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[io3 creations]

I've seen many campaigns launching both Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight at the same time and refer to the other one.  In general, on the Kickstarter page, Greenlight tends to come after "testimonial quotes" and before stretch goals.  You can look at a few projects and see how they did it.

However, since you already reached your minimum funding goal and your stretch goals aren't that high and are likely to be reached soon, I'd say the Greenlight campaign has a higher priority and would put it above the stretch goals.  In general, I'd probably keep the "testimonial quotes" at the top so that is the first thing new people see, but since funding isn't going to be an issue, a relatively small horizontal "Support our Greenlight campaign" banner should be fine either above or below that.

You could also mention the Greenlight campaign in an upcoming Kickstarter update for those that have already pledged and may not be aware of it.

[DigitalSun]

I've seen many campaigns launching both Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight at the same time and refer to the other one.  In general, on the Kickstarter page, Greenlight tends to come after "testimonial quotes" and before stretch goals.  You can look at a few projects and see how they did it.

However, since you already reached your minimum funding goal and your stretch goals aren't that high and are likely to be reached soon, I'd say the Greenlight campaign has a higher priority and would put it above the stretch goals.  In general, I'd probably keep the "testimonial quotes" at the top so that is the first thing new people see, but since funding isn't going to be an issue, a relatively small horizontal "Support our Greenlight campaign" banner should be fine either above or below that.

You could also mention the Greenlight campaign in an upcoming Kickstarter update for those that have already pledged and may not be aware of it.

Thanks for your feedback. It make sense. Anyway, we have already announced Greenlight on one update. Probably we will add the Greenlight banner on Monday (we're out of the studio until then).

About press quotes, maybe it's a good idea to keep them at the top. We'll be thinking on that.

[LobsterSundew]

Kickstarter has made changes to how reward tiers are visually displayed on project pages. The number of backers now appears after the number of open slots and also at the bottom of a reward tier's box instead of near the top. The reward tier text is more faded as well making it tougher to read. Last week when a web browser window was re-sized it often created black bars on the project thumbnail image. Now image stretching is happening to adjust for the width of the browser's window.

2,020 backers have currently pledged $54,630 (136.6%). Kicktraq shows a trend to $371,076 (927%) and BackerTracker shows $169,045 (422.6%).

GameGrin, Cliqist, MMORPG.com and RPGamer covered the project. Coverage of Moonlighter's Kickstarter campaign from the largest video gaming blogs hasn't really happened yet. PCGamer and Kotaku did cover the Square Enix Collective campaign for Moonlighter back then. From an optimistic perspective not getting covered yet by those big blogs means there is still the potential to be covered in the future for a burst of traffic to result. It is better than getting covered and then not seeing much of a burst in backer activity.

June 2nd had about the same performance as Jun 1st for backers and pledges. I expected June 2nd to do around half that number of what it actually did because I've been wondering how front-loaded Moonlighter's campaign will be. Moonlighter had excellent pre-launch marketing. That could mean a big portion of the backers the campaign will ever get may have already been concentrated into the first few days. That would mean the campaign slows down a lot before having another good-sized surge at the end.

Remember that the Kickstarter trough phase is coming. You don't need to fear it since Moonlighter is already working on stretch goals. It would be an anomaly for Moonlighter not to experience that trough period. On June 3rd the campaign finally began showed a big drop in the rate of new backers.

Moonlighter is going into its first weekend. While weekends can be slower than weekdays for new backers, weekends are also potentially a time to get some rest and plan what to do for the next week.

When a game gets greenlit for Steam it is a new reason for blogs to cover the game or cover it again. Keep trying to divert traffic to the Steam Greenlight page. Some projects put the Greenlight link right at the top. Another possible place to put the link is in Moonlighter's section about supported platforms. Currently the Greenlight link has appeared as part of project update #5. New backers who don't read through all the previous updates might not find it.

[BeTeslohan]

Great marketing campaign, friend! That Kickstarter page really sets the bar for where indies should strive for when getting their products funded. I hope mine is at least half as impressive when I'm ready. : )

[DigitalSun]

Great marketing campaign, friend! That Kickstarter page really sets the bar for where indies should strive for when getting their products funded. I hope mine is at least half as impressive when I'm ready. : )

Thank you!

Consider that it's not only about what we did. SQEX Collective help us a lot with "discoverability".

[DigitalSun]

Hello!

GameGrin, Cliqist, MMORPG.com and RPGamer covered the project. Coverage of Moonlighter's Kickstarter campaign from the largest video gaming blogs hasn't really happened yet. PCGamer and Kotaku did cover the Square Enix Collective campaign for Moonlighter back then. From an optimistic perspective not getting covered yet by those big blogs means there is still the potential to be covered in the future for a burst of traffic to result. It is better than getting covered and then not seeing much of a burst in backer activity.

Yes... We hope to get covered on those major pages during the next weeks. Maybe it would be great to reconect with the journalists who wrote about us during the Collective phase.

June 2nd had about the same performance as Jun 1st for backers and pledges. I expected June 2nd to do around half that number of what it actually did because I've been wondering how front-loaded Moonlighter's campaign will be. Moonlighter had excellent pre-launch marketing. That could mean a big portion of the backers the campaign will ever get may have already been concentrated into the first few days. That would mean the campaign slows down a lot before having another good-sized surge at the end.

Remember that the Kickstarter trough phase is coming. You don't need to fear it since Moonlighter is already working on stretch goals. It would be an anomaly for Moonlighter not to experience that trough period. On June 3rd the campaign finally began showed a big drop in the rate of new backers.

Moonlighter is going into its first weekend. While weekends can be slower than weekdays for new backers, weekends are also potentially a time to get some rest and plan what to do for the next week.

At the first days, Square use to help Collective's projects with a massive mailing to their audience. That has helped hs a lot, but their USA mail was sent later than expected. That's probably why the second day show that good performance.

During the weekend we'll plan some further actions. For example we'll focus now on Greenlight and add a banner. I'm also a bit concerned about the bad performance on thunderclap.

We're considering to record a "Let's Play" at the studio, and later then another AMA. Ideally that would be a twitch, but the languaje scares us. We're from Spain, and very used to comunicate with English speaking people, but in a way more formal contexts (as you know, we've been working on outsourcing for years).

[Batowski]

Congrats guys for the crazy-fast 100%!

It seems like the Square thing is working pretty well for you. We were contemplating it before we launched our own campaign but there wasn't a lot of time for us to do a 'pre-campaign'. Maybe next time.

May I ask if Square helps with any PR or marketing at all during the KS, or all they do is send out a big bunch of e-mails at the campaign start?

Cheers, and please send some of your backers our way sometime next week.

[LobsterSundew]

2,206 backers have pledged $59,014 (147.5%). The $55,000 stretch-goal for The Hawker has been reached.

Moonlighter is firmly holding onto the 2nd rank in popularity behind that Famicom visual compendium project.

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

The campaign's first weekend was much slower, but that isn't abnormal. What will be interesting is to see how the campaign does after Monday.

For perspective, slow days for Moonlighter were approximately 90 new backers for Saturday and approximately 90 new backers for Sunday. For a small campaign 30 new backers could be labelled a great day.

There was more German and Spanish-language coverage. Some Twitter activity. Both GameSkinny and MMOExaminer mentioned the campaign surpassed its goal. A few forum threads that discuss what Kickstarter projects are active have mentioned Moonlighter.

I didn't find an entry for Moonlighter on the Linux Game Database yet.

The comments section has been handled well, especially the response to the backer Eli about a genderswapped option for the protagonist.

If you do decide to do livestreams, there is the option to hold separate livestreams for English and Spanish speakers. The archived recordings of the streams could be uploaded to YouTube with closed captions in the other language (the Spanish stream getting English subtiles). Another option is to have backers provide questions before the stream starts so answers could be prepared under less stressful conditions and translated well ahead of the stream. One of the things to get used to when livestreaming is how fast the comments can flow in chat depending on how large the audience gets. It helps to have moderators that can pick good questions, so you may want to ask for backers with Twitch mod experience. Twitch has also now added support for some IRC programs to integrate with Twitch chat so you can keep better track of what comments were made (such as going back to read a comment that disappeared too quickly in the web browser). Another option to remember is that it is possible to edit down a livestream into a more streamlined shorter video that skips all the slow parts that result from things like technical difficulties.

Another route besides livestreams is to just produce lots of animated GIFs or WEBMs of what has been implemented in the game so far. That may be less stressful than a livestream. Edited videos are a step up from animated GIFs. It is about finding a balance so the team doesn't burn out. There is still more than 26 days to go.

[TonyManfredonia]

Wow! That kickstarter came and went in a flash. Fantastic job on funding to 100% so quickly!

Congratulations :D

[seancruz]

Some of the best pixel art I've seen! Totally backed this up and can't wait to play it! Congratulations on your kickstarter success!

[DigitalSun]

Wow! That kickstarter came and went in a flash. Fantastic job on funding to 100% so quickly!

Congratulations :D

Some of the best pixel art I've seen! Totally backed this up and can't wait to play it! Congratulations on your kickstarter success!

Thank you both!  We're more than happy about how the campaign is going. Let's see how this week goes.

[DigitalSun]

2,206 backers have pledged $59,014 (147.5%). The $55,000 stretch-goal for The Hawker has been reached.

Moonlighter is firmly holding onto the 2nd rank in popularity behind that Famicom visual compendium project.

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

The campaign's first weekend was much slower, but that isn't abnormal. What will be interesting is to see how the campaign does after Monday.

For perspective, slow days for Moonlighter were approximately 90 new backers for Saturday and approximately 90 new backers for Sunday. For a small campaign 30 new backers could be labelled a great day.

There was more German and Spanish-language coverage. Some Twitter activity. Both GameSkinny and MMOExaminer mentioned the campaign surpassed its goal. A few forum threads that discuss what Kickstarter projects are active have mentioned Moonlighter.

I didn't find an entry for Moonlighter on the Linux Game Database yet.

The comments section has been handled well, especially the response to the backer Eli about a genderswapped option for the protagonist.

If you do decide to do livestreams, there is the option to hold separate livestreams for English and Spanish speakers. The archived recordings of the streams could be uploaded to YouTube with closed captions in the other language (the Spanish stream getting English subtiles). Another option is to have backers provide questions before the stream starts so answers could be prepared under less stressful conditions and translated well ahead of the stream. One of the things to get used to when livestreaming is how fast the comments can flow in chat depending on how large the audience gets. It helps to have moderators that can pick good questions, so you may want to ask for backers with Twitch mod experience. Twitch has also now added support for some IRC programs to integrate with Twitch chat so you can keep better track of what comments were made (such as going back to read a comment that disappeared too quickly in the web browser). Another option to remember is that it is possible to edit down a livestream into a more streamlined shorter video that skips all the slow parts that result from things like technical difficulties.

Another route besides livestreams is to just produce lots of animated GIFs or WEBMs of what has been implemented in the game so far. That may be less stressful than a livestream. Edited videos are a step up from animated GIFs. It is about finding a balance so the team doesn't burn out. There is still more than 26 days to go.

Thanks for your follow up! That's very useful. 

I'm investigating right now the LGDB. About the livestream, maybe we'll just upload a Let's Play video. The twitch option is more stressful for us right now (maybe at the final days of the campaign we'll do one, anyway). Some of your suggestions around the Let's Play are very interesting, and we'll discuss about it.

Thanks again!

[io3 creations]

I'm also a bit concerned about the bad performance on thunderclap.

I've seen a few video game projects where it didn't seem to make much difference.  But that was only a few and I wondered that maybe for others it might have been different.  However, iirc not long ago LobsterSundew mentioned on the Mable & the Wood devlog that Thunderclap tends to work better for tech devices but not for video games.

[DigitalSun]

I'm also a bit concerned about the bad performance on thunderclap.

I've seen a few video game projects where it didn't seem to make much difference.  But that was only a few and I wondered that maybe for others it might have been different.  However, iirc not long ago LobsterSundew mentioned on the Mable & the Wood devlog that Thunderclap tends to work better for tech devices but not for video games.

Yes... It seems to be harder to reach high targets on thunderclap for videogame studios, but it could help us a lot with final weeks sprint. We're not investing a lot of efforts on it for now, to be sincere   

[Vitalius Sch]

Congrats Kickstarter! So happy for you!

[DigitalSun]

Congrats Kickstarter! So happy for you!

Thanks! 

[LobsterSundew]

Campaigns that launch now have some new field for a reward tier title. This means that slightly faded text is actually the reward tier description and now makes more sense from a readability standpoint. I don't know yet if those titles can be added or edited after a backer occupies them. Tomorrow Kickstarter may see even more changes to itself.

There are 64 out of 200 people on the Thunderclap campaign. I don't know if Thunderclap is better for tech projects. I only focus on the video games category. Many of your backers might not have any experience with Thunderclap. A project update could explain how it works. A successful Thunderclap campaign could become a "backer mission". XO has a good graphical example of a backer mission chart. The idea is that backers are somehow rewarded by feats like 400 comments in the project's comments tab. The hardest part of backer missions can be deciding what the reward will be. An example is a complete mission could have a wallpaper image for backers or a single MP3 song download.

2,431 backers have pledged $66,799 (166.9%).

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/lkU2sbB.png

I didn't get much time to look deeply at those graphs today, but what does stand out is the steadying shape of the $15, $25 and $40 tiers in the graph about backers over time. There was the strong start with lots of backers pouring in during the launch window. Now the campaign slows down in the trough and keeps a steady pace at the those tiers. During the trough most of the new backers are at the lower priced tiers. It becomes rarer for large backers to consistently appear until much closer to the campaign deadline.

The $25 reward tier for Sentinels of the Multiverse is an example of what shape Moonlighter's $15 tier could end up looking like by the end.
http://i.imgur.com/ZjLXp7o.png
While the final days for Moonlighter should see increased momentum, Moonlighter is already working on stretch goals there so there isn't as much of a real sense of urgency to pledge. There are conditions for large surges to happen at the end of the campaign. Don't be too disappointed if Moonlighter's final days don't see a big surge. Getting fully funded early in a campaign can sometimes means steadily coasting across its finish line. One of the reasons that large surges do happen in the last few days is those campaigns can still trying to achieve their minimum goals. The all-or-nothing nature of Kickstarter helps create urgency for project creators and backers to pour effort into reaching the goal amount.

It is also possible that the shape of Moonlighter's $15 tier may end up like the $20 tier for Children of Zodiarcs.
http://i.imgur.com/TOIx1ZI.png
That shape could happen if E3 2016 causes significant slowdown. The rounded-hump instead of a straight staircase shape is due to less y-axis gains during the trough period as the campaign loses momentum.

Canard PC Online is the top ranked campaign in the video games category. TRANSMISSION is a new campaign holding 2nd place. The Famicom visual compendium is 3rd. Moonlighter continues to have a strong hold on the 4th rank.

Fable Fortune's campaign is in bad shape. Its 7th project update did generate lots of pledge upgrading by offering backers immediate alpha access for tiers priced £100 or more. The result was a big spike at the £100 tier. If it was in better shape it could have helped bring more traffic to the project category.
http://i.imgur.com/YqSRa9T.png

For the external environment, there continues to be lots of Overwatch-related content on many video gaming news sites. This week is also seeing the gradual increase in hype for E3 2016. Teaser trailers are now starting to appear. Square Enix just released a bunch of trailers. There are also the AAA gaming rumors that start happening around this part of June because of leaks. It is starting to become a very rough time to run a Kickstarter campaign. Many of the projects launching this week are ending up dead-on-arrival and active campaigns are seeing significant slowdown.

Retronator had an article about Moonlighter. More Spanish, French and German sites were mentioning Moonlighters' campaign. There was more Twitter activity. Someone made a post appeared in /r/vita that didn't do much because PS Vita isn't a supported platform. The Steam Greenlight page has grown to 143 comments. There is 5,087 views for the Moonlighter trailer on YouTube.

[DigitalSun]

Campaigns that launch now have some new field for a reward tier title. This means that slightly faded text is actually the reward tier description and now makes more sense from a readability standpoint. I don't know yet if those titles can be added or edited after a backer occupies them. Tomorrow Kickstarter may see even more changes to itself.

There are 64 out of 200 people on the Thunderclap campaign. I don't know if Thunderclap is better for tech projects. I only focus on the video games category. Many of your backers might not have any experience with Thunderclap. A project update could explain how it works. A successful Thunderclap campaign could become a "backer mission". XO has a good graphical example of a backer mission chart. The idea is that backers are somehow rewarded by feats like 400 comments in the project's comments tab. The hardest part of backer missions can be deciding what the reward will be. An example is a complete mission could have a wallpaper image for backers or a single MP3 song download.

2,431 backers have pledged $66,799 (166.9%).

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/lkU2sbB.png

I didn't get much time to look deeply at those graphs today, but what does stand out is the steadying shape of the $15, $25 and $40 tiers in the graph about backers over time. There was the strong start with lots of backers pouring in during the launch window. Now the campaign slows down in the trough and keeps a steady pace at the those tiers. During the trough most of the new backers are at the lower priced tiers. It becomes rarer for large backers to consistently appear until much closer to the campaign deadline.

The $25 reward tier for Sentinels of the Multiverse is an example of what shape Moonlighter's $15 tier could end up looking like by the end.
http://i.imgur.com/ZjLXp7o.png
While the final days for Moonlighter should see increased momentum, Moonlighter is already working on stretch goals there so there isn't as much of a real sense of urgency to pledge. There are conditions for large surges to happen at the end of the campaign. Don't be too disappointed if Moonlighter's final days don't see a big surge. Getting fully funded early in a campaign can sometimes means steadily coasting across its finish line. One of the reasons that large surges do happen in the last few days is those campaigns can still trying to achieve their minimum goals. The all-or-nothing nature of Kickstarter helps create urgency for project creators and backers to pour effort into reaching the goal amount.

It is also possible that the shape of Moonlighter's $15 tier may end up like the $20 tier for Children of Zodiarcs.
http://i.imgur.com/TOIx1ZI.png
That shape could happen if E3 2016 causes significant slowdown. The rounded-hump instead of a straight staircase shape is due to less y-axis gains during the trough period as the campaign loses momentum.

Canard PC Online is the top ranked campaign in the video games category. TRANSMISSION is a new campaign holding 2nd place. The Famicom visual compendium is 3rd. Moonlighter continues to have a strong hold on the 4th rank.

Fable Fortune's campaign is in bad shape. Its 7th project update did generate lots of pledge upgrading by offering backers immediate alpha access for tiers priced £100 or more. The result was a big spike at the £100 tier. If it was in better shape it could have helped bring more traffic to the project category.
http://i.imgur.com/YqSRa9T.png

For the external environment, there continues to be lots of Overwatch-related content on many video gaming news sites. This week is also seeing the gradual increase in hype for E3 2016. Teaser trailers are now starting to appear. Square Enix just released a bunch of trailers. There are also the AAA gaming rumors that start happening around this part of June because of leaks. It is starting to become a very rough time to run a Kickstarter campaign. Many of the projects launching this week are ending up dead-on-arrival and active campaigns are seeing significant slowdown.

Retronator had an article about Moonlighter. More Spanish, French and German sites were mentioning Moonlighters' campaign. There was more Twitter activity. Someone made a post appeared in /r/vita that didn't do much because PS Vita isn't a supported platform. The Steam Greenlight page has grown to 143 comments. There is 5,087 views for the Moonlighter trailer on YouTube.

Hi there!

Thanks! You're amazing, as always

Well... We believe that E3 could be very bad for an indie Kickstarter, so we tried to achieve a success as soon as possible. At least now it's harder to fail for us. It is true that being funded at the beginning of the campaign can be dangerous thinking on final sprint.

[LobsterSundew]

2,640 backers have pledged $71,626 (179.1%). 20 days remain.

Here is a quick update:
http://i.imgur.com/N4vQJat.png

The campaign has now more clearly started to show the rounding hump shape to the graphs of the main reward tiers. Moonlighter is now in the trough phase of the campaign.

The $85 tier for the physical copy is doing well at 49 backers so far.

For the external environment there is of course E3. Bethesda already had its livestreamed press event on Sunday with a new QUAKE game announced and some Dishonored 2 gameplay. EA showed off their sports titles along with Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1. Microsoft and Ubisoft's events are up next on Monday. Nintendo has a stream on Tuesday. Other companies have their various events.

Indie Gamer News on YouTube mentioned Moonlighter in its June 10th episode. There continues to be non-English coverage of the game. A pixel art group on Pintrest mentioned the game which then ended up reblogged on a Tumblr about pixel art. The press release showed up on some bot sites that repost press releases.

For within Kickstarter Moonlighter is staying around the 4th to 7th position in popularity.

For new launches, both TRANSMISSION and Kologen were high quality campaigns with slow starts. TRANSMISSION is starting to do much better. Kologen may struggle to get funded, but may be saved by strong word of mouth on social media. Both projects have good potential. Dwindler is an interesting premise about underground miners. For the past few days the campaigns that have been launching are generally very low-effort ones because running during E3 is risky.

Demoniaca: Everlasting Night ends in 32 hours. That project is 96% funded with its second attempt. Fabular ends on June 14th and is just £1,869 from meeting its minimum goal. UBOOT ends in 5 days. SAURIAN ends in 10 days.

That Famicom visual compendium is now 535% funded and growing. ZED from an artist that worked on Myst has started to do better after some good Reddit posts. The Lovecraftian CRPG Stygian is at 70% funded. SAURIAN remains the most active. LUMBERMANCER's succes at 32,703% funded has been a surprise for such a small project. Epic Tavern is at 131% funded. Fable Fortune is potentially at risk of falling out of the top 20. Kinetik's campaign (from the H1Z1 guy) seems to be falling apart.

[Transmission]

Slow times on KS indeed.  I think that the start of summer and the E3 kickoff is really putting a damper on pledges for everyone.  Your project looks awesome btw!