Endaeva is going to shift into more of a hobby project from now on most likely. I love the concepts in it and the idea of the game, but their doesn't seem to be too much interest. That's okay, but it always means it won't really be financially viable, so for now I'll likely be putting it on the backburner while I try to figure out where to go next.
If you think that is what is best. I personally think that what StormWingDelta said is on track. Its not so much that there is no interest, but there was not enough incentive to invest in something that was a year from delivery. If you had a playable demo and a web site - tools that will help you market and promote the product - I think the results of the Kickstarter would be much different. I also participated in the 'Edge of Space' KickStarter which had some concepts similar to yours (metroid style sand box). I don't think their game will be half what you originally proposed in your first Kickstarter video and yet they easily made their goal and then some.
Financial success of any product isn't about ideas or public interest it is about good marketing. The best marketing comes from a happy customer base.
Though I will say there is nothing wrong with evaluating your game once it has met your current design goals, determining that it is not fun enough and going back to the drawing board to improve game play. I am concerned that if you are not even finished with version 1.0 and you are already planning a bigger badder 2.0.
IMO you should consider the big picture.. You said your goal was to make a game 'You wanted to play' but now you are saying you won't make the game unless you fully know in advance that it will be a financial success... I believe that if you focus on the former, you won't need to worry about the later. Also, even if version 1.0 only sells 1000 copies, version 2.0 might sell a million. It is much easier to make a version 2.0 of a completed version 1.0.
Just some things to think about when you have more time to work on Endaeva...
-Steven
Well, in all honesty, what I have now is pretty fun. It just needs to be "perfect" before I let people play it. You're right, it really is an issue of poor marketing on my part.
To clarify on this "2.0" concept, most of my code uses complex inheritance, virtual methods, and solid OO principals. But some aspects of it do not, such as the state manager and rendering pipe. What I'm talking about with recoding is making a more solid state manager, universe manager, and rendering pipe. And for multiplayer, I need a devise a system that can handle physics for more than one player using an authoritative server scheme (in case I want to have secure, official servers eventually), which is not an easy thing to do. It's why you see most games lacking any complex physical interaction. This likely means I will need to make heavy mods to Box2d or possibly code my own, less robust (but more focused) physics engine.
I've always operated on a "prototype first, debug later" basis, instead of the "engineer first, code later" concept. I've prototyped, debugged, and I actually like the results, and if the Kickstarter was successful I would build off of it, but seeing as where it is at, I feel I can turn this disappointment around by staying more true to my core game vision. That means adding even more to the game. I will post an update on Kickstarter when there is a short amount of time left explaining the direction I'm going, I've got it pretty much figured out at this point.
I appreciate the thoughts and assistance in this process, it really makes developing much less stressful.
I will eventually launch another kickstarter for the improved version of this project. That one will definitely learn from the mistakes of this funding period. It will have a free demo available, a website up and running, and a more "personal" video talking about my story with more solid gameplay. When I get to that stage again, it is going to be very different than this attempt.
Until then, I'll likely be posting updates on this thread and another one I started on tigsource forums.
