Game News Dead State Kickstarter Goes Live

[Jaesun]

In the middle of E3? You learn nothing from Custom Robo Annie?

E3? More shitty fucking copy paste cover shooters?

 

[Excidium]

Graphics are fine, just the animations that seem waaay too slow. The way the guys take their sweet time raising the weapons to shoot is kinda annoying to watch.

In the middle of E3? You learn nothing from Custom Robo Annie?

E3? More social games and xbox TV entertainment?

Fixed.

 

[Bulba]

First, why the hell Iron Towers or Age of Decadence are not mentioned at all, even f`ing once?
I know that forums are mentioned (again without even mentioning Iron Towers), so some people will notice something but what the hell?

We’ve assembled a team that has come from the indie (part of our team comes from Iron Tower Studio, creators of Age of Decadence - a turn-based RPG), modding, and professional scenes –

Oh hey great, you mention it once. Way, way down and in a rather neutral, unclear manner. No links to anything... no personal IT dev details stating their previous experience...accomplishments.... links to AOD demo....

Great job.



Second, rewards for higher tiers should be more juicy. At least for 5 gees people should get a whole ally NPC i think.
Make him or her a simpler one, doesnt matter.
Youre not going to get many of those anyway.

1000 and 2000 rewards are not juicy enough, give people at least a fully named and personalized zombie or non-ally NPC for chris sakes...

500 is atrocious.


Who is doing your PR guys?

Why should they mention AoD? I've played the demo for 5 min and the game is banal shit... and the camera o_O. Of cource they don't want to assosiate themselves with such crap.

I must agree with you on the rewards - was looking for something to tempt me to plege more than 15 but... nothing.

 

[Excidium]

Oh boy.

 

[Executer]

Suggested they move the PDF to $30 and adding beta access at $50, since they're really not keen on doing box sets.

 

[Jaesun]

They also should support Kicking It forward.

 

[deuxhero]

In the middle of E3? You learn nothing from Custom Robo Annie?

E3? More shitty fucking copy paste cover shooters?

During E3, there only one thing game related a lot of your audiance is paying attention to: E3, even if it is a horrible E3 like this year or last.

Custom Robo (GCN) was released in the US during E3 and sold poorly as a result, and thus never got a European release or the popularity it deserved.

 

[Jaesun]

In the middle of E3? You learn nothing from Custom Robo Annie?

E3? More shitty fucking copy paste cover shooters?

During E3, there only one thing game related a lot of your audiance is paying attention to: E3, even if it is a horrible E3 like this year or last.

Custom Robo (GCN) was released in the US during E3 and sold poorly as a result, and thus never got a European release or the popularity it deserved.

People that play shit fucking games from AAA Developers are Dead States target Audience?

 

[deuxhero]

In the middle of E3? You learn nothing from Custom Robo Annie?

E3? More shitty fucking copy paste cover shooters?

During E3, there only one thing game related a lot of your audiance is paying attention to: E3, even if it is a horrible E3 like this year or last.

Custom Robo (GCN) was released in the US during E3 and sold poorly as a result, and thus never got a European release or the popularity it deserved.

People that play shit fucking games from AAA Developers are Dead States target Audience?

They aren't the only people that watch E3.

Also Dolphin does Custom Robo just fine now. Go get them and play.

 

[Executer]

Even some of the gaming media don't seem especially excited by this years E3, I suspect Dead State will get enough coverage (well, all it was going to get anyway).

 

[Marsal]

Well, this kickstarter turned out a lot better than I was expecting considering what's been shown of the game so far.

This will have no trouble getting funded. The game itself sounds very ambitious, meaning it will probably either be awesome or horribly broken if it doesn't turn out to be vaporware. Don't let us down, asshole.

Best case scenario: Arcanum. Good game, shitty combat that undermines everything else. Except in Arcanum you at least had well made world with interesting conflict between magic and technology. Here you have fucking zombies. I think 150k is too much. You could buy a kidney in Greece and still have enough money to make a game with that amount of money.

 

[deuxhero]

Even some of the gaming media don't seem especially excited by this years E3, I suspect Dead State will get enough coverage (well, all it was going to get anyway).

I know, like last year E3 is LAME.

Wonder if Nintendo (Space) World (if it even happens last year, its never a consistent thing though it generally does coincide with console hype, but last years was a glorified press conference), +TGS will be better...

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Backed!

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Thanks to the backers! You folks are awesome Please, spread the word - everyone on the project would be insanely grateful if you did! :D

RE: hiver - we love the Iron Tower folks! There was concern that if we directly mentioned Iron Tower in the video that we would confuse people as to who was spearheading the project (and the Iron Tower guys on the project are getting funded through their DoubleBear work). Anyone following either us or AoD knows we're bros, and we'd never want to slight Iron Tower, ever. We tried to streamline the video as much as possible and get across the high points, which is also why Brian was talking rather fast - there's a lot to say!

RE: Marsal - actually, $150K was, when we crunched the numbers, our bare minimum. We have to account for taxes being taken out, salaries, expenditures for art and tech, and emergency funds (such as the OH FUCK ME MY COMPUTER EXPLODED situations that have actually happened before). As said previously, RPGs take a LOT of time to make, and nobody's getting rich off of them here - for just $150K split among the staff, it's the minimum amount of what everybody can get by on - that's part of how we got the goal we did. People are putting up adventure titles for $350K+, so we figured $150K was a reachable and inoffensive goal. And again, we're aiming to make the game MORE than what's usually put out there by the "zombie genre" - if it doesn't appeal to you, I won't begrudge you for not pledging. I hope you find something out there you're more interested in, and show it love.

RE OTHER STUFFS: We were iffy on being like HERE IS A NPC WHAT IS YOU because doing liknesses AND identities is actually a huge legal nightmare, and we didn't want to either murder our art staff with the work or turn it into KICKSTARTER BACKER CAMEO: THE GAME! Also we've paid really close attention to other Kickstarters, and the "here are special weapons!" tier actually was taken down on several other Kickstarters because it received a lot of flak. We'd love to include neat stuff, but those are part of our stretch goals* - instead of making them restricted to pledgers just at that tier, we wanted to make them available to everyone if we were given the time to invest in making them.

More physical items as rewards is appealing, but when I looked into the possibility for several, it's a huge kick in the proverbial nuts. The cost of creating the items on top of the shipping fees destroy so much of the profit in the contribution that the ranking would have to be ridiculously high to make it worthwhile... which wouldn't make sense in the end as far less people would be willing to invest at that tier, and seeing appealing seemingly-cheap incentives included at super-high tiers would make people actually MAD about the whole thing. A lot of times, Kickstarters that have a shitload of physical incentives (posters, coffeemugs, merkins, etc) are seeing a lot of that profit funneled away into having to create and ship those items, and not actually putting those funds into making their game.

As always - PM me if you have questions OR just ask em right here and I'll get them answered. And HOORAY, OUR GAME! :D

*also we haven't listed our stretch goals yet because it seemed kinda presumptuous to do it so soon. Hopefully we'll have the wherewithal to do so before long...?

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Also, SerratedBiz - good catch and guilty as charged! Seriously, for the amount of times I've heard higher-ups say "make 'em fight a helicopter!"... it would be funny if it didn't make me scream inside so much.

 

[SerratedBiz]

I guess some people actually enjoyed Die Hard 4 and its wacky, taxi-wielding ways.

Good stuffs in any case, hope to see more gameplay videos.

 

[Brayko]

Backed.

loljk

 

[Executer]

Hey Annie, maybe give Iron Tower/AOD a plug after the Kickstarter finishes? Reach more people, and annoy/confuse them less.

Hope you guys consider the idea to include beta access at the $50 tier. Might help get a more polished demo out there (more pre-orders), knock out more bugs, and get more people on that tier (hopefully pros outweigh cons on this idea).

If you do that, consider the PDF at $30 or some extra digital incentive at the $30 tier.

Kicking it forward might also be a good idea, but I can't say how many $ if any the goodwill will turn into.

Best of luck with the kickstarter.

 

[RK47]

.....a little bit too much glut on kickstarter of late. And getting the product a year later... hmmm.
But I like the graphics. They look well-polished. Not too brown either.
Subject matter seems interesting too. Here's to a good release! I'm in.

 

[Marsal]

RE: Marsal - actually, $150K was, when we crunched the numbers, our bare minimum. We have to account for taxes being taken out, salaries, expenditures for art and tech, and emergency funds (such as the OH FUCK ME MY COMPUTER EXPLODED situations that have actually happened before). As said previously, RPGs take a LOT of time to make, and nobody's getting rich off of them here - for just $150K split among the staff, it's the minimum amount of what everybody can get by on - that's part of how we got the goal we did. People are putting up adventure titles for $350K+, so we figured $150K was a reachable and inoffensive goal. And again, we're aiming to make the game MORE than what's usually put out there by the "zombie genre" - if it doesn't appeal to you, I won't begrudge you for not pledging. I hope you find something out there you're more interested in, and show it love.

I'm sorry for being a wet blanket, but I'm almost certain the combat (including stealth and "interaction with hostiles") will be a plodding, clunky mess, based on the Kickstarter video and the fact you inherited the engine from AoD. You seem to promise X-COM combined with Fallout , I see another Storm of Zehir, a mediocre game with some good ideas.

You (the team) seem to be focused on other aspects of the game, the whole "humans during crisis" thing, which is great, if there was no combat or if combat was marginalized. IMO, you're making the wrong "type" of game. Just like AoD is a text adventure game with stats, that would have been drastically easier and faster to make (not to mention better), were it mostly 2D screens combined with occasional 3D (or even 2D isometric) combat.

People will again be surprised when they realize they aren't getting a "real RPG", just like with AoD. You may think you're making something awesome, but without a solid core gameplay mechanic, it's all just fluff. I can't see anything in your game (other than combat) that could be that core mechanic.

Again, look at Arcanum. It does many things right, but it is all sabotaged by that horrible combat system. Most of the skills and items revolve around combat. Why would I be excited by finding parts for a new weapon and learning disciplines that enable me to craft it, when I just want the combat to end quickly, so I can move to better parts of the game?

People are putting up adventure titles for $350K+

Are you implying that adventure games are cheaper/easier to make than RPGs?

 

[RK47]

...*reads marsal's post*

Shit. Is there a combat video or demo of sorts?! I'm kinda worried it'll turn out like AoD. I didn't like that one at all.

 

[Brother None]

Launching this during E3 really isn't well-timed. Sites are inundated with coverage, even though this E3 is relatively devoid of RPGs and very rote and boring, even those of us who have a special place for Dead State (like GameBanshee, Rock Paper Shotgun) quick have to push it down with other news. I dunno if RPS has even posted it yet, and they're the biggest around in this field.

They also should support Kicking It forward.

They really shouldn't.

 

[kaizoku]

You (the team) seem to be focused on other aspects of the game, the whole "humans during crisis" thing, which is great, if there was no combat or if combat was marginalized. IMO, you're making the wrong "type" of game. Just like AoD is a text adventure game with stats, that would have been drastically easier and faster to make (not to mention better), were it mostly 2D screens combined with occasional 3D (or even 2D isometric) combat.

People will again be surprised when they realize they aren't getting a "real RPG", just like with AoD. You may think you're making something awesome, but without a solid core gameplay mechanic, it's all just fluff. I can't see anything in your game (other than combat) that could be that core mechanic.

*mmm... not sure if trolling. I guess I should post a clarification since there's someone wrong on the internet.*

People are putting up adventure titles for $350K+

Are you implying that adventure games are cheaper/easier to make than RPGs?

ok, that confirms it

 

[Mangoose]

People are putting up adventure titles for $350K+

Are you implying that adventure games are cheaper/easier to make than RPGs?

How the fuck did you reach that conclusion based on what was said?

 

[CarnivalBizarre]

Backed with 110 jewgold.