Plan for a new kickstarter?

[Oracle]

Hello!

So Tortured heart caught my eye when I surfing on RPGcodex a year ago.
While the topic wasn't maybe to positive towards the project, it did get my attention. I loved the DQ8 style.

I was wondering if you planning a new Kickstarter in the future?

[subbassman]

Hello!

So Tortured heart caught my eye when I surfing on RPGcodex a year ago.
While the topic wasn't maybe to positive towards the project, it did get my attention. I loved the DQ8 style.

I was wondering if you planning a new Kickstarter in the future?

Yes, it's on the schedule, but first we'd like to make a playable demo. Since we have a small team,
it's a slow process.

It's an interesting fact, that although a few codexians hated us for some reason, many of them actually
pledged. We'd like to prove that TH is worth noticing and fighting for.

[Oracle]

In my opinion the Codex judgement is often fair.
I think with TH the problems were mainly that you guys claimed to have allot of work done already but couldn't really show it. All talk and no prove is a no no
So a demo of the game would be a good idea when starting a new Kickstarter

Also I would encourage you to comeback as well to the Codex to discuss certain idea's of the game or have nice brainstorm sessions.
It's also good when starting the new Kickstarter that more people know about it.

Thanks for the quick answers btw!

[subbassman]

I'm actually quite discouraged by the Codex at the moment, although I know there are many nice people.

[pongo]

Good to hear that you're planning another kickstarter. I've been lurking here for a while wondering what the plan is - a demo and new kickstarter sounds great, i'll get behind that when the time comes.

Don't let a few negative types put you off, any coverage on rpgcodex (or rpgwatch) would send people your way. It's where I first heard of you as well.

[subbassman]

All right, guys, here's a crucial question: Do you think combat is needed in the demo? I'm asking this because getting the
story part of the game together in Unity is already taking up all our (limited) resources. So is combat (of some sort)
absolutely necessary to impress possible pledgers?

[pongo]

Yeah, I think that having combat in the demo would be useful for persuading potential backers. You need to do the best you can with the limited resources though of course.

[subbassman]

Yeah, I think that having combat in the demo would be useful for persuading potential backers. You need to do the best you can with the limited resources though of course.

Okay, would it be be a total waste of time and effort without combat?
Maybe some in-game mockup that would show how it's gonna look like.

[pongo]

I'm not sure there's an easy answer to that - there's going to be a range of views. Me, I'm happy with the graphic style and your general overview, so I don't need to even see the demo. I'm sure there are plenty of other people on this forum who are of the same mind - you've convinced us already, and we'll take the rest on trust. A lot of people will be harder to persuade, and the demo will be handy to bring them around. The more complete the demo, the more of them you stand a chance of winning over and the more money your kickstarter will bring in.

So, throwing the ball back to you , I guess it depends how much cash you're asking for - if you're asking for 300k again, I don't think you'll get there without providing a significant demo, including combat etc, and doing a lot of preparatory work with the rpg websites before launching. Even then it will be difficult. The campaigns that seem to get funded for 100,000+ seem to be those from companies with existing IPs or fanbases. From what I've seen, there's a market for biiiiig projects like the Obsidian and Brian Fargo kickstarters, and there's a market for smaller projects like Paper Sorcerer etc. The ones that fall in the middle (more than 50k, less than 1m) seem to find it difficult to get funded.

I'm sure its not impossible though. Perhaps it would be worth getting in touch with a few of the guys who have had successful campaigns (maybe Larian?) and getting some advice? (if you haven't done so already). Speaking to people who've already been through it can only help.

[pongo]

Larian are already doing post-mortems on their kickstarter campaign that are well worth a read:
http://www.lar.net/2013/05/07/being-selective/