I'm having trouble attracting contributors to my project as it gets older

Hi Roots,

I'll speak from experience, knowing I was 'sort of on the team' SEVERAL years back.

First, there's the obvious problem: the project has aged. The JRPG was much more en vogue back then, and rpg makers needed competition. Allacrost was one of the titles that stood out with an interesting twist on the ATB system.

Nowadays however, JRPG is not at its peak (though it is definitely present in one form or another, it has generally translated to lush 3d which may not have been as appealing 5-6 years ago).

The combat system of Allacrost is no longer 'exciting news', and the story may not appear as compelling. Despite my profound respect to your ability to stick to the project for so long, I think Allacrost may be a dated concept now.

More importantly however, I distincly remember how you were running the project back then, and I would be tempted to believe that a lot of talented people ultimately turned away from the project based on your attitude.

Rather than focusing on getting new recruits, I think you should've focused on keeping the most efficient team members onboard with sufficient incentive and respect. I don't know the whole story (4 years is a long time) but from the particular era where I was interested in the project, I feel you've done a poor job at keeping the team onboard and that may be the hidden truth to look at here.

Also, I would imagine that 4 years into this project, the core of the actual design phase should be done. You *should* be focused on finishing a project. The problem is that most of the people that are interested in spending their time on a project expect some form of say on the design/feel of the game. If all there's left to do is content and debug, you may be fighting an uphill battle.

That being said, let's focus on how you can attract people:

I suppose money is out of the question?

What other form of compensation can you currently offer to potential team members?

What 'can't' you do yourself? Art? Programming? Music?

What CAN you do yourself? How long would it take to complete (I realize that's probably a wild guess, but let's shoot a number here and see what that means for the project)?

Your project being old is implicitly a sign that it isn’t going to get done. Even major companies can’t escape scrutiny if a project lasts more than several years (Duke Nukem Forever), let alone a single-person indie/hobby project.
All it shows is that you can’t finish what you start.

So the best way to get people to help is to finish the project. If that sounds chicken-and-egg, throwing in the key words, “cut your losses” might help it make more sense.

Cut features you don’t need and consider releasing a prototype that may be missing obvious features such as music for a scene.
At least once you have a playable product that appears to be 99% complete people will start filling in the gaps for you again.

And at this point, finishing it and releasing it really is your absolute top priority, not for the sake of this 1 insignificant project, but for your reputation. If you don’t release something, even if it is not finished, how do you expect to garner support for the next project? You really really really need to establish a track record of being able to complete what you start, so despite the effort you have put into this project it’s time to either scrap it or finish it.


L. Spiro

I'll gladly admit that my management of this project could have been better. I've learned a lot along the way, and I'd like to think I've gotten better. More than anything, this project fell apart whenever I was not very active on it. I have other hobbies and a life outside of this, and it's just supposed to be a fun thing to work with others to create. Another major reason the project was so heavily delayed was that we did everything from scratch (game engine, etc). We were really just a bunch of young adults fresh out of college without a clue about how to make a game, and much of the first few years was really a learning process for all of us. (To be fair: I always, always warn people to use an existing game engine now when I hear of someone considering rolling their own). Anyway, yes I/we made a lot of mistakes in the past. We learned from them. I don't disagree that we should focus on retaining people rather than finding new ones, but I can't do that until the size of the team is more than just myself.

I suppose money is out of the question?

What other form of compensation can you currently offer to potential team members?

What 'can't' you do yourself? Art? Programming? Music?

What CAN you do yourself? How long would it take to complete (I realize that's probably a wild guess, but let's shoot a number here and see what that means for the project)?

1) Yes. I can't afford to pay for a whole team myself when this is a free project. Plus I feel it would be a slap in the face to start paying people for the same work that you and I and others in the past have done.

2) People should work on this project if they think it sounds like fun and will help improve their skills. And of course enjoy doing so in the process. That's all I can really offer anyone. I try to make sure I'm still enjoying it too, so it's not "just work". I don't know what else I can say. I'm pretty clear about what we offer to people when I post a help wanted ad.

3) I can do almost everything myself, and have been. I've also been pulling in freely usable assests where I can (opengameart.org is a lifesaver). Everything that needs to be done right now can be done by myself. There's just too much for one person who has a full-time job, girlfriend, triathlete, etc. outside of the project.

4) I'm doing everything I can right now to get out a partial release so people can play and see that we really have something. How long it takes depends on the other demands in my life. I don't have an abundance of free time. If I get lucky, end of the month isn't out of the picture. But we're looking at more like end of June if I continue to go solo (which I obviously don't want to do).

Your project being old is implicitly a sign that it isn’t going to get done. Even major companies can’t escape scrutiny if a project lasts more than several years (Duke Nukem Forever), let alone a single-person indie/hobby project.
All it shows is that you can’t finish what you start.

We have made several playable releases in the past (that were sort of like mini-RPGs with a couple hours of content). We've proven that we have and can produce something. Far, far more projects die before they see a single release, so I'd argue that we're still better off than most. The project has laid dormant for a good number of years, so it's not like its been under continuous development either.

I have done what you suggested to "cut the fat" and just get something out there. But now that I think about it, perhaps we need to cut a little more. I was getting stuck with some early game scripting that really isn't necessary. After reading what you said and thinking about it, I'm just going to cut that portion out for now. It can easily be added in later. I'll work on the more important parts instead. Thanks.

this project fell apart whenever I was not very active on it.

+

3) I can do almost everything myself, and have been. I've also been pulling in freely usable assests where I can (opengameart.org is a lifesaver). Everything that needs to be done right now can be done by myself. There's just too much for one person who has a full-time job, girlfriend, triathlete, etc. outside of the project.

This displays a lot of ambition, ambition which will often drive people away.

If you want to create a game by a team you need to be really fast at finishing it, until time will disintegrate the team. Once you have a project with lot of progress, it will be really hard to join the project and to satisfy the demands of the core developer(s).

Instead of creating a game which needs a team to get finished, you should create a game which can be easily finished by a sole-developer. If someone else joins, be happy, if not, just continue. So, if you want to save your project, cut a lot of features down until a single dev can easily handle it (the rest will get difficult on its own). If you think that this is not possible due to dispatching the whole game concept, pull the plug.

2) People should work on this project if they think it sounds like fun and will help improve their skills. And of course enjoy doing so in the process. That's all I can really offer anyone. I try to make sure I'm still enjoying it too, so it's not "just work". I don't know what else I can say. I'm pretty clear about what we offer to people when I post a help wanted ad.

From the point of view of an artist, they want their work to be enjoyed by a lot of players. They want recognition.

How much buzz and hype has there been from the gaming side? Are there any players interested in playing this game? If there aren't, then it'll certainly be difficult to find artists willing to invest their time in a project that does not have that "commercial greed," that goal of having as many players as possible (even if it's a free project).
Serious artists are able to practice by themselves, and they get to make their own decisions this way. Perhaps it's needed some other incentive than just being able to practice skills.

I am afraid I don't have anything useful to offer other than my best wishes. I hope you are able to find a way to progress with your project at a good pace.

I'll gladly admit that my management of this project could have been better. I've learned a lot along the way, and I'd like to think I've gotten better. More than anything, this project fell apart whenever I was not very active on it. I have other hobbies and a life outside of this, and it's just supposed to be a fun thing to work with others to create. Another major reason the project was so heavily delayed was that we did everything from scratch (game engine, etc). We were really just a bunch of young adults fresh out of college without a clue about how to make a game, and much of the first few years was really a learning process for all of us.

From my perspective it kinda sounds like what you want is not contributors, but friends to work on the project with you in your collective off-time. If this is the case, then Ashaman's "race against time" comment applies more than ever, because there is nothing concrete (things like remuneration, recognition by a large player following, potential for future employment in the games industry, etc..) holding them on the project. Probably "I have a life outside of this" is the very reason your existing team members eventually dropped out, at some point they decided there just wasn't enough in it for them compared to the effort they have and continue to put in, and that was that; I suspect the majority of your team members were in their early 20's when they joined the project, life situations tend to change quite quickly at that age and people may find themselves with no more time or energy to work on a project they previously had lots of time to dedicate to.

As for the problem of finding new contributors, besides the fact that in general, from a purely opportunistic point of view, greenfield projects are more attractive to join than 10-year-old projects (where one would probably end up assigned to endless bugfixing and polishing tasks), consider also that a project that apparently used to have a team years ago but eventually lost all its members but the lead developer just screams "abandoned" to an outside observer. If you really are intent on continuing this project, you need to dispel those impressions, and that does mean marketing your project to get players (and contributors!) interested in it. I took a look at your project's forum and it's the very definition of dead.

With a project this old, it will help if you can say the project will be done in X(6?) months while recruiting. (aka i need a graphics-artist(?) to help me out for 6 months, then the game will be released.)

There's just too much for one person who has a full-time job, girlfriend, triathlete, etc. outside of the project.

That's actually fairly little.

Personally, I run a fulltime job (video game industry management), a part-time job (video game industry freelancer), have a wife, 2 kids, and I find some time to take part in game jams here and there (not mentionning the work I put in as DM or towards competitive board games, of course).

The most proficient indie I know has 3 kids and is stay-at-home but still manages to deliver quality game after quality game in crazy short cycles. And he goes to all of the tradeshows!

By today's standards, your "life" is anything but busy to be honest. And I'm not even starting on Silicon Valley folks... Are you sure this isn't just an excuse to "have a life" and "watch the occasional TV show"? There's nothing wrong with either, but it is a conscious decision that further pushes your release date for sure.

If I get lucky, end of the month isn't out of the picture. But we're looking at more like end of June if I continue to go solo (

Which is fairly short, especially given the time invested in the project so far! How partial of a release would that be?

Reading you so far, I'd feel like going solo is far from being the worst thing you could do.

Adjust scope, work on it, and ship it?

It looks as if the project needs a reboot.

Not a partial reboot, a complete reboot. A completely new life.

I see that the last update was 5 years ago, and that's a damn long time ago!

When most of us sees that, we've already moved on.

I don't think the genre is a problem. JRPG?

It doesn't matter as long as the idea is great.

But, how much of the original idea is left?

The homepage of the project does not give a clear picture of what the idea is/was.

And it really needs to hammer it home if it is to stand a change of attracting other people (with the same vision/dream).

Didn't read all the responses since I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this topic:

People that have experience, simply don't like joining projects . We all started trying to make projects at the start and they always fail. As you grow you realize it is hard to actually find the right people to work together for no pay and with good experience. This is why new projects are usually a few guys who know each other that decide to go full-time to work on a game project / new company.

I would look at what it will take to get to the finish line. Put a spreadsheet of everything you can think of and put hour estimates and add them up. See how much time you work in a week etc. It is something that sounds like you don't have and are just aiming at random goals, there has to be structure in the project.

I didn't get to click the link since my work blocks game websites, but I'm assuming the quality isn't enough to get a kickstarter/donations page...? After 4 years if you don't have at least half the game done, then I would suggest letting it die. It relieves a lot to just let it go and start fresh. I've done it many times.

I remember reading about heros of allacrost years ago (I even downloaded a demo at one point) and it looked prommissing but, so did dozens of other projects that have been recruiting on various discussion boards in the past. The thing is the majority of them do not get finished.

I don't actually see what the end goal of the project is.
Is it to create an RPG or is it to create a tool for creating an RPG?

The project was started 10 years ago with a handful of developers but, nowadays with modern frameworks the same results could be created in less than a year so why would anybody be compelled to join?
Things have changed now indie development works differently and a lot more games get finished and a lot of them are one man teams.

I think you should just stick the project up on github in the hopes that somebody else will fork it and do something creative with it. As for you, start a smaller project that you can do yourself in a shorter space of time (days not years). Or just keep this as a long time personal project that will never be finished.

People that have experience, simply don't like joining projects

I partially agree. I think people with experience will only join a project if they knew the crew already in charge will deliver. More often than not, this means having worked together within the industry (most successful indie teams I know started as workmates).

The project was started 10 years ago with a handful of developers but, nowadays with modern frameworks the same results could be created in less than a year so why would anybody be compelled to join?
Things have changed now indie development works differently and a lot more games get finished and a lot of them are one man teams.

I have to agree with this. There's nothing currently visible in Hero of Allacrost that would justify time spent if perhaps poor management and re-re-re-design.

Realistically, set a plan in stone and follow it to the letter. If you can, trim the unnecessary parts.

I was in a similar situation to you, OP.

Let's just say that my RPG total conversion was often overlooked by the public and no feedback was given except a few "thank you" comments. Now, what I'm about to say is not what you want to hear, but I'm suspecting you want to find out the truth.

Realistically, you have 2 options.

1). Let it go. Maybe have a final release as a goodbye and do something fresh. It could be another RPG or even a smaller minigame. The world's your oyster.

2). Reboot it. Make it in a modern engine and attract attention that way. This is what I'm doing with the total conversion, because I recognised that I couldn't do it all by myself and I need new art assets.

So, determine exactly what you hope to achieve and go from there. The very best of luck to you. :)

I gotta say I don't understand the project, nor recognize it despite its age. It's a JRPG... that took 10 years to develop? I work with a lot of games written with RPGMaker. Seems to me a project that should have taken 1-2 years is taking significantly longer and has no competitive advantages over games developed with a game making engine (Which have enough trouble making sales as it is).

The front page of the site tells me nothing about the project. The whole site seems designed to inform me about developing the game, rather than the game its self. Basically it isn't a sales page, but regardless of if you want donations or direct sales, your site has to sell the product.

My instinct would be to end the project and start something fresh. Getting interest in this project will be difficult, but it has nothing to do with the age, more to do with the genre and current market conditions. At the next level I'd move to Kickstarter or something to get some bulk funds in place.

Last piece of thought from me: Don't get caught in the sunk cost fallacy. Just because time has been spent doesn't make that time inherantly valuable. Your time may simply be better spent elsewhere (it also doesn't make it inherantly valueLESS, so think about what you gain from all that spent time too).

Thanks for your comments, everyone. I've read them all, agree with most, and have done some thinking. I've got a lot to respond to, so I'm going to give succinct responses.

If you want to create a game by a team you need to be really fast at finishing it, until time will disintegrate the team.

A lesson I've surely learned now, and wish I knew sooner. The biggest mistake that our initial team made was diving head first into a large and complex project with zero prior experience. Hence why the first couple of years were really a learning experience.

From the point of view of an artist, they want their work to be enjoyed by a lot of players. They want recognition.

I fully agree, and this is something we learned a few years back. Artists are generally not inclined to checkout the code and compile/build the game themselves to see their work in action. We started producing more internal screenshots and releases so that non-technical people on our team could see the progress, but it was too little too late I"m afraid. Right now, the project is in the best position that it's ever been for artists to see their work enjoyed by others.

From my perspective it kinda sounds like what you want is not contributors, but friends to work on the project with you in your collective off-time.

Exactly. I want people who love this type of game (a 2D JRPG with an interesting story and solid gameplay) and are passionate about beinga member of the creative process to build one. I tried to get people who joined to take ownership of the project and have them share their ideas, rather than being the one who always dictated what we should build and what we should do. It worked with some people, others preferred to remain more aloof and just get assigned things to do. Maybe I should use that sort of language in my recruitment posts.

I took a look at your project's forum and it's the very definition of dead.

Yup. I wish there were people active there because I like to post a lot and share my ideas and plans with others as a kind of sounding board. There are some people that still drop by our IRC channel occasionally and chat, but that's about it. I was hoping that posting more to the forum myself would entice others to do so, but there's really no one to read/respond to new posts.

Are you sure this isn't just an excuse to "have a life" and "watch the occasional TV show"?

I wasn't meaning to use "I'm busy" as an excuse. I've been much, much busier in my life and still made more time for this project then than I do now. I was pretty miserable during my workaholic years, and I don't want to fall back into that lifestyle. Ever. If I'm not having fun working on this project, there's no point in me continuing to work on it. I want to enjoy this process, even if it means it will take a long time.

But, how much of the original idea is left?

Actually, quite a lot. We've remained pretty darn true to the original design discussions we had with our initial team. And we've continued to follow our core design philosophies as we've worked out the details and built the game. Although the game has had a lot of features added on that increased development time, asset requirements, etc. I think one failure of this project (and myself as a team leader) was allowing this kind of bloat continue to pile on for things that we really did not need. (Example: we used to do random encounter battles, which are really easy, but now we have enemy sprites roam around the map and chase after the player character, who can use a stamina meter to try and outrun them).

It looks as if the project needs a reboot.

I was thinking something along the lines of this. What I was imagining was forming an entirely new team and starting somewhat fresh. We'd still use the same code and assets and story, but we'd brainstorm about what kind of game we want to build with it. I thought of this because its hard to be enthusiastic about joining a project that pretty much has most of the core mechanics and gameplay nailed down that were decided by a group of people years ago who have long since parted ways with this project. So I've been wondering if I could roll with that sort of mindset, attract a new team of enthusiastic people and share what we have to work with, and see where we want to go from there.

Try a kick starter, get donations, etc.

This isn't a for-profit project. We're not trying to make any money from it, even donations. It's just a hobbyist project to use our talents to build a game for people to play. It's as simple as that. Hence one reason why this is such a long endeavor. If I could make this my full-time job, I would have. But its never been our intention to charge people for this. And I wouldn't feel comfortable starting to ask for money seeing as how many people have worked so hard on this project for nothing for so many years. Its not fair to them if someone makes money off of their work.

Let it go. Maybe have a final release as a goodbye and do something fresh. It could be another RPG or even a smaller minigame. The world's your oyster.

Definitely thought about this many times as well. I wouldn't let it go without having some form of final release. Probably a much shorter version of what the full game was intended to be (maybe a few hours of content). I have a clear stopping point in my mind of where the game could potentially end if it were to end pre-maturely. So once I get to that point, I'll re-evaluate whether it makes sense to continue going forward or to call it done.

The front page of the site tells me nothing about the project.

Yes! I realized this myself a couple months ago. Our website does not explain nor "sell" the idea of the product well at all. I want to improve this, but kept telling myself "if you're going to work on this project, work on the product". But I think this is important enough that I should spend some serious time working on our about page to explain what this game is and what makes it special.

So after taking in everyone's feedback and looking at where things stand, here's the course I've decided on.

Rebuilding a Team

1. Continue working solo for now. Get a development release out that people can play. Upload a playthrough video showing it in action so people don't even have to install it to see it in action.
   
2. Update the website to better explain the product, its major features, and design goals. Sell it to the audience to get them interested and excited about playing it.
   
3. Once the previous steps are complete, try recruiting once more. Include latest gameplay videos and a link to the section on the site explaining the product in more detail. Explain that we're seeking people passionate about this type of game that want to contribute their ideas and talents to building it.

Project Status

1. Depending on the size of the team and ability to complete work in a timely manner, cut extra features as necessary and where it makes sense to. We can't keep having such ambitious goals for a project if we don't have the resources to complete them in a matter of months.
   
2. Set a finishing point for the project that is much closer than originally planned (a few hours of game content as opposed to 40+ hours). Make that the current "long-term goal" and don't worry about anything beyond that.
   
3. After reaching the end goal, re-evaluate the project status, team status, and desire to continue. At that point figure out whether the project should continue or if it should be marked as complete.
   

Other Ideas

1. Consider a "soft reboot" of the project. Bring in a new team of enthusiastic people and explain to them what assets, technology, and story currently exists. Start from scratch, making a game that this new team is interested in while reusing as much of the old work as we can.
   
2. I forgot to mention it earlier, but there's a fork of our project called Valyria Tear. I've been a contributor to that project throughout the couple of years it has existed. Maybe if things don't work out with this project, I could just continue my work over there instead. They've seen a lot of great progress (and a full release) in the last few months.

Thanks again for your input, everyone. I feel much better (and perhaps more realistic) about the next steps to take moving forward.

So suggestions like "completely overhaul your website" just aren't going to happen.

So after taking in everyone's feedback and looking at where things stand, here's the course I've decided on.

Update the website to better explain the product,

Sorry just thought I'd underline the irony :)

Best of luck with the release though!

So suggestions like "completely overhaul your website" just aren't going to happen.

So after taking in everyone's feedback and looking at where things stand, here's the course I've decided on.

Update the website to better explain the product,

Sorry just thought I'd underline the irony

Best of luck with the release though!

I think there might be a subtle difference here between updating a website and overhauling a website.

Good luck though, i've read through this entire thread and i agree with the advice and what you plan to do :)