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[marcgfx]

hi zizka,
just had a look at your trailer. I think it looks nice, but I have absolutely no idea how this should teach me japanese. it's a bit of a mix of a lot of things and I'm really not sure what to make of it. it's a bit confusing really. I think you need to show more of the learn japanese it's supposed to be doing. to me it looks like a jump and run with text at the top that I don't understand :S but on the news flash it says its an RPG. the boxing ring kind of made sense when I rewatched the trailer for the third time. looks like you have to find the simbol associated with the written sound?

I hope the kickstarter takes off! good luck

[Zizka]

@Lobster Sundew:

Yes, we're off a slow start for the moment. Here's the info so far form the stats and my conclusions about it:

42% have watched the video until the end. I don't know if that's good or not. I'm assuming it's not. If it's not, we need to change the trailer asap. We need to figure out why people are not watching
the trailer until the end.

@marcgfx: Thanks, I guess it's pointing out what might be wrong with the current trailer. We just need to determine a new setup then.

56 people watched the video.



Based on those stats, not a lot of traffic is coming from external sources. Most people found out about the game through KS website itself.

This is likely because we're not getting any coverage at all from good media outlets despite my attempts to contact them.

I'm open to suggestions as to what we should be doing next. I'll keep trying to contact the press.

@Princessa:
I thougth hastags were good for twitter, no? What did you have in mind as far as the tweet content is concerned?

Anyways, depending on the KS, I'll need to make some important decisions regarding the future of the project. The comments I'm getting from people playing the game are good, almost exclusively positive. So I'd like to think it's not the project itself.

[io3 creations]

The Steam Greenlight page is still showing a 404 error for the KS widget.

[Zizka]

It doesn't really make sense because it's the same link KS gave me but I guess I'll have no choice but to remove it then.

Thanks for backing the project by the way  .

[io3 creations]

It doesn't really make sense because it's the same link KS gave me but I guess I'll have no choice but to remove it then.

Thanks for backing the project by the way  .

I've seen plenty of Greenlight project with KS widgets so id doesn't make sense. Looking at the html source code, it seems like you have an extra space at the end of the KS url.  

Code:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/714585684/super-toaster-x-learn-japanese /widget/card.html

Remove that and it should work:

Code:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/714585684/super-toaster-x-learn-japanese/widget/card.html

You're welcome.

[oldblood]

Backed, good luck.

[Zizka]

Thanks to you too!

@io3 creations:
I've tried to copy paste the link you've provided and it doesn't work. I've also tried to remove the extra space at the end of my own link and it doesn't work.

I think we can make it if we manage to get covered on some relatively important platform. The game is solid, we're just missing the exposure.

[io3 creations]

I just signed up for the Greenlight thing but haven't submitted a game yet so I don't know exactly how you need to add the KS widget code.  Sometimes it's enough if you just add the url and the rest will be formatted (e.g. YouTube videos here).  If it's just the KS campaign url, then it would be:

Code:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/714585684/super-toaster-x-learn-japanese

without the /widget/card.html.  I just kept the extra part in the second widget url to show the extra space.

If the entire widget code is generated by KS, then it's odd why there's an extra space.  I know sometimes certain O/S's can add extra characters that get encoded differently but that's just a guess.  Also, I'm just kind of curious in case I come across the same issue in some form again.

[LobsterSundew]

12 backers have currently pledged $475 (rounds up to 4.00% of $12,000).

About the backers:

1 backer is using a brand new backer account. The other 11 have backed at least 1 other project before. 2 backers had backed less than 10. 6 backers have backed more than 50 other projects.

Here is where they're from:
United States 6 backers
Canada 2 backers
France 1 backer
Japan 1 backer
Norway 1 backer
United Kingdom 1 backer

I recognize avatar images for some frequent backers that hand around the category and some devs from TIGSource.

About within Kickstarter:

Super Toaster X is now ranked 40th. It may soon drop down to page 3 (meaning it takes 2 clicks of the "Load more" button to see it).

LOST EMBER had a 1,200+ comments thread on /r/gaming add to its momentum. It is at €112,093 raised and rising. It has a firm hold on the top ranking.

Guts And Glory ends in 65 hours. TINY METAL has 4 days to go and I wonder how big its final surge is going to get. Voyage of Fortune's Star ends in 9 days. Code: HARDCORE and Backdrop both have 11 days to go.

About outside Kickstarter:

Over the last 24 hours I see the project linked to from the forums for Starmen.net and MyAnimeList.

About the project:

There is the "early bird" animated GIF with a bird with glasses in the write-up area for the reward tiers. It says below it that "For the first week of the KickStarter, pledging 10$ will grant you the 15$ tier. The Early Bird will last from the beginning of the campaign up to Wednesday October 19th, 23:59 Eastern Time Zone." If people don't click the "Show full description" button they might not know that offer exists. That type of early-bird offer is normally its own reward tier in the rewards sidebar.

The campaign auto-scheduled to end at 9:25am PDT on Tuesday November 8th.

Hmmmm. Influent on Steam is tagged with French language support, but I didn't see French support tagged on Hiragana War. I wonder if a game targeting French speakers wanting to learn to read Japanese is a viable niche. Running a multi-lingual campaign requires a translated version of the write-ups. I've seen some campaigns go after French gaming news sites.

Conveying what the game is and how it plays continues to be a concern. Confusion can create a hesitation to pledge to it or for bloggers to cover it. There is the problem of being too close to the game and not being able to see it from a newcomer's perspective. There can be information overload about what is happening on the screen in the short period of time a video stays focused on a specific clip. The sensei's boxing ring is actually a very simplistic scene compared to the dungeon exploration one because the player really only needs to pay attention to the top half of the screen.

[LobsterSundew]

14 backers have currently pledged $500.

Anout campaign performance:

Here is data for the first 4 days:
http://i.imgur.com/oyOlUiU.png

Super Toaster X's campaign is experiencing its first weekend. There was no net increase in backers for Saturday.

There were 7 clicks for the project shortlink.

BackerTracker shows a trend to $1,299 (10.8%). Kicktraq shows $2,800 (23%).

I consider a Kickstarter campaign stalling to be at least 3 days with no new backers. Stalling is the fate of many campaigns that don't get enough early traction. Even if Super Toaster X does get a new backer on Sunday or Monday, it could stall after that. Once a campaign stalls, it usually doesn't recover.

A recent example of stalled campaign recovering was Your Are God, but it has a $1,400 minimum funding goal and was revived by an Imgur post with over 229,000 views.
http://i.imgur.com/Q6tyZVQ.png

About exposure:

Super Toaster X is 53rd in the rankings. It continues to drop.

Besides very little Twitter activity, there was a Cliqist article on October 14th.

I suggest focussing on trying to get information right now instead of spending more effort trying to get press. It will also generally be harder to get press due to the proximity of incoming hyped AAA releases.

About the project page:

A problem with lack of exposure is a lack of feedback. Even negative feedback in the comments areas of blog posts can be useful. Without information it is hard to make decisions.

The campaign shows 4% funded, $500 pledged and 23 days to go in the project discovery area. A disadvantage of scheduling a campaign for less than 30 days is it looks like the campaign has run for longer than it has. Many campaigns run for 30 days. 23 days left looks like 7 days have already past, when it has actually run for 4 days.

I noticed the Linux demo link is not working. It has the URL for the project page instead of a URL for a Dropbox file.

Communicating gameplay continues to be a noted problem. Complexity can create confusion and hesitation. The problem could be communication, but another scenario to acknowledge is the design of the gameplay makes it difficult to communicate. If the gameplay is too complex, then more iterations of the gameplay may be needed. There can be a focus on simplifying.

Project update #1 mentions Doctor Dough. While I remember a dough antagonist in this devblog thread, I realize newcomers would lack sufficient context. There isn't a compact plot summary. Over on the GameJolt page is the description that "Pan, a piece of bread riding a mechanical toaster armor, must rescue the 7 members of the Breasistance from Doctor Dough, an organic parasite which can take control over any domestic appliance." That summary isn't on the project page.

[Zizka]

Thanks for the analysis, as usual.

Well, the Linux link works from my place so I don't really know what happened.

As for the rest, I don't really understand why the project isn't backed more. It's a total mystery to me. Maybe because it's something different but then again, other similar projects have been funded in the past.

I guess I'd need to study up marketing and how to manipulate people but whenever I do, I always feel nauseous and feel that I'd rather not get funded then start playing games to elicit certain responses from people.

I'm actually pretty zen about this. I was saddened by the lack of supporters from TIG. I thought that considering how long the game had been here and what I interpreted as interest into the game would translate into backers but it wasn't the case at all. I thought people would pitch in a buck her and there but nope. It's hard to interpret things like this. Does it  mean that people aren't interested into the project? Or maybe it means that the people interested in this project do not coincidentally back projects Kickstarter. Who knows. It's all speculation.

I'm responsible for my disappointment this being said. I have a lot to learn about discerning the difference between people commenting a project and being actually interested in acquiring it.

It sort of reminds of what oldblood was talking about in his devlog about wishlists not translating into sales.

I'm glad I gave it a shot. I learned a lot from the whole process. I think the most important lesson here is that marketing is pretty much everything. In a few exceptional cases, some games will get their advertisement across from people talking about it but good marketing can mean financial success even on a poorly made game. By the time people realize the game isn't what it was supposed to be, it's been already bought anyway.

I think when it comes like a niche game like STX, it'll slowly get known in smaller circles along the way. I can understand why indie gaming sources wouldn't want to cover it. It's just not something which would bring them a lot of views, meaning there's little to no motivation in covering it.

Maybe I should retitle: "STX: Learn Japanese Dark Souls Style!"

[BeautifulGlitch]

I guess I'd need to study up marketing and how to manipulate people but whenever I do, I always feel nauseous and feel that I'd rather not get funded then start playing games to elicit certain responses from people.

Please don't say this. Marketing is a reputable field that's plenty useful. I don't like when people go by "marketing is like selling your soul to the Devil". It's not that like that. Everything you do, if you expect it to be viable, needs to cater to a market. It's always like this. I'm not talking specifically about Super Toaster X, but about this sentece you said.
It is not playing games nor deceiving people, it is understanding that everything you do it impacts the world and the people in a way, and shaping it having this in mind. Some of the most creative indie successes do this cleverly. And yeah, it's fucking hard and it's fucking mysterious and it's sometimes frustrating.

I'm actually pretty zen about this. I was saddened by the lack of supporters from TIG. I thought that considering how long the game had been here and what I interpreted as interest into the game would translate into backers but it wasn't the case at all. I thought people would pitch in a buck her and there but nope. It's hard to interpret things like this. Does it  mean that people aren't interested into the project? Or maybe it means that the people interested in this project do not coincidentally back projects Kickstarter. Who knows. It's all speculation.

It can mean a lot of things. It's all hardwired in our brains in different ways. My case, for instance, is as said in my thoughts on KS: it's all about the empty bar issue.
Let's say there are several types of potential backers. You need to secure you're highest potential fans. That's not me, because of genre and functionality (I already know hiragana and katakana... not sure if I still remember it). I'd willingly pledge as a friendly gesture, but as I said many times: I only back when projects are above a certain %. Sincerely: I HATE to back projects that I know they will fail. I'm also a backer that RARELY backs a project the first time it sees it. I save it always for later. So far I've backed around 77 projects.
Sometimes I am one of those core backers that back a project no matter what. But sometimes I'm a "bandwagon effect" backer. I see projects that seem interesting but I'm like "OK, let's see if later this is at 80% or more". I completely know that this might be frustrating as a creator. Like "damn, but if all the hesitant backers pledged, we might hit 80%". But unfortunately it doesn't work like that. You must get the core backers to unlock the extra ones.

That's why normally there's no middleground: projects that fail and projects that goes over 150%. Yeah, there's a good bunch of 100-110% projects. But let's be honest: an analytic eye can spot that a good % of these projects have hit the main goal thanks to an internal boost, which is not necessarily bad. This is not me being skeptical, but just analytical. If you get Kicktraq and star analyzing the evolution of projects day-by-day lots of times you spot this kinds of movements.

This being said: you have the projects that struggle to get to the main goal (which might be divided in "failed projects", "sincere tight successes" and "self-boosted tight successes") and the ones that get an early success, which usually translates into a really over-the-top success.

Please, note that I'm not critizicing self-boost tecniques. It's totally legit. Maybe you're OK with getting 50% of your main goal as long as you commit to get the rest from somewhere else in order to get the project done.

I'm glad I gave it a shot. I learned a lot from the whole process. I think the most important lesson here is that marketing is pretty much everything. In a few exceptional cases, some games will get their advertisement across from people talking about it but good marketing can mean financial success even on a poorly made game. By the time people realize the game isn't what it was supposed to be, it's been already bought anyway.

Yes and no. Sometimes excellent marketing can sell poor games, but this is not as common as people might think. This is a cynical point of view which is not 100% realistic. Think of marketing as an amplifier. Good marketing is key. Thinks as a multiplier. You have a 1 to 10 game that will perform from 1 to 100. So a 3 game with a 10 marketing will get a poor 30. And yeah, a 10 game with a 3 marketing will get also a poor 30. Good marketing will get people to see your game. But if you're game is bad, it won't be that helpful.
And yeaaaaah, there are exceptions. We live in a crazy era. But still, you can't base a line of thought on crazy references of dumb games that go crazy successful beacause of massive crazy fandom. That's like starting to buy lottery because you heard of a guy who won the lottery. Still kinda crazy.

Best thing to do: 10 game with 10 marketing.

I think when it comes like a niche game like STX, it'll slowly get known in smaller circles along the way. I can understand why indie gaming sources wouldn't want to cover it. It's just not something which would bring them a lot of views, meaning there's little to no motivation in covering it.

Well, yeah, in this case, the game's pretty niche. If I don't feel like learning hiragana/katakana, I won't feel very appealed by the game. Even if I'm interested in Japanese, Katakana/Hiragana is like the small part of it. Kanjis are the big thing.

You know what's weird? The functionality is so niche that it blinds people from what could be an interesting mechanic. Let's forget hiragana/katakana is part of a real language. Let's say this is an innovative game where you must learn a fictional language in order to learn a cryptic magic. It's not about actually learning any language (dodging the very niche approach), but about a very innovative mechanic where you must acquire a complex skillset to succeed in the game. Now there's not that niche and it has an interesting added value. Not sure, this might wouldn't work, but it could be interesting.


As a marketer myself I have another note. Please, I don't want to sound harsh or resultadist. I didn't comment the actual game so far (I was interested in specific KS campaign stuff), and now I have some time and I see you interested in that. A note on this is that the toaster theme, even if it's kind of silly, it doesn't seem like a clever choice, market-wise. It's silly but that's that. It's safer to choose on of many popular themes. This doesn't mean to be not creative. You can add your own twists to it. Look at current and recent successes at Kickstarter:

> Lost Ember: you're a Wolf. *cough* *cough* OKAMI *cough* ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS *cough* *cough*
> Inkenfell: a highschool for witches
> Moonlighter: fantasy and heroes... but you're the owner of a shop! (classic theme with an interesting twist)


Final comment, that might be harsh, is to avoid long-production projects. I collaborate with a publishing company and I see this more often than recommended. I know EVERY PROJECT has its own reason to explain an over-long production. But unless you're a AAA game, this NEVER is a good idea. Best way of getting a succes? reducing production a lot. This way projects are cheaper (in time, money and work), therefore getting back the costs is easier. Also, you create more projects on this first stage, maximizing the chances of success.

I always comment the case of Vlambeer. They have spent lots of time in Nuclear Throne. And people might say "yeah! But it's a huge success!". Right, totally agree. HUGE FAN of NT. But they started with smaller games such as Ridiculous Fishing or Super Crate Box. This let them to

a) get more experience and knowledge
b) get better at faster at making games
c) get money to re-invest in bigger projects (like Nuclear Throne).

That's that!

I hope all this is helpul to you (:
You have great drive. You just need to keep going and going. But shorter cycles can do magic!

[oldblood]

I'm actually pretty zen about this. I was saddened by the lack of supporters from TIG. I thought that considering how long the game had been here and what I interpreted as interest into the game would translate into backers but it wasn't the case at all. I thought people would pitch in a buck her and there but nope. It's hard to interpret things like this. Does it  mean that people aren't interested into the project? Or maybe it means that the people interested in this project do not coincidentally back projects Kickstarter. Who knows. It's all speculation.

The first time you put your work out there and ask for money in return is a serious reality check for anyone. Glad to hear you're taking this as a learning experience and keeping your mood zen. It's hard to analyze a lot of this and I know there isn't much that I can chip in to alleviate the mood. My only consolation is that I've been a part of a failed KS and I've been a part of a successful one. Both were very stressful and the failed launch was a gigantic gut-punch. But, I survived. Not everyone does, but life will go on past a failed KS. Besides, the campaign still has a lot of time left. Stranger things have occurred on KS.

As far as TIG interest not necessarily converting into backers... There's a wide variety of reasons why that may be. Everyone on here is very different. I've backed 142 KS's on my personal account, and 1 on my "business" KS. Yours. I back a lot of games I have no intention of playing. I've backed pretty much every TIG KS thats launched, but mostly just for the encouragement or out of respect for their work. Personally, STX is not a game I have any interest in playing. No offense to you or the quality of the game, I have over 100 games in my library I've never even installed. I backed the project because despite our many differences, I've always had a huge respect for your work ethic and commitment. I'm sure others feel the same.

Most developers don't have money to go towards a KS. They're working off shoe-string budgets and funds that they do have for games are only going towards games they know they will play. Promoting a KS to TIG is promoting sales to the worst possible group of people, because its mostly people who cant afford to donate to anything. So don't take it personal if your project didn't generate a lot of "love" from TIG, I'm confident it had nothing to do with you personally. TIG provides a different kind of support. Emotional support. Encouragement. Networking etc. but raising funds on here will be a challenge to any project.

[fall_ark]

Thanks for the analysis, as usual.

Well, the Linux link works from my place so I don't really know what happened.

As for the rest, I don't really understand why the project isn't backed more. It's a total mystery to me. Maybe because it's something different but then again, other similar projects have been funded in the past.

I guess I'd need to study up marketing and how to manipulate people but whenever I do, I always feel nauseous and feel that I'd rather not get funded then start playing games to elicit certain responses from people.

I'm actually pretty zen about this. I was saddened by the lack of supporters from TIG. I thought that considering how long the game had been here and what I interpreted as interest into the game would translate into backers but it wasn't the case at all. I thought people would pitch in a buck her and there but nope. It's hard to interpret things like this. Does it  mean that people aren't interested into the project? Or maybe it means that the people interested in this project do not coincidentally back projects Kickstarter. Who knows. It's all speculation.

Well for me I got interested in the project because of the pixel art. I'm okay with cliched pixel platformer with good art - it might not be groundbreaking, but I'll at least have some fun playing it. I have no desire to learn Japanese through video games, and if I want, I wouldn't wait for a game to be kickstarted and delivered to do that....

If you want to attract people who want to learn Japanese, the campaign should focus on that instead of how complex the upgrade and skill system the game is going to be. None of the skills and power-ups seem to be related in language learning in any way. There doesn't seem to be any progression in terms of language learning in the technical build and the difficulty hangs in a very narrow point here: If you don't know what each kana sounds, you don't get to beat your foes. If you already know what each kana sounds, then the game literally has nothing more to teach you.

I guess the question is this: What kind of player are you targeting? And what would their Japanese learning experience be in the game? How would they learn Japanese and why is that a good or even superior way than looking at the 50 Sounds Table?

[Zizka]

Doing this audio this time. I'm curious as to how many people will listen. Took 4 takes as I was rambling and wanted to reply within 5 minutes.

@oldblood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbwniIJV3sw&feature=youtu.be

[Zizka]

@fall_ark:
Ok, this time under 5 minutes: 4:26.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPwomAozFkA&feature=youtu.be

[Zizka]

Alright, I'll go back to typing because uploading to youtube is time consuming:

I'll just reply to the first paragraph for the moment as I have to do the dishes:

Please don't say this. Marketing is a reputable field that's plenty useful. I don't like when people go by "marketing is like selling your soul to the Devil". It's not that like that. Everything you do, if you expect it to be viable, needs to cater to a market. It's always like this. I'm not talking specifically about Super Toaster X, but about this sentece you said.
It is not playing games nor deceiving people, it is understanding that everything you do it impacts the world and the people in a way, and shaping it having this in mind. Some of the most creative indie successes do this cleverly. And yeah, it's fucking hard and it's fucking mysterious and it's sometimes frustrating.

Marketing is what is preventing my game from "lifting off" so I might be misdirecting my frustration here. There are certain things which I find unethical about marketing namely:
-Shock value
-Misleading terms
-Unfulfilled promises

I'll give you an example. You know the "Beats" headphones? In the documentary they were saying that they're essentially cheap headphones but that the company gets away with selling them at a high price because they're endorsed by athletes.

You could sell the headphone, say, 20$ for 5$ profit since they cost you 15$ for example. Considering the quality, it's a fair approach. But the marketing here is quite simply deceitful. They play on people's need to mimic famous people to make them pay a lot more for a cheap product. It's emotional manipulation. In the end, people end up paying more than they should for a cheap headphone because marketing finds a way to tap into their emotions.

Anyways, I'm sure I'll develop a more nuanced opinion about this topic with time.

By the way, when you launch your campaign, you'd better prepare yourself mentally. I was assaulted by messages of people asking for money to promote my game, door-to-door salesman style:

I've removed the names of people.

Yuck, spam.


Notice the part in yellow,  . Yeah, a hugely successful campaign with 15 backers. I think he should have removed that part of his automatic message. I think it's at that point that I thought: "I'd rather live on the streets than have to beg people through PM to back my project."


See that part in yellow? That's the marketing speech which makes me puke. Everyone is the best. Everyone. Every single dude that gets in touch with you says he's better than the next guy. It's just so empty and unconvincing. I don't care if you think you're the best.

Anyways, I've got tons more but yeah, be prepared, they're coming. They're circling the sky as we speak. The thing is with these marketing guilds, is that they can never make any promises.

When you pay an artist, he's going to deliver you with art. When you pay a mechanic, he's going to deliver you with a reparation. But if I'm going to invest in those guys (not that I would deal with someone I know nothing about  mind you), I want guarantees. Now, I'm aware they can't control what's going to happen but here's the thing: they won't shoulder the risks. At all.

Suppose you pay them a certain amount to promote your game and in the end you get no backers, there was no point at all in this investment. If I don't have any returns on my investment, then I just threw money out of the window. They should have "money back" guarantees. I think they should tailor their prices based on these guarantees.

For example, you pay 100$ for advertisement but in return you want a backers return of a minimum of x amount. Marketing firms would then think twice before spamming people. They would take the time to carefully select which project they wish to back and believe in. Then they would take a risk and do their best in order to make sure that they get paid.

I said to one guy: "Go ahead and promote my project for free once and then we'll see how much of an impact it'll have." He replied: "Sorry, we just accept payments." I replied: "Yeah, I feel the same way."

I'd be more than happy to pay someone in marketing if I could get guarantees that they can deliver. At the moment their rationale is:"Hi, I don't know why, I don't know about your project, I'm just copy/pasting this word document. I'm the best though. I have thousands of followers. Just pay me please and then that's it."

I guess people bite if they keep doing it but like. The worst part is that if the campaign doesn't get funded, you actually end up... worse off than you started!

So yeah, in short, I don't have a lot of love for our marketing friends.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

 The part where you said that you don't understand that people don't have 99 cents to support your project(regarding oldblood 3rd paragraph), i just stopped listening because in your kickstarter page, you backed 0 projects.

[Davi Vasc]

The part where you said that you don't understand that people don't have 99 cents to support your project(regarding oldblood 3rd paragraph), i just stopped listening because in your kickstarter page, you backed 0 projects.

The fact that he backed 0 projects has zero relevance to the point he was making.

All he was saying is that he doesn't believe that lack of money is valid reason for not backing a project (because supposedly, everyone has 1 dollar). Therefore, he concludes that the reason for the lack of backers in his project must be something else (lack of interest, lack of exposure, etc).

[HoffmanIV]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with getting the word out there. Marketing is tough. Tough, tough, tough. You can't necessarily do it all on your own because you've got a game to develop, polish and release, but you can't leave it to just about anyone because their "marketing tactics" might just be reposting or outsourcing likes. The only thing worse than a silent audience is a fake one.

I think I've had something like 5 or 6 bots in the past six months approach me as if I'm some kind of undiscovered rock star. It's an insult to my intelligence when I get spam from these people, thinking I'm so desperate for success that I'll toss my savings at them without questioning the veracity of their claims. (real talk: I actually don't have savings, I'm a broke-ass musician lol.)

I don't think marketing is quite what you've made it out to be -- the stuff about inflating product value through empty promises, or adding superficial value through tacking on dollars. That's largely changed because of an educated consumer base that sees through bullshit a lot of the time now. I think marketing has become less about advertising and more about relationships. I might be repeating something you've probably heard dozens or hundreds of times from social media blogs, videos or conferences, but it's true. What has worked for me so far is just building your fanbase on top of honest relationships that you already have with other devs, creators etc. Compliment them or offer constructive criticism often, repost their tweets if they deserve a shoutout, tell your own fans about new games coming out from other devs that you've been following. It is slow, it is brutish, and it is not that fun. But sooner or later, they're going to feel guilty for getting all that attention from you and not paying it forward.

Some other people have noted that you haven't backed other projects as well, and that is also shooting yourself in the foot from a professional and karmic standpoint. You have to be willing to support other people's things before they'll even think about doing anything for you.

On a helpful note though, maybe you could approach Kotaku with this. They do seem to publish a lot of articles about indie games and kickstarter projects ... and I think the educational aspect of this game would blow over very well with their readership. They would be wrong not to look into this.