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[Pizzamakesgames]

I have a very premature general question. I'm working on a game that I want to submit to Steam Greenlight eventually.

I have no idea at what point in development to do that, though. Early, to build a fan base? Late, to not lose any anticipation over time and have a lot of content to show from the get-go?

Here is a gif that you can click on for a video with sound and more stuff to see:



Judging by that state of progress, what'd you say?

[jeremiah]

>Early, to build a fan base? Late, to not lose any anticipation over time and have a lot of content to show from the get-go?

Late! What you have now is very premature. I don't see any gameplay. It just looks like you are showing off a little dialogue and scrolling through menus. When you do make the trailer, make sure it's HIGHLY polished (I know this is just a sample video, but there's a split second of code at the beginning for instance).

I'd go when you have finalized your visuals and you have some considerable slice of gameplay. I was further along with my game and still went too early because I didn't make a polished enough trailer until a few weeks after launching. Please don't do that. You only get one chance and most of your traffic will come in the first three days, which will determine the trajectory of your campaign.

As far as building a fan base early, yes do that! But do it elsewhere like on social media. Good luck.

[oldblood]

Jeremiah is spot-on.

1. Greenlight should be late in the process when you can showcase the gameplay. If you don't have a solid launch date (e.g. "I know the game will be done by January 2016") then its too early to worry about the distribution. You get 1 shot at greenlight, don't burn all your views and votes on a prototype that will get booed off stage.

2. You will need an actual trailer. No one cares about your menus or title screen. They want to see gameplay. If you don't have enough gameplay to make a solid trailer, then its too early.

Focus on making your game and when things are coming together, THEN make a move towards finalizing how its going to be distributed. I did the Greenlight for my game when I knew I had about 8-10 weeks left till launch so VERY late into development when I could showcase almost all of the game. I hoped it would be greenlit fast because it was so far along, and it was greenlit in 11 days.

Summary: You can never be "too deep in development" to launch a Greenlight, but you can definitely be "too early".

[Pizzamakesgames]

Sound advice, thank you two! Just wanted to make sure that I'm not missing some vital thing you should be preparing early on for a Greenlight entry far in the future, but it seems there's nothing like that to worry about.

Just hope implementing the Steam API with a fairly niche Framework, HaxeFlixel, won't be all too troublesome. I'm sure that'll be easy to figure out once the time comes, though.

Thanks again for the advice, especially the rough estimates of about when to aim for Greenlight. I won't take any chances.

[BishopGames]

Yeah, I'm of the same opinion as the other posters.

At Bishop, we went to Greenlight way too early for Light Fall, in my opinion. We got Greenlit without problem, but now we can't use that anymore to create some hype or generate some buzz, and we're still a couple months from release so...

If you're planning on attending PAX/another big convention or if you think about running a Kickstarter, I'd do them all at the same time by the way.

Cheers

[Pizzamakesgames]

Thank you all very much. I'm still happy on any thoughts regarding the Greenlight issue. Though, with the Greenlight question being solved pretty quickly and concise, I'd have another thought from the same ballpark.

I saw a lot of indie devs run a crowdfunding campaign parallel to their Greenlight "launch". I wouldn't hesitate to go for a similar approach, had I not already made a small crowdfunder about a year ago when I first had the idea to make this game.

I've already asked around a bit regarding this a couple months ago, with the general opinion being that it would be okay. You see, I'm scared of having a second crowdfunding campaign once the game is close to completion coming off as shady/scammy.

Some details would be that the backers that already got in on the first campaign would of course still get their perks, going as far as trying to use similar perks this time around to also avoid complaints like "If that perk had been there the first time around, I'd have gotten that one!", maybe even adding additional extras to the backers from the first time.

Trying to make the initial backers as happy as possible, I'd still fear that having two crowd funding campaigns for the same project like this might upset people or shine a bad line on me as a developer.

The reason for even having this campaign would be to generate extra exposure in tandem with the Greenlight entry to raise the chances of the green light while also possibly unlocking further options for the development of the game which would otherwise be impossible for me, financially.

Any thoughts on this?

[BishopGames]

Thank you all very much. I'm still happy on any thoughts regarding the Greenlight issue. Though, with the Greenlight question being solved pretty quickly and concise, I'd have another thought from the same ballpark.

I saw a lot of indie devs run a crowdfunding campaign parallel to their Greenlight "launch". I wouldn't hesitate to go for a similar approach, had I not already made a small crowdfunder about a year ago when I first had the idea to make this game.

I've already asked around a bit regarding this a couple months ago, with the general opinion being that it would be okay. You see, I'm scared of having a second crowdfunding campaign once the game is close to completion coming off as shady/scammy.

Some details would be that the backers that already got in on the first campaign would of course still get their perks, going as far as trying to use similar perks this time around to also avoid complaints like "If that perk had been there the first time around, I'd have gotten that one!", maybe even adding additional extras to the backers from the first time.

Trying to make the initial backers as happy as possible, I'd still fear that having two crowd funding campaigns for the same project like this might upset people or shine a bad line on me as a developer.

The reason for even having this campaign would be to generate extra exposure in tandem with the Greenlight entry to raise the chances of the green light while also possibly unlocking further options for the development of the game which would otherwise be impossible for me, financially.

Any thoughts on this?

Not saying you shouldn't do another campaign, the decision belongs to you but here's my 2cents on it. The main issue is: Why would you even need to run a second campaign if your first was successful? This is the one point that might put you in a difficult spot for some customers and the public eye. If your first campaign was a success, in theory, shouldn't you be able to make the game and fulfill your promises? I see a lose-lose situation for you, UNLESS you can clearly express why you're running a 2nd campaign.

People might think that you set your initial goal too low and now that you need to run a second campaign to make the game. People might doubt your ability to budget and manage your studio's finances. People might think that's a greedy move or a cash-grab. Once again, I'm just playing the Devil's advocate here as to how some people might perceive the move. If you have a great reason to run a second campaign, go ahead.

[oldblood]

Figure out a way to further reward the original backers for being the first supporters of the game. You should also just flat out ask the backers if they have an issue with a 2nd campaign. Adding more polish or features to a game with a 2nd campaign actually benefits the original backers with getting a better experience...

So there are ways you can pitch the 2nd campaign and frankly speaking, the original backers may not have any issue with it regardless. Just ask.

FLIP SIDE:

That being said... it does look like poor management of either the funding you did receive or poor planning on figuring out what kind of budget you really needed. If you can't finish the game with your initial funding, what will make people think you can finish it with more funding? Doing two campaigns for one game could also hurt any future games you attempt to crowdfund with as people will naturally question if what youre asking for is even enough.

In short, if you can avoid a 2nd campaign, I would avoid it. If you NEED to do it to finish the game, talk to your original backers and figure out a good way to make it worthwhile for them... But be aware that like most things in life, there will be ripples down the line.

[Pizzamakesgames]

Not saying you shouldn't do another campaign, the decision belongs to you but here's my 2cents on it. The main issue is: Why would you even need to run a second campaign if your first was successful? This is the one point that might put you in a difficult spot for some customers and the public eye. If your first campaign was a success, in theory, shouldn't you be able to make the game and fulfill your promises? I see a lose-lose situation for you, UNLESS you can clearly express why you're running a 2nd campaign.

I should've said before that the first campaign was neither successful, nor particularly big. Additionally, the project grew a lot since then, and I would want to have a "real" campaign this time around.

The situation is: I had this idea, I tried to fund it, I failed, I didn't give up on the idea. Now, the project has grown beyond the scope of the original campaign, and I'm having this thread. What's creating this problem is the flexible funding, which made me get the money even though the campaign failed.

[jeremiah]

I'll give you my honest opinion. The disclaimer is I don't generally crowdfund things, but I do hear a lot of people talk about what they like/dislike about crowdfunding.

Here's my impression. On your IGG page you wrote that this was a sequel to:

a single player adventure game, unfolding a strange story starring a cast of six characters over four chapters with about a dozen screens each.

Hmmm, sounds like a good bit of work. The sequel was going to be improved of course:

There will be a new world to discover, with all-new backgrounds, a new soundtrack, branching paths, new and old characters to meet and interact with and, of course, lots and lots of paradoxes. Basically, Skullz 2 will be like it's predecessor, except bigger, better, cooler, sweeter , doper, sicker and just all-around mind-blowing.

So the campaign was only 60% funded. But you speculated on your page about what would happen in that scenario: you guessed it could be done in February or March.

Nine months later: It's now November, you've for some reason expanded the scope even further, and your devlog says you're only 20% done.

I totally understand that developing a game with limited resources in your spare time is incredibly difficult and I'm not faulting anything you did. But I do wonder how this all looks to potential backers. On the one hand, you might not have enough exposure for it to even matter. On the other hand, someone who looks up the history and doesn't get a good explanation is going to be upset.

You see, I'm scared of having a second crowdfunding campaign once the game is close to completion coming off as shady/scammy.

The big thing is A) you need to meet all promises made to original backers and B) you need to articulate exactly why you need more money (which the only reason I can see at this point is that the first campaign didn't go so great... not exactly an exhilarating reason).