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[Polygonzo]

Hey! The updates have slowed a bit, but I've been getting plenty done for the Kickstarter...NEXT WEEK!!

Here's the trailer:



And here's a preview of the Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/590439323/1914569523?token=87e7ed66

The page is still being worked on but I WOULD LOVE SOME FEEDBACK!

Ok, gonna prep the demo today. SORRY, THE DEMO IS UNAVAILABLE FOR THE NEXT DAY AS I MOVE IT TO ITCH.IO

P.S. Since I've been restructuring my site, a lot of the images in the thread are missing. I put up a bunch of new ones in the first post. Maybe I'll replace the others when I get a sec.

Cheers.

[Quicksand-T]

I don't really get Kickstarter at all, but good luck with your campaign 

That jelly boss with all the flesh and flotsam floating in it is so great.

[Polygonzo]

Rather than host the early alpha demo on my site, I'm going to use itch.io

http://polygonzo.itch.io/happy-hell

Just the PC build for now. Mac and Linux coming soon!

[Zorg]

• I really like the trailer. Did not play the demo, yet.
• You should add the platform(s) directly next to the alpha download link.
• Decide if you wanna write "magik" (x)or "magick".
• The writing gives an honest and authentic feeling to the campaign (at least for someone like me without proper english language skills). I think thats a good thing, but you should not overuse "spoken" language. Kickstarter is serious business after all. Reread again and again, show the text to everyone.
• Typo: "These are Good Things are non-evil objects that have somehow ended up lost in Hell."
• You should add some fancy graphic headlines, like everyone does. It individualizes your campaign page. Also, the last two headlines use different text sizes and margins. Maybe "The Game", "Behind the Scenes" and "Crowdfunding" (i would avoid "Why Kickstarter?").
• Your name is Polygonzo Trismegistus? Wow! :D

[Buzzwerd]

This looks awesome, gotta find a Windows machine to try the demo.

[Polygonzo]

Thanks for your input Zorg! Those are all good points so I'll make those changes. I guess I should consider making the tone of the writing a little more business like...or professional. Anyway, thank you!

Buzzwerd: There will be Mac and Linux builds on Monday at the latest, hopefully tomorrow.

[SirNiko]

I'm worried about your demo - it's cute but it doesn't feel polished. I'd play it like a toy for a little while, but it's not something I'd play as a game. It does hint at a lot of potential and show you have an engine, but it could also give the impression the final product will resemble what you have now. How far off do you think you are from having the first level of hell complete and playing like the final version, including music and thorough bugtesting? The level design in the demo screams "prototype" (which is mostly what it is!) which I worry will scare off a lot of potential backers.

Is there a "Quit" button? I had to end the game by using windows task manager. There also needs to be a pause button - I didn't find one.

The camera feels too fast and loose. I found it difficult to get it to face the direction I wanted. Consider slowing it down, or adding some friction so that it takes a moment to accelerate from a slight tap.

I frequently accidentally cleared the soul sucker dialogue boxes immediately after they appeared, and had to guess what powers they awarded, or review the controls to see how to use them. You should have a one or two second delay between pulling up the box and allowing the player to clear it.

It was almost by accident that I discovered you can talk to the witch to get a 'quest', and would have never experimented if I hadn't seen a screenshot of her offering one (I thought it was a feature that was not in the demo, but in a private, more complete build of the game). It also appears that the pope hat is required to do this. It makes sense the pope hat is needed to open the face in the wall, but the witch should allow you to talk without the hat.

For both the witch quest and opening the mouth, I missed these in your first demo but suspect they were there and I just wasn't aware of it. I suspect many players who play your demo will fail to discover either area and miss out on most of the demo. You should consider some method of guiding the player to these - make the characters talk to Spooky Poo when he approaches, for example. You could also offer some kind of a checklist, such as a list of hints to the good things in the pause menu, or perhaps an NPC who will give hints to the locations of the good things (this could be the same NPC that accepts the good things to let you complete the level).

The 'landing' sound effect seems to play multiple times when you acquire a soul-sucker or die. You should try to regulate that.

The skill that lets you pick up objects with your nose - if you die while it is active (eg, fall in a pit) it will continue to play even after you respawn. You must pick something up with it and put it down to stop the effect. Also, the noise is kind of annoying. Consider quieting a bit, or reducing the pitch.

There's a question mark on the wall of the dark area in the face - does this do anything? I couldn't make it do anything.

You can easily make the camera pass through walls and get a viewpoint where you can't see anything - this happens frequently in the dark area inside the face. Consider making walls transparent when the camera is outside of them, or manipulating the camera so it tries to jump back to a position where the player can see Spooky.

Grab a large object with your nose, like the large glowing eyeballs, and jump so your nose and the eyeball catches the ledge - you'll be suspended by the eyeball. Not expected behavior, but not necessarily a bug. With the double jump power, I can get back on the ledge from this position (whereas I'd otherwise die). You might work this into something useful.

Can you use the nose that shoots projectiles and the 666 belt at the same time? I collected the nose gun first and the belt second, and it seemed like the gun overrides the nose for your Y button. Consequently, this made it so I couldn't kill the witch boss.

I killed the witch boss on a different run, but the hat (which seems to be an exit) didn't take me anywhere. It sucked me up and trapped me inside the hat, forcing me to reset.

I can't reach the two soul suckers floating up above the starting area - one of these might be the exit to the witch level, while the other could be reached if I had the power that makes fart platforms. I can get to 8/10 suckers in the demo.

Double jump seems way more powerful than the other jump skills. It also makes some of the areas trivial - you can easily climb the wall near the start of the dark area inside the mouth and skip directly to the boss door without doing the difficult platforming section. The witch area is the same - you can use the double jump to skip most of the platforms to reach the broom powerup. This may not be an issue in the final game, but in the demo it made the jester jump less valuable and the devil tail useless by comparison. The devil tail could be 'fixed' by making it dramatically more powerful than the double jump, but this would further break many of the platforming sections.

The lack of music is noticeable. What are your plans for getting music in the final game (eg, use open source music, hire a musician, make it yourself)? Include this answer in the kickstarter. You might be able to use some public domain orchestral pieces that will be essentially free but fitting for the setting.

I take it the demo contains no "good things" to collect. You should strongly consider making the area playable by letting the player collect some good things and reach some kind of exit.

The ability of the player to skip devil powers and accomplish goals through multiple means is a strong selling point, but this doesn't seem possible in the demo. It seems like many devil powers are strictly mandatory - the pope hat to talk to the witch or open the face, the nose lifter power to open the casket or carry the glowing eyes, the nose gun to fight the face boss, and the 666 belt and broom to fight the witch boss. One the other hand, the jumping powers (jester jump, devil tail, double jump) aren't mandatory but having at least one is extremely useful for breaking the platforming challenges. I'd like to read your thoughts on these challenges and some of the different ways the player can approach them with different sets of powers.

I'd like to read a lot more about your plans for the design of the first level - your description promises some great things, but your demo doesn't showcase them. Either you'll need to showcase the layout of the first level in your kickstarter to explain what you'll do, or (better) you should polish up the demo to showcase the first level in a near-complete form.

The way the kickstarter and demo look now, I would not pledge to this game.

Really, I'd like to read a detailed analysis of the demo level and/or the first level of the game if they're going to be different. Where are the powers, where are the good things, how do you expect the player to get them, and thoughts on different combinations of powers the player is likely to take and how they change the flow of the level. I think that this will be very useful for your kickstarter, because you can borrow some or most of these thoughts to describe real situations the player will encounter in the finished game, and also show you are considering level design seriously.

Despite all of this, I think you do have something worthwhile here! With some effort you can get a successful kickstarter.

[Polygonzo]

Hi SirNiko, thanks very much for your detailed feedback. All of this is valid criticism.

I think the main question I'm asking myself now is whether I should withhold the demo until later in the Kickstarer...to polish what I can in the meantime. I am planning on having a Let's Play type video ready on day 2 where I go into detail about how the demo relates to the final game in terms of features, structure and mechanics.

It really is just a prototype! 6 months of work in one loose little sandbox. Do you think labeling it as a prototype instead of a demo would help with that? To create something close to the final first level would take about 3-4 weeks if everything went extremely well but...

I've put myself in a tough position here. I'm already preparing to look for work in case the Kickstarter doesn't succeed, but getting another job even part-time would really slow things down.

I'm working on showing the physical rewards like you mentioned earlier, as well as breaking it down more how I'm using the money for development.

I'm also adding music tracks to the levels right now which is helping them a bit. I'll try to target the most off-putting problems you mention, but...I'm planning on launching the KS tomorrow! Your feedback has been sobering. I'm taking it to heart and I appreciate it but I will probably have to move forward with my current plan. I still feel very optimistic about my chances...while also realistically nervous.

We'll see how it goes. I have a lot to do >_<

EDIT: My solution for now is to always mention the demo as a prototype. It's rough and ugly in parts, but it's being released to give an idea of the potential and that Happy Hell is more than just high concept...we'll see how it goes!

[gimymblert]

withdraw the demo

[Polygonzo]

Ok. Thanks guys. I'm pretty much convinced that I shouldn't release the demo on day one now.

I will continue to refine it, hopefully share it here, and if it shapes up nicely enough I'll make it public mid-campaign or maybe at the end depending on how things go.

At the very least I will have the Let's Play video narrated by me within the first couple of days.

*deep breath*

Thanks again all. I need that brutal truth.

[Polygonzo]

Today's the daaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!

KICKSTARTER:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/590439323/spooky-poos-happy-hell

Steam Greenlight:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=394088145

[gimymblert]

Voted and commented as PR encouragement 

[Polygonzo]

Well the Kickstarter for Happy Hell is closing out its second day with nearly $3k. It's been slow going. I've been less than successful getting any major media exposure so far (wondering if journalists are getting ready for GDC, PAX ect). Not as many backers as I'd like. The greenlight process is going pretty well though.

Meanwhile I plan on keeping up a steady stream of updates on the Kickstarter. Videos that go into more gameplay detail, elaborations on backer rewards, stretch goals, game design, music ect.

Here's a video I made today. Me and the Devil start with the basic controls for Spooky Poo.





P.S. My KS video was retweeted by both Chris Seavor (Conker!) and Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie!) and while that has brought me some new followers, it hasn't translated into more than 8 or so backers I think. Still, it was exciting for me personally!

P.P.S. I made some of the changes that SirNiko suggested and also added some temp music and temp UI to the prototype: http://occultimategames.com/happy_hell/downloads/HappyHellPrototype.zip

[SirNiko]

Keep in mind your updates don't appear on the main page of the Kickstarter (you have to click through to them), so there's a good chance that a potential backer will not bother to click to see them. Updates are only for people who have already seen your project so they can digest just what's new without rereading your main page.

Every time you add an update with new information be sure to add it to your main page. Add your new prototype video in there somewhere with some new text so a person who only reads the main page will understand it.

[Polygonzo]

Done SirNiko! Thanks again. I assumed that one-click through would be ok, but you're right. Show em up front.

Here's a video I made last night just because I wanted to unwind and mess around.

[gimymblert]

try to reach out some other potential twitter influencer? Just a suggestion I don't know the reach of this strategy

[BananasGoMoo]

Well the Kickstarter for Happy Hell is closing out its second day with nearly $3k. It's been slow going. I've been less than successful getting any major media exposure so far (wondering if journalists are getting ready for GDC, PAX ect). Not as many backers as I'd like. The greenlight process is going pretty well though.

Meanwhile I plan on keeping up a steady stream of updates on the Kickstarter. Videos that go into more gameplay detail, elaborations on backer rewards, stretch goals, game design, music ect.

Here's a video I made today. Me and the Devil start with the basic controls for Spooky Poo.





P.S. My KS video was retweeted by both Chris Seavor (Conker!) and Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie!) and while that has brought me some new followers, it hasn't translated into more than 8 or so backers I think. Still, it was exciting for me personally!

P.P.S. I made some of the changes that SirNiko suggested and also added some temp music and temp UI to the prototype: http://occultimategames.com/happy_hell/downloads/HappyHellPrototype.zip

For whatever reason, I feel like the voice of the devil should sound like HIM from Powerpuff Girls [

].

[Polygonzo]

It was very tempting to just steal that voice!

The Happy Hell Devil's voice isn't really final. Gonna try layering vocals on it for a trippier effect at some point.

[surt]

I've been meaning to say that Spooky Poo is perhaps the most adorable character ever.
Hail Satan.

[SirNiko]

try to reach out some other potential twitter influencer? Just a suggestion I don't know the reach of this strategy

I was thinking about youtubers.

You might find a couple of youtube players to which you could send a/the demo, in hopes they'll play it and comment on it. Even if they respond negatively, it will increase awareness of your kickstarter. If they're positive, that's obviously all the better. I'd focus on people who hold positive impressions of Mario 64 and/or N64 era collectathons, since those are the people most likely to excited about your game. I don't have experience with youtube players, though.

You might find some threads in the business subforums that talk more about people who have experience dealing with youtubers or twitter users.

A Mario 64 fansite might be a place to advertise, but I don't know of any.