Kickstarter for TANGLEWOOD: An original game for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive

[thesegadude]

Hey guys,

This morning I woke up to a post from BIG EVIL CORPORATION about a Kickstarter campaign for Tanglewood a new Sega Mega Drive / Genesis game for physical release.

I know these forums have been talking about Tanglewood and now it feels like things could get very real.

I am going to support this project and it's my guess it will have no trouble getting funded.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...token=9eba5f23

[Gogogadget]

I'm interested, but I hope the PC version is a port and not an emulator + rom.

[matteus]

Urg I support what he's doing whole heartedly but 48k? I'm not sure he'll raise that sort of money from a Mega drive game on kickstarter :/

[thesegadude]

Hmm, you don't think about 1000 people will want to get in on this? It's true that I had forgotten when I pledged that it was in pounds and not USD but I think people are getting the idea that this is about the price point required to make a physical cartridge game. It will be interesting to watch and see what happens.

[roce]

Definitely getting a Lion King vibe. I agree that 48k GBP is unlikely.

[BigEvilCorporation]

Hi all, thank you so much for sharing this around, it means a lot to me!

About the cost: it was very carefully calculated, it's just enough to take time out from my full-time job, hire some staff, buy extra equipment, and everything else I need to give this project the time and attention it deserves. It sounds like a lot at a glance, but a AAA-quality release on actual cartridge has a lot of overheads, and I'm at a roadblock doing it myself in my spare time. I need people and gear.

One thing I'm determined to prove is that developing new games for old consoles is a viable move - I want others to follow, so if this Kickstarter is successful I'm going to make a lot of noise about it and help other homebrewers get their games noticed.

Matt

[matteus]

Hi all, thank you so much for sharing this around, it means a lot to me!

About the cost: it was very carefully calculated, it's just enough to take time out from my full-time job, hire some staff, buy extra equipment, and everything else I need to give this project the time and attention it deserves. It sounds like a lot at a glance, but a AAA-quality release on actual cartridge has a lot of overheads, and I'm at a roadblock doing it myself in my spare time. I need people and gear.

One thing I'm determined to prove is that developing new games for old consoles is a viable move - I want others to follow, so if this Kickstarter is successful I'm going to make a lot of noise about it and help other homebrewers get their games noticed.

Matt

I respect you for trying and hope you're successful. My gut feeling is you have a 50/50 chance of success. You must work social media continously and really push to get this promoted everywhere.

[roce]

I believe you're putting yourself through needless overhead by using assembly only and the old Sega devkits. By your background, I believe you know how good modern gcc is.

Are you doing the cartridges yourself? There's lots of companies that could do those for you, again making the process easier.

[matteus]

P.s I plan to do the same myself eventually but I was thinking closer to 5k to 10k GBP (maybe less). I haven't done the maths in full yet but I'd be programming alone with a graphics designer and sound guy.

[BigEvilCorporation]

The idea behind raw 68k is to put an emphasis on just how close I'm planning to match a '90s release. Most of the ground work is already done - engine is complete, game framework is all working, and now I can code in 68k with my eyes closed - so at this point switching languages would be more a hindrance than an advantage.

Using the real devkit allows me to debug with source on real hardware, which is a huge advantage. It's an MS-DOS based debugger but it shares all the cool tricks of modern IDEs - breakpoints, stepping, watch windows, source search, symbol search.

I've been in touch with a few publishers and manufacturers and have some options available for the carts, if funding is successful I'll close a deal with one of them.

[Barone]

The campaign is pretty well presented IMO, congrats on that!

But I feel like the trigger was pulled I bit early. And I'm not talking about the game development itself, but the social media networking and how many people will be helping you to promote this.
I'd like to see more push behind it than I've seen until now, 'cause I find it unlikely to hit that goal without, for an example, some known YT reviewers mentioning it.
Maybe you have all figured out already and I'm talking crap (I'd love to be completely wrong here, 'cause I want you to succeed), but I feel it's a bit early to push that sort of goal. Also, the pledge options are a bit on the pricey side IMO; more options between GBP 50.00 and GPB 250.00 could help, I think.

Anyway, best of luck to you!

[BigEvilCorporation]

The campaign is pretty well presented IMO, congrats on that!

But I feel like the trigger was pulled I bit early. And I'm not talking about the game development itself, but the social media networking and how many people will be helping you to promote this.
I'd like to see more push behind it than I've seen until now, 'cause I find it unlikely to hit that goal without, for an example, some known YT reviewers mentioning it.
Maybe you have all figured out already and I'm talking crap (I'd love to be completely wrong here, 'cause I want you to succeed), but I feel it's a bit early to push that sort of goal. Also, the pledge options are a bit on the pricey side IMO; more options between GBP 50.00 and GPB 250.00 could help, I think.

Anyway, best of luck to you!

I have some tricks up my sleeve, don't worry One very popular website will be covering it next week, and I'm being interviewed by a tech-oriented YouTube channel with 600k subscribers. There's also a full-page magazine ad booked.

There's quite a bit of noise about it already, the official Facebook and Twitter posts are doing well, I've had a few high profile accounts sharing (and backing!), and my press release was well received so hopefully there will be something on other news sites during the week. I'm also experimenting with the various sponsored post options on Facebook, and so far I've had 1,800 page views from an entry level ad, so I'll be running more of those. I put a plan in place to gain more social media followers up until the launch, so I didn't head into this blind.

It's already reached 11% and the first day isn't over yet. Granted, the hype will die down until the big push in the final days, but I am hopeful it won't stall completely.

[matteus]

The campaign is pretty well presented IMO, congrats on that!

But I feel like the trigger was pulled I bit early. And I'm not talking about the game development itself, but the social media networking and how many people will be helping you to promote this.
I'd like to see more push behind it than I've seen until now, 'cause I find it unlikely to hit that goal without, for an example, some known YT reviewers mentioning it.
Maybe you have all figured out already and I'm talking crap (I'd love to be completely wrong here, 'cause I want you to succeed), but I feel it's a bit early to push that sort of goal. Also, the pledge options are a bit on the pricey side IMO; more options between GBP 50.00 and GPB 250.00 could help, I think.

Anyway, best of luck to you!

You've covered many of the things I was thinking! Some really good advice here! I'd rep but I can't!

[Thief]

lol at big evil corporation.

[matteus]

I've tweeted it around a bit to people I know and also posted on some of the Facebook groups I'm part of! every little counts