Yes I'm really interested
OK then, I'm trying to be honest and helpful here so I hope this is of some use:
On Crowdfunding:Crowdfunding is well established and an interesting wild-card that can be a great source of revenue for creators and bring things into being that otherwise wouldn't be. It's also old hat - Kickstarter has been with us for 9 years, for instance, most projects die on the vine and now a great many receive scarcely any interest whatsoever. Funders have been burned by projects not coming to fruition at all, not receiving their promised goods or projects running well over the stated time of release (sometimes by years). Crowdfunding is a potential source of funding, but the project will live or die on the level of interest and your ability to market your project appropriately for the medium. As with all things, project starters aren't just competing with others on crowdfunding sites, but all the other financial constraints and temptations in life. The newness is gone, in short, you have to earn your support!
Crowdfunding Video Games:It's important to realize that this kind of project is
all about the quality of the game
unless it is either a famous face from video game development seeking funding, it's a game from a genre that is vastly under-represented or there are collectible goodies which encourage funders to put down their money. Those who work with these can succeed.
Know Your Audience:Not only are you pitching a video game, you're pitching a particular type of game. In this case it's a retro-style point and click adventure game with an aesthetic that will mean little to anyone under 35 years of age. Ignition said something important:
Also, I didn't see the words "physical" in the post, so definitely not clicking it.
You've posted a retro-style game, on a collectors' site, and there's no physical option on your Kickstarter. A lot of the collectors here log Steam etc. games in their collections, but a lot of people here wouldn't touch download-only games, myself included. When the kind of game you're creating was released, there were no online downloads for games, physical was the standard.
Physical vs. Digital:There's a battle between project creators and backers - backers want physical games, collectibles, soundtracks etc., project creators want to issue digital downloads only. Physical costs the project creator time and money - they need designing, producing, packaging and mailing. In response to this project creators routinely do not offer physical rewards, but this costs them backers, and in smaller projects those backers may be the difference between achieving funding or not.
What We Know About Rite of Passage:It's a point and click adventure game.
It uses rotoscoping so resembles Out of This World.
The story concerns a man's self-discovery and dealing with the consequences of his actions.
It's episodic, with self-contained episodes which form part of a larger story arc.
We can see the animation and graphics from the video and images on the Kickstarter.
What We Don't Know:How large or small the game world is, how long it would take to beat the game.
Anything about the plot beyond the vaguest one-liner.
Anything about the game world. High fantasy? Low Fantasy? Are there any NPCs? What organizations and schemes are going on behind the scenes? Or is it just an empty game world?
Has Stranded Sail ever completed a game before?
..anything much beyond the graphics. There's just so little actually there.
You're Asking 5k not $5:It may sound snippy, but it really does bear stating. You're pitching for $5,000 and have made allowances for up to $40,000 of funding - this is not a modest sum. More than anything I'd suggest you stand back and ask yourself/selves if you've really written a Kickstarter pitch which would get that much interest and achieve that much funding. Countless other projects fall by the wayside, why is yours special? What are you offering? The first three tiers of backer rewards are the $1 attaboy and two levels of pre-order, they're safe bets and will probably net you the most support, but in order to really make them work for you you're going to have to treat the Kickstarter as if it's a request for between $5,000 and $40,000 and that you're asking strangers.
Money for Old Rope:The next tier of backer rewards ($15) offers a PDF of concept art. That means you're asking $5 for a digitally-transmitted file of images that are generated as part of the development process, from a game that nobody knows anything about from a start-up hobbyist/part-time studio that nobody knows anything about. Why is that concept art any more interesting than the millions of free images that google spits out with a few keystrokes? The next tier ($20), adds the first level from an unfinished previous project. Again, why is Stranded Sail's unfinished work suddenly worth money? Anybody can go to Armor Games or Kongregate and get access to hundreds of completed games for free! I can see that this is an attempt to involve backers in Stranded Sail's work, but without any history and any guarantee that you guys are going to continue after the project, why is that interesting?
Vanity Has a Time and a Place:Now it gets... painful. Vanity backer rewards are very patchy and to the larger part pointless. For $100, an extra $80, you'll list someone as executive producer in the credits. You're charging someone $80 for a few keystrokes, in effect. By the same token I should be billing you $5,000 for this post, at least. Now, back in the day, this kind of thing might have got some interest, but crowdfunding video games is old hat now. Again, why is someone going to be so driven by your project that they're going to give you $80 just to have their name on the credit roll? More likely, someone would blush if others knew that they'd blown that kind of money just on having their name appear tucked away in a small game project. Next up ($250), so another $150 on the table, backers get a T-shirt and a short message and their name attached to an in-game object. That's... not likely. To put it mildly.
Suggestions:Step back and take a long, dispassionate look at your campaign. Are you treating it like an event to raise thousands of dollars, really?
Involve your backers - add options to let backers create dialogue/objects/characters/areas through you to be added to the game - this can help raise funds.
Price vanity accordingly - the two vanity options are at least 4 times as much as they should be, in my opinion.
Consider physical rewards - it may be that they will simply be more expensive or time consuming, but you lose backers by not offering a physical copy of the game.
By the same token, a limited Kickstarter-exclusive boxed game will attract backers.
Give backers more details. If it really is just an empty world with the character wandering around, then big-up other aspects of the game, it just looks empty right now.
Stretch Goals:OK.. so why will it cost $5,000 to get the project out of the door with 2 episodes, yet each additional one will cost $10,000? Cross-platform support is good, but is mobile support more important to your backers than a more complete game?
I hope that's been of some help, the best of luck with your project and the campaign (and it is a campaign, don't just watch it like an Ebay auction for gawd's sake).
