This is my current game project. I've posted about it before in the WIP topic, but now it has a website and crowdfunding for Milestone 1 has started: https://hexoshi.gitlab.io https://www.crowdsupply.com/onpon4/hexoshi [img]https://hexoshi.gitlab.io/screenshots/screenshot1.png[/img] This is going to be my biggest game yet once completed. I'm hoping to capture the essence of everything that made Super Metroid great, and make something even better. But of course, the crowdfunding campaign isn't about completing the whole game, just the first milestone, which is about only the first area of the game. There isn't a release of the game yet, but it's already possible to play the game by downloading and running the source code from the Git repository. Or you can watch the (slightly outdated) video: https://goblinrefuge.com/mediagoblin/u/onpon4/m/hexoshi-2016-11-03/ Of course, all comments are welcome. ;)

The crowdfunding campaign is now live! https://www.crowdsupply.com/onpon4/hexoshi

That looks nice! Though, I could suggest you could do something with the background, since it looks rather pretty bland. And also, good luck on your crowdfunding campaign!

Thanks! :) [quote="Psid"]Though, I could suggest you could do something with the background, since it looks rather pretty bland.[/quote] Yes, that's one of the goals of Milestone 1. ;)

I looked at your crowdfunding page. Why would you ask people for $1,100 just so you can make an OPEN-SOURCE game? Why do I need to give you sixty dollars just so you can get around to making a wall-jump animation? Clearly, if you had any interest in this project, you would actually be making it instead of yelling at people to give you money.

[quote]I looked at your crowdfunding page. Why would you ask people for $1,100 just so you can make an OPEN-SOURCE game? Why do I need to give you sixty dollars just so you can get around to making a wall-jump animation? Clearly, if you had any interest in this project, you would actually be making it instead of yelling at people to give you money.[/quote] The full details are listed under the section, "Where The Money Goes". I find it odd that you speak as if you haven't read this section when you clearly have (referencing the $60 estimate for the wall jump animation). It turns out that Luke and I need to eat, too, and that means Luke gets paid when he makes the wall-jump animation (as well as all the others), just as I already paid him out of pocket for the existing Anneroy sprites. If you don't like that Luke is going to be paid $60 for a wall jump animation, then please, by all means, help the project by doing this animation, or any other needed animation, for free. As stated in the campaign page, if you do this, then the money that would have been allocated to paying Luke to do that task will be used to pay Luke to do a different task, decided by a vote.

[quote="[url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=498217#p498217]onpon4[/url]"][quote]I looked at your crowdfunding page. Why would you ask people for $1,100 just so you can make an OPEN-SOURCE game? Why do I need to give you sixty dollars just so you can get around to making a wall-jump animation? Clearly, if you had any interest in this project, you would actually be making it instead of yelling at people to give you money.[/quote] The full details are listed under the section, "Where The Money Goes". I find it odd that you speak as if you haven't read this section when you clearly have (referencing the $60 estimate for the wall jump animation). It turns out that Luke and I need to eat, too, and that means Luke gets paid when he makes the wall-jump animation (as well as all the others), just as I already paid him out of pocket for the existing Anneroy sprites. If you don't like that Luke is going to be paid $60 for a wall jump animation, then please, by all means, help the project by doing this animation, or any other needed animation, for free. As stated in the campaign page, if you do this, then the money that would have been allocated to paying Luke to do that task will be used to pay Luke to do a different task, decided by a vote.[/quote] If you're a new indie developer who's only made six games in the past, five of which are freeware, and all of which have had little to no reception whatsoever, you shouldn't be dishing out $800 on an artist and expecting everyone to pay the cost, plus the $200 which is obviously for yourself. Nobody wants to pay a thousand dollars just to help an average Jane make a game with nothing promising to provide, so you're "pretending" to be a game studio, even though it's just you and someone you promised to pay once this was over. You'll be screwed when the pay doesn't flow in as quickly as you expected.

[quote="MarioBuilder"]If you're a new indie developer who's only made six games in the past, five of which are freeware, and all of which have had little to no reception whatsoever, you shouldn't be dishing out $800 on an artist and expecting everyone to pay the cost[/quote] I am open to suggestions for how I can get these sprites made for free, but the only possible ways I can think of involve either me making the sprites or just happening across someone willing to do it for free. The latter is not something I can control, so it's automatically off the table until someone steps up and volunteers. As for the former, I'm not any good at drawing or animating. It would look terrible. The only work on art I can do competently is simple edits (such as what I did to make the etank sprites) and very small, unanimated pixel art (such as the map sprites, which I made). [quote]plus the $200 which is obviously for yourself.[/quote] Yes. If you support this campaign, you're paying me $10 an hour to put at least an additional 20 hours of work into Hexoshi. I don't think that's unreasonable. In fact, I'll only gain $40, because I paid $160 up-front for the existing Anneroy sprites, but that doesn't factor into what I'm asking for. [quote]Nobody wants to pay a thousand dollars just to help an average Jane make a game with nothing promising to provide[/quote] That's perfectly fine. Individual contributors don't need to pay a thousand dollars; just $10 from 100 people will do just fine. [quote]You'll be screwed when the pay doesn't flow in as quickly as you expected.[/quote] If the campaign is unsuccessful, then Hexoshi will just not be further developed. I won't get back the $160 investment I already made, or the time I already spent, but I'll hardly be "screwed".

Why do people absolutely lose their shit whenever somebody starts a kickstarter? I wasn't aware that Stalin passed a law against crowdfunding. If you don't like the idea of donating money to an open-source game, then [i]don't donate money[/i]. Nothing of value is lost. Onpon isn't taking up space that could be occupied by someone else. They're not wasting scarce resources. They want to make a game and they would like to eat while they do it. I see no crime committed or any reason to grill them about it.

I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying I can't see this being successful. Without some rep or having something real cool to show I think crowdfunding hardly works out, especially with a goal of 1000$+

[quote]especially with a goal of 1000$+[/quote] Surely you must be joking. $1000 is unusually small for a crowdfunding campaign. I can't find a single example of a game campaign on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo with a goal this small. I'm not even banking on the campaign getting something like 500% of its goal like I've heard a lot of game campaigns do.

$1000 [i]is[/i] unusually small for a crowdfunding campaign, I'll give you that, but you need to look at your particular situation more rather than the amount of money you're asking for. Successfully crowdfunded games like Shovel Knight, Yooka-Laylee or even MN9 either have well-known developers working on them or have gameplay to show off. You have neither. If I were you, I would've waited until I had something more substantial to show off and put together a trailer and demo before launching a campaign and fund the rest of the game with the money I'd get from that, because right now there's just not much to get excited about.

[quote]either have well-known developers working on them or have gameplay to show off. You have neither.[/quote] I'll give you the former, but I'll never become more well-known twiddling my thumbs. As for the latter, that's not accurate. I do have gameplay to show off. The campaign has a video with selected clips, and there's a more complete (albeit slightly outdated) video here: https://goblinrefuge.com/mediagoblin/u/onpon4/m/hexoshi-2016-11-03/ [quote]If I were you, I would've waited until I had something more substantial to show off and put together a trailer and demo before launching a campaign and fund the rest of the game with the money I'd get from that, because right now there's just not much to get excited about.[/quote] That's what I tried to do with ReTux. It failed miserably. That's why I'm trying a different approach this time.

[quote="onpon4"][quote]If I were you, I would've waited until I had something more substantial to show off and put together a trailer and demo before launching a campaign and fund the rest of the game with the money I'd get from that, because right now there's just not much to get excited about.[/quote] That's what I tried to do with ReTux. It failed miserably. That's why I'm trying a different approach this time.[/quote] The problem with ReTux wasn't the campaign strategy, it was that you didn't have a game many people wanted to fund. ReTux, and Hexoshi, are fundamentally knockoffs of superior games you can emulate for free. Hexoshi's video doesn't demonstrate anything substantial other than that you cloned a Super Metroid engine, and your plans on the crowdsourcing page don't indicate that the final product will be anything other than a Super Metroid clone. What you're showing, and what you showed with ReTux, is just a knockoff of a Nintendo game which hinges on "libre" being attached to its name. It's essentially the same as a PETA fangame. Those are inferior games, but they advocate for animal rights. There are many Christian video games, such as [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXsHPLl-zFY]Bibleman: A Fight For Faith[/url], which advertise what they advocate in place of what they are. Most people don't want to play a game because it's Christian, or vegan, or libre. They want to play a game because it's fun, and people can get the exact same kind of fun Hexoshi delivers by just playing Super Metroid instead. Even Undertale's demo demonstrates Tobyfox's creativity, and shows off his ability to design a compelling character for the player to interact with as well as the unique ACT and Mercy mechanics and a relatively original bullet-hell combat system.

I also don't see this going anywhere. It's just a Metroid clone that doesn't have anything unique, and a personality. I'm not saying it won't be crowdfunded, but I don't think anyone will really notice it other than free softwarians (or whatever you call them lol).

I'd just like to remind everybody that our friend here asked for 50,000 dollars to fund ReTux. Asking for 60 dollars to fund a wall jump animation is not out of the question for her. That being said, it doesn't make it any less ridiculous. I can't see this project going anywhere.

[quote="Willsaber"]ReTux, and Hexoshi, are fundamentally knockoffs of superior games you can emulate for free. Hexoshi's video doesn't demonstrate anything substantial other than that you cloned a Super Metroid engine, and your plans on the crowdsourcing page don't indicate that the final product will be anything other than a Super Metroid clone.[/quote] [quote]It's just a Metroid clone that doesn't have anything unique[/quote] Putting aside that you can't "emulate for free" Super Metroid without violating copyright law (doing it legally costs $8), I detest the labeling of Hexoshi as a "clone" of Super Metroid. I consider it to be both incorrect and disparaging. A clone is a game that is trying to recreate another game. Kapman is a clone of Pac-Man. LTris is a clone of Tetris. In fact, every version of Tetris anyone has ever played is a clone of Tetris (the original game, which was text-based). There's nothing wrong with cloning something. But that's not what I'm doing with Hexoshi, nor is it what I did with ReTux. I am not using Super Metroid as a template for how Hexoshi should be designed. I am looking to Super Metroid as an inspiration. At that, it's a flawed inspiration, and I've already deviated entirely from the way Samus moves and jumps. This will not be the only deviation, either; I will also be using wall-jumping controls more reminiscent of Batman on the NES, and replacing Super Metroid's bombs with a spike weapon. Hexoshi is not supposed to be Super Metroid; it's supposed to be Hexoshi. The fact that it is very similar to Super Metroid in many respects is nothing more than a testament to the number of great ideas that game has. The same goes for ReTux and Super Mario World. [quote]It's essentially the same as a PETA fangame.[/quote] That's even more disparaging than calling it a clone! Are you honestly saying that I made Hexoshi for the sole purpose of spreading the libre software message? If that was my intention, I could easily make several really small games like Pacewar, but with less creativity and more text. That would be a heck of a lot easier than a huge open world game with very little text and hundreds of rooms, with animations that are going to cost thousands of dollars in total. [quote]people can get the exact same kind of fun Hexoshi delivers by just playing Super Metroid instead.[/quote] I disagree. Currently, Hexoshi is nothing more than an early techdemo, so Super Metroid blows it out of the water. When it's finished, Hexoshi will blow Super Metroid out of the water. Of course, you may disagree even then, but which game you like better is ultimately subjective. [quote]I'd just like to remind everybody that our friend here asked for 50,000 dollars to fund ReTux. Asking for 60 dollars to fund a wall jump animation is not out of the question for her.[/quote] The $60 price for the wall jump was what Luke quoted. I didn't have any part in making that estimate. But I think it's perfectly reasonable. Luke's rate is $20 an hour, so $60 would mean 3 hours of work. Considering that the wall jump animation can't recycle any of the parts of the existing sprites, and this is pixel art, 3 hours seems like a perfectly reasonable time frame to me.

You shouldn't make a game emulating Super Metroid to blow it out of the water. It could be Super Metroid's body with a new soul. That would be a better way to look at developing.

[quote]You shouldn't make a game emulating Super Metroid to blow it out of the water.[/quote] I didn't say that was the goal, just that I think that will happen. The main reason I think that is because although Super Metroid is great, it is also highly flawed. [quote]It could be Super Metroid's body with a new soul. That would be a better way to look at developing.[/quote] The way I look at it is that Hexoshi is a new game which takes Super Metroid as an inspiration (not exclusively, mind; some inspiration is taken from other games too, like some of the Mega Man games).

I've published a new update: https://www.crowdsupply.com/onpon4/hexoshi/updates/2512 It's partly about the offers I've been getting to translate the game, and partly about why I don't consider Hexoshi to be a clone of Super Metroid (since this characterization came up on one of the Reddit threads as well).