Visual Novel game Kickstarters

DarkFusion · April 28, 2012, 4:55pm

I’m sure everyone here has at least heard of the Kickstarter crowdfunding phenomenon. If not, well here’s a good video to explain:

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/crowdfunding

So far I’ve only been able to find one VN being crowdfunded and it’s nearing its end. Here’s the link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/548 … f=category

I contributed a bit since I found the premise a bit interesting, but it’s your choice if you want to fund it or not.

Still the main purpose for this is basically if there do exist other VN kickstarters then please post them here so we can see if they’re worth supporting or not.

Russo_Turisto · April 28, 2012, 6:48pm

Yeah, they’re not going to get to $10000 in 54 hours, which is a shame. Not that I’m too excited by what I’ve seen and read on the page and in their blog…

papillon · April 30, 2012, 4:29pm

http://www.indiegogo.com/SpiralDestiny

They can’t use Kickstarter because they’re not US-based, but they have a demo and have clearly put in some work already. Really deserve more result than they’re getting IMO.

As far as projects in the past, I know the Bliss Stage VN project got some kickstarter money… but hasn’t particularly been heard from since. That’s the problem with Kickstarter, there’s a ridiculous amount of money being thrown at devs with NO track record, NO idea of what they’re doing, and NO accountability. An awful lot of this is going to vanish into the ether with nothing to show for it.

Heart’s Hollow got up to only about $3K of their target and failed a few days ago.

Nargrakhan · May 1, 2012, 3:56am

There was a brief moment when I considered something like using these fundraisers for my own project, but I tossed the notion just as fast. The most significant factor was fear of contributors having a sense of entitlement… that when (not if) delays occurred, or circumstances caused certain cancellations (trying saying that three times fast), people would become angry and “demand their money back” or some Internet backlash drama of similar sort.

Or worst: People didn’t like what they got. See BioWare for a large scale version of that shit storm.

Thus I do everything out of pocket on a time scale of my choosing.

As for professional quality end results… let me say I can personally attest that it will take more than $5000 to $10000 USD for the whole thing ¬ñ artists and sound specialists aren’t cheap. The few I’ve been fortunate enough to work with, even grant me a MASSIVE discount for their services: It’s still costly.

I’ve spent [u]WAY[/u] more than 10K, and still do not have everything I need in place.

In retrospect, I bit off a bit more than I could chew at once. The scope of SOL Invictus is too big - should have worked on something smaller. However I’ve sunk too much money to terminate the project now. So it goes into perpetual delays and extended time tables. Ultimate fall back plan is to recycle the current material into a smaller rewrite, but haven’t made that decision yet. If I could back in time, I would have gone with a project that could be released in individual segments… first the prologue, then chapter 1, then chapter 2, so forth and so on. As it stands, I picked the project that couldn’t work that way. It’s an all or nothing venture. Nothing makes sense if broken down into segments. sigh

Look at me going all whinny emo here.

At the strong risk of sounding like an arrogant ass (and I’m not trying to be), I’m disappointed with the artwork in many of these VN projects. Art is the heart of a visual novel (story is the soul) - and the first thing people see. You shouldn’t hold back on it, and you shouldn’t be afraid to try a little something unique.

So I don’t seem like a hypocrite, because of some development leaks I revealed some time ago, you get another peak behind the door of the seeming vaporware I’m fighting to make reality one day at time (downsized and compressed for sake of bandwidth)… and yes, now you get to see Melisande.

And no… for now, I’ve no plans for a kickstarter. Just throwing my two cents and tooting my own horn.

Also before anyone asks when something playable is available, or why it’s taking so damn long, I stand by a great man’s mantra about video games:

“A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.”
- Shigeru Miyamoto

Lancer-X · May 1, 2012, 6:15am

Kickstarter doesn’t look like my kind of thing either, and my line of thought basically covers the areas Narg goes over. It’s also that I wouldn’t want to do something like that for a first commercial game (commercial, since I’ve got to be doing something with the money, presumably contracting out artwork and things like that I can’t do well) if people don’t have an idea of what to expect. Established industry figures going with kickstarter for venture capital to create a project they couldn’t sell to EA etc. is more the sort of thing this seems appropriate for.

I’ve never invested money in my own projects, only time. I’d need to be really sure of myself before dipping my toes into that sort of thing.

papillon · May 1, 2012, 8:03am

For me personally the only project I’ve particularly considering kickstarting was a yaoi card game (physical card game, not computer) for the simple reason that it’s sufficiently outside my area of business that I would not do it without preorders because I couldn’t predict my ability to sell it.

… But I also don’t care enough about the idea to actually get around to writing a kickstarter for it

Soliciting funds is itself a form of marketing and it takes work to be good at it. I don’t really want to deal with the hassle. When the funds I’m looking for are only a couple of thousand, I can do that myself. If I had a project in mind that required BIG numbers, then I’d have to go through a LOT of work in order to get a kickstart page that would have a hope of attracting those funds, and what if it fell through? Lot of time wasted, lot of disappointment, would have been better off sticking to my own smaller endeavors.

DarkFusion · May 9, 2012, 12:34pm

A new one just popped up, this one will apparently have a steampunk setting:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/5ne … f=category

Unfortunately for me, it’s going to be for the Android and eventually ipad only should it succeed and since I don’t own either of those (and have no plans to any time soon) I’m not going to be supporting it. If anyone else is interested though…

DarkFusion · May 11, 2012, 7:53pm

Okay, this isn’t a VN but here’s an interesting kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/118 … f=category

Ericridge · May 16, 2012, 1:23am

Renaissance gears look like it’ll be using that 2d Custom Girl maker, the loli ones.

While tentacle bento eh? I’ll volunteer being the tentacles. Ok? No, i don’t need ur permission. I be tentacle. Brb, I got some girls to tentacle.

DarkFusion · May 16, 2012, 11:53am

Sadly Kickstarter canceled Tentacle Bento thanks to this guy:

http://kotaku.com/tentacle-bento/

Proof that even the gaming community has its assholes for political correctness :evil:

Fortunately the project is apparently still on, now completely independent:

http://girls.sodapopminiatures.com/cont … acle-bento

Yirba · May 16, 2012, 12:32pm

Tentacle Bento looks cool. Might get it.

papillon · May 16, 2012, 1:53pm

Pity it was panned for vaguely referring to naughty tentacles and not for just generally being lame. The art’s cute, but iirc the underlying game looked like there wasn’t much to it, and strongly lacking in imagination. (“Cute” and “Sexy” as separate categories, out of only four options? Not to mention the suggestion that you cannot be both cute and smart?)

Which isn’t to say they shouldn’t make it, and some people will hopefully have a little fun with it, but I expect in general it’ll be completely forgotten post-launch.

Nandemonai · May 16, 2012, 10:31pm

Yeah, it didn’t seem like the kind of thing I’d actually want to own. I just can’t imagine actually sitting down with a group of people and saying “What should we play? Oh, I know! Tentacle Bento!” It’s probably designed with shock/humor value in mind first and gameplay second.

As for “can’t be cute and smart”, it would depend. The categories aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive; it could be possible to have a given card be both. It certainly sounds from the description though like that’s not the case and each card is exactly one type of victim.

Jack_of_Tears · May 27, 2012, 3:17pm

I don’t know, it looks like a fun party game to me, much in line with games like “Lunch Money” or “Munchkin”; the type of thing you pull out to play with a group of friends around some drinks and chips. The fact that it is quick and easy means it will also make for a good casual game night. I gladly threw my money in for a copy and I appreciate DarkFusion mentioning it here, as I’d never have known about it otherwise. Personally, I’ve been waiting for a quick and fun anime card game for awhile and I am hoping this will hit the spot.

papillon · May 29, 2012, 4:22pm

As far as party card games go, I’ll throw a brief recomendation for SPANC (Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirl) as it’s one that’s amusing enough for us to have played it multiple times on game nights.

Nargrakhan · May 29, 2012, 4:56pm

I’m a fan of [url=http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15064/pimp-the-backhanding]Pimp the Backhand[/url] and High School Drama.

As a word of warning: Pimp was never politically correct, and caused a ruckus when first released. I think it’s out of print these days. The bad publicity made it fail on launch, and a successful campaign to pull the title from shelves existed at one time. White Wolf has removed all reference of them publishing the product. Used to cost under $15. The original creator has a site about the game here.

HSD was out of print for awhile, but republished by Catalyst Games. Should cost ya less than $20.

Both games are very simple to learn and take about 45 minutes a match with 3 to 4 people.

On the flipside, I [u]DO NOT[/u] suggest Tanto Cuore, despite it’s bgame flavor. The rules are too complex for its own good, and the box sets can cost $40 each (I believe there are three sets at the moment). It’s a non-collector Japanese designed card game, which may indicate to some what kind of mechanics to expect.