Apparent Horizon !! Kickstarting Soon

http://kck.st/1qLkedw

That's the link to my kickstarter. I'll put a full link at the bottom for those who don't trust short links.

Apparent Horizon, where did it all start? The Big Bang some might say, to make a pie others would incur. But no, Apparent Horizon the original concept started way back in my 7th semester in college. A Unity project for a serious game about space and gravity, orbiting bodies and collisions. After that it took the form of an extremely simple prototype for my portfolio whilst I worked among people in the real world. (Currently working in my room in front of my screen.) However, around October of last year (2013) I was just finishing up the seasonal job I was working at, applications for companies out of state leading me nowhere due to being new to the industry and some spare time lead me to learn to self motivate and begin work on my own project. Initially it was called Project Rescue, for a game mechanic that is still in the game, but far from the main objective now.

Now, Apparent Horizon is a 4 player Co-Op Space Sim / Survival / Real Time Tactical game build on the Unity Engine using NGUI and Photon frameworks to help create it. The main objective of this Apparent Horizon is to manage your resources while working with your team to fend off onslaughts of enemy factions that find you a threat and want to destroy you. As you move through the waves and collect resources you have to upgrade / buy ships and weapons, use your extra ships as fleet members or drones to repair / mine / fight for you. The game will continue until all members have run out of spare ships and money to buy even the most basic of ship.

Players will be able to assist each other with buffs that range from weapon cooldowns to thrust boosters and debuffs such as EMP or weapon overheating. Watching each others backs while repairing or protecting the mobile base is imperative to survival in Apparent Horizon, especially as you progress into the later stages and ships begin to dwarf the moons and planets.

An Inspiration for Apparent Horizon was Katamari, the idea of feeling small compared and slowly growing larger, fighting enemies that vastly outclass you in both size and weaponry excites the mind. It makes a single player feel helpless but as a team you are able to overcome the odds and slice through a dreadnought that can shred a star.

Aside from assistance by a good friend Carina for some artwork and my cousin Will for sound I have been working on this entirely on my own. As much as I am in my mind and artist, I cannot for the life of me bring my 3D models or drawings to life on paper or on computer. All models in the video are currently free from Turbo-Squid and are to be replaced by those who I hire. I have most of the programming done so the artists can simply implement the art and I can add the scripts to them to make them work. Due to this the demo for the game has 1 tuned ship and 1 weapon modeled and ready to be used. While I do have the programming implemented for other weapons such as Graviton and Black Hole Missiles, things such as that, there are no models to support them. Demonstrations can be found on my Youtube Account and Twitter.


Website

http://www.apparent-horizon.com/

Pictures on my Twitter

https://twitter.com/HorizonApparent

Interesting Excerpts on my Tumblr

http://www.apparenthorizondev.tumblr.com/

There's a facebook too

https://www.facebook.com/ApparentHorizonGame

Full Kickstarter Link

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gibletgames/959403679?token=fe9778d5

Some Alpha Images Below

 

TBH with you, since i'm the only person commenting, this GAME F*** ROCKS! But I see 2 years of development here, so I'm going to be the first person to say this is a lost cause. Have you considered joining a game dev group so you can get your first game off the ground instead of coming up with this "MMO OMG THE MOST AWESOME GAME eVER CREATED CONCEPT EVER IN THE HISTORY OF GAMES" mindset?

 

You might want to make the kickstarter more attractive with images and videos...

 

I moved this to the "Gossip" section. Also, what's with all the F words here? "Fukk Lickstarter Link" and "this GAME F***ING ROCKS!" .... please do yourself a favor and keep it clean here.

 

Agreed... it doesn't convey any sort of professionalism or instill confidence. Why would someone want to fund your Kickstarter if you don't seen to take it seriously?

 

I think, maybe, he fat fingered 'Full K'.

As for the Kickstarter itself, I have to agree with the others that for as much as you are asking for you need to polish it up. I would suggest making a shorter video. Use a larger monitor showing the game in the background. Show the game more with voice over. Show scenes of you and three friends playing it multiplayer and having fun. Use a more professional background. Try for some better lighting for the video. Dress up a little more, not saying you should wear a suit and tie, but a collared shirt would go a long way in making think you were taking this seriously.

Good luck.

Edit: Also, I find it harder to back a Kickstarter when they've never backed one themselves, but that's just me.

 

Ahh... "Full Kickstarter Link" is probably what it was meant to say. Makes sense.

 

Oh and your wording for the Kickstarter perks is wrong.

It's actually supposed to be "Everything Above".

 

No surprise it's at $0. This doesn't look like something people would want to pledge towards.

 

It's at $0 because it is just a draft. It isn't live yet.

 

I agree. People get vastly more excited when they can see some cool gameplay videos with cool graphics. Grab some inexpensive space assets from the Unity Asset Store and dress the existing game up as much as possible, so the videos are more compelling. For example, maybe build a few scenes using the "SPACE for Unity - Space Scene Construction Kit" asset:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/7095

 

- Kickstarter video is a bit long.
- It is usually a red flag too me personally when I see someone talking bout the game before showing me footage

- Like someone said above. You haven't backed anyone. I overlook this in rare cases for established devs (like Harmonix-Amplitude). But for indies I like to see a history of backing projects. Now- this probably not a big deal for your average backer though which usually come from outside of kickstarter. Honestly, I ideally want any project I back to have backed someone else. Going forward I expect to not back anyone at all who is not backing anyone else (even if they are established). We will see though, sometimes I'll make a rare exception if the kcikstart looks really GOOD

- I understand you looking for Artists (whole reason for the kickstart) but you still will probably want to invest some money into getting some decent Art to get going. It takes money to make money; they say. Btw, the screenshots above look good. Problem is your video is so long and we never get to see that stuff in the first 2 mins. If you don't grab people fast they will bounce

- I watched the video for bout 2 mins before losing interest. Need to get some gameplay or something 'catchy' happening at the very beginning

- Good idea to gather feedback before going live!!

 

You could use some assets from the asset store then get it replaced with better art later on. I agree with the other people -- spend a bit of money, get some halfway decent art so it looks okay. It costs money to make money, spend a few hundred bucks on it -- especially if you spent 2+ years development time on it.


Now just because you dont have any art doesnt mean you cant show the gameplay prototype. There is some gameplay at the end of the vid -- but i dont think most people keep watching until then. Personally i would like to see the gameplay in the background the whole time while your talking over the gameTake a look at TB's 'content' patch to an idea of what I'm talking about, you have the gameplay in the background while your actually talking about your topics with the bullet points as you are your talking

 

You should add a skybox representing stars to your game it will make it look better significantly and it shouldn`t cost you much

 

Good luck with it. You'll need a miracle to raise $44,500 and I don't believe in those.

 

Have One, disabled it for programming /' debugging purposes.

As for the Fukk Lickstarting, I must have typo'd during an edit? My apologies. It was an accident. One key to the right apparently.

I've seen miracles before.

Unfortunately I'm out of money and have $39,000.00 in tuition loans to pay off. Life.

That's what I'm working on, I do have videos but as far as I can tell you can only have one on Kickstarters page. I would love some really cool assets to show off awesome explosions but I don't have the money or capacity on my own to make extravagant art.

Please use your imagination as to what happened for a second. Fukk -> Full (k->l) is one key. Lickstarter once again K to L was my finger being offset and I didn't catch it.

As for "This game F***ing rocks" I did not post that, it was someone else. It does not deserve to be in gossip so I request you place it back in the Showcase. I actually have a demo I just have not released it as I'm reworking the U.I. for non-programming / debug purposes.

 

MMO concept what what? All I'm creating is a 4-player co-op game. And it's 7 months development.
Also the the massive amounts of enemies on screen is only for tech demonstration purposes. It shows that I have programmed and optimized the game to handle upwards of 300 enemies with multiple weapons all working together at once.

 

Well if your that far in debt whats a little more.

 

Right. Doesn't work like that.

 

A lot of kids now are graduating with 100k+ in debt from our glorious schools in America, since a lot more parents can't afford to pay the tuition. Gotta love starting your life with that much debt.

 

I would have had $60,000+ but I was working while going to college and my Father helped pay rent.

I dunno, it got me into what I wanted to do, and I love doing it. I have no problem with it as long as I can get somewhere with it.

 

I don't see any problem with swearing. It's part of real world language.

 

Before asking anybody to donate to your project, you really need to spend a little bit to dress things up. Even if you only spent $100 to $200 on art assets at this point, it would help quite a bit.

 

please lets not attack about money. People do kickstarters for a variety of reasons.

I have to agree with other posters in the current form it has very little chance.

 

I'm considering it. I'm also considering cutting the entire project development in half art content wise and lowering the the Kickstarter to about $18,000.

I could release the game with no art and it'd still be the same game. We are all critics here I know but even with placeholder are people have been telling me they want to back me and it looks good.

 

On the plus side, I think you have a good on-screen presence because you managed to hold my attention for the entire length of that video.

But I don't think the average Kickstarter user will be so tolerant. I think you'll benefit a lot more from showing actual gameplay rather than talking about it. I also think that most of the successful Kicstarter videos I have seen have been under two and half minutes. You might want to aim for that,

I personally would count on only 10% of those pre-pledges coming through. People are like that, unfortunately,

 

Okay, I'm going to make a big-ass post because your kickstarter is kinda ugh but the game itself seems rad as heck so I don't really like the idea of the kickstarter failing, so hold please.

 

Just gathering the general feel for those who check out my game. I don't actually expect any of them to pledge but it's a good indicator of how they think the game is.

holding.

Yeah Initially I had planned 80 ships to give the players a huge array of experimentation but cutting it down to 35 isn't too bad either. Stretch goals could extend it to 80-90 or higher. I'll cut ship classes in half to accommodate the full game experience. In the end there will be shorter overall games but that's fine.

 

WHOOPS I kinda forgot this thread existed for a minute.

Okay, so the game itself looks awesome. I'll say that outright because I'm rarely so easily impressed. That said, it looks awesome to me as a designer but not as somebody who will actually pay money for a kickstarter. A lot of this has to do with the presentation of the game itself. So, how can you fix this?

1. Turn the skyboxes on in your video. They may be disabled for testing reasons or because you're going to be implementing some cool new skybox tech and that's fine for internal testing. It isn't so fine for trying to get people to think your game won't look like an unpolished mess.
2. Put a bit of flash into your visuals. Nothing disingenuous, mind, just something that'll make your game look like something approaching the final product. Your planets look like they're using the default Unity diffuse shader? That's... really no good. Here's a simple planet shader demo I knocked out in a half hour or so. It's not great, but it's a far sight better than the Unity diffuse shader. Here's the shader file itself and the settings I used for it. You're welcome to them if you'd like. It's designed with Unity Free in mind.
3. You're not Tim Schafer. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's something to keep in mind. Because you're not a big game personality, you should save your "who we are" bits until the text after the video. First and foremost, you should be putting your game up front.
4. You aren't bad looking, but your lighting disagrees. I don't know what your shooting situation is like, but with a bit of work, you can make everything look a lot more clear without having to buy any lighting equipment. A handy guide for this can be found here.
5. Your in-game chase camera is not very pretty. This isn't really a kickstarter exclusive problem, but it is something that makes your gameplay less pretty than it should be. Consider having your chase camera follow the velocity vector of the ship rather than just being a child and following the transform of the ship.
6. Oil your chair or find one that doesn't squeak. Your microphone seems to be omnidirectional, so it's picking up every little sound, including your computer fans and everything else. Not everyone has the spare cash lying around to buy a new mic, so just put some WD-40 on the problem areas or something.

Really, that's about it. The game looks great, it just needs a little spit and polish before the kickstarter goes live.

 

Yeah, unfortunately all the filming equipment was taken out from my girlfriends college when we did it, they didn't have much but it's all gone now that she graduated. They didn't have a green room or anything because it was an intro course and the follow ups were sent to MIT (would you know that expensive smart schools work together?) for the rest of the courses. I can edit the video and try to remove some of the sound via cuts but that's what I have. I won't get another chance at it.

 

Oh and yes, they are default as I haven't had anyone make any new textures for me so I didn't go crazy with it. It's more for me to get a visual of how I want the game to "look feel" when it's finished.

 

Again, DON'T DOWNPLAY MY COMMENT... it is super intuitive. I'm telling you, from a programming perspective, what I see here. I in no way downplayed your game or your work involved, in fact, everything I said was, OMG, this is an insane game! It must have taken 2 years to build! (right? being that it only took 6-7 months, then I am impressed) =D

Reread my comment. I hope you enjoy. and also, best of luck to you, you created a great new idea.

 

I don't know you said it's a lost cause. Maybe a typo somewhere in there? It sounded like you liked it, then told me it was going to fail. Then alluded to the MMO craze out and about right now.

But thanks for the compliment though it was rather confusing.

 

Actually it does. What matters is the income coming in to cover the debt (debt-to-income ratio).

Looked at your kickstart page and still notice you haven't backed anyone. All it takes is $1. Kickstarter is a community. Granted, the large bulk of backers will come from elsewhere. But other kickstarts can still send some of their customers your way.

What's that proverb? It's all about who you know...

Btw I did watch the whole video (this morning). Really wished you started off with the game footage. All you needed is a space skybox and the scene would look so much better

I'd redo the video. Just FRAPS the game and talk in the background. In an update, perhaps show the other video to your backers if you still want to use it

edit- Btw, yes it is true everyone is a critic. Never ran a kickstart myself but I've backed 38 projects. The most smooth kickstarts are the ones that either ran by folks that back others -OR- they have mad street cred (like Harmonix). But you are not Harmonix so you need to mingle. Participate in some kickstarts and then launch. Of course you can just launch now, see how many donations come in, and just relaunch later. DON'T CANCEL THE KICKSTARTER once it begins. Let it run its course. The biggest push occurs at the end of a kick. If it fails, you readjust to that amount

 

I agree it always looks better when the person has backed others. If I was planning to kickstart I would def. make sure I have backed some. It is like you are asking for help but you don't want to help anyone else.

 

Why didn't you do the aiming similar to what Freelancer had? Now it looks like what SW:TOR had in space combat missions, but in reverse - you can fly wherever you want, but the aiming will be done automatically.
Also listen to what the other guys said: more game play - less talking, skybox, back a few other guys before starting the campaign.

 

Static weapons as I call them are manually targeted and fired based on what type of weapon they are. Are forward or backwards mounted and can be turned on and off.

More gameplay coming soon.

Skybox is in.

I have backed kickstarters before. Much love for PA.

 

But kickstarter says that you haven't backed anyone...

 

According to your video, it looks like you pick the target for the weapons, and then the weapon automatically fire at the target, which will be ultimately boring in the long run.

Anyway, it looks quite good considering it's a one man show. Good luck!

 

@twinnuke - keep up your motivation and hard work. The game looks very impressive and I hope it reaches production. I would back the game (not sure of the amount) but the kickstarter site says it is not live. Do you know when it will be?

 

Well that's awkward...

 

Yeah, I made a new account for my own company. As I want everything I do for the game to tie right into Giblet Games and all emails get sent to the proper email address. Kickstart has been around since before the conception of my game, as has PA Kickstarter.

 

Im spicing up some of the graphics before I go live. Making more videos to show it off as these fine people suggested. I feel they are right.

 

Then as far as anyone backing you is concerned you haven't ever backed anyone else, so you shouldn't really claim otherwise since there was no reason for you not using the normal account.

 

Most people actually don't give a S*** if other projects have been backed.

 

[edit] You say you modified the skybox. Perhaps you'll update the post. Good to hear you've taken the criticism/advice to heart! Looking forward to seeing the results

@Murgilod, Yeah the majority of your fans will come from elsewhere. I have read not much traffic comes from the site itself. You'll notice on huge projects that gets over 50k backers the vast majority have never backed anything else. So they wouldn't ever care to visit your profile

However some backers give a ton more money then others. I've seen some claim to have given thousands (to one project). God only knows what criteria these cronic, high rolling backers require. I'd imagine looking at your backed projects is one of them

There is an Artist I back regularly and I tend to give him more because I know he actively supports others. Sometimes one backer can make a huge difference

 

Original Post has new pictures for everyone.

Trying not to mix business with personal. That way when I check my giblet games email I dont have anything mixed with personal and so on. I also have different bank accounts, cards and other things linked to each account. So if you haven't done something this before please don't make accusations.

 

Understandable, yeah i'm not too worried. I want to make a great game. Whether not I back someone / something else won't affect how I make my game. Though early access bonuses will certainly slow my progress as I play them.