GameDevBlog

The $1 Kickstarter

I said I was going to talk about why I did a $1 Kickstarter; well I did, not on the blog, but with Dave Tach of Polygon, and it's all here! 

 

More Kickstarter Advice - Have Friends And Be Lucky

Rereading yesterday's post I hate the sound of it. I come off as one of those "Look at how my hard work paid off" types and that's not how I feel. How I really feel is lucky that I'm able to raise any money at all being at home with my family, doing what I love.

Hell, I was lucky that Dogan Koslu convinced Ali Atabek to hire me at Mindcraft when I was out of college, getting me into the game industry in the first place; I was lucky that Peter Akemann and Dogan brought me on as the second employee at Treyarch; I was lucky to be in the right place and the right time to be a lead on the Spider-Man games - if that hadn't happened I never would have come up with the 3D swinging mechanic, and even if I had it would have probably sunk into obscurity; I was lucky to be on a team of great guys who made the mechanic so much better than my original idea; and now I'm lucky that people remember the thing, and I'm lucky that high profile games journalists have written about Energy Hook!

I really don't want to be the guy who eats fortune's cookie.

More luck: I'm lucky to have made friends with Jakub Koziol, creator of Little Alchemy, who not only recorded most of the game footage but also came up with the idea of having a launch party on twitch.tv and became the game's first (and so far only) Executive Producer - his initial contribution gave the whole campaign a huge boost, making it look awesome right out of the gate. 

Not to mention I'm lucky that H1bbe, one of the early prealpha players, was able to record footage for the Kickstarter, and that he had contacts in the Ludum Dare scene, so when he spread news about the game there it spread. Maybe it was because of that that NerdCubed saw it, and then I was lucky that NerdCubed tweeted about it!

So ... my real advice is to make awesome friends ... which is kind of down to luck, huh?

I'll be on In Game Chat tonight (May 18th) at 7 PM CST

Just a few hours away - I'll be on the Colony of Gamers In-Game Chat podcast tonight (Saturday, May 18th) at 7 PM CST. Come join me and ask questions! 

http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=29116 

The show runs from 6 to 8, if you want to show up early and just listen. 

Energy Hook is on Steam Greenlight

Please vote it up and spread the word! Thank you so much!

Energy Hook Kickstarter Goal #2 Reached

This means Linux support is happening, along with the new zipping and retracting / extending features of the energy line. If you've been holding off because you wanted to make sure Linux support was in there, you're good to go.

Next up, at $30K: a human stretch goal: Brian Luzietti, composer and sound effects guy extraordinaire! 

Brian has worked on an insane number of games, many of which I bet you've played. (And if you want to chill out to some of his previous tracks in anticipation, it looks like a lot of them are illegally available here.)

If we make this stretch goal, everyone who has backed at the Beta level and up will also get access to the soundtrack.

We've worked closely together before on Schizoid and a secret Microsoft project that was sadly cancelled, and I'll be overjoyed to work with him again.

We're pretty confident we're going to hit this stretch goal, so Brian has already started working on it. 

A Decision on DRM

A lot of people want to know: hey, if you get on Steam, will there still be a DRM-free version? 

I've thought about it and decided the answer is Yes! I don't know if it'll be through GoG or direct from my website (probably using the Humble Store), but if you want a DRM-free binary you'll be able to get it. Use it wisely.

Energy Hook In The News

I did a Q&A for The Jace Hall Show. More interviews coming! Shogun Gamer is on deck, and I'll be a live guest on the Colony of Gamers broadcast this Saturday at 7 PM CST / 5 PM PST.

And the Kickstarter has been covered on a variety of sites (listed here in the order in which backers have come from the sites so far):

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Penny Arcade

Kotaku

Golem.de

The Escapist

Develop-Online.net

Polygon

The $1 funding goal thing is a lot more controversial than I thought it would be. It looks like I'll need to explain that more clearly and talk about why I did what I did. I'll do that soon.

I'm generally avoiding the comments, even though they're overwhelmingly positive, because all it takes is a couple negative ones to threaten my mood, but I did read some, and this one was awesome, from "PRIMESGHOST" on Penny Arcade:

Kicked and...kicked again. Honestly, I don't care if this guy is begging for money. If he were homeless I would let him live in my garage! I STILL have Spider-man 2 in regular rotation. All I do is just whip around the city for hours, it's so relaxing. If this man invented that mechanic then I owe him a lot more than I just kicked in because he has given me YEARS of rest from a long day's work.

Thanks so much Primesghost! It's really awesome knowing you got so much out of it. (And about that garage offer ... can my wife and kids come?) 

Energy Hook Kickstarter Stretch Goal #1 Reached

Wow! Just wow. We're at $16K right now - I thought it was perfectly possible, before I launched, that $16K might be all we'd raise for the whole thing. I'm over the moon!

Which means the gear customization feature is happening. This will both let you tailor the game somewhat to your own tastes: for example, if you prefer to use the mouse to pick the point you swing from, like Bionic Commando, you can; or choose between a continuous or charged jump. It will also ease beginners into the game, a bit like starting out surfing with a slow but stable longboard and then as you get better moving to the more maneuverable but squirrelly shortboard.

I'm confident we're on track to raise enough both to hit at least our next two stretch goals: getting the game on Linux, adding zip features (you'll be able to retract and extend your energy hook line, and also do a sort of quick zip like in the Arkham games, but this gear won't be unlocked for the player right away) and to bring on Brian Luzietti for audio. So Brian's already started digging in! 

My next step is to get the game on Steam Greenlight, both so Kickstarter backers can vote it up over there and so the Greenlight Community can find out about the Kickstarter. I'll let you know when that's ready, of course.

This is so awesome, I don't know what to say.

Energy Hook Kickstarter

The Energy Hook Kickstarter is officially live!

 

Energy Hook Kickstarter Launch Party on twitch.tv/happionlabs At 4 PM PST / 11 PM GMT

The title says it all. But I'll say it again.

Energy Hook Kickstarter Launch Party on http://twitch.tv/happionlabs At 4 PM PST / 11 PM GMT, today.

Jakub Koziol (of Little Alchemy fame) will play the game and I'll talk about it and we'll answer questions and I will ceremoniously press the green candylike button and officially launch this thing.

Rock. \m/

Keeping My Happy On During The Kickstarter

Unless there's some catastrophe I'm going to launch the Energy Hook Kickstarter tomorrow.  

I'm already pretty stressed out and anxious and replaying constructive criticism in my head over-and-over and second-guessing myself about stuff. I know, after it launches, I'm going to have trouble separating my sense of personal self-worth from how it does - kind of like after Schizoid launched and I was depressed for two months.

And I've also heard I'll need a thick skin. Again, just like with a normal product launch, though then there are also sometimes weird semi-personal attacks with Kickstarter. But no, I don't have a thick skin. That's not my default state, anyway.

So what am I going to do?

I'm going to do a lot of positive self-talk. I'm thinking about this quote:

"My hat's in the ring. The fight's on and I'm stripped to the buff." - Teddy Roosevelt

Yeah, I'd rather have my hat in the ring then never try and wonder what might have happened. And in that sense, no matter how 'succesful' it is financially, it'll be a success just to be there. Just to press that green candylike button.

And I'll have to keep reminding myself of that, over and over. Already a success. Already a success.

That means celebrating the launch is just as important as celebrating the outcome. So I'm going to do some kind of live party / celebration thing tomorrow, but still not sure when and not what - twitch.tv?  Live tweeting? Something. I'll keep you posted.