Another great NES homebrew related Kickstarter is live, along with Micro Mages and Nebs n' Debs (which is ending soon, so back it quick!)!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/megacatstudios/log-jamm...

The guys at Mega Cat have launched a Kickstarter for their Windjammers (one of my all-time favorite SNK/Neo Geo games) inspired game, in multiple formats.  The most exciting for me is, of course, the NES version!  I've played it multiple times (and own earlier iterations of it), and always have a blast, especially multiplayer! 

If you haven't seen it already, go check it out.  They have a few nice options to include a standard (updated/enhanced from what they used to sell) edition, a tier where you can get the game, plus another of their titles 50% off, and a super cool, functional wood cartridge edition, which was made in collaboration with Rose Colored Gaming!

Up on the frontpage. Great way to support a developer and get a homebrew!

So what makes this different from the first version they released before?
The video on the KS page didn't really explain much.

I think they are looking for funds so they can port the game to other platforms, PS4, XBOX 1, PC. The rewards just happen to include a physical copy of the NES game as a "Thank You" for contributing.

Thank you for the clarification!

So if you bought a really early copy of Log Jammers from a year or two ago, from what I remember James telling me last year at MAGFest, the newer version is upgraded to MMC3 and has maybe some extra levels, or audio samples, or has been enhanced in some other way. I know that isn't the best answer, but maybe he'll see this thread and chime in.

Good man!  

The new NES version has completely overhauled graphics and levels, and the number of levels was increased to 8. Some of the new levels have hints/themes from other Mega Cat titles, like a Medusa-theme level.

Well, that's interesting. Didn't know they made changes, too.

They have some very generous backers!

On 9/19 7 people donated $2,477 (average of $353.86).
On 9/26 4 people donated $2,967 (average of $741.75).
On 9/28 1 person donated $3,009 (you can do that math).

But the highest tier that has been donated to is $150. Crazy that people would want to spend that much money and get nothing in return!

That smacks of some pretty blatant dishonesty there. If you're going to shill bid a campaign, at least select the highest tier possible. Makes that extra 2k "gift" look less suspicious. I suppose that that would stop actual people from selecting them though.

What exactly would the benefit be for the creators, if they were to shill their own campaign? Maybe just ask them about it, since I'm guessing they're members here.

Maybe to make their campaign "successful"/not a failure, or to generate hype to draw in additional backers?

I don't know. Just two reasons I could think of off the top of my head.

To make it appear more successful, getting it closer to their funding goal, to try to entice more people to back it?

Once successfully funded, they collect the money from the sales that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten had the Kickstarter campaign not existed?

Your guess is as good as mine, but when the overall average backer dollar amount is higher than the highest backed tier, it looks a big strange, doesn't it?

I'd love for them to pipe in, honestly.

edit: Justin beat me to the reply. It takes longer for me to form my words.  

There was a comment about getting multiple carts, so I guess some of those are for one of the lower tiers several times. I'm not involved with the KS, but I'll pass the question on.

One person wants to buy 50 carts? Do they get their name listed 50 times in the credits too?  

According to Mega Cat, they worked out sponsorship in the game with another company to raise funds, which in turned donated through KS to help the campaign. Makes sense to me.

It's easy to jump to the "shill bids" idea, but a sponsor makes a lot more sense. Why shill your own campaign? It's not like you're actually going to make money that way, and when KS takes their cut you're not making it out ahead if over half of your funds are fake. Wouldn't make a lot of sense, IMO.

In all honesty, that sounds about as scummy as can be. Kickstarter is about backers bringing projects to life by actively supporting them, not asking people to hold off helping you with a project until a time when it looks best on paper. Is that even allowed in the KS rules?

And you'd shill your own campaign for the same reason you'd make a private agreement with someone to hold off giving you money; it builds that hype train. You use the fake or promised funds to lure others in, since people do not back projects that do not appear to be successful. Losing sponsor money to KS amounts to the same thing as losing your own. The math is made much worse when 60% of the funds appear to be either spurious or from sponsors.

Does it make sense?  What sponsor silently sends in money on 3 unrelated days, in random amounts?  And what developer doesn't say how happy they are that they found someone to fund half of it?

Hi Justin, Hi Retrostage, Hi everyone else I don't quite know yet!

If it weren't for NA, many of us wouldn't have ever met. I hope to be more active here in the future, I'm just fundamentally shy and more of a lurker. No better time for me to hop in than now, lol.

To address your concerns:

Last week we were at GDEX, this week we are at an event called NY Games Conference. Just about over two weeks ago, we were at AVGC. It's been pretty tough doing our full time jobs, keeping up on the KS outreach, and keeping everything else in motion. Over the last two weeks, we have:

- Signed agreements with a publisher for the PS4 port to go with the Switch release
- Signed IP agreements to include two of our favorite sports announcers that came with sponsorship to include them exclusively in the PC version
- Started adding some other features to the beta of the PC version, specifically, based on some community feedback. Mostly with the Twitch & Mixer interactives, but some fun one player content as well.

I wish I could give you all exact and absolute specifics for the IP part, but you'll have to stay tuned for those added features. My hope is that they're all done and settled to be announced before the KS ends, but I'm not the deciding factor on when that happens or not. The highest tier on the kickstarter gets you in the game. We had one enthusiastic backer that was previously involved with the WWE that has moved onto voice acting. The contracts that a lot of these influencers/talent have are pretty restrictive, and not as specific as they could be for how they're represented with a name and likeness, outside of voice acting.

Finally, their counsel have established some clear boundaries and guidelines for us to rock forward with. I've shared some art privately with a few of you that I know, and I invite anyone to personally message me to talk at length about it privately. I just can't publicly announce, and detail, everything just quite yet.

The features that go with these partnerships does require a lot more development time than putting someone in the background or side lines of an arena in the game/audience. They were able to pair it with a sponsor they already work with to add this to the game. If you have a beta key now, have played it, or watched it, you know that there are currently no announcers or color commentary in the game. We have three coming in, all with a different application for various game modes.

Of course, before we ended up stuck in a gray area for how we were able to represent and announce our collaboration, we were incredibly excited to use the kickstarter to promote the news. After all, the kickstarter is what got the conversation started, and the goal of the kickstarter was to fuel further development of the PC version of the game.

To address the three days that KHAN Games has outlined above, two of them are for sponsors paying through KS. The other just happened to be a day where people bundled games after an email blast we sent out.

Anyone receive their wooden cart edition and open it? I was hoping the box would indicate the wooden cart edition, but it does not appear to be any different from the standard CIBs. Just curious if anyone has opened theirs so I can see what it looks like. Too bad there was not a cutout window or something for the box so the cart would be displayed.