New AGS horror adventure, crowdfunding campaign page... :)

Started by KyriakosCH, Fri 12/08/2016 16:23:10

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KyriakosCH



Ok guys, i took your advice and updated the campaign page with some more stuff, most importantly two new stills, reworked video (with added story info) and clearer synopsis... Have a look if you can :D

Two gifs:





Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for The Dancer with six legs -- a new AGS-made horror adventure, created by myself and fellow member of the site, Chris (soundtrack composer :) ). Indiegogo page is at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-dancer-with-six-legs-horror-adventure-game/x/13826467#/

* You cannot trust the nurses or doctors to help. Besides, you don't want them to know much about you.





* In lucid-dreams, or some strange kind of self-hypnosis, you keep visiting a different place. An apartment with a red wall-paper. There you are drawn to the corridor.
Yet a visit to the corridor in the end of the dream-apartment doesn't tend to provide answers. In fact, you may end up losing your head there...



You can have also have a look at the game campaign videos... :) *updated youtube url is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxnYvr1FcPQ



And two isolated frames showing the more typical camera angle the player is animated from:





Thanks for your help in this page as well...!
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

selmiak

Uhm, good luck! You will need it.
The first video abruptly ends and tells the viewer nothing about the game and I get the feeling there is not much more done for the game by now than these 2 screens we alredy know from the critiques lounge :(

KyriakosCH

Update: promo video #1 is now roughly twice the previous run, and features more info 8-)

Trying crowd-funding at this point is a good idea for us, given we are testing to see if we can be afforded the time (via funding, $500 goal) to focus more of our time on the project, or go with the usual pace which may keep it in non-playable mode for months.

People who may feel there is prospect in our work can also help just by posting of the campaign in forums they go to. Cheers :)
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Snarky

Quote from: KyriakosCH on Fri 12/08/2016 19:47:17
Trying crowd-funding at this point is a good idea for us, given we are testing to see if we can be afforded the time (via funding, $500 goal) to focus more of our time on the project

Is it, though? If it's a hobby, why would you want to be accountable to customers who have paid money and will make demands in return? And if you're considering it as a career, why would you think $500 would be enough to make it worth your while? And are you really sure it's what you want to do?

The thing with game-making as a hobby is that it is demanding and time-consuming. People who do it seriously put in a ton of work, mostly just because they want to. Some eventually make a career out of it, but many more give up. (There's a reason I haven't released a game, for example.) These amazing people make and release plenty of AGS games, and most of them are free. So why should anyone give you, a novice, money to do the same thing that others with more experience and a track record of solid games are doing for free?

Hate to break it to you, but your stuff doesn't look all that amazing! Not that the little you've shown is bad for a first-time AGS game (though the lighting is still not good, and you've managed to align the title against the background so that it seems to read "the dander with six legs"), but a first game is very much what it looks like.

I'm personally of the opinion that anyone who wants to crowd-fund a game should have released at least one beforehand (either freeware or commercial) to prove that they are capable of it, and have some idea of what it takes.

KyriakosCH

^Hm, not all of us have loads of money. Personally i present philosophy seminars (my uni degree is on Philosophy) for a living, and am also a published writer. The game is adapted from some of my own stories. I definitely will not be rich with 500 dollars, but it will allow myself and Chris to work more freely on our game, so I am not seeing what you are on about. Moreover this is an announcement thread, not a critique one, so know your place Snarky and let others be 8-)
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Snarky

See, this is what I'm saying! By asking people for money, you open yourself up to all kinds of scrutiny and criticism that you probably don't want, but that you're now fair game for.

You don't need to be rich to make an adventure game. AGS is free! So again: If this is a hobby to you, don't ask others to fund you taking time off work to pursue it. If you think of it as a way to make money, you must be prepared to be judged by commercial standards.

Problem

I have to agree, this campaign is confusing. The rewards don't even include a copy of the game. Does this mean you will release the game for free when it's done, and you just want to collect some money to fund its development? Or will it be a commercial title in the end? Will supporters have to pay twice to play the game? There's simply not enough information about what you intend to do, and what the money will be spent on. The videos also contain no information and no gameplay. Have you watched other crowdfunding campaigns? If you want to gain people's trust, you need more content and frequent updates.

KyriakosCH

Well, I am posting the thread as an announcement, surely not as a "let's examine if one should donate" ( ??? ). I am under the impression one can post news of crowdfunding campaigns for AGS projects. Surely I don't ask for critique on whether you or anyone else should help fund.

Also, funding started already, with one person donating $20. Given the whole amount is just $500, I think it is doable. Which would be great news for Chris and myself.

@Problem: good note: yes, i now made that clear in the campaign: we aim to crowd-fund the game and then make it available for Free on any site which more easily grants access to its supporters and other players. Likely an own site or some of the main sites that do this. I think this is more fair, cause if it happens it will be funded by supporters, so it would sort of be dishonest for them to have to pay for it. Besides, it is a first game (that argument comes into play in this note, not the general one about some strange 'who should be making a crowdfunding campaign 8-) ).
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Mandle

The trailer makes for a nice teaser I think, but I honestly cannot read the dark red text on the black background. I know it's supposed to suit the tone and colours of the game screenies, but text in a trailer should pop out at the viewer and grab their attention, not have them squinting at their screens (unless that's right where you jumpscare them of course (laugh)).

And yeah, Snarky was right: It does look like the game title says "The Dander With Six Legs"...You should probably realign the text or use a different background.

Best of luck with your campaign and game!

KyriakosCH

Thanks (nod)

A sketch of the main hall of the asylum (some stuff are going on there the first time you visit, eg those chairs will be filled and there is a speaker in the rightmost edge of the hall). See the isolated chair in the corridor? That is your favourite location ;) :)



(this isn't featured yet in the campaign, cause i aim to finalise the room for preview purposes; render here is for demonstration purposes := ).
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m0ds

The dander with 6 legs.... 2 backgrounds and 0 walking animations... I will try and chip in 10 dollars before the campaign is out, but Snarky is right... this is a bit of a mess. The things on show aren't really backable... but you as a person seem enthusiastic and spirited enough to earn 10 dollars from me.

QuoteWell, I am posting the thread as an announcement, surely not as a "let's examine if one should donate" ( ??? ). I am under the impression one can post news of crowdfunding campaigns for AGS projects. Surely I don't ask for critique on whether you or anyone else should help fund.

Haha, no that's Games in Production forum where you're only allowed to post positive comments about people's projects/threads. You found a website where you could ask people for money so you could make a game, the issue is you didn't utilize that fact very well, so there's really no malicious intent with comments like this or Snarky's, surely you yourself can see how your campaign is perhaps not quite on par with many others? In here if we find a crowdfunding campaign to be somewhat awful, we'll tell you ;) Anything involving money will come under bigger scrutiny than if it doesn't, fact of life really. If you want to make announcements where folks can only read the info and not respond to it you'll need to do this stuff through your own websites or forums.

All that said, who knows - 500 dollars goal is not exactly asking the world of the internet, maybe you'll make it! But I fear with what appears to be minimal game in existence and slightly premature campaign creation - posting some screenshots is perhaps too little too late. But perhaps I've just become used to crowdfunded games being halfway or such into development, which I suppose detracts from the actual reason of crowdfunding sites, to get projects off the ground (like yours). And even if slightly critical of the campaign itself, I'm still happy to put in 10 dollars. But the notion that you advertise a crowdfund campaign and you only receive positive comments because it's an AGS game on the AGS forum safe-space is naive. Not everyone is here to crowdfund, not everyone is here to make games, so you've got to allow for a bit of an imbalance around certain topics, threads, projects etc.

KyriakosCH

Thanks (hmm?!), although let's not make it about money. I mean it is about donating money, so let's make it about the high art of adventure games or something.

At least that is what the player character would be replying in such a dialogue :=

Re the goal, yes, I definitely wanted to test the water to see if I can afford myself spending much more time in creating the game off my prose story work, cause currently I don't exactly have free time. Sadly the need to work more than one actual jobs is very real, with the economic crisis here.
Indiegogo is always a fun site for testing projects. If it goes relatively well (me and Chris have agreed on 300$ being the borderline) we do plan to have some next chapter of the game in other sites as well, eg Patreon. It is still early to tell, though. Maybe it won't happen.
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NickyNyce

We are all game makers here, at least a good portion of us. So when we see something like this, we know there should be more. The video basically shows a still photo. Why be in such a rush to ask for money when there isn't anything to really show. Why not be patient, put some work in, show some mechanics of the game, show some art, show some backgrounds, walk cycle, and then ask for money. I bet you would have a much better response.

Not to be judgemental, but this seems like an amateur mistake. It seems like someone that's in such a rush, they didn't explain the game or show anything in the video. That for me has red flags written on it, and that the final game just might turn out exactly the same.

I think what everone here is telling you is very valuable information. Instead of defending it, you should embrace their opinion. You might end up making a wonderful game even with the not much to show start, and I hope you do, so I don't mean to be too harsh. I still do wish you luck with your project because I love horror games.

KyriakosCH

I am confident the storyline and the soundtrack will be of high quality, yet i am not good as a gfx creator (i can make gfx, did so for computer games in 3d for nearly 10 years now, and can animate a run or other loop, but i am not talented in those; just can do it). We will see, i remain optimistic :)
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KyriakosCH

Update, thanks for your help, I updated the campaign page and this thread... It is a little better now (wouldn't have done it as fast without your rather scathing original critique!!! :o ) (i hope the new critique can be at least a little bit more positive now, despite ongoing problems :D )
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Mandle

The promo video is a lot better! It shows several locations and the text is readable. The title still says "The Dander..." though. I know everyone seems to be nagging about this one thing, but making sure the title for the project is clear and readable is in the same league as turning up on time for a job interview. People will think: Well, if they can't even get this first basic thing right...

Also: You should probably take off the second video IMO. It's 12 seconds long and the first 9 seconds are silent with a still picture, then some jumpscare music, and then some brief animation in like the last 1 second of the video. I'm guessing you wanted to show some horror elements, but the video is just going to make people shake their heads. I would advise to flash the decapition scene quickly at the end of the main trailer (but just the music and animation...not the 9 second silent wait)...

KyriakosCH

Thanks :D

I will try to either update the video with some of the decapitation, or just have a still or a brief video of it instead...

Will try to have some gif too, eg of the character animating.
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

KyriakosCH

This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

KyriakosCH

And two isolated frames showing the more typical camera angle the player is animated from:




This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Danvzare

Wow, those are some really thin backgrounds.
What on earth can you even click in those? ???

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