Our Kickstarter officially came to a close a few minutes ago, to an unsuccessful result. Of course I am disappointed, the team is disappointed but this was not unforeseen, we had a pretty intense pace to keep that fell behind early and we never quite got the reach and catch we needed for it to spread to enough of you guys to make it happen.
There were some pleasant surprises and they’re worth talking about. We were particularly overwhelmed by the amount of support we received from friends and family, even estranged, long-lost high school acquaintances or even people I didn’t think would think anything of the project. To me, that was the best part of the campaign to see people some of us hadn’t talked to in a decade back the project and say how inspired they were to see our dream chased so aggressively, so passionately and it means the world to me and the rest of the team that you all think that.
The Hanako Family is rather small, but powerful and I felt that strength – but we know that we must grow this Family many times larger to reach the promise land. This is a lost battle, but it was not without gain, as many valuable lessons were revealed to us and this gave us experience we never would have received otherwise. This is not the end of the project, not in this lifetime, not with all the time, effort, passion and growth invested in getting it this far.
There’s an old samurai saying, and my Sifu has reminded me of this many times as well: “When the Battle is over, tighten your helmet straps.” This is what we must do, as a team, as a family, rally around each other to carry on into what lies ahead. We will set our sights on developing more of the game, more of the features so we can show you rather than tell you and get better at explaining exactly what we’re trying to achieve.
We entered the MomoCon Indie Game Showcase and it’s a huge opportunity for us to gain exposure from giant gaming news outlets like Kotaku and the Escapist. Exposure was our biggest issue on the Kickstarter campaign so this would be a huge step towards building momentum for potentially a second campaign or whatever we decide is best moving forward.
We sincerely thank you for looking at our game and are even more grateful if you decided to back the game on Kickstarter. I only ask that if we decide to do a second campaign that you’ll stand behind us once more and help push us to where we need to be and that we can earn your support a second time.
Thank you everyone and we’re looking forward to showing you what Hanako – Soul of the Samurai is capable of.
-Matt