Hey guys, this weekend brings a lot of progress, we filmed our pitch video and we are bringing you an in game render of the cryo tube in the opening scene of the game.
The Render:
Well, you guys have asked for it, and we are delivering on it, a new in-game render of some art. This render is of a cryotube, a special one, because it is the cryo tube that you will fall out of in the opening scene of the game. This is a special art asset, so we put a lot of care into it and we hope you enjoy it, please leave your thoughts below for us, as we always welcome your feedback.
The Pitch:
The big news of this weekend though is that we filmed our pitch yesterday, which is why the weekly update did not come yesterday. It was a lot of fun, and, surprisingly, a lot harder than I expected. You would think that sitting in front of a camera and talking is easy to do, but it isn't, not even close. But we had a lot of fun, and a lot of bloopers (hint hint), unfortunately, we only caught some on camera. We had Panda Express for lunch and it ended up forcing me to re-evaluate our financial needs, which is the next big thing to do.
Finances:
Well it seems that the financial requirements to make this game from start to finish is larger than I thought; however, they are still doable, just in a different way. We are refocusing now on making what is called a target demo, which is a small beta/demo of a game that should fairly accurately show how a game is supposed to work. That said, our scope is smaller and a kickstarter campaign for around $20,000 seems like a possibility real soon, of course, extra money on top of our goal will go towards moving farther in our build, but a $20,000 kickstarter is certainly enough to get us off the ground and the first two levels or so built. On a lighter note, I hope to post a few pictures of me (Millan Singh) and Mike Kesselman (our Lead Designer) filming soon.
Here is the render:
$20,000 is a high goal... I'm routing for you, but it's on the edge of possibilities.
awesome... when the kickstarter video is up, I'll be sure to throw in a small amount of money ($1.. sorry). I'd donate more... but can't. I'll be sure to preorder the game when that is available.
$20.000,- isn't that much people... An average person makes that amount of money each years. I don't know how many people are working on this, but if there are for example 4 people involved, they can only work for about 3 to maybe 5 months on this.
I hope you guys manage to get it :)
Ok, people seem to be getting the wrong idea, making a target demo is expensive. It seems that all of you don't realize how expensive it is to make a game, and believe me $20,000 is not that much. The goal is so that we can make a good target demo with appropriate art and gameplay mechanics to pitch to investors/publishers so we can get a real budget to finish. As for people, right now we have a total of 9 people with 1 pending, and $20,000 is less than the average indie developer makes a year. Personally, I am still a student, so I do not have a job, and so are many other on our team. But, I am still listening to your feedback, and realize what you are saying, and we do not plan on starting this before we are ready. Now, I don't know how many of you guys are actually devs that make games/are working on one, but it is very expensive. I estimated that, to make the final product, we will need at least $100,000, but that is up to a publisher/investor to provide. I guess all I can say is that you guys need to trust me, as I do know what I am doing and have many people (family, friends, etc) who are knowledgeable in the subject of investing and video game design in general. Honestly, if it was possible, I would like to have a budget of around $500,000+, but that isn't happening, at least not for now. And, every dollar you guys contribute is helpful to us, we need everything we can get. We are going for high-quality and the bar is set at a very high level, but I personally have figured out exactly how we can accomplish it, and the first step is a kickstarter for a target demo. Honestly, the kickstarter will have rewards like perorders and soundtrakcs and other standard fare, but we are really raising money by appealing to a contributors desire to help young, aspiring people create something really amazing. And that is what the majority of kickstarter members are there for.
And can you guys please leave some feedback too on the cryotube, and do know that, now that our infrastructure is more established and we have a dedicated 3D artist, more content is coming.
I understand the requirements in funding a games project, however I'm incredibly curious as to what you think you need such outrageous amounts of money for. Many people who start doing indie development do it while studying, or working another job because they can't afford not to. They realise that they need to prove themselves as a developer before someone will pay them for it. Now if you need money for licensing that's more understandable, 20k would be plenty though. A single license for 3DS max is around $2,500 give or take (last time I checked was in 2010), and zbrush is around $400. Now since I assume you aren't actually purchasing wacom pads for your artists or computers for your programmers and designers, and since you said you were student i'm assuming your living at home, you dont have rent to worry about... I just find it hard to imagine what on earth you think you would need $100,000 for. You have around 9 people, now I assume you are the producer, you probably have a couple artists maybe 3 modellers, a composer and 3 designers, or something along those lines, even if you intended to purchase licenses for all your modellers to use a 3D program, and paid your composer $5,000 you'd still have around 10,000 left. Do you have serious plans to get published? And if so by who? because the honest truth of indie development is you have next to no chance of getting a publisher without proof that your studio can deliver, its too big a risk on their part. This has turned into a bit of a rant I know, I was just quite shocked to see your budget estimates lol.
Does anyone read comments anymore? Seriously, I already rescinded this, if you would have just read through all of them first, you would never have posted this. And, fyi, 3ds max is $3500 and zbrush is $700, plus, our artists have software, and I do want to get this as big as possible, obviously, but I am going to do it the indie way. Although I have a high-profile contact at EA, if we decide to go that route, but no one knows, only time will tell...
Your right, about the licensing... but why wasnt any of this mentioned before hand? do you have a business plan? are you buying 3ds max and the various other pieces of software and giving them out to your team? And as to you having a contact at ea... fair enough if you say that, but as to if you decide to go that route... it's not up to you at all. It would be suicide for that persons high profile career to make a contract with an unproven indie game groups very first development. Publishers want to publish things that are A. Guaranteed/Proven to succeed and bring in either money, or a future customer base, or B. Things they believe will succeed and they will have done a comprehensive risk analysis before making the decision. To claim you have control over whether EA get involved with you seems a little pretentious.
You didn't listen to me, we are working on a target demo TO SHOW TO INVESTORS/PUBLISHER. I capitalized only for emphasis, and no, we are not giving out software, the money WAS going to be for keeping people more productive; however, I am no longer seeking any $$ at the moment. Would you please READ THE EARLIER POSTS before you post this kind of stuff, as it was already resolved.
This doesn't exactly look like a cryo tube to me.
I'd expect some advanced technology put into it if it's meant to freeze humans.
Built in displays showing vital signs, some information about the frozen person, etc.
Right now it reminds me of a regular pipe/tube in a present day setting, not a futuristic device.
First of all i wouldn't use anything like a glass cylinder unless you're going to flood the whole thing with a fluid.
(even in this case it might be better to limit the glass area to parts of the front.)
Also, a vertical cryo chamber would need some sort of frame to tie the person to a certain position.
Facemask would also be recomended in a fluid.
Maybe draw up a few designs before messing arround with the 3D app. (assuming you didn't do that for this prop), you've allready some good ones up here.
Judging from your description the player will see the chamber from inside, so you might also want to give him something cool to look at, not just plain glass all arround.
By limiting the field of view for the player you'll also make him want to leave the chamber rather then stay and look arround for a while, like he would do in a 360° glass tube.
You wanna cause a claustrophobic feeling? Here's your chance.
If you're keeping the vertical cylindric shape, you should take a look at the movie Pandorum.
They got some very good designed Hypersleep chambers in there.
(i'd also recomend to watch the whole film, it's very good and might give you some inspiration)
Ok thanks for the feedback, even though it was criticism, we still appreciate it, we havent made a backing for it, which we should do, and I will look into. Also we did have some really basic designs, but they were not amazing, mainly for measurments, we are not planning on flooding it in fluid, so we may end up changing the shape, but also, the player will not be able to choose to get out, as this is the one you fall out of at the very beginning of the game.