It turns out gamers aren’t afraid of the unknown. Or at least they’re not afraid of investing in it.
Toronto-based independent game studio Massive Damage, Inc. (Please Stay Calm, Shadow Wars) last month launched a Kickstarter campaign for its new retro-styled sci-fi game, Halcyon 6, describing it using a variety of seemingly disparate terms including “roguelike,” “4X strategy,” “survival,” and “crew management.”
Even lifelong fans of the medium and these genres might have a tough time conjuring up a precise picture of what such a game might look and play like.
But that didn’t stop thousands of people from throwing their money at it.
Ken Seto – who, along with his brother Garry, spun Massive Damage out of their successful app development company Endloop (you might be familiar with iMockups, a wireframing productivity app that launched with the original iPad) – asked the gaming crowd for a relatively modest $40,000.
However, buoyed by vocal support from respected gaming sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun and benefiting from promotional assistance offered by the Square Enix Collective, the project ended up earning nearly five times that amount, taking in more than $187,000 during its thirty day pledge period.
Post Arcade connected with Seto via email to learn more about his new game and try to wring out the secret to running such a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Massive Damage, Inc.
Halcyon 6 looks ridiculously ambitious. Can you distill it into a simple concept that our readers can understand?
The official one-sentence description we used on our Kickstarter was:
“Halcyon 6 is a rogue-like sci-fi strategy survival game with base building, tactical combat, crew management and emergent storytelling.”
We’re still working on a tighter tagline.
What made you think about combining all of these seemingly incongruent elements into a single game?
One of our design pillars was to make a game that gave you the same feeling as when you’ve just finished watching your favourite sci-fi shows, like Star Trek or Firefly.
Having established the core concept of a ragtag team working together to conquer challenges, we started exploring the idea of incorporating classic gameplay elements from long lost gems, like the Master of Orion, Jagged Alliance, and Star Control series.
Taking these elements together, streamlining and modernizing them along with a fresh modern take on retro style graphics, we found we had put together something very compelling.
Let’s talk about your Kickstarter campaign. How far along were you when you decided to launch it? Did the response surprise you?
We actually started talking about Halcyon 6 as early as March of 2014. We posted a bunch of early concept art to TIGSource forums, a site dedicated to indie game development. We then heard about the Square Enix Collective program from a friend at Kitfox Games.
Square Enix created this platform to allow indie game developers to pitch their concept to Square Enix’s player community. Games that got great feedback were offered to receive promotional assistance for their Kickstarter campaign.
We entered the Collective in the summer of 2014 with our early Halcyon 6 game concept art and game design. The response was amazing and Square Enix offered to help us with our Kickstarter campaign whenever we decided to start one.
After the Collective success, we got tied up with other projects and put Halcyon 6 on hold for a few months. We picked up the thread again in late fall and decided to take the art style up a notch. We then worked on new art as well as a more detailed game design and a working combat demo before we launched our Kickstarter in March 2015.
The response was tremendous and overwhelming. We knew we had something special but we had no idea that it would do that well. We hit our $40,000 target in less than 40 hours. Both me and Halcyon 6 game producer Peter McLean barely slept for the first 3 days of the campaign as we were scrambling to finish the material needed for the updates as our goal was met way earlier than expected.
We never anticipated that we would raise $187,706 for our passion project but we are extremely grateful to have the funding to build the best possible version of Halcyon 6 that we can dream of.
How has Kickstarter changed the game for developers like you? To what do you credit your game’s Kickstarter success?
During my pre-campaign research, I noticed a trend of fewer video game campaign successes in the recent years compared to the early days of Kickstarter.
For the indie games that did have successful campaigns, I noticed a few common traits. They clearly prepared for many months prior to the campaign launch. They had a great trailer. They had beautiful, modern art direction. Their backer reward levels were well thought out and not confusing. Their updates were frequent and they engaged their backers in the comments area. And they clearly understood how to make their concept appealing to their potential audience.
As for our campaign, I did all of the above and followed closely to the campaign designs for Darkest Dungeons and Moon Hunters. I thought those two did a fantastic job with their campaigns.
While we certainly got a lot of help from the Square Enix Collective’s mailing list campaigns, our day-one head start indicated that we were already on our way to success regardless.
Before the campaign, I warned everyone on my Facebook and Twitter that I would be talking quite a lot about Halcyon 6 in the coming days. I told them that not only was this very important to me and my company, but that I would also likely email them directly for support when the campaign launches. I got a lot of support on Facebook for my frankness and consideration.
Then, on day one, I did as I said. I emailed everyone in my contact book that remotely could help us with our outreach, even if I thought they probably wouldn’t back the campaign itself. I also emailed about 150 other game developers and studio CEOs to tell them about our game and campaign. That day, I probably wrote nearly 250 emails, each with a personal blurb at the beginning.
We managed to get about $10,000 in funding on day one. That was already 25% of our ask – a great start by any standard. Having such a great start was key to converting backers once Square Enix sent their email campaign to their player base on day two.
From there, we worked on creating great campaign updates and stretch goals for our backers to get excited about. It was almost a 24-7 kind of job during the campaign. Preparation, hard work and community engagement were the keys to our success.
Will new game elements dictated by the many stretch goals you’ve met delay release?
No, we’ve stated early on that we wouldn’t let the stretch goals delay our initial game launch. There will be some elements we’ll incorporate for the main release but most extra content will be released post-launch.
If people missed the campaign is there any way for them to jump on board now? Are you doing any post-Kickstarter crowd funding?
For a limited time, we’re letting people who missed out or couldn’t use Kickstarter access to still back the project. The link is here: http://www.h6game.net/paypal.
The reason it’s time limited is that we don’t want to be continuously distracted with fundraising. We have what we need to build what we wanted to build so we’re going to focus solely on development to ensure we get the game out as soon as possible for all of our backers and fans.
What are you focused on at this minute?
Primarily we’re focused on building Halcyon 6. We’re super excited that we raised the amount we did as it’ll allow us to just keep our heads down and focus on making an awesome game and getting it out there for the world to play as soon as possible.
The preceding interview was lightly edited for length and flow.
