Kickstarter Help Wanted the move Epic Game Ever!

How's it going everyone!

I'm your host from Thundercoast and today I need your help to help me fund for this game development process! Check out this video below, it explains at least 50% of the campaign and also check out the game link for you to test out the demo and give me feedback!

Epic Video Here:

Epic Demo Here:
http://www.thundercoast.com/age-of-epic.php

Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/462237704/age-of-epic

Cheers guys!

 

Okay, so... here we go.

• Your title screen appears to be totally different from the actual gameplay you show in the video. The title screen suggests at best a Korean rip-off of Clash of Clans, while the video looks closer to one of those Tiger handheld games...
• Wait, is that actually the game? Or was that just an animation suggesting what kind of stuff would be in the game? It's not good that I don't know this for sure.
• Your KS video also was clearly done with your laptop's webcam, which suggests a lack of professional quality that deters backers from parting with their money.
• You also appear to be loaded up with cocaine while ranting about your game. This may not appeal to normal humans.
• Your video is loaded with copyrighted material you obviously don't have rights to use. This is against the law and also Kickstarter's rules.
• You have two tiers of backer rewards: $2 to be listed in the credits, or $1000 to be a king in the game. I think this problem should be fairly obvious.
• You're asking for $7,238. Why? For what?
• Under Risks and Challenges, which you've totally misused just like every other game KS out there, you mention that you've made "hundreds of games". Your website lists one (which is Age of Epic, the game you're indicating needs people's money in order to be made). You also use the term "we" without indicating who "we" is. If your company is a one-man operation, that's fine, but you should indicate that. Otherwise, it comes off as being misleading.
• You have no social media presence I could find. In fact, other than a thread on the WIP forum from SUNDAY, I can't find any mention of your game anywhere else. Not having a following before launching a KS campaign is the best way to ensure your campaign won't succeed.

I could go on, but I need to go heat up my lunch first.

 

You know a Kickstarter campaign is going to succeed when there's no game play video and screenshots.

 

Well, I got a screenshot.



One question.

Have you ever played warcraft 3?

 

That's actually at least a good game to be mimicking! I wonder why the marketing angle seems to suggest more CoC, then...

And strange that the title screen shown doesn't look anything like the actual game...

 

Wow you guys are vicious! holy cow! haha thanks for all your feedback! Well if you want a list of games I've made I have resume I use to get my clients for work. If you would like to see it I have a link below!

Resume:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/experienced-game-designer.353038/

I don't have footage of the game although I do have the link posted everywhere for you to play the demo.
http://www.thundercoast.com/age-of-epic.php

My website was built in a day. Definitely needs more work!

Of course the game looks quite different, compared to the main picture, As a one man team it is difficult to update everything at once! The game constantly updates which is why it looks different. Also it's very common to have the preview image different from game play, it is a strategy almost like clickbait.

And yes I look very excited in the video!

I've never played warcraft 3! The goal of the project is to have this type of game free for every device available. Some people can't afford 60-70$ on big games like warcraft, this one is free where you can be a casual player.

Sometimes you would like to just access the internet and play a relaxing game without any installation required, this is the purpose of the game.

Whenever I want to play a game like age of empires on my android phone, I get clash of clans which is a terrible representation of what I want to play. This is why this game is special. A PC game for the android device.

I've gotten flagged for the music in breaking rules of course!

The amount is at 10k because I need the funds to work on this full time, to get the right equipment like a nice camera or have a nicely done website. It's the entire purpose of kickstarter!

Also I'd love to post more pictures on kickstarter! but they only allow for 1 image. Unless I'm missing something somewhere.

Thank you very much for your feedback!! this was very useful indeed!

Social media is done through forums, I've posted this all over the place.

 

It is $9.99 currently from battle.net store. The game was originally released in 2002.

If you're making strategy games, it is something worth playing. Along with Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War and such.

 

On that page you have 22 games listed (not hundreds), one of which is this unfinished games. I only clicked on three of the links, but each was published by a different developer. If you were contracted to do partial work for those games, it's good practice to indicate exactly which portions you worked on, not claim credit for developing the whole thing. Likewise, to list on your Kickstarter that you've "made hundreds of games" suggests you completed every aspect of those games, which is giving a false sense of comfort.

That's what I was trying to say. If anything is in the "needs more work" stage, you're not ready to launch your Kickstarter campaign.

Why do you need a nice camera? How would putting the money towards a website help the development of the game? The purpose of Kickstarter is to receiving the funding you need to complete your project, not just use that money for things you want.

I've never launched my own campaign, so I don't know what to tell you other than I've seen tons of campaigns with tons of pictures on them, so you're probably missing at least one thing.

Like I said, I saw the one thread here in WIP, and it was started a few days ago. Even if you were only trying to draw other Unity developers to your campaign, this is not enough.

 

I felt like your Kickstarter video was a lot like this :

 

Haha Rombie! That's funny I never noticed that haha! Schneider, I really appreciate your effort and comments! don't worry the money is going to a good cause to make this work. Of course getting a nice camera would help since you told me my quality was bad and it would make people ignore my post! Every bit helps, even a nice website. Thank you for your feedback!

Also posting the entireeeeee list of games I've worked on would be too much for the forum page, Of course I don't post everything...there's simply too much! I only post my recent work. I've made "Monts Online" an MMORPG 5 years ago, but I'm not going to post that because it's extremely outdated.

And yes this is all contract work, I've done all the games from start to finish, which is why the publishers are different.

I really appreciate your effort for focusing on my case so much! Thanks bud!

I don't need to show you the other threads I've posted, I'm trying my best to make this work. We all have to start somewhere haha.

neginfinity: I'll definitely check out warcraft 3(2002)! I want to get to know as much as possible to make this new 2016 game better. Of course It would be nice to hire an artist to do the work as well, My graphics aren't the best but they pass. Most of my efforts is done through the programming.

 

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't touch your app with a ten foot pole if my only impression was that it's a CoC clone. But when you get in the meat and potatoes, if this plays anything like StrongHold Crusader, I'd buy it. I'm not really sure what the gameplay is yet, but I can say I strongly appreciate the lack of IAP.

I didn't mind the high energy of your video. Reminds me of most viral youtubers.

 

Hi Voltage! The concept is to clone Warcraft or age of empires, empire earth! Abosolutely!!!!! thats the point, you cant play those games on mobile devices or simply just on a web browser...you need to buy one copy and play it on one machine. the goal is to make a free game that you can play on mobile because the games these days dont let you play this kind of Warcraft or age of empires, empire earth game on android or iphone...its sad, this is why Im making it! Please invest! This needs to happen!! and thanks for the comment about my video haha

 

Sorry mate. Tried running your demo on Chrome and Edge with no luck. The video didn't really show me what the gameplay looks like or what you can do in the game. All I know is that it's an RTS. Does that mean I have to wait 50 hours for a building to finish, etc? I think I'd be more willing to put money down if you had a video that explained to me what this game is with content and not words.

Best of luck though, I'll keep an eye on this.

 

Absolutely not! the goal of the game is to play an entire round from start to finish in an hour. build a base gather resources, and build a town army attack and defeat the enemy in one go. just like age of empires, or empire earth. clash of clans takes a billion years to upgrade a town center...this game is all done on the fly in one night.


NOTE: for some reason unity cannot create a webplayer functional for chrome, theres nothing i can do. it is just a demo for you to play its not meant to play on the web but more for mobile

 

I'm still not clear on one thing: the camera. If I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that if your campaign is successful, you'll use that money to, among other things, buy a nice camera so that you can... make a better Kickstarter video?

I'm critical in these kind of posts because it seems to be that you, the creator, are too emotionally attached to see your product the way I see it as a consumer and your potential backer.

 

The money will be used to provide, focus on the project, whether it's a camera, a website, an artist, music, sound effects. The faster I get this funded, the sooner i can get this out to the public. My goal is not to buy a camera...To build this game for you guys. Just like if you were hiring an artist to work for you...you are paying for his food, his rent. youre paying him to create something for you. simple as that. its nothing selfish...you are providing for a service for me to make something for you. simple. you said my video looks like low resolution and that turned you off, well hey a tip from your comment will surely force me to get a better camera. it wasnt my intention to do that until you told me my video looked bad. If I had the money to get a good camera...i wouldnt be doing kickstarter in the first place. Kickstarter is for people who have no money to support their own project, otherwise I'd get a loan from the bank and pay for my own food, and roof over my head. Kickstarter is a service to help raise money to give me funds to get this project going and finished. of course the graphics looks bad and the gameplay sucks, thats why your comments are so important to me! thats why i value them!!!

 

You can insert images into the project description. Definitely do this, because as it is now I have no idea what the game looks like without visiting an external website (and most people will likely alt+tab long before they do that).

Also, the video quality could probably be improved a fair bit with just better lighting and having the laptop raised so your not looking down at it.

 

You are asking people to give you money. The onus is on you to prove you are worth it. At the moment I'm with pretty much everyone else on the thread. I have no confidence you can get this done. Judging by the number of backers you have gained pretty much everyone else feels the same.

You want to export your demo as a WebGL. WebPlayer hasn't worked on modern browsers for ages.

 

Unity's Webplayer is being discontinued. Most major browsers (ie Chrome) have discontinued plugin support. Use WebGL.

 

I had no idea about the webgl! Thanks for that! I guess I do learn something everyday thanks guys! Also I can understand why you guys have such a harsh way on going about these types of forums especially when money is involved. Thanks for all your feedback though! I will always appreciate ever bit of it

 

Anyone else get a weird feeling that OP is a fake? Says he has worked with all these companies, but no real proof of work on anything. I even went on his resume site and clicked on "see cory artwork" and it just links to this game now. Just seems suspicious?

Especially when OP is clearly a graphic artist from looking at resume and art is very much lacking.

 

• I cant even view the video on Youtube due to copyright. I can still watch it on Kickstarter but that is obviously a very bad sign for the validity of the project.
• The video is short on information (it doesnt even clarify the game's genre, "Strategy game" alone doesnt descibe that) and seems to aim to create hype with easily excitable individuals, ie children with credit cards. Naturally it'll get flack on a developers' forum since it targets a completely different audience.
• It looks like a CoC clone but in this thread i find out that it's intended to be a traditional RTS.
• The video is well made for its purpose i think, kinda to be the PewDiePie of Kickstarter.
• The USP isnt bad to have the game be completely free. But how believable is that? It's not unheard of for Kickstarter projects to change to a far more aggressive monetization model once they got the money.
• Cloning 10 year old games that people can buy for a few bucks might not be all that exciting to most people. Especially since your demo looks far worse than those 10 year old games and will not include the story stuff (cinematic cut scenes etc).
• Your challenge section in Kickstarter is unrealistic:
  • Your demo seems to have no AI (i tried the demo with FoW and the AI made 2 workers and never sent them to work; Then it didnt do anything).
  • It doesnt seem to have any kind of networking implemented.
  • Thus, with 10k$ the main challenge doesnt seem to be to optimize the game for mobile but to make the game in the first place. How much monthly wage do you plan to pay yourself and how long do you think it'll take you to make the game? How long till it's playable and how long until it could be considered a clone to the games you intend to clone?
• Aside from the art which i suppose is original, the demo could be entirely from an asset i would guess. Not saying that this is the case but it doesnt seem to go further than what one would expect from an "RTS starter kit" or some such.
• Do people really want to play a traditional RTS on mobile? The games never even made their way to consoles.