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Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

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Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#11

Post by philwelch »

gimpmaestro wrote: post #9

Donations for a startup? Are you serious? You should be offering equity if you are going to profit from this.

This is a serious concern, but if you get something for your money it seems not-unfair.

Occasionally, fanatical TV viewers will try to get together and pledge enough money to produce another season of their favorite cancelled TV show. In return for that money, they get to see another season of their favorite cancelled TV show (well, they would if the networks were smart enough to work that way).

So if I donated $5 to this startup and got a life membership with like 3 fighting dudes, while they charge $1/mo post-launch with the same plan, I'd call that a pretty fair bargain. Of course, I don't quite know the legality of selling a chance to possibly in the future own a product that isn't developed yet and might not ever exist, but at a discounted rate.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#12

Post by dave_chenell »

gimpmaestro wrote: post #9

Donations for a startup? Are you serious? You should be offering equity if you are going to profit from this.

Why is that so ridiculous? The idea behind Kickstarter is to have people pay for something they want before its built. Actual customers funding you is much more powerful that some VC's who think people will one someday buy what you build.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#13

Post by jordanmessina »

gimpmaestro wrote: post #9

Donations for a startup? Are you serious? You should be offering equity if you are going to profit from this.

Did you really make an account just for this comment?

If you don't have to give up equity then why opt-in to do it? If enough people believe in an idea/want it built then it's a fine way to make the money that you need. From the sounds of it they've made it this far in a year with almost no funding so imagine what $20k could do...

Also, I believe Diaspora was asking for $10k and simply had an idea, at least this team has executed.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#14

Post by martinkallstrom »

dave_chenell wrote: post #7
njl wrote: post #3

There is something really cool and compelling here, but I found it deeply disappointing that I wouldn't be controlling my drawings in battle. That makes it less of a game and more of an animated art gallery.

I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out the…

The point is that you will also very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it. In the demo movie you showed I was deeply rooting for the gullible girl with huge arms but had to see her getting beaten over and over. After putting that much time into your first character, only to see her not being fit for fight, I don't think anyone will be coming back.

Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations. You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them. You're in awe of your excellent algorithm, but people are not going to be so happy when they don't get your algorithm on the first try.

You could still map different moves to different keystrokes depending on the output from your algorithm and make the result depend on the characteristics .

Last but not least, don't look down on "every other fighting game out there". The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game. They will expect to be able to use their honed fighting game skills in your game as well, but with the awesome addition of bringing their dream character to life.

Above all, they will not get back to the drawing board when their awesome character is shredded to pieces by a simulation over and over.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#17

Post by erikb85 »

dave_chenell wrote: post #7
njl wrote: post #3

There is something really cool and compelling here, but I found it deeply disappointing that I wouldn't be controlling my drawings in battle. That makes it less of a game and more of an animated art gallery.

I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out the…

It must not be a full fletched street fighter clone. But when possible customers say they want some interaction, why not give it to them? I mean, it can be something small, like clicking a lot ur left mouse button to heal ur creature (click faster, heal faster), or having 1 to 3 special moves that need a long time to reload, changing between different fighting styles like defensive (heal), balanced, aggressive (kill), or even some kind of stone-scissors-paper stuff. There are a lot possibilities, to give your users more interaction, that does not influence your automatic fight results much. Don't be smarter than your customers. You aren't!

btw: I bet people think of your game that way because you present it as a fighting game. If I see a fighting game, of course my first idea is, that I should interact with my character to win a fight. If I am not interested in that kind of stuff, I will probably go to look for another game. So maybe you can also get something out of positioning your product in another way.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#18

Post by dave_chenell »

martinkallstrom wrote: post #14
dave_chenell wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out the…

The point is that you will also very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it. In the demo movie you showed I was deeply rooting for the gullible girl with huge arms but had to see her getting beaten over and over. After putting that much time into your first character, only to see her not being fit for fight, I don't think anyone will be coming back. Providing a…

"very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it"

In reality you are able to do alot about it. Aside from the actual fight, everything you do controls what will happen. How your draw, who you choose to fight, what arena you fight in, what items or weapons you select etc etc. Simply because you are not pressing buttons at the time of action does not mean all hope is lost and everything will become a random simulation. A la the video, we are working on the balance of the game.

"The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game"

Disagree, almost all of the people who have sent us sketches are not from the typical gamer crowd. They are drawn to the fact they don't have to control them, it takes the pressure off.

"You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them."

This is a really interesting argument that I go both ways on. History has shown both times where it pays to listen and times it pays to ignore your users requests and show them something new and better that they never even thought of. "Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations" Or exceeding them :)

Thanks for your feedback though, you bring up some interesting points. We aren't ruling out controlling your characters forever, but for the initial launch we think it will ruin the purity of the game. We are exploring adding more decisive elements without adding live "control" if you know what I mean. Mini games etc.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#19

Post by woodall »

There was an old game "kind of" like this. It had EVERY character imaginable; like a Waffle, DBZ, Street Fighters, Pirates, Ninjas, EVERYTHING. I'll find the name and post it if anyone is interested.

I think it would be more appealing if you let the people control their characters. The problem with this is it will require more CPU work on your part- expensive for a start up. You could have them scan the characters in and use a "wire-frame", like the use in art, to lay out the different body parts. You could even use some OCR to see it the character had legs or if it is on some kind of "tracks".

Awesome art, awesome idea, can't wait to see a working version.

P.S. RazaBlaza is too powerful

Edit: About the wire framing and OCR. Instead, to make your life easier, you could have your own custom character creator. Kind of defeats the purpose of bringing your drawings to life, but hell of a lot easier.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#20

Post by dave_chenell »

woodall wrote: post #19

There was an old game "kind of" like this. It had EVERY character imaginable; like a Waffle, DBZ, Street Fighters, Pirates, Ninjas, EVERYTHING. I'll find the name and post it if anyone is interested. I think it would be more appealing if you let the people control their characters. The problem with this is it will require more CPU work on your part- expensive for a start up. You could have them scan the characters in…

Thanks alot for the input. Is the game your thinking of MUGEN? it was an old school open source fighting game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.G.E.N
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