did anyone catch this quote from the video @2:20? "With the five current energy types of water, wind, fire, electric, frost, and heat..." Doesn't sound like 5 to me, buddy, but maybe heat and fire are the same.

Basically this game doesn't look like much fun, so I'm ignoring it, but I've been sort of harsh because at least they've got some gameplay footage to show, so really it's tough to imagine this not turning out at least as mediocre as it looks in the video (which is more than you can say about genuinely lovely Kickstarters that deservedly fail).

edit: turns out if you click on the name of the studio on Kickstarter you get a bit of info. It's the dude in the video, who worked for 38 Studios, plus a recently graduated CompSci guy. So that's good to know. That should probably be on their website somewhere but whatever.

Lately I've been noticing that a lot of the genuine "start-up" kickstarters seem to want to use their Kickstarter page as the website for the game. They want that to be the page on the internet that people go to when they want to read about the project. I can't say that I think it's a bad idea, though I definitely can see how it makes them look unprofessional, too.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
So I guess we've already moved to the "Kickstarters as performance art" stage? I can get behind that, I suppose.

(not that I'd actually support this kickstarter, but if AVGN had originally had a previous kickstarter to fund the production of the current Cheetahmen II farce one, I would have considered giving a buck to that)

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

William Shatner posted:

Developer here. This is very much what we're going for! Now if we could just get some traction on our Kickstarter. It's difficult getting people to part with their 15 McBucks when we don't have a publisher hammering on PR everywhere!

Hey, that's your job now. :cheeky: Really, though. I can't find it right now, but I did just read a really good Kickstarter success guide from a video game project that did really well and they straight out said that you shouldn't expect to get any actual work done during the time your KS is up. Anything you create during that time could just all be for naught if it doesn't get funded and you have to give up the project, after all.

Anyone have any idea what article it may have been? I think it was really recent, like the last week or so.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

William Shatner posted:

Well, we won't be giving up the project if the KS doesn't make it. We've been working on it over a year already. It's just astonishing how some Kickstarters take off like a rocket, and others just languish.

I'm finding it amusing the disconnect between the number of Facebook likes and backers. We have nearly 300 likes, but only 120 backers. What?

Buck up, with that ratio, if you can get 32,640 more backers, you'll win!

On a less smart-rear end note, I just noticed something about your project. Admittedly I hadn't read everything on the page before, but it was only just now that I realized this isn't going to be a free-to-play game. Even though there's nothing specifically to indicate it is, with the whole MOBA-style gameplay I guess I just assumed it was.

You might want to highlight that this is not a free to play game. Lots of people aren't into that style, and if they know this is going to be a classic "pay once and get a fully fleshed out product" game, it may change their opinion on this. Even if they don't think it's a free-to-play game, it's good to highlight how your game is different from other similar games. I'm sure there are people who have played various F2P arena games and been put off by the microtransactions, and if you mention that this game won't be like that, maybe it will help.

edit: and in response to the whole "why don't people who like this buy it?" thing; do you buy every game you like or think looks cool? Because most people don't.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
On the other cyberpunk hand, Project Lodus, another aRPG type game, only has 6 hours left and is at about $28k/$50k. It'd be pretty sad for them to be one of those rare project that actually gets a pretty substantial amount and gets pretty close to their goal but just doesn't quite make it. But it's pretty understandable as they haven't really shown much in the way of gameplay.

I think devs really need to get the hint that Tim Schafer was a special situation, and in the real world you're not going to get funded with a wink & a promise, but no actual gameplay to show people what the hell they're actually funding. Hell, even if it's just mock-ups, just make something to show people.

edit: I went ahead and kicked in a dollar anyway, though. What they have shown and talked about looks cool enough to be worth at least that much.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.
This just went up: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/322438897/mercenary-kings

Run & gun 2D platformer with really nice looking pixel art style. It's by the guys who made the Scott Pilgrim game and, more recently, Wizorb. Simplest way to describe it would be something like "Metal Slug with RPG elements". By that I mean stuff like vendors, weapon crafting, and mission systems. I've been following this for a week or two and frankly I think it looks pretty awesome.

Best part is that unlike Project Lodus, they do have gameplay video. They actually have a working prototype from Dream.Build.Play with rough versions of most of the systems already in place. Check out that build here and see what you think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jopRHhEnlVI

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Obsurveyor posted:

Isn't it "getting shortchanged" if you donated specifically to get a game(this is a dumb reason to support Kickstarters, I know) but then don't get it?

Jumping 20k in a few hours seems real shady, the way the donations were trending.

:tinfoil: Speculation Station Warning :tinfoil:
Yeah, there's something really hosed up there. A spike like that, you might think someone donated a huge chunk, but there's only one backer over $400, at the $2500 tier. Almost all of the big reward tiers are completely unclaimed.

So, it's all cool, right? There's been no obvious massive sudden donation. Well, here's the other problem. The average is all hosed up. As of yesterday, the average per backer was around $50-$80. So far today they've received 91 backers and $28,000. So, of the new backers, they're instead averaging over $300 per backer.

Now, that would be fine on its own, it would just mean the big backers had been waiting until the end. Big problem, though. There have only been FIVE rewards claimed above $300. That's out of 91 high-roller backers. With a $300 average, there are either a ton of backers around the $300 level, or a smaller but still large number of backers at really high levels. However, there is only a SINGLE backer above $400. The other 90 backers from today would have still averaged $283, and there are still only 11 rewards claimed above $200.

Sure, it's possible they decided they didn't want any of the fancy upper-level rewards. But what is STILL odd is that there is a $125 tier that would give you access to the private vertical slice, and it's only gotten claimed by 12 people. So even though these high-paying backers from today think this game is so great they want to invest hundreds of dollars, they're not interested in playing it any time soon.

So we're left with a few situations. Either dozens of backers all flocked in today with hundreds of dollars each, and decided they only wanted one of the low reward tiers, or no reward at all. Or, a single, or small number of backers, donated many thousands of dollars each, and also decided not to receive any of the expensive rewards. That scenario would actually match up with the numbers pretty much perfectly - if you assume 1 person donated $20,000, the average shifts back down to $66, which is in line with what it was yesterday.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Shalinor posted:

I'm still convinced that Republique did the very same thing, they just masked it better. If you look at their KickTraq trend line, it has a few really strange vertical spikes that don't track at all with media attention. I think they just did a better job of hiding it / they broke their feed donations down into multiple bits instead.


EDIT: VV drat. The cyberpunk thing really is blatant.

I'm not even sure how I feel about this. I guess it's the sneakiness about it that's troubling. Maybe something that would be really cool would be if there was a built-in system to opt-back into a failed Kickstarter and give your money even though it failed.

Occupation posted:

So, let's check back in on that Penny Arcade "pay us so we don't run ads" kickstarter, being that it has a mere 25 hours left.

Oh it's at 480k. Only one word to say to that: Ugh. :smith:

Eh, it just doesn't bother me if established creators use Kickstarters to move towards crowdfunding as an alternative revenue source. But I understand why people don't want them to do it on Kickstarter. Still kind of curious on your mindset, though. Like, would it have been okay if they were doing this with a new project?

Like, let's say a well established TV or filmmaker wants to create a new TV series. They're well established enough that they could get it on network TV if they wanted, and people would be able to view that content for free in an ad-supported format. However, instead, they decide to pitch it as a Kickstarter, offering to give the show out for free online, no ads, if people want to pay for it instead.

Or, a second situation, it's a current show instead of a new one. It's already on TV, but they decide to try moving online, ad-free, via Kickstarter crowdfunding.

What would you think of these scenarios? Genuinely curious. Would they be better if there was another crowdfunding site that was for already-established projects that want to move to crowdfunding?

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Synival posted:

Yeah, virtually none of the art in the video is what I want to use. The character I'm using is something I whipped-up for demonstration. It bothers me when homebrew / indie games throw up programmer art and call it good, but good art is crazy expensive, so I get it. Still, bad sprites drive me nuts, and it turns me off from a lot of projects. So yeah, I want things to look good.
Gonna need to give your Kickstarter another look. Little embarrassed to say that I skimmed through that video and sorta wrote it off because of those programmer graphics. I mean, not that I only play games that look cool, but I sometimes take rough art as a sign of how much the developers care about the quality of the game. With all the praise here, and you saying you want to hire someone for art, I feel a lot better.

Occupation posted:

It really isn't, considering the level of effort to complete the project is literally deleting jpgs. Yeah, maybe those jpgs are a big source of revenue but the effort investment, itself, is deleting some images. As in: there is none.

Alright, that's true that removing the ads will be easy enough that you could call it zero effort.

Oh wait I forgot about that thing when they also have to make a year's worth of comics too

That second situation that you said you'd be okay with (a TV show moving to crowdfunding for the next season) is identical to what PA is doing.

XboxPants fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Aug 14, 2012

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Occupation posted:

Oh wait that's what you meant? Well, despite it being a literal impossibility with the current TV production model (unless they wanted to start like a ten million dollar ks, and even then it probably wouldn't be enough), no, I wouldn't really be cool with a showrunner or production studio trying to crowdfund a season they were gonna bankroll anyways.

Alright then, that's a reasonable opinion, I can't easily say anything wrong with it. I just disagree, for various reasons. :unsmith:

Probably the main one being the effect that courting advertisers sometimes has on the media that gets produced. Though, I say that as a general concept, not that I necessarily think PA has an issue there.

LumberingTroll posted:

Alright conspiracy theorists, explain this.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/seanpollman/kinetic-void/

We got something like 45% of our funding in the last day, does that mean that I bankrolled it to get $34k?

I thought that went without saying. :haw: (if you're actually serious, your average backer gave $26 [instead of $108], which actually matches up to the selected rewards)

XboxPants fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Aug 14, 2012

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

applesaucers posted:

Here's a thing Chewbot wrote about the kickstarter he worked on. If I were you I'd ask for mod permission to start a thread for it, as there's likely a lot of people who'd be interested but don't follow this thread.

Thanks for that, I was looking for that article recently but couldn't find it.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

graventy posted:

Chris Crawford can bitch all he wants but that educational game looked loving boring. In a way, he's right, because that's what Kickstarter was once good at.

Even then I disagree. Just because his heart is in the right place doesn't mean it's a good project. A boring-rear end game, even if it teaches the deepest, most profound lessons ever, isn't going to do anyone any good 'cause no one's going to play it.

To contribute some actual content, here's a good link for browsing Kickstarter for video games: http://www.kicktraq.com/categories/games/video%20games/

Kicktraq may be retarded for predicting KS campaigns, but there are things that it is good for. KS has terrible browse, search, & filter capabilities (probably intentionally) but Kicktraq keeps a great index and lets you do way better stuff than KS does. KS lets you check out categories, but then limits what you can see there based on what's doing well. Sure, 90%+ of the time you don't wanna see the lovely failing Kickstarters, but there are cool things that slip through the cracks.

Most days I'll go on there and just list them by date, so I can check what new games have been thrown up.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Sankis posted:

It's literally the EXACT same layout, same tab placement, etc but HEY GUYS GAMES!!! themed.

Not really. It's much closer to indiegogo, really - http://www.indiegogo.com/pamplemousse?a=856676

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

The Cheshire Cat posted:

This is what bugs me about Greenlight as well. I don't see the point in having projects on there that are not only incomplete, but may not even BE completed. I thought the whole point was to use it to decide what goes on the Steam store; you can't buy a game that doesn't exist, so why can we vote for it?

I gotta imagine that's always how it has worked. I can't imagine publishers only started talking to Steam once their game went gold. You gotta get that secured earlier than that.

Yeah, there's a line between a playable, work-in-progress 70% completed build, and something that looks like it only have mock-up screenshots, but that's kind of what we're being used for, here. If games are too early, vote them down. I don't see anything that indicates that games that are poorly received get removed from Greenlight. If the dev improves their entry later, they can get upvotes then.

I do very deeply wish there was just something like an "ignore for [x] months" button, though. Like you say, there is a ton of really early stuff. Stuff that you honestly can't make an up or down vote on whether the finished product will be worth selling. If I just downvote it, then if that developer improves it later, I don't easily get a chance to even see that. But if I just leave it unvoted, now it's clogging up my queue of games.

Yeah, I wish there was an option to ignore, with a dropdown for how long.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Al! posted:

Sounds exactly like Dragonball Z to me.

I dunno, lots of dialog and "revolving around characters" sounds pretty much as far away from DBZ as you could get. But I never read that far into Homestuck (well, relatively) so maybe it is just one big battle after another.

For some actual content, I almost feel like they'd be better off not focusing too much in trying to make some kind of amazing unique adventure game systems and just focusing on the story aspect, since that's basically the core of what people like Homestuck for anyway.

XboxPants fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Sep 6, 2012

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Axegrinder posted:

Here's a very promising project:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1035580424/blackspace-plan-dig-defend-survive?ref=category

An RTS/base defense game set on a spherical asteroid, with deformable terrain. You control a general-purpose lunar-lander-style construction vehicle, with the ability to lift buildings up and drop them where you want. Professional pitch video, too.

This is scratching itches I didn't know I had.

Well holy poo poo, sign me up on this. Outpost was basically my go-to PC game for years and this looks like an amazingly progressed version of that.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

mutata posted:

This might be good for hardware and tech, but it's freaking draconian ridiculous for any other physical product like plastic phone covers or holders or stuffed animals or whatever. For those projects, the whole idea is to fund the cost 80% of which is molds or initial setup costs. Seems like a "baby with the bathwater" situation.

In a way I do agree with you, but there are things you can do to get around it. For instance, as you say getting molds created so that you can create the item is one of the things you might want to use KS to fund, but even without that, you can create a hand-built prototype. In most situations there's going to be something physical that you could create without a heavy cost.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

mutata posted:

Maybe in some cases, but not nearly all. Plus, the wording outlaws ALL renders, so you can't even post mockups of what you're shooting for. They should've just put a big red text disclaimer wall on pledging that said "THIS PRODUCT MIGHT NEVER BE DELIVERED" and put the decision in the backers' hands, not cripple physical product makers.

I'm only angry because I've been putting a physical product project together that will be impossible to make a prototype for without throwing down for mold making so suddenly Kickstarter is out. I guess there's always other sites...

Ooh, interesting, any hints as to what kind of project it is? Couldn't you at least order a 3D print from somewhere? The way I read the new rules, it's only digital mock-ups that are prohibited. I mean, hell, seems to me like you could build a 1/10 scale wooden refrigerator model and use photos of that for your project, claiming it's a design prototype, just so long as it's not a 3D render. I'm interested in what you'd make that it will be truly impossible to make a model like that for.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

mutata posted:

I'm designing some glass stemware (drinking glasses), but with elements on them that rules out traditional glass blowing methods, so they'd need to be poured. I'm playing with design while researching production and legal junk, just to see if it's even reasonably possible, so it's not like I'm getting ready to launch anything.

I guess a 3D print would be feasible, I suppose, although clunky and not really at all indicative of the final product. More importantly, I think it would hurt the visual appeal that potential backers would respond to. To produce a prototype in real glass would essentially require molds and crap to be made, which is big bucks which is why I was considering Kickstarter to begin with.

Anyway, this is a kind-of-derail. Basically, I disagree with their new rules and while it may discourage some less clever scammers, I think it mostly just needlessly forces legitimate projects to jump through silly hoops.

Ah. That actually makes a lot of sense. I didn't even consider that some materials are harder to simulate than others. Like, in this instance, you could make something out of a cheap transparent plastic but it would kind of look like poo poo (in comparison, anyway) and if a large part of the point of your project is to look very much UNshit, well, like you said, it'd be somewhere between useless and actually harmful.

So, in a way this is a derail, but it's also a good demonstration of how these rules could negatively effect people that actually have a legitimate project. I think that these guidelines would more or less make sense, so long as Kickstarter was willing to talk to project people and grant exemptions where appropriate. Man, it's all a bit of a mess, eh?

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

The Cheshire Cat posted:

Considering that they're allowing people to make actual investments rather than just donations, that's not far off from the truth.

Well on the video on that link that explains the site, the spokesperson pronounces it like "gamble", and the word "gambit" is directly included in the title so I'm pretty sure that it is intentional. I guess you could argue that they're going for "gambit" as opposed to "gamble" but that's a pretty fine distinction to make.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

LumberingTroll posted:

See I never understand that, no one ever complains about there being too many fantasy games, but the second a few sci-fi / space games come out everyone is worried about a saturated market. I loving hate fantasy.

See, I don't hate "fantasy", per se. Problem is that "fantasy" almost always means Western European Medieval/Tolkien fantasy. There are so many other types of fantasy you could do. You could use other real-world cultures' mythologies. You could set it in a different era; a caveman or tribal fantasy setting could be freakin' awesome. Zeno Clash is a good example of that. Rival Threads, too. Or, hell, just don't even involve humans.

If the settings were genuinely a bit more distinctive, they wouldn't feel so repetitive.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

MikeJF posted:

Is it possible they might hook into Google Play for the hard stuff of the buying/distributing itself, and have selecting a game for purchase basically just launch the Play purchase page? I don't believe it'd be unknown or against the Play rights of use, and I think Google'll let you restrict apps to one device.

Well, if they did that, they wouldn't be able to take a cut off the profits on purchases unless it was an ADDITIONAL 30% on top of the existing Google play fee. Which, I mean, I guess that's "possible".

Doesn't look like the direction they're going, though.

XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Transient People posted:

Pretty much, yeah. People dislike his overhyping, but it's not like he's lying to everybody to get his game to sell. It's more like he always tries to make the Game of the Forever and of course misses the mark.

Yeah, his reach does almost always exceed his grasp. And as a result, the games he makes are hugely flawed and don't make for the best products. But, maybe that's not the worst thing. He comes up with all these amazing ideas, and puts them out there in a huge way that no one can ignore... but doesn't finish them. The influence those games, and other incomplete, flawed masterworks like them, have on the field is pretty huge.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say he's some noble hero who's doing that on purpose, or anything. Nor am I saying anyone should back his game because it might be so bad that it would inspire someone else to make a better one, hah. I'm not planning on backing. And it would probably be better if the games were just made well to begin with.

But, people going out there, trying to build impossible games, and failing spectacularly? Maybe some of that is a good thing.

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XboxPants
Jan 30, 2006

Steven doesn't want me watching him sleep anymore.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

That may be the closest a failed kickstarter has ever been to succeeding. $28 off is insanely close.

Whaaaat the hell. That is insane. There's gotta be some way he could work something out with Kickstarter. :smith: Get someone to e-mail kickstarter and say they tried to donate and the site bugged out at the last minute. tinaun, you should do that.

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