Super Toaster X: Learn Japanese

Hello, hello, hello.

3 weeks into development already, how time flies. And yet, so much has happened during those three weeks. I went from being alone with a simple concept to being a team of three. I feel like the game progressed tremendously in such a short time. I mean, in less than a month really.

I’m also very grateful for the people working with me. It’s always dodgy with the internet, you never know who you’re going to meet. Well, the people I’ve met have been great so far. They’re involved in the project and are real professionals in their area of expertise. I’m always careful when saying things like those because it’s usually right after that some big disappointment happens but! Here’s to hoping things will keep going well.

Today’s blog will be entirely about the kickstarter. So if it’s not an aspect of indie game developing which interests you, you should wait for the next devlog to have news about the game :).

KICK STARTER:
I would say almost all of my time is going into preparing the KS at the moment. I pester people with questions (sorry oldblood!) and just generally study other campaigns, make my own statistics and try to infer some conclusions about my findings.

I.Income Tax 1,711$ (26%):
The first thing I did was to check on the taxation of the crowdunding. In order to determine how much would be taxed, I had to take into account my income.

I would say I make roughly 20,000$CAN a year (yes, I’m a starving artist). Normally I would pay this x in income. If the KS of 6,500$ succeeds however, it would increase my income to 26,650$, which means I would pay more income.

If I look at the taxation income rate of my country, I get the following:


A. is the amount of I would pay in income tax without the crowdfunding.

B. is the amount I would pay in income tax with the crowdfunding.

By subtracting B. from A. I can find how I much I will pay for the crowdfunding:
1,711$.

1 711$ represents 26% of the 6500$ I'm going for.

II. Licenses 60$ (1%):
The only license I think I need at the moment is the Game Maker Studio license. I used to think it was supposed to be 499$ but I mistakenly thought this was from a recent source. From what I understand the license is now 799$!  :mockangry:

Now, there are many versions of Game Maker: Studio. So there's also Game Maker Professional which is usually 99$ plus taxes but is 49,99$ at the moment. The difference between the two versions is that the latest can only export to Windows and Mac OS.

As of right now, I think the Pro version will do, as I can always buy more modules later if I have to.

So 49,99 + vat = about 60$. 1% of the total sum.

III. Kickstarter and Amazon share 650$ (10%):
5% for Kickstarter and 5% for Amazon. This means 10% in total is spent here. This means 650$.

Administrative Fees Subtotal: 2,421$ (37%).
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IV. Composer share 800$ (12%):
800$ goes for the composition of the music.

V. Programmer share 800$ (12%):

800$ also goes for programming.

VI. Rewards 700$ (11%)
This, is by far the most difficult variable to take into consideration. It's really hard to tell how much you'll need to spend on rewards as you don't know who will pledge for what. I figured 700$ would cover it (I was thinking 500$ at first, then decided to play it safe with 700$).

I tried finding a general % for rewards out of your total on the internet but could find nothing.

Sub-total #2: Programmer, composer, rewards: 2,300$ (35%)

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VII: art and other fees/expenses 1,779$

This is the my budget for creating art. It's also my "cushion" which will be used for any other unforseen expenses (which are bound to happen), i.e.: if we blow the reward budget for example.

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To sum things up:


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Rewards:



10$ (8$ USD): Digital copy of the game when it's finished.
I based this off what I saw in other KS campaigns. This is a first draft so I wouldn't mind changing this about.

15$ (12$ USD): Digital copy of the game and alpha access to the game.
This is a suggestion I got a lot from other people. Is 5$ enough to justify the 5$ increase? Who knows.

20$ (16$ USD):
*Digital copy of the game
*Alpha Access
*Digital soundtrack
*Instruction Manual (pdf)

This is, according to KS, the average amount backers will go for. I noticed, by examining other campaigns, that there's a huge difference between the 20 and 25 dollars gap (major drop in backers). So I think it would be wiser to remain under the 25$ while making the rewards as interesting as possible. If this turns out to be the most successful tier, I thought it would be better not to include any physical rewards there so that I don't end up with very high shipping fees.


40$ (32 USD):
*Digital copy of the game
*Alpha Access
*Digital soundtrack
*Instruction Manual (pdf)
*Postcard with original sketch

Admitedly not the most attractive reward. This is just a testing balloon. I want to provide many different tiers so for some of them ideas don't come up as easily.

70$ (56$ USD):
*Digital copy of the game
*Alpha Access
*Digital soundtrack
*Instruction Manual (pdf)
*Postcard with original sketch
*A pixel portrait where the face is put instead of Pan's face. This is put in a frame too and sent.
I think this has quite a bit of potential. The difference between this tier and the previous increment is quite high but it involves a lot of time pixeling the face. It also involves fees like color printing and buying the frames.

100$ (80$ USD):
*Digital copy of the game
*Alpha Access
*Digital soundtrack
*Instruction Manual (pdf)
*Postcard with original sketch
*A 3d model of Pan (printed with a 3d printer)

I like the idea of sending something 3d. It was Sahand's idea. I'm not sure whether or not I should add the pixel portrait as well in the package though. Maybe some people will want both.

200$ (163$USD)
*Digital copy of the game
*Alpha Access
*Digital soundtrack
*Instruction Manual (pdf)
*Postcard with original sketch
*A 3d model of Pan (printed with a 3d printer)
*Digital portrait in frame
*Portrait of the backer in game

I was wondering what kind of present would be appropriate to have someone's portrait in the game. Shovel Knight asked for 200$ so that's what I did as well.

300$ (242$USD)
*Digital copy of the game
*Alpha Access
*Digital soundtrack
*Instruction Manual (pdf)
*Postcard with original sketch
*A 3d model of Pan (printed with a 3d printer)
*Digital portrait in frame
*Portrait of the backer in game
*Design an NPC or mini-boss in the game


That's the highest tier I've thought of so far. Shovel Knight had 31 backers for 300$ and over (2%) for a total of 16,500$ which represented 5% of the total amount.

Moonman stopped at the 1,000$ tier, which I find wise.

Steel Assault stop at 599$. They're also doing super well with 3,013$ out of 8,000$ after 8 days only (37%!)

Stretch Goals:

I thought I would need to detail and describe this right off the bat. Moonman doesn't mention them right away and it's also not mentioned for Steel Assault. I guess it's safe to say it's not necessary when starting out. I'll still plan them ahead of time though.

Aaaaaaannnnd that's it! A lot of reading for sure. Probably's going to be the least popular log but I really had to sort things out in my head and on paper and I wanted to share this here too because it's part of indie game development although certainly not the most interesting aspect for everyone.

Next time I talk about Kickstarter, I'll talk about getting the word out there about your game. I don't mean to say that I'll explain what you should do but what I found out about it.

P.S.: I've downloaded a documentary about KS (it's a .pdf) available here:
https://cinemadocumentaire.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ssrn-id2088298.pdf

and

http://scraftuk.served.assets.s3.amazonaws.com/Sponsorcraft-handbook.pdf