KickStarter Wellspring: Altar of Roots - tactical RPG inspired by JRPGs (formerly Bevontule)

[Alienman]

Money on PR team never seem to give anything though. I have read that so many times by small indie-dev teams how that is just wasted money.

 

[Xeon]

I don't know if this will help, DansGaming does a kickstarter stream where he showcases and comments if a game sounds like a scam or not and stuff like that. About a week ago he seemed to like Bevontule, not sure if you can contact him and convince him if he can stream the game demo somehow or something.

 

[Galdred]

I discussed with a guy who had worked on a pretty large KS, and he told me it was very hard to aim for more than 15k for an indie nowadays.
So if you factor the cost of the campaign itself, both in time and money, KS has mostly become a glorified marketing campaign for us, indies.
That said, being able to recoup the cost of the campaign is not that bad, but it is hard to get any significant funding through it.

 

[MTG_Derek]

I don't think anyone ITT wants to see you fail. I do believe everything I said, but like you said it might be just a seasonal issue with KS right now. If anything, I think most of us just try to give honest feedback, as that's probably more valuable then just telling you how awesome you are.

Although....

Spoiler

Good luck on the rest of the campaign man.

Now that was super wholesome. To be honest, that's the main reason this forum has been so helpful to us--you guys simply don't fuck around. It's way better to get legit feedback than have your D S'ed the whole time, so... yeah. Seriously thinking about changing the title as well--my ego isn't so big as to say that yeah, maybe Bevontule isn't the best title. We've often wanted to call it something like Wellspring Saga/Story (can you use the word Saga in a video game these days, does Disney own that?) or maybe just Wellspring (Altar of Roots subtitle would probably stay.) I don't think we've grown so large that changing the title at this point would be a terrible endeavor--I mean, it'll suck, sure, but I've seen this sentiment echoed in many places, and it's likely that we were too 'close' to many of our supporters and they, perhaps, didn't want to hurt our feelings by telling us how... uh... 'not good' of a title it really is. Perhaps it would be worth narrowing our focus as well, maybe lose the 'JRPG' entirely. I mean, yeah.. the influences are there, but maybe people just see it and say, nope, even when the game is not really... a JRPG at all.

Money on PR team never seem to give anything though. I have read that so many times by small indie-dev teams how that is just wasted money.

Yeah, maybe if you're the right size/company, then sure it can be beneficial. But it hasn't done anything for us that we couldn't have easily done ourselves. Not a dig against PR teams, by any means, at least in the right circumstances.

I don't know if this will help, DansGaming does a kickstarter stream where he showcases and comments if a game sounds like a scam or not and stuff like that. About a week ago he seemed to like Bevontule, not sure if you can contact him and convince him if he can stream the game demo somehow or something.

Thanks for this, that's one hell of a lead and confidence booster. I'll definitely reach out to him.

I discussed with a guy who had worked on a pretty large KS, and he told me it was very hard to aim for more than 15k for an indie nowadays.
So if you factor the cost of the campaign itself, both in time and money, KS has mostly become a glorified marketing campaign for us, indies.
That said, being able to recoup the cost of the campaign is not that bad, but it is hard to get any significant funding through it.

I definitely agree with you there. At the same time, it's just disheartening to have seen many other campaigns that could be thought (again, I am heavily biased) to be less-prepared or less 'complete' still get funded. And then it makes me wonder whether we should've released demos at all. Hard to shake that feeling that perhaps we gave too much for free, but the common consensus around Kickstarters these days seems to be, 'you have to pretty much have a lot of the game done and show that you aren't just blowing smoke.' So yeah. Either way, not the end of the world if it doesn't get funded and it's definitely been valuable experience.

 

[MTG_Derek]

Hey guys! Managed to get a post to the front page of imgur! Not all is lost!

Feel free to pile on there and talk some shit!

Love,
Derek

 

[Jimmious]

Nice info on the AI there I still believe!

*Add a link to your KS in your signature MTG_Derek

 

[MTG_Derek]

Nice info on the AI there I still believe!

*Add a link to your KS in your signature MTG_Derek

Oooo, look at you throwing out amazing suggestions

 

[Mustawd]

Nice!

 

[Jimmious]

Pretty cool to get a video from this guy, he has some subscribers

 

[MTG_Derek]

Pretty cool to get a video from this guy, he has some subscribers

Yeah, we were stoked, he most certainly does!

 

[MTG_Derek]

Also, MTG_Derek , you might want to check out this forum:

http://www.rpgfan.com/boards/index.php

It's a very Weeb heavy rpg fan site. Worth a try I think.

All right, I've tried to sign up for this damn site multiple times and they've yet to get back to me--as a Valentine's Day present, does anyone here have an account there and would be willing to share our Kickstarter? I'd love you forever and ever!

edit: FML. resetera also has some quite stringent requirements in order to post--not that I disagree with it, just a little disheartening as I think we could gain some good traction.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

common you lazy bums 10 days now to get this thing funded!

 

[Infinitron]

Hi all! Here's a quick visualization of the enemy AI in our grid-less, tactical, turn-based RPG Bevontule! We're on Kickstarter and nearly 40% funded! If you haven't yet, consider backing us! Even a $1 donation is enough to get your name in the credits, receive access to backer-only updates and get a digital wallpaper! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

If you'd like to learn more about our AI mechanics, check out this more in-depth Imgur post: https://imgur.com/gallery/kgQ9e

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I know it must be disheartening to see the success of Vulpine: be a fox with a sword, but they have a great name. Take your cue from them and make the new name something more specific. Anything would be better than Bevontule—if you’re going to have a made up name, at least make it sound cool—but something specific would help. Throw in the word tactics or tactical.

Your combat looks quite good, though.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Okay i got bunch of money from lunar new year. Plus i pulled some money from my crypto earlier.

You have my sword! And axe! And money! (Tomorrow because it is 00.00 and i need to sleep )

 

[MTG_Derek]

I know it must be disheartening to see the success of Vulpine: be a fox with a sword, but they have a great name. Take your cue from them and make the new name something more specific. Anything would be better than Bevontule—if you’re going to have a made up name, at least make it sound cool—but something specific would help. Throw in the word tactics or tactical.

Your combat looks quite good, though.

By no means were we trying to knock them or anything like that. They do have an incredibly descriptive title and we need to follow suit asap, regardless of whether we succeed or not--how does something like "Fox Tactics" sound?

JK of course, but the point is well-taken. We'll most likely rebrand as "Wellspring: Altar of Roots" or "Wellspring Story/Saga". "Wellspring Tactics?" Not sure about that one... I have a healthy level of disdain for games that just use the word "Tactics" in the title. It made sense for "Final Fantasy Tactics" because that was an 'off-title.' Typically RPGs can get away with just having a location or made-up word as the title, but I'll admit that 'Bevontule' is somewhat of a mistake. Nevertheless, we're willing to adjust and learn from it!

Okay i got bunch of money from lunar new year. Plus i pulled some money from my crypto earlier.

You have my sword! And axe! And money! (Tomorrow because it is 00.00 and i need to sleep )

I love you.

Also, if anyone's interested, we recently were on a podcast discussing "Bevontule" as well as our Kickstarter: https://youtu.be/YexlhWYVXQg?t=38

 

[HoboForEternity]

 

[HoboForEternity]

Mustawd is pretty nice for the codex

And agree on his points, though I would go even farther and say being a mix of two worlds is more damning, its not anime enough for jRPGs, and not western enough for cRPG fans

We were never really trying to appeal to the cRPG crowd--our primary emphasis has always been on the turn-based, tactical crowd. So, really, I guess it's a failure on our end for not properly communicating what the game is, which obviously, is not really that easy to do, when it isn't just focused solely on tactical combat. Lessons learned, I suppose.

afaik the audience of these kind of games overlap quite alot as proven in this site. The jrpg and wrpg have quite the divide, but tactical and crpg and Japanese srpg can overlap quite a bit, i dunno.

I myself have rpg and tactical strategy as main genre (and to some extend point and click adventure/puzzles). Grand strategy games used to be my main too but nowadays i cannot sink 500 hours in crusader kings killing babies and fucking my daughters while most rpg even the big ones are like 100-150 at most

 

[MTG_Derek]

Mustawd is pretty nice for the codex

And agree on his points, though I would go even farther and say being a mix of two worlds is more damning, its not anime enough for jRPGs, and not western enough for cRPG fans

We were never really trying to appeal to the cRPG crowd--our primary emphasis has always been on the turn-based, tactical crowd. So, really, I guess it's a failure on our end for not properly communicating what the game is, which obviously, is not really that easy to do, when it isn't just focused solely on tactical combat. Lessons learned, I suppose.

afaik the audience of these kind of games overlap quite alot as proven in this site. The jrpg and wrpg have quite the divide, but tactical and crpg and Japanese srpg can overlap quite a bit, i dunno.

To be honest, we should've marketed it more as a western RPG in the first place as the JRPG 'influences' are more mechanical and not so much graphical. How about MRPG for 'Murican RPG?

killing babies and fucking my daughters

Not sure how you figured out our next stretch goal...

 

[Mustawd]

You can allude to what people like in jrpgs without mentioning jrpgs. “Engaging narrative with unique characters” is a jrpg thing for sure. People who like that in their rpgs won’t care that it doesn’t look like a jrpg.

 

[thesheeep]

You can allude to what people like in jrpgs without mentioning jrpgs. “Engaging narrative with unique characters” is a jrpg thing for sure. People who like that in their rpgs won’t care that it doesn’t look like a jrpg.

Sneaky!

 

[Jimmious]

Heeey Retcon Raider here:

 

[Jimmious]

It might seem so but I'm not such a big fanboi, it actually happened that both youtubers I posted I loosely follow in youtube - means the game is reaching the right crowd...slowly slowly

 

[MTG_Derek]

We'll also be doing a livestream tomorrow (Feb. 21st) at 8PM EST on Kickstarter where we'll be playing the game and answering questions! Feel free to stop by and heckle us!

https://live.kickstarter.com/multit...ontule-livestream-q-and-a-with-the-developers

 

[DemonKing]

I tried the demo but can't say it did much for me...but being a time-poor parent I have to be super selective with my gaming time.

As others have said, the horrible name probably isn't helping either.