Kandria
ProHelvetia news
Sorry that I missed last week's email, I just couldn't think of what to write about. I've been working on Trial internals and then adapting Kandria to work with that, and really lost motivation to work on it this week. The game's been in a "completely broken" state for some weeks now, and not having any visible outside progress is really demotivating.
Anyway, this time I wanted to talk a bit about the feedback I got from ProHelvetia. I unfortunately did not get the funding from them, but that was expected. What I did not expect was the feedback the jury gave me. I'll just copy what they wrote to me in an email here:
On a positive note: The jury found this project to be ambitious, with solid potential. They found that the pitch demonstrated a quality story with effective visuals. The jury enjoyed some elements of the prototype, including the climbing mechanic, which felt like a fresh concept within the chosen platformer genre.
The jury noted the project was submitted by a solo developer, which raised concerns about the ability to deliver the project.
Whilst the jury were impressed that the developer had built his own engine, it was not made clear by the dossier why this was necessary for an effective realization of the project.
The jury would certainly welcome the applicant to reapply in future, so long as the main concerns above (building a team, and a team production plan) are addressed.
When I submitted the project I expected it to get rejected on account of being too unoriginal, too "standard", or too underdeveloped. I'm really glad to hear that that is apparently not the case. While writing my report I was also unsure about whether I should mention the custom engine at all – I felt back then that I might be shooting myself in the foot with that one. After all, for the resulting game, the choice of engine hardly matters at all, unless you make something truly excentric like Dwarf Fortress. I guess I was right after all!
What's most significant about the feedback though is the importance of getting a team together. I wholeheartedly agree with that, and I think that this is a top priority. It's also something I have been thinking about for a long time now, but I simply have no idea how to go about it. After all, I do not have the funds to hire someone full-time for one to two years on this project. I also don't know anyone that would be willing to join this project as a founder – meaning putting their own funds into it to get it done and sharing in the future profits. In fact, I simply don't know anyone at all that I could hire or convince to work on this.
In this regard it really doesn't help that the game is written in Common Lisp, since finding other programmers to work on it would be very tough. Fortunately I think I could get by without another programmer, though I certainly wouldn't mind having someone to share the load with – there's still a ton left to do. Most of all though I think I need to find an artist to ease the load with pixel art and animations, and maybe a writer to help with the story.
Still, I'm not too sure how to go about finding such people. I suppose I'll just have to go around the usual art sites like DeviantART, ArtStation, etc. and see if anyone's available for hire, then take it from there. It's something I haven't done before, so I'm a bit anxious about it.
Next week though, meaning starting tomorrow, I'll have to really try and get back to working on Kandria and getting it fixed. Not working on it won't fix it, and it won't make it any more motivating either. Just like it is with so many things, in the end the solution is 'just do it.' I'll worry about the hiring and team building stuff after that.
Have you ever put a team together or hired someone for a longer term project? I'd appreciate hearing about your experience tremendously!