Subterranea - Update# 5, Concept Art

As a follow up to yesterday's update Cloud Nine Games has released a new screenshot to show how the concept art will look in-game. Keep up the good work JMab.

Concept Art Implementation

As a follow-on from yesterday's update, here's an in-game screenshot of the concept art implemented. A Fighter is sneaking up on the mysterious figure in the swamp...

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More information.

This is really sad. This guy has all the makings of a decent game and nobody cares. He's STILL at $2500 for a project only needing 12,500 for the whole goal. He's got more content than several completed kickstarters that asked for more. Too bad.

crpgnut said:

This is really sad. This guy has all the makings of a decent game and nobody cares. He's STILL at $2500 for a project only needing 12,500 for the whole goal. He's got more content than several completed kickstarters that asked for more. Too bad.

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Yeah this saddens me. It just goes to show that the success of KS is all about marketing gimmicks. Good games get overlooked if the video isn't flashy enough because people are too lazy to read things etc. I've seen people on forums nitpicking about stuff like UI / radial menus and the graphics even though it's a work in progress.

And then there's a lot of people suffering from KS fatigue who have backed a lot of projects over the past couple of years and are waiting to see how they turn out before putting up more money… I can sort of understand that but I still think there's got to be more than 75 people out there who would support this game. I just wish I knew how to reach them. I've posted about it on pretty much every D&D / RPG related forum I belong to. Might have even found a few people who will back it… But it's at the point now where it needs a major boost.

I backed this one as well. There are so many kickstarter RPGs out there now, its staggering. Unfortunately this one is relatively low down on the popularity filter, so its hard to find. Also the Australian currency might scare people since you have to pledge directly (not over Amazon). Its really too bad. It looks like it would be a cool game.

Hi guys, thanks for your support - there has been a number of positives throughout the experience, and the support here has definitely been the highlight!

Yes, there are a number of learnings, that would probably be of benefit to others who try to go down the same route:

* Graphical presentation of the game (and the marketing) is extremely important. More time should have been spent on graphical polish than gameplay systems prior to the KS. The environments were especially bland, as I spent more time on collapsing rope bridges and the display of navigation paths than I did with populating them with props, adding grime to the wall textures, etc.

* The marketing is equally as important as the game. The KS page needs to look very slick - mine looks like a programmer put it together and has only improved slightly when I replaced the old, blocky titles. If you're an unknown, the pitch video needs to show a game that is reasonably polished graphically and needs to be a more professional recording.

* 2D games get more of a pass graphically than 3D - you can make a 2D game that could have been released 20 years ago, as long as the art style is strong and coherent. Subterranea got a lot of, "but it looks like NWN1/NWN2/Runescape!". It seems that if you're doing an indie CRPG, you shouldn't be off the AAA graphical quality pace by more than 5-7 years.

* I should have spent more time on other sites than the Watch and the Codex prior to the KS - but I just didn't have time to do that along with everything else.

* Running with a non-USD currency probably didn't help - this might have hurt Zaharia too...

* Starting before a weekend probably hurt initial momentum.

* KS fatigue would have to be a factor. I suspect that many CRPG fans pledged for Pillars of Eternity and Torment and are waiting for those pledges to be fulfilled before going out to seek other CRPG KS's. And there were a number of other CRPGs on KS at the same time, with Darkest Dungeon and StarCrawlers being rightly successfull, and others like Zaharia, SAGA Heroes and Subterranea struggling for traction. Although Celestian Tales: Old North bucked the trend, being quickly funded by an Indonesian team in New Zealand Dollars, but that's probably because it's a JRPG with a strong art style.

It'd OK! The campaign will run to the end, and the development of Subterranea will continue regardless - it doesn't cost me anything to do so, so why wouldn't I? On funding, my inclination now is to get a game released to help fund the completion of Subterranea - to that end I'm exploring a collaboration on a different style of CRPG (also D&D 3.5) with a talented artist, and may also look at releasing something small in a different genre that I can get looking polished graphically with my own skills...

Those rocks wouldn't stand like that in a real swamp. They'd be sticking up out of the muck.

@JMab I hope you don't give up on game, you just need to get through steam greenlight and to early access, I personally don't like it but it did wonders for many games.I know getting through greenlight isn't easy but it's best bet for this game.

You can fight back on the 2D front against the 3D expectations by way of the menus, U/I, and other such things that players will be interacting with almost as much as the 3D environs and should be easier to make your own as it were, versus the "outsourced 3D" problem. Little things like color use, bolding, font choices, etc can help to sugar the mix as per your character creation demo vid as the snappy context pop-up menus are definitely a good start.

Project still has a chance of making it, just gotta keep at it as best you can and leverage the best from any and all angles at the cutting edge of it.