Kickstarter

Comments

1. 1. 

      Creator Signal Flare Games on July 25, 2012

      Bret and John

      Thank you for your candor in expressing your doubts and disappointment. It was certainly uncomfortable to read, but that's my fault. I don't think it was ugly at all for you to speak your mind - that directness, while painful, is needed when we are failing to communicate.

      While I can assure you that we most certainly are not acting in bad faith, I appreciate that assurance won't mean a lot to you right now. I fully accept that we have been remiss in getting timely updates to you to keep backers informed of progress, but we are still working on the game and it is still going to be released.

      It's a personal failing of mine that I try to make updates substantive and full of "we're done with this," kind of announcements, where very often a simple "we're still working on this," would be just as welcome. I think the project has suffered badly for this, and I want to rectify that. To that end, I am going to start updating here every two weeks with a progress report (or an admission of no progress, if none is made). Maybe it is too late to overcome your reservations, but perhaps others who might have been starting to wonder if the game was dead in the water will see that it is not.

      There has been progress, though obviously not at the rate any of us would have desired. The way the game is currently is a great improvement visually, and we are making some layout adjustments and improving the flow of the menu screens to make it a easier to navigate, but it is playable end to end and is being playtested. One of the greatest challenges is keeping the game as simple as it was intended to be, and fighting the urge to add more. Instead the goal is to add polish without adding new features that require other parts of the game to be redesigned.

      Some of the things you mention in your post are things we are looking at very carefully right now - how to set up and maintain a reasonable support schedule, how to integrate third party ads in the game to release a free version alongside the paid game, how to ensure we are giving some value for the price of the paid game, and making sure the game is as polished and appealing as it can be. We still have a couple of hurdles to clear on that side, and that will be our focus now the game itself is in testing.

      Again, I am sure that your doubts are unlikely to be assuaged by my reply here. I do hope you'll take a look at the updates and see that things are still moving (albeit slowly). We are picking up the pace again, and these updates will be more frequent. I understand that actions speak louder than words and hope you'll see that we fully intend to deliver on our commitments.

      Thanks again for your comments.

   2. 

      Creator John Cruz on July 24, 2012

      I truly hate to be ugly, but it feels appropriate here. I've backed 12 other projects on Kickstarter. This is the first one I backed, and the most disappointing. I almost didn't back any others, because I assumed that this project was reflective of the others. Thankfully for me, and shamefully for Signal Flare Games, the other projects seem to all be actually working. Kickstarter works. Signal Flare, apparently, does not.

      As one example, a board game I backed was funded on April 13th of *this* year. We've gotten 5 updates from them since funding. The latest, today, shared the happy news that they are on schedule to ship the finished product around August 20.

      I'm sorry that Signal Flare Games had some times of distress, where they had to move (funded how, one is compelled to wonder?) and where they lost focus, and shucks, just seem to have had a difficult time completing the task they set out to complete. Communicating that to us, REGULARLY, and giving us some kind of realistic appraisal of timetables, would go a long way toward people believing that they might eventually produce something other than blank stares.

      At this point, I believe nothing they say, and would be concerned about buying the finished product (since that wasn't included with the Kickstart) because the likelihood of getting support, patches, content updates, etc., from this company. The finished product, assuming there ever is one (and I've seen no evidence to suggest such) is unlikely to be worth the .99 pricetag. (Of course, they could be going for an Free/Ad based version, which might explain delays.)

      The excuses we've seen stretch credibility, given that a full board-game (not just some posters and printed cards) can go from concept to print in 3 months.

      I don't think it's unreasonable to question whether Signal Flare Games acted, and continues to act, in bad faith with its backers.

   3. 

      Creator Brett Elliff on July 22, 2012

      I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way, I had almost forgotten about this project, but maybe that is the point?

   4. 

      Creator John Cruz on July 21, 2012

      And, another 2 months slides by without updates, without a product release, without cards being sent, without posters or prints, or the ever-over-the-mystical-horizon sure-to-be-perfect UI that's bound to be coming just any ol' time.

      You do realize that it's been nearly a year and a half since you were funded, yes? To make a game?

      Google has released two major Android revisions during the interval since you were funded. (Almost 3, since Honeycomb was out a week or so before your funding date.)

      A friend of mine conceived a child, brought her to term and gave birth. She crawls, laughs, and even tries to talk. This seems like a far more complex undertaking than creating a game. At the current rate, it's possible that she'll be old enough to play your game before you're ready to actually *release* it.

      Japan still had an operational Nuclear Power Plant at Fukushima when your project was funded. Bin Laden and Gaddafi were still alive. Space shuttles were still flying missions. The War in Iraq was still going for the first 7 months after your funding date. The Large Hadron Collider has discovered three exotic particles, including the elusive Higgs-Boson.

      Should I bother to keep checking back? Should we call this Kick a dry hole and move on?