I had a feeling I would be seeing and hearing about it in the future. I just didn’t know I would actually be speaking to the game’s lead developer a year later. But lo and behold, life is nice like that sometimes, and Tanya X. Short herself was gracious enough to answer a few quick questions about the game’s design philosophies and the struggle for relevancy in such a competitive space.
GameSkinny: What would you define as the foundational pillars of Moon Hunters’ design?
GS: What has been the toughest part about about getting exposure for Moon Hunters?
GS: On Kickstarter, your initial funding goal was $45,000. But you ended up shattering that and getting over $178,000. What do you think were the biggest reasons you were successful in getting that kind of funding?
GS: This is probably a really hard question to answer succinctly, but how hard is it to know exactly what you need from crowdfunding? And how much preparation goes into making a campaign?
As for preparation, it depends on the project! We probably spent a month or so total. I spent two weeks working on the tiers, the text, the video script, press contacts, etc… the artist spent a week on special Kickstarter assets, the programmers had an extra couple of weeks of prototyping specific features and effects for the video footage. We also contracted a videographer to help us with the interview portion of the video and make it feel professional. Of course, none of that counts the months of Facebook posts, tweets, newsletters, and strategy research…
GS: Why did you choose a pixel art style for Moon Hunters?
GS: What are you most proud of about Moon Hunters?
I almost cried.
So far, it seems we’re successfully delivering on our promise to our fans, and that really makes me crazy-proud of my team.
GS: When all is said and done, how do you want people to remember Moon Hunters?
A huge thank you to Tanya for taking the time to answer my questions so thoughtfully and thoroughly. I can’t say for sure if anybody will ever win a Nobel Peace Prize for game development, but that sure would be amazing! Moon Hunters is currently slated for release in January 2016 for Steam and PC and Spring 2016 for PS4 with a release on PS Vita to follow sometime afterwards.
Okay, okay, seriously, I hope people have a fun time exploring the world and really questioning what kind of a person they are. It took me some years before I realized that despite (or because of) the fact that I’m a nice person and want everyone to be happy, I’m not actually as honest as other people, and actually can be a bit cunning. So far we’ve had some playtesters furrow their brow, saying, “What? I’m Brave? Hmm… yeah, I guess I am Brave!” and then start nodding, which I think is the best reaction.
