Category Archives: Kickstarter

Auro Dinofarm News Kickstarter

AURO Update for Jan. 2013

01/17/2013 – 1:46 pm

Hey everyone!  So the game has been coming along really smoothly recently, but I wanted to fill you all in on how things are going.

About a month ago, we sort of “finished working on gameplay” and moved onto adding other features such as Story Mode and Character Select and now even the Tutorial.  That’s all planned out and now partially implemented;  in fact, the opening cutscene is basically done!  Pretty exciting.

Since then, I’ve also went back and dove into the gameplay again, making some major improvements, particularly to the Fire tree.  Fire has been particularly difficult to get right because of its “direct damagey” nature, but I think I might be onto something this time.

We’ve also updated our schedule, from here to release.  We now are at a point where we’re just about 100% certain exactly what features will make it to release day.  With all that in mind, we’ve determined that we can have the game out on Android by May 1.  Hopefully we can have it out on iOS no later than a month after, but that will be contingent mostly on backend technical stuff.

Finally, we’ve also determined that we need to launch with 2 extra character classes.  One will be the evil Prince Argo, and one will be a secret unannounced character.  After launch, we’ll get started on all the backer’s NPCs and PCs.  Will be exciting.

Also hey, here’s a screenshot of Auro in a mode that we use that lets us see most of the level at once, just for debugging purposes.  We thought it’d be cool to see that, so here you go!  Keep in mind some of those monsters, such as the SQUID, have temporary artwork.

If you’re interested in participating in the Beta, shoot us an email!  We have some room for a couple new testers.

Tags , , , , | Comments (5)
Kickstarter

Gamasutra article: “Kickstarter For The Average Indie”

09/12/2012 – 1:19 pm

Since we ran two Kickstarters for our game, AURO – one of which failed, and one of which succeeded with flying colors – we feel like we have a few lessons to share with people on how to run a Kickstarter if you’re not famous and don’t have a lot of money.  If you’re at all interested, check out this new article I wrote for Gamasutra today.

Enjoy!

Tags , , | Comment (1)
Auro Kickstarter News Programming

Kickstarter Success, New Programmer and Auro Developments!

06/29/2012 – 6:56 pm

Our Kickstarter was a smashing success!  We want to say thank you so much to all those who contributed, as well as those who passed the link around.  Even though we hope we’d be able to make AURO either way, it’s really nice to know that there is a demand for a game like AURO out there.  If you know a little about our history, you might be able to see a bit of irony in us making almost exactly 15K for this Kickstarter (if you don’t know, the reason that it’s funny is expressed here).

Anyway, it’s great, and we’re super happy about the whole thing!  We learned a lot, so expect us to write some kind of “how-to-Kickstarter” type articles in the next few weeks.

New Programmer!

The other big news is that Cardinal Quest developer Ido Yehieli has left the team.  It was always sort of the plan to have him get us to this point of having a working alpha and a successful Kickstarter.  Ido is, like myself, a game designer at heart, and so he’s really got his hands full with his own exciting projects (you can keep up on them over at http://blog.tametick.com/ ).  Now that we’ve got the Kickstarter funds, we can actually pay a programmer.  We’re currently trying someone out for a trial period (and they’re doing quite well), so we’ll probably have an announcement about him in the upcoming weeks.

AURO Developments!

This whole time, we’ve been chugging away on AURO.  During the last month we’ve made a new tileset, designed and implemented an entirely new HUD, revamped how attacks work, redesigned the abilities several times over, and much, much more.  Here’s a screenshot of the new HUD design, if you’re curious (old tileset seen there).

This isn't the final hud ARTWORK, just the new layout. Old tileset shown.

So, a really big thing here is that we’ve done away with the “folders” setup that was there before.  This means half as much clicking is required to play!  Hooray for that.  But also, you’ll be able to see cooldowns counting down (or possibly filling up) after you use abilities.  This does mean that you’re limited to five disciplines, but I think that’s more than enough.  Also, you’re limited to two scrolls, but again, I think that’s actually a perfect amount.
So off we go!  Expect to hear big news and see big updates in the next month, which we hope will be the most productive month for AURO development ever.  News about the beta will be forthcoming soon, too.
Tags , , , | Comments (4)
Auro Game Design Kickstarter

AURO: The Design Challenges of “Attacks”

06/07/2012 – 4:58 pm

We’ve been in a state of closed alpha for almost six months now, and in that time I have been really lucky to have the time I needed to nail down some gameplay stuff for AURO.  By the way: I have also posted this on our Kickstarter page, here.

The tactical skills, being a cornerstone of the gameplay, have always worked in the design, as a concept.  However, one of the big questions was:  What about attacks?  How should they work?  In the spirit of trying to take nothing for granted, I have posed the question, “maybe the player shouldn’t be able to attack at all, and just rely on disciplines.”  It was pretty clear that that wouldn’t work out.  The player needs some very easy, super-accessible way of defending himself that doesn’t require using a special ability.

On Health and Damage

The obvious, standard answer to what “attacks” should do is deal damage.  However, there’s an issue with that, regarding AURO.  Actually, I think it’s generally a sign of weak game design generally if attacking, something you’re doing extremely frequently in a game, has no effect except for “reducing the number of hit points the target has”, in a game where the goal is to kill enemies.  The reason that this is too direct.  It’s as though in Tetris, instead of having to get lines to get points, you could always just press “up” or something on a piece and trade it out for some points. read more »

Comments (12)
Auro Kickstarter

AURO Kickstarter launches today!

05/30/2012 – 1:19 pm

Hey everyone!  We wanted to let you all know that AURO has a brand new Kickstarter campaign.  Please spread the word and help us get funded if you believe in what we’re trying to do.

Comments (2)
Auro Culture Kickstarter

Follow-up: Kickstarter Post

04/08/2012 – 8:26 am

Hi everyone!  I just wanted to write a small follow up to our previous post, and quickly make sure our feelings on the matter are entirely understood.  It’s clear to me now that I was not coming through as I intended to a lot of people.

  • We accept complete responsibility for the failure of our Auro‘s Kickstarter.  Actually, a lot of comments in the last 24 hours have been exceedingly helpful in terms of us learning the real reasons why it failed.  We really appreciate that.
  • We have no problems with someone not wanting to fund us; even a person who does fully get what Auro is, and still feels that way.  We don’t feel as though we’re entitled to people’s money, or any such thing.
  • The article’s main point was intended to simply be that there seemed to be an unfair hostility towards people even asking for money.  I now realize, however, that honestly… it’s the internet.  There are always going to be people saying stupid things like “wait are we paying for the game, or your living expenses?!”  We shouldn’t have taken this kind of absurdity as seriously as we did.
  • We’re super happy about the successes that Double Fine and inExile have found on Kickstarter, and very excited to see what they come up with.  Mostly, we just think it’s great that they’ve been able to tell the big publishers to go screw themselves — that’s something we can all agree on, I think.

Anyway, please let me know if you have any other questions regarding our positions on these matters in the comments.  In the meantime, we’re not sure if we’re going to do another Kickstarter at some point, or perhaps another alternative like Desura alpha-funding.  Thanks again for reading!

Comments (11)
Auro Culture Kickstarter

EA’s Madden ’13 Kickstarter Makes 8.5 Million in Five Hours

04/05/2012 – 6:58 pm

Edit:  Please note that we’ve written a follow-up to this article, which you should check out here!

The headline is  a joke, of course, and a bit of parody of what’s been going on recently with videogame Kickstarters. Successful and famous game developers have been running Kickstarter campaigns recently to make the next big sequel or new game that they have in mind.  That’s fine, of course, and I definitely understand the excitement;  I myself passed around the link for Wasteland 2′s Kickstarter.  If these people screw these games up, at least it will be a sincere, earnest screwup by a game designer who really wanted to make something great, instead of a cynical boardroom checklist screwup by a publisher who really wanted to increase profits from last quarter.  The headline of this article should suggest that I am indeed questioning where this is leading, and whether or not a company that just developed a game for Bethesda really was what Kickstarter was made for.

Now, some of our readers may remember that we attempted a Kickstarter ourselves a few months back, for Auro.  Sadly, It didn’t make it, and we accept total responsibility for that.  We started it off with a very unclear and somewhat “inside-baseball” video, as well as a character design that everyone seemed to hate.  When we realized that a lot of these complaints were absolutely correct, we scrambled to respond to it, and created a whole new illustrative video and character design, but it was too late.  Most of the people who were going to even take a look at our Kickstarter already had, and had simply been turned off.  That’s completely understandable.  We don’t blame anyone for not feeling super “donatey” for that Kickstarter.  Edit:  Some people seem to be not getting this, so before people read on, please read the following: this article is not about how we’re upset that our Kickstarter failed.  People not wanting to give us money is 100%, completely fine!

Auro is a game that’s being made by 3 people, on our off time.  It’s a game that, all told, will probably have ended up taking us a year to complete because we have to do it on our off time while doing other jobs.  Again, that’s fine, and that’s probably what we’ll end up doing, because we really love this game and believe in it strongly.

Double-Fine Double-Standard

So anyway, a lot of new Kickstarters run by large-size, AAA teams are popping up and making millions of dollars.  Wasteland 2 has made over two million so far and it still has 11 days to go as of this writing.  And everyone on the internet is just leading the charge.  Here are some comments from the many, many reddit posts supporting this kickstarter: read more »

Comments (91)