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[mrcrawfo]

I am the Lead Developer of an independent videogame company called Spaceship Villain, and I'm here to promote my new game which just started funding on Kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceshipvillain/nerd-brigade-a-comedy-jrpg-for-pc-mac

Nerd Brigade is a turn-based JRPG with a retro aesthetic. It is being built in Unity 3D for contemporary PC and Mac desktop systems, but with an audio/visual style designed to fit in the libraries of the classic 16-bit consoles. The gameplay of Nerd Brigade  is clearly inspired by older, more well-established franchises, but the storytelling quickly breaks free of the familiar medieval fantasy tropes to create a truly unique universe. The game is a comedic parody of comic book superheroes seen through the lens of awkward high school reality. It’s a parody of superhero comics as well as the readers who escape into these fictional worlds, a lighthearted coming of age story in which superteams mirror the friendships and alliances of social life in high school.

Nerd Brigade has been in production for several months already, but we are approaching the limits of what we can do with self-funding alone. We have developed a substantial amount of the underlying game systems already, and have released a fully playable demo as proof of concept. Now we are running a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds required to bring the rest of the game to completion. We are hoping to receive enough money in total to enable an additional ten months of development, but individual donors can pledge as little as $10 today to pre-order their own digital copy of the game.

We want to turn this demo into a full game on par with some of the 16-bit greats, but we will need your help to do so. Nerd Brigade means the world to us at Spaceship Villain, so please help give us the opportunity to complete it for you.

Thank you very much for your assistance in helping to spread the word about Nerd Brigade! Here are direct links to the demo:
PC - https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5aeU2IAGrXOT0hpcGhVOC1uVm8/edit?usp=sharing
Mac - https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5aeU2IAGrXORVlfUjAwTXcxZUE/edit?usp=sharing

Please check http://www.spaceshipvillain.com/nerd-brigade/ for more information.

[seandanger]

Hey mrcrawfo,

I played the demo and am impressed with the amount of content and dialogue you have already.  Especially for a demo, I think the menus, combat system, and dialogue trees are very well done.  The pacing and challenge of the fights were a little slow and easy, but I wouldn't expect much balance or polish in a demo so I'm sure you'll improve those in the long run.  My only issue was that I hit a playthrough stopping bug when I once accidentally opened the menu and then hit the close key before the menu had finished transitioning.  That got me stuck in what I'm guessing is a menu state, but I had the regular game view, and none of the keys worked, so I had to close out before journeying to the moon base!

Anyway, as someone who recently finished a Kickstarter I'd like to offer some critiques for your KS page that will hopefully help you gain funding:

1.  This can't be changed now that your project is live of course, but your funding goal seems high.  In order to help alleviate skepticism about that, I think it could be helpful to list out what you plan on doing with that money. 

As a side note, when I was planning my campaign, I ended up reducing our project goal (before launching the project) by subtracting the amount I would've used to cover living costs for the developers.  I discovered that a lot of potential backers dislike the idea of the project creator using funds to cover their costs of living during development.  I'm not sure exactly why, but that's something I discovered.  If cost of living is part of your $38K, and this Kickstarter campaign doesn't reach its goal, you may consider launching another one with that funding component removed from the goal in order to improve your chances of success.

2.  Tell us a little more about yourself and your company.  People want to know why they should trust you to make a game using their money.  What experience do you have making games?  Why are you credible?  I didn't find that info on your KS page, but you can still add it!

3.  Having a demo shows that you can do what you talk about doing, and I think you could do a better job of getting potential backers to check it out.  You should have a big "PLAY THE DEMO" (with a graphic) button on your page.  It's too hidden in that big block of text at this point.  Also, any chance of publishing a WebPlayer build so people don't have to download it?  Your friends will download your demo and try it, but most strangers probably won't.  Having an in browser demo reduces that friction significantly.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your game.  After playing the demo, I can tell the level of passion you have for the project.  I wish you luck!

[mrcrawfo]

seandanger, thank you so much for the excellent feedback! I'm really glad to hear from someone who played the demo and appreciated all the time I put into it, that means so much! I'm also super embarrassed by that bug - I don't know how I missed it but I will patch it immediately!

I'm getting a lot of skepticism about the funding goal, and I understand that. I'm going to add it to the FAQ portion of the page, but since you brought it up specifically I will address it here as well. $38,000 is a lot of money, absolutely. It's just that this particular genre A) takes a long time to make and B) typically offers 40-60 hours of gameplay. A lot of that player time is re-usable fights and re-exploring existing terrain, but it's still a massive investment of time to populate a game this size. So with only myself as lead artist and developer, I'm estimating it will take at least ten months to complete a full game based on the foundation you've seen in the demo. I approximated that out to $3000 a month for rent, utilities and food (not unreasonable for LA) plus $5000 for marketing/promotion and miscellaneous pieces of software like what I used to do the screen recording. So the initial goal was $35,000 and then I added a bit extra to buffer the 8-10% fee that Kickstarter charges. So it is an expensive figure altogether, but I honestly think it's the minimum I would need to realistically make a game of this scale. I think if I can get people around the sticker shock and convince them to play the demo (your third bullet point) then the costs will be a bit more understandable, and the full game has a lot to offer at only $10 per player. Most basically I would say this has been a goal of mine for a long time and I believe it's not worth doing halfway; I would rather have a high goal that (if met) will allow me to make my dream game than have to compromise and do something less. Sorry for rambling, but I wanted to answer your concern a bit more directly than however it will read in the FAQ.

Your second point is one I'm considering how to address. The company is so new, it has to rely entirely on my personal experience. Most of what I've done professionally up to now is corporate software, which I can't really discuss due to NDA even if it were more relevant. My prior games work has been mostly small Kongregate projects, which I'm not sure about even mentioning since much of the gamedev community I've seen tends to discredit web games. That's why I've been emphasizing the demo so much, because I kind of want to let that speak for the validity of the project/studio in place of my resume experience.

But I'll find better ways to address your various points in the Kickstarter text, your feedback means a lot at this stage! Thank you very much for taking the time to write this all up for me, sorry if I got a bit rambly in my response

[seandanger]

I don't personally think the goal is unrealistic funding for a game, it's just been my experience that many of your potential backers will take issue right away with that figure, especially if the money is for cost of living as opposed to direct overhead costs like software licenses, etc.  You don't have to always listen to everyone's criticism anyway -- keep in mind that if 1 in 10 back your project, that's a great conversion rate.

I'm glad you found some of my feedback helpful!  You're in a similar situation as I am / was a month ago so I definitely sympathize   Good luck.

[Dragonmaw]

who the fuck cares about your bad game

[emacs]

gib thousands of dorrar so i can make dum rpgmaekr gam pls

[poe]

gib thousands of dorrar so i can make dum rpgmaekr gam pls

Only if superb joe writes it.