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Hello fellow indie developers! We tried doing this on our own but with normal dayjobs and life it became too much, so now we turned to crowdfunding! Just to see if it's possible to turn the luck and make our game!

Check it out!  :shrug2:
Teaser video of the game : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpCwZ_aGeEo
Google play demo : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.KillmondayGames.FranBow (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.KillmondayGames.FranBow)

http://igg.me/at/franbow/x/3685996 (http://igg.me/at/franbow/x/3685996)

We made the first videolog! :ninja:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUgFQ7rLlLQ

 :o

Your. Game. Is. The. Best.

I fell in love with the art, and the concept...
This looks so promising!!!

But the fund-rising is lagging behind! It is so unfair.
Is the goal set too high, maybe?

However it ends, please do not give up!
You are obliviously too talented and too passionate for that!


Apologies for the dumb question, but what would happens to my bucks if the fund-rising goals is not met? I understand that I'd be given them back ("Fixed Funding"), but does indiegogo keeps 9% in that case? Their FAQ is not clear on this point.

Wohoo! Thanks! We won't give up :)

The goal is that high because it's the realistic sum which we know will deliver, less than that and we wouldn't be able to make the game as good as we promise and that would feel cheating on both of us and the players.

About the green money! I guess they return the money, taking 9% out of something that doesn't meet it's goals would be stealing!

AND! Check out the Indiegogo, we just released a demo for WINDOWS, LINUX and MAC!  :whome: :waaagh: :'( :tired: :screamy:

 !!! :o !!!

  :handshakeL::addicted::handanykey: download download dowload

Change the subject of this thread adding "[demo available]" or something similar!
(you need to edit the 1st post).

This fund-rising must succeed or the world becomes just a tiny bit worse.

Trying the game! I'm just loving this game!
So much, in fact, that I decided to stop and wait for my lady so that I can play it with her!
But it is difficult to refrain to play it sooner! Just two days!!!

I just played the first part of the first room.
I just love the way this game feels. There is something magical in it. It's captivating.
One can see that you squeezed love into this little piece of art.

It feels like... Tim Burton at his best, squared.

Let me add a just little constructive suggestion. I've only seen the first room so I might be totally off track. However, this is what I though when playing the very first bit:
[spoiler below: select text to read (but don't before playing the demo!)]
When Fran first talks to the psychiatrist, it is natural that we see her under shock; we also learn that she is subject to hallucinations. I feel like the game shouldn't give plainly away that the shockingly gruesome murder of her parents is, indeed, real. I think that it would be more compelling if we are left undecided on whether this was part of her hallucinations or it was indeed true. Naturally we would be inclined to think it is true, and Fran known it is true, but the door should be left open to think that Fran is in the hospital because she keeps imagining these things, not because these things actually happened. It is even scarier to think that it might all have happened in her head and that it is real only to her. You would feel more alone.

What I'm saying is that, when Fran shouts to the psychiatrist about her murdered parents, he should give a ambiguous answer that sounds like he might be just trying not to directly contradict an hallucinating patient, but also that he might be showing professional 'sympathy' for an actual post-traumatic-disordered patient. Like: "yes, yes, sure but now you need to think of something else.", or "you will get over it eventually" or something. Here's why: it would be more heroic for the little girl to fight not only against the darkly mysterious, but at least unquestionably real, murderous forces, but also against the frightening doubt that the horror might be all in her head, where fighting back is much more difficult to imagine.

In other words: in the current version, the moment when the psychiatrist openly confirms that the horror did actually take place (and so she's not just mad), it is, paradoxically, a reassuring moment (at least it has been for me). At least Fren is not alone, she has the full sympathy of grown ups, and her will to fight back is at least fully understood by the external world outside her. You don't want reassuring moments in this game (or at least not this early).

BTW I suspect where the story might be going, eventually. But even if I'm right, it would be better if we would be left undecided about this point, at least in the beginning. Later, as the adventure unfolds, doubts would be dispelled and we would fully establish that the horrors did really happen after all; but gradually so, and as an achievement.

Thank you for the feedback! And I would love to hear what you think is going on :D Really! If you are close, then we will call in an emergency story action and eat coffee raw!  :whome:

For the full version the hospital will have a basement and some new rooms :O We had a 50mb limit before since we were  :screamy: by GameMakers limitations, but now we might have found a solution for it! So we are feeling reaaally wheeeew'd about it, now Natalia can really design everything without being afraid of breaking the limit.. And that gives us alot more space to develop the world and story.. It's gonna be awesome!!!

And I really wanna hear what your girl thought of it!

Too bad the time for crowd-funding is so low. Advertise more! You need like a 15 dollar subscription every hour constantly 24/24 for the next 50 days!



ahah, nowhere close: Pisa, Italy. But drop us a line if your came by anywhere close!



Well we finally managed to find the time and play it!

It was the perfect setting, too: me and her, alone with our two cats, in a silent night, the only lighting coming from the large flat TV (which, given the color scheme knowingly used by this game, means a quite creepy lighting). Loud volume (I think you can imagine how that sounds in a silent night), sofa, mouse in her hand.

It has been a very entertaining half-an-hour.




You know what? I should know better (too many things to do) but I really feel like writing a full fledged
Fran Bow review:

Good things:

Even if she is not an hard-core gamer, it went really smooth. We proceeded from a puzzle to the other, enjoying them.

Exploring that little, self contained word has been delighting.  Every room promised, and delivered, great exploration fun, especially considering that very unique mechanism which I won't spoil and which doubles that exploration pleasure. Meanwhile, the right amount of closed doors kept the anticipation alive, and at the same time the world to be explored small and contained (so that you can focus on them and savor the richness of the scenes).

In all that, the graphics and the sounds conjure up a gloom, magic, pervasive mood. That's so great! There are so many things we liked in that. For example, how the dreamy cut scenes are in a different style from the interactive sections: the two style are so different yet somehow very well fit for each other. Naturally the real beauty is the one in "colors" (if you can call them colors). The graphics and animations are so nice, and there are so many nice touches, like the facial expressions, the beautiful animations, the fact that the blood writings fade in, the many small ideas which would not have been strictly necessary, like the ghost kids at the door. The interface is very neat: especially the purse and the pill box (Why the key, in the top left?).
it serves its purpose very well, it is extremely simple to use, and blends beautifully with the look-and-feel of the game. Well done!

The best part is that special "duality" of the scenes. That works so well. It's powerful and compelling. It does a lot to make the experience entertaining.

Even better, there was a sense of implicit meaning, as if everything had a hidden sense and will eventually contribute to a overall picture. So far it was great but it might be absolutely magnificent. And we got carried by the story.

(This might be because the characters are so ambiguous. All of them, down to the very protagonist (Fram Bow herself). The cat, for example... he's presented as a quintessential positive character, but since the beginning it is already a bit sick how he is "your only friend". Also, he is all for the hallucinating pills... he insist that they are positive. But the pills are deceptive, even for the horrifying standards of gore-hallucination triggering pills: for example they blatantly promise "happiness" beyond the locked door, where none, obviously, is to be expected. The hospital staff, the auntie, the creepy patient kids, even the monster... they are all different shades of ambiguous. )

You should have seen our faces when it we eventually encountered the "thanks, demo is over" screen. We looked at each other and went "nooooo". We really wanted to continue! We just wanted more of it.


Nitpicking and suggestions:

Puzzles too easy? I understand that you wanted to avoid the frustration of getting stuck, so typical of old school point and click adventure games.
That worked really well, as you can read above. However, for gamers like me who went through Monkey Island and the like, it always falls a good shot short of giving a challenge.

Pill duality under-exploited: the idea is just great. As I tried to describe above, it is a very powerful mechanism. However, I feel like it should have been exploited more for the puzzles. Right now, apart from the visuals, getting a pill is just like going to a different room where you collect different objects and hints. For example, no puzzle requires to go back and forth between the two worlds. It would be cool if you occasionally had to do something in a world for the effect it has on the other. Vague examples: maybe Fran interacts with the gloomy ghosts oppressing the kids, so that in the other world the kid is more responsive. Maybe, vice-versa, she helps the kids (disconnect the tv?) so that their internal beast, seen in the hallucination worlds, becomes weaker. Possibilities are many: this is vaguely reminding of that masterpiece which was "day of the tentacle", where most rooms also where portrayed in multiple "versions" (past, present, future) and the great fun was the reciprocal influences between the versions of a given room.

Pills might be to easy to use: as I said, it is one of the more entertaining part. But, right now, it is given away too easily. You solve a little puzzle at the beginning and bam, you are given that options for every room. As a player, I would have been ready to struggle more for the privilege. I am not sure what can be done about this exactly, but I'll offer some generic direction: maybe the pills are counted and very scarce. Once you use a pill in a room, you "unlock" that room, and you can hallucinate in that room any number of times (maybe it's the after-effects of the pill, and it is that just opening the jar or smelling it kicks the nightmares back). But, to be able to hallucinate for the first time in a room, you would have and consume a pill, which you get by solving more puzzles (occasionally, it might be as easy as asking a fellow patient). BTW it would be fitting because the hallmark of addictions (in this case, pill addiction) is exactly how much you are ready to do to get a steady intake. A pill would be the perfect reward to players: you can be sure they'll be very happy to grab hold of one, just to see see the (deceptive? or intimately more real? or just different) version of the rooms. (Also, this could serve as the ultimate "different roads" mechanism: imagine for example a situation where you can use a pill in, say, any of three rooms at the players' choice, thus entering a sequence of puzzles which gives the next pill for the next room which you didn't choose yet. That way the player chooses the order in which the three rooms are played).

Hospital too short: I know, I know! It is just a demo and there is more to come and you had little time etc etc. What I'm saying here is just this: no matter what awaits us out of that yellow door, the hospital scenario will be very difficult to top! The glimpse we get of the WIP out of the hospital is very promising, but still... I think that you cannot go wrong if you expand the hospital section more.

---

Apart from that, I cannot resist giving a small set of minor suggestions.
Very small things. They are not criticisms:

* maybe add a short animation for when Fran changes facing. It might be as little as a single front-facing frame. I understand that even that single front facing frame would have to be drawn from scratch (unlike most her animations), but I think it would pay: it would make quite a difference and make her look more 3D. Consider that that single animation would be seen like 10 times per minute during the entire game. It is a good investment.

* fonts! Compared to how beautiful and made with care the rest is, maybe you need to work them out. Maybe you can catch the opportunity to diversify the fonts used in sober/hallucinating state. Maybe the hallucinated text should also be a bit flickering, maybe  occasionally glimpse from a word to a different word from a (like a "nice deer" becoming "death deer" for a moment, or something like that). That would reflect the fact that Fran is not really sure of anything.

* in the intro sequence, there are two scenes which, I found, are a little worse than the rest: they are, first, when Fran's parents are shown "disassembled". It looks a bit naive and... unsubtle. Maybe a few more close-up, like a severed finger, would be more believable and would work as well. The second: the frame when Midnight leaves the unconscious Fran to hide behind a tree... there's something wrong and beside I think he should probably crawl backward, without facing away.

* the wall clock: moving the needle is unnecessarily difficult: I think than once you "grabbed" one with the mouse, you shouldn't "lose grip" if you moved the pointer too far away from the center, as it does now.

Woah what a great read! SO AWESOME! Love that you had the right setting! Did you play it on your TV? And love it that you have seen most of the parts we are about to improve  :coffee: The hospital will get exented yes, and redone, because we want whoever played the demo wont be safe to think that they already know it and speed boost! The pills will have a "negative" impact when you use them.. dont want to spoil how thought...

I will show this post to Natalia when she is done doing the main page that we are launching soon, in hopes that some gaming sites writes about this.

Thanks alot for that amazing review and highfive your girlfriend from us!

And yeah, the fundraiser is looking dark.. we really have no connections or any name behind us so every penny is always a huuuge cheer from us!  :shrug2: I think this will be another pjuff in the air, but it has lead to a lot of new energy for both me and Natalia, and we have learned more about PR, although it's not going really as we want  :addicted:

When I wrote that overlong post above it was too late in the night. I reedited it now to make it clearer (for example, originally I had spelled "world" as "word" like three times)!

But, it is so great!


Just to state something obvious: you should not underestimate what you can achieve by repeatedly twittering, facebooking, google-plussing, pinterest-ing, etc. ("Repeatedly" = once on every occasion when there is anything little worth reporting).  I mean it! Naturally it takes dedication. An luck: the 1500 or so supporters you need are quite many. But the screenshots/videos are catching, and potentially catchy. I think you might even be still in time (finger crossed)!   

Ps: 2K just now! 10% reached!   :toastL:;):toastR:

I've been following the development of the game since it firsts steps and it definitely deserves to be completed and played :) The game is pure creepy art inside a exciting plot. Hope that these guys make the goal!

If you want to see some video footage of the alpha demo we released you can now! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpCwZ_aGeEo

I have no idea how to embed it so unfortunatly it's just the youtube link  :o

We released the demo on Google Play too! HURRAAYYYHHhhhh....  :tearsofjoy: :'(

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.KillmondayGames.FranBow (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.KillmondayGames.FranBow)