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[seandanger]

Hey all,

My upcoming Kickstarter campaign is mostly ready, and I'm looking looking for honest feedback about it.  Would you back this project?  Thanks a lot for looking!

edit: Feedback received, taking the link down for now to make changes and get ready for the launch.

Thank you all very much for the honest words about our Kickstarter.  It's helped me make some changes that I think improve the campaign and I'm confident we'll change some minds in this thread by the time the game is out.  I hope you consider checking out the campaign again or telling a friend to see what they think once it's live.  I'll post here on tigsource again of course too.  And if it crashes and burns, I'll report what I learned

[Justsometoast]

No. you do not need nearly that much money.

[seandanger]

Thanks for the feedback Justsometoast.  Could you elaborate?  Were you interested in the game but turned off only by the goal amount?  We're very tight with our accounting and $7.5k just covers material development costs, it doesn't even include our cost of living, which is the biggest expense.  

Do you think it would help if we spelled out what specifically the funds are being used for?

From the $10K, 25% goes to kickstarter + amazon fees and reward fulfillment.

From the remaining $7.5K,:
$4.5K on Unity Pro, Android, and iOS licenses
$1K (estimated) legal expenses
$1K (estimated) for test devices
$1K Misc fees, web hosting, music, sfx, marketing

[Justsometoast]

What I said was an initial reaction, which is what I'm assuming you wanted. If that's what I thought, other people will think it too.

I trust you and your numbers but if you're going to ask for money, I think you should work on making the game warrant it. You need to provide the player with an experience worth your goal. More importantly than that, you need to show that you will, which doesn't seem to be happening here.

Rewards are great and living expenses and software are necessities. I think that the average person who comes to your kick-starter page though, wont think of that stuff first. What they'll see is a game that quite honestly at this stage looks like it could be made for free. I'm not sure what you want to do about changing this initial reaction but its something that needs to happen for you to motivate people to buy into this.

[seandanger]

Sure I understand that's your initial reaction, and I am of course interested in hearing that.  It's good to know what makes you think that it's too much money though -- whether that's just the amount itself, or the fact that the game isn't impressive to you.

Not liking the game is tough to remedy, but being mistrustful of the goal amount is easier to fix, that's why I was interested in details.

Thanks for the input!

[seandanger]

131 views and only one person said anything?  Anyone else have any thoughts?  I'm looking for positive and negative (constructive) feedback.

[ink.inc]

131 views and only one person said anything?  Anyone else have any thoughts?  I'm looking for positive and negative (constructive) feedback.

doing this makes you seem needy and not in a good way



the player sprite is not very appealing imo; i'd do a redesign to fix the eyes and give the face some character

[seandanger]

Not trying to sound needy, just encouraging people to post after looking.  I'm interested in all feedback so even if people don't like it I'd like to hear about it.

Animations for the sprites have a little more personality to them, but it gets a little lost in the screenshot.  I'll see if I can grab a more animated frame instead, thanks!

[Schrompf]

Because you asked so nicely for *any* feedback, and I just glanced over the presentation, here's my opinion.

I would not back it, for the following reasons:
- I can't stand that pixelated retro look anymore, there's just too much of it around here.
- The game looks like a standard cow clicker with an occasional upgrade-your-cow - Kongregate already has alot of these games

Maybe you should present more clearly what exactly makes your project stand out. Oh, and the game should be free for backers at least. I do understand your hesitations from a organisational point of view, but I can imagine that possible backers are offset by this.

[seandanger]

Hey Schrompf, thanks for your thoughts.

The game definitely doesn't play like a cow clicker, so I'll try and do a better job of describing the gameplay.  I'm not a fan of those types of games so didn't want to make that type of game.  It's a management sim, so it plays more like game dev story or rollercoaster tycoon.  There's strategy to how you grow your employees and which markets you target, for instance.

I hear you on the pixel look, it has been in vogue for awhile now.  At this point I still like it enough to not want to take the time switching styles, so I'll just have to take the hit on that from those who aren't fans of it.

I really can't make the mobile versions of the game free for backers without developing an entirely different SKU for distribution, which is not worth the time and negative effects that would create.  I've seen some other successful kickstarters that didn't give a free copy of the game.  Then again, I've seen plenty of failed ones too.  We plan on including a copy of the PC / Mac version to all backers at the $9 and above level.  I'll have to add that in there. 

I had considered lowering the pledge tier levels by $2 each to compensate for people having to buy the game once it releases, but ultimately scrapped that idea because I thought it would just confuse things.  Do you (as a potential backer) think that would sound better?

Thanks again for your comments.

[Raptor85]

IMHO the problem with the art isn't that "it's pixel art and now going out of style" or anything like that, it's that on one hand you have FANTASTICLY done pixel art for the level and such (basicly pixel art as it's properly done, not to purposefully look chunky but to fit far more detail in the image at the screen space given than would be otherwise possible) but then on the other hand you have the ingame font, bar across the top, and the picture of the "workforce" alligator that tbh just look like they were scaled up poorly, so you have a weird mix of damn near "sierra" level pixel art mixed with stuff that looks almost as bad as the stuff I can draw O_x. (and a few minor things that bug me, like the pillow shading on the rug (i can accept it on the pillows) and the lack of detail in the floor.) 

I would say don't make it chunky  to be chunky, you have nice high res pixel art for a lot of things, i particularly love the detail in things like the back of the tv/vcr's, the pencils on the desk, etc, make everything at that resolution!  Redraw a font because the one you have now just LOOKS like it's upscaled and is a little hard to read for a heavily text oriented game, and maybe for your workforce you could do something like FF style high res pixel art character portraits.

For "giving the game free" for backers, there actually ARE ways to do it, for iOS there at least used to be a way to create promo codes to give free copies away. (though, take this with a grain of salt, i haven't messed with iOS publishing since the first 6 months it origionally started up).  For android there's two methods, one is to host the signed apk yourself, though not all phones will accept an install like this, another is to have your backers provide you what name they used for their android account and issue refunds on the fee when they install.

[seandanger]

Redraw a font because the one you have now just LOOKS like it's upscaled and is a little hard to read for a heavily text oriented game, and maybe for your workforce you could do something like FF style high res pixel art character portraits.

Nice eye! That font is indeed low res, we'll upres it before publishing for sure.  I'll see if I can fix that before the kickstarter launch.  I also like your idea of the FF style high res portraits, or the kind that appear in the manual of chrono trigger, etc.  Good idea

For "giving the game free" for backers, there actually ARE ways to do it, for iOS there at least used to be a way to create promo codes to give free copies away. (though, take this with a grain of salt, i haven't messed with iOS publishing since the first 6 months it origionally started up).  For android there's two methods, one is to host the signed apk yourself, though not all phones will accept an install like this, another is to have your backers provide you what name they used for their android account and issue refunds on the fee when they install.

iOS allows 50 promo codes per release version.  If the campaign is successful (and I have to worry about this at all) then we'll have more than 50 backers, so promo codes are out.  I had thought about the hosted apk for android.  The idea is that I want people interested in the game to download it through the normal channel so they can rate it and help its sales numbers for things like top charts, which is why I want to avoid any non-traditional distribution or special "free" version unlockable with a backers' only code.  The only KS-backed team I know of making a special free version was "Zombies, Run!" (http://www.sixtostart.com/onetoread/2012/distributing-3000-copies-of-an-ios-game/), but that was because the regular price of their app was $8, so there it makes sense.  I want to avoid it for time and cost purposes, as well as promotional purposes, so I'm hoping not too many people mind eating the cost of $2.  In fact, I've gone ahead and dropped the reward tier prices by $2 across the board, and I know that won't be good enough for everyone, but hopefully that alleviates the "no game for free" issue for most people.  Now it's like backers receive a $2 credit they can save for the download.

Thanks for the great feedback Raptor85!

[seandanger]

My initial reaction is that anyone who thinks making this game should cost $10,000 is too incompetent for my backing. I honestly believe that I could make what I'm seeing of this game by myself with maybe 80 hours of focused effort and no cash invested.

Thanks for the reply _Madk.  I wouldn't call this strictly constructive feedback, but that's another voice telling me I need to spell out our accounting better.  We only get ~$7,500 of that $10K, and nearly all of it is going to overhead costs for licenses, legal, and test devices.  If it included cost of living, it'd be higher.  I'll see if I can better defend our need for $10K on the Kickstarter page -- I'm confident we're running a modest and tight budget.

Edit:  I've dropped the Unity iOS and Android PRO (in favor of the basic versions) from the budget, so that saves us $2200, and reduces the estimated physical rewards I'll have to print and ship, so the new goal is $7.5K.  I've moved the Pro versions to the first stretch goal at $10K instead, so hopefully we'll still be able to buy the pro versions, otherwise I'll probably have to buy at least the iOS one out of pocket.  And I've now added a "$7.5K seems like a lot..." section after the rewards section.  Hopefully that's more agreeable for people!

[eyeliner]

1) Remove the physical goods and drop the tiers. They will cost you a hefty sum of money alone and will eat your budget fast.

2) You want funding for a game, but give no free game in the highest tiers, even. I call that cheap. If iOS allows 50 free licenses, get a limited tier with 50 licenses. Injustice resolved. For Android, I don't know. You have to figure it out, my friend. Not giving the game to backers is dumb.

3) Rewards are ridiculous. Your artist Kelly, if there's adherence to the tiers (unlikely) will have his/her hands quite full with the backers input. Make sure to have time allotted to that.

4)I wouldn't pay for an item-shop game up front. Sorry.

5) The game itself is not free and you also have an item-shop. Double spending. WTF?!

6) The game doesn't seem to warrant 7.5k.

$1K (estimated) legal expenses
$1K (estimated) for test devices
$1K Misc fees, web hosting, music, sfx, marketing

Legal expenses are low, unless you get a lawyer dealing with the paperwork. Get your ass in gear and deal with the bureaucracy yourself. You'll have to deal with finances and stuff, but it's nothing that a bit of reading and going to social security/tax departments in your area wouldn't take care of. Ask away and see how things are fairly simple.

What test devices do you need? Second-hand devices can come cheaper that 1k. If you want bling, aim higher, of course.

Last 1k are dubious. What's misc fees? Web hosting is rather cheap these days, for music, I'm assuming you'll want chiptuesque music that you can get for fairly cheap, sfx I don't know what you'll need, considering you have an artist onboard. Marketing expenses are variable, but I don't think you'll even need to spend here.

I'd say "no" to this.

[Schrompf]

I hear you on the pixel look, it has been in vogue for awhile now.

I do understand your point. After all, I'm doing a zombie shooter. Well... it was just unfiltered feedback, so I wanted to let you know. Still good luck to you!

[kurtkz]

I have to agree with the majority of posts here - I don't think I'd back it in its current state. I love pixel art and I love management games, but the screenshots in your Kickstarter just aren't appealing to me. I think it's partly because it's too reminiscent of RPG Maker-style games and it doesn't seem coherent.

I'd also have to agree with the other posters regarding not including download codes for backers. There must be some way for you to give the game away for free to backers above a certain tier.

That being said, a beer-crafting management game would go down a treat if handled correctly Best of luck to you!

[seandanger]

@eyeliner, thanks for the input!  To your points:

You make a few incorrect assumptions about our diligence.  I've spoken with lawyers, I have an accountant, and I've been running this business for 8 months.  I'm confident in those estimates, money and time wise.  This is our first indie game but it's not the first time for either of us on estimating time or money needed to ship a game.  Those misc costs are examples, and are not meant to constitute a complete list.  Most of the $1,000 is planned for as the things named: web hosting, music, sfx, and marketing.  There will inevitably be others though, as you noted, legal expense could go up, for instance.  I think it's responsible to plan ahead for minor (less than $500) unexpected needs.

Item shop: we're planning on selling cosmetic items and early unlocks to players that want it and want to support Bit By Bit Studios further.  Any premium-exclusive items are strictly cosmetic only.  We're both against the idea of pay-to-win and it isn't present in this game.  I turned down a job at Zynga to make this game, trust me, I don't like those types of games.  So please re-examine your opinion once the content is there, I doubt you'll find it to be evil or money-grubbing.  Junk Jack is an example of a game that uses this model in the fashion we're going for.

@eyeliner and kurtkz:

RE giving the game for free: as noted, I dropped the price of all tiers by $2, so the game is free in that respect.  I know it's not the same as a delivered free product, but we're getting $2 less from each backer and they're paying us $2 less in return, that's as close as I can comfortably make it.  I want to save the promo codes for reviewers.  And if we make it to PC and Mac we are giving copies of that!

That being said, a beer-crafting management game would go down a treat if handled correctly Best of luck to you!

Thanks a lot, it's nice to hear someone at least likes the idea   I hope you take a chance to enjoy the execution of it once it's released.

Thank you all very much for the honest words about our Kickstarter.  It's helped me make some changes that I think improve the campaign and I'm confident we'll change some minds in this thread by the time the game is out.  I hope you consider checking out the campaign again or telling a friend to see what they think once it's live.  I'll post here on tigsource again of course too.  And if it crashes and burns, I'll report what I learned

[Pineapple]

Everything eyeliner said is spot-on. The point I was trying to make is that the amount you're asking is utterly ridiculous for what little you appear to be offering.

I think it'd be a better idea to do the kickstarter when the game is either finished or nearly so, and state explicitly that the backing (which should be well under $5,000) is going to be used for legal fees and marketing.