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Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

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Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#1

Post by Jordanian »

Hey guys we are looking for a helping hand from the HN community.

We are building a game that aims to bring your drawings to life exactly the way you envisioned them. graFighters is an online fighting game for your hand drawn characters. By taking a picture of your drawing with you phone and going through a quick process we can bring your character to life to battle other drawings on the site. The interesting part is that you don't control the character, they take on a life/attitude/stats/abilities all on their own based on our systems analysis of how it was drawn. We are calling this algorithm "Cornelius".

I'm reaching out to you guys for feedback on the concept and the potential to spread the Kickstarter link to people who might be interested. This algorithm has been underway for a year and it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000. Thanks!

graFighters on Kickstarter - http://kck.st/cnTzcP

Main Site- http://www.graFighters.com

Footage from the Demo - http://bit.ly/9J1wdc

More videos - http://vimeo.com/user1881676/videos

Feedback, criticism, verbal abuse, and donations will all be highly valued.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#3

Post by njl »

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.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#4

Post by JangoSteve »

This looks really awesome. I mean, I really like this. I can't wait to see how my little guy will develop and behave.

EDIT: The $5000 pledge on your Kickstarter page says that you get to design a character that defies the visual rules other players are held to. But I didn't see any visual rules on the site, and the "Send us a sketch" button just opens an email. I'm afraid my character may violate some rules. Just let me know. /EDIT

It's a late night in the office, so I sent you a whiteboard sketch of my company's robot mascot, Jango Webbot: http://cdn2.alfajango.com/images/jango_web.jpg?1279741285

I would love to see him battle our other mascot, Alfa Automabot: http://cdn1.alfajango.com/images/alfa_web.jpg?1279741285

Funny story, my co-founder and I designed these guys to be sort of an odd couple, so this seems like the perfect outlet for them! I had actually forgotten all about these little mascot guys until just now.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#6

Post by dave_chenell »

JangoSteve wrote: post #4

This looks really awesome. I mean, I really like this. I can't wait to see how my little guy will develop and behave. EDIT: The $5000 pledge on your Kickstarter page says that you get to design a character that defies the visual rules other players are held to. But I didn't see any visual rules on the site, and the "Send us a sketch" button just opens an email. I'm afraid my character may violate some rules. Just let…

Right now we aren't limiting drawings with rules because we are gathering data for all the different types of drawings that can be thrown at it. On Kickstarter the reward means you get a character that can pretty much do anything you can imagine, because we can program specific moves for it that are not in the move pool.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#7

Post by dave_chenell »

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 there. It is much more rewarding to see your character preform an epic karate kick because you have drawn long legs and a headband rather than just pressing the B button. Its more of a strategy/design/creation game rather than a traditional fighting game. All the fun is had with a pencil and paper.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#8

Post by tansey »

I really like the idea. I have a very similar idea on my to-do stack, but with one major difference: the characters would be controlled with neural networks. Then the game becomes about not just drawing your character, but also designing sparring arenas that they can train on, etc. It's more of a you-draw-it real-time pokemon'ish game.

> it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000

Why not just submit to YC then? You'll get $20K and much better publicity and VC connections.

Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

#10

Post by dave_chenell »

tansey wrote: post #8

I really like the idea. I have a very similar idea on my to-do stack, but with one major difference: the characters would be controlled with neural networks. Then the game becomes about not just drawing your character, but also designing sparring arenas that they can train on, etc. It's more of a you-draw-it real-time pokemon'ish game. > it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000 Why not just submit to YC the…

We are part of a new incubator in Syracuse at the moment (http://www.syracusestudentsandbox.com). The older VC crowds we have pitched to really cant understand what we are doing and why it could be huge. We opted to experiment with crowdsourcing from people who "get it". We will let you know how it goes.
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