We are the team of the game Plee the Bear and we are now launching a fundraising campaign to continue the game. Let me tell you more about it.
About the project
Plee the Bear is a 2D platformer in which you play an angry bear whose son has been kidnapped by God. You will have to experience an amazing journey to find and rescue your son. Because you want to rescue him, don't you? Or to slap him? Maybe both…
The game is developed since 2005 and has seen several releases, the most recent of them containing three levels of the storyline and four mini-games. The game did receive very positive criticisms. The players loved the fun, the graphics and the music; the indie gaming community was pleasantly surprised by the technical skill and the details in the game; and the community around the free software movement appreciated the overall process and the quality of the resources, remarkable for a free game.
The latest release was made available in august 2011 and should be in the repository of your favorite Linux distribution today. Otherwise, you can still get the source from SourceForge.net. Since this release we have worked to write down the storyline and every detail of the game. With these elements in our hands, we could estimate the amount of work needed to finish the game.
Financing an open source game
Where to give your money
The platform we have chosen is OpenFunding, which is a young crowdfunding website dedicated to free software. The target of the first call is 1112.79 € (approximately $1455) that will be spent to refresh the game toward more recent quality standards. Then we will propose new content for the game, each time with a new fundraising campaign. Please note that the content of the game is predefined and should receive only little modifications as we progress. Thus the donors will for sure obtain a complete game in a foreseeable future.
A particularity of OpenFunding is that the financing is determined by the effective production of the evolution. Indeed, we won't receive any money before releasing the product, and even then we will be paid only if the donors validate the work. Thus, if you give some money and do not like the result, you will be able to keep your money.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Plee the Bear is a 2D platformer in which you play an angry bear whose son has been kidnapped by God. You will have to experience an amazing journey to find and rescue your son. Because you want to rescue him, don't you? Or to slap him? Maybe both…
The game is developed since 2005 and has seen several releases, the most recent of them containing three levels of the storyline and four mini-games. The game did receive very positive criticisms. The players loved the fun, the graphics and the music; the indie gaming community was pleasantly surprised by the technical skill and the details in the game; and the community around the free software movement appreciated the overall process and the quality of the resources, remarkable for a free game.
The latest release was made available in august 2011 and should be in the repository of your favorite Linux distribution today. Otherwise, you can still get the source from SourceForge.net. Since this release we have worked to write down the storyline and every detail of the game. With these elements in our hands, we could estimate the amount of work needed to finish the game.
Financing an open source game
The game has been released for Windows and GNU/Linux as an open source software, under the terms of the GPL and CC-by-sa licenses. We used to work on it on our spare time, until we ran out of it. We have then created a company named Stuffomatic to lead our projects and we made a digression toward non free software via Andy's Super Great Park. Today, we want to come back in free software, especially if we find a way to fund it.
We think that for a game like ours, with a storyline and focused on single player gaming, the best solution is to have a participative financing for each evolution in the game. We don't want to propose in game purchases, nor to rely on advertisement. Apart from the game itself, each financed step will contribute to the open source and gaming communities by the provision of the sources and resources under free licenses.
If you are a game developer, you may have already used some free resources from websites like OpenGameArt.org or Freesound.org. If you are a gamer, you may have played games that use the resources of such websites. In both cases, you are certainly interested by our process consisting of releasing each part of the game under a free license. Actually, we have recently started to supply OpenGameArt.org with our assets.
We think that for a game like ours, with a storyline and focused on single player gaming, the best solution is to have a participative financing for each evolution in the game. We don't want to propose in game purchases, nor to rely on advertisement. Apart from the game itself, each financed step will contribute to the open source and gaming communities by the provision of the sources and resources under free licenses.
If you are a game developer, you may have already used some free resources from websites like OpenGameArt.org or Freesound.org. If you are a gamer, you may have played games that use the resources of such websites. In both cases, you are certainly interested by our process consisting of releasing each part of the game under a free license. Actually, we have recently started to supply OpenGameArt.org with our assets.
Where to give your money
The platform we have chosen is OpenFunding, which is a young crowdfunding website dedicated to free software. The target of the first call is 1112.79 € (approximately $1455) that will be spent to refresh the game toward more recent quality standards. Then we will propose new content for the game, each time with a new fundraising campaign. Please note that the content of the game is predefined and should receive only little modifications as we progress. Thus the donors will for sure obtain a complete game in a foreseeable future.
A particularity of OpenFunding is that the financing is determined by the effective production of the evolution. Indeed, we won't receive any money before releasing the product, and even then we will be paid only if the donors validate the work. Thus, if you give some money and do not like the result, you will be able to keep your money.
So what are you waiting for? Give us your money, it's free!
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Now the content is defined and estimated at 1 year of development with our current team, if and only if we can survive until the end of the production (we still need to eat, to pay our loans, etc.)
Finally, we have some plans to sell the finished game. It will obviously be available on our website and proposed to digital distributors. We may also provide additional content or physical products to the buyers, nothing is completely defined on the subject yet.