The Road Behind and how we got here... (Part 1)

Sept 2015 - We've been developing Organic Panic for 7 years, here's part 1 of the recap on how we got here...

Early Years Xbox 360 > 2008 - 2013

Back in the early days we were developing Organic Panic on the Xbox 360 - this is where Organic Panic started and at this point we had no way for anyone to play test the game outside of the room it was being developed in, for a long while nobody knew about our little game development setup. 

Click here for our early Trailer this was from way back in 2009 and shows where the game came from.

For the first 5 years or so Organic Panic was purely Xbox 360 developed, and completely secret! we wanted to keep the physics tech (DAFT engine) under wraps until we were closer to launching.

Check out some of our big changes in this earlier blog post here - This shows many of the core development changes that were made over the first years.
Core mechanics and game art style were established by early 2013 there was still a ton of work to do and the game was in alpha at this point on the Xbox 360, definitely not content complete, but the game's core identity was established.

Indiecade - Feb 17th 2013 Organic Panic goes public

These blog posts were made but not live until Feb 17th 2013 when we officially came out of the shadows and showed the world Organic Panic at the NYC Indiecade.

We had intended to launch on the 360 but then we got the bright idea of running a Kickstarter campaign and porting it to the PC and various platforms.

Kickstarter - Aug 2013

We had taken 5 years to get this far, we had the core game basically finished, but we needed a ton of artwork, music, more animation, and the final boss levels, as well as bonus levels and Coop and Vs gameplay, it was taking a long time, we didn't have the resources to pay for assets and there is only so much you can get in favors and IOU's and we really needed a injection of cash to finish the game, so we decided to run a Organic Panic Kickstarter campaign.

The campaign was actually really tough, we aimed to raise 40k which was the bare minimum we needed, (actually closer to 60k) and getting attention on our Kickstarter was just a huge huge task, it was probably the most stressful month of our lives (almost!) - We had a game that didn't look at all like your regular indie Kickstarter game, it was more a cute and playful, more console looking for sure, and it didn't look like a game with a ton of advanced tech behind it, it looked deceptively simple! - it suffered from looking casual, cute and fun while actually being quite a deep game. 

We successfully completed our Kickstarter campaign in August of 2013, through a massive intensive last ditch dash across the finish line, basically we doubled our backers and almost our pledges in the last 48 hours.

Some of this was due to some great shoutout love we got from some other successful Kickstarter game developers, some was due to Damon doing a overnight AMA on reddit and some was due to just massive hard work and reaching out. Have to give special thanks to Anne for her awesome contribution, time and dedication (without pay) - she was a superhero and really helped make the Kickstarter happen.

We also want to send a big thanks to all our backers, their support made this Kickstarter happen, and helped propel Organic Panic to the next stage of it's development.



Check out our Organic Panic Kickstarter blog update here - you can see our last minutes video!

Pax Prime and Midnight City - Sept 2013

That September we went to Pax Prime in Seattle with Midnight City (a Majesco Entertainment offshoot), a new indie publisher, with the premise of helping to market and launch indie titles without controlling the dev process. We weren't on the main Pax floor but we did get to show Organic Panic at the Midnight City launch party and to press in a private Midnight City gaming bus!

 

- Check out the update for Pax Prime.

Steam Greenlit - Dec 2013

Much to our surprise Organic Panic got Greenlit on Steam in December 2013, we couldn't have been happier and we were so excited to be apart of the Steam community, and Steam games.

Port to OpenGL

From the Kickstarter we decided to port to Open GL which was to take longer than initially expected, the port from 360 Direct X to Windows Direct X would have been a much simpler affair, and on retrospect is the direction we should have taken. We had been advised that Open GL was the way to go, it would prove the best code base for all further ports, this was not the case, and each port we did required the same amount of time rewriting the code libraries.

Steam Greenlit and OpenGL port update page.

Pax East 2014 - April

By this time Organic Panic had been ported to OpenGL and running on a regular PC, it was still a beta, but we had a fully functioning PC game, we decided to jump in and get a booth at Pax East 2014.
Here is our update from Pax East 2014

The reception we got was just incredible, the booth was none stop packed for 3 days, we had lines leading out of our booth into the main walkway, the attention the game got was more than we could have hoped for, to be honest it was overwhelming and humbling!

Here are some of the key moments -

Setting up the booth	The coming storm!
Damon has no idea how to stop them :-)	More and more and more
Freedom from crowds!	More and more and more

The press seemed to really enjoy Organic Panic as well, we got some of the best coverage and excellent previews, here are just a few examples of what they said about Organic Panic...

Raymond Porreca of Entertainment Buddha wrote:

"This kind of intuitive gameplay is what makes Organic Panic stand out, giving the player the ability to take control of their powers and have them overcome the challenges presented in the game is one of the most enjoyable experiences I had at PAX."

Lee Cooper of Hardcoregamer wrote:

“It wasn’t hard to conclude that Organic Panic is one of the smoothest, most enjoyable platformers in recent years. It’s smart, fun, and most certainly my game of the show.”

“Organic Panic also features a co-op mode which, without an ounce of exaggeration, is the most fun I had while at PAX East.”

David Leavitt of Examiner wrote:
“what makes Organic Panic stand apart from the crowd of other platformers is the physics engine.”

“With its funky characters, vibrantly colored stages, and some awesome devastation to reap, we’re looking forward to play Organic Panic for an extended period of time and you should too.”

Check out Part 2 Next...

Kickstarter Successfully Funded!!

At 5:42 am Aug 8th the last day of our Kickstarter, we crossed the finish line and hit our goal!

It's been a long thirty days, but we did it. We kicked off the campaign not knowing what to expect and just crossed our fingers. When it became apparent that finger crossing doesn't get your game noticed, we started reaching out to the press, asking other Kickstarters to do cross-promotions, amping up our social media, scheduling interviews, redoing interviews, and - of course - badgering anyone and everyone for advice, feedback, suggestions, criticisms, and anything over or under the sun that might help us.

It took us twenty-six days to claw our way up to 62% of our $40K goal. With four days remaining to make up 38%, the outcome did not look good.
On Tuesday morning with two days to go we had $25K, and a somber 12 backers from the previous day; at the current rate we'd be lucky to get to $26K. The words used to describe our campaign went from "awesome game -- can't wait to play it" to "underfunded -- might not make it."
We had tried everything we could think of -- following up with press, posting to forums, reaching out to family and friends for the nth time, more hoping and finger crossing, but to little avail. It dawned on us that we had failed.
We started talking about contingency plans. What would we do now? Launch another Kickstarter? Talk with publishers? Try to borrow money? We knew we had to keep going but we were out of ideas, and to be honest we were out of energy. The constant struggle, very little sleep, and wild ups and downs were taking their toll. We were cracked out and exhausted and our remaining efforts were ultimately going to be a parade; a brave face for the fans.
Then something started happening on Tuesday. We're not quite sure what, but we imagine it has something to do with the cosmos aligning just to turn us into a good underdog story.

Some of the biggest events included a shout out from 5 Lives Studio on the Satellite Reign Kickstarter page, Damon's Reddit AMA, an article in Polygon and interviews in various other blogs and news sites, and a strong social media buzz from all our fans clamoring on our behalf. Slowly but surely, the words used to describe our campaign turned into "We're gonna make it!"
And then we did. We doubled our backer count in two days, contributing nearly half the $40K goal! Unbelievable!




We have many thanks to give and many of you fall into more than one category...

Thanks to our backers and fans! You gave as much as you could -- and then gave even more. Many of you doubled or even tripled your pledges. Our Twitter feed was constantly updated with tweets, retweets, and favorites. As of this post, the Kickstarter link has been shared on Facebook over 3,700 times. Your energy and excitement was amazing! It kept us motivated and made us push even harder.

Thanks to the press for covering our game and helping us reach a wider audience! We also appreciate that many of you posted your articles as soon as you could just to give us an extra boost.

Finally, thanks to our family and friends! You've put up with our constant pestering, and some of you paid money for a game you don't even want! On top of all this, you've supported and encouraged us every step of the way. A special super-thanks to all of you who put in massive pledges.

Now we can actually get back to finishing the game. We'll keep you updated with everything, but now it's time to catch up on some sleep.
Thanks again, everyone! We couldn't have asked for a better OP community!

OH!! - We started our Kickstarter!

In our crazy rush to market the game, we forgot to post that we've started our Kickstarter! Two days in and we're already at 85 backers and nearly $3,000. We're expecting it will be a long uphill climb, but we're hopeful as we've got you -- our fans -- behind us.

Enough chattering. Check out the page and back us!

Kickstarter - Video shoot Day 2

On the second day we drove out to Jersey City to meet our super funky talented background and design artist Sylvia!
Sylvia has been around from the early days of Gaia and has really helped us refine and nail the cute yet dark background style. She has worked closely with Damon to get all the background elements animatable within the game. An essential part of the kickstarter campaign is hiring her to do another 10 or so more backgrounds, this helps set Organic Panic's gameplay atmosphere and story development.

Sylvia on the throne of creativity

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, quite well

Joe - Ready, Steady Shoot!

Sylvia at ease in front of a camera

Damon explains what a Higgs Boson is, Sylvia does her best to listen

But eventually her eyes glaze over and Damon is on his own

And the whole crew messing up her bed (finally a shot where I'm center stage!)

In the end Sylvia turns out to be one of our most eloquent artist in front of the camera, and we got a ton of footage interviewing and just having fun with her.

Kickstarter - Video shoot Day 1

After a good amount of planning, scripting and organizing we started our first 2 days of filming for our kickstarter video. With the help of Joe, our talented cameraman/editor - we made some creative fun shoots.  It was also really good to be working with someone who knew what they were doing behind a camera, it left the 2 of us to argue/direct the shoots, although we did shoot from small digital camera's too, to give different angle's on the action. Overall we got some great footage and insights into the brilliant if slightly crazy minds of the artist...well all of us, actually!

Joe setting up the camera, lights and sound

Joe - nice smile...

Joe - scary smile, don't put a gun in this man's hands

Joe and Damon setting up

OOPS too late!

Damon ready to film

Day 1 Jesse's Place -
Our first port of call was Jesse, our character concept artist, perhaps a little shy of word but definitely not shy of pen, in no time he was cracking us up with his expressive character designs. In another post we'll go into one of the ongoing character designs for apple, currently under progress. We'll also let our  Kickstarter supporters vote for their preferred design on a new character we are currently bringing into the story.

Here Anatole clearly shows Jesse how to draw correctly!

Jesse making life where there was none before

Starting something new?

A sneak peak into a new character forming!

Day 1 Brad's Place -
After our morning visit to Jesse's place in south park-slope we took a stroll to Brad's digs about a 10 minute walk away. We couldn't believe our eyes when he opened the huge red door (from the era of horse n cart) and we went up some industrial steps to his crazy cool Brooklyn loft apartment.

Setting up the shoot

Terrapin working hard to get attention

Brad's ready!

"Gimmi the camera or the comic artist gets it"

Joe - let me just precariously climb up this ladder and fix something

Brad "Please don't fall through my window, I've just cleaned my veranda"

Day 1 - We think the shoots went pretty well, it was a good learning experience, we plan on using the footage for the initial Kickstarter promotional trailer and also a couple of insider look videos, into the processes behind Organic Panic.