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The Spaceteam Admiral's Club is a community of friends and fans of the game [Spaceteam]. Anyone can create an account but there are special rewards if you support my future projects by becoming a paying member!
Join the Admiral's Club- Henry (aka Captain Spaceteam)
Kickstarter Project Description - VERSION 2
The Spaceteam Admiral's Club
I’m Henry and I want to start a revolution in the way video games are funded.Last year I made the game Spaceteam and released it for free.
I want to see more games that are freely accessible to everyone, that explore new ideas, and that don’t compromise their design in order to appeal to the mass market. But those games can be hard to sell.
One way to promote this kind of creative freedom is through patronage. So I’m asking for your help with an experiment.
The Spaceteam Admiral’s Club is not about one specific game. It’s a community of friends and fans, supporting me directly as a developer, working on free games for a whole year.
You’ll be giving me the freedom to make smart decisions about what I work on because game development can be unpredictable, and, full of surprising opportunities. By joining the club you'll be allowing me to pursue these opportunities and see where they lead.
That’s what the Spaceteam Admiral’s Club means to me.
So what’s in it for you?
First of all, you'll be supporting Spaceteam itself. I have a few more upgrades planned, including: the Spaceteam Lexicogulator, which lets you put your own words in the game and share them with others; accessibility features allowing younger kids to play; and the ability to play the game in different languages.
Second, you'll be helping me bring two brand new games into existence: Blabyrinth and Shipshape, which you can learn more about below. I'm hoping to finish Blabyrinth and make good progress on Shipshape before the year is up, and you can follow all my work as it happens in my Developer Diary.
Finally, you’ll be joining a special community with a Discussion Forum where we can share stories and experiences. You can even get membership perks like embroidered patches, 3d membership cards, and a secret handshake.
So, I’m inviting you to join the Spaceteam Admiral's Club. To cast a vote for alternative funding models. To directly support an indie developer. And to be part of a community that believes that artists should be paid for their work.
If you help the Admiral’s Club succeed then I think this model could work sustainably for other indies as well. I think it could bring more innovation and diversity to the industry, and create meaningful relationships between people who play games and people who make them.
I really hope it makes sense to you too and that together we can make it work…
…as a spaceteam!
The New Games
These new games are still in the prototype phase and I’ll be showing videos of the prototypes over the course of the campaign.Blabyrinth is a cooperative local multiplayer game for phones and tablets about working together to follow clues and find secret treasure in a mysterious labyrinth. It’s inspired in part by the board game Escape: The Curse of the Temple.
Shipshape is a single-player game for phones and tablets about exploring a quirky galaxy in a spaceship that you build yourself. It’s designed to be really easy to play with simple gestures. It’s inspired by the board game Galaxy Trucker and the video games Escape Velocity and Star Control 2.
Spaceteam will be getting some upgrades, namely:
- Translations into French, German, Italian, Spanish, and more
- Accessibility features allowing you to adjust the game difficulty
- The special member-only features listed below!
It’s hard to predict what other opportunities might arise, but the things I’m imagining are along the lines of the list in the Spaceteam Retrospective.
Random other tiny game ideas that I’ve been interested in at one time or other:
- A cooperative dance game where you move your phones (and by extension your bodies) into different shapes together
- A digital version of Cat’s Cradle
- A rap battle game
Reward Details
Everyone (even non-backers) will have access to the Discussion Forums, Developer Diary, and the games produced by this project: Spaceteam, Blabyrinth, and Shipshape.Discussion Forums
Connect with other Spaceteams across the galaxy. This will be the best way to keep up with Spaceteam and my other projects. You can share stories, ask questions, and make new spacefriends! You’ll get a special badge indicating your support level.
Developer Diary
I’ll be keeping a developer blog (probably at least once a week) and sharing inside information on my development process. I’ll post about game design, programming, as many business details as I can share, and anything else I might learn along the way.
Club Goodies
[I need more info here - Henry]
- Welcome letter and Certificate
- 3D Membership Card
- Embroidered Patch
Spaceteam Lexicogulator
Put your own word lists in the game and share them with other people! You’ll have access to an editor that lets you change the words and phrases in the game. Business buzzwords, medical jargon, inside jokes, whatever you want!
Synergize TPS Reports!
Incentivize Core Competency!
Onboard Subscriber-focused Webinar!
Clamp Aorta!
Foley to Gravity!
Synchronize Cardioversion!
Custom Spaceteam Character
Design your own character and use it in the game! No more annoying your teammates by repeatedly leaving the waiting room and reloading until you get a speckled felinoid wearing a lab coat.
Fully customized Spaceteam mod for your company/team/family
A stand-alone, private version of Spaceteam with your own words and graphics, to share with your group. You can customize any or all of the following things:
- Word lists
- Other text such as the introduction blurb, anomaly names, medals, etc.
- Control panel images
- The ship and the “threat” (supernova)
- Characters
- Waiting room
- Logo and app name
- Even the sounds and music (if you want)
You will be responsible for creating the new images/text (I’ll provide templates, instructions and support) and then I’ll package it up into a custom version of the game for you.
IMPORTANT NOTE: On iOS your app will be delivered through Apple’s Volume Purchase Program for Business. Make sure you are eligible by visiting http://enroll.vpp.itunes.apple.com/. On Android it’s much simpler: I can just send you an APK to install directly.
About Me
I’m Henry Smith. I worked as a programmer in the game industry for 10 years, at BioWare and Irrational Games, on games like Dragon Age: Origins, Dead Space 2, and Mass Effect 3, before quitting my job last summer to make my own games. I specialize in UI (user interface) but I love playing with all aspects of game design.About Spaceteam
Spaceteam is my first project as an independent developer (“indie”). It’s a cooperative party game for phones and tablets in which you shout technobabble at your friends until your spaceship explodes. You can get it right now, for free, on iOS and Android.It has won several awards, and is currently featured in the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. It has been used by children and grandparents, teachers, therapists, businesses, and medical schools.
Comments
- New video transcript
- Added description of the new games (I may also show the prototype videos here as well)
- Moved bio sections to the end
- Removed "Why make the games free?" section (I can talk about this in a later update)
Also I will add hyperlinks in all the appropriate places.
even something simple like...
30% tax, 10%rewards, 10% KS fees etc. 50% to fund the development of your games/the website.
I want to know more about the games, but sounds like you'll give more info out as the days of the campaign tick by.
- 10% Kickstarter + payment fees
- 25% Income tax
- 5% Reward fulfillment (since they are mostly digital and the physical ones are small/inexpensive)
- 40% Living expenses
- 10% Art
- 5% Sound & Music
- 5% Travel costs
-In the rewards section, I'd start with the exclusive (more exciting stuff) not the stuff that even non-backers get.
-I'd also name some of those awards spaceteam won, include way more links things like the spaceteam retrospective you mention, its page on the iOS and Google play stores, your blog, the museum write up, etc.
-It also helps to include a few quotes, either from people's spaceteam reviews, or famous people like Manveer and Doug endorsing both the project and you as a human.
-you might also want to spell out the personal implications of this kickstarter. What can you do if it's funded that you wouldn't have been able to do otherwise? If it's not funded would you have to find a PT job? Would you have to drop production on a game or feature? So far, backers are assured that you'd make these games anyways (even if they have to pay for them in the future) so what's the point? Be blunt here, as people will want to know that their money will make a big difference in the games, and with your own creative processes.
The last point is tricky, because I don't actually NEED this money to make the games. I still have about a year of savings. The difference is that I'll charge money for them if I don't reach my goal, so they will be less accessible and the design may be compromised somewhat. I was planning to cover this in more detail in a follow up video but maybe I should emphasize it here?
And I should stop commenting as I read the threads as obviously you have the break down here, which very good and helps a lot.