Last Week To Become A Backer
Jul 28, 2016
We're going to be cutting off the ability to back Thimbleweed Park on August 7th, so if you want to help support the game and (maybe) get some cool stuff (or just feel awesome about yourself), time is quickly running out.
A huge huge round of thanks to everyone who backed Thimbleweed Park during the Kickstarter and after. The extra money really has made the game better.
But, as we're getting closer to shipping, it's time to end the fun, wrap the game up, and release it for everyone to play in early 2017. It seems like forever, but it's only a few months of panic, fear, and stress away.
We want to reiterate, backing is not a pre-order. If all you want is to pre-order the game, then we suggest waiting. We have not set the final price for the game and it might be less than our lowest backing tier. What backer support does is help make the game be the best it can be, by giving us extra money to throw at art, music, animation and programming.
Thanks again to everyone who supported and made Thimbleweed Park possible. Even if you couldn't or can't afford to back the game, your enthusiasm has also been invaluable.
- Ron
how many pages will have the 'making of' pdf and what infos will be put in there?
Thank you very much, I can't wait to enjoy TP™!! ;)
So excited for the game! I remember when I was in first grade and bought MI1 when it just came out, after having played Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken (and not understanding half of the jokes in them), I dreamed of being an AG developer and helping to work on a game with or for you one day. I can now say that as a backer, that dream has kinda now come true.
It feels great to have supported this project.
Honestly, I had dreamed of your return to this genre for so many years, since the whole point & click genre declined bit by bit after you guys had left LFL in the 90s - and who'd have had thunk that you'd eventually make this dream come true - especially with our involvement? It's still unbelievable!
(Oh the irony, i'm typing this comment and not wanting to add the address to back jejeje)
Regards from Argentina
Saludos desde Capital Federal
Argentina!
I just received my Thimbleweed Park t-shirt today :-). It was a delayed due to high demand, how many did you sell of these?
/Kim
please please please, add the blinking to the mouse cursor just like on MM / Zak etc!
Thanks
Antonio
Ce sera un plaisir d aider pour les tests de la version française.
Bye
PnC Fantastic French Gamer ☺
*10/10 great campaign owner, would back again
The engine works pretty ok actually (using Lua to interface/script with it). Also got a neat story written for a big part.
Still hope to finish our game some time (probably/hopefully when I finally have nothing else to do in the old people's home and I still remember the concept of point 'n click after years of life replacing/enhancing/sucking/pimpin' VR and augmented reality).
Anyway, can't wait to see the game and thanks for the inspiration!
Part 3 of dialogue with the dialogue engine code I hope to put up in... well hopefully this year
Daniel Wolf - Feb 21, 2016 at 15:08
http://dannad.de/xchg/doornail2.mp4
The official repo is here: https://github.com/DanielSWolf/rhubarb-lip-sync
Michael Hoffmann - Oct 07, 2015 at 17:03
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--qapXeS0s1M/Vg0-8q7ElDI/AAAAAAAAETk/5Qfdf9TLFzc/s1600/Radiostation_HD_final_JPG_title_4000p.jpg
6 years ago today, an unknown japanese software house, published his first game.
A game of a new genre: a visual novel with an horror plot, but with scientific notions, puzzles, multiple bad endings and a good ending.
The player gets involved, his decisions determine the course of the story.
The game sells a few units in the first week. Then it sells a lot in the next 4 weeks, in Japan. Then it sells hundredfold all around the world, it becomes popular, fans all around the world starts to translate it in their language, independently and for free. It's a success, within one year.
So, on the wave of that success, the author started to plan the sequel.
Two years after, he published the game. More innovation, better graphics, 3D support, more interactive puzzles.
But it sells less than expected, especially in North America and Europe, while in Japan is still a bestseller.
At that point, the author (who had in mind to make a trilogy), stops.
But. The game was incomplete. It left many open points. Many people expected a third sequel!
And here comes the magic.
Many fans, all around the world, started a forum where asked aloud to produce a sequel.
They where from Japan, America, Europe and other parts of the world.
In 2015, in response to high demand from the series' fan base, the author decided to produce the third chapter of the novel.
And in June 2016, the game was released, at the same time, in japanese (voice, text and graphics) and in english (voice, text and graphics).
One month has passed, and as far as I know, selling of the first week are good, worldwide.
It's a true story, I can tell you the name of the author, the software house, the game trilogy and the discussion forum name, made by fans.
What I am going to tell you, is to listen to your fans.
They are the thermometer that could let you decide to make an investment or not, aside the previuos selling datas.
If there are a lot of requests, you have a high probability to make a lot of selling.
Then they launched a successful Kickstarter campaign and released the game on Steam Early Access which allowed them to hire a few more full-time employees. All that time, they ran a forum and kept in touch with the fans of the original game and the backers (like me) of the Kickstarter.
The biggest difference, of course, was that with an ARPG there wasn't too much worry about giving the story away, so they released the game in incremental updates that expanded the world bit by bit and gave people stuff to kill - which is of course something that's probably prohibitive for a narrative-driven adventure game... :/
I guess what I'm trying to say is that some types of game are easier to run Kickstarter campaigns for than others...
I won't say that. It depends on how much people know about such Kickstarter. From what I see, there were a lot of people not knowing that you are making a new game and doing the Kickstarter. And there are enough potential backers for a (big) adventure game out there - look i.e. at the Double Fine Kickstarter. :) And if the people see that you are able to build a realy good adventure game, they are willing to throw more money at you. ;)
Another way is a mixture of financing a new adventure from the sales of the existing game and a kickstarter. The Makers of "The Book Of Unwritten Tales 2" and "Broken Sword 5" did that: The money from their Kickstarter was "just" used to made the game bigger and better.
btw: Thanks for the kickstarter, the game and the blog post. Even the latter one was/is the money worth. :)
But, if the game doesn't sell well, you shall use Kickstarter again and just try to enforce higher prices there. Your team is worthy of an adequate salary!
If the game grips you emotionally like Tale of Two Sons, or Undertale, that's going to get your game famous in these days. A lower price, helps, too. Now I do not mean to say that you should undersell.
To me this is a triple A title, you see. If this game were sent back through time, you'd never see the end of fans trying to have your babies. To replicate this today, your game needs to stand out. It does, to me. I hope it sells SOOOO much more, but fingers crossed!
But it has potential, the production quality is high and it will be released on many platforms, including consoles. It's also a type of game which should work well on mobile platforms.
Visibility on the market with all those indie games out there is of course a problem.
This is NOT a triple A game since the only definition of triple A is having piles of money to put into production values and incredible huge marketing. It has nothing to do with the quality of the actual game.
Also, I think, it's important to advertise the game at the same time when it gets released - not only before the release, because consumers tend to forget about advance notices.
It might be difficult to establish the selling price. If I remember correctly, the DOTT Remaster and the MI Special Editions were sold for less than $ 20 when they were released, while TP is an all new game, not any Special Edition. The puzzles, characters and rooms need to get created, tested and improved, which costs time and money. Therefore, in my opinion, TP shouldn't cost less than $ 20. Though, I barely know the present game market.
Most important for supporting the game: Don't pirate the game, not even for your best pal!
I do hope it sells well. But even then I wouldn't mind a Kickstarter even at a later state of production to just add some more money to the budget (like The Book Of Unwritten Tales 2 or Giana Sisters did).
That enthusiasm of old, it's still with me, and I hope it spreads like wildfire when the game is out. The adventure! A genre many haven't looked at in far too long!
I've already played some of the old SCUMM games with the ScummVM app for Android. It works fine. Though, I've thought about the control. I may have been okay with playing such games on a touchscreen, but there are also some bluetooth gamepads for smartphones on the market. Therefore, seeing that TP will be optimized for gamepads anyway, it might be a good idea if it supported gamepads on smartphones as well.
By the way, as you know, digital distribution services use to impose a comparatively high percentage of the volume of sales for transaction fees. For all I know, Apple and Google are the biggest profiteers on the Pokémon Go hype. The software distribution market is actually an oligopoly nowadays. In my opinion, you should pass on these costs to the customers. That is to say that the price should vary, depending on the fee of the particular store. I'm not a marketing expert, but, of course, you need to get a reasonable amount of yield.
$160 is quite a lot. If I would know how it looks (cover art) I would probably buy one... :)
Will Thimbleweed Park have retail copies? And will THAT have a collections box as well? Because yeah -- do want! Can't afford the kickstarter one, but if it is going to have a RETAIL collectors box .... I'm all over it. I'll be the standard retail version too.
Will there be a Friday Questions podcast, this month?
My coworker quitted and I am without a partner...
We're now entering an age where game designers are garnering a following -- I'm not saying it didn't happen before, but rather that the intensity of fandom is increasing as information is flowing at a faster pace and the publishers are receiving less credit for being a loan shark (ahem... investor). Until crowd funding started, there wasn't a direct way to "support the artist". Only games put out by publishing houses were economically viable previously.
Similar to the struggling musician's plight. For the musician to earn any money, a record deal wasn't enough, as the RIAA and record labels had too much power and too great of an interest in the earnings. An artist needed to take the show on the road, and sell a LOT of records to be successful. Millions of albums had to be sold to pay off the label and start earning a positive income. Similar to how individuals have to pay down the interest on their mortgage before ever making a dent in the principle.
All of that was a long-winded roundabout way of saying I'm glad we got to support Ron and team on this project, and I hope that we will continue to be offered other opportunities to support the artist in the future.
If you happen to need voiceover in English with Spanish accent (or directly in Spanish or Catalan) let me know. I'd do it for free just to be in this awesome project.
Looking forward to getting stuck in the game!
1) are you enjoying this direct channel with thevusers? I remember reading in your blog that if you ever made another MI, you would have been MIA for certain periods of time during development
2) Why not asking more money in a future kickstarter? I assume now you have a better idea on what should be needed for a game with the quality of Thimbleweed Park - or would you prefer a conventional publisher?
2) Think about it like this: If the Thimbleweed Park does really well, we'll just fund a new game with the profits. If the game doesn't do well, it's hard to convince a lot of people to back another game. If Thimbleweed Park does well, you'll probably see another point and click from me, if it doesn't, it's unlikely I will make another one. They are a ton of work. I will never do a game for a publisher.
Sorry to be blunt. But them the facts. Just like everyone else, I need to pay my rent and eat. Both Gary and I took a huge risk making this game, it's not something we can afford to do again.
The second part of that sentence makes me a little bit sad.
From my point of view the Kickstarter was a huge success: You got $626,250 from 15,600 Backers - for an adventure game that looks less good than the current version.
I bet: If you are doing another Kickstarter with a higher goal, you would still be succesful. And what would you lose? If a Kickstarter with a higher goal fails, the game won't be made. If it is a success, you have the money.
But, I don't expect Thimbleweed Park to be a failure. I don't make games to fail, I make them to succeed. We've raised additional money from angel investors to do sales, marketing and PR. This isn't a game we're just going to throw up on Steam and hope it does well. "Build it and they will come" is naive and not our plan. Expect Thimbleweed Park to be marketed and promoted like a "real" game.
Yes, that's true. But it's "only" time. And you have already a community. I assume that at least 2/3 of the people who backed Thimbleweed Park will back another game by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick *instantly*. :)
"If the Kickstarter fails, you've invested months of time even before it launches."
I will pay your rent in these month.
"Expect Thimbleweed Park to be marketed and promoted like a "real" game."
Ok, that makes me a little less sad. :)
After that period, everything is possible...
I do really hope that this game will become a new classic, and there will be another adventure from you and Gary, with a dev blog as awesome as this one!
I can't wait spending my money on it and doing my part that you and Gary can go on.
Regards
Joakim