Zaharia [Turn based indie RPG]

[OwNathan]

The second update is out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/199630513/zaharia/posts/754154

 

[DaViLLaN]

Backed. Good luck. Might throw more as needed.

 

[OwNathan]

Thank you!

 

[hivemind]

Made a combat/speech character.
Died in the second fight.

 

[Abelian]

Backed. It has very good and atmospheric music.

 

[OwNathan]

The second update is out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/199630513/zaharia/posts/754154

The stealth system will work in real time, allowing the player to precisely move his entire party, with the aid of a pause button. Positioning is of primary importance during stealth, because guards and enemies will have a view cone, affected by the lighting, being in the cone may lead to a fight and will allow the guard to call for reinforcements. The player will be able to enter in stealth mode every time and everywhere, in this mode there will be many different interactions with the environment, it will be possible to hide in some special areas (e.g. behind a curtain or in a wardrobe), to do various silent actions (e.g. slowly opening a door) or to silently dispose of an opponent.

Ok, this sounds good. Is stealth a character skill? What does it affect?

Most stealth is linked to the sneak skill, that affect things like the footsteps' noise, we'll speak about all the skills in a future update.

And this update is dedicated to you!

 

[Donaroriak]

Backed! Gogogo fellow Italians. If you need help proofreading updates and copy, drop me a line at [myusername]@yahoo.it

 

[MessiahMan]

I pledged at the alchemist tier because your game sounds awesome, then I played your demo. Upped my pledge on the spot for your super special collector's box. You guys have things going here.

 

[hiver]

It would be good if you would release a little bit of writing. A situation in a quest line, dialogue, responses from an NPC.

- oh yeah, i guess some of it can be found in prototype... - havent tried it yet myself.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It would be good if you would release a little bit of writing. A situation in a quest line, dialogue, responses from an NPC.

- oh yeah, i guess some of it can be found in prototype... - havent tried it yet myself.

Trigger Warning: Translation refinement in progress.

 

[hiver]

I would guess, yeah.

OwNathan

seems this update is garnering much more positive comments and reactions, eh? Keep up the good work.

 

[Essegi]

Update #7
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/199630513/zaharia/posts/767062

What now?

The Kickstarter campaign didn't go well, despite all the positive feedbacks we received we weren't able to properly spread the word about Zaharia.

What will happen now? We don't know yet, we're currently searching for an alternative solution and, if we find something, we'll let you know through our social pages (Facebookand Twitter). We knew that Kickstarter was a risk, so we're not unprepared for this scenario.

We worked a lot on Zaharia, so we can't simply cancel the project, but we don't want to ruin the project with a cheap development that will only lead to cheap results. It would be horrible to cut most contents to release a soulless, anonymous game, both for you and for us.

We want to thanks all the backers for the support, we loved to share Zaharia with you and we hope you will continue to follow and support us.

OwNathan, imho you should try again campaign later (not now of course). I hope current campaing has spread the word so next one will do better (and i'll back again of course!).

Demo is good, i'm really looking forward to see full game!

 

[Drew]

I hope you'll keep us updated here, OwNathan.

 

[OwNathan]

I hope you'll keep us updated here, OwNathan.

Sure, even if we suspend the development of zaharia for a smaller project, we want to develop a game with rpg features like dialogues and choices. I like this community, i found some of the best criticism here.

 

[StaticSpine]

I hope you'll keep us updated here, OwNathan.

Sure, even if we suspend the development of zaharia for a smaller project, we want to develop a game with rpg features like dialogues and choices. I like this community, i found some of the best criticism here.

It'd be great if you go the Early Access way.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I hope you'll keep us updated here, OwNathan.

Sure, even if we suspend the development of zaharia for a smaller project, we want to develop a game with rpg features like dialogues and choices. I like this community, i found some of the best criticism here.

But it's easy explained why You have failed. Bad video, asking for to much. I actually knew the first day You started campaign that it will not end well. And do not suspend Zaharia. Demo is excellent. Wait some time. Improve pronunciation, make a good quality video, lower Your goal to 60 k $ , rest of the money can be acquired through Early Access, also remember that having backer shop open after the kickstarter can bring you some extra coins (PoE had acquired few hundred thousand dollars in a year). You can also publish Zaharia in a two parts.

Have You ever though about having a celebrity developer aiding Your project? Like MCA designing few quests or a area? (look how he helped FTL for free). Fargo supported Your project, he may lend You somebody for a week or two. Your project is interesting and original and I can see why some designer can be attracted to it.

Before starting Your second campaign return here and show us pitch video. Had You did it before, You would save some tears.

 

[Zombra]

Or, just speak in your native tongue and subtitle. Your target audience knows how to read.

That could work. Or simply hire a guy with a better command of spoken English to "front" the project. Your English is comprehensible, but you don't just want comprehensible; you want dazzling. I wasn't dazzled by the pitch video, and the reason was the thick accents. Maybe it makes me a bad person, but I'm uncomfortable when a speaker is difficult to understand. I tend to tune out, and I want the conversation to be over as quickly as possible. I believe that this is a major barrier - perhaps the major barrier - for this project to get widespread support.

Also: backed. I want to be sure I'm on the mailing list

 

[OwNathan]

I hope you'll keep us updated here, OwNathan.

Sure, even if we suspend the development of zaharia for a smaller project, we want to develop a game with rpg features like dialogues and choices. I like this community, i found some of the best criticism here.

But it's easy explained why You have failed. Bad video, asking for to much. I actually knew the first day You started campaign that it will not end well. And do not suspend Zaharia. Demo is excellent. Wait some time. Improve pronunciation, make a good quality video, lower Your goal to 60 k $ , rest of the money can be acquired through Early Access, also remember that having backer shop open after the kickstarter can bring you some extra coins (PoE had acquired few hundred thousand dollars in a year). You can also publish Zaharia in a two parts.

Have You ever though about having a celebrity developer aiding Your project? Like MCA designing few quests or a area? (look how he helped FTL for free). Fargo supported Your project, he may lend You somebody for a week or two. Your project is interesting and original and I can see why some designer can be attracted to it.

Before starting Your second campaign return here and show us pitch video. Had You did it before, You would save some tears.

It's not that easy, my friend. I agree with you about video, and I agree the goal was high, but the costs are high too. Do you want to play the classic "good ideas bad results" game? I don't think you want to play a Zaharia with horrible graphics, poor choices and 15 hours of lenght, and we don't want to do such game. Now we're gonna try to find an investor, if we don't find any we'll develop a smaller game to let us fully develop Zaharia. In any case, we don't want to cancel Zaharia.

For a future KS campaign, we will use all the suggestions we received and it will surely have a more realistic goal, we only have to find investors.

 

[StaticSpine]

@OwNathan
Bro, how's greenlight?

 

[Mortmal]

I hope you'll keep us updated here, OwNathan.

Sure, even if we suspend the development of zaharia for a smaller project, we want to develop a game with rpg features like dialogues and choices. I like this community, i found some of the best criticism here.

But it's easy explained why You have failed. Bad video, asking for to much. I actually knew the first day You started campaign that it will not end well. And do not suspend Zaharia. Demo is excellent. Wait some time. Improve pronunciation, make a good quality video, lower Your goal to 60 k $ , rest of the money can be acquired through Early Access, also remember that having backer shop open after the kickstarter can bring you some extra coins (PoE had acquired few hundred thousand dollars in a year). You can also publish Zaharia in a two parts.

Have You ever though about having a celebrity developer aiding Your project? Like MCA designing few quests or a area? (look how he helped FTL for free). Fargo supported Your project, he may lend You somebody for a week or two. Your project is interesting and original and I can see why some designer can be attracted to it.

Before starting Your second campaign return here and show us pitch video. Had You did it before, You would save some tears.

It's not that easy, my friend. I agree with you about video, and I agree the goal was high, but the costs are high too. Do you want to play the classic "good ideas bad results" game? I don't think you want to play a Zaharia with horrible graphics, poor choices and 15 hours of lenght, and we don't want to do such game. Now we're gonna try to find an investor, if we don't find any we'll develop a smaller game to let us fully develop Zaharia. In any case, we don't want to cancel Zaharia.

For a future KS campaign, we will use all the suggestions we received and it will surely have a more realistic goal, we only have to find investors.

OwNathan ,it would be nice if as smaller project you could do something similar to king of dragon pass . It requires 2D art , lot of dialogues , choices and consequences , things that you are obviously able to make . This will probably cost less than full 3D game with tactical combat. The goal of 120k$ was unnatainable for beginners , no shame into that.

 

[OwNathan]

I hope you'll keep us updated here, OwNathan.

Sure, even if we suspend the development of zaharia for a smaller project, we want to develop a game with rpg features like dialogues and choices. I like this community, i found some of the best criticism here.

But it's easy explained why You have failed. Bad video, asking for to much. I actually knew the first day You started campaign that it will not end well. And do not suspend Zaharia. Demo is excellent. Wait some time. Improve pronunciation, make a good quality video, lower Your goal to 60 k $ , rest of the money can be acquired through Early Access, also remember that having backer shop open after the kickstarter can bring you some extra coins (PoE had acquired few hundred thousand dollars in a year). You can also publish Zaharia in a two parts.

Have You ever though about having a celebrity developer aiding Your project? Like MCA designing few quests or a area? (look how he helped FTL for free). Fargo supported Your project, he may lend You somebody for a week or two. Your project is interesting and original and I can see why some designer can be attracted to it.

Before starting Your second campaign return here and show us pitch video. Had You did it before, You would save some tears.

It's not that easy, my friend. I agree with you about video, and I agree the goal was high, but the costs are high too. Do you want to play the classic "good ideas bad results" game? I don't think you want to play a Zaharia with horrible graphics, poor choices and 15 hours of lenght, and we don't want to do such game. Now we're gonna try to find an investor, if we don't find any we'll develop a smaller game to let us fully develop Zaharia. In any case, we don't want to cancel Zaharia.

For a future KS campaign, we will use all the suggestions we received and it will surely have a more realistic goal, we only have to find investors.

OwNathan ,it would be nice if as smaller project you could do something similar to king of dragon pass . It requires 2D art , lot of dialogues , choices and consequences , things that you are obviously able to make . This will probably cost less than full 3D game with tactical combat. The goal of 120k$ was unnatainable for beginners , no shame into that.

I like how you read my mind, but I'm actually trying to understand if it's something profitable enough to proceed in developing something else. I can't find sales reports of similar games.

@OwNathan
Bro, how's greenlight?

Above the average, the comments were 90% positive and it's a pretty good thing, because on KS you see only backers opinions, on Greenlight everyone can leave a comment.

 

[Mortmal]

I like how you read my mind, but I'm actually trying to understand if it's something profitable enough to proceed in developing something else. I can't find sales reports of similar games.

Only info i can get is the wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Dragon_Pass said it costed 500K$ to make, wich seems a little too high to believe ,sold 8000 on PC and 30000 copies on the IOS . No doubt you could do as well a viable multiplatform game , anything can run those kind of games from tablets to pc.

 

[OwNathan]

I like how you read my mind, but I'm actually trying to understand if it's something profitable enough to proceed in developing something else. I can't find sales reports of similar games.

Only info i can get is the wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Dragon_Pass said it costed 500K$ to make, wich seems a little too high to believe ,sold 8000 on PC and 30000 copies on the IOS . No doubt you could do as well a viable multiplatform game , anything can run those kind of games from tablets to pc.

Thank you, that can be useful!

 

[hiver]

Kickstarter can seem so easy when someone with a lot of reputation, connections and hype does it.

Not going to give smartass advice now since another attempt is long way away, but do come around when the time comes and we will all help to dissect and disembowel your next opening pitch.
Stick to your guns now guys. The best in the field all had moments exactly like this and hey wouldnt have created masterpieces they eventually did if they didnt survive through it.
OwNathan

 

[Copper]

The problem with a King of Dragon Pass type game is buying all the art - they had a system where external freelance artists gave them the pencils, and the art director inked and coloured everything I believe. Art costs can mount up, but you don't need to pay tax on employees at least, and can pay a far lower (fair) wage to people in developing countries, so long as your main artist can unify everything together.

Of course, how well tactical combat will work in this engine is another question.

I fear the day I'll have to brave Italian corporate law, but could you not set up as a partnership with contractors and avoid paying employees that way as well? Or do you prefer the security of a limited company in case you get sued by enraged fans?