Dead State Design Update, Considering Kickstarter

Brian Mitsoda’s indie cRPG Dead State has gone kind of quiet over the past few months, in the latest design update, he talks about the snags they hit, and how Kickstarter might offer a solution.

First off, apologies to everyone about the lack of updates lately. As is the case for many small projects without much in the way of funding, life and side projects/jobs get in the way of production. which is to say, not much was happening for a few months. But, in the last few weeks, the team has refocused their efforts and our build is finally seeing regular updates again. Our dedication to the project restored, it kinds of brings us to an interesting dilemma how do we keep the project going full-speed while still being able to pay for development essentials like electricity, software licenses, and beer?

Let’s backup to an internal conversation from a few months ago. Some of us were keeping an eye on this newfangled Kickstarter service that was featuring more and more interesting projects all the time. While there were a few games on there, nothing was really pulling in the money needed for an RPG with a 10+ person team. We were pretty sold on the possibilities, but ultimately it came down to whether or not we thought we had the game in a state where we’d be comfortable asking people to fund our continued development. The reality of the situation was that it was not quite where it needed to be yet, so we put those plans on hold.

Unfortunately, this kind of led to a period where everyone had to take on second jobs/contract work, which naturally resulted in less time being put into Dead State. And one of the worst things that can happen in a creative project is losing momentum, which is what we’ve spent the last few weeks gaining back. And in that time, there’s been kind of an explosion in the realm of crowdsourcing. There is now both an awareness and excitement over the possibilities, and some pretty big projects (way higher than our budget) getting funded through Kickstarter. I’m not so sure it’s (the future) yet and I expect Kickstarter fatigue to set in as every short-on-cash dev tries their luck at the crowdsourcing game. The last thing we want to do is look like a (me too) project trying to ride the gamer goldrush (dolla dolla bill, y’all!) but I expect that there are going to be quite a few projects that have no such hang-ups.

I still don’t think we’re quite ready for a Kickstarter launch, but we’re starting to head in that direction. I think putting a bit of distance between any possible launch and the massive projects being funded right now is probably a smart move, though I’m not a bizdev guy, so who knows. While we toil away on the latest Dead State builds and features, I would like to open up the discussion to you, the potential supporter – let’s kickstart a Kickstarter discussion. Here’s what we would like to know:

-We’re planning on showing off some of the gameplay we think represents the game. What would you like to see most to feel confident about contributing to the game? (Please don’t describe a fully complete game.)

-When would you want Dead State out by at the latest? (Keep in mind, no amount of money can make 10 people do the work of 25.)

-What kind of rewards would you like to see and for how much? (For example, higher level sponsorship might get your portrait done up as a zombie or non-ally NPC featured in the game.)

-How often would you want to see updates and what would you like us to showcase? (Again, keep in mind, doing updates takes time out of our schedule.)

We still want to bring you the zombie survival RPG experience we set out to do from day one, but in order to get it done in a reasonable time frame, it’s no longer going to be possible without a way to sustain full-time development your feedback would help shape our plans quite a bit. Thanks for your continued support and interest – let’s see if we can make 2012 a great year for Dead State!