Hello hello everyone!
So, as you may have heard, our Kickstarter failed! We figured we would go over a few of the reasons why it did to learn from our mistakes and hopefully help anyone thinking of starting a Kickstarter of their own! If you haven't seen the video yet, here are the main reasons why we think our Kickstarter failed!
- No Prior Marketing: Not a lot of people knew about our project beforehand! Because of this, many people didn't even know we were making a new project, let alone a Kickstarter campaign for it! Next time, we'll be sure to have more teasers, devlogs, and concept art to show off, and we'll be sure to do so months in advance first!
- The Demo: The demo was a nice introduction to the story we were planning on telling, but gameplay wise, it didn't really hold up. Once you played it, there was really no reason to go back! Another thing about the demo was that, while we did have some hints of future gameplay elements in the demo, we feel like it wasn't a very accurate representation of what you can expect from the full game. There weren't many meaningful or impactful choices, so it felt very linear compared to what the full game will have to offer!
- Steam: Oh boy. We were planning on getting our demo out on itch.io and Steam when the Kickstarter launched, but unfortunately, our build was rejected a few times before it was accepted. Having a Steam page is incredibly valuable for garnering an audience! Itch.io is a fantastic platform, but having your game on Steam really helps boost its visibility! We were only able to get the page up and running around halfway through the campaign, and by that point, a lot of the initial traction had died down. Next time, we'll be sure to have our Steam page set up way in advance! Even if the demo wasn't ready, just having a page where people can wishlist the game is very useful!
What now?
- The lack of Kickstarter funding is unfortunate, but we're still going to be developing Pyun Pyun! Unfortunately, it will likely just take a lot longer, as mentioned in the Risks and Challenges section on our Kickstarter page. However, this doesn't mean we'll just be going silent!
- We've got some smaller projects to look forward to from our devs! SandDev's project, Winter Hubris, will be a short, point and click horror game! There are other things in the works as well, and we'll be sure to let you all know what else we have planned when we have more info!
- We decided to focus on smaller projects with a smaller scope so that we can get more games out to all of you! Pyun Pyun is a large project that requires the hands of all of the developers, but these next few games will be smaller scale with fewer devs! This way, we don't need to coordinate everyone, and we can start making revenue to make up for the Kickstarter! You all get more games from us, and we get to send out games faster!
So what about Pyun Pyun?
- We're planning on releasing an updated demo sometime in the future! As we do more development, we'll keep you all updated!
- The Character Zine will unfortunately not be produced for now, but it's not getting scrapped! So if you were interested in getting one, don't worry! The art will be used in another way sometime in the future!
Once again, we'd like to thank you all so much for your support! It's always wonderful to see everyone's theories, comments, and fanart! Even if you can't support us financially, just seeing how passionate you all are about our games makes us feel very grateful to have been able to foster such a creative community!
See you again soon!
- SoupDev