Other Kickstarter Projects

[Lambonius]

a can of government cheese.

Oh no you DIDN'T!!!

1:36

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX6qTD03UlI" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX6qTD03UlI</a>

[rugged]

So I was chep and never backed space venture. But I see they have recently released a backer demo. Just wondering what people thought of it? How polished is it and does it give you a lot of faith in the finished product

[s_d]

I liked it.  It was super short, and the interface was "streamlined", with elements that you'd expect from an adventure game looking toward a tablet interface, and more than a few bugs.  It looks like a tech demo, a true vertical-slice, with some areas more polished than others.

In general, the level of polish was quite inconsistent, varying from "oops, that was odd" to "WOW... that's basically finalized!".  For example, all the custom fonts were in place, backgrounds looked pretty final with proper anti-aliasing, but some of the environment effects and animation triggers need work.  The animations themselves are very nice;  their animation team are definitely pros.

The opening animatic was great, and the sound-design is coming together nicely.  Unfortunately, their development schedule has voices coming in near the end of production, so there are none (perhaps due to the Two Guys roots in triple-A development, where voices are recorded last?).  Maybe it's a Linux demo bug, haha!

It is missing a TON of the writing, and there is lots of placeholder text, aside from it being very short (perhaps shorter than this forum post), so it's a bit difficult to evaluate exactly what the final product is going to be like.  However, from what was there, the tone of Scott's writing is definitely present, the music sounds like Ken Allen at his best, and the player-controllable Rooter character adds a "buddy adventure" mechanic which is really cool.

Beyond that, I can't really give you any semblance of objectivity.  I have a double dose of subjective distortion on that project.  First, I'm such a horrible SQ fanboy, I had a hard time not giggling with glee while the demo was still downloading, and leaving it up and running in the title screen to hear the music a few times over.  Second, I backed that project past the point of confirmation bias, so through the lens of my pledge it's easy for me to dismiss flaws that others may have a problem with.

I think it's going to be an awesome and funny game, and that you should go to guysfromandromeda.com/store/ and give the Two Guys your $15 pre-order, not so much because my opinion should be trusted, but because doing so will make me happy.  Then I will say "thank you, rugged!".  I know that your pre-order money will go toward making the game better.

[Intendant S]

Do you remember the days when you’d hear the line “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this”?  While there have been a couple action-adventure games covered in a “Currently Kickstarting” article, none have captured the charm of the early days of the likes of the original Legend of Zelda games.  Sword ‘N’ Board looks to be one more game that will tickle your nostalgic bone.  Instead of a point-and-click romp through a Sierra or LucasArts style game, you’re hacking and slashing your way through dungeons.

[janx]

It looks as if Sonny Bonds will be staying retired and wont be making any cameos in Precinct.

I am not sure about this alternate funding model. Your thoughts?

[Klytos]

My thoughts: I'd like to start off by saying PQ2 is in my top five adventure games. Hell, I was gonna remake it at one point back in the Infamous Adventures days! I have nothing but respect for Jim Walls, and I was really looking forward to playing Precinct. Even the name itself is awesome! Now for the bad points...

Here's where I think they went wrong.

They did not update or interact with the community nearly enough. Their daily updates were a great idea, but they weren't updated as statuses and people don't go back to the main page when they've pledged already.

Their tiers were just confusing. In their defense, KS doesn't allow you to edit your tiers once they're pledged to so to rectify their mistakes made the whole thing a big ass mess. But these things should be sorted before you launch.

Not enough information about the game itself. Nice screenshots, but is it an adventure game or a strategic action style game? That alone was enough to stop a lot of people pledging because their audience is Police Quest fans, the people who recognise Jim's name are Sierra / Adventure Game / PQ fans. So by even intimating that it won't be an adventure game, you put off a big chunk of your potential audience. A big name on a project doesn't mean you'll get your money, look at David Crane!

Swag! This isn't exclusive to them, and I think backers as well as designers are now seeing KS way wrong. The point of Kickstarter is to back a group of people to make something. In this case a game. It isn't to pre-order a game. It isn't to get a big pile of stuff in return. It's to help a game be made. Not sold. Created. It's fair to get a copy of the project if you've backed it, of course. And higher backers should certainly get more thanks from the creators for their help. For example one of our biggest backers Nidoking is a Producer on QFI, with full access to the production website, online chats, meetings etc. But the point is that backing a project is about you wanting to see that project created!

All that said, Precinct said in their update announcing the end of their KS that $200k was put aside for the swag. $200 000. That, my friends, is a hell of a lot of money. Minus 10% for fees at $40k that only leaves $260k for the game. If the game is solid and people want it, then it would make the money. If it's not, no amount of free stuff is going to bribe enough people to back it.

That sort of money and time required to actually get it all produced and shipped should be spent making a game.

As I said above, I love the idea and concept of the game and I truly hope they can get a PQ style game made!

Shawn

[Intendant S]

I agree with Klytos on all but one point.  The swag (whether digital or physical) is there to entice people to up their pledges.  If they weren't there then nobody outside of the rabid fans would give more than required to "pre-order" the product.  Yes, it's supposed to be for funding the end product, but there still should be that carrot-on-a-stick.  The fact that fans were begging for a physical copy of Precinct shows this.

Now, I do agree that too many people nowadays treat Kickstarter, IndiGoGo, and other crowdfunding sources as a pre-order store.  And that's not what it's for.  Still, add-ons and higher tiers help to squeeze just a little bit more out of our wallets.  I'll use Alice: Otherlands as a recent example.  For $65 they were offering limited canvas print runs of artwork for the shorts.  And people were grabbing them like they were going out of style.  Hell, I put in for one, myself.  Or what about in-game cameos?  They're a major selling point, especially for the biggest fans.  I wouldn't have given as much as I did for QFI if it wasn't for that promise of immortalizing myself in pixel form.

[Lambonius]

I think there's a big difference between in-game rewards (sprite/portrait cameos, a password to access hidden content, etc.) and physical stuff that you have to pay a bunch extra to create, ship, etc.  In our case, for example, a lot of the backer sprites are being used for characters that would have been in the game anyway--they just have a backer's face now.  So it's not really a huge extra burden on us to be able to create them.  We still would have had to make Tyr Council sprites and prisoner sprites for Rayford's dungeon, for example.

From what I've heard, Mage's Initiation has run into similar issues, where the cost of all their swag--the figurines, the cloth maps, etc, has actually taken money away from resource creation for the actual game.  That kind of thing can be a real problem if project creators aren't careful.

As for Precinct's new funding model:

[sickfiction]

I wouldn't have given as much as I did for QFI if it wasn't for that promise of immortalizing myself in pixel form.

This doesn't have any real extra production cost. I don't really understand where the 200k was going to go. It wasn't like. "pledge 5k and You'll get a copy of the game and a genuine used police car." it was just not so well thought out.

[Intendant S]

My point was that whether the reward is physical or digital there has to be something to entice backers to up their pledge.  I'm well aware that digital goodies (such as the aforementioned sprites) don't cost much to make and is one reason why some people prefer to back at purely digital tiers.

As for the $200K for rewards on Precinct's part...well, I don't really get it.  It would be more understandable if they had more physical goodies, but I don't really remember seeing any...at least not at the tiers that I was looking at.

[Lambonius]

This new funding model reads like a bad joke.  At least Kickstarter has some basic consumer protections built-in.  This idea of theirs is just insulting.

[Blackthorne]

Woof.  Yeah, the press on this move is not to great, either.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-07-police-quest-spiritual-successor-cancels-kickstarter-starts-crazy-new-crowdfunding-campaign

You know, I'm just going to say this here - I don't think Robert Lindsley knew how to run or manage this campaign at all. He may have done good things at Sierra back in the day, but he did not have any kind of idea how to navigate Kickstarter, the fans or the marketplace for that kind of game.  He seemed to have chosen a game he thought would have mass appeal, but the kind of people that want a Jim Walls game didn't really want what they were offering, for one.  People literally posted pages of good advice, but all they ever got was the double-speak line of "We're listening, and we're working on it..." yet they really did nothing to change their campaign much, or directly address the concerns of the backers.  There was nothing wrong with Kickstarter - there was a problem with the pitch of the game.

I do honestly feel that if they'd gone for a more modest sum and a more modest title - and perhaps teamed up with Himalaya Studios like many in the community wanted, they'd have had a hit on their hands.  Hard to say, though, because they never tried.  This attempt, and it's continuation, just aren't working - and I think Jim Walls may have put his eggs in the wrong basket.


Bt

[Intendant S]

With Rudy Marchant as the community manager, I hope that they manage to turn things around and actually make Precinct a success.  At the same time, though, I'm not holding my breath.  Or opening my wallet until I see more going on that addresses mine and others' concerns.  There's just too many turn-offs for me.  I barely felt like backing as it was to begin with, but with this clusterf*** I've lost almost all passion that I might have still had.

[Klytos]

Yeah sorry Intendant S, I was kinda talking about physical stuff more than digital in my late-night rant there. Look, I do think that some swag is important because as you said it entices to people to up a pledge to a higher tier, but I think that too much swag takes away from the project. Also swag should have something to do with the game! We did a big box because it's offering people what they want. Plus we were always planning on selling a limited number of them after release.

[Chadly]

     I have to agree with both Klytos and Intendant S on Precinct.  My biggest complaint and the reason I won't support it financial wise, is it seems to be a first person shooter. I am fed up/tired of these types of games. I say go back to the old style side scroller type game (such as pq2, QFG, etc).  I would like to see the game made and its my hope they get the funding they need.  However if you go to their website they have less is pledges than they did before they killed their Kickstarter.  Sad sad sad.