Wiz Bang, Streaming Along
about 6 years ago – Tue, Feb 04, 2020 at 07:44:09 PM

Wiz Bang, Streaming Along

You all rock! I’ve made just one announcement about BackerKit, and more than 90% of you have already answered your surveys. Of course that still leaves 150 backers who need to give us your information. It’s a huge help to us if we get all the responses quickly!

Here’s that link again: https://summerdaze.backerkit.com/

Getting all the surveys in will let me send out game keys (for the Summer and Winter Games tier), set up Discord privileges, and plan ahead for ordering t-shirts and other rewards.

Join Us On Discord and Twitch

Speaking of Discord, come join us there for great discussions and more frequent updates. Here’s a permanent Discord link for all backers: https://discord.gg/Z7dp47M. I still need to assign the #heroes role to premium backers; I’ll get that done this month, hopefully after more survey responses are in..

Lori and I have been doing live streams on Twitch on selected Saturday afternoons. These take some preparation time, so we aren’t doing them every week. The streams include Q&A, trivia contests about our games, puns, raffles, and story time. As promised in this Kickstarter, Lori does live readings of chapters from her unpublished young adult fantasy novel (with Mishell Baker), “How To Be A Hero: By the Book”.

Our next stream is the day after Valentine’s Day, Feb. 15, at 3:00 pm PST (Los Angeles time). Lori will read chapter 11 of By the Book. Follow us at https://www.twitch.tv/transolargames to keep up with all of our streams. We also host other great gaming channels when we aren’t streaming.

Project Progress

We are making progress, although there is a long way to go. Corey was ill all of December and into January, but is doing much better now. He’s now catching up with a backlog of administrative and family tasks. Lori has been focusing on art direction, putting dialogue crafting behind schedule. We should be able to catch up with everything, but that can be a challenge with a small team.

Recently we’ve emphasized the animation and mini-games, including jumping ahead to the Ifeyo side of the game. Ifeyo’s story includes a really cool game centered around improving his magic spells. There are also challenging sequences where he can use those skills to help defend Hero-U.

The Wiz Bang Game

Wiz Bang is an arcade-style game that has the Wizard student choose from three different spells to interrupt incoming magical objects. This is a Wizard Class activity designed to improve a student’s magical skills as well as the student’s reflexes.

Different objects are affected by different spells. The student uses his or her Incendia, Frigida, or Fulmen spells to destroy Fireballs, Comets, and Meteors.

For both Tilly and Ifeyo’s games, we have been adding background animation to give a little life to the scenes. We are also finishing the special ending scenes for all the possible conclusions to the stories.

Next up for our artists are the backer portraits for the game. For some of our Kickstarter Backers, we will have their images in the game. Some will be in the finale scene of the Harvest Festival, illustrated by JP Selwood. Others will be in the end credits, drawn by Al Eufrasio. Expect to see a wide cast of interesting characters - our fans are very creative.

If you chose either the final scene or end-credit cartoon, please make sure you fill out the BackerKit survey and send a picture we can use to support (at) hero-u (dot) net - include your Kickstarter backer name and use the same email as you use on Kickstarter and BackerKit, please.

BackerKit Launched! Live stream Saturday on Twitch
about 6 years ago – Thu, Jan 09, 2020 at 11:26:05 PM

If you backed Summer Daze at Hero-U, you should by now have email from BackerKit instructing you to log in and fill out a survey. If you don't already have a BackerKit account, create one there. Make sure you use the same email you use on Kickstarter so that they will stay synchronized.

BackerKit knows the amount you pledged on Kickstarter and has already credited that amount. If you want to order additional add-ons, it's really easy; you'll be billed when we "lock" orders shortly before we're ready to release Summer Daze. It isn't urgent to answer the survey immediately, but it will be helpful for us in getting item counts for manufacturing, and for getting you any previous game keys you order. You will be able to change your survey later up to the time we lock orders.

If you didn't back Summer Daze at Hero-U on Kickstarter, there's still plenty of time to support the project and get cool rewards through BackerKit. Visit our page at https://summerdaze.backerkit.com/ and create an account if you don't have one, then log in to visit our preorder page.

We've added a few rewards that weren't on the Kickstarter. In particular, there is a boxed addition of Summer Daze at Hero-U that you can order separately. There is also a Summer Daze t-shirt featuring the "Hero Ewe" that was previously only available to our helpers at PAX West 2019.

Weekly Twitch Streams - New Time

We have a Twitch channel, and have been streaming mostly-weekly; we had a few exceptions during the holidays. The channel is https://www.twitch.tv/transolargames. Subscribe to the channel to keep up with our streams. Our next stream is this Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020 from 3pm to 5pm PST. We plan to continue to stream on most Saturdays at that same time. 3pm PST is 6pm in New York, 11pm in London, and so on. It's 10am Sunday in Melbourne.

During our streams we answer questions about our games, the game industry, Sierra On-Line, and other things. Yes, the mean airspeed of an unladen swallow has come up at least once. We run several games and contests with cool prizes ranging from game keys to t-shirts, art prints, and more. Lori usually reads a chapter of her unpublished "How to be a hero: By the book" novel as we promised during the Kickstarter.

You should also subscribe to our YouTube channel -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfcyQnbZEKMxYd9VCy1Px0A/featured?view_as=subscriber - to keep up with all our video posts including the book chapter readings.

Rolling out the BackerKit surveys
about 6 years ago – Tue, Jan 07, 2020 at 02:18:51 AM

Please watch your inbox for mail from backerkit.com. I've just started a "smoke test" on BackerKit. We're sending surveys to 5% of Kickstarter backers to make sure our pages and the surveys are correct.

As soon as we get in some of those surveys and I verify them, I'll send out the full surveys to everyone.

We're adding a few add-on choices, notably a way to order a boxed copy of Summer Daze at Hero-U if you did not choose a reward tier that includes it, or if you want extra boxes for collection or to give to friends. There is also a Summer Daze t-shirt that Lori and Al created for our helpers at PAX a few months ago.

Lori and I have had an eventful couple of months - highs, lows, and lots of distractions. We still have some health and family issues going on, but we're ready to get back to working on the project.

We also have some exciting things happening with our previous game, Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. The French language version is almost ready. We're working with an outside developer on a Nintendo Switch version. And we still need to finish the "yearbook" and last section of the art book.

Wintertime for Summer Daze
over 6 years ago – Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 12:41:00 AM

Lori and I hope you're having a great holiday season.

We took a week off around Thanksgiving (and a few more since then recovering from the inevitable colds we caught). Of course, "time off" for an indie means "fewer hours a day." We're continuing to do our Twitch livestreams, setting up BackerKit, and multiple other projects. That includes the Hero-U Yearbook (for our 2012 backers!), final section of the "Making of Rogue to Redemption" art book, and lots of other exciting stuff that I'll talk about another time.

Our next stream is this Saturday  (Dec. 21) from 4-6 pm PST at https://www.twitch.tv/transolargames. The following week is a special event on New Year's eve starting at 6 pm PST and running past midnight. Come join us for a live celebration, games, and community.

I've had BackerKit ready for a few weeks, but haven't officially launched it yet. I'm currently looking at Dec. 27 to fit it between Christmas and New Year's madness. I'll announce it here at the same time. First I need to do a final review of backers, rewards, etc. Then we'll do a "smoke test" and finally the live survey.

Realistically, I don't think we'll be able to get the Winter Games or other rewards out until January. We need to give backers time to complete the survey, choose add-ons, and provide information that will allow us to start fulfillment. We have a very small team, and everyone has multiple responsibilities.

Have a great Chanukah, Solstice, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. I'll be back next week with Backerkit details!

We're funded - Thank you!
over 6 years ago – Thu, Nov 07, 2019 at 08:31:18 PM

 Thank you for supporting Summer Daze at Hero-U. As with our two previous Kickstarter campaigns, it came down to the wire in our usual nailbiting finish. But we were able to get two stretch goals through - additional animation and mini-games including the Boomba card game.

From here we'll be moving to BackerKit. We'll be at https://summerdaze.backerkit.com/. They'll send everyone an email once Kickstarter pays us and we set up the site in a few weeks. Signing on to BackerKit will involve answering a brief survey. This will let you specify the add-ons you picked, t-shirt sizes, and so on. Later, if you change addresses, you'll be able to update that on your BackerKit page.

We also met a "number of backers" goal in which Lori and I are adding a Lucky Coin to every order that includes at least one physical item. Only one coin per order, and only for those of you who backed the project here on Kickstarter. That will include backers who upgrade on BackerKit to a tier or add-ons that require us to ship something.

We did not reach the voice acting tier, but we want to have professional voices in the game so we'll try to add them using outside funding. Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games has volunteered to do the casting and voice direction if we are able to add them. Even with voices, we are going to try hard to meet our planned Oct. 1, 2020 release date, but that will depend heavily on when we finish the writing.

Boring (Unless You're Like Me) Number Stuff

I've recently been trying to explain "Kickstarter accounting" and "game development economics" to people. It's challenging! When we did our first Kickstarter for Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption in 2012, some people thought our $400,000 goal was outrageous. Even for Summer Daze at Hero-U, I got advice that a $100,000 goal was way too much, and that $20,000 might be more appropriate. In each case, we (thanks to many dedicated fans!) made it over the finish line with just a few hours to spare.

I want to talk a little about what actually happens with those numbers. Here's the chart I put in the project description:

On $106,000 in pledges, that will come to about $25,000 for fees, cost of goods, and other campaign expenses, so about $80,000 will actually go to development and running the company.

We've actually already spent about $85,000 on the project before coming to Kickstarter. The total planned budget is $150,000 - mostly for art, programming, and music - or $200,000 including foreign language translations and voice acting if we're able to get those in. Assuming we do, we'll need to sell at least 10,000 copies to break even. We think that's ambitious, but reachable, especially if we manage to appeal to some visual novel and dating sim players in addition to hardcore adventure gamers.

What makes these games so expensive to develop? We hear all the time about indie games being developed "at no cost" or on a shoestring budget. The reality is a bit different. Developers need to pay rent and put food on the table for themselves and their families even if they aren't drawing a salary on paper.

Let's say a developer needs to make about $50,000 a year to make ends meet. That's actually pretty iffy in the U.S. I made about that (in 2019 dollars, adjusting for inflation) at Sierra in 1989, and it wasn't enough to pay our bills. We finally started coming out ahead when Sierra started paying us royalties.

One full-time and two half-time developers for two years = 4 x $50,000 = $200,000. Yes, these games aren't cheap to make even with tiny teams. Rogue to Redemption took six years with a larger team - total developer payments about $960,000.

Note that we only stay that low by not paying Lori and I at all, saving at least $300,000. Our theory is that we will eventually get some royalties from game sales, but first a game has to break even. That's pretty tough to accomplish with indie games.

Anyway, we've run those numbers, and we're fine with them - Don't take this as a rant! Kickstarter gets projects started - It isn't designed to cover all the expenses. I'm bringing this up just so that readers who plan to make their own games and crowdfund them will have some idea of the costs and numbers involved.