Information Telepath Tactics Alpha Demo Available

[felipepepe]

mana

In the demo it is advantageous to skip your first 3 turns, with no drawback for doing so. (Enemies already in position will have full resources by the time you reach them anyway.) Do you plan to address this? Why not just start with full mana to save the hassle?

That's another point, since there is no long range threat in the map, there is no reason to rush... and the grouped enemies even allow you to fully stop for 2-3 turns after every group fight to recharge your party's mana. Hell, you can even fully heal everyone if you want.

 

[J1M]

mana

In the demo it is advantageous to skip your first 3 turns, with no drawback for doing so. (Enemies already in position will have full resources by the time you reach them anyway.) Do you plan to address this? Why not just start with full mana to save the hassle?

That's another point, since there is no long range threat in the map, there is no reason to rush... and the grouped enemies even allow you to fully stop for 2-3 turns after every group fight to recharge your party's mana. Hell, you can even fully heal everyone if you want.

The relative safety available could be an unintended consequence of his goal of permanent death for party members. Leads to lower difficulty, etc.

 

[Craig Stern]

That is correct to a limited extent. The campaign is Fire Emblem style; death is permanent and you can't hire replacements for anyone you lose, so most missions are designed to be completed without casualties if you play well. That said, this is an early mission; enemies are given lower stats and are missing key abilities (such as Shove--maybe I should add that in for this one). Anyway, I wouldn't consider this map representative of the difficulty of missions once the main campaign kicks into high gear.

 

[J1M]

Things are not looking good for this now. I'm curious as to why people think that is, because I the pitch video's only real misstep was mentioning that some of the money would be used for marketing.

 

[Jaesun]

Nothing wrong for using money for marketing.

 

[Craig Stern]

Things are not looking good for this now. I'm curious as to why people think that is, because I the pitch video's only real misstep was mentioning that some of the money would be used for marketing.

Honestly? It's hard to say; my guess is that it might be a couple of things.

The biggest issue has been getting sites to cover it. RPG Codex and a lot of smaller sites have been pretty good about writing blurbs about the campaign, though only IGM has done a preview, and no site has yet to do an interview about it. Meanwhile, sites with lots and lots of traffic haven't touched the thing at all. I only just got RockPaperShotgun to finally mention TT in the middle of their Kickstarter Katch-up on Saturday (which caused donations to start pouring in again for the day or so that it remained on the front page, though that stopped once it dropped off the page). As you might imagine, it's hard to get a lot of traffic coming to the Kickstarter page without outside help, and a reticent gaming media doesn't help much with that.

Also somewhat problematic is the fact that the project hasn't attracted any really big backers thus far. There are currently a grand total of 2 backers above $100, which surprises me. That's certainly not something I have ever seen happen in a successful Kickstarter campaign. I'm not sure if I just haven't made the higher reward tiers attractive enough, if the sRPG genre is not popular enough among older demographics to attract pledges from folks with a lot of disposable income, or if there simply aren't enough people out there who know me well such that they're willing to invest large amounts in making this one happen. Possibly a combination? *shrug* I'm just guessing.

 

[J1M]

Nothing wrong for using money for marketing.

I agree, the cost breakdown was refreshing and transparent. I still think budgeting marketing causes some people to withhold their pledge.

 

[Mother Russia]

Things are not looking good for this now. I'm curious as to why people think that is, because I the pitch video's only real misstep was mentioning that some of the money would be used for marketing.

Honestly? It's hard to say; my guess is that it might be a couple of things.

The biggest issue has been getting sites to cover it. RPG Codex and a lot of smaller sites have been pretty good about writing blurbs about the campaign, though only IGM has done a preview, and no site has yet to do an interview about it. Meanwhile, sites with lots and lots of traffic haven't touched the thing at all. I only just got RockPaperShotgun to finally mention TT in the middle of their Kickstarter Katch-up on Saturday (which caused donations to start pouring in again for the day or so that it remained on the front page, though that stopped once it dropped off the page). As you might imagine, it's hard to get a lot of traffic coming to the Kickstarter page without outside help, and a reticent gaming media doesn't help much with that.

Also somewhat problematic is the fact that the project hasn't attracted any really big backers thus far. There are currently a grand total of 2 backers above $100, which surprises me. That's certainly not something I have ever seen happen in a successful Kickstarter campaign. I'm not sure if I just haven't made the higher reward tiers attractive enough, if the sRPG genre is not popular enough among older demographics to attract pledges from folks with a lot of disposable income, or if there simply aren't enough people out there who know me well such that they're willing to invest large amounts in making this one happen. Possibly a combination? *shrug* I'm just guessing.

Don't worry Craig. You can always pitch again, but this time with a full working DEMO available at the outset on the front page of your kickstarter pitch and mentioned in the video. As a backer, I would want to see what cool and awesome abilities my characters can do, so maybe have a high level mission in the demo with high level characters with cool abilities.

EDIT: Your Telepath Psy Arena game had a great trailer that showed off awesome abilities the telepaths could use (teleporting behind and enemy and attacking, using mental projectiles, etc etc) . The only reason I never bought and played it is the perspective: Top Down is NOT my thing, sorry. It is also why I never bought the full version of Telepath the RPG, even though I played the demo years ago. The damn perspective. This game however has a much better perspective...

 

[Craig Stern]

Thanks, MR! That's not a bad idea. Maybe I'll design a second, high level mission specifically for the demo.

Yeah, everyone hated that visual perspective! People still complain about the graphics in Telepath Tactics, but it's down from 4 out of 5 people to, like, 1 in 4.

 

[Infinitron]

Rampant Coyote interview: http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=5285

 

[Craig Stern]

Telepath Tactics is part of the way through its last day of crowdfunding. I could run my mouth about it, but this latest update has all the pertinent info. Of greatest interest to the folks here, perhaps, is this tidbit:

On a more mundane note: I've continued pressing forward with development, restructuring the way that dialog is formatted in Telepath Tactics to accommodate future support for multiple responses in dialog. In short: branching dialog and branching campaign support is just on the horizon!

Combine that with the tactical combat and mod support and...well, you get the picture.

Right now, we have 801 backers pledging $17,210. Pretty spiffy! Unfortunately, that leaves us a little over $8,000 short with 8 hours left to go. To my mind, there are a few possible scenarios that could play out here:

(1) A bunch of new backers flood in and help us make up the difference;
(2) Some wealthier backers who've been holding back decide to pull out the stops; or
(3) We fall short and I run a second campaign in a few months.

In every one of these scenarios, getting more backers right now is legitimately helpful. "Why is it helpful for me to back the campaign if it's going to fail?" you ask. Good question! The short answer is, it'll help me organize a tremendous push at the very start of the next campaign if this one falls through; that, in turn, could lead to the campaign meeting its goal early, which tends to lead to a virtuous cycle of media coverage and more backers.

TL;DR version: if you haven't backed the game yet, now is the time!