Congrats on getting past 5k! It was a little under 1k when I backed it yesterday
15k does seem like a low goal to me though, so I hope you get all the extra funding you'll need to make the game as awesome as possible. Are you planning to introduce any stretchgoals (you probably already answered this)? Again, I think I'd rather see you use any extra funds to work on the "core" game itself, although I fear funding will considerably slow down if people think there are no stretch goals to look forward to. I've seen many kickstarters start out really strong and then lose steam immediately after their goal was met because there were no stretchgoals available. I just thought I'd mention it.
Thanks.
I have some ideas about putting up stretch goals if and when that time comes. It's not even been a day yet and my head's still spinning. We'll see what happens. I understand the goal is a little low. $15k wouldn't be a full time living wage for the entire development cycle, I'd continue to go on my own time as I've been. I just needed help.
Anyway, to anyone on the fence, I've had great results with Kickstarter so far. Double Fine Adventure, Planetary Annihilation, Giana Sisters... can't wait to see what you can manage to deliver, you seem very focused on level design and progression and all the things that make a Metroidvania great. Is there going to be any semblance of an inventory or experience/leveling up? And, it seems Super Metroid is a major inspiration, but what did you think of Metroid Fusion? The part about there being someone stalking you throughout the game made me think of it, and it's quite probably my favorite Metroid game.
There'll be a lot of design discussion if this thing funds, about what we might want to add or improve (or not add/improve). As the game stands currently, there's a minimal stat system for weapons, ammo, recharge rate, damage, crit rating, special damage rating, armor rating -- stuff like that, and it can be improved incrementally by finding things (or via your pet) but there is not currently "items" or "levels" per se. You find power ups, you find new abilities and new weapons, and that's about how it works -- No real "inventory".
I'm open to expanding this a bit once working as a two man team and rebuilding the game, we'll just see.
Metroid Fusion is a good game, but it's not very metroidy in my opinion because of all the linearity and mission briefings and so forth. It's therefore hard to talk about -- Great game, but always with that asterik *not a real metroid game.
The stalker is quite a bit different from SAX. He's basically a derranged robot, he's slinky, he runs on the ceiling and on walls. The importance of this character is one of the major reasons I didn't want to continue developing the game on my own -- I simply lack the programming skills to do his AI to the level that I wanted it to be. Roger is an experienced programmer, and he can set up all kinds of crazy AI and pathfinding to make this character really scary.
I'll have more to show of him in the future. I plan to reveal some art on him and talk about him a bit in a future update to the KS.