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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSteel Assault - NES-Style 2D Action Platformer [KICKSTARTED+GREENLIT!]
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Author Topic: Steel Assault - NES-Style 2D Action Platformer [KICKSTARTED+GREENLIT!]  (Read 27277 times)
LobsterSundew
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« Reply #40 on: December 28, 2014, 10:50:48 PM »

The "Citizen protests and riots" compressed video looks very cool to me. The old wild west feel to some of the chiptune songs is very catchy. The infographic style guide about NES limitations is very excellent material to link to from the project page or a project update. It reminds me of The Making of: ROM City Rampage about the efforts taken to cram that game into the system limitations of the NES.

Kickstarter's ecosystem is expected to begin recovering from its holiday slowdown after January 6th like it has in past years. Launching in the middle of January can take advantage of the lower levels of competition and the upswing in platform momentum. Something to note is that Shadowrun's developers are in pre-launch preparations for that month. I am more concerned that January 16th is a Friday. This means the later half of the first 48 hours will be wasted on a Saturday which is by far the worst performing day of the week. January is already one of the weaker months. Even in the best months I do not recommend launching into a Saturday. The numbers are just too poor. You want Kickstarter's "by magic" algorithm to be your friend. A Sunday night launch is a possibility, but Sunday mornings and afternoon should be avoided.

Delaying the launch target to January 19th (Just 3 days later) could result in a better popularity ranking which helps getting funded sooner. Getting funded early then helps campaigns reach more stretch goals. Monday and Tuesday are very good days of the week to launch and end on. It is good to launch in the morning and end in the night. Kickstarter recently added the ability for the start and end hours of a campaign to be set independently of each other. Before that, the hour of the day a project launched was also the hour of the day it was scheduled to end. Three additional days also allows for more effort to be put into pre-launch marketing to coordinate more backers for the first day, get feedback for polishing and to contact bloggers with a preview link for the project in advance. Many bloggers will still be recovering from the holidays with backlog in their inboxes. Rushing too much to launch within Monday January 12th to Wednesday January 14th may be too tiring on your team. It is still an option.

It is also important to plan when the middle and end of a campaign's run will be. The first week in February can see a surge in new projects when people realize the holiday slowdown is over. That would catch your campaign in the middle of its run during the "Kickstarter trough" period. It will be harder to defend its popularity ranking at that phase. This is another incentive to reach your funding goal early. Monday to Wednesday is generally a good window to end a campaign in. It is better to end during the evening for the Eastern time zone. Ending in the morning can harm how much a campaign raises and ending later means less people can be awake for the final countdown. It can be worth adding a few days onto a 30 day length to fit with a better deadline time. Closer to 30 days length is better. It is generally not good to subtract from 30 days, especially since the December 2nd 2014 changes that removed the display of a project's start date until it reaches its deadline.

Backers that find bugs get to be included in the credits as beta testers. That is an interesting idea that I like. It encourages participation from backers.

A $8,000 minimum goal should be reachable with a target of 260 to 300 backers. That could be a fairly easy run. Getting to $2,400 (30%) within the first week would sway the odds strongly in favour of the campaign succeeding. That would be about 75 to 95 backers to reach that tipping point. Good luck.
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« Reply #41 on: December 28, 2014, 11:11:46 PM »

Thanks so much for the detailed feedback, LobsterSundew! Just replied to your PM.
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Steel Assault devlog - NES-style 2D action platformer: successfully Kickstarted!
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« Reply #42 on: December 29, 2014, 01:24:21 AM »

Wow! that paralax sky... And those moving train wagons. This is loooking extremely cool. Will play on day one for sure. Keep it up!
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« Reply #43 on: December 29, 2014, 02:05:00 AM »

I took a more detailed look at the Steel Assault project preview. I like the bulging CRT effect and scanlines, but I was introduced to console gaming on an Atari 2600 with Yar's Revenge and Missile Command. Some people may want the ability to toggle the effect off (It depends how much more work that will create).

About the project thumbnail. To me it feels a bit "remote" or "distanced". It would work and it is not a bad thumbnail, but more could be done with it. There are more visually powerful scenes already shown in sample gameplay on YouTube. The title is still visible when scaled down to 30% (Remember it appears tiny in the Kickstarter widget). At 30% it is just possible for me to still recognize the player character. There is no other additional information such as platform logos or banners (Optional). You could divide the thumbnail into 3 strips, stacked one on top of the other, and have each horizontal slice be from a different screenshot.

The current version of the pitch is a nice short 1 minute trailer. It alternates between the news flashback scenes and gameplay. It should serve its purpose. If it had just been the just the news intro I would have found it maybe a bit too slow. Some backers want to see the project creators faces. This was mentioned by a commenter on the preview. Photos (Such as the team celebrating when the counter hits 100%) could be done in project updates. Livestreams of work being done also work. On a larger project I would be recommending appearing in the pitch video, but I feel small projects can get away with it. The general idea is that backers want to know who they are supporting.

Animated GIFs work very well for pixel art games. The game looks cooler in motion than static. The Steam Greenlight, Twitter and Official Site banners look cool. The images for section headings like "What is it?" are good. The "Design" and "Location" ones are a bit plain looking. They could have enemy sprites from the game pasted into them for more decoration. The art style guide image is very good. Be careful about its placement because it is so tall. An image compression tool I use shows that more than 10% of the filesize could be trimmed off that PNG. There are many image compression tools out there. It is good to see 5 levels already previewed. I do like seeing that you centred images because I find it uses whitespace in a more pleasing way and just having a small image hugging the left can look lazy.

Focussing on difficulty may have been a good decision for a niche. I like how the expert mode is described as the mode the game will be initial designed around. Speedrunners may want to be able to toggle features like timers or a log of recent button inputs in the HUD. There could be multiple endings/cutscenes (Usually only small differences) based on what the difficult mode was. The "real ending" would be on the expert difficulty. This would be an incentive for repeat playthroughs. The "Design" and "Philosophy" sections could potentially be merged together as one.

Main project page text makes good use of highlighting key information with bold text. It helps with skimming the page. I did find it strange that some text switched to first-person and I had to check which team member the section was written by. I would suggest being very clear who is talking with using first-person.

The game is for PC. That could have been mention in the project description for convenience since the description, thumbnail and reward text are some of the first places backers look for the platform information. Developers should expect to eventually be asked "Will there be a ___ port?". It is good to see the explanation about Linux and Mac ports that you are using SFML and that ports may have to be stretch goals and delivered after the PC release.

I would relocate the team member bio section below the "Art Style" section, but above the "Music Style" section. This way the page flows into examples of Sri's work right after his bio.

Metro test #1 footage has a very football player style player sprite. The Washington D.C. Test #2 has a more feminine Bubblegum Crisis armour looking sprite that I assume could be a female version. The line "[E]nding when he/she either dies or defeats the last boss" sounds like players can pick the gender of the main character.

There is a FAQ section provide by Kickstarter. Having another FAQ section in the main body of the project page may lead to unnecessary duplication. The standard FAQ section also has the advantage that each question is collapsible. When the project launches that section would just be copied over into the FAQ area Kickstarter provides.

A demo for press and Let's Players can be good to have. It is understandable if producing a demo would be too rushed. For such a short game a demo open to the entire public may be too risky for giving away too much of the experience. Produce a lot of gameplay clips can be an alternative to a demo. There could be a clip about grenades, enemy types, etc.

The space just below the project description appears to still be in-progress.

About preview's rewards. This is where the most improvements can be made.

I do like the 1, 2, 3 listing of reward tier content. It helps keep it easy to follow. No physical rewards has the advantage of more funds going towards the actual development budget meaning the buffer percentage for emergencies can also be lower.

$1: Very good to see a $1 tier. They can be underestimated, but a $1 backer helps with the popularity ranking of a campaign as much as a $10 backer does. The $1 could have something added to it, such as being listed on a webpage for backers (I am not referring to the in-game credits here; that is for other backers of other tiers), a download of a desktop background image, etc. or even stating that it provides access to backer-only project updates.

$10: That price fits for me. With such a low goal, an early-bird reward tier may not be needed. An issue is the lack of an incentive in that reward to pledge now instead of waiting for the game to release. People may argue about the short planned length. A potential response is recreating the hardcore NES experience. Simple stage branching, modifiers such as enemies that only get stunned instead of disappearing or brief alternate routes could be stretch goals to increase re-playability. If you do decide to have an early-bird tier, there are calculations that can be done to help decide how many slots.

$25: There is a $15 jump in price from the previous tier. Doubling in price from one tier to the next within the $10 to $100 range should be strongly avoided. That is a rule I follow because in graphs I often see doubling the price creating less pledge upgrading which results in less funding. This tier introduces being named in the credits. That credits mention could be relocated to the $10 tier or even the $1 tier if you wanted to make the rewards more aggressive.

$49: Another huge price jump; this time even larger. I recommend lower the price of this tier significantly. It is still low variable-cost digital content. I personally don't feel like paying more than $30 for beta access. There is a $30 to $40 funding hotspot that these current rewards don't take advantage of.

$100: A custom cover song. I really like the content, but I am concerned it is priced too low. There is a 10 slot $69 early-bird version. I do like the idea of an early-bird for this content because it creates some scarcity. The main cost to fulfil this reward is time. When I talk about a reward being priced too low, I also mean that you could be making more money from the same amount of work by charging higher for such custom work.

$199: A custom short NES ROM. This is could be a very attractive reward, but again I am concerned it is priced too low. The delivery date may need to also be pushed back so you can prioritize Steel Assault shipping. You could ask backers to privately message you before they select that tier for approval of their idea.

$399: A custom boss in Steel Assault. This should be cheaper to produce than the previous rewards just discussed. Consider swapping it lower. An early project update may have to be devoted to explaining limitations on the scope of some custom rewards more than what is already drafted for the FAQ. It would be good to see the rewards span up to at least $500. It is easier to add a new highest priced reward tier after launch than to try to insert a new tier between existing rewards after launch. There is already the problem of the reward tier content being a bit stretched thin over the $1 to $399 range so I currently can't recommend a tier priced higher than $500 until there is more content to work with.

Inserting reward tiers to fill in big jumps between prices can fix most of the issues I mention with the rewards. Some reward content may need to be rearranged. The hard part is brainstorming content. Other campaigns can provide inspiration for digital rewards with relatively low fulfilment cost per backer. An example is backer photos could be digitized (Less effort than recreating in pixel art) like the effect on the news footage in Steel Assault's intro and put into the credits or a hidden level with portraits like the Hall of Champions in Shovel Knight. Another example is that backers may want to see an instruction booklet as a digital PDF. Every backer could be listed in the back pages of that booklet. Reward content you should avoid is physical goods and those that require a lot of time cost for each backer of that reward.
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DavidCaruso
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« Reply #44 on: December 29, 2014, 12:23:05 PM »

Thanks again for the incredibly detailed critique! I'll begin adjusting the Kickstarter page taking this feedback into account.

I like the bulging CRT effect and scanlines, but I was introduced to console gaming on an Atari 2600 with Yar's Revenge and Missile Command. Some people may want the ability to toggle the effect off (It depends how much more work that will create).

This is already an option in the game's engine (along with adjusting the strength of the scanlines/border curvature), I just like the way this looks a lot more compared to regular upscaling so I've recorded all of the footage this way.

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About the project thumbnail. [...]

Good points. I'll zoom in the art a little, and the 3 vertical strips thing is a really good idea.

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Some backers want to see the project creators faces. [...]

Unfortunately I don't think footage of us is really viable, since I'm in America and Daniel's in Spain, so it'd be hard to coordinate. Do backers really care that much about the creators' faces? I always get instantly turned off when I start a Kickstarter video and the first thing that pops up is a dude next to his computer in his living room.

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The "Design" and "Location" ones are a bit plain looking. They could have enemy sprites from the game pasted into them for more decoration. [...]

They're a bit plainer because they're "subheaders" rather than full section headers. But pasting in enemy sprites or other art is a good idea!

Will look into compressing the style guide image.

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Focussing on difficulty may have been a good decision for a niche. [...]

Yeah, I'm thinking about having different endings based on difficulty mode. Or even slightly different scenarios altogether (like lower difficulties are just a "virtual simulation" to prepare for the real thing, which is also cool in that it gives a neat narrative explanation for things like infinite lives and checkpoints).

Quote
Main project page text makes good use of highlighting key information with bold text. It helps with skimming the page. I did find it strange that some text switched to first-person and I had to check which team member the section was written by. I would suggest being very clear who is talking with using first-person.

I'll change the music section to be in third-person. I think bios should be kept first-person, since they feel more "personal" that way (which is probably more important given the lack of creator footage in the video).

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The game is for PC. That could have been mention in the project description for convenience since the description, thumbnail and reward text are some of the first places backers look for the platform information. [..]

Good point, I'll mention this in the project description. I think I had hit the character limit, but I'm sure I can rewrite my way out of it.

Quote
I would relocate the team member bio section below the "Art Style" section, but above the "Music Style" section. This way the page flows into examples of Sri's work right after his bio.

Hmm, that would help the flow in one direction, but on the other hand I also like the flow of the "Our Philosophy" into "Wait... Who's 'We'"? I'll think about it.

Quote
Metro test #1 footage has a very football player style player sprite. The Washington D.C. Test #2 has a more feminine Bubblegum Crisis armour looking sprite that I assume could be a female version. The line "[E]nding when he/she either dies or defeats the last boss" sounds like players can pick the gender of the main character.

The "Washington D.C. Test #2 vid" is old footage, the Metro footage is up to date and uses the new final sprite. The gender of the main character isn't decided, but it could really go either male or female since they're inside a robot suit. I've been thinking about having a female main char for a little bit, actually.

Quote
There is a FAQ section provide by Kickstarter. Having another FAQ section in the main body of the project page may lead to unnecessary duplication. The standard FAQ section also has the advantage that each question is collapsible. When the project launches that section would just be copied over into the FAQ area Kickstarter provides.

Good idea, I'll probably just move the reward-related info into its own Rewards section (maybe between the creator bio section and the art style section?) and keep the other miscellaneous questions in the Kickstarter FAQ section.

Quote
The space just below the project description appears to still be in-progress.

What do you mean? If you mean how it's a GIF of the title screen with no text under it, that's just because I wanted to start out with a GIF of the title screen hahah (rather than immediately asking people to vote Yes on our Greenlight, follow us on Twitter, do this, do that, etc.). Should I add something else there too?

Quote
People may argue about the short planned length. A potential response is recreating the hardcore NES experience. Simple stage branching, modifiers such as enemies that only get stunned instead of disappearing or brief alternate routes could be stretch goals to increase re-playability. If you do decide to have an early-bird tier, there are calculations that can be done to help decide how many slots.

This actually is my planned response, and that's actually a planned stretch goal, haha!

Quote
About preview's rewards. This is where the most improvements can be made.

...

Very salient points that I hadn't considered. I didn't realize price jumps like that were such a huge deal! I'll figure out more tiers between the $1 and $100 range, and add more up to the $500 range. Would this be a good progression: $1, $10, $15, $25, $39, $59, $100, $199, $299, $399, $499? That seems like too many tiers, though...

And you're right regarding the song/ROM rewards. Maybe I can move the personalized ROM up to $499, song cover to $399, design-a-miniboss to $299, design-an-enemy to $199, and then insert a bunch of stuff for $100 and lower. I'm thinking maybe a ROM where the digitized portraits + names of all the backers flash by could be a cool addition for a lower tier.

My main concern with this is that the game could end up having way too many minibosses or enemies, which could really screw with the pacing; that's why I had placed the design-a-boss tier highest originally. Maybe it can be an excuse to turn it into an Alien Soldier style boss rush lol (or a boss rush level with all the backer enemies/bosses?)



Wow! that paralax sky... And those moving train wagons. This is loooking extremely cool. Will play on day one for sure. Keep it up!

Thanks man! :D
« Last Edit: December 29, 2014, 03:00:36 PM by DavidCaruso » Logged

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« Reply #45 on: December 29, 2014, 03:57:39 PM »

man this looks incredible! makes me feel like a kid again
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« Reply #46 on: December 30, 2014, 01:48:11 AM »

The "About this project" appearing at the top of the main page body is a new thing Kickstarter has implemented. I had assumed you were the one to type that. It created enough whitespace that I also assumed text was missing below it. I checked on other project pages and it now appears there too. December keeps seeing changes to Kickstarter itself. I see in the preview there is now some text below the title screen GIF. Before it just felt a bit too much whitespace around the title screen GIF. It looks good now.

Many backers want to know who they are supporting. It doesn't have to be a video, especially due to distance being an issue. Photos can usually suffice. Even conversations with backers in the comments area can suffice. Post-mortems mention how backers are often very social with the project creator and each other. Livestreams also have the advantages of live chats with backers. Many backers enjoy details. Some project creators post photos of their workstations or pets with the project page displayed in the shot. Others have posted photos showing that the games that inspired their project are still in their collections. It gives the project a feel of warmth that a cold AAA publisher press release can lack. The personal story is sometimes one of the parts of a project that makes backers want to support it more and also provides material for bloggers to work into their posts. It doesn't have to be as grand as the stories about Neverending Nightmares or FORCED's devs. Steel Assault already has the story that one of the team members wants to finish the game before graduating college. That Sonic 1 mod hack into a Megaman game was also impressive and is something that provides material for bloggers to comment on. Regular project updates (At least once per week) also help projects maintain momentum and a getting to know the developers post can be used to easily fill a project update slot when struggling to find material for updates.

I too don't like seeing a pitch starting with a person talking to the camera. Introducing the developers is important, but it is still the product itself that has to come before the developers because people can have short attention spans. Many pitch videos make the mistake of wasting the precious first 10 to 30 seconds with a developer talking to the audience when that developer isn't already famous. Many people are browsing more than one new project on Kickstarter, so they don't want to be kept waiting to see what the game is. If not hooked potential backers will move on to looking at other projects. Video game projects can have it easier than some other categories because gamers are experienced at reading a lot of information from a trailer. For other categories it is very important the project creator appears in the pitch, but many video game campaigns get by with just the game's trailer.

Screenshots or an animated GIF or a video clip could be used to compare what the game looks like with the scanlines toggled off. This could help sway potential backers who don't want to see scanlines.

Pixel Prospector has lists for indie gaming related blogs. Indie Retro News has covered multiple Kickstarter campaigns in the past. You could offer to do an interview and then link to that interview as a project update. Steel Assault would also potentially fit very well with pixel art, ROM hack and chiptune communities. Brief tutorials can serve as excellent posts to those communities and can also be linked to in project updates. A post on /r/speedrun talks about what speedrunners like to see. Running a Prefundia or Thunderclap campaign can help gather backers for launch day. Steel Assault's official site does a good job providing content that is found in many presskits.

For that rewards progression it would work well if a tier was inserted between $59 and $100 to smooth out the gap more. For the $10 tier some projects include text such as "Steam key if Greenlit". If the game will have a DRM-free option that is a selling point that is important to some backers. When there is concern that a reward could receive too many backers, then that is a good reason to limit the number of open slots. It is still possible to edit the number of slots higher after a project launches. Having a limit also creates a sense of scarcity.

Right now the "Philosophy" section is much smaller than other sections and since it relates so well with the game design I saw the opportunity to merge the two sections. It could stay separate if more material was added to it. Turning the "FAQ" section into a "Rewards" section would work since rewards is what it talks about.

I'll take another look at the project preview tomorrow.
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« Reply #47 on: December 30, 2014, 04:58:18 PM »

Thanks yet again for the help. I've modified the Kickstarter page, taking your criticism into account:

  • modified the thumbnail (just made the title bigger and zoomed in the pic a bit, I couldn't really get the 3-screenshot thing to look good enough for me).
  • revamped the reward tiers, adding new rewards and modifying old ones.
  • merged the Design and Philosophy sections, and moved the bio section up to match.
  • turned the FAQ section into just a Rewards section, with info on all of the rewards. (I'll add image headers for the price amounts later, so that it isn't so wall-of-texty.)
  • removed the "subheader" images, since they actually weren't really necessary.
  • some other minor formatting changes.

I hadn't considered the point regarding "story" at all, I actually wasn't even aware I had one! "Former ROM hacking expert makes new NES-styled retro videogame to get him through college"...lol, or something like that, since it isn't actually getting me through college.

Thanks for those links, I'll check out the Pixel Prospector list (I think I saw it before and a lot of those sites are really small, as in no comments on a lot of the articles, right?) and the Retro News blog. /r/speedrun could also be a good audience for a Time Attack mode stretch goal, if I choose to go that route.

I wasn't aware it was possible to edit the number of slots higher after a project launches. That's fantastic news, and seems to solve that problem. Though, will backers feel "cheated" if the scarcity of a slot goes from e.g. 5 to 10 backers? Why couldn't I e.g. just keep increasing the number by 1 every time it fills up, so potential high-tier backers will continuously be like "holy shit this slot is almost full, gotta back this NOW"?

I hadn't heard of Prefundia or Thunderclap before, thanks for that. Would using them be a huge time commitment, or can I just put my project on there, maybe make a tweet/Tumblr post or something, and get 5-10 new backers for launch day? Otherwise, it seems a bit ridiculous to start a marketing campaign for the marketing campaign for the crowdfunding campaign for the game hahah. Also, which one would give more exposure (Thunderclap seems to have more people on it than Prefundia, but Prefundia is explicitly crowdfunding focused)?



man this looks incredible! makes me feel like a kid again

Thanks man! Glorious Leader looks awesome too, I'll back it on Kickstarter once my Amazon Payments account finishes verifying.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2014, 06:05:08 PM by DavidCaruso » Logged

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« Reply #48 on: December 31, 2014, 07:45:50 AM »

This game looks fantastic. I wish you the best of luck.
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« Reply #49 on: December 31, 2014, 08:13:37 AM »

Oh man! This game looks really awesome! Retrofeeling is very strong, good work!
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« Reply #50 on: December 31, 2014, 08:46:08 AM »

Looks fantastic indeed :D Might be backing this when it's on kickstarter Smiley
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« Reply #51 on: December 31, 2014, 10:09:31 AM »

December 31, 2014

Hey, thanks everyone! Glad you all like it.

So to take a small break from all the Kickstarter talk, here's some more new level art from Daniel. This is the National Harbor, where you’ll have to jump across moving boxes while they’re being picked up, put down, and shuffled around by cranes. And you’ll also have to navigate from boat to boat defeating all the enemies on each one. You may even have to travel underwater at some point! It’s just like the real thing in these regards.


Here’s the corresponding music, if you haven’t heard it earlier. More buildings and stuff will eventually be added to make it look a little bit more like the real-life National Harbor.

Finally, happy New Year to everyone on TIGS! Smiley
« Last Edit: December 31, 2014, 10:28:04 AM by DavidCaruso » Logged

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« Reply #52 on: December 31, 2014, 10:55:46 PM »

Remember that Steel Assault would be looking at a target of 75 to 95 backers in the first few days for good momentum. Larger projects have to aim for hundreds to thousands of backers in the first 48 hours to get good momentum. There is still time to preview the game around and gather future backers to make the Kickstarter run more likely to succeed. Even if you don't reach that target, the project could still have a good chance to succeed.

Prefundia may only bring a single digit number of backers if that page doesn't get shared around social media and is just left to sit there. Darkest Dungeon's page didn't have many comments. When the Prefundia page is shared around it is a tool to accumulate backers for the first day of the campaign. The page for The Grisaia Trilogy had around 500 comments at launch because the Prefundia page was being shared around by many fans when they saw it go up. Even if only a few people will see the page, the trick is to copy and paste some parts from the project preview. 2 to 5 minutes of effort may result in 3 backers. If very little time is invested then the even the small returns could be worth it. You don't even need to use Prefundia if you are willing to share the project preview link around directly and remind people to click the "Notify me on launch" button. It is just another means of coordinating a launch. Thunderclap is similar, but because a Thunderclap campaign requires a minimum number of 100 participants these campaigns usually need some effort to work. Thunderclap can be a good way to concentrate social media shout-outs from people who already follow you. It is a means of tapping into the followers of your followers. Steel Assault's Twitter account has over 100 followers.

A NES music tutorial could be prepared to post in the guest blog section on Gamasutra on launch day. That tutorial could then have Steel Assault's Kickstarter link near the end. The link to that blog post could go into a project update, in a chiptune forum, on Reddit, etc. so it would be both exposure and a project update. A tutorial can be something of value for a community rather than just having a project creator showing up and dropping a project link with no real participation.

The rewards are starting to look ready.

$1: Name listed in the thank you ROM. Backers can enter their names with a text field in the survey. Kickstarter produces a spreadsheet file from the survey results and the cells containing the names can be exported into a CSV text file.

$10: A copy of the game. I often see in graphs that the reward tier that introduces a pre-order of the game can be generally expected to contribute 15% to 60% of the funding on video game projects. It would take 120 backers at this $10 tier to contribute 15% towards your funding goal. As well, 240 backers would contribute 30% and 480 backers would contribute 60% of a $8,000 goal. Even in the pessimistic scenario that Steel Assault sees 60% of its funding from the $10 tier I think it could still get funded. When the pre-order tier is contributing 60% it can be because the following reward tiers aren't upselling well. To make the campaign more efficient per backer at getting funded, an objective can be to lower the percentage this tier is contributing by shifting backers to the next few tiers.

$15: PDF of an instruction manual. Manuals are a good place to put concept art, hints and strategies. Some old manuals were like the art books for the games. Two $15 backers cover the same distance towards the goal as three $10 backers. This tier is already good enough, but the stronger you can make it, the more backers could upgrade to this tier. Adding more than one reason to upgrade than the PDF booklet can make it more attractive. As well, if one reason doesn't convince someone to upgrade his or her pledge the other reason may be enough to convince that person. Some projects have a Kickstarter-exclusive green palette swap for the player character. A cheatcode, or dragging a text file into a specific install folder, could activate a Kickstarter version of the player character.

$25: A copy of the soundtrack and special thanks credit. Music is a big strength for this game, so this could be a great performing reward tier. There is the opportunity to create an early-bird version for this reward tier to assist with early traction. If so, the price would likely be in the range of $15 to $22 and I would recommend going as low in that range as you feel comfortable.

$39: Beta access. RimWorld is an example of how backers are willing to pay more to wait less to be able to try the game. That campaign's $30 tier for alpha access contributed more than the $20 tier towards the goal. Steel Assault's $39 tier could be for the early-beta and then a previous tier for the late-beta. Late-alpha may be another term for an early-beta (It is still not standardized in the gaming industry what gets labelled a alpha or a beta). A lower priced tier could have access to a late-beta or maybe even just a week before the game would be available to the general public through Steam.

$59: An early-bird version of the $80 tier with 15 slots. When filled it will create a funding jump from $39 to $80. That is something to be aware of, but might not be something to worry about too much since all 15 slots would contribute at least 11.06% of the minimum goal. That 11.06% could put the campaign in a very healthy position. The tipping point to aim for is 30% in the first half of the campaign and ideally within the first week.

$80: A 4 colour portrait put into the thank you ROM. Each backer at this tier contributes 1% of the goal. During the survey you could with a text field for a URL to a portrait of the backer or provide an e-mail for them to send a photo as an attachment.

$100: Special producer credit. Each backer at this tier contributes 1.25% of the goal. There is the opportunity to strengthen this reward tier. "Producer" can mean some say went into the game. Backers could be invited to scheduled live group chat sessions about the game's design and progress. An alternative to group chats is one-on-one chats that would take more time but may also be more productive feedback. There could even be the option for one-on-one and group chats.

$199: Create an enemy. Each backer at this tier contributes 2.49% of the goal. This is attractively priced compared to some other projects' create a character tiers.

$299: Create a miniboss. Each backer at this tier contributes 3.74% of the goal. I like the idea of a Megaman boss rush. It could also help for marketing if this reward was offered for free to specific individuals. Shovel Knight was the big 8-bit style game of recent memory. YachtClubGames has a lot of followers. If they agreed to allow Shovel Knight as a mini-boss cameo it could generate some press. Shovel Knight has cameos for Aegis Defenders, Two Brothers,

, Hex Heroes, C-Wars and more. One of the programmers posted the article Breaking The NES for Shovel Knight to Gamasutra. The Baz also makes appearances in at least 3 crowdfunded games. The lore of Zubaz is tied to TheSw1tcher channel on YouTube that has now started to make

videos. That is one strategy some campaigns used successfully. It fits some games better than others.

$399: Cover song. Each backer at this tier contributes 4.99% of the goal.

$499: Custom NES ROM. Each backer at this tier contributes 6.24% of the goal.

Raising the limit on the number of early-bird slots gradually would most likely offend backers. The limit could be increased by first notifying backers in a project update that you want to raise the limit on a specific reward by a specific amount. If backers speak out against that then one simply wouldn't raise the limit higher. You could also privately ask the specific backers at that tier if they would not be upset if the number of slots was increased. I feel raising the limit that way more than once would be pushing it.

The project preview is already more polished than some projects that get funded. The project graphics are already very well implemented. Adding too much more to the main page may make it too tall. More vertical space being used means more scrolling for backers. Additional information may have to go into updates after launching. Normally an image as tall as the style guide would be in an update, but I do like it on the project page where it currently sits. It is good to also know it is possible to re-upload pitch videos during a project's run. I saw some comments on /r/gamedev of people not liking the zoom and pans in the trailer. I'm neutral about those. The thumbnail can be swapped any time before the project's final deadline when the page gets archived. It is common to see thumbnails adapt to feedback over time or get additions such as "Staff Pick" badges. The thumbnail is currently good enough, but there is room for improvement to stand out more when it appears in the Discover area. In general the text itself for the main body of the project page is looking good. I'll re-read the project page tomorrow.
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« Reply #53 on: January 01, 2015, 12:12:21 PM »

This is looking really great. I think the short length of the game alongside the low price-point are such a winner, especially when some people are getting a little burned out on the 'retro' look. To have a game come out looking and sounding this good and (potentially) costing so little.

Will be watching and keeping things crossed for you.  Toast Left
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« Reply #54 on: January 02, 2015, 12:52:59 AM »

I do like the pan and zoom that starts at 00:10 in the trailer. That could stay the same. The zoomed-in fight at 00:22 could also remain unchanged. After re-watching the video, it is really just the way the camera moves in the 00:04 clip that may need to be changed. Something is slightly odd about it. Zooming in instead of out may be something to test. It may not even need to zoom far enough out that the health bar becomes visible. There have been comments by others about adding a portion the video where the team talks. Adding a talking part at 00:13 would risk breaking the flow too much. If such footage were to be added it could be inserted at 00:54 in the pitch so it could end with the "Vote YES for us on Steam Greenlight" screen. I still see it working with just a short efficient trailer for the pitch because it is not a big project. For a bigger project I would be suggesting adding a talking part. Early project update content could meet the same objectives of showing who is behind the game.

Here are some more comments after re-reading the preview's text. To implement them is optional. The paragraph with "A playthrough of the game will be one unbroken shot from start to finish..." could be modified so that the bold text is all on the same line. "We're currently a team of 2 people" could be all bold instead of just "a team of 2 people". "You play as a resistance soldier equipped with a powerful robotic suit" has "You play as" currently in bold. An alternative is for "a resistance soldier equipped with a powerful robotic suit" to be the bold portion of that sentence. Shortening "We just want to make a kickass 2D action game, a game that could redefine the boundaries of what 8-bit retro style can be." to just "We just want to make a kickass 2D action game." could read easier. Shorter is sometimes better for making lines memorable. It also doesn't sound too ambitious for a small project. "And we need your help to do it." does flow well into the team section. It is also a call-to-action which is something other campaigns forget to add. When Shatterhand is mentioned the game's title could be hyperlinked to a

or a

. I had not heard of Shatterhand before your mention of it.

The write-up in the rewards section for the $39 tier could mention finding a bug gets that backer's name to appear again in the beta tester part of the credits. There is a lack of visuals in this section. The green numbers do look cool. The $80 tier could have an example of a 4-color portrait. After someone selects that reward you could ask to make a portrait before the campaign is even over to be the example. The create-an-enemy part could have one or more of the enemy sprites. The create-a-miniboss write-up could show a miniboss sprite if one is ready or not too much of a spoiler. If you do get lucky enough to have Shovel Knight cameo then a sprite of him could be put there.

The project page already looks far enough along that eventually more pre-launch effort could shift towards the marketing efforts, preparing content for project updates and other things on your to-do list. Project creators can take some time before launching to catch up on housework and other personal backlog so that it isn't as much of a distraction during the campaign.

The post-mortems for many campaigns have mention that if they could redo their campaign's run, they would have prepared the content for some of their big project updates before the launch. Working on those updates after launching can take time away from marketing efforts or answering messages. Getting most of the work for updates out of the way before launching could mean a good night's sleep instead of an all-nighter to finish a write-up that was promised the previous day in the comments area. I suggest at least thinking of an outline for Steel Assault's project updates. It is standard for there to be at least one update per week during the run. There can also be an update celebrating how much progress was made in the first 24 hours, when big newsworthy events happen such as being Greenlit (or funded early) and updates going into the last 48 and last 24 hours of the run. Posting more updates is possible, but too many updates can burn out the project creator. It can be beneficial to have at least one image per project update. Strong project updates can help maintain backer interest in a project which helps generate more comments and can get backers to share the project with their friends.

Explaining the HUD details could be easy project update material. Sometimes it is done as an infographic with arrows pointing to details. There is a 12 pip lifebar in the top left. A circle attached to that bar contains an indicator for which of 4 weapons is selected. The fist weapon appears to be infinite uses, while others like the grenade weapon appear to have a counter for limited supply. An "X" appears during cutscenes which I assume is weapons lock. There are 4 indicator pips to the left of the weapon icon circle. Those appear to be part of a weapon rotation system. I noticed the timer in the top right counts down instead of up. Weapons themselves are good material. One of the player's weapons appears to be an orb sent out ahead and then a beam connects with the players and the orb. It reminds me of the mechanic for Sylux's energy-thread attack between points in one of the Metroid games. Such a weapon is good for hitting more than one target at once within two points. There appears to be a basic jump and boosted double jump that could be handled by the same button. There is the fire button and d-pad. I assume an equivalent of the select button is used for weapon rotation. Details like these can initially feel mundane to a dev, but they help backers to imagine what playing the game will be like. To improve gameplay, modern dual-analog stick controllers could be supported in ways such as selecting the weapon with each of the shoulders/triggers corresponding to one of the four weapons for quickly switching. Talking about stuff like this shows that a project's creator already knows how the game will be executed. Another way to get easy material is to show the asset progression. I noticed in the old footage the double-jump had no jetpack effect. Old sprites can be compared to their current ones. It is a way to show how the developer can improve the product over time.
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« Reply #55 on: January 09, 2015, 05:27:18 PM »

Thanks, RinseWashRepeat!

Thanks again LobsterSundew, I'll respond to you in detail via PM in a little bit. I've been out of the U.S. in the past week (in Iceland), and I haven't been able to do anything major on the Kickstarter/Greenlight, but once I get back I'll start iterating it again.



January 9, 2015


Some more new level art from Daniel -- this is an underwater cavern area, beneath the National Harbor. It’s also the point where the game begins to diverge from “realistic” settings; giant eels and other fun stuff will be present. Not much programming work on the actual game has been done over the past week because I've been out of the country and because of all the KS/Greenlight preparation stuff, but personally I think this looks awesome.

The general idea is that the level is autoscrolling and its design + enemy patterns are synced to the music, with the “climaxes” of the music also being the climaxes of the stage. The stage music isn’t quite finished yet, but here’s a WIP. It’s kinda inspired by post-rock bands like Explosions in the Sky.
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« Reply #56 on: January 17, 2015, 04:06:24 AM »

The updated pitch now has the different zoom in the first gameplay scene. It is easier to understand what is going on.

I see there is a new $20 early-bird version of the $25 soundtrack tier added. With its current 30 slots it would contribute at least $600 (7.5% of $8,000) when filled. The project would then need at least $1,800 (22.5% of $8,000) contributed by other reward tiers to reach the 30% raised in the first week tipping point. Below are other possible results from different numbers of slots for that $20 tier.

40 slots would be $800 (10% of $8,000)
50 slots would be $1,000 (12.5% of $8,000)
60 slots would be $1,200 (15% of $8,000)
70 slots would be $1,400 (17.5% of $8,000)
80 slots would be $1,600 (20% of $8,000)
90 slots would be $1,800 (22.5% of $8,000)
100 slots would be $2,000 (25% of $8,000)

The more slots, the potential for a lower sense of urgency to pledge if those slots aren't disappearing quickly. 30 to 50 slots feels good for this project. If it were asking for a higher goal then the number of slots should be higher, but even 30 slots filled puts you close to tipping towards success. It may be possible to edit it higher after launch if it immediately fills up on the first day and if backers are notified that you want to raise it.

Project creators can manually set the number of remaining open slots to zero to lock it down from more backers selecting it. There is the tactic of not having to decide a specific number of slots and instead use some other condition. The $20 tier for Elegy of a Dead World is an example of a time-limited early-bird reward tier. It uses a time-limit instead of a pre-decided number of slots to create urgency. It had the text "THIS REWARD TIER IS ONLY AVAILABLE UNTIL FRIDAY 10AM ET/GMT-4" explaining when it would end. I don't feel like recommending this tactic for Steel Assault because it works best when there is a lot of first day press already confirmed. If lacking press, then it results in people missing the opportunity. Instead of worrying there are too many slots, it becomes worrying about not giving that reward tier enough time. There is also the milestone-limited early-bird reward tiers. That tier gets locked once the campaign reaches a specific milestone such as 50% funded or a specific total number of backers. That is more of a tactic fit for much larger projects.

The $39 beta access tier is $14 more than the $25 soundtrack tier. I am worried about how backers will perceive the value. The price could be kept the same if the scarcity or exclusivity of being able to beta test the game was discussed. I want to think about this tier more. Just slashing the price is not always the only option. Sometimes increasing the value or even the perceived value means more revenue.



Two other pixel art heavy games that recently launched are Moonman and The Incredible Baron. Drift Stage is doing well and Shadowrun Hong Kong is the star of the platform right now. Other than those campaigns the competition between projects doesn't seem to be intense right now. Monday January 19th looks good for launching. The hope would be to get close to fully funded in the first 14 days before the threat of a wave of strong new projects on February 2nd.

It is good to launch before the afternoon for the Eastern Time Zone. Launching around noon is a safe recommendation. Launching earlier than noon can be beneficial when there isn't much activity in the Newest section, but what to be aiming for is for the project to be live when Internet usage starts rising between noon and 6pm EST. Analytics keep showing that the Eastern Time Zone is the important one. It is good to end in the evening on the final day before backers would be going to bed so they don't have to skip the final countdown. Ending earlier, such as around noon, could result in collecting less pledges on the final day. For reference 8pm EST is 5pm PST, 1am in London and 9am in Perth. It is important to remember to use the option to set the end hour of the campaign to not end in the morning on the final day. Previously project creators didn't have the freedom to pick the exact hour to end like they now can. Back then projects ruined their final day push because they had launched in the morning to get a good start and would end in the morning with few backers around as a result.

I suggest you send a project preview link to Cliqist. That blog covers most of the video game campaigns that launch in Kickstarter. It should be easy press to get because its niche is gaming on Kickstarter. Previewing it to them or offering to do an interview could result in an article they are ready to post as soon as the campaign launches.

The project page is looking good.
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« Reply #57 on: January 17, 2015, 07:57:46 AM »

January 17, 2015



Also, here's a new song for a intense and creepy temple level, where eyes watch you from the shadows. Pretty proud of this one.

LobsterSundew, I'll respond in a PM in a little bit.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2015, 10:49:21 AM by DavidCaruso » Logged

Steel Assault devlog - NES-style 2D action platformer: successfully Kickstarted!
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« Reply #58 on: January 19, 2015, 09:12:43 AM »

Just making this post so that our full KS/Greenlight announcement (with big fonts and everything) starts on a new page. We just launched both.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/43113410/steel-assault
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=377961407
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« Reply #59 on: January 19, 2015, 09:13:23 AM »

Steel Assault is now live on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight!



 Hand Any Key Crazy Hand Any Key

Please share the pages or retweet the announcement if you like our game! Every bit of exposure helps.


« Last Edit: January 19, 2015, 10:29:50 AM by DavidCaruso » Logged

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