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DeathBySpoon
Dec 17, 2007

I got myself a paper clip!

PxlWrm posted:

A question: Does $95k seem like too much to ask for on Kickstarter for a game like this, assuming our video/demo isn't crap? We've crunched the numbers and we just can't make the game we want for less. In fact, now we need to ask for $95k + $9.95 because of this forum membership!

Let's go back to the original question. If you're going to get defensive instead of showing promising work and demonstrating why people should give you money then yes, $95k is too much. I'm ~6 months into my project, just barely about to enter alpha, and only now am I thinking about whether I should seek outside funding or finish it as a part time project. You can't expect people to fund your work with no prior portfolio, especially if you deflect honest requests from potential customers to see any reason at all that they should buy your game.

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Yodzilla
Apr 29, 2005

Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch

JossiRossi posted:

Keep it up and you'll join the illustrious ranks of These Guys.

BobMarleyCraft noooo.

Babby Sathanas
May 16, 2006

bearbating is now adorable
It's worth knowing, PxlWrm, that you're getting honest and concerned answers here and you should take them on board instead of being flippant and dismissive. This thread is not going to be the echo chamber that you find on most other sites and it's valuable for that reason.

--

So I'm on the final-final-final stretch for my first finished project and just realised that I want to get a handful of people to at least see if it runs on their machines before I start asking for money for it.

Will this thread be able to give me a hand with that? When I package it up in the next couple days even just running the demo and telling me the title screen shows up will be enough. I'll need Windows and Linux users. (It's about 50~MB.)

Otherwise, are there better places for me to go to find free QA testers?

mutata
Mar 1, 2003

Yeah, your constant defensive attitude is the biggest red flag to me, more so than any of the discussed details. We all want to make a billion dollars on Kickstarter and make cool games, but there are prerequisites, proper procedures, limitations, and a lot of work up front that goes into it. You aren't willing to admit that you haven't figured it all out and take criticism in the thread where you asked for criticism, and that makes me doubt you guys. Sorry!

JossiRossi
Jul 28, 2008

A little EQ, a touch of reverb, slap on some compression and there. That'll get your dickbutt jiggling.

Babby Sathanas posted:

So I'm on the final-final-final stretch for my first finished project and just realised that I want to get a handful of people to at least see if it runs on their machines before I start asking for money for it.

Will this thread be able to give me a hand with that? When I package it up in the next couple days even just running the demo and telling me the title screen shows up will be enough. I'll need Windows and Linux users. (It's about 50~MB.)

Otherwise, are there better places for me to go to find free QA testers?

I can't hurt to hit up the IRC

quote:


There's a gamedevgoon IRC channel, its irc://irc.synirc.org/sagamedev. Get in.

Can also just post here too naturally. People will likely play it.

Babby Sathanas
May 16, 2006

bearbating is now adorable

JossiRossi posted:

I can't hurt to hit up the IRC

I keep forgetting that's a thing and that I should be idling in it constantly.

PxlWrm
Jul 23, 2014

I was hoping for better feedback...
I don't think it's an honest and concerned answer when I'm told don't try to ever get money to fund game development until the entire game is completely done, that's what I was flippant about. I guess it's *possible* the two people really believe that no incomplete game should ever get funding...

I am considering people's advice, if anyone feels I've ignored their advice (other than about giving details I can't give without my business partners' consent) then I'm sorry, please point out the advice I ignored, maybe I somehow missed it?

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
There's some question of realistic schedules here. The person who said you needed to spend 12 months working on the project specified that amount of time because they thought that was a realistic (optimistic, even) amount of time to spend on a project before you'd be able to reasonably claim that you'll be able to finish a project of Metroidvania-levels of scope. 2 months to be able to set up a Kickstarter sounds incredibly (i.e. foolishly) optimistic. Even someone like Carmack would have trouble going from a bare project to a playable demo in that kind of time.

Now, obviously you aren't working on your own, while I get the impression most people here are solo developers (though there are some teams here, absolutely). If you reasonably think you can iron everything out in two months and be able to show people something that would get them excited enough to fund you, then by all means prove us wrong. But realize that you have to be a major statistical outlier to pull that off.

JossiRossi
Jul 28, 2008

A little EQ, a touch of reverb, slap on some compression and there. That'll get your dickbutt jiggling.

PxlWrm posted:

I don't think it's an honest and concerned answer when I'm told don't try to ever get money to fund game development until the entire game is completely done, that's what I was flippant about. I guess it's *possible* the two people really believe that no incomplete game should ever get funding...

That's not what was being said at all. Instead it was that you'll want solid development time invested before you kickstart. How many good metroidvania games were made in less than 12? Less than 24? How many good games that have aspirations as high as yours have been made in under a year, period? By people who apparently have no prior catalog? I hate to say this but you guys are probably going to have to get real jobs and make your game part time. Your intentions are really really out of whack with the reality of making a game deserving of 100k from Kickstarter.

Shalinor
Jun 10, 2002

Can I buy you a rootbeer?

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Now, obviously you aren't working on your own, while I get the impression most people here are solo developers (though there are some teams here, absolutely). If you reasonably think you can iron everything out in two months and be able to show people something that would get them excited enough to fund you, then by all means prove us wrong. But realize that you have to be a major statistical outlier to pull that off.
It's honestly that team size that is making this impractical.

The way we all make games on what we can make via Kickstarter (that sub $40k range) is by being lean, small teams. We ask for barest survival burn rate, and it's generally only enough for one or two people to go full time for a year.

The issue, duder, is that what you're asking yourself isn't "how can I make the game that I could fund on Kickstarter." You're saying "why can't Kickstarter fund the game I want to make within the budget I have." You're kinda ignoring the advice we're giving you, and instead wishing/assuming Kickstarter is the perfect vehicle to fund your dream game. Which it just isn't. It's unfair, super hard and, yes, with most of the successful big kickstarters - you're looking at a prototype that a team spent at least 4 months on, then probably another month on the Kickstarter prep and video et al itself. More often than not, the prototype took more like 6 months, or sometimes a year. For the unknown indies that raise a lot of money? Their games are halfway finished already, that's why they show so well.

If you were wanting to raise a reasonable $20k, even $40k, we'd be giving different, more positive advice. $100k+, though, is that range where polish is HUGELY important - and you just don't get that on a shoestring budget over a few months.

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jul 25, 2014

PxlWrm
Jul 23, 2014

I was hoping for better feedback...

JossiRossi posted:

By people who apparently have no prior catalog?

Just to clarify here, since this is the second time it was mentioned - as a team we've shipped two complete games, as part of the company we all came from, though to be fair one of those games was just a three month mobile project. One of those games had 100,000 downloads in a month, but didn't make a lick of money, which is why the company shut down. Before that I've shipped over 15 commercial games of all genres, and while the other guys are new to the industry, the artist has worked on many commercial non-game-related projects

PxlWrm fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jul 25, 2014

Gromit
Aug 15, 2000

I am an oppressed White Male, Asian women wont serve me! Save me Campbell Newman!!!!!!!
Can you name titles or companies you and your team worked for? If not, I would take whatever you said with a grain of salt.
I'm not asking you to do it here, I mean if I was reading a Kickstarter page on the subject.

That is to say, I'd be more inclined to put up some cash for a game "From the maker of Paradroid and Uridium" than for "we've made loads of great games already, but we're not telling you what they were!"

JossiRossi
Jul 28, 2008

A little EQ, a touch of reverb, slap on some compression and there. That'll get your dickbutt jiggling.

PxlWrm posted:

Just to clarify here, since this is the second time it was mentioned - as a team we've shipped two complete games, as part of the company we all came from, though to be fair one of those games was just a three month mobile project. One of those games had 100,000 downloads in a month, but didn't make a lick of money, which is why the company shut down. Before that I've shipped over 15 commercial games of all genres, and while the other guys are new to the industry, the artist has worked on many commercial non-game-related projects

I'll believe it when I see it. Simple as that. Is it so hard to actually prove you can rub two bytes together and make a jumpy jump or shooty shoot?

You have given absolutely no info about you or your project. If you actually want advice instead of a "go team" hugbox then give us literally even a single piece of solid info to work with.

If you just want a dev hugbox there is the IRC. We usually have fun there.

Shalinor
Jun 10, 2002

Can I buy you a rootbeer?

PxlWrm posted:

Just to clarify here, since this is the second time it was mentioned - as a team we've shipped two complete games, as part of the company we all came from, though to be fair one of those games was just a three month mobile project. One of those games had 100,000 downloads in a month, but didn't make a lick of money, which is why the company shut down. Before that I've shipped over 15 commercial games of all genres, and while the other guys are new to the industry, the artist has worked on many commercial non-game-related projects
That doesn't work. The "2,000 years of collective AAA experience and 500 collective shipped titles!" pitch stopped working back in, hell, 2012 Kickstarter? It doesn't matter what you've done before. What matters is the number and quality of games you have shipped with your precise current team, in its current configuration / under your current studio name. (EDIT: Ask me how I know that it stopped working in 2012 :()

The only way to make that work still is to be a Tim Schafer or whatever, and have some REALLY big titles under your belt (as a design director or similar topmost role).

EDIT: I should say, it matters in that it'll be what lets you at least approach a $40k ask / it's why you'll be able to make a halfway decent prototype, but it doesn't "can ask for $100k+" matter in today's Kickstarter market.

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Jul 25, 2014

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug
There is a saying among comedians; "You are only as funny as your last joke."

al-azad
May 28, 2009



To put things in perspective, Kentucky Route Zero made $8500 entirely on a promise and I'm still surprised it made it that high. A 2D Metroidvania from a group of relative no-names is not going to make 100k unless there are ingame screenshots, a kickass video, a complete breakdown on where the money is going in development, and the 8th son of an 8th son is born on the same day.

This isn't an attack on your character, this is reality. Your kickstarter will fail.

Shalinor
Jun 10, 2002

Can I buy you a rootbeer?

al-azad posted:

and the 8th son of an 8th son is born on the same day.
It's the 7th son of the 7th son FFFFFFFF :ssj:

(I did kind of like Alan Maker, at least until the introduction of the literal magical red man)

EDIT: In game related news, I just finished the Clues system for Hot Tin Roof. It works kind of like the memory system in Resonance, or the notebook in Blackwell. (slightly old image, but that's still roughly how it looks, so hey)



The idea is, any clue you pick up becomes a polaroid. So no goofy separate inventory for physical items VS dialog-discovered clues, everything is "just a clue", which makes interacting with them easier. You CAN'T use clues on other clues, but you CAN ask Franky about certain clues. Sometimes that's how you resolve a clue, other times it reveals additional information about the clue which helps you figure out what to do with it (but it's optional in those cases, if players happen to make the logical leap / take the "rub everything on everything else" approach instead of asking Franky).

One example of a required Franky interaction might be: find a rag with a blood stain on it, ask her about it, she tells you it smells like Bob. She's your mobile crime lab. Now you can go accuse Bob of it / you know it's his. If you asked before, he'd just go "it isn't mine!".

You also don't even get the prompt with NPCs to "Ask about..." unless you physically have a clue they have something to do with, and you can only ask NPCs about clues they have something to do with / the option isn't even there otherwise, so the actual amount of rubbing everything on everything else is greatly reduced. I stopped shy of making Clue-related NPCs flash bright neon or whatever, but, it should at least be way less frustrating than classic adventure games.

EDIT2: Dang, I really need to read Pratchett :( True story: once I set out to read Disc World, but accidentally grabbed Ring World instead. Great mistake though, Ring World turned out to be fantastic sci-fi :keke:.

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Jul 25, 2014

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

Shalinor posted:

It's the 7th son of the 7th son FFFFFFFF :ssj:

It could have been a Pratchett reference :v: (Sourcery is about what happens when you get an 8th son of an 8th son, if I recall correctly; certainly Pratchett is all about dem 8's)

EDIT: VVVVV replace every 7 with an 8 and you'd be right, instead of wrong, like you are :smuggo:

TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jul 25, 2014

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

It could have been a Pratchett reference :v: (Sourcery is about what happens when you get an 8th son of an 8th son, if I recall correctly; certainly Pratchett is all about dem 8's)

Well, no. You can only become a wizard as a seventh son of a seventh son. Sourcerers, who are sources of magic rather than practitioners of it, are seventh sons of seventh sons of seventh sons. They're like wizards squared. It's why wizards are required to be celibate. Bad poo poo tends to happen when you get a sourcerer on Discworld. Granted insane poo poo happens constantly on Discworld but y'know.

Though Pratchett also had some fun with that by having a wizard who was about to die mistakenly transfer his powers to a seventh daughter of a seventh son.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



ToxicSlurpee posted:

Well, no. You can only become a wizard as a seventh son of a seventh son. Sourcerers, who are sources of magic rather than practitioners of it, are seventh sons of seventh sons of seventh sons. They're like wizards squared. It's why wizards are required to be celibate. Bad poo poo tends to happen when you get a sourcerer on Discworld. Granted insane poo poo happens constantly on Discworld but y'know.

Though Pratchett also had some fun with that by having a wizard who was about to die mistakenly transfer his powers to a seventh daughter of a seventh son.

It's definitely 8. 8 is the magic number in Discworld.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

al-azad posted:

It's definitely 8. 8 is the magic number in Discworld.

Oh, you're right, it is 8th of 8th. Yeah, 8 is usually the magic number but for some reason I was thinking 7th of 7th. Must have my fiction crossed. Sorry!

al-azad
May 28, 2009



7 is the normal number but Pratchett likes 8 and so do I.

Stick100
Mar 18, 2003

PxlWrm posted:

Just to clarify here, since this is the second time it was mentioned - as a team we've shipped two complete games, as part of the company we all came from, though to be fair one of those games was just a three month mobile project. One of those games had 100,000 downloads in a month, but didn't make a lick of money, which is why the company shut down. Before that I've shipped over 15 commercial games of all genres, and while the other guys are new to the industry, the artist has worked on many commercial non-game-related projects

At the risk of repeating myself. What's the team? What has this team worked on exactly, and how exactly did you reach the 95k figure does that include the 10-15% Amazon cut? We are trying to help and you're being as cagey and evasive as a kid telling me that his uncle works at Nintendo. If you intend to Kickstart in 2 months then all this information is going to come out soon anyway.

As Shalindor (probably our best Kickstarter resource) said our biggest concern is the size of the team (4), the schedule (12 months) a requirement for outside resources (art and music).

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

al-azad posted:

Your kickstarter will fail.

Yeah we're getting to where the hard truths just have to come out, he isn't hearing us.

PxlWrm posted:

Just to clarify here, since this is the second time it was mentioned - as a team we've shipped two complete games, as part of the company we all came from, though to be fair one of those games was just a three month mobile project. One of those games had 100,000 downloads in a month, but didn't make a lick of money, which is why the company shut down. Before that I've shipped over 15 commercial games of all genres, and while the other guys are new to the industry, the artist has worked on many commercial non-game-related projects

I dunno man, you're sounding remarkably naive about the whole process for somebody who has shipped two complete games.
You are not ready for kickstarter just yet.
Or launch it anyways, and watch it fail, I guess, and then launch another one with lower goals in a month like everybody else does :v:

But dude, you paid :10bux: to get on this forum just to ask our advise, and then when we give it you tell us that we're wrong and you know what you're doing. Uh, okay dude, but then why post in the first place? Alarm bells are ringing.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

It could have been a Pratchett reference :v: (Sourcery is about what happens when you get an 8th son of an 8th son, if I recall correctly; certainly Pratchett is all about dem 8's)

EDIT: VVVVV replace every 7 with an 8 and you'd be right, instead of wrong, like you are :smuggo:

You mean 8th child of an 8th son :wink: I loved Sourcery. Or wait, was that Equal Rites? I always mix up Pratchett books together.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jul 25, 2014

Poniard
Apr 3, 2011



I'm never going to get anywhere making a game because I'm scared shitless and refuse to show anyone anything, too.

Stick100
Mar 18, 2003

Poniard posted:

I'm never going to get anywhere making a game because I'm scared shitless and refuse to show anyone anything, too.

Not that I've had any success but I'd say do the exact opposite and just make and poo poo stuff out onto Kongregate/Itunes/Android/Windows Phone/Windows 8 App store. Just make sure to put some kind of analytics into it so you can see what (if anything) gets traction.

If you want a place where people are super gentle (and you can get a ton of attention for horrible games) make games for Windows Phone they get so little attention they will fall all over you for the weakest of clones.

This helped me start to push through:

http://www.mcwade.com/DesignTalk/2011/04/nobody-tells-this-to-beginners/

From Ira Glass . . .
“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have."

Also I had to get over the idea that Derek Yu, Vlambeer, Team Meat all hit that level after thier first game. They each have tons of failed/partial games.

Make stuff and put it out there warts and all!

demota
Aug 12, 2003

I could read between the lines. They wanted to see the alien.
I've decided to live in a state of permanent game jam. Nobody expects anything polished out of those, and you have a nice deadline to help motivate you. I'm hoping this accelerates the process of becoming decent to something within a year.

My main fear is burning myself out.

Poniard
Apr 3, 2011



I've had writer's block for developers, if there's a term for that. I wrote down all this super duper cool ideas guy stuffTM for what would be a magnum opus (that would horribly crash and burn) but now I can't think of anything else.

Shalinor
Jun 10, 2002

Can I buy you a rootbeer?

Poniard posted:

I've had writer's block for developers, if there's a term for that. I wrote down all this super duper cool ideas guy stuffTM for what would be a magnum opus (that would horribly crash and burn) but now I can't think of anything else.
Game jam. Do idea clouds. Make random poo poo.

Idea clouds work period, though. Go to a whiteboard, and based on the theme handed you (use a random game idea generator if you're not at a jam), just start writing random words and phrases that are related to the theme in your mind. Don't think too hard about why they're related, just write them down (this is related to free association writing). After you've filled the whiteboard, start wiping off really obvious boring words, and find the more interesting ones. Now cluster the remaining words based on the ones that fit together. Pick your favorite cluster, and make that game.

Idea clouds / free association writing are mechanical processes that anyone can do, that are very good at breaking writer's block. Don't make excuses, make games. :haw:

EDIT: (and yes, this really works - it's how I ended up making New Herald Post this year at GGJ... weird game about an old dude drinking and reading a paper full of liberal media)

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jul 25, 2014

Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



Zaphod42 posted:

Yeah we're getting to where the hard truths just have to come out, he isn't hearing us.

Let's try to make this more concrete, PxlWrm: take a look at Sumoboy. This is a well-done Kickstarter. It has a colorful graphical presentation, plenty of information about the game (including shots of a well-polished alpha), praise from various media sources, a notarized summary of expenses, and a team of experienced industry veterans. It was asking for $100,000 and had less than $10,000 pledged before it ended.

One of the things that you'll notice when looking through a lot of the wildly successful Kickstarters within your expected funding range is that very few of them actually ask for $100,000 to start with. My suspicion is that people are more skeptical about sending money towards a project with a large funding goal (unless the aforementioned big personalities or unique concepts are there), simply because it seems unlikely that it will actually be reached. The most well-funded projects are ones with smaller initial goals who, through word of mouth and the buildup of hype, are able to shoot past them.

Check out Timespinners, which is basically a direct competitor to the game you're looking to make. It was successful based largely on what I can only assume was pre-Kickstarter hype (it was already halfway funded by the time its first day finished) and the strength of its presentation, and gradually grew from there. It has a small, lean team (one guy doing all of programming and art with some sound people working alongside him, which is a fairly common scenario in a lot of smaller indie games) and a functional, polished alpha on display. You're asking for $45k more than what they did. I just don't think it's realistic.

The advice that people are giving you here is sound advice that you should heed: you cannot go into a Kickstarter half-cocked hoping to succeed off of the strength of your dreams. Dreams are cheap. You need to do serious research into the kind of pledges you can hope to get at the stage where your new studio is at, and the attributes that make a successful Kickstarter.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug
I think the other issue is that platformers, shmups, and metroidvanias have been done to death. Saying "well yeah it's X but with a twist you've never seen before!" has been heard roughly 87 billion times. Word are cheap. You want people to believe them? Give them a reason to.

Babby Sathanas
May 16, 2006

bearbating is now adorable
The thread is unlikely to give any real advice until PxlWrm creates the Kickstarter and gives us a pre-launch preview of it. Please do this ASAP PxlWrm.

PxlWrm
Jul 23, 2014

I was hoping for better feedback...
Working on it.

Stick100 posted:

At the risk of repeating myself. What's the team? What has this team worked on exactly, and how exactly did you reach the 95k figure does that include the 10-15% Amazon cut?
I didn't think it really mattered to say exactly where I've worked, just to explain how much experience the team has. If you really want more detail I can give my background: Before I started at this company I worked for Griptonite Games (aka Amaze Entertainment) from the GBC era through the 3DS era and then on to mobile, a company that did work-for-hire for publishers concentrating on handheld Nintendo platforms. That company also became part of Foundation 9 at one point and later Glu Mobile. I've worked on handheld games based on Harry Potter, Assassin's Creed, Spyro the Dragon, Star Wars, Neo Pets, Lego Bionicle, The Sims, Atari arcade classics, Magic: The Gathering, many movie licenses, and some original IP mobile games. As the majority of those games were for Nintendo handhelds, the majority of my work has been in 2D, much of that making sidescrollers, platformers, and a bazillion minigames.

The $95k value came from the minimum for each of us to survive on for 8 months (rent, food, bills) totaling $76k, plus $6000 for background art, $3000 for sound and music (we do have a musician lined up now), $500 for incidentals (Unity plugins and whatnot), and $9.5k for Kickstarter/Amazon fees/pledge dropouts. And we will have some extra money leftover from the budget we are using to create the prototype/demo, Kickstarter video and PR that we can use for unforseen expenses/emergencies.

Polio Vax Scene
Apr 5, 2009



PxlWrm posted:

Working on it.

I didn't think it really mattered to say exactly where I've worked, just to explain how much experience the team has. If you really want more detail I can give my background: Before I started at this company I worked for Griptonite Games (aka Amaze Entertainment) from the GBC era through the 3DS era and then on to mobile, a company that did work-for-hire for publishers concentrating on handheld Nintendo platforms. That company also became part of Foundation 9 at one point and later Glu Mobile. I've worked on handheld games based on Harry Potter, Assassin's Creed, Spyro the Dragon, Star Wars, Neo Pets, Lego Bionicle, The Sims, Atari arcade classics, Magic: The Gathering, many movie licenses, and some original IP mobile games. As the majority of those games were for Nintendo handhelds, the majority of my work has been in 2D, much of that making sidescrollers, platformers, and a bazillion minigames.

The $95k value came from the minimum for each of us to survive on for 8 months (rent, food, bills) totaling $76k, plus $6000 for background art, $3000 for sound and music (we do have a musician lined up now), $500 for incidentals (Unity plugins and whatnot), and $9.5k for Kickstarter/Amazon fees/pledge dropouts. And we will have some extra money leftover from the budget we are using to create the prototype/demo, Kickstarter video and PR that we can use for unforseen expenses/emergencies.

Huh, this sounds familiar...

e: not saying that you are the guy, not enough hehs in your posts, but your situation sounds similar

Polio Vax Scene fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jul 25, 2014

Stick100
Mar 18, 2003

PxlWrm posted:

I didn't think it really mattered to say exactly where I've worked, just to explain how much experience the team has.

Thanks that helps us answer your question.

It matters because a very your question (can I raise $95k) is entirely dependent on your audience believing that you will finish a high quality game.

For example, if you're some guy who has played wing commander and wants to make one you can probably get $100 on kick starter.

If you have 5 years experience making games and want to make a new wing commander you might get more.

If you are Chris Roberts and want to make a Wing Commander you can get $60 million. So a large part of difference (obviously only a part however) between $100 and $60,000,000 is who you are.

Stick100
Mar 18, 2003

PxlWrm posted:

The $95k value came from the minimum for each of us to survive on for 8 months (rent, food, bills) totaling $76k, plus $6000 for background art, $3000 for sound and music (we do have a musician lined up now), $500 for incidentals (Unity plugins and whatnot), and $9.5k for Kickstarter/Amazon fees/pledge dropouts. And we will have some extra money leftover from the budget we are using to create the prototype/demo, Kickstarter video and PR that we can use for unforseen expenses/emergencies.

Good news that's $2,375 per person per month. Unemployment will pay nearly that much anyway (depending on your state). I believe my state capped out near $1742. It sounds like you might not need a kickstarter at all. You will of course have to apply for work and accept any position you get offered.

Axiem
Oct 19, 2005

I want to leave my mind blank, but I'm terrified of what will happen if I do

PxlWrm posted:

A question: Does $95k seem like too much to ask for on Kickstarter for a game like this, assuming our video/demo isn't crap?

Yes.

My observation is that Kickstarter works best for the last 10% of a product. Let's look at another field: board games. The more successful Kickstarters tend to happen when the game is already made; printing takes a lot of upfront cost and Kickstarter takes care of that. Basically, people pre-pay for the game in order to fund its very printing, but the game is already made (or is in the final stages of playtesting), and Kickstarter takes the role of changing the time at which money is exchanged for physical goods.

Bringing it back to video games, one successful Kickstarter I saw was someone who was asking for a fairly small amount. He had already gotten a game to 95%, but he needed to buy a new computer and mobile device to fully test the game. He got the money raised to buy the equipment, and released the game. But he had started with a mostly complete and demonstrable product. Again, Kickstarter changed the time at which money was exchanged for goods to before-the-fact rather than after-the-fact.

Fundamentally, as a consumer of goods, I only put down money for a future good if there is a promise that I will receive goods within a reasonable amount of time, such as at a McDonalds where I pay before my food is given to me. Or pre-ordering a DVD that will be released soon: I have an expectation from Amazon on the timing of that release. I don't put money down on a speculation that goods will be delivered at some point in the future--which at this point, people who want to fund game Kickstarters will generally feel. Without a good guarantee that the project has any chance of releasing a good anytime in the reasonable future, they won't fund it. Given the number of game Kickstarters that have failed to deliver, people are jaded.

Or, think about it from the inversion: if you were the customer with some money to spend on Kickstarters, would you want to fund a Kickstarter very similar to the one you're proposing so far? Why or why not?

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
Put it another way, customers are more risk-averse on Kickstarter than they used to be. The less well-known you are, the less complete the product is, the more difficult the product seems to create, and the more money you're asking for, the less likely you are to get a positive response. You guys are basically unknown, your product will be maybe 10% complete in two months, you're going after a known-difficult product type (videogames, let alone Metroidvanias, have a lot of failures behind them), and you're asking for a nontrivial chunk of change.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug
I think there is also a difference between things like Kickstarter and Greenlight. With Kickstarter you see the goal if "I would like $100,000 to finish this game" and people go "wow that's a lot of money, I can't do much on that." On Greenlight if you allow preorders or early access all people see is "oh hey this game looks neat, I'll spend $5 on it now, that isn't that much money."

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Shoehead
Sep 28, 2005

Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?
You mean early access? But yeah that's how I try to break it down, and even then I've only ever backed like 4 things.

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