The active Kickstarter projects discussion thread.

[LobsterSundew]

Dimension Drive's update #23 says the project will relaunch this week.

The graphs for a•part•ment show the rewards performing well. There is no sharp enough drops indicating problems up-selling backers. It covers a good range of prices. The unallocated funding is relatively high, but not too much. I haven't looked over the page too closely, but currently it has 388 backers pledging $13,7219 (68.65%) which means less than $6,271 to go in 9 days. That amount is very doable with just 160 more backers. It should get funded if the backers can help promote the project link around.

[matt]

I'm glad to hear that Apartment is looking good. I told her from the beginning, she should have no problems getting her funding, but I'm not as good at kickstarter as you.

In personal news, I am putting together a script for our kickstarter video, the text on the project page, the reward structure, as well as images and animated gifs. We should be formally announcing soon, which is exciting and scary. I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions soon as well as hand out the link for the project preview page once I move everything to kickstarter instead of my notes.

[RightClickSaveAs]

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night had a very well executed launch. There was the teaser and rumours before it launched. The "Backer Achievements" section is interesting to watch get unlocked. All the recent negativity against Konami's treatment of its employees and IPs means this is a good time for an ex-Konami game designer to come to crowdfunding.

What did you think of the reward tier structure? I'm not a big fan of the games so probably not in the target demographic, and I passed because I don't like how it's starting at $28 for a digital tier and then jumping straight to $60 then $100. $5 is the lowest option which gets you nothing at all, then there are these huge jumps.

It's making plenty of money though, so it obviously didn't hurt it that much.

[evilkinggumby]

A friend of mine in game development linked this on facebook, and it's an interesting article (also the fact it links back to the current author's small kickstarter seems like a kool promotional method) and addresses some of what I've talked to Matt about lately in terms of budgeting. My friend is not the author or affiliated with their project at all, just to be clear.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/19/862466 ... ual-indies

Thoughts?

-Sterling

[LobsterSundew]

RUMP! is a strange looking project. It is one of those projects where it isn't clearly bad but also not executed as well as it could be. Many odd decisions.

There was a Gaijin Goombah video about Kickstarter hype burnout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn55cSEnT8

@ RightClickSaveAs

Here are graphs for Bloodstained.
http://i.imgur.com/BYfIctl.png

There is the already mentioned price gap between the $28 and $60 tiers. Then another big gap from $60 to $100. If it wasn't for the fame of the project creator such rewards are unlikely to work for unknown devs.

The "Percentage of the total allocated funding by reward tier over time" graph is interesting to see how the $60 tier added on May 12th increased in popularity while the other neighboring tiers decreased. The $125 to $500 tiers kind or remain the same in popularity.

The scale of the campaigns funding is so large that even the $10,000 troll pledge barely makes a blip on the funding graphs.

That $300 tier is a strong performer. People want their $60 boxed editions too.

Something to remember is that while the introductory reward tier that first offers a copy of the game is offering a key for Xbox One, PS4 or Steam. The console keys often mean a percent is going towards Sony and Microsoft, so the developer budget will see less of that money than for the Steam keys.

@ evilkinggumby

Elsinore was the May 2015 campaign that I send regularly updated graphs to the project creator. I also critiqued the preview. I was mentioned in a tweet. My Kickstarter Related 2015 Part 2 album shows the graphs.

Getting press has been a problem. When a small campaign is quickly overfunded it can provide less urgency to get covered by bloggers. It is over its goal so there is little chance of failure. That reduces tension for backers. While over its goal it is still not funded enough (Like the millions for Yooka-Laylee or Bloodstained) to make it noteworthy in that regard. The Kotaku article was finally some big exposure outside of Kickstarter besides a quickly buried article on Destructoid. There isn't a demo to pursue Let's Players on YouTube. Reddit is more effective near the start and end of the run.

[evilkinggumby]

well lobstah i am glad they have you to assist with their campaign!

Snagged a backing for Umbra. Heard of it through a friend, seems interesting. fairly cheap to back too! Kind of a diablo/Grim Dawn knock off. But with fairly solid visuals and some interesting ideas.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1062682568/umbra

[matt]

It is definitely hard to get press in general as an indie. What I have found is that if you make games that are personal, it can be easier to get press because a lot of reporters are interested in "why" you are making a game and the people behind the project. If I would have said Neverending Nightmares was a horror game and never talked about the inspiration, the project NEVER would have succeeded.

Something I think about when starting on a new project is how can I get press excited about this? What am I offering that no one else is? I try to have as many interesting things as I can. I think it can be much harder to do something that has been done well already even better (like Super Meat Boy) than to do something different and interesting.

If I worked in press and someone said they were making an indie 2D puzzle platformer, I probably wouldn't pay much attention to it because there are SOOOO many of those. Arguably, you could say Ori and the Blind Forest was that, but it had awesome art and Microsoft backing it.

Elsinore has a very interesting elevator pitch: "it's Shakespeare meets Majora's Mask/Groundhog Day.", but I guess that wasn't enough to get press. However, I think Kate was very smart to write the opinion piece on Polygon because it raised awareness of her project. While I agree with her point that the fact that no one understands what making a game costs is problematic on kickstarter, I don't point the finger at big projects. Some awesome looking games have really low budgets (like FTL at $10k or Octodad at $20k) because they aren't funding their entire project from kickstarter funds - just like AAA projects. I don't think there is an easy solution to this, but it will make a nice developer video blog!

[LobsterSundew]

On a Roll is a roller skating game with good looking footage. While watching it the music doesn't feel right as I'd want something more like Jet Set Radio.

Squad is a modern military shooter with just 2,149 backers pledging $204,343 CAD.

Perception is a horror game. It doesn't appear to have an animated thumbnail like Toejam & Earl had. It hasn't uploaded a pitch video to the project page.

STARFIGHTER INC's campaign is behaving bizarrely. The comments section has big morale problems. The developers keep talking about things like stretch goal features, meanwhile backers are asking for information like how much work has been done and even what game engine they are using. The $250 tier is being cannibalized by new tiers and some of large backers are voting with their wallets by withdrawing. Multiple times during the run pre-alpha gameplay footage was promised, but so far not delivered. The developer announced they are creating their own site to collect pledges, but there are few examples of migrating like this ever working. Often when the migration happens the Kickstarter regulars don't move with the project and the developer gets surprised by only receiving maybe a quarter of what the campaign raised in pledges.

The graphs for Apartment shows its rewards worked pretty well. Even without the $2,000 tier backer it would have reached its goal. The start of its rewards structure is one that I'm familiar with.
$1 tier with name in credits. Helps with exposure within Kickstarter.
$5 tier offering something. Doesn't have to be there, but still beneficial.
$10 early-bird price for copy. Early-bird to get to specific tipping point.
$15 regular price for copy.
With that structure it is important to plan to up-selling to work from both the $15 tier and the $10 early-bird. If the jump to the next tier after $15 is too much for $10 backers they might not decide to leave their precious slot. That is why I like to see a $20 to $25 tier.

Kung Fury was released to non-backers through YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg

[matt]

I backed Perception! I am a little concerned about the scope of the project vs. the budget (and how many people they have on the team), but I guess maybe they are self funding a lot of it? The idea seems like it could be neat, but after watching the trailer, I wish the character wouldn't wisecrack all the time. Hopefully that was just for the purposes of the trailer.

Starfighter has a weird campaign. Had they just committed to creating something cool for $250k, I think they would be in much better shape than announcing a $17 million stretch goal and complicated monetization plans. They also seemed to say on Polygon that they are doing the game without the kickstarter, so maybe ti's better to steer clear of it?

I'm glad to hear that Apartment worked well. I advised them on rewards. I'm no Lobster, but I do my best.

Kung Fury was amazing (as was What we Do in the Shadows). I wish I would have gotten in on those kickstarters. Maybe I should check the film category more.

[LobsterSundew]

Song of Horror is a third person survival horror game. It is another one of those campaigns that is hard to label as good or bad.

The Bards Tale IV looks to be the big campaign for June 2015. CD Projekt Red had free keys for The Witcher for backers in the first 48 hours.

Diluvion has some good atmosphere to its submarine combat.

Regalia - Of Men And Monarchs is a tactical RPG with some good pieces of art.

Quern - Undying Thoughts is a first person 3D adventure game. The transforming buildings/objects look cool.

There has been a wave of poorly executed campaigns from Europe now that Kickstarter supports France. Many of these campaigns that don't cancel with run into the tough period around E3.

STARFIGHTER INC finally posted its video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E1E3WzkT8Y

Mighty No.9 has a new trailer out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U_VQg2d7Hc