Living in an apartment is an odd experience in some ways. It is only thin walls which separate you from other people living out their lives nearby. Although we all feel that our joys and troubles are uniquely are own, it’s really the case that many others have similar situations. Apartment begins with the story of Nick and Madison who just broke up after four years. With Nick now alone in the apartment the two shared, he must go through the process of restarting his life without her. Players experience his most innermost thoughts and memories by exploring the apartment.
This adventure game has an obvious focus on narrative, but not exactly like a visual novel. You actually must inhabit each space and discover the story, or watch it unfold in various vignettes. Although half of the story is focused on Nick’s struggle, the other half turns toward all the neighbors in the apartment building. What relationships and issues related to them are they going through? How do they experience reality, and is it so different from that of the others? You’ll find out by discovering their storylines.
The presentation of the written text is done in visually unique ways so that playing Apartment doesn’t feel like reading a book. So far, much of the game looks quite nice (although the developers would love to make it even better). Their Kickstarter asks $20,000 for a Windows, Mac, and Linux release of Apartment. If you’re intrigued, check out the demo.
Track the progress of the Apartment Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
Really enjoying every articles you write. I often came here to see KS i might have missed ;).
I also like the analysis (as a fellow economist graduate myself lol). I wonder though, having back 300 projects now..there is something i do find amiss with kickstarter, i wonder if you guys wrote an article about it (point me to it if you did).
That is the let down of the release. Lately a lot of games i’ve been backing were released and a lot of them disappointed me in how they managed this step. Either releasing keys for backers later than for others, either like for Armello giving up on exclusive content for backers, or offering a discount at -50% at day one like Cosmochoria (who makes the price paid on KS for a digital key higher than on steam).
This after match and how it is usually badly dealt with is something that made my enthusiasm for Kickstarter and project in a large scale go down the road. As a complete believer of the trend behind Kickstarter even if i am not an idealistic..about their interest (but i like the thought). I am not easily shaken. But recent, incessant comparable situation makes me wonder and reconsider why i am backing projects.
In my opinion at first, i am doing it for myself to see project that i like came to life, then others to enjoy it and last for the creator which i usually empathize with. But it seems their lack of structure as an indie structure or maybe even their lack or money doesn’t often makes them able to be considerate towards their backer (steam users and stem itself seems to be an incredible pushover).
So, if there is an article regarding this i’d like to read it if there is not, well, i hope i gave you an idea to look at and that in the future i could read an article on “the after match and how release are dealt by indies”.
Oh, btw, some months i tried to apply to your forum but i apparently got banned (for no reason..i didn’t even post a message). Just thought i’d let you know that there is some trouble there.
Sigh, what’s the point into leaving a comment sometimes i wonder..pretty sure if i had left a topless picture of me i’ve had at least 5 comments lol.
Dawnyaaa, thanks for taking to time to write this biiiiig comment. I’m sorry for not seeing it! It’s a bad habit of mine to basically ignore ever looking at my articles again (unless I need to reference one for something – and only notice comments then). Now that I realize I’m missing out on comments like yours I’m going to try improving!
There are definitely a whole host of things that can and do go wrong with many Kickstarter projects. I’ve experienced some of the same as you (backers getting game later than other people, game going on heavy discount very soon, etc).
It is great fun to be a “part” of the creation process – seeing a game form month after month. For most of us, this is as close as we’ll get to game development, so it’s very cool in theory. But yeah, so many campaigns offer similar problems as they go along. For me, I think the issue is that so many of these indie teams are indie in every sense of the word. They may have never attempted a project of this scale before (or at all). Even if they have made games before, they’ve never had to do so “for an audience.”
You’ve provided some great food for thought in regards to at least one article – but potentially multiple. We’ve talked about various aspects of crowdfunding so far, but I don’t believe we’ve really discussed the aftermath of a game launch, or how folks mismanage their campaign during (outside of articles about specific situations – ex: The Grisaia Trilogy post). I have considered developer postmortems, but that requires the developers to be willing to post that here rather than, say, Gamasutra.
Were you registering for the forum under the same username as your Disqus account? We’ve had a large spambot problem so you were probably unfortunately blocked with all of those. Let me know if you can try to register again, but if not, I’ll see about getting your account reinstated.
Dawnyaaa, thanks for taking to time to write this biiiiig comment. I’m sorry for not seeing it! It’s a bad habit of mine to basically ignore ever looking at my articles again (unless I need to reference one for something – and only notice comments then). Now that I realize I’m missing out on comments like yours I’m going to try improving!
There are definitely a whole host of things that can and do go wrong with many Kickstarter projects. I’ve experienced some of the same as you (backers getting game later than other people, game going on heavy discount very soon, etc).
It is great fun to be a “part” of the creation process – seeing a game form month after month. For most of us, this is as close as we’ll get to game development, so it’s very cool in theory. But yeah, so many campaigns offer similar problems as they go along. For me, I think the issue is that so many of these indie teams are indie in every sense of the word. They may have never attempted a project of this scale before (or at all). Even if they have made games before, they’ve never had to do so “for an audience” – or know the first thing about handling game development, PR, etc 100% on their own.
You’ve provided some great food for thought in regards to at least one article – but potentially multiple. We’ve talked about various aspects of crowdfunding so far, but I don’t believe we’ve really discussed the aftermath of a game launch, or how folks mismanage their campaign during (outside of articles about specific situations – ex: my The Grisaia Trilogy posts http://cliqist.com/?s=grisaia+trilogy ). I have considered developer postmortems, but that requires the developers to be willing to post that here rather than, say, Gamasutra.
Were you registering for the forum under the same username as your Disqus account? We’ve had a large spambot problem so you were probably unfortunately blocked with all of those. Let me know if you can try to register again, but if not, I’ll see about getting your account reinstated.
Dawnyaaa, thanks for taking to time to write this biiiiig comment. I’m sorry for not seeing it! It’s a bad habit of mine to basically ignore ever looking at my articles again (unless I need to reference one for something – and only notice comments then). Now that I realize I’m missing out on comments like yours I’m going to try improving!
There are definitely a whole host of things that can and do go wrong with many Kickstarter projects. I’ve experienced some of the same as you (backers getting game later than other people, game going on heavy discount very soon, etc).
It is great fun to be a “part” of the creation process – seeing a game form month after month. For most of us, this is as close as we’ll get to game development, so it’s very cool in theory. But yeah, so many campaigns offer similar problems as they go along. For me, I think the issue is that so many of these indie teams are indie in every sense of the word. They may have never attempted a project of this scale before (or at all). Even if they have made games before, they’ve never had to do so “for an audience” – or know the first thing about handling game development, PR, etc 100% on their own.
You’ve provided some great food for thought in regards to at least one article – but potentially multiple. We’ve talked about various aspects of crowdfunding so far, but I don’t believe we’ve really discussed the aftermath of a game launch, or how folks mismanage their campaign during (outside of articles about specific situations – ex: my The Grisaia Trilogy posts http://cliqist.com/?s=grisaia+trilogy ). I have considered developer postmortems, but that requires the developers to be willing to post that here rather than, say, Gamasutra.
Were you registering for the forum under the same username as your Disqus account? We’ve had a large spambot problem so you were probably unfortunately blocked with all of those. Let me know if you can try to register again, but if not, I’ll see about getting your account reinstated.
Oh! I, myself completely forgot i wrote that comment. Well, thank you for your time first! Sorry for the topless comment lol. Ah, don’t worry, i have the same process as you. I usually don’t look back unless i need reference.
Anyway, back to the topic, i completely agree with you that the issue is probably how indie in every regards those companies are. Usually, tech-wise they manage themselves, but not on the PR or management part.
But, there is also one particular project i know of where the creator has been quite direct with us (probably a mistake of his lol) and let us realized another angle.
The game is called After Reset a Fallout-like game. The game was put on SEA (Steam Early Access) with nothing to show and at an expensive cost of 50$ if i remember well.
You could barely get out of the one room, the game proposed. You can imagine the backlash on steam forums calling it fraud and such. But, on the comment section of the kickstarter, the creator told us Steam push him to release unto SEA while he told them he wasn’t ready, yet.
Well, i don’t want to tell you what to do lol. But i’ve been greatly intrigued by the postmortem of those which i think would make an interesting article and also would be of great value to creators that do not want to repeat those same mistakes.
I think, guys creators of War for the Overworld, After Reset and Cosmo would be ready to give you their impression. The first one because they had a rough patch because of it and i am sure they’ve things to say.
The guy from After Reset..Well, it’ll help him clarify things and the backlash he endure on steam forum (everyday) as for Cosmo, well, i made a stand before the guy about his -50% day one for a week. He understand my resent and felt remorseful, he seemed like a good fellow that’d be happy to share his experience with you.
As for the forum thingy, No, i usually use “Dawn_” as a nick. But it’s no big deal, i thought i did something wrong that’s all lol. I was like “did i post something hateful there that i can’t remember..? (could happen)”
Then i realized i actually didn’t even post, i am just reassured to see i wasn’t particularly targeted and that was some tech issues ;).
No worries, I’m happy to chat (when I realize that someone is attempting to start up a conversation – eep)!
Wow, I hadn’t heard of the issues with After Reset before. I know that Steam recently changed their rules for what they allow onto Early Access, but it seems that they do not enforce a lot of stuff, and are still fine with “broken” games on it as long as the developer eventually fixes it.
All of us at Cliqist are always looking for what types of articles we can write. I can’t speak for anyone else in particular, but I definitely love the idea of providing content that readers of the site specifically mention they’re interested in. No promises, of course :P.
Hmm, I did a check and didn’t find Dawn_ in the list of banned users, but that list also clears after a certain amount of time. I’ll see if there’s another way to resolve it, in the case that it tries to block you from creating a new account.