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[mihai]

Hello,

This month it will be a full year since I started working on my indie game, Wisps: The Redeeming. I'm still in alpha stage, but making steps towards beta every day. You can find more information about this game on my personal blog here. The game is a combination of mechanics from Snake and Pacman with a lot of twists, I consider it fun, I hope others will do to It is developed using Unity (free version) and all kind of free tools for graphics and other assets.

I still have a full time job as a software developer, doing non-game related stuff, but I really want to go indie full time someday(like most of the people on this forum who are not yet there). I cannot tell you if I'm on the right path or not, as this is just my first real project ever.

I do not know if this is the right place on this forum to place it, if it is not please move it or just delete it if it doesn't fit in any category:

I started a fundraising campaign on IndieGoGo.com, as I need some funds for outsourcing music and sound effects, and also get some Unity licenses, other than free, if possible. I can do everything for the game except music/sound and I can't really afford to spend too much money on it. I am posting here as I'm trying to spread the word a bit about this fundraising campaign, so please share away as much as you can if you like my project.
Link: http://www.indiegogo.com/A-Game-About-Wisps

Thank you!

[PompiPompi]

I was reluctent to reply to this, because I am going to be critical.
I appreaciate your effort and it looks like you put your heart there, but...
You didn't show much of the game in the video. You also didn't show that you have a lot of the game made more than a demo that can be made in 1 month. I am not sure I would have paid for a music for this game when I don't know what the game is, and if I think you are just at the beginning of the game.
Also, you can get some free place holder sound effects, and postpone making the final sounds on a later stage.
I am sorry to be a bit harsh, but you will soon learn that eventhough you see a lot of people get paid for making games and get funding, you will find out that people don't give their money that easily. They want content and quality content.
There are the exceptions of people paying for an alpha of a game just by seeing some trailer, but even then the trailer and art work look extremly proffessional.
I think the lesson is that you need to put a lot of effort and to make quality content before people even consider to pay you.
I am still not sure if I have been too harsh... I hope I wasn't.
I hope I am not just clueless and it really that easy to get paid by people. Correct me if I am wrong.

[mihai]

Thank you for your reply, any feedback is welcomed no matter how harsh, especially criticism, as long as the intention is good.

I can assure you that what I already have cannot be done in one month, even if one would have worked full time on it. The reason it took so long (almost a year) is that first I had a prototype built with another game engine, 2D, which is btw now open source, you can pick it up from here http://vortexarena.sourceforge.net/, and only the last 6 months have been spent by working on the game, while also learning Unity. Maybe I don't show that in my video, but there is a beginning for everything, and I am still learning to make presentations:). Most of the game content randomly generated each time, and all those algorithms can take a lot to develop, especially when you need to generate 3D content out of them.

Unfortunately I don't have enough time to spend on presentation videos and also work on the game but hopefully people interested in spending their money will also visit my website and see all the progress that has been made in other screenshots and videos that are not available on the campaign website.

I have also made an assumption that people would be more willing to invest in stuff that goes into the game directly or improves its quality (like music and better technology), and know that none of that money would go into my pocket for my work on the game. The game itself will be completed anyway, it is just about its final quality that depends on funds I do not have.

[Moczan]

I agree with PompiPompi about the lack of proper presentation. Most of the video is you talking in your room, with some glimpses of game few times. Seriously, I don't care about your face, I care about the game. It's not bad to be a little bit personal, show yourself in the intro saying something along the lines of "Hi, my name is X Y and here is game I'm working on" but that's it, we want the game! After seeing this video I know nothing about the project. I know that you can control an object with mouse and that's all. Where are those pacman/snake/modern physics features? At least some mock-ups?

[mihai]

Well, at first I had this clip on the campaign:

. It shows the gameplay, but I got complains about lack of eye candy (and I agree with the complains, the video was made before deciding to start the funding campaign). It looks on this one I went to the other extreme and included too few gameplay. I guess the following one will show up more of both, but for now unfortunately I don't have time to make it as I have to work on the game.

Thank you for your replies.

[mihai]

I have remade my perks, now they all carry more value, please check them out. Also added another update video. Pretty hard to do crowdfunding with little followers

[mihai]

Last time I post about this, there are about 60+ hours to go on my campaign, if you feel like you can contribute to it and like my perks, please do so. There is also a new video showing the control scheme used in my game on the campaign page: http://www.indiegogo.com/A-Game-About-Wisps

Thank you!

[Evan Balster]

On that note, if you want people to donate, post in announcements.  Better yet, post someplace other than TIGSource or contact someone in the press.  We're all indie game developers here, and as such the vast majority of us don't have much money.

Business is acceptable if you were primarily looking for advice on the kickstarter, though.


(Just to establish my credibility, I was Kickstarter's game project of the year in 2010.  So I should like to think I know my stuff here.)

[mihai]

OK, thanks for the heads up.

The thing is, I dived into this crowdfunding thing without knowing too much about it, and that ended up in my campaign not going well at all. I've learned a lot in the process, however I don't think I'll make another one for this game, better wait and see how this game goes, and then maybe try for the next one. Posting in improper places was also a part of the experience, if I would be to start another campaign I would know not to post on places like here because, like you said, most of the readers are "on the same boat" with me.

To turn this into a useful post, I'll enumerate the main lessons I've learned:

1. You cannot have success if you don't have a large fan base. Someone said that your crowdfunding success is as big as your crowd is, and I agree with him.
2. You have to have way better marketing materials than I did.
3. While the campaign is running, one has to deal with the marketing part full time in order to spread the word, otherwise none will hear about it.
4. Spreading the word is very hard as you can easily be considered a spammer on most websites. Even on indie games focused websites, you have to start earlier and make a reputation for yourself as a member of that community before trying to  post such an announcement. Doing that while the campaign is running is inefficient and time consuming.

It is true that some games are so "catchy" that they get instant success, but the majority must have something to stand behind them, like a famous person/developer or a previous project that was very successful.