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Tobias 1099~3Y
Cyan's dream did come to mind! Or what little I remember of it anyway; it's been a while.

Would people actually be interested in some kind of artbook thing? My main concerns with that are that I don't have enough art to fill it with (I should draw more), and that it'd just take too long to put together. That's one of my biggest concerns about Kickstarter, if - or when, I hope - I decide to do one: it's so easy to think of some goody that could be given to people (art books, T-shirts, figurines, etc), but making anything requires time and skills I don't necessarily have! We'll see, though; I'm just glad you might be interested in such a thing!
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LightAcolyte22~3Y
I think a compilation of your drawings, models, game concepts (whether used or unused) and world-building information would appeal to people. People have posted hundreds, if not thousands, of comments postulating what things meant or what unused items in the games did mean or could have meant for over a decade on MARDEK across wiki's, message boards and comment discussions. Same thing for arguing over how this character just looks like this other character so they must be related, or were originally intended to be related, or they wear colors that look like they're in the same quartile of the color wheel so that means they must be somehow similar, or they have similar buttons on their jackets so the design similarity must mean they are part of some behind-the-scenes syndicate, or were related before such-and-such character got a divorce in this alternate reality, or had a sixth cousin of their college roommate's kind of relationship nonsense. You cannot make the stuff up people will argue about over a topic close to their heart, and capturing that interest immediately in the afterglow stage of completing or really engaging with your game can keep it alive in the real world beyond just the game world. You might even think putting out something about your ideas would quash this kind of discussion and kill interest in additional creativity on the part of the fan base, but in my experience it won't: instead they will find new things that were "unreleased" or that you blogged about once that could possibly be related or just whatever ideas they would have liked to see in the game that somehow they think could have crossed your mind at some point. Also, people who want to support your work in general just want more excuses to buy stuff sometimes: why not give it to them if it's minimal or even no real effort? You don't need professional publishing to release a PDF. If people clamor for it, then you can release a limited edition print copy if they want once you know people are really out there wanting to buy those hard copies, too. I think also, it's important to remember that offering this additional content in the immediate short-term post-launch would be a way of rewarding and acknowledging fans of your work and allowing them the pleasure of rewarding you in return after the support starts coming in initially (talking 2-3 weeks here, not months or you'll lose the first wave). Now, as for Kickstarter: this doesn't quite pay off the same way. A lot of people can see pre-selling of something that you then have committed to in advance in a different light. Once you PROMISE a certain "tier" of buyer that they are getting your super-awesome scrapbook-to-end-all-scrapbooks with such-and-such level of support, it's a whole different story. In that case you've basically been paid a commission to meet expectations or wish fulfillment now for those individuals instead of just releasing a "bonus" that had no expectations (so long as you didn't play it up too big with a bunch of announcements and just casually mentioned possibly releasing something like that once or twice). There's really no good way that ends. Yes, it can get people to contribute more up-front...but now if you don't deliver something of quality "worthy" of what those buyers expect you are going to get some serious negative PR...and the more die-hard those fans are in that case, now that can flip on you such that the higher their expectations of said promise over the time it takes to eventually fulfill said promise will have a commensurate level of rebuke. This has back-fired big time on games like Pillars of Eternity that were crowd-funded. So, I think it's best to not invite such scrutiny in the first place and keep a Kickstarter focused on what you're truly already planning to provide in-game and have tiers be based on things you don't really think would pay off on your time but that you are sure you can get working and deliver in your final product if people wanted it badly enough to fund your work up to that point. You can also add in the tiers things that depend on THEIR creativity and wish fulfillment so that it can't reflect poorly on you: like, contribute at this level and you can help design a NPC, name an item, or add a personal story to a book in the game or something that won't detract from your vision but is along the same lines of your game world and will still serve to enrich it. I hope this helps you!
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