If the failure of the Red Ash Kickstarter campaign has taught the developers of the world anything, it’s that you should always have something of your game to show besides concept art. Gameplay is ideal, but at least a trailer showcasing the world and it’s characters would be better than nothing.
KnightMayor, the developer behind Mooncrest, did not heed this lesson.
After a week on Kickstarter, the team reached just slightly more than 10% of their intended goal of $400,000. The reason for this slow start is likely because they had nothing but a vague idea, a few pieces of concept art, and one piece of music. According to their latest update, they had a basic pitch video at one point, but took it down because it was “weak.” The entire campaign was halted after this update was posted:
Coming out of the gate things looked great, but a weak project video, coupled with poor messaging, and no in game footage was the death of us.
It seems like the whole campaign was built around the fact the team was composed of several former developers from BioWare, as they proudly boasted in the actual title of their campaign. KnightMayor also seems to have misunderstood where they went wrong, and have promised a more triumphant return to the crowdfunding platform in the future:
Our future plans are to lick our wounds, address all of the criticisms/complaints we received, and move forward with another Kickstarter once we’re ready. Our focus will be on having a pitch video that actually, ya know, pitches the game, having in game footage to show, and just going more in depth on what we have in place to see this game through production and to release.
I appreciate their openness and honesty, but this is a mistake that should never have been made in the first place. It goes to show that despite the fact that they’re proven industry veterans, this is the first time they’re running their own studio, and they’re bound to make mistakes.
Good luck to KnightMayor in the future and we’ll let you know when a refocused Kickstarter campaign for Mooncrest is ready to go.
