You'll just have to make sure that the promo activities don't really take away the motivation - given the fact that you will probably be doing those promo minitasks yourself, it not only takes time away from the actual work on the real title, but it's a particularly good way to get demotivated on the main project - the miniprojects are quick and fun to make (a much better work-to-reward ratio), the game isn't.Nafai wrote:Still trying to figure out which method to try out though... Of course, seeing how the Elect isn't near completion there's nothing to say that I won't have time to do them all
I have a simple test for this - if you could see someone else doing that kind of promo and anticipation building instead of you, then you don't have to worry about the game not being completed, it's reasonably safe to go ahead with the pre-promo. If you want to do it yourself, there's usually the danger of losing focus.
Honestly, if you want anticipation, (almost) finish the game and then start promoting. 4 weeks before the release, announce the game, a few days later, show the character concepts and designs, later put up bios, 2 weeks before release give some background about the world, and 1 week before release create a demo of the first chapter. In between, you can have that mini-comic or kinetic novel. If you have the game finished, it's trivial to make a short KN from it, and you'd have a much clearer view of the whole thing, so it would fit in. For the community you create, I think actively creating hype one month before release is just right.
Otherwise, creating goodies even before the main game serves no real function. In commercial productions, it's almost guaranteed that the game will see the light of day. So I could get myself into the mood for Tomb Raider 7 by downloading wallpapers and reading backgrounds and previews many months before - I knew that the release was going to be March. With from-fans-for-fans, you never know and that's why IMO it isn't so effective. A lot of the people are used to this and will most probably play along for a while, but then goodies become substitutes.
You can take a look at Shira-Oka. They started a bit too early with their site and somehow the character bios and youtube movies or screenshots feel fizzled out - most of the people are ready to play, but the game is nowhere near. And it isn't like you'd need to psyche yourself up two three years before playing.
So the general idea is to use promo with care. It can easily become a symbol of being eager to receive comments and praise without doing the actual work to earn them.
Not to discourage you from your plan though. If you think you can do it, go ahead. For me, a good promo is probably something gaming-related. A kinetic mininovel would be my primary choice, since it could give a taste of how the game would feel without revealing anything - plus a dedicated website with character bios and other goodies built around that mini-KN, downloadable wallpapers etc would be a nice idea as well - I think you can make a lot of things within a website - a small flash animation, embedded comic, the mentioned bios or character polls... so a website could give it a sense of home (as opposed to making goodies available through the LSF forums or ugly rapidshare links).
Still, the timing of those goodies is important, it will be crucial in whether they support the experience the player will get from the project, or add to the frustration.
