84 replies to this topic

[desiv]

http://www.kickstart...gle-adventure-0

OK, it's great to see David Crane on Kickstarter....

That's a big price point he's shooting for tho.....  WOW...

desiv

[Austin]

Yikes...

[Random Terrain]

Quote

Pledge $10,000 or more:

Have lunch with the team and spend an afternoon in the Jungle Venture office - kicking around ideas, pounding your fists on the desk dramatically, sipping soda from the finest goblets and generally being part of the magic.

Does anyone want to give me 10,000 dollars so I can make sure that David Crane uses Controlled Randomness in a real adventure game that is full of Randomness and Replayability?

[Reaperman]

I notice that the video listing his accomplishments leaves out Night Trap, Bart Vs. the Space Mutants, and that godawful Home Improvement game.

[SoulBlazer]

I don't understand why the goal on this one is so high?  It's been my experience that most indie games pull in around 100-300k in funds.  Yes, it's THE David Crane and that will count for a lot....but there's no way this one will get funded.  I backed it, though, and we'll see what happens.

[SoulBlazer]

Reaperman, on Sat Aug 11, 2012 6:39 PM, said:

I notice that the video listing his accomplishments leaves out Night Trap, Bart Vs. the Space Mutants, and that godawful Home Improvement game.

Well, wouldn't YOU leave those off your resume?

[Reaperman]

Actually...looking back on it, 'That Godawful Home Improvement Game' looks a lot more like Pitfall than Home Improvement.

[cimerians]

$900,000 in 30 days?

I backed it but yeah thats pretty crazy.

[bennybingo]

SoulBlazer, on Sat Aug 11, 2012 6:41 PM, said:

I don't understand why the goal on this one is so high?  

If you don't ask...you don't get.

[Rex Dart]

He sure took his sweet time on attempting this.   He's got a bunch of jungle-themed platformers to compete with now.

[Austin]

I went ahead and backed it. I somehow doubt it will meet the requirements, but if it does, it will probably be $15 well spent when it's done.

[HammR25]

There have been 3 games so far that have gotten at least $900,000. One of the 3 started at $900,000 as the minimum pledge total.  I pledged $15 but I'm not holding my breath.

[Metal Ghost]

I'll likely sponsor shortly.  But the problem with this project is that it is very short on details.

The Double Fine Adventure project was very clear: we want to make an old school adventure game, but a publisher will simply not fund it because they think the genre is dead.  Prove them wrong.

The Wasteland pitch was basically the same: we want to make a Wasteland type game but perhaps using new technology to expand the idea.  But again, publishers think that a Wasteland-type game will never sell.  Prove them wrong.

But this....he wants to make a "modern-day adventure game" that involves "a quest to solve an incredible mystery" in a "unique side-scrolling platform adventure".  I don't think he does a good job pitching why he needs Kickstarter backers to do this.  This sounds like something a traditional publisher would go for if distributed digitally, if the idea was good enough....why not go that route?  Unless you don't have enough of an idea to sell to people who are better able to vet a game project than Kickstarter backers.

In my opinion you really have to sell that side of it in order to get these big dollar projects to meet their goals.  That's really the issue....if it's even a $100K goal you can probably skate through on who the team is, type of game, etc.  But at these larger dollar goals you really need to sell the hell out of the product and why Kickstarter is the only way to get it done.  I'm not sure this project page does either to the tune of $900K.

Again though, I really hope I'm wrong.

[Waggie]

If this was a game for the 2600 I'd be backing it in a heart beat.  The page is kind of vague on what systems this will end up on so it is hard to get excited.  I guess I'll need to hear more about it before making up my mind.

[theloon]

Yay.  A glorified flash remake of a real game.

[the.golden.ax]

I think corn is the least of David Crane's worries at Atari Age. Anyone see the quality Dreamcast titles like Redux on Kickstarter? For $900K you could have 20 of those. Jus' sayin'

He could have at least put his pinky up to his lip and gone for the whole "one meeeeeellion dollors."

[HammR25]

This game is toast.  It hasn't even hit $10,000 yet.  I don't think they really cared if it got funded or the video and text would have started off as more than  "Hey David Crane is awesome so support this!"

[Metal Ghost]

HammR25, on Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:06 PM, said:

This game is toast.  It hasn't even hit $10,000 yet.  I don't think they really cared if it got funded or the video and text would have started off as more than  "Hey David Crane is awesome so support this!"

Yea, and I've even seen where it's gotten picked up by some gaming news organizations, like GameBeat and some others.  So for funding to be this anemic (though granted, it's early) doesn't bode well.

Developers need to realize that you need to have a compelling pitch to make these work!

[Chuck D. Head]

Random Terrain, on Sat Aug 11, 2012 6:23 PM, said:

Quote

Pledge $10,000 or more:

Have lunch with the team and spend an afternoon in the Jungle Venture office - kicking around ideas, pounding your fists on the desk dramatically, sipping soda from the finest goblets and generally being part of the magic.

Does anyone want to give me 10,000 dollars so I can make sure that David Crane uses Controlled Randomness in a real adventure game that is full of Randomness and Replayability?

I guess you would have to PM Random Terrain, he gives a shit about that kind of stuff.

[bojay1997]

Metal Ghost, on Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:16 AM, said:

HammR25, on Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:06 PM, said:

This game is toast.  It hasn't even hit $10,000 yet.  I don't think they really cared if it got funded or the video and text would have started off as more than  "Hey David Crane is awesome so support this!"

Yea, and I've even seen where it's gotten picked up by some gaming news organizations, like GameBeat and some others.  So for funding to be this anemic (though granted, it's early) doesn't bode well.

Developers need to realize that you need to have a compelling pitch to make these work!

Agreed.  As time has gone on, I have gone from being very generous and willing to back almost anything that involves a developer or game I like on Kickstarter to really thinking about the details of what is being promised.  In the past six months I think I have pledged over $2K on various Kickstarter gaming projects and all I really have to show for it is a bunch of update e-mails and a poster from one of them (Double Fine I think?).  I am starting to get nervous as I see more and more updates indicating that release dates will be pushed back and the scope of the games will change, etc...In any event, I need more details and specifics to back anything now, regardless of how much I admire the developer or person behind the Kickstarter.

[pitfall1982]

Guys,

As you know I try to keep an eye on AtariAge, and I ran into this thread.  You all make some good points, particularly Dragonstomper who gives a clear analysis of the other big Kickstarter gaming projects.  But you are missing the point, and I take full responsibility for that - obviously I am not getting the point across with the brief explanation on the Kickstarter page.

In the early days of Activision I had complete creative control over the games I made.  I could keep at it until I got it right.  I think I demonstrated that my judgement could be trusted for when a game is really ready.  I made a dozen or so games this way, and many of them are still being played today.

I have kept at it over the years as the industry changed, publishing over 100 games in all.  Most of these later games were constrained by an arbitrary budget, a client with creative control, or a heavy-handed licensor.  Every game I have made since the early days could have been better if I was given an adequate budget and full creative control.  The question I am asking with this Kickstarter project is: "Do you want to see what I can make today under similar conditions to those when I made my greatest hits?"

Second, ever since I made my first game people have been asking "How did you get your idea?" "What happens in the design lab?"  "Why this feature?"  "How do you make a game fun?" And so on.  I look at Kickstarter and see it as a way for people to see inside the game design process.  This has been top secret for my entire career, and now for $15 you can own the game and take a ride on the creation train.  That should be worth the price of admission right there.

I took a risk.  If I believe that people want to be a part of the game development process, then they should want to be a part of the game design process even more.  If I brought a completed game design to Kickstarter it would be too late to share in that.  So it is true that you can't tell exactly what the game is going to be at this point.  That is because the game design process only begins in earnest when the project is funded.  And you can be a part of that.

Did I set the game budget too high?  Hardly.  This may be eye-opening for some, but the cost of making a top quality game starts in the high six figures, and goes up from there (into the tens of millions, depending on the design.)  Kickstarter will always be a place where small, indie developers can get a Flash game funded for a few thousand dollars.  But my project will help to answer the question of whether there is a place for crowd funding in the high-end game development business.  And don't get hung up over the number.  With crowd funding it isn't the amount, it is the size of the crowd.  If only a tiny percentage of the millions of game players are intrigued by the idea of getting in this early, the project will be a success.  And think about how many of today's game players learned to play on one of my games.

Finally, will I deliver?  I have given millions of game players thousands of hours of enjoyment.  You can trust me to deliver.  But more important, as far as I can tell I have published more games than any other individual in the world.  I know how to allocate time and resources to get a game done.  I have access to game development professionals to expand my team as needed.  And I will have the final say on creative issues.  You may have backed some less experienced game developers and been disappointed.  I will not disappoint.

I came here to write a post and I ended up writing a novel.  You can see why it is difficult to convey all of this on one page on Kickstarter.  But to try to simplify it, this project gives you a chance to be part of the design process of a high-end David Crane game, then be part of the development process, then own the game and get hours of game play enjoyment, all for about the price of a family meal at KFC.

If I didn't get that across in a couple of paragraphs on the Kickstarter page, I apologize.

[the.golden.ax]

Am I missing something or is this a PC / MAC game that will be for download only?

[Lord Helmet]

Clarification from the man himself!

Boom

Edited by Lord Helmet, Wed Aug 15, 2012 12:42 PM.

[pitfall1982]

Yes, PC or Mac digital download.  I wanted to find a way so that every backer, at even the lowest level, gets the game.  SInce every dollar from backers goes to making the game, it would harm the game to take funds away to make a boxed game.  Besides, no matter what your favorite console might be, everybody owns one of those computers.

Other platforms will be added if we exceed the minimum target.

[PacManPlus]

That's awsome of you to actually care enough to give an explanation to us.  I hope your project takes off.

P.S. - thank you for the many years of enjoyment from Pitfall! and Pitfall II.

Bob