He's now commented on kickstarter on art, sound and music. I'll post it here as it might interest somebody other than myself:
Just like in the blog, this shows to me that Jeff really isn't a great marketer. I think hiring a sound designer is a perfectly legitimate stretch goal, better than a lot of fluff other game designers ask for, but he has guilty feelings about asking for money for it, even though it would make for a huge improvement in his games.
A few words about art.
The creature and terrain art in the Kickstarter video is pretty close to final. A lot of work went into those creatures/walls/floors, and I'm quite happy with them. The money is to get a lot more art. Much more creatures, terrain, chapter art, map art, interface art, button art, portrait art for NPCs, portrait art for PCs, status icon art.
There is so much art still needing to be done, and the costs add up fast. Fortunately, I can get artists to do the job right now, thanks to all of your generosity.
The interface in the video is totally placeholder. So are the button icons. So are the portraits. So are the fonts. Lots needs to be totally redone.
Spiderweb Software Creator 3 days ago
We are still thinking about stretch goals. A lot of stuff people are asking for we already plan to put in. For example, we already plan to make large text options for people who have vision issues. (Though we usually recommend playing our games with the monitor set to a lower resolution. Because it's a pure icon-based game, zooming isn't possible in the way it's possible in a 3-D game.)
I've also considered getting music. However, I personally dislike music in games. I really prefer environmental sounds. While I could buy music, I wouldn't be very good at evaluating its quality. I'm only good at designing things that I like enough to have opinions on.
One think I CAN consider is getting a professional sound designer, something that is probably long overdue. I'm not sure if it's a stretch goal, though. People are being so generous that I feel bad about asking for more money for something a real developer would do as a no-brainer.
Just like in the blog, this shows to me that Jeff really isn't a great marketer. I think hiring a sound designer is a perfectly legitimate stretch goal, better than a lot of fluff other game designers ask for, but he has guilty feelings about asking for money for it, even though it would make for a huge improvement in his games.