Arcen Games
Other => Game Development => Topic started by: Draco18s on February 21, 2012, 03:41:12 pm
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A couple of friends and I put together this little game over IGDA's Global Game Jam about two weeks ago, and we're trying to get it published.
A little about the game:
Velociraptor! Cannibalism! is a card game of survival, mutation, and the occasional volcano. Based on a crude understanding of natural selection, Velocipator! Cannibalism! puts you in the role of a young, eager and bright eyed Raptor as they must eat delicious, adorable prey, survive environmental disaster, mutate and steal the body parts of other Raptors.
Figured you guys might at least take a look (http://velociraptorcannibalism.wordpress.com/) at what we've done, maybe even pledge a little (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/boardraptorgames/velociraptor-cannibalism).
Thanks!
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Fixed the url for you. Looks pretty cool!
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Is it bad that when I first saw the title for this, I first thought it was the name of a new AVWW beta release?
I was going like, WHAT, where was the velociraptors and cannibalism in the release notes? :P
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Sweet, I hope it goes well :)
And yes, velociraptors => AVWW is an association in my mind, too.
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Haha, thanks guys!
Also, Keith: you're one of the best, I swear. Seems like very few indie game forums out there let other indie game devs (or hell, anyone) advertise for their games.*
*Sample size: 4.
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Seems like very few indie game forums out there let other indie game devs (or hell, anyone) advertise for their games.*
*Sample size: 4.
I've been there -- it's rough as heck, to be sure. I managed to get myself banned from the Gamespot forums for deigning to talk about my own game in forums where people were asking if people knew of games matching its general description. When I appealed, they declined to overturn it because I had multiple violations (two posts in two threads, but they deleted both at once and banned me in one fell swoop, no warning). So yeah, I feel that!
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Haha, thanks guys!
Also, Keith: you're one of the best, I swear. Seems like very few indie game forums out there let other indie game devs (or hell, anyone) advertise for their games.*
*Sample size: 4.
I get the general impression that as long as you post intelligently, in the right forum, actually make it personal (why you like it and/or why this audience would care) rather than a generic advertisement, and don't do something stupid like link to a malware site or say "Don't buy Arcen Games' stuff", I think they don't mind.
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I get the general impression that as long as you post intelligently, in the right forum, actually make it personal (why you like it and/or why this audience would care) rather than a generic advertisement, and don't do something stupid like link to a malware site or say "Don't buy Arcen Games' stuff", I think they don't mind.
Yeah, I had. :\
Their stance is "any advertising for any product or service of any kind will be DELETED." And yes, that included the off topic "anything goes" forum.
Just for spite I went and found two semi-recent threads (that forum wasn't particularly active) and reported them for advertising as well, the note of "We can't have double standards, now can we? ;)" as several threads (mine, included) went unnoticed (mine got deleted only after I posted an update this morning).
I don't play their game any more anyway. They don't know what balance is and keep screwing with it under the guise of "it's beta and only a quarter of the content is there." Only it's available on the "ranked" servers (it'd be like TF2 letting you try out new beta items on any server you felt like it running the official client). Not to mention that hacking is horribly rampant, along with "USD item shops" which are against TOS.
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Which game are you talking about?
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Which game are you talking about?
Trendy's Dungeon Defenders.
They're working hard, but it's one of those things where I realized I wasn't having fun and had to force myself to do Something Else for a few days, and that lead to only following the patch notes. Which lead to a complete uninstall of the game as the patches moved farther and farther from rational thinking (the biggest issues go unaddressed with no public acknowledgement along with strange and bizarre changes to things that no one considered a problem).
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Ah -- that's sad to hear.
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Ah -- that's sad to hear.
It was such a good game, too.
Still is, if you only play to level 70 and only with friends, and not any of the DLC.
They've even stated that Nightmare Mode (the difficulty above Insane) is only for "5 to 10% of the playerbase."
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I've not played it yet, but I've heard good things.
And the Nightmare Mode comment seems reasonable -- our difficulty 10 in AI War is something we try to balance so that it's unwinnable by 99.99% of the playerbase. There's always some small pocket of ultra-skilled gamers, and if you can have a mode for them without devaluing the experience for the rest of the playerbase, then that's great. I guess I take the view that inherent player skill is more or less a bell curve, and so the difficulties should reflect that. By that logic, 5% or 10% is enormous for the top difficulty.
But I don't really know what goes into a difficulty mode for their game, so if it's actually content and such that's something that is definitely not good. People playing at the skill that is appropriate for themselves shouldn't feel like they're missing something.
Anyhow, I'm completely uninformed on what is going on with that dev, so don't take this as a defense of them. I'm in no position to judge them either way, I just don't know anything about them. But the isolated comment about the difficulty caught my eye. :)
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I get the general impression that as long as you post intelligently, in the right forum, actually make it personal (why you like it and/or why this audience would care) rather than a generic advertisement, and don't do something stupid like link to a malware site or say "Don't buy Arcen Games' stuff", I think they don't mind.
Yeah, I had. :\
Their stance is "any advertising for any product or service of any kind will be DELETED." And yes, that included the off topic "anything goes" forum.
Sorry, I meant on Arcen games' forums they would be fine with it.
I can't speak for other forums, especially when so many forum mods and admins are paranoid, control freaks, or in very unlucky cases, both.
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As for Dungeon Defenders: it's a bit sad to get such nice idea and ruin it with idea like Nightmare mode.
Here diff 10 is not like not allowing you access to 1/5th of game features...
In DunDef nightmare is actually 1/5th of game in a away - it's ability to get one more run with campaign for you with better rewards and higher difficulty. Balancing it so that hours of grinding are required to have chance at it (and silly feature that you run on nightmare one of further maps to get items from there to have any chances on others) is simply ruining the game for 80-90% of players.. thats not something that sits well with players.
Game itself is very fun - had a good time playing it with sister. The fun ended when we reached near the end of insane or that new map from DLC - it's simply for masochists... and some forumites there try to say it's to easy ;)
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Here diff 10 is not like not allowing you access to 1/5th of game features...
In DunDef nightmare is actually 1/5th of game in a away - it's ability to get one more run with campaign for you with better rewards and higher difficulty. Balancing it so that hours of grinding are required to have chance at it (and silly feature that you run on nightmare one of further maps to get items from there to have any chances on others) is simply ruining the game for 80-90% of players.. thats not something that sits well with players.
That's what I was worried about -- and so I definitely don't support that decision. If I may, I think that the root of that problem is in the modern sentiment among many game developers that extrinsic rewards are required for every player action. "What do I get for playing on the highest difficulty and winning?" Satisfaction! A feeling of accomplishment! I guess maybe an achievement, if you really have to have something.
But not 1/5th of the game content, or even 1/100th of the game content. Because then you're forcing all the other players to either look on with envy, cheat, or slog through a difficulty that they find supremely un-fun.
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DD is a lot of fun for my group of 4, we're still like level 15 though and only play about once every two weeks (alternating with League of Legends; Spikey00 and Lancefighter should laugh if they're reading this).
We just play along, blissfully unaware of how far above the mountain slope stretches, and however many sky-castle-mountains are floating above that :)
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Wait a minute.... *checks previous post again* ... did Keith just say he plays League of Legends?
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It was only against bots. And I didn't inhale.
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If you ever want to play non-bot games with less chance of headaches, Dominion is the way to go. Short games, very fast paced, and if the game is bad for some reason it doesn't drag out nearly as long and as painfully as Summoner's Rift can.
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Wow this thread has drifted off topic -- sorry about that, Draco.
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In DunDef nightmare is actually 1/5th of game in a away - it's ability to get one more run with campaign for you with better rewards and higher difficulty. Balancing it so that hours of grinding are required to have chance at it (and silly feature that you run on nightmare one of further maps to get items from there to have any chances on others) is simply ruining the game for 80-90% of players.. thats not something that sits well with players.
Not to mention that the loot for playing through insane goes up to, oh, say +30 in all stats (if you're lucky). The shitty loot you get from nightmare? +100 to all stats. The good stuff? +380. The exceedingly rare items that have values higher than you can upgrade a piece of equipment? +460.
Massive difference in loot quality, all brought about because they can't bugtest very well. They released a patch where loot drops were generated with above-maximum values, and patched it 12 hours later. Then people complained that they didn't get a shot at the items. Then they add nightmare mode and another class of item with these mind-boggling stats (not that the drop system scales properly. It's 1...X where X is based on difficulty and a few other factors, but the bottom end never moves, so you'll get absolute GARBAGE for drops while playing nightmare).
Best part? They've hinted that future DLC will make all the current items look like junk.
Wow this thread has drifted off topic -- sorry about that, Draco.
It happens. A good rant is good for the blood once in a while.
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They supposedly got half way to their goal.
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Nice! Over halfway, actually, it looks like. :)
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Supposing you hit your goal, what are your plans for distribution and so on? Online-only sales, or is this something that you plan to try to get in game stores? I have no idea how that works with boardgames. Do you pitch this to publishers, or is this sort of a for-those-interested-from-kickstarter-only?
How much does one have to donate to get into a minor profit-sharing tier? Things are tight right now, but if AVWW does well one of the things I want to do is be able to invest in other small indie projects, and this one looks promising. Don't read too much into that, I don't know enough about the game at the moment and I frankly don't have the money at the moment. But AVWW's 1.0 is prior to your kickstarter end date, and you never know, so I was just curious.
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Looks like I forgot about this thread!
Supposing you hit your goal, what are your plans for distribution and so on? Online-only sales, or is this something that you plan to try to get in game stores? I have no idea how that works with boardgames. Do you pitch this to publishers, or is this sort of a for-those-interested-from-kickstarter-only?
It's a question we've been unable to answer so far. Given the response this afternoon (http://i43.tinypic.com/212xrm.png)...we might be looking at some kind of publishing beyond Game Crafter (a print-on-demand service like Cafe Press). Looking at crossing the $9000 mark in the next half hour to 90 minutes.
(By the way, physical copies ARE available: $48 for US, $58 international)
How much does one have to donate to get into a minor profit-sharing tier? Things are tight right now, but if AVWW does well one of the things I want to do is be able to invest in other small indie projects, and this one looks promising. Don't read too much into that, I don't know enough about the game at the moment and I frankly don't have the money at the moment. But AVWW's 1.0 is prior to your kickstarter end date, and you never know, so I was just curious.
Ha! I don't think it ever entered our minds. I'll certainly pitch the idea to the group. I know at least two of us have enjoyed AI War. I can't promise anything, of course.
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Great to hear you met your goal; or rather smashed through it ;)
Now what do we do about all the raptors running loose?
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Given the response this afternoon (http://i43.tinypic.com/212xrm.png)...we might be looking at some kind of publishing beyond Game Crafter (a print-on-demand service like Cafe Press). Looking at crossing the $9000 mark in the next half hour to 90 minutes.
Congrats! And I see it's now $11.3k, already. That's awesome! :)
How much does one have to donate to get into a minor profit-sharing tier? Things are tight right now, but if AVWW does well one of the things I want to do is be able to invest in other small indie projects, and this one looks promising. Don't read too much into that, I don't know enough about the game at the moment and I frankly don't have the money at the moment. But AVWW's 1.0 is prior to your kickstarter end date, and you never know, so I was just curious.
Ha! I don't think it ever entered our minds. I'll certainly pitch the idea to the group. I know at least two of us have enjoyed AI War. I can't promise anything, of course.
I wouldn't worry about it, honestly. If you can find your own way without giving out a revenue share to anyone external, I'd say do that every time. It's only when they have something that you otherwise can't get (money, access to publishers, whatever) that you want to invite that sort of third party in, and even then you want to be super careful. And in my case all I would theoretically have to offer is money, and you guys look past the point of really needing that as any sort of primary concern.
My goal with future theoretical indie-funding projects would be to do sort of like what the Indie Fund was supposed to do, but actually only does a little of: bootstrap a number of likely projects, hope some pan out and make enough profit to cover the ones that don't, and in general stay out of the hair of the designers/developers since any sort of investment in an indie is an investment in the people rather than just the specific idea they have. Knock on wood, you guys seem to be past the hurdle of where you'd really be needing/wanting to pursue that outside of a traditional boardgame publisher of some sort.
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Great to hear you met your goal; or rather smashed through it ;)
Now what do we do about all the raptors running loose?
Ship them around the world! Bwhahaha!
Given the response this afternoon (http://i43.tinypic.com/212xrm.png)...we might be looking at some kind of publishing beyond Game Crafter (a print-on-demand service like Cafe Press). Looking at crossing the $9000 mark in the next half hour to 90 minutes.
Congrats! And I see it's now $11.3k, already. That's awesome! :)
12.5k now. ;)
How much does one have to donate to get into a minor profit-sharing tier? Things are tight right now, but if AVWW does well one of the things I want to do is be able to invest in other small indie projects, and this one looks promising. Don't read too much into that, I don't know enough about the game at the moment and I frankly don't have the money at the moment. But AVWW's 1.0 is prior to your kickstarter end date, and you never know, so I was just curious.
Ha! I don't think it ever entered our minds. I'll certainly pitch the idea to the group. I know at least two of us have enjoyed AI War. I can't promise anything, of course.
I wouldn't worry about it, honestly. If you can find your own way without giving out a revenue share to anyone external, I'd say do that every time. It's only when they have something that you otherwise can't get (money, access to publishers, whatever) that you want to invite that sort of third party in, and even then you want to be super careful. And in my case all I would theoretically have to offer is money, and you guys look past the point of really needing that as any sort of primary concern.
My goal with future theoretical indie-funding projects would be to do sort of like what the Indie Fund was supposed to do, but actually only does a little of: bootstrap a number of likely projects, hope some pan out and make enough profit to cover the ones that don't, and in general stay out of the hair of the designers/developers since any sort of investment in an indie is an investment in the people rather than just the specific idea they have. Knock on wood, you guys seem to be past the hurdle of where you'd really be needing/wanting to pursue that outside of a traditional boardgame publisher of some sort.
No worries. :)
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We're rocketing along, and I wanted to give you guys a heads up that we're looking at putting up a stretch goal and update on Monday or Tuesday.
Details are still being worked out, but we're looking at a $50,000 goal and some new pledge levels (shirts? We're not sure).
We've got a poll up on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/questions/288898777850124/) to decide the theme of the expansion (our 10K stretch goal that got obliterated).
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Wow, that just keeps going up and up -- very impressive!
Do you know where you got the attention from? Was there some specific large site (4chan, Slashdot, reddit, etc) that did a lot of coverage?
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Wow, that just keeps going up and up -- very impressive!
Do you know where you got the attention from? Was there some specific large site (4chan, Slashdot, reddit, etc) that did a lot of coverage?
The bulk of it has been from the Kickstarter weekly newsletter--222 pledges have come in from that--at least, for the initial boost that took us from 2.5k to 13.5k.
We're also in rotation to appear on the Kickstarter homepage, although that's relatively insignificant (26 pledges).
As to where, exactly, they're coming from on a day to day basis, I think it's mostly "direct URL" (which I believe includes our VelociraptorCannibalism.com url), searches on Kickstarter for us, and the Board & Card Games discovery page. Almost anything else is been pretty static, not that I've been keeping daily totals, just there are a few I've been keeping a head-count of to see if they change (i.e. I've got an ad up on a site I use and only three pledges have come from there so far...unless they're falling into "direct URL" bucket due to the redirect, and the three have been from posted journals, hmm, oh well).
We have gotten several reviews done, and one shout-out from TunnelBiscuit, who does video game reviews on YouTube (who is apparently well known and followed), though I think their impact has been fairly small.
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TunnelBiscuit
Do you mean TotalBiscuit? Or is that his DF-alter-ego? ;)
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If it was TotalBiscuit, you probably have him to thank for a large chunk of your success. That guy is a powerhouse on Youtube.
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If it was TotalBiscuit, you probably have him to thank for a large chunk of your success. That guy is a powerhouse on Youtube.
Yes! TotalBiscuit.
Just goes to show that I have no idea who he is. :P
And I don't think he's made that much of an impact, honestly. If people are hearing it from him, hitting Kickstarter, and searching for it (as he didn't give a link), then we've only gotten 26 pledges that way...most of which we'd had before his video went up.
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Fair enough! He's got like 100k+ subs on youtube, though, so it can't have hurt.
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Fair enough! He's got like 100k+ subs on youtube, though, so it can't have hurt.
Oh goodness no, I doubt it could have hurt. :)
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If it was TotalBiscuit, you probably have him to thank for a large chunk of your success. That guy is a powerhouse on Youtube.
Yes! TotalBiscuit.
Just goes to show that I have no idea who he is. :P
And I don't think he's made that much of an impact, honestly. If people are hearing it from him, hitting Kickstarter, and searching for it (as he didn't give a link), then we've only gotten 26 pledges that way...most of which we'd had before his video went up.
BLASPHEMY! Or...something. I really like that guy, for the most part. He's helped SO many indie devs get their games noticed.
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Fair enough! He's got like 100k+ subs on youtube, though, so it can't have hurt.
As a matter of fact, he broke 500k+ a few months ago. So he's likely around 600k now. :P
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Wow that's moving fast. I'm behind the times!
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Just checked. He's up to 647k. :D
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Just checked. He's up to 647k. :D
See, here's the funny thing about names:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalBiscuit
http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut
As I have never heard of the guy, I don't know for sure if those two accounts are the same guy or not.
The former is the guy being discussed, the latter is the guy with 600k subs.
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Same guy, yeah.
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He made the second channel to split off his Starcraft 2 content, which he does a lot of, from his general gaming content. Mainly to keep it from choking everything else out in his viewers' video lists. It was pretty well announced at the time for everyone who had been watching it, and I guess he just assumed going forwards that people would just find it like they usually do, by being linked the videos or just searching for Starcraft or whatever. But yeah, there's nothing specifically to link them together, on the other hand there's no reason you really need to know that both are the same guy since they cater to somewhat different groups.
I know far too much about random youtube superstars. :-X
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He made the second channel to split off his Starcraft 2 content, which he does a lot of, from his general gaming content.
Ah, that makes sense.
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Achievement Unlocked: 1000% Funded. 8)
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Achievement Unlocked: 1000% Funded. 8)
Holy heck! Congratulations!!
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Haha, gone pretty well, you might say ;) I hope the game development goes well :)
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Haha, gone pretty well, you might say ;) I hope the game development goes well :)
Oh, it's been developed already. We're at the "find a publisher" stage.
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Nice -- I thought you still had some development to go, too.
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Nice -- I thought you still had some development to go, too.
Well, having a group of 12 people to toss the rules at and be like "go at it" and seeing what they do would be MOST helpful. Figure out better ways to word the rules, resolve confusing rules, as well as see if any other things need to be balanced out.
Thing is, we don't HAVE a group of people we can do that with.
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Yeah, finding good sources of feedback is always tough. Thought about soliciting volunteers from your backers? I bet you could find a group of 12 that is quite savvy... though probably not local to one another.
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I think I just heard the sound of a swimming pool filling up with gold coins; any idea what that was, Draco18s? ;)
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I think I just heard the sound of a swimming pool filling up with gold coins; any idea what that was, Draco18s? ;)
1016 backers swiping their credit cards.
Yeah, finding good sources of feedback is always tough. Thought about soliciting volunteers from your backers? I bet you could find a group of 12 that is quite savvy... though probably not local to one another.
Well. We'd have to find people local to us, preferably. I'll raise the question on Sunday.
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Thought I'd update with this monstrocity, which graced my inbox this morning.
Behold, behind the scenes art in progress!
(http://i48.tinypic.com/14wueqw.jpg)
Other than "sea cucumber head" and possibly "pterodactyl legs" I'm not sure WHAT it is.
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Porcupine back and duck tail?
Looking good! :)
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Porcupine back and duck tail?
Porcupine, yeah, that's probably what that is.
Not a duck tail though, we didn't have any duck parts.
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Roach rear then? :D
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Roach rear then? :D
Hehe, it does kind of look like it.
I don't think we did roaches though.
I'm sure I could figure it out if I looked through the parts, just haven't been inclined to do so.
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I know, but sometimes it's more fun to guess. :D
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I know, but sometimes it's more fun to guess. :D
Indeed! :D
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++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.
Velociraptor! Cannibalism! was nominated for the 2013 Philly Geek Awards for Best Indie Game.
http://www.geekadelphia.com/2013/07/08/the-nominees-for-the-2013-philadelphia-geek-awards/
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Congratulations! Wow it's been a while since this thread had any posts in it. How has this been going aside from the awesome nomination?
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Congratulations! Wow it's been a while since this thread had any posts in it. How has this been going aside from the awesome nomination?
Heh, yeah, I haven't updated this thread with some of the other news items.
(http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~mmj29/temp/photo.JPG)
Final production proof arrived yesterday/this morning.
(Edit: by the way, quick-edit doesn't seem to work properly...I just get an empty text box)
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Oh very cool! That looks awesome.
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Oh very cool! That looks awesome.
It totally does. I got my grubby little paws on it last night (after watching Pacific Rim) and it's fantastic. Few minor quibbles that if we'd really thought about it months ago we'd have done it differently (the mats just have a blank white back side), but nothing worth throwing money at a reprinting for.
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Congrats! :)
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Minor update:
It has been decreed (*cough* by myself) that I shall show up to the black tie affair as Reginald (the red one and English gentleraptor).
It will be worth every penny for the looks on people's faces alone.
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Gentleraptor?
The word at war with itself.
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Gentleraptor?
The word at war with itself.
Hehe, yes, it is.
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Only photos I've found so far:
http://photos.photobot3000.com/Other/08172013235458/i-7pdRSJB
http://photos.photobot3000.com/Other/08172013235458/i-6Hr7hZH
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/out_and_about/The-2013-Philadelphia-Geek-Awards.html#photoNumber=4
The only other person in costume was Skeletor, who presented one of the awards (though he was only in costume for the award ceremony itself).
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Nice!
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What's all that hogwash in the article text about you wearing a dinosaur head as costume?
Clearly, it was a monocle.
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What's all that hogwash in the article text about you wearing a dinosaur head as costume?
Clearly, it was a monocle.
Hahaha!
Thanks Keith, that made me smile.
I counted at least 12 requests for pictures (actual total was 14, but I lost count), not counting ones from my partners in crime or the photobot. So there are some more out there, just haven't seen them show up.
Here's a couple from JR, a partner in crime, http://jrblackwell.tumblr.com/post/58615081453/velociraptor-cannibalism-at-the-philly-geek
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WARNING:
Velociraptors are now appearing in the wild!
Andrew:
The person I got first word from about the message from GameSalute just got her game :)
They are officially starting to appear in the wild!