game of quests - a game +activity tracking app

[Bartek Zaborowski]

Hello everyone :)

I don't know if im posting this in a right group, so please let me know if it should be posted somewhere else :)

I'm asking you for your advices or ideas about project that I'm working on.
I'm a cofounder of Game of Quests - a game + activity tracking app.

As it is a group about Real Life Gaming, and our app is all about that, maybe you could give us some advices.


Our first app is set in a fantasy world of elves, dwarves and humans (it's the first universe we're introducing, other to come if our indiegogo campaign will succeed).
It's not a typical computer game where you grab your keyboard, or a joypad and play, in our world real actions counts.
That's why our motto is play & progress. We will encourage users to develop their avatars, but also themselves.

We've set up interesting quests to help users to develop (GPS based, so every quest could be verified).
We've divided them into 3 categories: FITNESS, CULTURE, ECOLOGY.
Warrior Quests – The ones based on physical activities (running available in our beta app)
Mage Quests – Skill or culture based quests (check in library, museum, or cinema available in our beta app)
Druid Quests – Relationship, social and ecology based quests (cycling available in our beta app)

Like in a classical RPG game, a character is developed by gaining experience by accomplishing quests.
These 3 classes are independent, and switchable at any moment (we believe that no one can be pigeonholed in only one class, people are just too complex).

Users start their adventure with Game of Quests by creating their avatar.
First, you select a race (human, elf, dwarf), sex and skin type. You can also customize your avatar.
Then you start a game, completing mentioned above quests.

As a bootstraping, garage start up, where bunch of friends want to do something useful and fun for our users, we have a really low budget fo now.
Still, we managed to finish an android beta app, and a promo video.
With these 2 tools, we would like to launch a crowdfunding campaign (at indiegogo.com), and collect 37 k $ to develop our android app, and create new apps for iOS, windows phone, and desktop.
If we will succeed, we're planning to find some investor, that will help us to scale our start up.

Our main goal is to create a passionate story, where user real-life actions are the key part of it.
If fantasy world isn't user most favourite, we are planning to introduce new universes if we will succeed at our crowdfunding campaign.

We are wondering when to start our campaign. We don't want to wait too long, but do you think that holidays are a good time to launch such a campaign? Or we should wait till the end of January?
Do you think that such an app have a chance at crowdfunding?
What do you think about our concept, app, and design? Is there anything you think we could improve?


Here are some attachments, it would be great if you could take a look at them:
Our campaign video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1xdlz_p1l8
Our goals and rewards, guidebook, and what's ahead of us: https://drive.google.com/drive/#folders/0BybjqgGRb3u1VlBLellvanJsaUU


It would be great to hear what do you think about my project.

Regards,
Bartek Zaborowski
Game of Quests

about me:
I'm a project manager, and an online marketing expert at Ziaja, leading polish cosmetics company. I have a master degree in psychology.
Privatety, I like to play soccer, and watch street theatres. I also love to play RPG games and read.

[Clinton Callahan]

Hey Bartek! Super project. Yes, this is the correct group to be posting in.

My suggestion is to build a little team of 3 people to help you hold space for this project and to take it to its next level. The 3 person team is important to give your project enough mass to continue through the sand pits...

We are working on a related project but you are ahead of us right now. So keep going. When we get something more I will let you know.

Clinton Callahan www.nextculture.org

[Bartek Zaborowski]

Hello Clinton,

thx for your reply. I'm very happy that you think our project is interesting. We have a team of 5 people now. We're all making it to help people to develop, that's our main goal. 

As we are launching a crowdfunding campaign, we are also looking for people that could spread the word about GOQ (privately I think that our project is worth to support, I'm already using it to check-in a museum, or to run my standard 5km distance ;) ). Crowdfunding campaign is a milestone for us, and as we all know, a project must be very well prepared to succeed. That's why we're open for all sugestions, and advices that could make our project better. 

I wish you all the best with your own project. I will take a look at it when I'll have a minute, and I'll try to give you some feedback :) 

Regards,

Bartek 

[Bartek Zaborowski]

Hello guys,

it's a moment of truth for us. We've started your indiegogo campaign.

It would be great if you could spread the word!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/game-of-quests-gamified-activity...

Android users could also download our beta app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gameofquests.app

keep your fingers crossed!

[Robin Hughes]

Keep us up to date with your progress. Really good idea.

[Bartek Zaborowski]

thank you Robin for your kind words.

I'll definitely keep you up to date :) 

[Robin Hughes]

As far as the indiegogo campaign I suspect you didn't get enough traffic. More of the right people needed the opportunity to support the campaign. So you would need a more extensive social media campaign.

The next thing is that I suspect although everyone agrees it is a good concept to get donations you need to inspire and motivate people. I didn't feel inspired or motivated as much as I would have liked. The advertising needs to change its slant so that people think of it as more then a gimic but also a useful tool that gets results.

What the money is going to be used for needs to be things people actually want, some of them are fine and some of them are perhaps poorly worded. It needs to be way closer to the top of the page.

There is way too much information. You need a more minimalistic approach so that there is no distraction from the information people most want/need to see. People should be able to see the most important information with the least effort possible.

The English needs to be edited. This will make a big difference to the professionalism. Don't give any excuse for people to decide to place there money elsewhere or to pass over without trying it out.

What you need to remember is that you are very passionate about your game. However potential donors are looking at it with fresh eyes. In most cases you either get their attention fast or you don't really get it at all. The same goes for players.

I have a lot of respect for you and what you have achieved. I think that some objective constructive criticism could make a lot of difference for the future. I do believe in your project and I am happy to help with editing and advice.

The main thing to be thinking about is what impression does the content and presentation give. If it doesn't motivate and inspire then it could do with some improvements.

[Bartek Zaborowski]

We had many great advices during our campaign, how to make our game better.

I would like to discuss them here. Your feedback means the world to me.

Many people thinks that it's a good concept, but a game with an avatar and a story, could not be enough to keep our players motivated to play our app.

What we're wondering how to implement things connected with prestige, small extrinsic rewards, achievements (like certifitations etc) and philantropy.

Do you have some ideas how to deal with that?

Maybe some "vital index" that will increase when you'll be active and decrease when you won't take any actions (it have something in common with prestige - you could show that you're and active person if you have high "vital index").

When it comes to extrinsic rewards - maybe www.kiip.com is a right choice? Somebody used this tool? You have any opinions about it?

What do you think about a world of fantasy? Maybe we should focus about other universes, or create a platform first, and then create universes one by one?

As I wrote before, it would be great to know your opinions and advices. 

Best Regards,

Bartek

[Robin Hughes]

If you watch a series on TV or online you will notice how they keep adding new twists to keep the audience interested. Sometimes they make good turns and pick up viewers and other times they make mistakes and lose viewers.

With gaming it is much the same. If there is new things to keep me interested I can be captivated for a very long time.

There are many games with just avatars and stories that do very well and they don't even have interaction with the real world. So extrinsic rewards are not necessary. They should not be used just to cover up for a game that is not able to stand up on its two feet, but instead as something to build on a good foundation. I don't think Kiip is a good long term feature. It may have some use in the short term. However you are not up to the stage where you would get any benefit from it. You need to fix/improve the basic game first and I could help you to have a much better system anyhow.

The foundations of the game need examining. The game does not have a sustainable footing. You require finance for further developing the game and yet the game is not providing anything to you other then personal satisfaction. Something useful needs to be produced. This was meant to be the value a user gets from playing the game. Some of the users may go on to donate if the game is good, however if it is not good enough then people just get bored and move on. It is the fate of games that people get bored with almost all eventually. However your game has the potential to be one of those games that people keep coming back to.

The first thing I note as I download it is the size of the game. Could it be made smaller? 
No info on the races as to any benefits or whether they are purely cosmetic. The miles vs km issue needs fixing, standardize to km and put miles in brackets or have an option in setup. People don't need to choose between km and miles every time.

Make the first game successful. I wouldn't be moving onto new projects until you have done that. You need to work systematically. You have made a great start and you have a lot of bright ideas, however this is where people often get the speed wobbles. Instead of working with the more immediate problems needing fixing they look to the skies and dream. 

So what you need to do is work with the content of the game - improve on the tasks. It is not hard work that needs doing; it doesn't require much genius, it just needs to be done. If you want some help with it let me know. I can also help design a reward system, however I would like to see you spend your time working on the deficiencies of the game before concerning too much with that.