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[LobsterSundew]

The project already has the staff's "project we love" heart on it. It was picked fairly quickly.

The dryer with socks and underpants is my favorite of the room themes. It may be due to enjoying the Internet meme of a brick rumbling around in an angry dryer.
Tiny cats with large purple balls of string is my 2nd favorite.

"Game by" and "Music by" screens were too much strobe for me to handle. That was the only time I became discomforted.

The giraffe battle could make an awesome GIF to post on Imgur's public gallery. The animated GIF of rumbling dyers is fun.

The music was catchy and didn't get tiring.

About outside Kickstarter:

Eve Online going Free2Play is soaking up gaming press attention.

Battlefield 1 has an open beta happening. This is also drawing lots of press.

Titanfall 2 showed off a video with new titan units.

PAX West is September 2nd to 5th.

About within Kickstarter:

August 31st saw the category come alive again. Many of the summer campaigns are ended right now or already ended. The quality of new projects is greatly improving. Its nice to finally see more projects with pitch videos and project page graphics.

Broken Reality is another psychedelic game that launched recently. There may be cross-promotion potential.

Kickstarter's official blog announced support for Hong Kong projects.

With PAX West happening I'd expect some of the attending games will use that time to launch Kickstarer campaigns. There isn't a big project to drive traffic besides a collection of high-end books about Final Fantasy VII, Zelda and Dark Souls. This may soon change as large project creators are often well aware of the benefits of postponing a launch until September rather than launching into the middle of August.

Super Mega Best Cat Adventures is currently ranked 17th in popularity. The top 20 positions are where most of the traffic is.

About the rewards structure:

A £10,000 goal is about $13,140USD. Normally that would take around 526 backers to reach.

Many campaigns average pledges are double or three times the size of the cheapest reward tier the offers the game. The current average is £12.68 per backer. The expected average will be around £18 once the £6 early-bird tier is full. That would be a target of 556 to 789 backers total to reach 100% funded.

The campaign would need to achieve 167 to 237 backers before halfway through the campaign for it to have a good chance of tipping towards 100% funded.

I'll eventually post a set of graphs when there are enough days worth of data.

[chrilley]

Looking good! Remember to keep the Kickstarter alive with some updates now and then too.

Like some in-depth look of the game(articles, videos or concept sketches). Basically anything that makes backers run around poking their friends about it or sparking up some discussion in the comments

[LobsterSundew]

About within Kickstarter:

Super Mega Best Cat Adventures has dropped below the 23rd rank in popularity. It's score is 10.7 and it needs better than 12.3 to break into the 20th position. Pay attention to how many pitch video plays you are getting. There may be a sharp drop now.

A big wave of fresh projects launched over the last 72 hours. It has almost completely changed the landscape of the popularity rankings. Competition within the rankings has now skyrocketed as good-quality projects started appearing during PAX. There continues to be a flood of low-quality projects as well. Older campaigns are being beaten down out of view. Ruin of the Reckless has dropped to the 21st rank. Vulpine is ranked 24th.

Cat Story is a pixel-art platform with a chiptune soundtrack.

About outside Kickstarter:

PAX West trailers for AAA games are steadily being released. Press coverage will be more difficult around times like these.

There are 34 comments on the Greenlight campaign.

The developer of Dropsy backed the campaign.

The IndieDB page was updated.

The Imgur post has 274 views.

Discomfort from the flashing colours is the most frequently seen type of comment for the game.

About campaign performance:

32 backers have pledged £391 (3.91% of £10,000).

Here are graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/6bd0AIg.png

The average is £12.22 per backer. It would take 819 backers at £12.22 per backer to reach £10,000. Remember the average is usually double to three times the price of the most populated reward tier (£6 in this case).

Over 40% of backers have been picking the £6 tier. I don't see problems with the distribution of backers. Unallocated backers (that didn't pick any tier) is 2.

Kicktraq shows a trend to £2,737. Kicktraq is often overoptimistic at the start. BackerTracker shows a trend to £1,182.

Super Mega Best Cat Adventures might not reach £600 if it succumbs to the common fate of being buried where almost nobody will find it. There currently isn't enough traction to compete in the rankings for visibility.

[supermega_peter]

Thank you so much io3, Chrilley, and LobsterSundew!

You are right Lobster, the Kickstarter campaign needs a shot in the arm and there's a long way to go.

It's been pulling in a small amount of backers - lots still to go, but there is still a lot of time left! I'm hoping I can get some amount of press traction over the next couple of weeks to help pull attention from other sources. Competition as you say is tough and there has indeed been a lot of attention on the games from PAX.

We're now sitting at 44 backers with £604 raised (6% of £10,000), so yeah, a way to go yet. Thanks for the suggestions Chrilley - I will definitely try to post some interesting articles with sketches and other in-depth info to keep the page looking active. I think that the biggest and most important challenge is still drawing people to the page, so I will mainly focus on that - but I certainly want people to think the project is active when they get there, so that's important too.

Greenlight is doing slightly better - after a lot of more negative comments it seems that most people finding the project now are genuinely more interested and excited in it, at least if the more recent comments are anything to go by.

Here's how the project is currently sitting:



Really pleased to see SMBCA hit 25% of the way to the top 100 this morning! Still a long way to go too, but I'm in this one for the long haul Great to see the 'Yes' votes staying around 40% too as it was a little lower a couple of days ago.

[supermega_peter]

I also got FEATURED on Kickstarter today! WOW

[and]

That's awesome!

Hoping that being featured will send a ton more traffic your way

[LobsterSundew]

53 backers have pledge £667 (6.67% of £10,000). The average is currently £12.58 per backer. That is better than expected since my last post.

15% and 30% are significant milestones for campaign traction. 15% of £10,000 is £1,500. That is £833 away. 30% of £10,000 is £3,000. That is £2,333 away.

About the performance of the reward tiers:

There was a good jump in backers on September 7th. Getting featured on Kickstarter helped generate some exposure.
http://i.imgur.com/4o8ZZkT.png

The campaign has run 9 days so far. It continues to accumulate backers. Through my graphs I get to watch a big chunk of campaigns die by their 3rd day. Super Mega Best Cat Adventures hasn't stalled out yet, but it came close on the final day of PAX West. Avoiding stalling out is good, but the problem then becomes running out of time before the goal is reached.

Kicktraq currently shows a trend to £1,868 (18.68%). BackerTracker shows a trend to £1,680 (16.80%). Getting to 15% is important.

Of the 53 backers, 12 were new accoutns that had never backed a Kickstarter project before.

About outside Kickstarter:

PAX West is over.

Hardcore Gamer mentioned the game in its Screenshot Saturday roundup post. Cliqist posted an article on September 8th.

There was exposure for the game in Clickteam community and on Twitter recently.

Sony announced PlayStation 4 Pro and Nintendo announced Super Mario Run. Not much else for industry news since PAX West just happened.

About within Kickstarter:

Super Mega Best Cat Adventures rose up to 21st in popularity ranking when it was featured. It is back down to 25th.

Hypnospace Outlaw is another psychedelic game that launched on Kickstarter.

Dual Universe brought in lots of traffic to the video games category on Kickstarter. There are many good quality projects launching now. The slow period during July and August is over.

About experimenting:

There is experimenting with different project thumbnail images. If one image doesn't grab someone's attention, another version might.

The intensity of the on-screen action is one of the core selling points for the game. It is also driving some people away. A compromise would be a graphical setting mode with less flashing and other visual tweaks. Watching the footage, in some rooms the flashiest colours are coming from the number of points displayed where an enemy was shot down. On the extreme end of the spectrum would be a re-theme (reskinning the game's assets like how the game Monopoly gets reskinned for popular TV shows), but that starts to become the type of corporate product development talk many indie developers are trying to escape from.

There could be seeking out potential backers who aren't frequent video game players, but like crazy web GIFs.

The music is a strength. Promoting the project like a music project may get some views, but it also effectively becomes a game attached to a soundtrack like how a A-10 Thunderbolt II is effectively a fighterplane strapped to a giant gatling gun.

A score mechanic may have the game start out visually duller than it currently is, but grow in intensity the higher the score climbs. The flashing visuals would be part of the difficulty curve. Some gamers seek out new challenges.

There is trying to find fans of Llamatron and Robotron. Apparently a Robotron fan-site shutdown. There is a microbadge for Robotron over on the BoardGameGeek forums, but messaging them would constitute spam there. I could not find any communities around Llamatron. Making a historical documentary video about Llamatron and Robotron to generate some traffic is likely beyond the scope of what could be done during the campaign.

[NoLocality]

Not greenlit yet?!?!


Time to round up those steam account wielding friends and shove their noses into your greenlight page...lord knows I know enough nutters who would love this.  I wasn't kidding when I said I wanted to play this and I'd prefer play it on steam dammit!






I'd help with your kickstarter sir but financial assistance is a bit beyond my means atm.


anyways...c'moooon steam, get off your butts!  Also that is pretty much the perfect music for SMBCA in that preview vid.

[LobsterSundew]

58 backers have pledged £725 (7.25%). 14 days remain for the campaign.

There has been only a single project update since the August 31st launch.

About the performance of the reward tiers:

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/aS912fO.png

The shape of £6 tier can be used as an indicator for the health of the campaign. Getting featured and tweeted by Kickstarter provided only a temporary boost.

Sunday had no net increase in either backers or the total amount pledged. Monday so far has also yet to see a new backer.

Kicktraq shows a trend to £1,562 and BackerTracker shows a trend to £972.

There is now the elevated chance the campaign will occasionally start going backwards. Frequent Kickstarter backers will reallocate their pledges elsewhere. The term I use is "corroding".

There are 167 out of 200 spots left at the £6 reward tier. You might want to reduce the number of available slots to increase urgency.

About within Kickstarter:

Super Mega Best Cat Adventures has been hovering around the 45th rank in popularity. That means 2 clicks of the "Load more" button in the discover area before it can be found on page #3.

To get back into the top 20 it would currently need to aim for a score better than 23. That would mean at least an additional 218 backers (276 total) to beat the 20th rank (Alkimya has a score of 19.5).

Strong projects continue to launch. Interestingly even projects like Ruin of the Reckless and Vulpine have been pushed out of the top 20.

[LobsterSundew]

62 backers are currently pledging £834.

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/aGv0Ewg.png

A £6 backer disappeared after 9pm PDT on September 16th.

The project is ranked 58th. Competition within the popularity rankings is becoming fierce. Strong projects keep launching. A score above 21.6 would be needed to break back into the top 20. Super Mega Best Cats has a score of 3.7 and would need additional 327 backers (389 overall) by Saturday to do that.

I wouldn't cancel the campaign. There would be more benefit to let it run. The last 48 hours can still accumulate more backers. More backers can end up as future customers for this or other games. With poor discoverability for the project within Kickstarter and a lack of exposure outside of Kickstarter, it is highly likely the campaign won't reach its goal.

A project update could be used to collect feedback from backers. Such feedback can be very valuable.

The market performance of a niche can sometimes dictate the scope of a product. There are currently 62 backers. If 62 backers were 30% of what was needed to tip the campaign towards success you would need 207 backers to reach 100%. 207 backers at £13 per backer would be £2,691. There is the option to reduce the scope of the game until £3,000 would be enough to finish it and then relaunch on Kickstarter.

Cutting out £7,000 from the minimum funding goal isn't as easy (or as pleasant) as it sounds, but could be done. 20% for reward fulfillment is £2,000. Stripping out reward tier content like designing of a mini-boss and art prints may be less appealing to backers, but it can allow a campaign's budget to be leaner. 15% for promotion is £1,500. It is really easy to waste £1,500 on Facebook ads. You would need to be content with the idea the game only breaks-even. It is hard to find financial success as an indie without at least some marketing budget. 20% for taxes, 10% for fees and a 5% contingency shouldn't be cut.

[supermega_peter]

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry for not replying sooner here with more info as things have been going on. I've been having a tough time keeping up to speed with everything.

The project isn't doing as well as I would have hoped - as LobsterSundew points out the Kickstarter could have been made leaner and meaner with a lower target - that £10K goal is proving pretty hard to get even close to without much outside exposure.

I could have done a lot more in regards to getting more outside visibility - time's not up yet so I'm still going to push for more and hopefully still manage to connect to as many people as possible.

As you say, I could strip all physical rewards for an immediate 2k cut, if I was brutal about it and cut the promo money then that's another 1.5k. I'd be happy if the game broke even. The bare minimum would be about:

- 1,000 for sound design
- 2,000 for art/code
- 300 contingency
- 20% tax
= ~4K.

That is a huge difference and if I was aiming at that I'd be at 21% now instead of 8%, which would have felt like more momentum earlier. Maybe it could be leaner still.

Nonetheless, I went for this ambitious budget and I'm going to stick it out and see where we can get! Like you say, connecting to those Kickstarter backers is still valuable

Thanks for the support everyone

[LobsterSundew]

71 backers ended up pledging £972 (9.72% of £10,000). I noticed BackerTracker showed £972 back in reply #108 of this thread.

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/2XB2gIv.png

The shape of the £6 tier shows the campaign stalling out after September 19th. Campaign progress went backward on September 17th and September 19th. On September 24th the campaign began growing again.

28 backers were from the USA.
14 were from the UK (5 of them were from London).
7 were from Canada.
6 were from Germany.
2 were from Australia.
2 were from France.
2 were from Spain.
2 were from Sweden.
1 was from Austra.
1 was from Japan.

59 backers had pledged to at least 1 other project before. This means 12 backers were new to Kickstarter.

Something to note is how many pitch video plays the campaign received. That gives a sense of how much exposure the project page saw.

[Moth]

Sorry to hear the KS didn't work out. Regroup, figure out a rebrand for your presentation and try again; if I recall correctly, Dropsy failed twice on Kickstarter before it succeeded, so don't lose hope!

[supermega_peter]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to pop my head in and say - this project isn't dead!

I was so warmed to see all the support and kind words from people around here - even though the Kickstarter wasn't successful, I made a good go of it and I was proud of it's colossal failure

That said - I learned a lot and I am sure that experience will help me towards a successful future. I plan to regroup and run a new Kickstarter again - with a much more modest goal.

At the moment, I'm taking a break from the project. With a new baby in the house I've had my hands full for the last 5 months!

In other good and exciting news, SMBCA got Greenlit shortly after the Kickstarter ended! Great news as I know a lot of people love playing through Steam and obviously that's a good place to be for PC games. Not sure how that all shakes out with the whole 'Valve discontinuing Greenlight' movement, but we shall see.

So, this project is on hiatus for now, but keep an eye out for it in the future!

In the meantime, I'm going to release an experimental project that's been in the works for something like 10 years, so that's exciting too. I'll pop a link in here when that's got something to show too


Thanks everyone!

[NoLocality]

SMBCA got Greenlit

!!!

I still want to play this.




Congrats on the kiddo btw!  Five months you say?  I remember that going something like... ...but smiling more often than not.


Keep us updated as it comes along and believe I'll be one of the first to buy this when it's ready.

Cheers