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[LobsterSundew]

166 backers are currently pledging $7,720 (40.63%).

About the campaign's performance:

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/hCR24Q8.png

The $12 tier has 101 of 199 spots remaining. It is getting picked more by new backers.

The campaign is slowing down and starting its mid-campaign slump.

Kicktraq shows $30,880 (162%). BackerTracker shows $20,269 (106.7%).

There is $11,280 to go until 100% funded. It would be good to raise at least $7,000 more before the last 48 hours begins. It is starting to look like the campaign will need to be funded by a last 48 hours surge.

I'd like to see more activity in the comments area. Besides a comment on October 3rd, the comments area hasn't seen activity since October 1st. Some campaigns have difficulty sustaining discussion. It can feel like everything to say has already been said. Project updates become important to generate topics for discussion. If backers aren't commenting, it can mean the campaign isn't holding their attention. The details of game design often make great topics.

About outside Kickstarter:

There was a Cliqist article, demo playthroughs by Hookkshot and Cryptic Hybrid, a Gamasutra post and a post to a concept art forum. IndieGames.com included the trailer in a trailer roundup. There was a small /r/gamedev thread.

Bitly Analytics for the project shows 26 clicks on October 4th. That was the best day yet for shortlink clicks. The previous best was 5 clicks.

Wasteland 3 launched its crowdfunding campaign.

There was a fresh wave of video game trailers. Viking Squad looks cool. Outlast 2 released a demo on PS4. I did not anticipate Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location would be coming out soon. That franchise soaks up Let's Players attention like crazy. If Mafia 3 turns out to be a buggy mess on October 7th, then that should also soak up press attention. Review copies continue to have not been sent out.

After October 13th it is going to become harder for indie games to get press coverage. The big AAA publishers will be bringing out some of their main releases for the year. PlayStation VR hardware reviews and game reviews are starting to come out already.

About within Kickstarter:

Something weird is happening with the discover area. Projects that end now hang around after their deadlines for a few hours before disappearing. They used to disappear immediately. I wonder if it is a recent change or a bug.

Iron Tides dropped to the 24th rank for the category on October 4th. Below the 20th rank requires people to click the "Load more" button in the discovery area before finding it. This means less views and more dependency on getting exposure outside of Kickstarter. On October 5th it dropped to 27th.

Butt Sniffin Pugs, Queer Quest, Lightseekers, Goblins of Elderstone, Court of the Dead: Underworld Rising, NAIRI and Manorkept were good to excellent quality projects that launched this week. Rad Rogers has 6 hours remaining. Dual Universe has 5 days remaining.

You Are God suddenly went from a near dead campaign to funded after 230,000+ views on an Imgur post.
http://imgur.com/gallery/iqqnH
That was a surprise turn-around.

I was surprised Blubber Busters canceled their campaign so soon.
http://i.imgur.com/6jFX2Ch.png
They signficantly slowed down when the new wave of October campaigns arrived.

ARC Continuum canceled.
http://i.imgur.com/Z3yS6dT.png

ANTRAXX dropped to 23rd. Dungeon of Zaar dropped to 25th. Both needed stronger launches. Iron Tides is doing better than both. The Saturday launch probably did gut ANTRAXX's chances. It lost the early advantages fresh campaigns have in the popularity rankings and then couldn't compete with the new launches that do have that first 48 hours advantage. While Dungeon of Zaar has 33 more backers than Iron Tides, it has a much higher funding goal to achieve.

[LobsterSundew]

229 backers have currently pledged $9,354 (49.23% of $19,000). The campaign is about halfway through its scheduled run. 19 days remain.

About campaign performance:

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

The $12 tier is very consistent. There was a small jump on Friday October 7th during one of the studio "raids".

The average is $40.85 per backer. The adjusted average pledge that ignores the $3,000 pledge is a good $27.87 per backer.

BackerTracker shows a trend to $20,024 (105.4%). Kicktraq shows $21,047 (110%).

$9,646 to go. At $27.87 per backer that would be 347 additional backers or 576 backers total.

It looks like another $4,501 raised before the last 48 hours period starts. That would be $13,855. It would mean a $5,145 to cover during those last 2 days. That is doable. The first 2 days of the campaign did $6,432. Even if ignoring the $3,000 backer the campaign did $3,432 in its first 2 days.

$5,145 would be 184 additional backers at $28 per backer. What to be concerned about is establishing the conditions for a good final surge to happen. I see a new crowdspeaking campaign has been started. Good. I strongly suggest the further into the campaign, the more effort be put into your project updates. A surge might not happen if you don't keep your backer's attention on you during the last day. They need project update content to keep them interested, motivated and informed. The last comment on the project page was October 6th.

About within Kickstarter:

Iron Tides is currently 24th in popularity for the category.

Dungeon of Zaar clawed its way back up to 18th in popularity.
http://i.imgur.com/BSrg0pP.png
It had articles on Warp Zoned and Rock Paper Shotgun give it a big boost. It is now looking like it will claw its way past 100% by the end with the 18 days it has left.

ANTRAXX is losing momentum.
http://i.imgur.com/2jNaKGE.png

LOST EMBER is currently doing very well and soaking up attention. It raised €100,000 very quickly. The atmosphere around this campaign feels like what it was like when Hyper Light Drifter launched.

Tiny Metal has 5 days to do 50% of its goal. It may have an interesting finale. Guts And Glory will end in 70 hours. Code: Hardcore ends in 11 days.

About outside Kickstarter:

There were mentions for Iron Tides on a RPGWarch Kickstarter games roundup, a Sorcerer's Place forum thread of Kickstarter games and episode 41 of Rated-R on YouTuber. Twitter is where the project is doing well.

Mafia 3 did end up as a very buggy release. Speculation about the Nintendo NX is heating up again after retailers began receiving info. Overwatch has a Halloween event. Wasteland 3 reached its funding goal in its first 3 days. A new Five Night's At Freddy's game came out. Gears of War 4 and a wave of virtual reality games released. Battlefield 1 and Civilization VI have their October 21st release date quickly approaching.

Many areas of North America are getting some bad weather this week. There is another big storm approaching British Columbia. I experienced lots of rain where I live in the BC interior. Hopefully the power doesn't go out tonight.

[LobsterSundew]

272 backers have pledged $10,418 (54.83%).

About campaign performance:

There was a $75 tier backer on October 18th.

I didn't bother to upload updated graphs for Iron Tides tonight.

The $15 tier kept performing consistently. There was a little jump after October 16th.

There are 51 spots out of 199 remaining at the $12 early-bird tier. The $15 tier is expected to not do as well when an early-bird tier is still around, so the drop in the number of backers from the $12 to $15 tier is acceptable from that perspective.

Kicktraq shows a trend to $17,765 (93%). BackerTracker shows $20,521 (108%).

$8,582 to go with 13 days left. Keep trying to generate exposure. The smaller the funding gap when the last 48 hours starts, the greater the chance the project could meet a few stretch goals.

About within Kickstarter:

Iron Tides clawed its way back up to the 20th rank in popularity on Monday. On Tuesday it dropped to 22nd. 6 of the 19 campaigns ranked above Iron Tides will be ending before Iron Tides is scheduled to end.

The creators of the kickstarted Remix Mini computer have hinted at launching a video game microconsole like Ouya on October 20th.

TINY METAL was a campaign I was watching to see if it would make an amazing recovery, but it didn't. Yoko Taro of Nier fame even offered words of support.
http://i.imgur.com/6y3hah4.png
They didn't receive backers beyond the $100 reward tier. From my perspective it was like the campaign was cleaved in half. It didn't have backers above the $100 tier. It took 3 days for the campaign to surpass 50 backers.

Court of the Dead: Underworld Rising canceled itself.
http://i.imgur.com/sPh8TiU.png
Backdrop also canceled its campaign.
http://i.imgur.com/HBtGzDt.png

An Undertale art book project just appeared.

LOST EMBER put a demo out to Let's Players. That campaign continues to dominate the category.

About outside Kickstarter:

There was an article on AlphaBetaGamer. BaronVonLet'sPlay has a video with over 29,000+ views. A small channel named Nokzen also made a video. I like the Tyler Sigman quote on the project page's main body.

Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1 are heavily being promoted as a build up for their releases. People continue to wait for any new Nintendo NX news.

There continues to be lots of rain in British Columbia.

[LobsterSundew]

Kickstarter itself has undergone changes to the platform itself that I'm catching up with.

6 days to go. 331 backers have pledged $13,285.

About within Kickstarter:

Iron Tides able to get back into the top 20 a few days ago. Many late-September and early-October projects had ended around that type freeing up their spots in the rankings.

Iron Tides is currently 13th in popularity. Dungeon of Zaar is 14th right next to Iron Tides.

Most of the projects launching this week have been low quality. Exceptions are CIBOS, Apex Racing League (a Vancouver-based project) and Monster Prom. Many project creators realize that Kickstarter is starting to decline for 2016 and rush to launch before things get bad in December.

About outside Kickstarter:

The "raiding" of other studios appears to be doing well.

Gameranx, GamingonPC, GameOctane and OneAngryGamer had articles about Iron Tides. A press release appeared reposted on various sites. Videos were uploaded by Nookrium, MrKrayler, 16BitCouple and NeedtoKnow Gaming. There was a thread on an Alienware PC hardware forum. Rami Ismail (of Vlambeer) tweeted about the project.

A wave of new game trailers was released. Battlefield 1 is out. Civilization VI is out. The Nintendo Switch was announced.

Titanfall 2's release is just 3 days away. There is already videos like the first 15 minutes of singleplayer and review embargoes lifting right now.

About Iron Tide's campaign performance:

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/zf6Iv6t.png

The $12 tier saw a dip on October 22nd. A backer may have potentially jumped from the $12 tier to the $100 tier.

Unallocated funds has increased sharply by $672 on October 24th. October 25th had a $575 jump happen after a $250 tier backer disappeared (this backer might not be occupying a specific reward tier).

The total number of backers went backwards by 1 on October 22nd. That day was a slow Saturday.

The unadjusted average is $40.14 per backer. The adjusted average pledge is $31.80 per backer after ignoring the unallocated amounts. That is around where it should be.

The number of new project page comments continues to be lower than I'd like to see.

BackerTracker shows a trend to $21,260 (111.9%). Kicktraq shows $16,937 (89%), but Kicktraq doesn't anticipate the final 48 hours surge like other sites do.

$5,715 to go until the funding goal. That could be an additional 180 backers needed. It continues to look like the campaign will be funded by its final surge. I see other experienced backers saying this too.

[high-priest.clppr]

backed 

[LobsterSundew]

371 backers have pledged $17,222 (90.64%).

Iron Tides is about to endure the last weekend of its campaign. Good work with the frequency of project updates.

About campaign performance:

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/Zoj6UYl.png

A new $1,000 tier backer appeared on Friday.

$1,778 to go with 3 days to do it. The reminder emails Kickstarter generates in the last 48 hours for potential backers that starred the campaign haven't been sent out yet. Iron Tides may cross 100% very soon after those reminders are sent.

BackerTracker shows $21,902 (115.3%). Kicktraq shows $19,375 (101%).

The last 48 hours will decide how much overfunding the project gets.

About outside Kickstarter:

There were videos uploaded to YouTube from Nookrium, Inside Indie and Cliqist. Gamezone, Hey Poor Player, On RPG and Next on Gaming had articles. There was a thread on /r/IndieGaming linking to the Gamezone article.

Titanfall 2 is out with good reviews. A special edition of Skyrim came out. Indie darling Owlboy releases on November 1st. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has increased its marketing to build up for its November 4th release. There continues to be speculation articles about the Nintendo Switch. AAA video gaming news is busy right now.

About within Kickstarter:

As mentioned before, many late-September and early-October campaigns have already ended freeing up their spots in the popularity rankings. Iron Tides has risen to 12th in the popularity rankings for the category.

Code 7 had a good surge at the end of its campaign.
http://i.imgur.com/QWAuHG8.png

Dungeon of Zaar should reach its goal soon.

Kickstarted in the Butt is a new game from the creator behind Depression Quest. Slap And Beans, Hellhunter and Rogue Raiders Online have been interesting launches.

November should bring a wave of new high-quality campaigns. Iron Tides ends on November 1st. Hopefully it can benefit from traffic strong launches generate for Kickstarter's platform. Halloween is a Monday this year, so I don't know how it will impact the launch of new campaigns.

[CrashWaveGames]

backed 

Thanks High-Priest!

And a special thank you to Lobster for frequent updates and insights. We finally see the light! It's been a while since we updated TIGS because our Viking themed raids have stolen most of our focus.

• www.irontides.com/new-blog/travelblog1
• www.irontides.com/new-blog/travelblog2

Our last raid is on Monday 31st 2016 where we partner up with Capcom Vancouver and find more backers or playtesters.

We produced 10 builds in 30 days
After connecting with backers and playtesters across Vancouver, we made tweaks and adjustments to our demo:

• An entire enemy faction of Pirates.
• A cleaner user-interface.
• Rebalanced the difficulty of Iron Tides.
• A new stamina system.
• A new item "Crew's Stew" for participating in community challenges.

Tomorrow we are on Twitch!
We are ending our campaign by sailing through a TSUNAMI OF PAIN: Dare to Challenge the Devs. Go to our twitch channel at: www.twitch.tv/CrashWaveGames

• Download our demo: www.irontides.com/demo
• Enter Skirmish mode and check Test Mode On
• Arrange a battlefield and screen capture it!
• Send it to @IronTides (www.twitter.com/irontides)

It’s going to be close, but Iron Tides can still pull off a funding victory with this final push. It will be interesting to see what sort of tricks the devs have up their sleeves for the Twitch stream. One update did mention tasting a hot pepper mixed with chocolate, so it seems like they aren’t planning to hold anything back.

- http://cliqist.com/2016/10/27/iron-tides-plans-close-campaign-tsunami-pain/

[LobsterSundew]

Congratulations on getting 172% funded.

464 backers pledged $32,756. The $30,000 cultists stretch goal was unlocked.

Here are updated graphs for Iron Tides' campaign:
http://i.imgur.com/B6lelnM.png
The campaign surpassed 100% on October 29th. Approximately 56% of the total amount pledged was raised in the last 96 hours of the campaign. The average pledge jumped up to $70.59 per backer after those new $500 tier backers appeared.

ANTRAXX's campaign went silent for most of October and was canceled right before its deadline ended.
http://i.imgur.com/Lhyv0hQ.png
It plummeted out of view in the discover area after insufficient traction.

52.76% of Dungeon of Zaar's final total amount pledged was unallocated.
http://i.imgur.com/AN5cyYa.png
That is very large.

Good luck with development. It is still raining heavily in the B.C. interior tonight.

[io3 creations]

Congrats on getting funded!

[CrashWaveGames]

^{Devlog: Season's Greetings!}

Hello tigs! Thank you for following us and supporting Iron Tides. We've had the pleasure of interacting with the community through Twitter, Youtube, Tigs, Kickstarter, and in person when we physically showed up to different events and venues with an axe.

We hit our funding goal on November 1 and we're pleased to make a few announcements.

• We've recruited a new artist.
• We've partnered with a composer.
• We have a new holiday build (check it out at: www.irontides.com/demo)
• And we have a new level editor that you can play around with!

I want to extend our warmest thanks to LobsterSundew for following us through the process and alerting us to press mentions. We are now well on our way and things are looking good. For further details, we will go back to regular updates using Tigs, our website, and Kickstarter as much and as often as possible.

Please have a look at our demo and feel free to bump the thread!

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!