Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Zsinj]

Thanks, I really appreciate that input. The plan has always been to make sure there's something playable to show off before going to a kickstarter, I feel it's a requirement these days compared to the "golden age" of anything with a bit of concept art raising funds on kickstarter.

There's a balance to be found in how far to take it though -  for now I have to struggle to make some free time to progress the development of the game. With a successful kickstarter I could work on it full time, which would mean I could get done in a month what it would take a year to do otherwise. Polishing it enough to compete with similar complete games would take years, so the plan is to get a thin slice playable and describe what I'm going for through concepts and designs like most kickstarters.

If it's not successful I'll have to stick to working on it part time and take a lot longer, but really to make it a reality I'm going to have to go to kickstarter within the next year. I appreciate your support!

[nenjin]

Just a note of caution on the "kickstarter so I can work on it full time" route...

I've seen more than 1 indie Kickstarter struggle going that route. It seems like a solid idea at the time, but unexpected delays in development can you put you in the position of no money left + no current job + an unfinished game. If that goes on long enough, you get into "Refund my pledge" territory, which just makes it all worse.

It's worked for plenty of people and no one knows what your costs are but you. But it's something to keep in mind.

Put another way, sometimes the safest path forward is working your jobby-job and the game takes longer to complete. You maintain financial stability, aren't at risk for backers getting pissed and wanting their money back.

But if you need the money for tools and assets or talent, deving without them really isn't an option.

[LoSboccacc]

I've seen a lot of indie games fail on Kickstarter because they've tried it way too early on, and I'd hate for this to go the same way.

in general many people being burned in the past now means a kickstarter needs a solid playable demo to really fly.

[Zsinj]

Thanks for the advice, I'd be saying the same to others too. I'm already self-employed, it's a case of switching more onto my own project than freelancing out onto other people's projects. Of course the kickstarter isn't just to pay for my own time, while I can afford some art and assets now, there's much more content I'd like to add that'll be detailed in the campaign. There's a really talented musician I'd love to bring on board that's outside of my budget as it is for now.

Very much so is the plan to have a playable demo as a prerequisite for a kickstarter, it does seem to be a necessity now.

[Mephansteras]

The real trick for a demo is that is needs to not only be fun on its own, it needs to make the player really want all those missing features.

[Zsinj]

The real trick for a demo is that is needs to not only be fun on its own, it needs to make the player really want all those missing features.

That's a great point! I'll definitely remember that one

[Malus]

Honestly, as long as the project is getting frequent blog/video updates (at least monthly) or preferably there's an alpha out and that's getting updated regularly, I doubt you'll see people pushing for refunds. Prison Architect and Rimworld were both pretty barebones at their first public releases but had excellent dev communication and consequently few dissatisfied backers.

It's the projects where months roll by without word from the devs and a playable alpha hasn't ever been delivered where people start to get skeptical. See: That Which Sleeps (which I'm now convinced was never anything more than Unity mockups), The Mandate, etc.

[nenjin]

TWS is also what I was thinking when I advised caution.

[Aklyon]

Prison Architect didn't even have walls you could put pipes under in the really early days, but it did have (sorta rambly), regular update videos, and people were pretty alright with how it went.

[Zsinj]

That Which Sleeps is one I backed with a lot of enthusiasm, shame what's happening with it.

I'm already doing monthly dev blog updates so that should be a good thing, though there's nowhere near as much month-to-month progress as I'd like, leading to the desire to be able to dedicate more time to the project. I'm considering doing videos too as they seem to build a good following.

[Zireael]

Will the game be free when it comes out? Or just the demo?

[Zsinj]

Will the game be free when it comes out? Or just the demo?

The prototype might be freely available, but the game itself will have to be paid. Something like the Minecraft model.

[Zsinj]

Nice bit of progress today - added rooms/zones with the ability to add and remove stockpiles somewhat dynamically.

[Mephansteras]

Something that bugs me in Rimworld is that stockpiles like that are really convenient, right up until the point where you want two separate stockpiles right next to each other. It'd be nice if you could add like a shift function or something to tell the game that the new stockpile shouldn't merge with any existing ones.

[Zsinj]

Something that bugs me in Rimworld is that stockpiles like that are really convenient, right up until the point where you want two separate stockpiles right next to each other. It'd be nice if you could add like a shift function or something to tell the game that the new stockpile shouldn't merge with any existing ones.

And here's me spending all this time making the stockpiles merge together and split up correctly It should actually be quite simple to add some code to not merge them together on placement with shift or something pressed if that's a feature people want.