Well, blog, it’s been a while. As I mentioned on Twitter, I’ve found that I can be in one of two modes: productive but silent, or loud but stagnant.

Doing community and marketing stuff takes up a lot of time! And when your only time to work on your game is between the time when your two kids and wife fall asleep and the time when your eyes start closing and you start writing code that incorporates words from the dreams you start having, you don’t want to spend too much time blogging.

I actually wrote the word “sink” into a bit of dialog two nights ago that had nothing to do with sinks because I started falling asleep when writing it. When I was played that segment the next night I had no idea what I had written.

Anywho, things are still going well. I’ve had a few epic nights of productivity recently. I’m working towards yet another deadline: this time trying to get as much of the game as possible polished and submitted to Indiecade.

One thing that has really helped me get as far as I’ve gotten has been Kickstarter. I raised $2080, which made a big dent in that red number at the bottom of my expenditure-tracking spreadsheet.

Here’s what the money went to (and it was all pretty much gone in the first month!):

• Music and sound! Nikolas Sideris got a large chunk of the Kickstarter purse. He has produced some amazing tracks for the game as well as purchased and recorded a ton of high-quality sound effects. His work really brings the game’s audio to life.
• Backgrounds! There were a few backgrounds that I was going to cut for budget reasons, which would have kind of weakened part of the game, but I was spending money that could be going into my kids’ college funds! But after Kickstarter, I put them back into the game and Nauris has done some more of his stunning work! In fact, I just posted one a couple paragraphs above! (You’ve got to see it with the mist drifting across the scene! It’s gorgeous!)
• Dialog! Deirdra Kiai got some moolah for her excellent guidance and help so far with writing the actual words that come out of the characters’ mouths. I found, that writing the dialogs had become a major bottle-neck for me since I felt like all the characters were speaking in my voice rather than expressing their own unique personalities. Luckily Deirdra is a fantastic writer and offered to help! She’s done some great editing, re-writing, and writing for the game! Thanks to Kickstarter, she got a bit of remuneration for her time, which I’m sure went straight into her own game-in-progress, Life Flashes By..
• Posters! And of course a bunch of money went into getting posters printed out and sent back to the people who pledged enough to receive one. We had a bit of trouble with a couple international backers who didn’t receive posters, but I think that’s all been sorted now!

So, yeah. Kickstarter was immensely helpful. So, I hope I don’t sound like a total beggar when I hold out my hat again.

I’m opening up donations again, this time via PayPal (as some people mentioned to me that they wanted to preorder via Kickstarter before but couldn’t do so via Amazon’s payment system). My goal is to get enough money to commision the rest of the art that I need to complete the game. Right now, a decent portion of the last half of the game is still in programmer art (crappy MS Paint drawings!) and, partially due to a recent incident where I had to spend a bunch of money to get my wife back into the country (long story), I don’t have enough money right now to pay for those backgrounds. It is slowing game development.

I will be applying the same gift structure to all PayPal donations as I did to Kickstarter, so every PayPal donator can get the same gifts that were available before. Likewise, any Kickstarter backer that wants to increase their pledge to get up to a higher gift may do so by donating the difference!

Also, all PayPal pledgers will gain access to the same Special Backer Gifts that Kickstarter backers had access to. This includes:

• Never-before-seen screenshots
• Never-before-heard music tracks
• Some sneak peaks at awesome character animations.
• An amazing wallpaper
• A special video!

And of course, you get prizes based on your contribution amount. Here are the pledge levels and prizes:

PLEDGE $1 OR MORE
A mention under the “Special Thanks” section of the game’s credits!

PLEDGE $15 OR MORE
All the above, plus a coupon to download the game for free when it’s done! This is as good as a pre-order! (This is likely cheaper than the game will be sold for when it’s complete.)

PLEDGE $35 OR MORE
All the above, plus an early playable sample sent to you before the end of November! (a complete scene from the game missing only voice acting)

PLEDGE $50 OR MORE
All the above, plus a guaranteed spot on the play-testing list. Play the game early and give feedback to improve the game!

PLEDGE $75 OR MORE
All the above, plus a poster, which I’ll send you as soon as the above time period is up!

PLEDGE $500 OR MORE
All the above, plus your name in the credits as a producer!

Any and all help (including kind words of encouragement!) will be deeply appreciated! I thank you in advance for your support and look forward to sharing Resonance with all of you!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Game Design, Games General, Miscellany, Resonance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.