wifom,
I just wanted to say that I am highly interested in having you join the team. I will answer your questions the best I can, and you can decide if you'd like to join from there.
1) Who is currently on the team and what are their responsibilities? I'm currently interested in helping out with the UI in addition to any art assets and character designs that you would like me to do if I join the team. I want to take a dabble at that as well!
I am not entirely comfortable giving out the names of my designers, or what they do without their consent. I can say that Erik, who posted above, is the only one on the team who is from this site. Almost the entire team is comprised of college trained developers, whether programming or graphics design, and is still in school or has graduated. At this time, I have only one 3D designer who is working on character/npc renders, and I have one designer working on concept work for the first planet, and one concept artist working on npc character concepts for the first planet. I personally am writing the story, am the project lead, doing all the documentation for the game mechanics, and development break down of the game. I have a 3D level design artist as well, but we are waiting to get the main character mesh finished so that we can adjust our prototyping to the characters movement accordingly. I know it is indirect, but I hope it answers your question.
2) Have you made any sort of marketing and/or business plan thus far? If so, how do you foresee the foundation of your company using Bubbleman as a building block?
At this time, marketing has been the lowest priority. My main focus right now is building a strong team for this project. When it comes time to focus on marketing, social media is going to be a big outlet. Not just using Facebook or twitter, but doing podcasts, game play demos, and even merchandise. The bubble man project is only a stepping stone. The goal is that the bubble man project will drawn in enough money for the company that a full time staff can be hired for future projects. The game is cartoony, has rather simple game mechanics, and is primarily story driven, so after the concept and mesh work is finished assembly and programming shouldn't take that long. It is a great and simple project for anyone joining the team to get used to working together on, so if they decide to stay on as full time developers for the company they will have a comfortable team to work with on more complex project.
3) Do you have a goal or timeline or list of milestones that you want to achieve for this project? What do you vision as being the launch date (past all the bugs, testing, etc.)?
At this time, all of this is up in the air. The bubble man project didn't actually start until recently. The project was thought of and discussed late last year, but the designer who did the original concept work dropped the project and it halted. I continued to think about the project and storyline, and recently began putting a team together to get the project started. I am still expanding the team, but I want to get a tech demo assembled before putting together a timeline. The tech demo will consist of basic game mechanics and a fully prototyped first planet. This till give me a solid gauge of the teams abilities, and about how long each section will take. At this time all I will establish a release date and full development timeline. However, the goal is to have all the concept work for the first planet finished at the end of January at the latest.
4) I noticed that your Facebook page has been running since 2011. Can I ask why the progress of the game may have seemed a little slow? After 3 years, the game is still in its early development stages and does not seem as flushed out as it possibly could.
The Facebook game may have been running for that long, but this project has not been running that wrong. Originally Shining Ashes was intended to be a freelance software development company, but merged into video game development. For several years, I was working on a project by the name of Divine Shadows, which was intended to be an MMO. The Facebook page was created to keep everyone up to date on the project. At the time there was only three people working on the project, on a game engine that was still being developed, so the project was scrapped.
5) Just from your perspective, why do you think that your initial Kickstarter campaign was not as successful as you had hoped it to be?
I actually did not expect the original Kickstarter to work out. It would have been great if it had, but I was more interested in seeing the public's reaction. I got several emails from people offering ways I could improve the kickstarter, or other ways I could advertise the kickstarter to get the game the attention they felt it deserved. Regardless, the reason it has failed was the result of only having a concept. I had character concepts, and a storyline overview, but no demo, no video showing possible gameplay. The goal is to create a playable tech demo of the game, showing off a prototyped world, and some fo the game mechanics. This will show that the team is putting effort into the project and knows what they are doing, and not just talking about a concept.
6) Are you open to different angles at approaching the early stages of building the game? For example, I know that in your original Kickstarter, you mentioned that you would like to fund for software like Maya, which is primarily used for 3D. However, that puts an extreme burden on budget costs. Would you be against possibly tackling the project from strictly a 2D stance? Just thinking about the most effective and cost-efficient way to approach an indie game that is just getting off the ground with little to no funding.
As nice as it would be to have AAA quality software to develop the game, there are free alternatives that work just as well. Blender works just as well for 3D render, and MonoDev works just as well as Visual Studios as a compiler. Yes, they are not as convenient as AAA software, and will slow development down a little, but the quality of the work can be just the same. The main point of the kickstarter was to accelerate development, but it was never a requirement. As for the project being done in 2D, there is no way it can be done and retain its integrity. There is a dungeon system that uses a 2D camera system, but all the levels are still prototyped. The only expense is the prototype sofware which is $150 per seat, which I will pay for out of pocket.
7) I see that your facebook page already has ratings. What are they ratings of?
I am not really sure what the page has ratings. when I launched the Kickstarters I paid to advertise it, which is why the page has so many likes and the ratings. I could only speculate that the likes are based on them liking what they seen from the Kickstarter, but outside of that I am not sure.
I hope I answered the questions to your satisfaction.
Jobs
