Hello Gameboomers!

I'm very excited to announce that the 4th Delaware St. John game, Asylum of The Lost now has a solid release date for June, 2013...if you want it.

We are working with Kickstarter.com to raise the money to do something we've never had the chance to do before: create a game with an actual budget!

Please visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1065983707/delaware-st-john-4-asylum-of-the-lost to find out how YOU can speak up and show your support for our ongoing series by pledging a donation. All donations over $15 get you a free copy of the game!

This is a dream project for me and my team and I can assure you, if we can raise the budget for this project, you're going to be amazed at just how great this series can be.

I am grateful we've been fortunate to make three games so far on very little but we're capable of so much more and we're asking for the opportunity to show you!

The fund-raising drive is only going on for 45 days so please donate today and please share this information with as many people as you can! We have a short time to raise a considerable budget!

To all the current fans, I thank you for your years of support and encouragement. To all non-current fans; consider a donation and let us make a game that will turn you into one!

Now, let's see where this goes!

-Bryan

That video brought back memories! Looking forward to Delaware 4!

Hi Bryan. I'm so excited about this game---I've loved the other Delaware St. John games and have hoped that more would be coming in the future. I'd be happy to put some money in the "kitty" and I'll cross my fingers that you guys make your goal!

PS Just had to share that I noticed you're in Broomfield. I'm in Longmont w/ my hubby and I just had to smile. I don't see many other Colorado people online. Also, I'm from Delaware originally, so the title of your games hooked me from day one! lol

Tracy

Hey Tracy! Wow, small world, right? Longmont is about 20 minutes from where I live too!

There's a reason he's named Delaware...that'll be revealed as well

Thank you for your support!

-Bryan

Since making the fund raising drive announcement, I've been asked a few specific questions which made me realize I've not fully explained our goal.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to elaborate.

First, we're asked "if you made games before on little budgets, why not keep doing that?"

In the past we worked on all Delaware games as part-time projects in a tight timeframe, usually around 6 months. While I'm proud of the work we did with such limited time and resources, the reality is the quality suffered. We had to cut features, story elements and puzzles due to our limitations and time constraints. The plan for Delaware 4 is have 12 months of development time with a full-time staff dedicated only to this project. We feel the quality will be amazing and really help us take our series from "That's pretty good for an indie game" to "That's a really good game."

The boost in quality paired with a wider launch (available for PC, Mac and tablets) will increase our chances of reaching a wider market and help us profit enough to secure the future development of the rest of the games in the series.

There are no big salaries in this budget. The money has been earmarked to get us the best quality possible but no one is getting a "payday" from it. We're about making a great game, not making tons of money.

Another question I've gotten is "Why is there no physical version of the game?"

With the release of each previous Delaware game on CD, within days of sending out copies of the game, I found pirated copies being sold online for half the price we were asking. I went round and round with eBay and other marketplaces to get those copies removed. It's very time consuming. But each time I got some removed, new ones would pop up and it was clear people were purchasing these illegal copies. They'd also email me for tech support as well. I tried to make it clear to everyone if you do not buy the game from us directly, we don't see any profits and we're not benefitting to be able to fund new developments.

Needless to say the problem only worsened with people eventually selling "digital" copies of our games illegally for $5.

While piracy may be irritating to big-release games, it cripples independent games like ours. It wasn't my first choice to go with a digital-only distribution but in the end it's the only way we can securly sell our product without risking piracy.

In light of this decision, I have given additional thought to collectors. I'll pose this question to the forum and see what the reply is. What if we did manufacture a boxed "collector's edition" of the game as a free bonus to people who pledge? This would be a real, sealed box with a printed CD inside, however, the CD would be blank. This would only be for the sake of collectors who like a boxed game to have on their shelf. Would that be considered a fair trade-off?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. As I said before, it would mean a great deal to me if this project got funded. But I also realize asking people for money in advance for a project is tough, especially in this economy. That's why I'm especially grateful for each and every pledge we get. We know the value of money and we're committed to ensuring your money will create a fantastic adventure you won't forget!

If you have any specific questions or concerns keeping you from pledging, please bring them up for me to address. We don't have much time to raise the money so each donation and day counts! I would appreciate everyone helping to spread the word. This would be a dream opportunity for us and I know you will love the results of our efforts.

-Bryan

Not to me. To me a "Collector's Edition" must be complete, including a functional version of the game. A "Collector's Edition" of a game that includes everything but the game itself sounds like something from a parody.

I'm disappointed to hear this will be download only. I wish you well but I can't say I'll be buying any of the future games. So far, I don't do downloads and don't plan to in the forseeable future anyway.

If I were going to buy the "collector's edition", I would certainly expect the game to be on the disc!

The topic of digital vs physical copy of the game has come up many times. While I've explained why we need to release the game digitally to avoid piracy, at the end of the day it's about making the customer happy.

In consideration of this, I've updated our rewards system to include a free digital copy of the game, a free digital copy of the soundtrack and a free limited collector's edition boxed copy of the game as well with a pledge of $50 or more.

As always, I appreciate you speaking up.

-Bryan

Hi Bryan --

Thanks for your creativity and thinking out-of-the-box and at the same time working to keep the customer happy.

I wish you good luck with your game, but I can't help wondering about the very odd figure of the pledged $280,200 goal. 280,000 + 200. ?

In round figures thats almost 3/4 of doublefines pledge.

Hi Smulan,

When putting a budget together for a Kickstarter project the goal is to get as low a number as possible but high enough to ensure the quality will be what you're promising. The number we came up with contains minimal salaries and cost of new software, that's it. No office space or any additional costs at all. When we're talking about getting the budget down as low as possible, every dollar counts in the end.

As far as 3/4 of Double Fine's pledge, wouldn't it make sense for the budgets be similar given they're both adventure games? Since we aren't putting office space in our budget (again, minimum money for best output) it makes sense we need less to make as good quality.

-Bryan

EDIT: Hey Game Boomers,

After some more feedback I've adjusted our rewards structure to include free digitally remastered copies of each of the previous three games in addition to the collector's boxed edition of the fourth.

Thanks for the feedback.

-Bryan