Got a "Kickstarter" going!

[UltimaVirus]

I probably will, but it will take a looong time to set up an american business and bank account. It was enough hassle doing it in england.

Would you do it for a pre-pledged $100?

[Blxz]

I probably will, but it will take a looong time to set up an american business and bank account. It was enough hassle doing it in england.

Would you do it for a pre-pledged $100?

Why not donate that $100 on indie go-go? Its there now, he could use the money now and when it finishes he gets to keep whatever has been donated...

[toaster Assassin]

4 days left.
Current revenue 2070 (USD)


The only person who purchased the forum contributor status was Blxz? I guess that means that Blxz will have a forum status all of his own. (The Blxz status)

I was hoping for the ability to purchase a perk of having a bees shaped icon (a piecon) next to my avatar, or at least a limited edition captain death-beard beard attached to my avatar . (A man can dream)


EDIT: Fine I will make my own piecon.

EDIT II: BEHOLD THE PIECON!

[1337]

The 10 first-founders also get the status. So eleven people. The golden eleven or Chris and the 11 apostles (we don't need a Judas)

[toaster Assassin]

133 said: (we don't need a Judas)

Would be the one that loves cake.

[Blxz]

Maybe it was too late in the timeframe? Considering the first 10 sold out so quickly. Or maybe I really was the only person who wanted it. I don't particularly care. I have my name down for the pretty colour and chris has an extra $15 american despite neither of us dealing in american dollars in our respective countries.

[toaster Assassin]

The USD surprised me as well, I actually expected it in Pounds or Euros. However, Indiegogo is a California-based crowd funding company that partnered with Paypal so since it is an American company I would assume that USD would be the default currency of choice.

[Penthus]

Unfortunately got a pretty bad wrap on RPS

Kenshi – Chris Hunt

Pretty much certainly going to fall very short, they’ve raised a fraction over $2,000, when they were hoping for $40k. With two days left, it’s going to take a sudden change in interest for this free roaming RPG to see all its cash. Concerningly, this is using Indiegogo’s questionable “Flexible Funding”, meaning it’ll get whatever’s pledged anyway. Although he doesn’t appear to need it, explaining in the description that this is about raising awareness more than money, since alpha purchases have him covered. Then at the same time, he’s not bothered updating the campaign for well over a week, during its final run, and when a developer doesn’t seem to take any interest in his project, it’s hardly a surprise when gamers don’t either.

[Mattk50]

I think it can just be boiled down to the fact that right now, development is slow. This is probably due to the early stage of the game and core coding stuff is taking quite awhile. In addition chris isnt working on kenshi full time...

When i first saw kenshi what interested me was the big interactive world and the ideas about AI chris talked about on the blog. But if it takes 2 months just to get buildings and furniture placement in... i must admit im somewhat worried that this will never reach its potential.

[toaster Assassin]

Around October Chris was releasing patches almost every other day, afterward he created a topic about what he should implement next.Which at that time the main focus was multi-threading. The foliation work was completed when Chris raised enough to hire a contractor for the work.Things are taking longer now because not only is Chris implementing the ability to build structures,but also the ability to craft things and buy furniture (the recent updates are establishing some of the more important features that were previously not in Kenshi) as well as the implementation of NPC sttats and skills. Weekly updates would just create deadlines that would either not be met or met ,but with a gitchy feature
Weekly updates = rushing = bug/glitchs = more updates = big headache.

[SilentHill]

Plus the many distrations. With stuff like the many bug fixes, the shadowing ('Fancy Textures') and the trade system changes.
Based on my game folder its also quite a messy project. Though independent

In addition chris isnt working on kenshi full time...

I recall a number of times him saying he is, on the forum and even on the indigogo

Anyway the sales are making enough for me to work on the game full-time, which is good, ...

[Mattk50]

Oops, i must be mixing my indie game projects, yeah i remember i actually asked previously and he said he was working full time. Honest mistake.

[Captain Deathbeard]

Yeah I thought RPS was a little harsh there. I don't see why its concerning or questionable that I still get the money that I need to make the game. $40k was just an arbitrary number. And I'm not like the big guys who have time to direct 15 minute long comical videos, I'm a solitary developer.

Development seems slower than it is. I'm only releasing bug fixes right now, but I'm adding a whole new side to the game that is currently disabled in the release. Its not just about adding building placement, it has to update the pathfinding mesh, it has to add building functions for processing items, and the AI has to be expanded to work with it, then everything has to be balanced and tuned, and a lot of new models need to be made too. Development is slow, but thats what comes from having such an ambitious game.

[Blxz]

Well good luck with it. It is very important that the Ai work with everything. You hear a lot about some games being 'perfect' except for the AI. Admittedly we aren't talking chess level strategy here but if the AI fails at basic things (like opening doors or glitchy pathfinding) then immersion is easily destroyed. Still, there is something to be said for more frequent updates.

Also, that was pretty harsh from RPS. I don't really get what their point is? I mean there are those projects that get hundreds of thousands of dollars on kickstarter and several of them that have just gone massively over the top of their goals. This is an indie developer who got 2K; donated money at that. Its hardly a grievous waste of funds.

Final point, $40K was a bad idea for a target though. It always looks better to overshoot rather than fall far behind and while I realise that donations tend to slow down once the target is met I still think the target was way too high, especially considering the number and variety of 'perks' on offer. Even if he sold EVERY limited, super high price perk there would only be about $35000 total. This still requires an additional 440 sales of people buying the game which on indie go-go just isn't likely to happen. From what i remember when I browsed the site most of their things have failed. Its not a high traffic site. So that arbitrary target of $40K was a little too arbitrary and may have slightly harmed things.

[1337]

The indiegogo campaign was a miss, now all that is left to do is to learn what were the mistakes and avoid them when you start a kickstarter project.
Considering kickstarter is a one shot thing, failing it would hurt a lot since there's a big potential for financing.

As for what wasn't so good about the campaign, imo some ideas were brought up here already:

-clearer perks (i'm not sure everyone reads all the text up to the part All perks from $10 upwards come with a key code for the full game or All perks from $25 up get their name in the credits.

-more perks. You added that contributor perk at the end and got 60$ out of it. Maybe some other ideas could help get more people to donate (more).

-more updates maybe. Just small news like: yay 1000$ after one day, thx for support. or stuff like the next big update to the game will be out soon. Just something to keep people coming back to the project.

-a video. i'm not sure how useful it is but doing a 5min interview with yourself sounds like a good idea. You are a funny guy, you easily convey that through text but a video is more personal imo (and if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video's worth erm...)
also lazy people often only watch the video and considering the traffic kickstarter gets, there are probably some lazy people there. It shouldn't take a lot of time to make (just don't forget to trim the beard)

-lower the target maybe as said above. Coming short of the target goal of 40k would be bad, don't count only on the massive traffic. I'm not sure about this one but i guess Blxz covered it pretty well.

-those milestones that some people wrote about maybe or the other ideas i forgot about

...

[SilentHill]

Audiance is the factor. People browsing indigogo could have found the page but those that might actually be interested need to be directed to it & the existance of Kenshi. Even with the way the page went, if there was proper out reach it would have done quite well.
Kenshi is still not ready for the large audiance imo.

[Blxz]

Aye, building and crafting would be an important step. There needs to be something to develop to really add depth to the game. As it is now fighting until you drop then importing squad is the fastest way to train right now. Some world permanence would be a welcome change.

[toaster Assassin]

Things most likely will accelerate in terms of buyers/supporters when crafting and building is implemented (and patched a few times).

[dnladt]

why aren't you on kickstarter ?
http://www.kickstarter.com/
this might help you alot




Topic merged, always use the search function to avoid clustering, especially for questions already answered ~~ LeeT

[roxtedi]

I'm certain if this game goes on kickstarter it can make at least 50k