Dreamblazers Update: Financial Hoopla

$16,375.50.

Unless my accounting is off somewhere, that’s the amount I’ve put into Dreamblazers so far. And there’s a long way to go; right now my best estimate is that for the entire game (let me repeat the words “the entire game” since I’ll come back to this point), I need somewhere between $28,500 and $37,500 to wrap everything up for art assets of the type we’ve been doing already. You see, that’s what I’d need for more of all this:

Dreamblazers - Forest Battle Grid Mockup Part 1

And more of this:

Dreamblazers - Astrid Crys Alucia Dialogue Portrait Collection

But, of course, there are actually other types of art assets I need that we haven’t been doing yet. Like what? Like item icons and menu skins and magic effects and weapon effects and GUI elements and probably other things I’m not even thinking of right now.

And then on top of all that I still need music and sound effects.

Oh, and of course I can’t neglect to mention that Kickstarter takes a cut of funds raised…

I’ve had to come to terms with all of this while putting together a pitch and figuring out the budget, and it’s a major reason (probably the major reason) why my posting has slowed down since it’s not an easy reality to face. There are many unknowns and what is known isn’t pretty. How can I talk about this rationally?

If I were a pixel artist and could handle some percentage of the work myself, it would certainly make things much more affordable—and more time-consuming, sure, but I think it’s easier to ask people for less money and a longer wait than more money and a shorter wait.

At one point I started asking myself whether I should release individual chapters of Dreamblazers for some small amount of money each and go forward from there. (Later on I found out this is already a thing in the world called “episodic games.” No, even I don’t know how I managed to live this long never knowing about it!) Could I sell 8 parts of a game for $1.25 each—or whatever the amount is—instead of a single game for $15?

Then something hit me while writing this post. Yes, I was seriously taking this very post in a completely different direction, but putting it on digital paper spurred me to thinking:

Do I “need” to fund the entire game in a single campaign?

With a few exceptions, I’ve been very careful to hyper-focus the art assets on the early segments of Dreamblazers. So what if I don’t go for more tilesets and more character sprites and more enemy sprites just yet, since I already have a lot to work with on those fronts for the early game, but I “only” seek funding for the music (and not all of it), sound effects (and not all of them), menu skins, item icons, and battle effects? I could basically run a much smaller-scale campaign with the intent of getting to a minimum viable product, then I can go for the big home run swing later after the game gets to strut its stuff in public.

These are the kinds of thoughts I have at 6 AM, mind you, and I don’t know how I’ll feel after waking up, but that sure seems like a safer way to go about it.

…actually, yeah. I think I’ll end it there for now and see how I do feel after waking up, then come back and update again. (There you go, an episodic blog post! :P)

One thought on “Dreamblazers Update: Financial Hoopla

  1. Thomas Williams

    I agree with your last note. I think that approaching a project like this is best done as an MVP in which you can later invest more into later as you see it’s quality materialize (essentially speaks for itself)

    I’m writing to you because I wanted to talk to you about your experience making Dreamblazers as well as get to know how you’ve been coming along since then.

    I noticed that you haven’t posted in awhile and I’m not sure if it was because of burnout or perhaps something else?

    I’m impressed with how much you were willing to put inside the game, especially the $16,000+

    I too am working on a 2D RPG that is being developed using ORK framework. (GIL is awesome!)

    My project, though different from yours in spirit and implementation, however, I feel that we share a lot in common in terms of our taste in games. (I’m a big Final Fantasy and Star Ocean Fan)

    Anyway, I just wanted to see if this could be an opportunity for two 2D rpg lovers to talk.

    Regardless, I wish you the best and hope that you still continue to make games no matter what!

    Please feel free to reach me at my email!

    Cheers,

    Thomas WIlliams

    Reply

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