A Message for Patreon Supporters on Crowdfunding

Doing it Different

When we began Pistol Shrimp and started work on Free Stars: Children of Infinity, we set out to do things differently. I (Dan), in particular, was especially interested in pursuing alternate forms of funding, marketing, and selling our work to people who were interested in it. We wanted our process to create a community that feels valued, lets others participate in development, and allows us to share our work openly with everyone. We believe it will make a better product, and we’ll have a lot more fun together along the way.

When it came to funding this effort, we started on Patreon simply asking who would want to participate.

Funding on Patreon

We were awed by the amount of support we’ve received, all of which has gone directly to our development of Free Stars: Children of Infinity and Simple. Thanks to you, we have not only been able to pay for boring, technical things we use like software and services, but we have been able to pay other, talented people to bring their skills to bear on the game. Some amazing volunteers have been sharing their efforts with us just because they want to, but we can only receive so much help that way (and we like paying people for work). Included in this message is a sneak peek of some of the progress we’ve been able to make thanks to you.

Most of our funds we’ve raised have gone to paying other people as we have moved into production, getting what we need to actually finish the game. We pay part-time contract artists, and have only recently brought on one at a full-time level. We’ve also partnered with a publicist to help get the word out about Free Stars. We’re excited to show you all of their good work, including some of it here in this post, but we also want to talk about how to take this to the next level so we can actually afford what we need to finish the game.

Here's our rough resource allocation so far and what we're doing with the funds we've raised. Did you know pie charts are harder to read and less useful than bar graphs? No one will take you seriously in any financial discussion if you don't use a pie chart though. What's up with that?

For comparison, here is the Druuge allocation of resources. Hey, at least we're doing better than them!

At a minimum, we need to support Fred and myself, who have been self-funding our lives and Pistol Shrimp since its inception without income. If things go well, we can take the stress off of ourselves from having to finish the game in a hurry with limited resources just because we need to eat. Having a couple other hands will make the game that much better too, and we also want to financially appreciate our volunteer contributors.

Reaching the Finish Line

We’re preparing to launch a crowdfunding campaign that goes beyond our Patreon, focused on one-time payments. Even going back to our early Reddit Q&A’s, we’ve found our community to be, broadly speaking, interested in any of a few different things:

• You want to support us because you believe in what we’re doing.
• You want to participate in development and see behind-the-scenes things.
• You want to get the finished game.

Your support has really mattered to us, whatever camp(s) you may fall into. As we expand our crowdfunding beyond Patreon and look to offer one-time payments, especially for people in that third category, we want to make sure we take care of you too. Here’s what you can expect:

• Interstar Credit Exchange: First and foremost, you're going to get everything that a donor on another platform gets digitally, including a copy of the game. If you kicked in $100 so far, for example, you'll get the same rewards as someone making a $100 one-time payment.
• Frungy Fan’s Fantastic Field Guide: With some of the visual cats out of the bag, we’ll be sharing weekly concept art drops on Patreon throughout development starting after we launch our main funding campaign. These will be very behind-the-scenes, varied, personal, and a glimpse into the work we actually do for ourselves and what kind of oddballs we are.
• Druuge Altruism Hall of Shame: You’ll be listed separately in the in the game credits. As we continue to produce new, non-game content like our Channel 44 series, we’ll find ways to credit you there as well.
• Dogar and Kazon’s Disciple: You still receive special flair and have access to our private channel on Discord. Come be with us and the other supporters!

If you want to keep being a part of development and the wonderful community that believes in what we’re doing, stick around on Patreon. You're supporting things we love beyond just the finished game, like our development livestreams, blog posts, and communities. Our new crowdfunding campaign is the first time we’ll be offering anyone an opportunity to pay for “just the finished game”. The one-time donation option is for people who just want that.

That campaign will be happening soon, and we’ll still need your help to make it a success by getting the word out, but we also want to know what you think. What do you think of our proposal above, what else could we do, and what questions you have?

We want your input!

Questions and Answers

On Friday, March 22nd at 11am PT, we’ll be hosting a live stream on Twitch where we discuss the plan to come discuss what we’re doing with everyone. We wanted to do something live because we enjoy it, my birds miss their mandated camera time, and we want you to be part of the conversation more than anything.

They look forward to speaking with you too.

We know that people around the world have lives, schedules, and time zones; and we want to accommodate you as best we can too! If you have questions you want to ask, drop them in the comments on this Patreon post, and we can make sure we hear The Words even if you can’t be there. A recording of the talk will be made available as well.

Our message going forward for our Patreon community is still the same. We are happy to have you be part of our development and our supportive community, and we are glad you believe in what we’re doing. Our forthcoming campaign is for the people who just want to play Free Stars: Children of Infinity. We’ll have a lot more to share with you next month and can’t wait to show off our team’s great work.

Please add questions on the comments of this post and join your fellow supporters on Discord. See you soon!