Skullgirls crowd-funding ends at $830K, multiple new characters coming

Skullgirls' crowd-funding effort ended at nearly $830,000, reaching the stretch goals for several new characters, voice packs, and new stages.

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When Skullgirls started a crowd-funding campaign to create a new character, it hoped to make $150,000. It hit that goal in a single day, necessitating the formation of some stretch goals, and the campaign has now ended at a whopping $829,829. That means you're not just getting one new character, but five, and a handful of other extras as well.

The IndieGogo site lists all of the extra goodies Skullgirls fans can expect. The addition of the new character Squigly was reached rather quickly. The characters Big Band, Robo-Fortune, and two mystery characters based on a fan vote will all join in as well, as all of their goals were reached.

Some of the other stretch goals reached will grant various voice packs and most of the new characters getting their own dedicated stages and stories. The only stretch goal that wasn't quite reached was the $850,000 mark, in which the second mysterious character would get its own stage and story as well. Still, the level of goals attained is impressive, and should be providing plenty more Skullgirls content as Lab Zero sets out to make it all happen.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 28, 2013 11:00 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Skullgirls crowd-funding ends at $830K, multiple new characters coming.

    Skullgirls' crowd-funding effort ended at nearly $830,000, reaching the stretch goals for several new characters, voice packs, and new stages.

    • reply
      March 28, 2013 11:43 AM

      Earlier today one of the Skullgirls people posted on NeoGAF that one of their expenses dried up, freeing roughly $40K. They'll be using that to give the 5th character a stage and story.

      http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=51825339&postcount=4335

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      March 28, 2013 12:05 PM

      This is still coming out on Steam, right? It would be a good opportunity for me to have enough fighting games to justify a fight stick, between this, BlazBlue, and Persona 4 Arena.

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        March 28, 2013 12:07 PM

        Yes, the PC port is currently being worked on. One of the reward tiers was a Steam code once its released, and beta access.

        There's no concrete release date yet, but MikeZ said it would be at least 3 months from the end of the IGG campaign.

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      March 28, 2013 12:44 PM

      Wow, it costs almost a million dollars to record a few voices, draw a couple new characters and animate them and make a few levels?

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        March 28, 2013 12:50 PM

        [deleted]

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          March 28, 2013 3:47 PM

          So if they spend $100/hour per artist, and do 3 characters, it will take them 4 years worth of salaries to do all 3? Art isn't easy, but drawing every frame of that will not take 4 artists 1 year to do.

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        March 28, 2013 3:38 PM

        It all depends on the level of quality you want. Would you be happy if the characters only had a handful of animation frames? Is it cool to have the people around the office do all the voices themselves? They can also save a money by not bothering to make sure that the hit detection matches all of the animations.

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        March 28, 2013 3:49 PM

        Yeah, it does. Most kickstarters are either way under estimating funding or they have additional sources of funding.

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        March 28, 2013 3:52 PM

        Yes, and this conversation has been had numerous times about this specific game a whole lot already. As it turns out, they're actually doing this for rather cheap.

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        March 28, 2013 4:20 PM

        I remember reading somewhere that skullgirl's level of animation is almost on par with Capcom's. They said that Capcom's animation was so good and smooth that they believe Capcom has some kind of internal tool to help the animators.

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        March 28, 2013 4:32 PM

        Plus balancing the characters. Designing and balancing characters for a GOOD fighting game is a huge job.

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        March 28, 2013 4:49 PM

        They also have a breakdown of their costs from the beginning of the project
        http://www.labzerogames.com/images/IGG/CostBreakdown.jpg

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          March 28, 2013 4:49 PM

          (then they kept adding a bunch of stuff)

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        March 28, 2013 4:51 PM

        Five Characters (Squigly, Robo-Fortune, Big Band, MysteryChar1, MysteryChar1)
        Which is animation, voices, audio, hitboxes/balancing/design, etc.
        QA.
        Other Fees (Indiegogo takes at least a 5% cut, probably paypal cut too).
        Reward Fulfillment (potential sales, also physical goods for some tiers).

        Also stages (art/rendering/etc), storywriting for characters that get story etc. Each stage is also getting a new song from the composer (The SOTN composer)

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          March 28, 2013 7:34 PM

          Also, assigning hit boxes to the characters so the moves work, scripting how the moves work, fixing inevitable bugs, then balancing the new character against every other character in the game. The last bit obviously becomes more time consuming as they add in new characters.

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      March 28, 2013 4:29 PM

      best fighting game music besides 3rd Strike. too bad it plays like marvel :~(

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