Cow Girl Farmer (Cuddlebeam)

[the_king901]

Originally Posted by CuddleBeam

Thats actually quite an important point. Thanks for telling me about it.

In the case I raise less than the goal, I would still release the game, but with less features, proportional to the amount available.

For example:
7500=100%: all features, full depth, full detail.
2500=33%: Less quests, less detail, but still a game.

I'll update the campaign with this issue. its important, and I'm glad you pointed them out. Thank you, King
However, I'm confident I'll reach the goal on time. After 24 hours, I raised 230 euros.

230e * 42 days = 9660 euros, which is well above the goal.

However, for that to become a reality, I'll need your help. Every bit counts a lot!

Edit: Added this to the campaign page in the FAQ " The goal is for the 100% game, full questlines and full characteristics. If the goal isn't reached, the game with content proportional to the raised amount will be released."

Thanks for the response and putting my fears to rest. You will be seeing me as a backer soon aswell .

[vincent_richter]

Originally Posted by Bestarred

Tangentally, my apologies if I keep coming out as overly confrontational, pessimistic, or otherwise dickish. It's not usually my intent, but it seems to keep happening.

Man, don't apologize, this is something that should be sorted as soon as possible for the testers.
I have to wonder, though: Shift+E invokes Editra, right?
This (Editra) is installed where?

I'll try to look into this later tonight, but right now I'm heading out to my "day" job.

[vakladros]

Taking a look at your fund raising page objectively, I'll make a few comments, which you are of course free to ignore.

The information you've posted on the page tells me remarkably little about the game. You've provided a rough outline of two different styles of play, but I'm still largely in the dark about the content. You mention romance. Does the game have adult themes?

What's the timeline for the game's release assuming that you are successfully funded? Are you planning on supporting the game after release? What artists have agreed to work on your project, assuming you get the funding? (Presumably you've interviewed some because otherwise where are you getting your numbers for the total budget from?) What writers? What musicians?

What incentive do I have to buy now, rather than let others shoulder the risk and then buy when the project is finished? Typically this would be the promise that the price will be higher after the game's release then it is now.

On a normal kickstarter, I wouldn't ask this, but since you're using a funding method where you get the funds regardless it rings a few alarm bells. What's the breakdown of how the money will be used. For instance, what percentage will you be spending on art, etc. What kind of milestones can we expect? A game that makes only a 1000 Euro would look like what, exactly? 3000? etc.

The page provides very little information about you. Why should I believe that you're capable of carrying such a project through to completion? What previous work have you done?

Similarly, you've put your name on this, and the point of such campaigns is to get viral buzz. From your previous comments I understand that you're still in University. Is this a project you'll want to show up when a prospective employer does a web search on your name?

You've made several announcements regarding your plans for the game on these forums, which I haven't seen reflected on your indiegogo page. The more information you provide the more likely prospective funders are to take a chance on your project.

If I were in your shoes, I would spend some time polishing your existing alpha game and then publicly link that. I might go so far as to work in some ads for your funding campaign into the alpha itself. Say after you had completed the main alpha gameplay a splash screen detailing your funding effort, etc. That way, if your alpha gets propagated on a site like 4chan or some such, it still serves to advertise your campaign. This also serves to inform potential funders of what kind of game you hope to build, as well as to prove that you have the technical chops to deliver something like the game you're promising.

Just my two cents.

[CuddleBeam]

Originally Posted by vakladros

Taking a look at your fund raising page objectively, I'll make a few comments, which you are of course free to ignore.

-The information you've posted on the page tells me remarkably little about the game. You've provided a rough outline of two different styles of play, but I'm still largely in the dark about the content. You mention romance. Does the game have adult themes?

-What's the timeline for the game's release assuming that you are successfully funded? Are you planning on supporting the game after release? What artists have agreed to work on your project, assuming you get the funding? (Presumably you've interviewed some because otherwise where are you getting your numbers for the total budget from?) What writers? What musicians?

-What incentive do I have to buy now, rather than let others shoulder the risk and then buy when the project is finished? Typically this would be the promise that the price will be higher after the game's release then it is now.

-On a normal kickstarter, I wouldn't ask this, but since you're using a funding method where you get the funds regardless it rings a few alarm bells. What's the breakdown of how the money will be used. For instance, what percentage will you be spending on art, etc. What kind of milestones can we expect? A game that makes only a 1000 Euro would look like what, exactly? 3000? etc.

-The page provides very little information about you. Why should I believe that you're capable of carrying such a project through to completion? What previous work have you done?

-Similarly, you've put your name on this, and the point of such campaigns is to get viral buzz. From your previous comments I understand that you're still in University. Is this a project you'll want to show up when a prospective employer does a web search on your name?

-You've made several announcements regarding your plans for the game on these forums, which I haven't seen reflected on your indiegogo page. The more information you provide the more likely prospective funders are to take a chance on your project.

-If I were in your shoes, I would spend some time polishing your existing alpha game and then publicly link that. I might go so far as to work in some ads for your funding campaign into the alpha itself. Say after you had completed the main alpha gameplay a splash screen detailing your funding effort, etc. That way, if your alpha gets propagated on a site like 4chan or some such, it still serves to advertise your campaign. This also serves to inform potential funders of what kind of game you hope to build, as well as to prove that you have the technical chops to deliver something like the game you're promising.

Just my two cents.

All input is great. I'd never ignore it.

-I should add more detail. Its all in my head or in the code, and its kinda hard to put it down to paper. However I'll readjust it and correct the flaws!

I'm also going to put up the promo video soon (oh god I hope I can get it today). It should explain a lot.

-Planned project time is 3 months. I get the money at the start of November at the latest, so it should be done by the end of January.

7500 - 25% from taxes is 5600 euros. which is again, about 7500$. The artist in mind is Zdemian (already talked to him). You can see his comissioning prices on his page, which serves as a guideline to the quality I'm looking for. A full pinup is 60$, which is one cow. Considering I'm going to need a lot of "cow pieces" for the cow-generator, here is a rough calculation:

30 different "sets" of pieces. Hair, eye shapes, lip shapes, build, etc. Enough to make them variable enough. 30 piece-sets, 30 comissions, 30*60 = 1800

Writers are another issue. Generally, 10-20$ is the amount asked for a chapter (~7-10 Word pages.). A whole questline in the way I envision it should be a complete, interesting story, which will cost me ~50-100$, lets say its 75$, as average, considering as well that the questlines depend on each other an on your previous in-game desicions, which again, needs coding.

The NPCs that have been planned in now are:
Neighbours: Comma D'Aifen, Ceddy Ylle, and three more.
Chruch: Mary Fleuron, Official Church, Damian
Obelus Corporation, Prime Enterprises, etc: 8 companies, enough to cover the game's assests. Each will have an "official" mail you will have to haggle and quest with, and two workers who are "normal folks" who you can befriend and have a more informal relationship with, and not necesarily closely knit to the company they work for.

8(Non-corp)+8*3(Corp)=32; 32*75 = 2400$


Additionally, aside from quests, I need the cowgirl reactions/ministories that will be interpolated into their regular activities and everyday lives. This is a hard part since most of it is going to be context-free grammar, which will then be procedually filled with the information necesary (i.e. "[[Hirasawas/Cowname]] [huge/bustsisedescriptor] breasts [bounced energetically/additional_info] as she walked down the valley...")

This isn't easy. Not only does it need to be coded it, it needs to make sense amongst its myraid of combinations.

Since the cows are going to be as interesting and in-depth as the human NPCs, there are 2400$ going in there too.

2400*2+1800=6600. The other 900$ are going to myself to pay for coding, software, and coordinating the whole project during development.


Music will be free, taken from http://freemusicarchive.org/

- Perks, and a better price now than later.

- I'll add that to the main page too.

- I've completed a another, similar (in technical difficulty) game engine for Gurochan (S.L.U.T. in my head), also coded in Ren'Py/Python like CGF is. I've also worked on other Ren'Py projects, such as Choun Yurr Own adventure (on Chounyuu.com)

- Not necesarily. There are a lot of David Backlunds out there, and I'm really not worried one way or another.

- That's going to be fixed right away.

- That's actually quite a good idea. I'll give it a thought


Thanks for your input! It helps me out a lot.

[CuddleBeam]

I cannot stress enough how important and helpful everybodies feedback is. Whether it being about the campaign page, even suggestions to how I can make it better are very valuable.

Thanks a lot to everyone. It means a lot to me.

Edit: The campaign page has gotten a large update other the last few hours. Give it a look!

[Mondoman]

Are ya still accepting npc ideas or leaving the rest to the funding campagn?

[CuddleBeam]

Still accepting NPC ideas. However, the writers will write them throughly for the games format.

You see, they can't write without ideas.

[AhziDahaka]

I will admit I've been kind of wondering if there's a design document or something that exists somewhere. As more people get involved it might be good to have a document or development wiki or something that they can access so everyone is on the same page, as opposed to having to wander through a thread on a forum they may not even be able to access. It's important from a design standpoint to ensure that graphics, sound, gameplay, and writing are all consistently working together to produce the desired experience. As a bit of a budding graphic designer myself, I've seen how something as simple as subtly moving, resizing, and coloring a piece of typography can completely change the tone and message of an entire work--the devil really is in the details of how everything fits together.

I also noticed that your estimates for the cost of art doesn't appear to include NPCs. All of those characters I imagine will need to be graphically represented in some way as well, and depending on how many NPCs you want this cost could easily outdo the cost of the cowgirl depictions. Then there are backgrounds, item graphics, etc. to consider...

Also I sent you a PM a few days ago but haven't gotten a response. I imagine you've been busy so I'm not real worried about it but I figure I'll give you a poke here on the off-chance that one of us somehow isn't receiving responses from the other.



Thanks for all the care and attention you're giving to our suggestions and concerns!

[CuddleBeam]

Originally Posted by AhziDahaka

I will admit I've been kind of wondering if there's a design document or something that exists somewhere. As more people get involved it might be good to have a document or development wiki or something that they can access so everyone is on the same page, as opposed to having to wander through a thread on a forum they may not even be able to access. It's important from a design standpoint to ensure that graphics, sound, gameplay, and writing are all consistently working together to produce the desired experience. As a bit of a budding graphic designer myself, I've seen how something as simple as subtly moving, resizing, and coloring a piece of typography can completely change the tone and message of an entire work--the devil really is in the details of how everything fits together.

I also noticed that your estimates for the cost of art doesn't appear to include NPCs. All of those characters I imagine will need to be graphically represented in some way as well, and depending on how many NPCs you want this cost could easily outdo the cost of the cowgirl depictions. Then there are backgrounds, item graphics, etc. to consider...

Also I sent you a PM a few days ago but haven't gotten a response. I imagine you've been busy so I'm not real worried about it but I figure I'll give you a poke here on the off-chance that one of us somehow isn't receiving responses from the other.



Thanks for all the care and attention you're giving to our suggestions and concerns!

They will be stretchgoals. You've already seen how expensive everything is as it is. Non-Cowgirl NPC's are not going to be the "visual" appeal of the game, so thier image is important yet not critical. I was thinking of having a little contest for them later on, or if things go well, add it as a stretchgoal. I'll even get some drawn myself. Maybe I can get an agreement with ZDemian too.

The item icons have already been made, so no worry about that.

Sorry about the PM! I must've missed it, sorry. These first few days have been quite intense. Please, re-send it, and I'll reply as soon as I can.

The wiki is actually a very good idea. Maybe Google Docs would work too? I'll set it up for when the hardcore development starts. Thanks a lot!

[CuddleBeam]

[AhziDahaka]

Originally Posted by CuddleBeam

They will be stretchgoals. You've already seen how expensive everything is as it is. Non-Cowgirl NPC's are not going to be the "visual" appeal of the game, so thier image is important yet not critical. I was thinking of having a little contest for them later on, or if things go well, add it as a stretchgoal. I'll even get some drawn myself. Maybe I can get an agreement with ZDemian too.

The item icons have already been made, so no worry about that.

Sorry about the PM! I must've missed it, sorry. These first few days have been quite intense. Please, re-send it, and I'll reply as soon as I can.

The wiki is actually a very good idea. Maybe Google Docs would work too? I'll set it up for when the hardcore development starts. Thanks a lot!

Alright, that all defintiely makes sense. I'd had the impression you might have had graphics for items and various other UI bits already, but was not sure about environments and NPCs. You may want to note they're stretch goals on the Indiegogo page.





...Speaking of which, while looking over the current-as-of-this-posting iteration of that page, I started wondering if the cowgirls all share the same vocabulary. If so, that might end up playing a major role in making the dialogue feel machine-like and monotonous, so I'm wondering how possible it is to have different "vocabulary sets" or "word affinities" that the cowgirls would be assigned depending on their personality factors! This would determine whether they use words with more positive or negative connotations ("that would be fine" vs "that would be great"), use of eloquent or simple language ("salutations" vs "hi"), or even (depending on how sophisticated the generative grammar is) whether they use contractions and what ones (such as "is not" vs "isn't" vs "ain't").

Of course, you may simply be awesome and have already thought of that, in which case cool beans!

[CuddleBeam]

Originally Posted by AhziDahaka

Alright, that all defintiely makes sense. I'd had the impression you might have had graphics for items and various other UI bits already, but was not sure about environments and NPCs. You may want to note they're stretch goals on the Indiegogo page.





...Speaking of which, while looking over the current-as-of-this-posting iteration of that page, I started wondering if the cowgirls all share the same vocabulary. If so, that might end up playing a major role in making the dialogue feel machine-like and monotonous, so I'm wondering how possible it is to have different "vocabulary sets" or "word affinities" that the cowgirls would be assigned depending on their personality factors! This would determine whether they use words with more positive or negative connotations ("that would be fine" vs "that would be great"), use of eloquent or simple language ("salutations" vs "hi"), or even (depending on how sophisticated the generative grammar is) whether they use contractions and what ones (such as "is not" vs "isn't" vs "ain't").

Of course, you may simply be awesome and have already thought of that, in which case cool beans!

Already thought of. :P

However, I should include it, no? It would be a wise idea. Adding it in!

Thanks Ahzi!