[UPDATED] CODENAME: MORNINGSTAR: Watch the UI Overview

Trapdoor Technologies, who are running the Codename: Morningstar Kickstarter for the electronic tools suite (launching with Pathfinder) has created a short User Interface Overview. This 2-minute silent video quickly shows you some of the functionality in the product, including character generation, party messaging, adventure browsing, product shelf, store, dice roller, and adventure creation and publishing.

The full Kickstarter is here. It has currently raised $19,000 of its $425,000 goal.

The below video has been updated with a new one which contains a soundtrack.

[video=youtube;QwHmy-J6l-0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwHmy-J6l-0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
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[Morrus]

If their iOS app was ready for submission, why do they need another $400k?

Without wanting to belabour the point, because it was designed for D&D 5E, and was only one of several platforms.

 

[iwarrior-poet]

Well, I really do wish them luck. Lord knows I would love to (finally) have a comprehensive digital game aide---particularly one that runs on iOS, but having been burned QUITE a lot of times in this area---I will wait until after the product is finished and reviewed.

 

[maimonidesvii]

I think this, especially the "Pledges Per Day To Succeed", says everything:

 

[DM Howard]

What I would like to see is a sort of breakdown as to what each part of the $425,000 would be for. I understand a lot of that will probably be to keep paying themselves to put this out, but what I'd like to see is a "Why Back This?" video. As in a video telling us where the project is at and why we should back it and truly where it is going based on successful backing. Words are nice, but they don't truly illustrate their plans very well in my opinion.

 

[Morrus]

I think this, especially the "Pledges Per Day To Succeed", says everything

What does it say, in your view?

 

[maimonidesvii]

What does it say, in your view?

As someone who backs video- and tabletop-game kickstarters regularly, it's easy to see certain patterns. You have also pointed out that the first 48 and the last 48 hours are the most important time in a kickstarter, and that usually accounts for a decent percent of the total amount. In this case, they could match their best day total (8k) every day and still be way off the mark.

Now, some may counter that it will really pick up, because they started it at a poor time, on a weekend, and have put little info out currently, and when they release more it will increase pledges. And my rebuttal would be "So... they have only shown poor management so far, so that gives you hope?"

 

[Morrus]

As someone who backs video- and tabletop-game kickstarters regularly, it's easy to see certain patterns. You have also pointed out that the first 48 and the last 48 hours are the most important time in a kickstarter, and that usually accounts for a decent percent of the total amount. In this case, they could match their best day total (8k) every day and still be way off the mark.

Ah. Yeah. That it's not funding is fairly apparent. You don't need a Kicktraq graph for that!

The current KS does a number of things I have done in the past, and learned not to do again. I was lucky in that people were willing to give me advice and stopped me making some mistakes (although I still made some!) Launch and end times are vital; tactical target setting: never have the big number on the right, have the absolute minimum you can get away with to provide something basic, your ultimate goal being a stretch; immediate reward (mine was a playtest doc; theirs could have been exclusive beta access or something, even if that meant waiting till the new year to launch the KS); structuring the most popular reward so if keeps getting better as pledges come in, incentivising backers to promote it; all that sort of stuff.

I kinda feel like that KS could maybe be structured differently to have a better chance to succeed; and that other folks (say, Fred Hicks, or the Monte Cook Games crew, or Reaper, all of whom have utterly mastered this art) can provide valuable insight into how to do so. I've learned from and tried to emulate their methods myself.

Monte Cook wrote a great book on the subject, and Fred Hicks has an awesome Pinterest page full of links to stuff that every KS planner should read.

I really hope it turns around. I do believe they can make a good product. And I like them personally. They're good people and they care about what they're doing. They've made every effort to engage with the community. I feel they deserve a win.

 

[maimonidesvii]

Ah. Yeah. That it's not funding is fairly apparent. You don't need a Kicktraq graph for that!

I guess I was more focused on the second part of my comment. They keep pointing out that "We'll have tons more interest later, when we get out act together!" Why would I want to back the project if they clearly don't know what they're doing?

I'm not saying I know all about running a kickstarter; clearly I don't. But if they aren't willing to do research for the kickstarter and put the effort in to actually get the money, I don't have faith they'll put the effort into the product.

 

[Evenglare]

They never tried to claim it did.



What exactly would you have them do? They had an iOS app that was, by all accounts, ready for submission to the App Store, yet couldn't reach an agreement on pricing. They showed if off at GenCon and to several podcasts, to rave reviews. They had thousands of people clamoring for access to the Web/Android versions, so they released them too early, before they were ready for consumption.

I'm quite sure they were counting on iOS revenue to fund the web and Android development (again, this is conjecture on my part), and when the iOS release was delayed that caused the web/android development to stall.

Yes, their Web product was substandard and not ready for release, but they never claimed it was.

Tell me please, what you would have done in their shoes.


That's kind of my point. You can't objectively judge the project as a whole based on the small fraction of the effort you saw.

The thing is as a consumer I sure as hell can judge things from what I saw. I don't care if it was the smallest or largest effort. Again, you seem to be betting on a whole lot of what ifs, and I'm not going to risk my money because I saw a developer promise things and they did not deliver. What would I do? I'd keep my mouth shut until I had decent build of a product to be shown that fulfilled the goals I made. I'd also have had an NDA so my unfinished product wouldn't have been talked about online. Also, I don't care if they said their app was ready for release or not. That's a text book strawman argument because I never implied they said it was ready for release. You are putting words in my mouth. I'm basing my decision on my own observations of what exists and how they handled the app.

As for the kickstarter, let's look at what kickstarter actually does. It allows the developers to show off proof of concept and promise features that will be in the app. Hmmm, let's look at them showing off the app for 5e at various conventions, I believe in that case they showed proof of concept, and promised features that would be in the app. They failed to deliver with 5e, so what makes you think they are going to do anything different this time? Do you see where I'm going here? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. It also appears I'm not the only one that feels this way based on these boards and how much money they have generated so far.

So let's recap the reasons they won't be getting my money. First, my experience with the app first hand did not live up to my expectations, what I saw was trash. Like you said they might have had a great program behind the scenes, but I didn't get to see that app, I'm certainly not going to base my judgement on what ifs. Second, I'm not going to give my money to someone who failed on their first attempt and wants nearly half a million dollars to attempt it again with a core ruleset that is almost infinitely larger than 5e. Seeing how they fumbled so hard with 5e's rules, I'm not going to be part of that train wreck of making an app for pathfinder's rules considering the depth of the system. Third, I don't care if it's legal or not, no information has been conveyed to me about WHY they lost wizard's support. That sounds extremely sketchy to me. So whatever reason it was, it harmed their image to the community. At this point all I know is that something bad happened, if I don't know WHY it happened, the only thing I can look at right now is that something bad happened. It leaves a bad impression especially without reasons of explanation.

Also a tertiary (quadirary?) 4th reason is I don't run pathfinder, but that clearly has nothing to do with the app itself, but I figured it deserved mentioning.

 

[talsharien]

The thing is as a consumer I sure as hell can judge things from what I saw. I don't care if it was the smallest or largest effort. Again, you seem to be betting on a whole lot of what ifs, and I'm not going to risk my money because I saw a developer promise things and they did not deliver. What would I do? I'd keep my mouth shut until I had decent build of a product to be shown that fulfilled the goals I made. I'd also have had an NDA so my unfinished product wouldn't have been talked about online. Also, I don't care if they said their app was ready for release or not. That's a text book strawman argument because I never implied they said it was ready for release. You are putting words in my mouth. I'm basing my decision on my own observations of what exists and how they handled the app.

As for the kickstarter, let's look at what kickstarter actually does. It allows the developers to show off proof of concept and promise features that will be in the app. Hmmm, let's look at them showing off the app for 5e at various conventions, I believe in that case they showed proof of concept, and promised features that would be in the app. They failed to deliver with 5e, so what makes you think they are going to do anything different this time? Do you see where I'm going here? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. It also appears I'm not the only one that feels this way based on these boards and how much money they have generated so far.

So let's recap the reasons they won't be getting my money. First, my experience with the app first hand did not live up to my expectations, what I saw was trash. Like you said they might have had a great program behind the scenes, but I didn't get to see that app, I'm certainly not going to base my judgement on what ifs. Second, I'm not going to give my money to someone who failed on their first attempt and wants nearly half a million dollars to attempt it again with a core ruleset that is almost infinitely larger than 5e. Seeing how they fumbled so hard with 5e's rules, I'm not going to be part of that train wreck of making an app for pathfinder's rules considering the depth of the system. Third, I don't care if it's legal or not, no information has been conveyed to me about WHY they lost wizard's support. That sounds extremely sketchy to me. So whatever reason it was, it harmed their image to the community. At this point all I know is that something bad happened, if I don't know WHY it happened, the only thing I can look at right now is that something bad happened. It leaves a bad impression especially without reasons of explanation.

Also a tertiary (quadirary?) 4th reason is I don't run pathfinder, but that clearly has nothing to do with the app itself, but I figured it deserved mentioning.

You have just summed up my own thoughts, the concepts and rules in 5th are far less complex than pathfinder. Plus something you perhaps failed to mention is that with 5th edition they had a group of gamers wanting an e-product for a new game when there currently wasn't any alternatives. Moving into the world of pathfinder opens up competition as other products are already out there which are very good. Perhaps they should re-brand themselves as Dreamer Technologies!