Mooncrest KS Updates #1-3, $45,708 and Counting

Since the last time we checked, the developers at KnightMayor have released three updates for their Mooncrest Kickstarter campaign, with which they are hoping to quell the fears of their potential backers, some of whom were less than thrilled by the way the Kickstarter campaign launched. In the first update 1, the developers showcased a pre-alpha prototype envrionment running in Unity 5:

The second update includes a lengthy FAQ that explains how they arrived at the material they had to show for the Kickstarter, why they decided to take down the video pitch, and what they are planning for the game’s launch in terms of platforms, DRM, and system specs. A couple of snippets:

What was up with that video?

We wanted to do something different from the standard documentary style video and not rehash our campaign. Our intention was to poke fun at ourselves and we thought a different style of video would set us apart from other Kickstarters. Well, it certainly set us apart, but not in the way we intended. We understand that if this is the only thing that people see it’s not setting a good first impression. Because of this, we have decided to remove it. And just for the record we are not a bunch of creepers!

What didn’t you show in-game footage?

This was a tough call. We’re already developing Mooncrest on a razor thin budget and we didn’t want to absorb development costs on assets that would most likely just get tossed. Plus, we didn’t want to set expectations for final aesthetics of the game when we would still have many polish phases to go through.

Additionally, Mooncrest was technically already created as Twilight a mod for Neverwinter Nights by our founder Rick Burton. Not only is Twilight fully playable, it landed Rick a full time job at BioWare, received a lot of critical acclaim, spawned a popular sequel in Midnight, and is still beloved by fans. That’s the blueprint we are working from. A lot of the shortcomings in Twilight will be addressed in Mooncrest since we have over 10 years of feedback available to us and of course we’ll be adding our own flourishes here and there to make a better experience.

If you have a copy of Neverwinter Nights and you want to try Twilight, you can download it for free from The Neverwinter Vault.

You said you were in predevelopment for almost a year. Why don’t you have more to show?

Almost a year might be a little misleading. Working on Mooncrest wasn’t all we have been doing. We each have families and other things going on aside from Mooncrest. This is a passion project that we all strongly believe in, but it has been a side project.

The specific predevelopment we have discussed has been more on the programming side creating systems in Unity 5 that will support Mooncrest moving into production. Stuff like combat, a conversation system, quest system, equipment inventory, stats, progression, AI, etc. In truth, we have a Hell of a lot going on under the hood. All of our time was been spent on making sure the systems of the game work and that everything is functional, but what we have doesn’t make for something pretty to show to the public.

We understand that potential backers want to see more and we are working on polishing some of those systems so they are more presentable. Could we have taken the smoke and mirrors approach and retouched screenshots or rendered scripted footage? Sure, but that’s not how we want to do business.

Finally, the third update describes a minor revision to the Kickstarter reward tiers for the project.

A lot of the mistakes KnightMayor made with its Kickstarter campaign could have (and should have) been avoided, but it’s good to see that they are at least responding to the feedback they’re receiving.