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Stunt Runner - Help a Washed Up Stunt Actor Reclaim Fame!

Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:13 am
by Kermdinger
Hey everyone!

My name's Anthony Palma and I'm the CEO of Kermdinger Studios, the 3-man indie game studio behind Stunt Runner, a comedic 2.5D physics puzzler for PC, Mac and eventually mobile! We just launched yesterday, but we're on the warpath already as a Staff Pick in all major categories. Check the game out and please back us! We all know how important those first backers are to boost your numbers and make you look respectable, so help us get noticed and make our Kickstarter successful!

Check out our Kickstarter campaign here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kermdinger/stunt-runner-a-hilarious-new-take-on-physics-puzzl

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Re: Stunt Runner - Help a Washed Up Stunt Actor Reclaim Fame

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 6:15 pm
by sbriggman
Wow! 93 backers in 2 days. How have you guys gone about marketing the campaign?

Re: Stunt Runner - Help a Washed Up Stunt Actor Reclaim Fame

Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:22 am
by Kermdinger
Thanks! The pace has slowed down a bit after the initial rush, but we're on a marketing tirade. We've been hitting editors on game news/press sites every 3-4 days with updates (typically my follow-up period is every 7 days, but we have to be more pushy with Kickstarter only lasting 30 days). In between those updates, we've been posting on forums like this one and keeping up with the community's feedback in a grass roots effort to connect with our potential customers. In a couple weeks, we're throwing a Kickstarter Pledge party and inviting everyone we know (friends, developers, games press) and offering booze in exchange for pledges (genius, right?). And the kicker: we'll be showing the game at PAX Prime during the last few days of the campaign. It's a lot harder to say no to an indie developer in person!

The key for us will be getting picked up by some press. The grass roots effort will get us so far, but to get beyond forums and Kickstarter/Greenlight perusers, we'll need to get picked up by at least one major website. At least that's my perception. It also very much helps when we can engage people like yourself and get you to spread the word on our behalf!

Hope that helps! Obviously this is all in its early stages, so if we get funded our process will be worth a lot more.

Re: Stunt Runner - Help a Washed Up Stunt Actor Reclaim Fame

Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 1:55 pm
by Felle
Do share the results of your party.I have been curious about doing the same thing....i mean who doesn't throw money when offered a drink.

Re: Stunt Runner - Help a Washed Up Stunt Actor Reclaim Fame

Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 3:19 pm
by inflexionUSA
Hi Anthony,

When I look at your project, video, presentation, bio, degree, motivation and ideas on how to promote your project I think to myself - How could this not get funded?

But as you may be experiencing, gaining backers is more difficult than imagined.

I think it's important to first try to simplify what is in fact a very complex set of circumstances that lead to success and turn it into proverbial thoughts. And while this is always possible to do, we can still benefit from the idea, so here goes my attempt:

1. Success requires - Visibility.
2. And then a close second, success requires - A Great Concept.

Visibility is a requirement to success. Whether it be from Kickstarter, bloggers, gaming sites, Facebook, Twitter ... you need visibility and my guess is much more that anyone thinks. On Kickstarter your window of opportunity is small so you have to move fast. Repeat project creators know this, that’s why their projects are funded in the first few hours and first few days. This is not by accident, nor it it to get the project funded. It’s to make it visible. Then you must have pipelines to keep feeding the machine - everyday. Early momentum gained is sometimes easy. Momentum lost is always hard to regain.

As I designer I would like to think that a great concept is an innovative, unusual, interesting or better design, however, that’s not always the case. For crowd funding purposes a great concept must resonate with an audience. I believe your’s does but you need visibility.

As a gamer, perhaps this will make sense:

What you do right now is dictated by the clock, it’s ticking so adjust your game play. Focus on Impact and Results. Break your funding goal into a series of mini goals - $1,000-$1,500/day. Achieve these goals each day and adjust them accordingly the next.

Give people a stake in your success. What I mean is this - your project is really cool. I would love to be a part of it’s success, not so much it’s failure. So project that thought out. Let people know that they can be a part of the next Ouya or Double Fine. If you can’t sell that idea, with this project then you can’t sell. And from seeing your presentation, I know you can sell.

If I was a student about to graduate, I would jump at the opportunity to be a part of this. Think about how that would appear on a resume: “designed, contributed, assisted, ... on a successful Kickstarter launching of a start up game developer ...

If I was an employer that would capture my attention.

In my opinion anyones best road to success is to develop a large group of fans whose interest is greater than simply financial.

One final note: Check out this link to Sal’s Crowd Crux piece on Seth Godin. Watch the video and don’t forget to comment. This will really help you.

http://www.crowdcrux.com/kickstarter-an ... community/

James

Re: Stunt Runner - Help a Washed Up Stunt Actor Reclaim Fame

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 1:01 pm
by sbriggman
Kermdinger wrote:Thanks! The pace has slowed down a bit after the initial rush, but we're on a marketing tirade. We've been hitting editors on game news/press sites every 3-4 days with updates (typically my follow-up period is every 7 days, but we have to be more pushy with Kickstarter only lasting 30 days). In between those updates, we've been posting on forums like this one and keeping up with the community's feedback in a grass roots effort to connect with our potential customers. In a couple weeks, we're throwing a Kickstarter Pledge party and inviting everyone we know (friends, developers, games press) and offering booze in exchange for pledges (genius, right?). And the kicker: we'll be showing the game at PAX Prime during the last few days of the campaign. It's a lot harder to say no to an indie developer in person!


Thanks for sharing your thoughts. These are some great insights into fundraising :). Let us know how the party goes.

inflexionUSA wrote:One final note: Check out this link to Sal’s Crowd Crux piece on Seth Godin. Watch the video and don’t forget to comment. This will really help you.

http://www.crowdcrux.com/kickstarter-an ... community/


Thanks for linking to my article and pointing out a few good strategies towards raising money. As you said, I do believe the visibility aspect is what gives people the most trouble. Seems like Kermdinger has done a good job of that so far in the first few days. Keep it up!

Re: Stunt Runner - Help a Washed Up Stunt Actor Reclaim Fame

Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2013 9:53 pm
by Kermdinger
Hey everyone!

Our Kickstarter has less than 24 HOURS LEFT and we still have a ways to go, but we just showed the game at PAX Prime in the Indie Megabooth and we're happy to report that everyone who played it LOVED it!

Go back our Kickstarter and help us sprint to the finish line if you like physics puzzlers, sandbox games or comedy games!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kermdinger/stunt-runner-a-hilarious-new-take-on-physics-puzzl