GameDevBlog

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.

Energy Hook!

For those new to the blog: once upon a time, I was technical director and designer on 2004's Spider-Man 2 game, where I invented a pretty cool swinging system that a lot of people liked. Now I'm bringing a mechanic like that back, making new grappling-and-swinging-and-wallrunning-and-tricks indie game Energy Hook for PC and Mac (and probably Linux) and I could really use your help, so I'm soon going to begin a Kickstarter campaign.

 

You can help by joining the community! Like Happion Labs on Facebook, where I'm giving away backer rewards and opportunities to play early builds of the game. To be notified when the Kickstarter campaign goes live, subscribe to our mailing list. To be notified at random times about whatever thought happens to be in my head, follow me on Twitter.

Jump and swing through the air ... run on walls (and ceilings!) ... zip-line and slide ... (and, if I meet my stretch goals, grind rails and glide) ... to amaze audiences and win races in the extreme sport of the future.

If you have any comments, questions, or ideas about how to raise awareness for this thing, let me know!

The New Plan - Delaying The Kickstarter Yet Again

When I first got the idea to do Energy Hook I planned on Kickstarting ASAP so I could see just how brilliant or dumb an idea it was. But in the process of working on the pitch and prototype I've fallen in love with it. I can't not finish it now. So I'm going to. Finish it. No matter what, even if I don't make a cent off it.

I want to do the Kickstarter anyway. Why? To find out if I should make the smallest, minimally viable game possible - or if we'll have the resources to do something grander.

That being the case, Paul urged me to wait more on the Kickstarter, so we can make the game look as good as possible before we pass the hat around. I really didn't want to wait. I've already postponed it once.

So I did that thing that people do when they have tough decisions. I made a list of pros and cons. It looked something like this:

Should I do the Kickstarter now?

Pros:

• It's eating my brain. I want to get it over with.
• Slipping again is embarrassing.
• We'll find out now how much resources we have - we might have to redo less stuff. (For example, right now we're making everything fairly flat-shaded and colored-in - with a lot more funding we could have higher surface detail, but we'll have to redo those flat-shaded models.)
• Once the Kickstarter is over, we'll focus more on making a good game instead of making a good kickstarter pitch.
• Kickstarter fatigue. It's getting harder to have a success on Kickstarter as time goes on.

Cons:

• The longer we wait, the better the game will look, and more people will want to fund it.
• The longer we wait, the more we can build awareness and our social networks.
• And if we wait long enough, we can have a first playable to show journalists before the launch and to give as a reward to higher tier backers.

Although the list of pros seems longer than the list of cons - the pros are mostly psychological issues of my own. Yes, I'm devoting too much brain glucose to thinking about the Kickstarter, but I don't have to be. Yes, I'm working harder on making our Kickstarter pitch look good than making the game good, but I don't have to be. Yes, I'm embarrassed about slipping again, but I don't have to be.

And yes, "Kickstarter fatigue" seems to be setting in; there are fewer successes on Kickstarter these days. But I don't want people to fund the game because Kickstarter is hot, I want people to fund the game because they genuinely think it's worth funding.

The only semi-reasonable pro is the one about redoing work, but if we raise enough funding that we have to redo work, that's ... actually a really good problem to have.

So, the cons have it! We're slipping.

Our new plan is to get something playable going, which could take anywhere from 1-3 months, all the while Paul making more better art. He's finished his teaching gig at Digipen and has more free time to make stuff. Then we'll have something to hand out to a few select journalists and players. (Which is another reason to Like us on Facebook - we'll give away one or two to our FB followers.) And then we'll do the Kickstarter.

What do you think?

Backer Upgrades

So, nobody having come up with a better idea, we'll be giving away "Backer Upgrades" on the Facebook page over the next several weeks up until the Kickstarter launches.

Like most, the Kickstarter is going to have a few levels of virtual rewards - you get the game when it ships (let's call that 'gamma'); you get early access, to the beta ('beta'); you get early-early access, to the alpha ('alpha'); and you get some kind of extra something that we haven't figured out yet ... cheats unlocked just for you, A+ gear, or something like that ('alpha plus').

If you have a backer upgrade, whatever level you back at, you'll be promoted to the next level. Gamma becomes beta; beta becomes alpha; alpha becomes alpha plus. 

So - we win, because you still have to back at some level and help fund the game at least a bit. And you win - because you get better stuff.

Like us on Facebook for a chance to win one.

Sportsfriends

I think they'd agree that they could probably have planned their Kickstarter better. And having to go out and pick up some move controllers for my PC might be annoying. But it would be sad if a couple logistical issues killed these games: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gutefabrik/sportsfriends-featuring-johann-sebastian-joust. I'm backing a little extra than I had to for the reward I wanted.

They're doing an AMA on Reddit right now!

If you're only backing things that look like they're going to succeed, you might be doing it wrong.

Postponement

Like I said before, it's easy to make excuses to put off the Kickstarter. But sometimes they're good excuses! So I'm going with the wisdom of the crowds - I'm postponing the Kickstarter. People tell me that Kickstarters don't seem to do as well on holidays. So. Good to know. And, then, right after the holidays is CES, and I don't want to compete with the eyeballs that'll be sucked down into that, so. After CES.

January 14th!

Unless anybody wants to give me an excuse to push it still further...?

In the meantime, if you'd like a 3D grappling-and-swinging game on your PC, why not play Froggle?

(In other news, my wife is on the front page of etsy.com today. Maybe she can be the breadwinner of the family now...)