Kickstarter

Creator Benjamin Penney on June 18, 2012

@Subliminal Games: You've probably already heard this, but your rewards tiers are really confusing. Here's how I would structure them: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/41973753/694522359… -- I dropped the mouse pad in favour of a poster and skipped on duplicated things like the mini-bust which are better done as bigger rewards IMHO. I think you're also offering stuff that's waaaaay too bespoke at earlier levels, so I reshuffled things to put the more easily mass produced items first. Please try this again! I would back v3.0! Note: I have no experience running Kickstarter campaigns. I just based this tier structure on what other successful campaigns I've backed have done.

Creator Mike-Kerona Extra/Over The Half Dome on June 8, 2012

I questioned myself about posting this here. It is a real shame that this project was not funded... but I do not want the same fate to befall SpaceVenture, so if anyone here has not already backed (Two Guys) SpaceVenture, now would be the time to do so. They only have three days left, and still need to make close to 100K to meet their goal: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceventure/two-guys-spaceventure-by-the-creators-of-space-que

Creator Pedasn - "Asylum" Backer on June 6, 2012

i wish them best luck in seeking other funding opportunities.

Creator Tejozaszaszas on June 6, 2012

I hope to see this project reborn some day. Good luck.

Creator Mats Andren on June 5, 2012

I think Marc Pongitory had some good points there. maybe start out next time with just a part of the story, smaller scope, and perhaps a more modest 2d engine/design. and then go bigger and bigger if the project goes alright. and/or maybe go for realizing one area with private funds first to show where its going.

Creator Palindrome Bob-XSF-I'm in AGL589-AK666 on June 5, 2012

Can't say this is is a big surprise, but I'll add my voice to those wishing to be kept in the loop.
### Member of the Pinkerton Road Cavalry ###

Creator Joseph Scott on June 5, 2012

Ill add my vioce to those who will be here when you restart!

Creator StarshipTrooper :Asylum Krazies $6.66: on June 5, 2012

Same goes for me - I'll be here as soon as Portal Reborn v3 starts !

Creator Tobias Maack on June 5, 2012

If there will be a restart of this project, you can count on me again.

Creator Dave Hopman on June 5, 2012

You can count me in again if you decide to do a Portal Reborn v3.!

Creator Greta - KG Pinkerton Rd AGL589 Mem. AGRM on June 5, 2012

Keep me in the loop, if you get restarted, I'll be there.

Creator taumel on June 5, 2012

Whoever was in charge of this project was following a pipe dream.

It was predictable already weeks ago that this project won't go anywhere. After canceling the first try, you haven't taken the time to analyse what went wrong, evolved some marketing&communication skills, involved the community and get them excited properly, offered well thought out tiers, recognised that Portal isn't as popular as other kickstarter projects are and that the community is different, not as loud, as well.

Portal was a very good game for its time and i think a new Portal could have been a great game too but the campaign was amateurish and unrealistic. Whatever you're trying to achieve now, i hope you can work out all the weak points and think things through upfront.

Coming up with a less expensive 2D game design could help as well and in my opinion this wouldn't even mean that the game will be less interesting as we're talking about a story driven game. If you go the 3d route you also have to do it right and this often means a lot more money.

So, i hope you've learned your lessons and wish you the best for the future.

Creator Dane Barrett on June 5, 2012

A real shame to see this one fall by the wayside. My only suggestion would be to rethink what type of game it will be. Something designed in the Unreal Development Kit with an over-the-shoulder viewpoint may have much more appeal in this day and age than an older style 3D adventure. If done with UDK, you could probably be able to find a young programmer who can wip up a decent demo level for future promotional purposes. And of course, if using UDK you have the ability make it look truly amazing while keeping the costs down.

Creator Julien on June 5, 2012

Sorry you guys did not make it out.

Creator Adam on June 5, 2012

Please keep in us in the loop if you decide to re-start your kickstarter. I'll be re-pledging for sure.

Creator Junius Stone on June 5, 2012

I await your new project and eventually, stepping through the Portal...

Creator Marc Pongitory on June 4, 2012

Aside from Wasteland, this is the project I have the most interest in. It's too bad it's gotten so little attention. I still think this is one of the most compelling stories I've seen in a computer game over the years.

One of my first thoughts, besides for the original game, was the original 'Hacker' or 'Neuromancer', where you spent much of your time on the virtual computer, or moving through 'Cyberspace' hunting for clues.

I think the lack of actual game content is the biggest hold up, since many of the higher target Kickstarter projects have some actual gameplay. If you don't meet your goal, maybe you should consider splitting the story into episodes, similar to how the recent 'Back to the Future' game was released. The first 'episode' or a 'prelude' could be released with a smaller scope. Then your could start another episode or the rest of the story with a higher goal. The gameplay could also differ a bit between episodes, to match the scale of the project. Since the story starts with most of the AI's 'offline', it wouldn't need to be as complicated.

Skyjacker is doing pretty well after their restart, in part due to the quick 'boost' of the original backers getting back on board. Hopefully you'll at least have a fair number of fans by the end of the project. Several projects, such as Kinetic void, saw a big surge at the end. Maybe we'll see the same thing for Portal. I'd hate to see this project end here.

Creator Katrar (∞) on June 4, 2012

As Pival said, the only reason other names were able to successfully get the amounts they did was because they had huge name recognition and a great deal of industry success behind them with which to leverage in support of their campaigns. Beyond those anomalies (and they clearly are) most of the PC games that have successfully sought Kickstarter support have already reached certain stages of real development and hope for Kickstarter support for polish, specific code work or $$$ issues with rights, distribution, etc. There's nothing wrong with a longer journey composed of multiple stepping stones, in fact I'd be willing to bet that such a journey may in the end result in a better game. IMO this project does what we all hope to see out of the indy world: it innovates. But you have to be honest with yourselves about the limited name recognition of both the author and title, in 2012, and take the baby steps when they are necessary. =)

Creator Greta - KG Pinkerton Rd AGL589 Mem. AGRM on June 4, 2012

Kinda bummed also this is not moving. In some ways it looks more interesting to me than Tex or 2 Guys *ducks from rotten tomatoes*
My son said he played the original and it was awesome.

Creator Junius Stone on June 4, 2012

As would I. This game sounds right up my alley and the development you are showing does draw me in. However you decide to go forward, for what it's worth you have my support.

Creator pival on June 3, 2012

I think you guys should step back on fundings, work on your own to create at least a viewable demo/videos, and present the game some more. The other thing that might scare people off as well is the studio you decided to use to outsource the development... Creating titles for phones and the games shown at http://www.virtuosgames.com/what-we-do/co-development/ is clearly NOT a guarantee of good game delivery.

The big titles like Wastelands 2 or the Tim Shafer campaign worked well on "nothing to show" because they were known and had GREAT and KNOWN games in their CV. Especially games gamers awaited for so long.

I hope you can see some sense in all that and come back later with a good kickstarter campaign, with screenshots and everything! I will pledge again!

Creator Jimbo on June 3, 2012

Me too !!!

Creator Michael Hartmann - Dream Traveller $6.13 on June 2, 2012

That's good to know. I would really like to play this game.

Creator Jimbo on June 2, 2012

Say, are you planning to do a Portal v3.0 campaign if this one doesn't work out?
Or is there a plan B?

Creator Joseph Austin on May 29, 2012

Raised my pledge in the hopes that it will make us go higher... im sorry that this project hasnt been moving like it should be :(

Creator Tomer on May 29, 2012

Unfortunately I don't. But I agree that getting poor Stephen to tweet about the project will be equivalent to reaching our goal :-)

Creator Tomer on May 29, 2012

If Jane Jensen had a hard time getting 450K$, you need a freakin' genious campaign to gather 530K$.

Creator Mads Storm Andersen on May 28, 2012

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php… As fare as I can tell it's under Creative Commons licenses.

One of the books I have read the most!!

Creator Jason Corley on May 28, 2012

I just wanted to take the opportunity to say how much I enjoyed the original Portal and how excited I am to see it coming back. As a young man, Portal was exactly the kind of novel I would have read, and seeing it unfold on a computer, as if I were the Astronaut (this will be the biggest mental block for me to enjoy the remake) was eye-opening in a phenomenal way. I wasn't just controlling something or someone on the screen, or reading and imagining what was happening - I was literally doing the things the protagonist did, and when HOMER urgently told me something was happening RIGHT NOW, I got chills.

I wanted the novelization - could never find it.

I've used HOMER and HOMER-a-like setups in many science fiction RPGs I've played over the years. Suffice to say Portal has stuck with me a very very long time and has inspired me greatly.

As I said in my tweet promoting this kickstarter: "Transit Query Terminated" makes the hair on the back of my arm stand up.

Creator Tristan Marshall on May 27, 2012

Thank you taking the time to respond, especially since my comments were quite blunt. I don’t mean to be deliberately offensive, but I did have some criticisms of the project that I wanted to put across.
Since you were kind enough to respond to me, it’s only fair that I should respond in return:
1) There are several reasons why the reward structure is confusing. Firstly, there are far too many different physical rewards, and too much focus on these rewards. The majority of the reward tiers just add an extra item to the previous tier. Look at how few backers have picked one of these ‘+1’ tiers: people do not want these items.
The ‘pick-and-choose’ menu for the physical rewards does not help either. When browsing the rewards for the first time I cannot visualise what ‘3 level A items’ looks like because I have not memorised the list – it takes effort just to understand what is on offer. Also, phrases like ‘Gyges medal’ and ‘Intercorp Map’ are meaningless to people who have not played the original game, or to those who have played the game but forgotten some details over the last two decades. Again, this makes it difficult to comprehend what is on offer.
Also, there is FAR too much stuff added at the $30 tier. I had to read that several times just to be able to picture what was on offer. Look at how other – successful - game projects have managed digital extras: adding them one at a time in consecutive tiers. This both makes it easier to understand the rewards, and gives people a bigger motivation to upgrade to the higher tiers.
2) Correct me if I’m way off, but let’s say your costs here are around $0.20 for a stiff-backed envelope, $0.20 for postage, and $0.10 to have it made? I think that’s fairly optimistic, but it’s still an entirely unnecessary 10% (-ish) of the pledge gone on fulfilment. That not many people have selected it is rather beside the point – it gives a bad impression of your ability to stick to a tight budget.
3) I accept the point about Eric and Joel; but the sense I got from the front page is that Andy’s experience is more with ‘edutainment’ titles, not full-on games with the production values you seem to be hoping for. The fact that you don’t name any of these titles only reinforces that impression. And what’s with this ‘7 or 8’ business? Has he lost count?
It’s hard to look at all this and not feel that the Producer and Exec. Producer lack experience and will be learning as they go. This inevitably means mistakes will be made, and with the amount of content in this game there is very little room in the budget for mistakes.
4) ‘China = shoddy’ is not the argument I was going for, and I apologise both to Virtuos and to you if that’s how it came across. My point was that putting everyone with the creative vision on one continent and all the programmers and modellers on another is a recipe for a finished product that does not match the vision. I’m sure Virtuos do good work, but they seem to be geared more towards QA and 3-D modelling rather than delivering complete games. I do not know of any functioning development studio where the senior production staff stay out of the office and communicate only via skype, and I think there is good reason for that.
I have my own opinions about the merits Dreamfall, and about Roberta Williams’ games, but that is another, much longer post.
5) You are mistaken if you think that marketing is the only difference between this and Jane Jensen’s kickstarter. She may have less content on her page, but it is of much higher quality (the shaky camera in Andy’s video is not something I want to see from people who are asking for half a million dollars for a creative project) and conveys her vision perfectly succinctly. Most importantly, she kept her goals realistic and put her long-term ambition (to make more GK games) to one side in favour of something smaller that she was certain she could deliver. Contrast that with the nine separate locations you list on the project page – that’s a hell of a lot of extra design work (not to mention time and money) that could be easily avoided if you scaled back your ambitions and stayed realistic.

Creator Adam on May 26, 2012

I really want this project to succeed. In order to success might I suggest pooling like minded indie developers who live physically close, who are enthusiastic about your content and who are willing to go that extra mile.

Draw inspiration and perhaps consult from successfully funded projects like wasteland 2, shadow run and double fines adventure. Create marketing material that is entertaining in itself, that are viral in nature. Comics come to mind.

Provide more interaction between you and your backers. By using survey's midway.

Hire a student marketer/video editor.

Simplify the rewards into a simple list of Pledge = 'reward items'. Try to avoid DLC rewards.

Try getting the game on indiegames.com - spacesector.com and talked about on gamasutra.com.

Creator Mats Andren on May 25, 2012

hehe thought that might be the case. =) easily done.

Creator Mats Andren on May 25, 2012

good answers there. whos roberta holmes? are you confusing roberta williams and robert holmes?

Creator Canageek on May 25, 2012

Well, I started a new job, so I bumped myself up a pledge level. Hope you guys find some way to make this work.

Creator Tristan Marshall on May 25, 2012

I backed this so I could comment. Much as I hate to say it, I think you'd be better off cancelling this. Lack of awareness isn't the reason for the slow progress, it's the project itself - the whole pitch raises some *major* red flags:

1) The reward system is a confusing mess
2) The rewards you've promised are too expensive. You have physical rewards at the $5 tier, for crying out loud! The higher-tier rewards are even more ridiculous: truckloads of expensive physical items with a pick-and-choose system that seems designed to ensure small production batches and even higher costs.
3) The main guys behind the project have not made a game since the 1980s.
4) Your plan is apparently to outsource production to a company based in China. This just screams "We will have little oversight or control of the development" and compounds your lack of production experience by adding huge distance and language barriers between you and the people who will be doing the bulk of the work.

I could come up with more, but you get the idea.

I hate to be so blunt since you guys seem genuinely bent on getting this game made, but the overwhelming impression an observer gets from this project is: "These guys don't know what they're doing. Avoid."