After almost one year of hibernation, we decided to come back working
on Plee the Bear. As you may
know, we had to stop because we did not have enough spare time to spend on this
project anymore. The project was too huge and we could not see its completion
in a foreseeable future, so we went on a smaller game that we could finish in
time: Andy's Super Great Park.
As time went by, we thought we should refocus on Plee the Bear and free
software, but it is clear that we must work on it in a different way.
We have written every
aspect of the game in a single document and estimated the amount of time
required for each one. The result is that the game can be done in approximately
one year with our current team. I am pretty confident about this estimation,
since we have already proven that we can estimate our time accurately with our
other developments. So, how will we buy our food and pay our loans during the
production?
In order to come back on the game without difficulties and not to stop again
in a few weeks or months, we decided to launch a fundraising campaign to
support the development. Our goal is to receive enough money to stop
subsistence work and invest in gaming and free software.
The platform we have chosen is OpenFunding, which is a young
crowdfunding website dedicated to free software. The target of the first call
is 1112.79 € (approximately $1455) that will be spent to refresh the game
toward more recent quality standards and prepare it for the upcoming work. Then
we will propose new content for the game, each time with a new fundraising
campaign. Please note that the content of the game is predefined and should
receive only little modifications as we progress. Thus the donors will for sure
obtain a complete game in a foreseeable future. Moreover, the game will be
available under the terms of the GNU GPL 2 licence for the code and CC-by-sa 3
for the resources.
If you are hesitant, please note an important functionality of OpenFunding,
which is that you will be able to audit the final product to confirm your
donation or to take your money back if the work is not well done. Thus, your
investment is relatively risk free.
All that being said, it is time to invite you: give some money, it is
free!