Topic: Castlevania level 1 made in unreal

[zangetsu468]

Woah there buddy, crowdfunding a derivative work isn't exactly a good idea. I've seen quite a handful of those shut down due to legal problems.

Faxanadu HD got shut down, doubt this would be different. 

[Lelygax]

I feel the same about it, its not a good idea. But its not like Faxanadu HD. Faxanadu HD's guy tried in a shameless effort to profit using another's IP without permission and/or give them money to get it. While dejawolfs is trying to get money to get such license.

Even so I don't think big companies really care or even try to look why people are trying to get money if you slap their IP name on some Kickstarter, I think its the first time that someone tries to get money for a license in a crowdfunding site instead of doing a game without permission, someone more well versed should share their thoughts here, since as it seems to me while he doesnt get a hold of the license he is technically in a "without permission status" and this kickstarter really can bring issues even if he is trying to do the right thing.

[piscesdreams]

It may be a different scenario, but it's Konami and there is officially a monetary value affiliated with this project.  It won't be long before it is shut down and possibly even a C&D issued on the game itself.

[Chernabogue]

If you're really going with a Kickstarter, make sure legal stuff is okay. And improve your KS's presentation as well, it really feels very unprofessional and rushed.

[dejawolf]

it's done, no turning back. and the kickstarter page is uneditable, so no changing that.

[KaZudra]

Oh boy, I smell a DCMA straight from Konami.

If you're passionate about it, we can help get an original CV inspired indie game going.

[MooMilk]

That was stupid.

[darkmanx_429]

Yeah, I don't know how I feel about the KS either. Especially when ShadowMoses literally just got shut down pretty recently a few months ago.

I think you would be much better off removing the KS and basically finishing the whole game first in UE4. Better to release first and then ask for permission later, but the fact that you are still asking for money even if it's just to gain a CV License I can practically see a C&D coming practically crippling you before you can truly gain momentum in your project.

 I would say continue to just work on it with whatever small free time you have on the weekends until it's done.

[Claimh Solais]

*sigh* Whatever little hope I had for this project just went out the window with the Kickstarter. Let me leave my two cents on it. tl;dr at the end for those who don't want to read the whole post.

One: The obvious legal issues.
This is exactly the same situation as Faxanadu Remake. This isn't different in that you're asking to raise money for the license to CV, because it clearly states in your Kickstarter project that what you're trying to fund is the remake itself, not the ability to obtain the license. Even then, I'm sure there's a whole other legal hoop you gotta jump through to even raise funds to get the license. This is a DMCA waiting to happen.

The legal issues can be disregarded if you decided to just instead make your own CV-inspired game, but that isn't what you're doing here.

Two: Holy hell, those price points.
The first reward tier is fine. It's approximately $12 USD to get the game upon completion. That sounds fine and dandy. But the higher tiers? It's approximately $114 USD to get the game and your name in the credits. That is unreasonable in every sense of the word. I don't know who in their right mind would think that's an acceptable price point, because most games give you the ability to have your name in the credits for just $5 USD. Most other games will give you the game and that option for around $30 USD. That's horribly overpriced.

Don't even get me started on the "King's Ransom". You're getting the game, the credit, and a character model of you for a whopping $2,800 USD (approximately). That is beyond an insane price point. That's more than asking for an arm and a leg. That's a price that's equivalent to about six PS4 Pros. Even if you had the go-ahead to make a Kickstarter to raise any kind of money, you really should have sought advice on the reward tiers. Because the only one that even makes sense is the first tier.

Three: Your presentation.
This one was brought up previously. Your presentation looks rushed and completely unprofessional. If you even wanted a chance to get this to "be okay" with Konami, the least you could have done was work on your presentation. Not only is there a lack of anything on your page, but capitalization and writing is a huge issue.

On top of that, you show nothing of where people's money will go. On the page, you even state that the animations may not be top notch, so it's clear you're not going to use some of that money to either polish the animations yourself, or pay someone to do it. You don't say whether it will go toward improving the graphics, the gameplay, remastering music, recording voice acting, or anything like that. You don't even state how much the Castlevania license is. You're asking for upwards of $70,000+ USD without telling anyone where the money is going.




Basically, the KS is pretty much doomed to fail, and even if it weren't, there are so many things that are out of whack here. The creation of the Kickstarter page was a premature move, and you should've sought advice for it, or someone to put it together for you. But as it is, you have nothing here but a couple of videos of what you have in UE4. You don't tell us what you plan to put in the game, where the money is going to go, how you're going to budget it... I mean, all of this would easily fit into the "Risks and Challenges" slot.

tl;dr - The Kickstarter page was a bad idea, and is pretty much doomed to fail.

[zangetsu468]

I didn't like any of that.

[Chernabogue]

Apart from the KS thing, your progress is amazing. Level 2 is getting better with each update.

[dejawolf]

*sigh* Whatever little hope I had for this project just went out the window with the Kickstarter. Let me leave my two cents on it. tl;dr at the end for those who don't want to read the whole post.

tl;dr - The Kickstarter page was a bad idea, and is pretty much doomed to fail.

yeah, i agree the kickstarter was a terrible idea, never should have listened to those people telling me i should do one.

sure the page looks raggedy and hashed together, because it is. i'd rather work on the game than spend 2-3 days putting together a proper kickstarter page.

for the price point, i have over 200k views on the original castlevania video. i would need less than half of those people to do a 10$ donation to reach the point.
the majority of the money would be for the license, the other 20-25k are an estimate of what i'd need to pay decent 3d artists for their work.
the rest would go towards obtaining a license.

for the price points, i put them intentionally high, to keep those donations to a minimum.
again, i'd rather spend time working on the castlevania remake than spend hours upon hours typing in the names of 25 000 people into a credits list who gave me 20$
as an example, if i spend 20 seconds typing in a name, i'll be spending 139 hours typing in names.
if i spend 4 hours every day typing in names, that'll be nearly 35 days of typing.
i could complete a level in the same time.

and for the kings ransom, i won't be spending 20 seconds on that, i can tell you that much.
a properly rigged, textured and normal mapped unique character model you're talking at least 2 full days of work.
if only 100 people paid the kings ransom, i'd end up having to spend 1600 hours making people and putting them into the game.
in that same time period i could probably make 2 full castlevania remakes.
i could outsource, but expect to pay at least 350€ for a decent character model. that's 21€ an hour, or the average hourly pay for a car mechanic here in norway.

you even state that the animations may not be top notch, so it's clear you're not going to use some of that money to either polish the animations yourself, or pay someone to do it

i said that because i'm not a top notch animator, or a top notch programmer. and apparently not a top notch communicator either.
i didn't think of outsourcing animations at the time of typing, although i do know a pretty talented mercenary animator.

[Claimh Solais]

sure the page looks raggedy and hashed together, because it is. i'd rather work on the game than spend 2-3 days putting together a proper kickstarter page.

See, but even if Konami were going to sell you the license, they'd obviously do a back-check on who you are. If you showed them your YouTube videos, it wouldn't be hard to trace your username down to here. And this line that I quoted here? If you can't even take a couple days to put together a well-produced Kickstarter page, why would Konami trust you with the CV license? How would they know if, now that you got the license, you're going to put together a well-produced game? Or that you'll even finish it? You can say you will on both those questions, and most of us here even believe you will. But you need to show Konami, not tell them. And if you can't even be bothered to take the time out on your Kickstarter page, it creates a really bad first impression.

for the price point, i have over 200k views on the original castlevania video. i would need less than half of those people to do a 10$ donation to reach the point.
the majority of the money would be for the license, the other 20-25k are an estimate of what i'd need to pay decent 3d artists for their work.
the rest would go towards obtaining a license.

You're going under the assumption here that 200,000 separate people watched your video. Some of those people commented multiple times in a comment thread. Most of them don't just stick around until the next comment pops up. They leave the page and when they get a notification they go back to the video to respond. Each time they go back, it adds another view to your page. There are some people that actually even liked what they saw enough to watch it multiple times.

On top of that, just because they watched the video doesn't mean they will pledge.

And also, you still haven't said how you plan to get the license. Do you even know how? As it is currently, you sound like you're making all these ambitious claims but don't actually have a plan in place on how to achieve it, which is something you really should have put together first.

for the price points, i put them intentionally high, to keep those donations to a minimum.
again, i'd rather spend time working on the castlevania remake than spend hours upon hours typing in the names of 25 000 people into a credits list who gave me 20$
as an example, if i spend 20 seconds typing in a name, i'll be spending 139 hours typing in names.
if i spend 4 hours every day typing in names, that'll be nearly 35 days of typing.
i could complete a level in the same time.

Just an aside note that isn't meant to be taken seriously... What kind of name would take 20 seconds to write?

Back on a series note: That's what limited reward tiers are for. Make "name in the credits" a limit of 10 or 20. Going off most your comments here and on YouTube, you made it very clear you didn't give the "How-To" on Kickstarter a thorough read. They all you all the things you can do on there, and how to do it, which I found after about 8 seconds of searching.

and for the kings ransom, i won't be spending 20 seconds on that, i can tell you that much.
a properly rigged, textured and normal mapped unique character model you're talking at least 2 full days of work.
if only 100 people paid the kings ransom, i'd end up having to spend 1600 hours making people and putting them into the game.
in that same time period i could probably make 2 full castlevania remakes.
i could outsource, but expect to pay at least 350€ for a decent character model. that's 21€ an hour, or the average hourly pay for a car mechanic here in norway.

Then that's not only a stupid reward tier, it's an incredibly scummy thing to do. Let's put into a full perspective.

Let's assume a guy decides he does want the King's Ransom reward tier. He's clearly got a lot of faith in your game and wants to see it to its completion. So much so that he pledges almost three-thousand US dollars to your game. If you want an idea of what you could buy with that...

-46 brand new day-one-release console video games.
-70 brand new day-one-release portable video games.
-Seven brand new PlayStation 4 Pros.
-Fourteen brand new New Nintendo 3DS XLs.

So instead of buying one of those options, they instead to give the money to you for the reasons above. And you're not even going to give them a properly rigged, textured, and mapped character model. Someone is giving you nearly three grand and you're not going to take two days out of your life to give them something that does not cost nearly three-thousand dollars anywhere else.

You put the reward tier there. You give them something proper for the price you're asking for.

--------------------------

As a final note, you're tossing aside a lot cuz all you want to do is develop games. But as it stands, you can't just do that. Professionalism is key. It's a huge factor in getting people to even want to play your game, let alone actually having them play it. You're focusing solely on the parts you want to do, and ignoring so many essential parts simply because you don't want to do them.

Kickstarter page? Yeah, it was a bust. But everyone would have had significantly more faith in it had you just spent the couple days working on it. Had you sought advice to actually put together a well-made presentation. Had a plan that would have gotten you there and laid it out for the public to see. Did the research on how to even get the license and let people know how you planned to do that. A fall-back plan in the event that Konami doesn't sell you the license (which is very likely). Or just in general, found a much better way to go about this.

An important point that you need to understand is that this Kickstarter still is you making money off an IP that isn't yours to make money off of. The reason being is that if your Kickstarter is successful and Konami does not sell you the license, you now have fifty extra grand in your pocket. That's a lot of money.



As a final aside, these aren't meant as a personal attack against you. Take these critiques to heart. Not just from me but from others who have at least tried to give constructive criticism and not just thrown insults at you. Apply them to not only your project but future projects and your work ethic. It'll give you a significantly better image to the public, and people would be more inclined to play your games and share them with their friends; and when you get to that point you're selling your games on Steam Greenlight or something, they'll be more inclined to pay for them. As I said, professionalism goes a long way.

[MooMilk]

There needed to be alot more incentives. Also name in the credits was totally doable. I saw a couple kickstarted documentaries that had long sections in the credits that had kickstarter names. You can have 3 names side by side in HD resolution. I doubt Konami would give you the right to make the game tho if you were gonna add 200 characters of noname average people as playable characters. That' definately wouldn't add value to the game in their minds.

[zangetsu468]

No offence but this whole thing now feels like a cash grab.
Your game looks awesome and I could not in any way do better, but at the end of the day:
- it's Castlevania 1 with new graphics and
- there are also parts that seem really unfinished in the existing levels (such as the knights in L2 having basically zero animation)

I realise it's not a finished product, but just something to note.

Even if you're asking for money for a brand new ip or a license for an existing one, then you're better off putting together a presentation that looks finished rather than quantity which looks good but seems unfinished.

You say the KS page is rushed, but you seem to be fine with it? I would seriously spend the time doing research on how to get the licence, otherwise as Claimh stated it seems like the only interest in keeping this open is for a cash grab.

If Konami sees that you've already started developing this they're more than likely to take the KS page out of context and try to shut it down along with your project.