Subterranea - Update# 4, The Mystery

Cloud Nine Games has posted the next kickstarter update for Subterranea that talks about the the mystery of the game world. The project has twenty days left, and has so far only got $2,594 of the $12,500 goal.

The mystery of Subterranea...

Hi all, we're working here on building better looking 3D environments, but in the meantime, have a look at some concept art of the main villain in Subterranea, sighted around Vengarth Swamp!

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More information.

The campaign seems to have totally stalled. I keep an eye on it regularly, and the pledges figure has barely moved for the last few days.

I don't know where this is going wrong. The updates before the kickstarter were interesting, and I would have thought the use of 3.5 rules (of whatever the correct term is for the OGL rules) would get D&D fanboys like me out in droves. Doesn't seem to have happened though…

Pongo said:

The campaign seems to have totally stalled. I keep an eye on it regularly, and the pledges figure has barely moved for the last few days.

I don't know where this is going wrong. The updates before the kickstarter were interesting, and I would have thought the use of 3.5 rules (of whatever the correct term is for the OGL rules) would get D&D fanboys like me out in droves. Doesn't seem to have happened though…

Click to expand...

Yes, that is the real mystery here. Why the hell is this game not bringing in more backers?

I have a couple guesses:

One is the graphics. While they aren't terrible by any means, the overall presentation that we've seen in gameplay footage is still pretty rough, and a lot of people probably just watch the pitch video and assume that the graphics / animations represents the final quality rather than being in a pre-alpha state. Of course, if you actually read the Kickstarter page, it will be clear that one of the main reasons JMab is running the KS is to purchase assets to improve the appearance of the game… But most people are too damn lazy to actual read stuff, so they tend to judge a book by it's cover.

The other likely possibility is that the core audience simply hasn't been reached… Is there an active forum that D&D fanboys (and girls) hang out in? The kind who have been dying for someone to do a modern take on gold box games? I just did a post in Gibberlings 3 forum and have mentioned it in a few other RPG related forums. Of course, it's always hard to promote a game that isn't finished & no one has heard of.

Still, there has to more than 74 people who are willing and able to put down a mere $16 to pre-order a copy of a game like this.

Maybe the core audience isn't being reached, although as we all know there are a ton of turn-based indie games being funded right now. Or maybe it's that the entire presentation looks like a high school D&D club project. If what he's shown in Update 4 is the caliber of the "concept art" for Subterranea, he'd be better off not showing anything.

He started with a pretty awful tech demo, and apparently doesn't have anything better to follow it up. You can't sell this stuff with words alone.

Then there's the fact that he seems to think you can cobble together an RPG from a bunch of content catalogs. Paraphrasing: "I don't have any experience with art, modeling, level design or animation, but these assets can all be bought quite cheaply!"

I personally am not seeing any mystery here. We'd all like to see another Knights of the Chalice, but why anyone thinks this would be it is beyond me.

Hi Scott - this is the second time you've misinterpreted what I've said, after reaching out to me to offer your writing and custom animation skills on Subterranea on 27th Feb.

I do create 2D art, 3D art (models, levels, etc), design and animate. All of the videos and screenshots are my own work, supplemented with some low cost art that I have either customized or inserted as-is.

What you paraphrased above was me saying that art specialists in those individual fields generally create better quality assets than I do - certainly without me putting in more time than I'd prefer - time that would take away from further development on gameplay systems.

I'm sorry we couldn't come to an arrangement - my approach was to keep the Subterranea budget low by relying on packs of art, to supplement my own creations, so I'd never budgeted a lot for contract work, especially for animations that can be bought quite cheaply from sites like http://mixamo.com

If I don't reach my funding goal (as is looking likely), I'll revert to creating all aspects of the game myself on a longer development cycle, as well as exploring a separate collaboration opportunity that has come up during the course of this Kickstarter campaign.

I believe in treating everyone that has creative goals (like indie games, or novels) with at least some respect for their passion, especially if there has been overtures for collaboration - at the very least you never know what may eventuate in the future - other collaboration opportunities may arise.

Hey, I wish you the best of luck, but I would argue you've got to show what you're passionate about if you want to succeed. If you've got those abilities, it wasn't clear (to me anyway) in what you said online or in person. No sour grapes here.