BIGGER STRONGHOLD CRUSADER MAPS SERIES

But honestly, it was quite a lot of work – running a crowdfunding campaign takes a lot out of you – and because it wasn’t make-or-break we felt like we’d tried it and we just wanted to concentrate on getting the game released. Tannahill: It’s tempting with all these things to go, “Oh, if we went to Kickstarter it’d be all rosy”, and maybe we would have got funded there. Q: Did you consider using Kickstarter for wider exposure? Tannahill: Yeah, but our project was strictly rewards-based a la Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. Q: Gambitious is equity-based, right? So backers see a tiny piece of revenue if the game sells? It will all be free, we won‘t charge for it. It was mainly things like we wanted to do extra tactical powers – those are going to be post release now.

But it was really good for connecting people, and luckily it wasn’t a make-or-break situation. Those things will have to pushed post-release. It’s a shame really, because there were a couple of features where we would have liked to have brought in some additional staff to get finished before release. Tannahill: A few friends set up Gambitious, and we managed to raise $50,000 which was great, but we didn’t hit our $100K mark. Q: Did I see that you were attempting to partly crowdfund Crusader II via Gambitious as well? It’s better for press too – you guys can just talk to us directly, and there’s no red tape which is nice. You can give players and YouTubers builds, and get direct feedback without having to go through the publisher layer. The advantage is that you can just talk to people directly, and know what they are thinking. That’s why we admire people like Vlambeer, studios like that, they are so small yet manage to get games out there in a way that keeps them alive. We’re not tiny – we are about 20 people working here – but it’s basically two jobs. You have people here doing the same roles a publisher would have, ‘cos selling your game is just as hard as making it sometimes. Normally our lead designer would have to take care of that, which sort of detracts from the job of designing the game! The PR and marketing is a huge ask – there’s the expense there, and it’s a lot of legwork. There’s also a lot of business-side stuff which is the reason I was hired.

We don’t have a bottomless pile of money, so the game will definitely be out by the end of this year. We wanted to take as much time as we needed with it, and we can only really do that through self-publishing.īut it’s a lot of work, and the expenses involved in going to shows or setting up press tours is considerable. We totally understand publishers have to get results in certain quarters, but we don’t have those pressures, so we felt that by doing it ourselves we could add all the little things that fans of the original game liked, while still making it different. With a publisher, we might not be able to take an extra week to add something into the game that might make those core players very happy, just because it might throw us off schedule and delay the release date. Tannahill: We began self-publishing in 2009. Q: What are the downsides to self-publishing?įirefly PR and marketing manager Nick Tannahill. Then there are big things like its skirmish mode, voice acting, and the game’s speed. People liked it for tiny things like Strongwall – the ability that prevents regular troops from taking down castle walls. We came to this decision about three or four years ago where we realised that on-balance, Crusader was probably the fans’ favourite game. Crusader is a bit more focussed on RTS, a bit more focussed on skirmish.

BIGGER STRONGHOLD CRUSADER MAPS SERIES

The main Stronghold series are a bit more focussed on the simulation. Nick Tannahill: You have two kinds of Stronghold fans: ones that love the simulation, and those that are bigger fans of the strategy RTS. Why have you chosen to revisit that particular branch of the Stronghold tree now? Q: It’s been a long time since Stronghold Crusader 1.

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