I know.

The internet is now littered with people who want to promote their Kickstarter project. I feel bad to put this here but I’m having trouble getting feedback for first presentation draft.

What I’m looking for is for people to “release their inner bitch” and nitpick everything I should change about the presentation. It’s currently incomplete but I figured I could use some feedback. Hard to see clearly when your face is shoved right in there all the time, you know?

So, here it is. People who give feedback will sleep the sleep of the just, knowing they have made a difference in the world helping a lost sheep find his flock.
_______________________________________________________

Super Toaster Guy is a single player platforming adventure game for Windows, reminiscent of Mega Man, Castlevania and Bionic Commando.

In the game, you take control of Pan, a sentient slice of bread and his powerful toaster suit on a quest to rescue the members of the Breasistance from the nefarious Doctor Dough.

[insert trailer here>


The game presentation is essentially pixel art, the medium used in games Etienne grew up with which kept him company long into the darkest nights.

His love of cartoon eventually influenced him to specialize in animation which, he hopes, will greatly enhance the game’s presentation. Size does matter when it comes to graphics, even with something as small as pixels.

Here’s a sample of his work:







Are you the type of person who enjoys dancing next to their computer when playing a game? Well, you might very well do that while listening to the tasty tracks composed by Trevor Black!

[insert song sample here>
[insert song sample no 2 here>



Art & Extras - 30% [$3000>. This covers all of the sprite work, animation, level backgrounds, and other art assets. This fund also covers any unplanned extra expenses.

Income Tax - 29% [$2851>. The evaluated amount I’ll have to pay the Canadian Government in taxes.

Kickstarter & Amazon - 10% [1000$>: This represents the amount which goes to Kickstarter and Amazon (5% each of the target amount).

Programming - 10% [$1000>. The costs of coding Super Toaster Guy by Greg. This includes fixing bugs as they come up.

Reward - 9% [849$>. This budget is to cover the fees for the backer’s rewards.

Music - 7% [$700>. The money required to finish the OST of Super Toaster Guy by Trevor.

Game Maker License - 6% [600$>: This is the fee for the Game Maker License.





From left to right:



Team Toaster:

Team toaster is an alliance of bread lover from the four corners of the world united over the internet to conquer the world or make an indie game. We settled for making a game.

The (humble) Master Mind: Etienne Zizka

One of those so called French Canadian, Etienne has always been in love with pixel art and constantly have those wacky game ideas keeping him awake at night. Decided a game about a toaster would be cool and went ahead with it. Among his various neurosis, being a perfectionist is his best one.

The Bard: Trevor Black
[to be added here>

The h4ck3r: Greg Hibberd
As an avid young British tech enthusiast, Greg is never one to back down from a challenge and what better a challenge than bringing life to a slice of bread? His adept programming knowledge is just what Pan needs to help defeat The Dough.

The Builder: Goulven Clech
While not occupied with training as a fire fighter Goulven is working on the assembly of all the bits and pieces created by his team mates to combine into an architecturally playable level… while getting intoxicated on lemon syrup.



[insert reward description here>



Edited by Zizka - 16 July 2015 at 2:30pm

How much would you want to give it a detailed look? If it's reasonable, I don't mind paying you.

Good point, I'll do that.

Ok, I’ve fixed that.

Ok, I’ve fixed that.

Ok, I’ve fixed that.

Ok, I'll work on that.

I have no idea why it showed up like that, it shouldn’t have. I’ve fixed that anyway.

Well, technically they’re supposed to :). Each logo represents the reward. A floppy for the game, the alpha symbol for the alpha release, the headphones for the soundtrack and the postcard bread for the postcard sketch reward.
If it’s unclear to you however, it might be unclear for other people.
I don’t see what is hard to read about the text but I’ll toy around with the colors to make things easier to read.
Other changes:
*I was told on another forum that everything was too small so doubled the graphics.
*I removed the variety of slices of bread to make the chart more readable. I’ve also remade the slice of bread entirely to make it look better.
*Removed the bevel.
*Changed the text to make it more readable/changed colors to have more contrast to letters stick out more.
TO DO:
*Change the animation for “the game” to make it more interesting.
*Change the art showed for in-game animated gifs.
(Change the animation for the main header)

Super Toaster Guy is a single player platforming adventure game for Windows reminiscent of Mega Man, Castlevania and Bionic Commando.

In the game, you take control of Pan, a sentient slice of bread and his powerful toaster suit on a quest to rescue the members of the Breasistance from the nefarious Doctor Dough.

[insert trailer here>



The game presentation is essentially pixel art, the medium used in games Etienne grew up with which kept him company long into the darkest nights.

His love of cartoons eventually influenced him to specialize in animation which, he hopes, will greatly enhance the game’s presentation. Size does matter when it comes to graphics, even with something as small as pixels.

Here’s a sample of his work:







Are you the type of person who enjoys dancing next to their computer when playing a game? Well, you might very well do that while listening to the tasty tracks composed by Trevor Black!

Trevor has worked on various projects ranging from movies such as ''Kingsman: the secret service'' to other indie games likes ''One Final Contract'' and ''Rad Moon Rising''.

[insert song sample here>
[insert song sample no 2 here>



Art & Extras - 30% [$3000]. This covers all of the sprite work, animation, level backgrounds, and other art assets. This fund also covers any unplanned extra expenses (for example if we go over in the rewards budget).

Income Tax - 29% [$2851]. The evaluated amount I’ll have to pay the Canadian Government in taxes.

Kickstarter & Amazon - 10% [1000$]: This represents the amount which goes to Kickstarter and Amazon (5% each of the target amount).

Programming - 10% [$1000]. The costs of coding Super Toaster Guy by Greg. This includes fixing bugs as they come up.

Reward - 9% [849$]. This budget is to cover the fees for the backer’s rewards.

Music - 7% [$700]. The money required to finish the OST of Super Toaster Guy by Trevor.

Game Maker License - 6%: This is the fee for the Game Maker License.





From left to right:



Team Toaster:

Team toaster is an alliance of bread lovers united over the internet to conquer the world or make an indie game. We settled for making a game.

The (humble) Master Mind: Etienne Zizka

One of those so called French Canadian, Etienne has always been in love with pixel art and constantly have those wacky game ideas keeping him awake at night. Decided a game about a toaster would be cool and went ahead with it. Among his various neurosis, being a perfectionist is his best one.

The Bard: Trevor Black
Trevor has contributed to music departments on projects large and small, from this years "Kingsman: the Secret Service" to other indie games like "One Final Contract" and the forthcoming "Rad Moon: Rising." He even wrote a song about his friend's butt, but much prefers crafting toaster tunes!


The h4ck3r: Greg Hibberd
As an avid young British tech enthusiast, Greg is never one to back down from a challenge and what better a challenge than bringing life to a slice of bread? His adept programming knowledge is just what Pan needs to help defeat The Dough.

The Builder: Goulven Clech
While not occupied with training as a fire fighter Goulven is working on the assembly of all the bits and pieces created by his team mates to combine into an architecturally playable level… while getting intoxicated on lemon syrup.



[insert reward description here>

I was mostly kidding about the pay. I don't usually do copy-editing so I haven't a clue what to charge for it.

The bigger graphics look much better! I hadn't even thought of that.

The new "the game" header is more interesting. Does it have to do with the game mechanics? Not knowing anything about the game, my gut reaction is to assume it's just eye-catching art.

The new bread checkmarks look great!

The chart confuses me though. It looks like the cheaper tiers have more stuff than the more expensive tiers?


Edited by eishiya - 16 July 2015 at 4:28pm

I can only tell you how I personally feel about the tiers, I don't know how your particular audience will feel about them and how much they'd pay.

I think early access should not be an extra/bonus feature at all, I think it should be included as a basic feature for all your backers. Everyone who preorders your game should get it early, before the general release. Nice and simple that way. They're taking a risk on supporting your project, reward them for it without asking for $5 extra. And when you're announcing the release dates, you'll be able to just say "X for backers, Y for everyone else" without having to specify tiers. Also, a lot of your backers will probably not really care for early access but will want the other tiers, and feel like they "have to" pay the $5 extra since all the tiers above $10 include it.

I personally never cared for things like postcards with my games, especially when the game itself is delivered as a download. If you're going to offer physical goods, make them an optional add-on, instead of auto-including them with all the higher tiers. For example, have a postcard tier, and don't include the postcard elsewhere by default. Instead, give people an option to choose a higher tier and pay $5-10 extra to also get the sketched postcard. Many people who want the higher tiers might not care for the postcard, and by making it optional, you're making less work for your artist while still allowing everyone who wants one to get one.

I think the tiers where you contribute to the game should cost more and be very limited. At that price point, they give the impression that your game isn't tightly designed enough, like you can just frivolously throw new powers and enemies into the game.
I think the two design tiers should be switched. A mini-boss has less impact on the rest of the game than an ability does (in most games, anyway). A mini-boss is probably more work for your artist(s) so I can understand having it as a higher tier though. If that's the main rationale for the current order, then just make sure both tiers are very limited, and the mini-boss tier can probably have a larger limit because it's less game-impacting.

To summarise, I guess I imagine the tiers being something like this:
(All backers, even below $10, should have the option of having their name in the credits.)
(All tiers $10 and up get early access)
$10: Copy of the game
$15 or $20: Game + Soundtrack + Manual
$35 or $40: The above + postcard.
All tiers above here can add $10 to their pledge to get the postcard
$50: Game + Soundtrack + Manual + Bread Portrait
$80: Game + Soundtrack + Manual + Your face in the game
Alternatively, this $80 tier can be bumped up to $100 and have the person be a fully functional NPC in the game rather than just a portrait. If the portrait feature is already planned in detail, you could perhaps do both. Such a tier would bridge the gap between the $80 tier and the design tiers quite nicely.

The design tier prices should depend on how limited they are and how much work they add for your artist(s) and programmer(s).
Don't forget to include design credits for people who pledge for the design tier. You may also want to have a higher tier that combines the two design tiers, so a person can do both without pledging twice. I doubt you'll get takers, but there's not much harm in including it.

In the $70 pledge image, "an household" should be "a household". The "h" in "household" is pronounced.
I'm not really sure about this tier though. As with the other design tiers, it gives the impression that the game is too far from ready to be worth backing, and that you're fishing for ideas. Things like "design a background object" are fine because they can be neat little easter eggs, but gameplay stuff needs to seem polished and ready to people.

People who give you ~$10 are still helping your game be created, and they're not even asking for anything in return, unlike people at the higher tiers. Listing everybody makes for massive credits, so I can understand not doing that. But if that's what you're worried about reason, then maybe listing the $10 tier backers isn't a good idea either, since that'll probably be the biggest tier.

I think the "Design a Boss" tier should be more expensive. How many of these will be available? I'd say go for $1000~2000 divided by how many are available. So if you're having two boss slots, then each should be $500~1000, depending on your total goal and how much work they would be.
Also, would this be a boss in the main game, or a side quest/optional boss? If it's for the main game, then that brings up the completeness/fishing-for-ideas issue again. If it's an optional boss, that should be made clear in the tier name/description, e.g. "Design a Secret Boss".

On the pledge description images where it says "Pledge: ##$", I think you should get rid of the shadow on the text and just leave the outline and two lighter yellows. The shadow makes the text look uneven. Don't fear simplicity :]
The shadows fit in the numbers/text in the rewards table, but since you have less space to work with in the pledge images, that 1px of shadow takes up a lot more space and negatively affects the shapes.

On a related note, between your reward tier, pledge images, and budget pie chart, you're using 3 different "fonts" for the numbers/text. Choose one size and style and stick with it. Inconsistency makes everything look rushed and uncared-for.

Also, usually the $ is put before the amount, not after. $60, not 60$. It's weird since people say "sixty dollars", but that's how it is.