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[Hitrison]

I kinda like number 3.

[Zorg]

Not #2. The light background frame in #1 and #3 looks good.

[BeautifulGlitch]

Damn! Just realized there were a bunch of comments I didn't reply! Sorry! Replying them later.

As for now: it seems undeniable people prefer #3. So #3 it is 

[BeautifulGlitch]

Honestly, you have a lot more experience at KS than I do so I don't feel like I'm in any position to advise you about anything crowdfunding related.

I think those tips are interesting and I'm learning a lot from reading them but I have no clue as to what else I could add. Except that I hope you're wrong about needing that many backers the first day! 

Well, it's like sharing points of view and strategies! (:

Uhm... unfortunately I don't think I'm wrong. Maybe not 100 people. It obviously depends on each project and goal; but keep in mind a good chunk of the money you will raise will come from the first 2-4 days and the last 2 days. And there's also the empty bar problem: a bar is empty, but also if new people come and see it's empty they will choose not to stay, keeping the bar empty. Bars and nightclubs kill to get those valuable first customers that will make the next ones to stay.
In the KS universe this means that you need a good chunk of your main goal % super early because people will see your project and automatically ignore it if it's at a low %. I tend to see only projects above 50%. So 50-100 backers on the first day is almost a must.

With the INDIE G ZINE we got to 75% on day 3. That was fundamental. We had less backers because it was a book and therefore a backer would pledge a bit more (anchor tier on IGZ was 20€ and anchor tier on Monster Prom will be 10€). Also, IGZ had a really low main goal (4k).

It might sound harsh, but this is my sincere opinion on this matter. You MUST raise as soon as possible. The empty bar problem is one of biggest issues on KS.

[BeautifulGlitch]

I noticed you mixed player characters and npcs on the website. It's not obvious, which characters are playable. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing at all.

Edit: Don't be disappointed by the lack of reactions to your posts. I guess a lot of users which posted once are still following.

This will be clear on the KS, both in the KS video and the KS page. On the video we will show the 4 playable chars at the beginning, when we mention the game can be played up by 4 players. In the KS page we will include classic love interest profiles!

We hope this way it'll be crystal clear! (:

I hope that's the case. Sometimes I get discouraged by the lack of response. I know that might sound stupid... but I'm kind of stupid x_x

[BeautifulGlitch]

Don't be disappointed by the lack of reactions to your posts. I guess a lot of users which posted once are still following.

Yep.  I'm still very excited about this, but I'm not a very prolific poster.

I highly appreciate to know this (:

[BeautifulGlitch]

Behold the items to boost 4 of your 5 stats:


CHARM: a sexy fake latin accent


BOLDNESS: fake badass tattoos


SMARTS: A russian novel with an insightful approach on classic and universal issues such as death and love


CREATIVITY: a silly yet inspirational poster

[LobsterSundew]

From screenshots I see you are using Unity3D. I assume the game will support PC/Mac/Linux.

At an average of $25 per backer, 50 backers would be $1,250. For 100 backers it would be $2,500. It is a good idea to raise at least 15% of the minimum funding goal before the first weekend a campaign encounters.

About visual novels:

Reddit's /r/visualnovels has 25,800+ subs. It has rules about crowdfunding campaigns in its sidebar. Searching within this subreddit with the keyword "kickstarter" produces many results. It would be a priority at launch to post there.

Many visual novel projects on Kickstarter have demos. The visual novel Harem Protagonist is an example of how Let's Plays can cause a boost to the campaign.
http://i.imgur.com/FESjjUA.png
I have very little impression of how far along Monster Prom is towards having a demo. For visual novel demos, there would need to be enough content to fill a 15 minutes to 30 minutes standard Let's Play episode. A few minutes wouldn't be enough for many Let's Players to make a proper video out of.

PlayStation Vita has become a strong platform for visual novels.

About online presence:

The keywords "monster prom" mostly has search results for an Atlanta-based event. There is apparently an annual monster prom masquerade Zombie Prom is an off-Broadway musical. There is a "Monster's Prom" on Newgrounds and "Monster Girl Prom" on iOS. On page 3 of the Google results I finally found a mention for Monster Prom that was a Tumblr post for Indie G Zine.

The official website for Monster Prom is aesthetically very pleasing. I didn't find a press kit section.

There are occasional self-promotion threads on /r/girlgamers where strong female characters can do well.

I suggest not launching a Steam Greenlight campaign until the launch of the Kickstarter campaign. It is very clear that simultaneously launching campaigns on both platforms works well. Launching on Greenlight before Kickstarter can be throwing away potential traffic.

Twitter appears to be where the game has most of its following.

Indie G Zine had 524 backers. The last update was October 14th 2016 showing a photo of mailers. A September 17th 2016 project update revealed Monster Prom to those backers. There might be 11 to 131 backers that come from the previous project. It can be hard to tell when projects from the same creator are drastically different. For rebooted projects I would generally suggest expect less than 50% of backers to return (this is very optimistic). Half of 524 backers is 262 backers.

About within Kickstarter:

Many of the October campaigns will be ending around the time Monster Prom is scheduled to launch. It is possible to try to benefit from the traffic of another campaign ending.

Voyage of Fortune's Star ends on October 23rd.
Code: HARDCORE, Backdrop and At The Cage end their campaigns on October 25th.
Code 7 ends on October 27th.
Chronotopia ends on October 28th. It is a visual novel. Exchanging shout-outs may be an option.
The Last Goddess ends on October 29th.
Dwarrows and Beard Blade end on October 30th.
Cattle And Crops ends its campaign on October 31st.

LOST EMBER ends on November 14th. This campaign is currently in the spotlight for the crowdfunding of games.

When October arrives there should be the expected wave of new projects for that month. If you launch on October 25th, you would have about 6 days to try to soak up enough backers to compete with the strong projects that launch at the start of the months.

[BeautifulGlitch]

I couldn't find your KS preview link anywhere. It might be a good idea to have it here so that people can check it out and give you feedback. I'd do that if I had the link. I also don't know how much you're going for which will certainly play in the balance.

Yeah! Actually I was waiting until we had the KS video to upload it and get a KS preview page! I hope we can have it by early this week so we have 4-6 days to share it a bit and get feedback! (:

We're goin' for a small main goal at 8000€. Development will be a bit more expensive I guess, but so far I'm covering it with my life savings, so to me KS money would be a lifesaver but not necessarily our only funding source (being the other one my savings from my part-time comms job and freelance jobs).

Obviously, it'd be great to get more than 8k. Getting 16k would be just AMAZING and it'd give me more freedom and calmness to make a great game. Above 24k (approx.) it'd also let me include some cool extra features I'd love to.

Luckily, the game is done in a way that it functions pretty modularly. Main content includes

> Char outfits
> Events
> Special events
> Items
> Secret endings
> Love interests
> Playable characters

We can set for a specific amount of each kind of asset, but more money can be easily translated into more assets of a specific type.

Other stuff that can be improved by getting more funding is more and better music + more and better animations.

Finally, there's also extra content that I'd love to include:

> Secret runs (a game session is 45-60' long, similar to The Yawhg and we're creating many events so you can play around 8-10h before encountering events you saw before... and even then you can go with different choices... but I want to add secret game sessions with unique and absurd big plots of their own so regular players get big surprises)
> A kick-ass ending (since Monster Prom aims to be similar to a cool TV show, I'd love to get an awesome ending with exclusive illustrations depicting all 10 chars having a great time with an instrumental+voice track that conveys the magic of living a wild youth).

But maing goal will probably be 8000€. Anchor reward tier will be at 10€ and I expect average pledge at around 20€ if we're lucky, so we will need around 400 backers to get our goal. Maybe a bit less if we have the classic FFF pledges that can get you a sweet boost. I got no pledges of these ones on my last KS, so I guess this time they might appear <3 (I love you, mom!).

[BeautifulGlitch]

Comments about "the list of thoughts on throwing a Kickstarter":

01. The video game projects from a backer's perspective are some of the riskiest campaigns on Kickstarter. Video game projects and technology projects are often fodder for jokes. They can be full of naive project creators who don't know what they are really doing and asking for far too little.

Other categories are generally safer. Tabletop projects often need funds for production runs and art, while the core game is already finished. Short film projects can already filmed the actors and need funds for post-production special effects. A hobby robot kit can be looking for economies of scale for purchasing parts in bulk. With video game projects there can be so little done when the project launches.

Past video game projects, with their spamming, resulted in many previously welcoming sites creating guidelines to not cover Kickstarter campaigns. This has made it harder to get funded.

The overall level of quality of projects has declined since 2013. Some high-profile projects ended up horribly mismanaged with their deliveries. Overall the category is actually improving over time for medium-sized high-quality projects. It is less boom like it was in 2012 and 2013. A problem is that the large campaigns (like $250,000+ goals) are generally not doing so well. A big part of the reason for that is the quality for those campaigns has tanked in both what the games are and the execution of the campaigns. There are more campaigns like Human Resources, Astro Boy: Edge of Time and RED ASH that just fall apart due to poor decisions.

Yeah... I know. Not best time for indie games on KS. Still we need to try our best!
And I still don't understand how people launch some projects that clearly have no chances on KS. I'm talking about projects with no prior audience and lots of clumsiness. Some people seem to think that KS is synonim of throwing your project and "free money" raining over you. What a crazy conception!

03. Fitting a market niche is important. If a game doesn't cater to the core demographics of the frequent backers in the video games category, then a game needs more external coverage to compensate. Weird games often need to bring their own audience to Kickstarter to gain initial traction.

Sometimes the core audience doesn't aggregate. A nostalgic remake of a 1990s video game on an obscure consumer computer kit system in Europe might lack any form of fansites. Sometimes the core audience doesn't actively follow news. The players of some types of games don't bother reading the latest RockPaperShotgun or Kotaku news and only hear about the biggest news stories from friends. It can be tough.

Video game projects actually have it easy relative to other categories besides tabletop and film. There are many sites out there that cover video games of various niches like point-and-click and RPGs. Let's Players have also become powerful influences.

I still feel not very optimistic about media coverage, to be honest. And I'm a PR guy!

06. I find project creators that supported projects as backers avoid many easy mistakes during parts like composing backer surveys. They can also price their reward tiers less steep.

I agree. But it's also a perception thing. When you see a project from a creator that has 1 project created and 0 projects backed, I just feel less prone to pledge to it. But if the creator has many projects backed, I feel like he knows what he/she's doing and -overall- that he/she might be a nice guy worth of backers' money.

08. Small blogs will regurgitate press kit information. The largest blogs need to do more. They need an angle to explore and sustain a long enough discussion. Sometimes the story they write about is more than just about the game.

Halloween is an excellent opportunity for Monster Prom. Blogs could be looking for Halloween-related content to post. There may also be the opportunity for backers to compete in pumpkin carving.

We're preparing a presskit that will be ready around tomorrow or Tuesday.
We will try to reach some media talking about Halloween

09. Visual novels made by non-Japanese developers are consistently launching on Kickstarter. The quality varies wildly. The goals vary wildly. Their success rates vary wildly. The ones that use Ren'Py are looked down upon similar to how RPGMaker-based games are looked down upon.

Japanese visual novels generally do very well on Kickstarter because such projects are usually for official translations. Visual novels like Muv Luv, Grisaia and CLANNAD also had localized anime series to build up their international fanbases. They get lots of social media attention. They get covered by AnimeNewsNetwork and /r/anime. The quality of these visual novels are already known because people can go look at the Japanese review scores.

Agree. We have contacted several visual novel projects to get advice!
We have found a good bunch of visual novel projects that hit goals between 30k and 50k.

11. Getting backers to upgrade to the next tier falls under the topic of upselling. It is often about managing diminishing returns. Better upselling means fewer backers total needed to reach 100% funded.

The goal I use (for reward tiers ranging below $100) is to see a reward tier achieve at least 25% of the number of backers the previous tier was able to achieve. If it is less than 25% then there could be a problem. There are many campaigns seeing drops between tiers more extreme than 75% due to bad rewards.

I will keep this formula in mind to later analyze my rewards. This applies to the tricky step from the anchor reward tier to the next one? Because I feel the reward tier after the anchor reward tier will surely have less than 25% of the number of backers from the anchor tier rewad.

12. It is clear that Tuesday is the best launch day in my data. It is also excellent for ending.

Mondays are great for both launching and ending. They need some extra attention coordinating press in advance.

Wednesdays work for both launching and ending.

Thursdays are a poor time to launch, but a great time to end.

Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays can devastate a campaign's chances by either launching or ending on them.

European-based often damage their performance in the last 24 hours by ending when most potential backers are asleep. The Eastern time zone is the important time zone on Kickstarter.

The first and middle weeks of a month do better. Different months also perform differently. Video game projects should try to avoid December, January and June. There are specific weeks throughout the year (like the first week of September) that should also be avoided due to spikes in the difficulty of getting funded.

Yup! Most surely we will start on Tuesday and end on Thursday. We agree on your data on this.
Eastern time zone as in the New York timezone, for instance?
So we should start our campaign early in the morning (NY time) and end in the evening-early night (NY time)?

Yeah, being a project during late-October and November we're afraid of big videogame news! Let's see what happens...

13. I see you are targeting Tuesday October 25th.

Here is a table of potential times to run a campaign in October:
http://i.imgur.com/htjmY4r.png

I don't recommend ending on Friday November 25th to Sunday November 27th. This leaves only 2 recommendations for a October 25th start date. Running for 30 days would end on Thursday November 24th. Running for 34 days would end on Monday November 28th. It looks like you will run for the standard 30 days.

Yup, it'll probably be Oct 25th till Nov 24th
Standard 30 days will be!
I saw a couple of successful visual novel KS projects on a 45 day campaign. Is that normal? Is that advisable?

17. The art is a main selling point for the game. Word-of-mouth within online art communities is something to aim for.

Which art communities do you mean?
We're aiming for Twitter and Tumbler. We've talked to some illustrators to get promotional art, meaning they portraying one or more of our chars in order to steer their communities and fanbases to us.

[fall_ark]

If there are as much content as the samples we've been show then I'm sold.

You know, I like the playable characters so much it feels like a pity that you can't mingle with them in a playthrough. Or is there more to the multiplayer angle (at the very least, if players compete to get the same interest it will feel bland if there isn't some "special" stuff adressing it)?

If the funding goes well may I suggest:

1. NPCs replacements or randomization. e.g. Rabbit shopkeeper. Also like in some events there could be a minor NPC with one or two lines (for example in the sports event, have one line of "You did it! / That was great!" said by your teammate) that would be easily replaceable.

2. Easter egg endings/unlockable scenes for all characters. In fact just more sketches would be amazing.

3. Please consider localization! It's kinda my thing. 

Also for art communities there's deviantart. You can also consider setting up pages on rpgmaker.net or gamejolt.com and indiedb etc.

[LobsterSundew]

01. Kickstarter is littered with projects that have huge funding goals.

Examples of current active projects with no real chances and huge goals are:
- Gridiron Champions has a $850,000 goal. It has 151 backers pledging $10,604. It could take 12,140 to 34,000 backers to get funded.
- Legends of the Traveler has a $150,000 goal. It has 20 backers pledging $6,473. It could take 4,840 to 6,820 backers to get funded.

Projects that need over 10,000 backers need a reality check if the project creators aren't already famous or don't already have a large active community behind them.

Some memorable recently ended examples of large goal projects:
Amazing Mouse Kingdom had a kr2,000,000 goal. It raised $838 from 7 backers.
http://i.imgur.com/U5hgngI.png
Doggy Treat Warrior has a $120,000 goal. It raised $169 from 6 backers.
http://i.imgur.com/sjFByPB.png
Surface 2040 had a $200,000 goal. 7 backers pledged $876.
http://i.imgur.com/mDqqdbK.png
Saturday Knights had a $270,000 goal. 299 backers pledged $8,910.
http://i.imgur.com/dcPcQQk.png

$100,000 at $25 per backer is 4,000 backers at 100% funded. If there was a conversion rate of 2% of project page visitors becoming backers, then the project would need 200,000 visitors. There is then another conversion rate for people to visitor the project page after seeing press coverage or social media posts about it. This means reaching more than 200,000 people. Large projects need to get press. Lots of press. Many project creators don't truly understand it becomes a full-time job to get enough press for a large project. A project going viral doesn't happen often.

11. A greater than a 75% drop in the number of backers is the cut-off I personally use for an indicator of poor upselling from one reward tier to another. A 80% or 90% drop can mean something is going wrong. When things are going right, the drop will be less than 75%. A 75% drop is not what to be expecting because that would be pessimistic.

When things are going well, it is possible for the tier after the anchor tier to be more populated. Seeing a 50% drop or less can be great. It is rare to see a reward tier following the anchor tier achieve a higher population than the anchor tier, but it can happen.

The big drops stand out. Below are recent 2016 examples.

PIGSODUS had 153 backers at $15 tier and 36 backers at its $25 tier.
http://i.imgur.com/w22UXvs.png
Dawn of the Devs had 235 backers at its $15 tier and 17 backers at its $30 tier.
http://i.imgur.com/RfBestt.png
Abatron had 16 backers at $35 tier and 103 backers at its $15 tier.
http://i.imgur.com/xFeCDfZ.png
Magic Dragon Princess had 41 backers at its $3 tier and 6 backers at its $5 tier.
http://i.imgur.com/1OjBOC6.png
Elios' Hunt had 136 backers at its $5 tier and 27 at its $15 tier.
http://i.imgur.com/TpJ32tL.png
GLITCHED had 1,841 backers at its $10 tier and 275 at its $15 tier.
http://i.imgur.com/62CLuVK.png
Mystery of Woolie Mountain had 143 backers at its £7 tier and 33 at its £15 tier.
http://i.imgur.com/fbhcA6j.png
Stay! Stay! Democratic Republic of Korea had 75 backers at its $20 tier and 40 at its $45 tier.
http://i.imgur.com/hrfLBWI.png

It is rarely the case that a bad drop is the result of another later tier being an extra good magnet at pulling backers to it. Sometimes it can be if an early-bird for a medium-priced tier is involved, but in general that type of pulling upwards is hard to achieve.

I often notice soundtrack tiers are the underperforming ones. That itself is a huge topic. Many projects can get soundtrack tiers wrong. Done right they can be incredibly good performing tiers, but many project creators over-price them. A portion of backers don't care about soundtrack downloads. They'll just go listen to it on YouTube later if it ends up being good.

Good upselling reward tiers have this nice gentle decline.

Vulpine
http://i.imgur.com/jwb4t5R.png
Sausage Sports Club
http://i.imgur.com/aKwJAyM.png
Hypnospace Outlaw
http://i.imgur.com/qlatTDC.png
Dragon Date
http://i.imgur.com/XyaFaqE.png
GLOOM
http://i.imgur.com/vMv7QMd.png
System Shock
http://i.imgur.com/JwqRGsY.png
Ikenfell
http://i.imgur.com/V1vIK1j.png
Blubber Busters
http://i.imgur.com/6jFX2Ch.png

Many times the poor upselling is partly due to an early-bird tier not being filled. Let's say there is a $5 early-bird, $10 anchor tier and $15 soundtrack tier. When the $5 early-bird tier is around it isn't a $5 jump to the $15 soundtrack tier, its really a $10 jump because it is like the $10 tier doesn't exist while the early-bird is around. Too many early-bird spots can be a serious efficiency problem at covering funding distances.

Another common problem is simply huge price jumps. What is important to realize is that a price jump from $10 to $30 feels more extreme than $50 to $70 (which is also a $20 increase). Pricing psychology is a complex topic. People are willing to spend $5 on a cup of coffee, but a $5 iOS app can seem outrageous. People pay attention to the larger percentage discount tags on Steam sales like 80% a $5 game more than 50% off a $2 game.

A general idea is for the lower priced reward tiers, keep price increases for jumps to the next tier at 100% or less. People can subconsciously think in percentages. A jump from $10 to $20 is good (100% increase). A jump from $10 to $15 is good (50% increase). A jump from $10 to $25 is bad (150% increase). That previously mentioned jump from $10 to $30 was a 200% increase. The previously mentioned jump from $50 to $70 was only a 40% increase.

12. The Eastern time zone is the most important time zone to plan around. This is where a huge portion of backers and bloggers live.

In general, launching earlier in the day is better. Launching in the afternoon can result in missing being included in that day's news coverage. It is pushing it to launch after 10am ET. There is a big surge in traffic when office workers are browsing the Internet during lunch. Missing that surge can effectively waste a day.

Ending around 8pm ET has been a sweet-spot for a final countdown, but this has been a problem for European-based project creators struggling to stay awake. For European-based project creators I'd suggest deciding how late into the evening you can manage. Ending at 5pm ET would be noon in Vancouver over on the West coast. That would still be acceptable.

What you want to avoid is ending very early in the morning for North Americans. This is a common mistake European developers make. Ending at 5am ET in the morning over here means missing out on potential last-minute pledge upgrades because many backers would be asleep.

By default Kickstarter scheduled in 24 hour parts. Launching at 8am caused the campaign to end at 8am on the final day. There is now a drop-down option to specify the hour you want to end independent of what hour you launched. I keep telling project creators to be aware this option exists.

13. I generally would not advise a 45 day campaign. Longer campaigns can do poorly. Maintaining momentum is a significant challenge. There are many factors like alignment with traffic cycles that campaigns longer than 30 days can struggle with. While long campaigns can find success, there can be factors like pre-launch followers that were a more important part of their success.

17. Tumblr and Twitter do have many artists.

Art communities can grow up around specific medium niches like paintings or pixel art, around individual influential artists and even Let's Play channel fanbases. They can also grow around subject material. Monster girls has become a more popular niche since Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou aired.

There are the places artists go to learn from others. Making tutorials is an option to guest post. There are places like DeviantArt, Reddit and Pixiv where artists go to share their work with others. It can be a very slow process to get traction. Livestreaming of drawing has become a thing.

Sometimes it isn't just about sharing art from the game. An artist may make a funny web comic about a recent episode of a popular Cartoon Network show. The web comic gets shared around the show's community and the artist gains more followers.

[BeautifulGlitch]

From screenshots I see you are using Unity3D. I assume the game will support PC/Mac/Linux.

Yes indeed!

At an average of $25 per backer, 50 backers would be $1,250. For 100 backers it would be $2,500. It is a good idea to raise at least 15% of the minimum funding goal before the first weekend a campaign encounters.

We'd want to hit 50% within the first days. It's quite ambitious, but it is what we did with Indie G Zine. Let's see what happens!

About visual novels:

Reddit's /r/visualnovels has 25,800+ subs. It has rules about crowdfunding campaigns in its sidebar. Searching within this subreddit with the keyword "kickstarter" produces many results. It would be a priority at launch to post there.

I saw this subreddit. I guess it's best to wait until we launch the KS, right?

Many visual novel projects on Kickstarter have demos. The visual novel Harem Protagonist is an example of how Let's Plays can cause a boost to the campaign.
http://i.imgur.com/FESjjUA.png
I have very little impression of how far along Monster Prom is towards having a demo. For visual novel demos, there would need to be enough content to fill a 15 minutes to 30 minutes standard Let's Play episode. A few minutes wouldn't be enough for many Let's Players to make a proper video out of.

We won't have a demo unfortunately. We're trying to come up with something really simple so we can post on some forums where having a demo is mandatory. It'd be something short and pretty self-aware (think of the demo starting with chars meta-commenting that's not exactly a demo at all and telling the player not to take it seriously.

PlayStation Vita has become a strong platform for visual novels.

I will have this into account. Thanks!

About online presence:

The keywords "monster prom" mostly has search results for an Atlanta-based event. There is apparently an annual monster prom masquerade Zombie Prom is an off-Broadway musical. There is a "Monster's Prom" on Newgrounds and "Monster Girl Prom" on iOS. On page 3 of the Google results I finally found a mention for Monster Prom that was a Tumblr post for Indie G Zine.

Ow, this is bad!

The official website for Monster Prom is aesthetically very pleasing. I didn't find a press kit section.

Thanks! We added a presskit section today! (:

There are occasional self-promotion threads on /r/girlgamers where strong female characters can do well.

Oh, we will take a look on this!

I suggest not launching a Steam Greenlight campaign until the launch of the Kickstarter campaign. It is very clear that simultaneously launching campaigns on both platforms works well. Launching on Greenlight before Kickstarter can be throwing away potential traffic.

Yeah, main idea is having both in sync!

Twitter appears to be where the game has most of its following.

Yup! (:

Indie G Zine had 524 backers. The last update was October 14th 2016 showing a photo of mailers. A September 17th 2016 project update revealed Monster Prom to those backers. There might be 11 to 131 backers that come from the previous project. It can be hard to tell when projects from the same creator are drastically different. For rebooted projects I would generally suggest expect less than 50% of backers to return (this is very optimistic). Half of 524 backers is 262 backers.

If we can get a bit less than 10% (50 backers) we'd be more than grateful!

About within Kickstarter:

Many of the October campaigns will be ending around the time Monster Prom is scheduled to launch. It is possible to try to benefit from the traffic of another campaign ending.

Voyage of Fortune's Star ends on October 23rd.
Code: HARDCORE, Backdrop and At The Cage end their campaigns on October 25th.
Code 7 ends on October 27th.
Chronotopia ends on October 28th. It is a visual novel. Exchanging shout-outs may be an option.
The Last Goddess ends on October 29th.
Dwarrows and Beard Blade end on October 30th.
Cattle And Crops ends its campaign on October 31st.

LOST EMBER ends on November 14th. This campaign is currently in the spotlight for the crowdfunding of games.

We're reaching some campaigns to get mutual shout outs! Lost Ember would be phenomenal; but they're proving a bit hard to reach. I've spotted the CEO and I'll try to personally reach him.

When October arrives there should be the expected wave of new projects for that month. If you launch on October 25th, you would have about 6 days to try to soak up enough backers to compete with the strong projects that launch at the start of the months.

That's true! Let's see what happens! :O

Thanks a lot, Ian! You're the best (:

[BeautifulGlitch]

btw, we're experimenting with adding some lil' animations. This is something we can study further if we get enough funding at Kickstarter! (:

We'll be live next week :x





What do you think?

Do you like them?

[Zorg]

I like them! But you should freeze the animations after a short time, imho. I'd use them as transitions between two "comic panels" only (or as an introduction to a new panel).

[BeautifulGlitch]

If there are as much content as the samples we've been show then I'm sold.

You know, I like the playable characters so much it feels like a pity that you can't mingle with them in a playthrough. Or is there more to the multiplayer angle (at the very least, if players compete to get the same interest it will feel bland if there isn't some "special" stuff adressing it)?

If the funding goes well may I suggest:

1. NPCs replacements or randomization. e.g. Rabbit shopkeeper. Also like in some events there could be a minor NPC with one or two lines (for example in the sports event, have one line of "You did it! / That was great!" said by your teammate) that would be easily replaceable.

2. Easter egg endings/unlockable scenes for all characters. In fact just more sketches would be amazing.

3. Please consider localization! It's kinda my thing. 

Also for art communities there's deviantart. You can also consider setting up pages on rpgmaker.net or gamejolt.com and indiedb etc.

Thanks a lot! Yeah, we're taking care of including a good lot of content!

> A LOT of events
> a good bunch of "special" events
> +20 items
> ~3 outfits per NPC (but we aim for more). Outfits might be just alternative (NPC changes between outfits) or location related. We'd love to include also special outfits tied to specific events.
> 6 Love interests
> 4 playable characters
> 6 locations (each playable char has its own location related event image)
> 2 maps (highschool + cafeteria)
> at least 2 secret endings per Love interest
> A lot different endings depending on your actions
> and more!

No! There's not a lot more in the multiplayer angle, at least as you seem to mean. You can't court playable chars.

But if we get enough funds I'd love to add what I mean "secret runs". This game has short game sessions of 45-60'. A lot of events make each run fresh and new. But "secret runs" would be super special game sessions that'd have unique settings. I had a wishlist of "secret runs" I'd love. One of them is a run where you unexpectedly can choose one of 4 of the NPCs and you can pursue the playable chars. Of course, that alone has a huge cost (24 event illustrations for the new playable chars), a model for each playable char with 5-6 expressions, at whole lot of new events... you get the idea!

Other "secret runs" ideas include gender swap or a run where chars realize that they had been living the same 3 weeks over and over, they discover is a kind of groundhog day curse and they try to break it.

As for your recommendations

1. One of the things we'd love to include if we get funds is to add minor NPCs actually. We currently have some of them but we make them appear narratively, with no art. But we'd love to change this. Also, our biggest reward on the Kickstarter involves the backer becoming/creating a NPC with a short appearance.

2. As said before, there will be at least 12 secret endings. Once again, a feature we'd love to add if we get enough funding would be more secret endings.

3. We consider localization but it's not in our current pipeline. It's something to study only if the game goes nice. If so, localization will depend on players' feedback.

Thanks a lot for your support! (:

[Bricabrac]

Already following you on Twitter, guess I'll spy you here too \m/ keep up with the good work!

[fall_ark]

-snip-

Lemme grab my phone and call some local indie news site to give a write-up of this project

Would be nice if there's some way for you to check "casual" interest though. Something like a Greenlight campaign or a simple mail list button on the website.

[BeautifulGlitch]

-snip-

Lemme grab my phone and call some local indie news site to give a write-up of this project

Would be nice if there's some way for you to check "casual" interest though. Something like a Greenlight campaign or a simple mail list button on the website.

What's -snip? D:

That'd be great, really!

Yeah, the mail thing would have been a smart idea. Now it's kinda late, since we're launching next week.

But we're launching a greenlight campaign same day as the KS campaign. It's proven to be a solid move!

[fall_ark]

-snip-

Lemme grab my phone and call some local indie news site to give a write-up of this project

Would be nice if there's some way for you to check "casual" interest though. Something like a Greenlight campaign or a simple mail list button on the website.

What's -snip? D:

Oh it just means I snipped the quote because it's a bit long. Nothing to worry about.

The website is really pretty though. You should add it in the top post!