The Meme Team (South Park Inspired Mobile Fighter)

Hello All,

The Meme Team is a mobile fighting game that makes fun of internet memes, stereotypes, and social groups in modern american culture. Please see my kickstarter preview for more info.

Also, if you have any feedback, questions, or comments then feel free to reply here or on the facebook page. Thank you for your time!

 

You can get in a lot of trouble with this.
You are required to give backers all the rewards you promise them. So if I donate 25$ you have to make sure I get a back rub from Pamela Anderson and if I donate 100$ you have to give me your house and car.

 

@DonaldTheDeveloper

TBH the whole concept looks pretty bland.

I don't like South Park nor have I watched it that much but I don't see the connection here, I just see pretty generic and paper thin simplifications of "memes" and conspiracy themes that are not even very up to date... Illuminati and area 51 stuff seems pretty used by now don't you think? And you don't add anything to it already... and oh, adding "Nazis and Jews" into soup... you'll have a nice foundation for problem generating perpetual motion machine there.

I hope this doesn't sound too brutal, but that's how I see this.

If you try to make use of controversial subjects, better make it work properly and make it clever, now it seems material you provide only seems to benefit from shock value (Put a swastika there and a hexagram), instead of showing effort (visuals, concepts and so on.)

 

Yeah, get rid of the joke reward items.

I am a fan of South Park, and I also don't see the inspiration represented here. South Park is successful because of its cultural poignancy and super up-to-date observations. That's why it's made every week and not a year in advance.

Like @eses says, your "memes" are not only outdated, they're not even really memes so much as a collection of old jokes and stereotypes. While I despise Internet memes more than almost anything, I can see potential for a game that receives regular and frequent updates to include characters with actual meme focus, like Harambe, Joe Biden, etc. There's a certain group of people who just love meme culture and would eat that kind of thing right up.

However, you have to be very careful with monetizing this kind of thing, as it's very easy to infringe upon someone's rights to usage of their creation or likeness. Just something to keep in mind.

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As far as the other parts of your campaign go, I'm always underwhelmed by the defined goals and budget, and the same applies here as well. You suggest a $1000 goal, but the first stretch goal of $2500 says it'd provide concept art for 2 of 6 fighters... So if you meet your $1000 goal but not the first stretch goal... what exactly do you have?

Your budget is divided entirely between buying asset packages and art. This implies that none of the money is going to you (conceivably, the developer) as compensation for your time to, you know, develop the game. Which means you're either working on the game in your spare time (which is bad because it suggests a long development schedule) or you're just planning on working on it with no income (which is also bad). In other words, it's not a realistic budget.

Keep polishing the idea, though, and rethink your budget and actual financial needs. And figure out how you can have a silly idea but execute it seriously.

 

I know you are looking for Concept Artists to help develop your ideas momentum, but I have to agree with ^eses that it looks super simplified and not adding anything beyond just throwing all these thin descriptors in a pot and hope something fun will come out of their already well squeezed essenses. There is definitely potential in the concept of meme+team, but the description reads like an exploit without too much love for the characters, but maybe that's more a question of concept maturing?

 

Thank you all for the feedback. Here are some of my questions:

• So, does this concept seem to have more potential if simply fleshed out more? The goal of this Kickstarter is to simply develop enough money simply to create a prototype but it seems as though Kickstarter is used for funding full production of games not small demo even if I present good enough concept, mechanics, etc.
• One more concept behind this is the character simply being a "ragtag group of misfits" meaning that because i am low budget i and simply throwing together references of things that I deem funny. Should I shift more towards this "high concept" and take away the tagline "inspired from south park, memes, stereotypes"?
• What input can you put into using references to memes, other games, and people likenesses in this game? This is in a legal sense since I dont want to get sued for using references to Harambe, Donald Trump, or Ted Cruz (Zodiac Killer)..

 

Just scrap the idea all together

 

Eeek, I didn't even notice this before. If that's your goal, just cancel it now. I see plenty of full-game, highly ambitious and well-thought-out projects fail to get funded, and I can't imagine enough people being interested in helping get a prototype built. I know it's not how the concept originally started, but Kickstarter is now perceived as a way of pre-ordering a product. No one wants to buy a demo / prototype. That's something you need to build on your own time and money.

This suggests to me that one of the biggest problems you're going to run into is creativity and humor. Do you really find the idea of an alien anal-probing his opponent funny beyond the initial chuckle of picturing it in your head? The Nazi rabbit seems like a clumsy rip-off of the South Park forest creatures combined with... just being a Nazi. What about that is clever or funny to you? (I honestly want to know, because I don't get it). Likewise, the level: Area 69. At best, I feel like that gets you a single smirk from most players. Maybe an actual laugh or two from your most immature players. But beyond that, I don't see a dancing CIA agent, a reference to Illuminati, and a jumping Humvee to be all that entertaining.

Honestly, it feels to me like someone over the age of 50 had watched a few of the earliest episodes of South Park and browsed 4chan 10 years ago and decided to make a game that would appeal to "the youths." It's not what I consider humor, but rather a collection of things that may have been considered shocking or irreverent a decade ago, but today are so tired and overused they hold no comedic value at all.

Because I don't like to poop on other people's ideas without providing any of my own, here's something to consider: step back from the meme thing a bit and try to develop some ideas that are funny just on their own. Taking your rabbit character, let's drop the irrelevant Nazi part and just have him be a bunny. It's a common misconception that rabbits love carrots. Rabbits don't naturally eat root vegetables, though, and too much can make them sick. So our rabbit eats only carrots and gets horribly sick. Maybe he's anemic and pukes on his opponents when he's had too much. Okay, it's not great, but at least it's original!

My point is you need to massage some ideas until they develop into something that is actually funny. That's what Trey Parker and Matt Stone do to create South Park scripts, so you should draw more inspiration from their process and less from their product.

As a legal question, you're better off researching this on your own. No lawyers I know of hang out here, so all any of us can do is Google it just the same as you can. The general rule is that satire is acceptable use, but it can get very hairy if you're not careful. In all honesty, though, you have to be successful in order for anyone to even care about suing you, and I just don't think that's a problem you're going to have with this game for a while. Use whatever you want and worry about removing stuff once it catches fire.

Good luck! Don't give up!