DescentBB

I'm trying to work out exactly when I want to launch my Kickstarter for the game Material Defender, so I'm putting it to you lot now to see what you all think...

As for the game, the design is mostly solid. Some details are still being worked out, but It's been prototyped in an analogue format to test the systems as needed while turning those systems into code on the actual digital prototype. Preliminary work has been done on the game, I develop with the Agile methodology, making it easy to keep iterating over existing features, making it easy to create, in the end, a polished game. I don't yet have anything I'd care to call a playable demo or worth taking screenshots of. In fact, if you saw the game in it's current state, it may do more harm than good, as we tend to judge games on how they look rather than how they play...until after we get past the pretty pictures and actually play the game.

The whole reason this comes up is rather simple. I am not wealthy, nor am I associated with anyone of means to privately back the game until I have a playable demo. This means development will be slow as I balance (real) work and university courses over spending time on Material Defender. Quite frankly, at this pace I'd expect maybe a playable alpha by NEXT Christmas at the earliest.

However, if I launch my Kickstarter now...I could quit my day job and actually hire 1-2 people to come in and help me work on this thing full time. I could have a playable alpha much sooner, perhaps as soon as March or April...and maybe even sooner if you don't care too much about how pretty it looks. I'd be kickstarting for about 100K, and aside from some software and maybe a computer or three (Unreal level lighting is incredibly slow to render, even on a Core i7...) all of it would go towards paying me and my 1 or 2 others for the year, freeing us up to work full time on the game.

What I need to know, is how many of you would fund the kickstarter and if the amount is sufficient to make a serious effort possible. I'm going to do this by means of the poll, which I believe is anonymous, and I'll take the results I see by the end of the first week of September. Also, I'd be glad to take ideas for funding rewards here. Oh, there will be at least one reward that includes a copy of the game at no further cost.

If I were to invest in this, I would like to see a plan, a marketing strategy, a timeline, concept art, a location, programming experience, the staff involved, etc.

Sure, if you invest more than $1K. Some of that is reasonable for all, but for less than 1% of a stake, I don't see why someone needs that much detail.

True.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect some fairly well developed concepts--a few sketches, at least, of ships, weapons, enemies, environments... some story stuff. Add to that an explicit overall goal.

Engine is super important. You were using the UT engine, right?

Myself I don't see a future in a Descent clone (not that I necessarily assume this is what you're wanting to do), beyond some multiplayer fun between old Descent fans. To really have a great gaming experience a game has to be successful beyond the existing Descent community (for this reason a good marketing strategy certainly couldn't hurt you in garnishing support for a kick-starter, I think).

My first paragraph is a prerequisite, as far as I'm concerned, but anything and everything you can throw at us in the way of examples of work done by yourself and your team would hopefully inspire the necessary confidence that a good product could be achieved.

Also (and maybe this isn't entirely fair at this point, but nonetheless...), to go for the gold, what new or impressive technologies or features might we see at work--what sets your game apart in the gaming world as a whole, or the FPS world, or 6DOF world island? Compatibility with the Oculus Rift?

EDIT: I voted "No, I want to see more of the game done first (understandable --Valin)", but it's less a matter of needing the more of the "game" done first, as much as needing to see a solid and relatively complete concept. I'd throw $10-50 at a promising individual (sorry! Don't know ya!), but I'd be willing to throw $50-$100+ for a well-developed, promising concept.

Well, I'd written a rather large initial post on this and didn't want to overload it with details.

First, Kickstarter is for casual investors where they get a certain reward for funding to certain dollar value levels. Opening the project's particulars and finances up to the "investors" isn't part of the deal. Just look at some of the projects on there. For example: You promise to fund $x and you get something cool. For bigger contributions I'd consider opening a little more, mostly like granting access to daily builds or just major builds, or perhaps just beta access (all at differing contribution levels).

We as a community don't see much future in a Descent "clone" (6DoF) because we still live with the failure of D3. As fans we lived with the devs in the fantasy world of the game's creator, in a way, in that we loved the game so much we couldn't see what was wrong with it. One of the things a game developer HAS to understand is that we are our own worst judge of our work. Descent caught our attentions all those years ago because it was new, different, and challenging. Refreshing that with a good publicity/marketing plan will work.

As I've said, I intend to publish on Steam. Steam regularly has a number of annual events (on the platform) where new releases are showcased and sometimes discounted. There have also been games in beta on Steam...notably the new Tribes game which I've been participating in for the last few months. Further, part of the raised funds would go towards trips to trade shows where the game would be shown off to the press, other developers and publishers, and the general public..gamers.

Ah, before I hit submit...yes, the Unreal Engine 3, specifically. Though depending on ease of conversion, I may move it to Unreal Engine 4 when it releases Soon™.

Because I tend to break polls like these I'll write out my in-between answer...
Probably, but how much depends on what I'm investing in.

Valin Halcyon wrote:Sure, if you invest more than $1K. Some of that is reasonable for all, but for less than 1% of a stake, I don't see why someone needs that much detail.

To see if I can get a decent enough return on investment. That's why.

I think you don't know what Kickstarter is... You get your "return" immediately.

thank you valin, I think I have all I need to know.

No problem, though it looks as though I'll be at development for awhile on my own anyway before kickstarting. *shrug*

We don't have a really big community anyway, which makes it a bit difficult to work with...