Hengelight: A modern co-op take on classic ASCII Roguelikes.

[dmahurdle]

Hey eveyone! A friend and I are building a single-player/co-op RPG inspired heavily by the roguelikes of the early 90s. It's got smooth movement, a big procedural world, dynamic split-screen, real-time combat, and much more. We'd love you to check it out and let us know what you think! There's a free pre-alpha demo on our kickstarter page.

Thanks, guys!

[chooseusername]

It looks like a great result for 9 weeks work. And I think it's a valid and interesting direction to take text-based roguelikes.

Personally, I think kickstarter is a bad idea.  It locks you into having to finish the project, or give refunds.  How much money you actually get in the long run after all the rewards and mucking around and taxes and whatever.. I don't know.  Especially out of a low amount like 15k.  Patreon is a better fit IMO, if you have a compelling enough project for people to take attention.  But that's really a problem shared between both outfits.

That said.  Good on you for making a go of it.  Hope you get enough people who fund you.

[Kyzrati]

Very interesting; it's nice to see a team taking co-op ASCII play so seriously.

I think you've launched your campaign a little too early, though. While I do think you have enough game to show for it so far (impressive for so little dev time), there is obviously no initial community backing you. You would've had a much stronger start on KS (and therefore greater chances of a final success) if you'd spent another couple months both working on the game and, more importantly, letting roguelike communities and others know about this project so they could jump on it right away when the campaign began. Not that this helps now, but it could be useful advice if this fails and you want to try again.

For now, you need to quickly get out there and spread the word. I'm a member of a ton of roguelike communities across the net, and this is the first I've heard of Hengelight. I did help you out by posting to one of the biggest roguelike communities.

[getter77]

Heh, Update #1 coming Saturday, July 8 eh?     A good trick for August!

Seriously though, the game does look substantial--hopefully things work out, though what Kyzrati says also bears keeping in mind.  Keep at it!