Donation Gives Fans Power to Design Time-Traveling Indie Game | |
Donation Gives Fans Power to Design Time-Traveling Indie Game Indie title No Time to Explain has acquired thousands in funding dollars by allowing donators to become level designers. Want to be a game designer, but don't know how to make it happen? A spare $25 can net you the opportunity to have your work published in Tiny Build Games' No Time to Explain, but you'll have to compete with over 100 others (as of this writing). The small indie outfit started up a Kickstarter page after No Time to Explain's first trailer went viral and drummed up a ton of interest. Tiny Build Games asked for $7,000 to aid in the development of the game for the PC and Mac, with overflow going toward iOS, PS3/NGP, and Xbox 360 ports, in addition to booths at popular shows like PAX Prime. A few days in, the donations are already approaching $10,000. Pledges of up to $5 net donators a copy of the game on the PC at launch and a digital poster, but it's the $25 mark that really hit a nerve with fans. For a $25 donation, Tiny Build gives access to No Time to Explain's level editor and promises that quality levels will be included in the final product. Close to $3,000 has already been brought in from this donation level alone. The $150 level is also interesting, offering the chance to create and place an in-game advertisement. The effort is one of many in a world where games can now be funded by interested fans rather than only evil guys in suits. No Time to Explain is a platformer described as Back to the Future meets The Butterfly Effect with big jetpack guns and giant crabs. The announcement trailer shows the main character jetpacking and blasting his way through various environments while wearing a top hat and trying to save his future self. These pieces of concept art are also interesting: ![]() ![]() In short, No Time to Explain features time travel, dinosaurs wielding bazookas, and pterodactyl jet fighters. Those three alone are worth about $5 to me. With 43 days to go in the funding effort, No Time to Explain could balloon past the greatest hopes of its creators. Source: Kickstarter, via PC Gamer | |
Yeah, I was in for that until the ...crabs appeared. Tis a nice idea though, if only I had time to make one... Hold on... I'll be right back... Don't have time to explain... | |
I think that is the greatest game in the history of man lol. | |
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY. | |
I hope MY future self doesn't turn out to such a helpless bitch.
Look out For The CRABS! | |
I will just leave this in here... | |
OH MY GOD! Finally we got onto Escapist! Developer (Alex from tinyBuild) here. And yes, we are considering submitting a build for the Extra Credits competition. | |
$10 says that this will be the most quoted post here XD release the standalone soundtrack, like, now do it, you know you want to | |
Yeah, they released a Flash version. This seems to be a full blown game (compare Meat Boy the flash game to Super Meat Boy, for example). | |
Oh man, I'm your fan now! EDIT: What would be a game without The Giant Enemy Crab? ;) | |
I remember playing the flash game on kongregate quite some time ago, what I didnt remember was that I had given it 5/5 stars :S. Just want to mention, they didnt get that much money in just a few days (as stated in the article), they hit their goal in under 24 hours, and by now it cant be much more. | |
That's fully true. We reached the goal in 18 hours in. 24 hours in we had $9k. It's (at the moment of writing this post) going to $10k. Which, I must say, is UNBELIEVABLE! | |
Congrats to the dev for getting the amount of dosh they needed, and even more! Okay, in the middle writing the post, i noticed the link posted here and checked the Flash version of it out. It was great, the humor, though a bit dark, was nice, and i liked the voice of the guy, really knew how to scream. And the background music was nice, too. SO, yeah. Great game, hopefully this will be a success! EDIT: Hoooly shit, what the hell. discovered a button that turned everything into dinosaurs, even the main charackter and the crab. Really epic, the Doc. appearing made me lol, too. And when playing it over, again (3. time), i loved how the dino-guy-from-the-future was still cool, with his yellow-ness. Though i wanted to see what happened when i pressed the dinobutton mid-boss fight, and got stuck there, no way of getting out :(. But still, damn epic. Really awesome. And also, loving the sound effects like the squeak when the time-machine thingy is activated. | |
You just hit 10k usd!!! EDIT: Still awesome tho ;D | |
I just have this to say: Motherfucking OCTOSHARK!!! | |
I loved that flash game Darn ninja'd
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When will this game be available und whur? | |
So I decided to play it again, to see if I remembered all the hidden spots. 1. I suceeded at jumping over gun, and enjoyed seeing it trough the window, good. 2. I easily found glasses teleport, good. 3. I easily found Dinosaur teleport (didnt enter tho), good. 4. I realized at dino tele that if I jumped first to the right "wall" and from there to the left, I could land on top of that left wall. I suceeded after a few tries, but then I noticed not the whole wall there is solid. Funny. tl;dr EDIT: | |
Notch donated $2,000. Hooray. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1296948465/no-time-to-explain-indie-game/posts | |
Why does it say "Delicious cranes" in Russian in the end? | |
I love the idea, but I'm a bit worried about the in game adverts, are you at all worried that you'll get like 100 advertisement level donations and just have to plaster the game with them? | |
The ads are for a level (you can see it in 0:27 in the trailer). There is a LOT of ad spaces there, and in the worst case (cause its really bad if they get many donations huh?) I bet they could make a second level, or expand it a little bit (or maybe just scale down the bg texture to fit (x+1)*(y+1) instead of x*y ads. | |
Yeah, they say that in the game description. I really liked when I saw diferent weapons because the gameplay would end up a bit repetative | |
Kicking your pastself to the crab is what sold me. That animation is solid! I hate to say it, but it was Notch that got my attention on the game. But I got curious if it was on Escapist and what escapists had to say. | |
Well obviously it's good if they get tons of donations, I was just saying it could be bad if they were obligated to basically ruin the game by covering it in ads. I didn't know it was all confined to one space because the Escapist article didn't mention that, no need to get hostile, I said I loved the idea and am just a "bit worried" I didn't freak out, yell something racist and then call the developer a faggot or something, chill. | |
I love the way the level design here works. Usually, when making a game, a AAA games company will hire a guy to make levels for them. Here, not only are these guys not paying their designers, but they're actually asking the designer to pay for the privelege of working for them! And using the money to fund their game! It's so utterly brilliant I would say that it defies description, had I not just finished describing it. I suppose we have yet to see how it works, but I still can't get over how brilliantly this works out for everyone involved, except for those of us that really don't like ads. | |
They better be VERY careful. I saw copyrighted material in the background of one of those levels. The Ducktales Millionaire tower is copyrighted by Warner Bros. | |
I was not really hostile, just tried to be informative :P, sorry if i gave you that impression. :) | |
SOMETHING SOMETHING RACISM FAGGOT RACISM RAAAWR!!! Lol, just kidding, sorry if I took your post the wrong way, thanks for the information :) | |
The game's not going to get ruined by ads. We're integrating it in a smart way that actually makes sense and makes you want to laugh. | |