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[teefal]

Thanks Job Leonard and Princessa.  Your encouragement means more than anything. 

[teefal]

With less than five days left and only 25% of the goal raised, it’s very likely we won’t get funded. There’s typically a bump at the very end, but unless something crazy happens like getting featured on Boing Boing, our campaign will fall short.

This means Tidepool won’t get finished this summer. If I work weekends all year, I may be able to finish by the holidays, though more likely it’ll take another year.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to our 64 backers. Raising $4500 is impressive, though Kickstarter is all-or-nothing. Your credit cards will not be charged. We’ve decided to honor the gifts anyway, as they cost us nothing.

If you’d like to get further Tidepool announcements, be sure to signup if you haven’t already. We send news every month or so, along with release announcements.

Ah well, what can I say? We tried our best. With 4000 page views and 1600 video plays (20% of them finished), we had ample exposure to raise the needed money.

My guess is that Tidepool wasn’t a good fit for Kickstarter’s “video game” category, especially as a free game aimed at kids. Our video at the top could have been better. Live and learn.

My best to you and yours. May we meet someday in game.

Take care,
Tim

[oahda]

unless something crazy happens like getting featured on Boing Boing,

Is there no way you can try and arrange that by contacting them, if you think it'll help?

[teefal]

We're honoring rewards even if we're not funded, so grab your badges, early access, and naming rights at http://backTidepool.com

[teefal]

Prinsessa,

I just submitted directly to Boing Boing. Cross your fingers and your toes

I'd sent four announcements to *everyone*, but not Boing Boing specifically.

Who knows? 

[oahda]

Let's hope!

[teefal]

Kickstarter last day.We won't get funded, though help up our numbers with NO CHARGE to your card. Please http://backTidepool.com

[lithander]

Maybe my subjective reaction to your project/campaign might help in figuring out why the campaign didn't succeed.

The first impression is mixed. I like the name. I like the idea of a codable MMO world where every user can also be a creator with all the power that comes with writing code as opposed to using a more traditional game-interface. But the graphics are off-putting. It all looks like it's been made by a child. I wouldn't want to spend time in a world that looks like the crafting room of a kindergarden.

I try to find out more. What's interesting me is how a play session is like. What's the players/users experience with Tidepool like? I can't really answer that question. The first post is about the origins of Adventure. How does an antique text adventure fit in here? (It was an interesting read but felt tangential to the project you're developing.

The trailer and kickstarter video don't help. Especially the kickstarter video doesn't show the game - at all. There's something I can download? But I'm not quite invested enough yet. What i've seen of the interface in the trailer looked daunting. Where can I find out specifics? I'm still trying to answer the question if I could potentially be interested in the game. Is it worth more of my time? The 11 pages of thread are too much to read. I can't figure it out. I'll decide to wait and see how the project develops. Maybe sometime in the future there's a lets play or something.

I don't want to bash you or diminish the effort you've put into the project. Quite the contrary my appreciation for what it takes to stick to a hobby(?) project like this for several years is why I wan't to share some feedback. Hope you can find it constructive.

[teefal]

Thank you lithander.  This is exactly the sort of feedback I need.  

Were I to start the Kickstarter again with what I know now, I'd ...

* put gameplay snippets and bullet points at the start of the main video, then do our personal ask.

* put the "Kickstarter staff pick" badge on our top image.  I didn't realize this was a big deal.

* pick a different category.  Kickstarter "games / video games" is clearly not our audience.


Responding more directly to your points ...

* The look is supposed to be child-like.  Most of the players are children.

* Not a hobby, but a side project for our company. I've invested $130k directly and a half-million in opportunity cost.

* Tidepool is a storytelling world focusing on adventure-style interactive fiction, hence Adventure.  I thought the nostalgia for this classic game would be of more interest to people, though was proven wrong at GDC.  I'm still implementing it as a showcase in Tidepool, though.

* I've definitely fallen short on showing the game experience quickly.  We had a Let's Play Tidepool series a while back, and will resume it today   Over time, I'll capture better video as the Tidepool world expands.

Again, thank you for your thoughtful feedback.

[teefal]

By the way, this is the true line in the sand ...

> I wouldn't want to spend time in a world that looks like the crafting room of a kindergarten.

We do best with younger kids, parents, and primary school teachers. We do worse with seasoned gamers, artists, and teenage boys.  It's quite possible that TIGsource is the wrong place for Tidepool.  I just don't know.

Nothing in Tidepool prevents you from making better art (though in-game sketching doesn't have vector tools).

The chief reason for our look is to encourage children to draw their own. If they had better looking clipart all around, they wouldn't draw. It's about the freedom to be a kid, to make what you want, regardless of what adults think.

[eyeliner]

By the way, this is the true line in the sand ...

> I wouldn't want to spend time in a world that looks like the crafting room of a kindergarten.

We do best with younger kids, parents, and primary school teachers. We do worse with seasoned gamers, artists, and teenage boys.  It's quite possible that TIGsource is the wrong place for Tidepool.  I just don't know.

Nothing in Tidepool prevents you from making better art (though in-game sketching doesn't have vector tools).

The chief reason for our look is to encourage children to draw their own. If they had better looking clipart all around, they wouldn't draw. It's about the freedom to be a kid, to make what you want, regardless of what adults think.

That line represents what one sees without knowing what they are seeing.
Yeah, the art is basic, but one is to expect that from this specific project.

I will not go into the kickstarter debate, but your sole commitment to this is a source of inspiration for me. May this be finished one day.

[teefal]

Thanks eyeliner.  It may take six months or a year longer, but I'll keep at it

[lithander]

Fair enough. If you're targeting children and the art-style encourages kids to contribute and feel good about their contributions that's cool. You probably have first hand experience that I lack.

However I can't help but think of examples where this "line in the sand" as you call it is bridged quite effectively. Minecraft for example, or Duplo & Lego. The world is build from shapes that are easy for the child to combine and manipulate. It's an abstraction, an artifical constraint, but it's easier and faster to get a "good" representation of a dinosaur or a house done in that limited design space.

In indie gamedevelopment, where creators often lack the resources (talent, experience, money, time) of a professional, abstract, cost-efficient artstyles like pixel art are accepted even by the demographic you described as difficult such as gamers, artist and teenage boys.

[oahda]

Maybe the primary promotional pictures and thumbnails should show kids in front of computers interacting with the software, its interface itself less visible, since that's the main point of the software anyway, and then direct screenshots could be secondary, after it has already been clearly established that kids draw their own graphics and so on.

[teefal]

Minecraft and Lego are essentially clipart. They are designs made by adults that kids cobble together. Yes, kids have fun with these, and yes there's learning to be had remixing existing elements.

But have we become that much of a consumer society that we *need* professional pieces?   Imagine if visual artists were restricted to using cut out pieces from magazines and never learned to sketch or paint. So much of creative games is on the rails ... color by numbers ... someone else's aesthetic.

Would it be easier to sell?  Sure ... bring on the Disney IP and we'd make a mint.  But it wouldn't be Tidepool.

Btw, I learned this while working with Alan Kay (google him), who learned it while working at Apple and Disney, when he had access to their IP.  Alan got a lot of things right, but he didn't make much money (meanwhile making Gates and Jobs rich).

Anyway, I'm a big fan of the blank piece of paper.

[teefal]

Prinsessa, the two videos do have scenes showing kids using Tidepool.  And the trailer starts by saying Tidepool is a game world built by kids, for kids.  The Kickstarter video says "for kids" in the first 10 seconds, while showing the world.

I did take out "for kids" from the Kickstarter title and this devlog title, which may be causing the confusion.

I don't know ... adults like it too.  Maybe it should be "for the rest of us, for those who can't really draw."

[teefal]

Given the feedback today, I've changed the first post in the devlog a bit.  Let me know what you think.

[teefal]

Here's a beautiful example of why Tidepool has no professional drawings or models.



Research in the UK in 2008 showed "young people lost their ability to think in "divergent or non-linear ways", a key component of creativity. Of 1,600 children aged three to five who were tested, 98% showed they could think in divergent ways. By the time they were aged eight to 10, 32% could think divergently. When the same test was applied to 13 to 15-year-olds, only 10% could think in this way. And when the test was used with 200,000 25-year-olds, only 2% could think divergently. . . . Education is driven by the idea of one answer and this idea of divergent thinking becomes stifled."

Taken from this article, which also has tips for art teachers to avoid stereotyping.

[oahda]

Yeah, me, I know what's in the video since I actually watched it, but the preview doesn't show that part, and unfortunately so many people are too lazy to click the video if they don't get interested by looking at the preview. Not kidding. We live in an age of instant gratification and people won't take the time to read or click links unless there's a picture to go with it and so on.

I completely agree that it shouldn't be like that, but I do think that yes, to a large part society has become that much of a consumer society. So I don't think you should change anything about the game, but you might have to change your marketing strategies. You'll have to ask someone else about how to best go about it, tho, because I'm an art person, not a business person, and I absolutely hate thinking about this sort of stuff, as it just makes me even more depressed with the world and people...

The least tainted are probably the youngest, as your bird picture shows, so your target audience is on spot, but unfortunately consists of people too young to fund a kickstarter themselves. :/

[teefal]

I agree.  I hope I didn't come off sounding defensive, I was more reminding myself than telling you. Today has been hard.

I know I need to change something. I've been telling clients for more than a decade that websites are more like highway billboards and their potential customers are driving by at 70 miles an hour.

Like the cobbler whose children have no shoes, with my own marketing I fail to follow my own advice.

What a waste of time and money. And the real treat is that I'd have at least $5000 for it if I'd done anything but Kickstarter.