Author Topic: FX-Unit Yuki: The Henshin Engine for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine  (Read 27063 times)

jtucci31

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #105 on: October 01, 2016, 12:58:48 PM »
Wait where was the smearing? And where was nullity's response to this? I can't believe he'd shit all over something like this. You just can't please that guy

technozombie

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #106 on: October 01, 2016, 12:59:30 PM »
The best way to deal with detractors is keep quiet and make a badass game.  The last Kickstarter update email showing the new background looks awesome, and the music is perfect. This game is shaping up quite well and if this level of quality is maintained it will get noticed. Keep up the good work.

NightWolve

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #107 on: October 01, 2016, 01:10:01 PM »
Alright guys, I had an idea, and talked it over with Aaron since I gained admin rights and can help out a little more than just being a bystander. One last helpful marketing push is now being executed!

This forum has a newsletter feature, and I've used it before for my own SMF Forum install which afforded me some experience with it. I asked Aaron if I could send out an email blast about this Kickstarter project, at first he declined, because he said the last time he used it the PCEFX server crapped out on him... I remembered years ago having this problem, and explained that he must not have activated the email queue and configured it to email 10 accounts/per minute, to slow the process, and give the server breathing room while it serves pages as it normally does.

In short, I convinced him to let me activate the email queue, configure it 6 emails/per minute, and let it ride with this basic write-up:

Subject: Pcenginefx.com: Henshin Engine PCE Homebrew Kickstarter - 4 days left to back!
Quote
Greetings fellow PCE brethren, if you're unaware, there's a Kickstarter project running for a new PC Engine/TG-16 homebrew CD game called Henshin Engine! We'd love to have your support/backing for it, the link is below, so check it out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sarumaru/henshin-engine-the-game-pc-engine-tg-16-pc-steam

Regards,
The Pcenginefx.com Team.

Now, I asked Sarumaru if he wanted to write something up better, but he was fine with this (AKA "NightWolve-style"), and so that's what we went live with. ;)

So yeah, the server is now busy running its email queue, everyone in this thread will/should eventually notice an email from PCEngineFx.com.

At 6 emails/per minute, that's 6*60 = 360 emails per hour, and there are 5,486 PCEFX members, so it'll take 15 hours for everyone to get this email...

That's slow, but it calmed Aaron's fears of causing any server overload trouble. Anyway, hopefully this informs some of our PCE brethren that don't stop by as often and helps counteract any negative press, etc.

My thought process was, it's a feature that's here, might as well use it for the registered PCEFX membership for something that doesn't happen as often as this!

Anyway, I think that about covers it, lemme know if you get the email, just to confirm the email queue is doing its thing proper.

:)

esteban

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #108 on: October 01, 2016, 02:33:09 PM »
NoghtWolve, it was a good idea to utilize the pcefx info... there are *certainly* a bunch of folks who would be interested in this, but who no longer (or rarely) check the forum.

Even if only a small percentage actually consider pledging, your effort was well worth it because pcefx mailing list = core audience!

:)
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NightWolve

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #109 on: October 01, 2016, 02:52:21 PM »
Yep, got confirm on that, Aaron just told me somebody replied back to one of these newsletter emails and pledged $140!!!

Unfortunately, while we have 350 backers now (we have the most that there ever was!), the pledged amount is less than yesterday's... If you look at sirhcmans' last update versus now:

Then: 344 backers at $24,853
Now:  350 backers at $24,211

We gained more backers, but some existing ones lowered their amounts, and/or left and were replaced by backers with lower amounts, etc...

I dunno that we'll see the 2nd stretch goal achieved, but yeah, whatever helps! We don't know how many of the 5,486 PCEngineFX member accounts have valid emails versus spam or expired ones, though. So, it's not a guaranteed ~5K email marketing list, but it IS something if at least half are valid and win-win for whatever support that can be found!

sirhcman

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #110 on: October 01, 2016, 02:53:59 PM »
The $1100 pledge backed out and so did at least 2 others today.

nodtveidt

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #111 on: October 01, 2016, 05:37:17 PM »
Despite that, we are now at $24,607. It appears that the smear campaign may have actually worked in our favor... funny how that works sometimes.

MrBroadway

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #112 on: October 01, 2016, 06:10:17 PM »
Despite that, we are now at $24,607. It appears that the smear campaign may have actually worked in our favor... funny how that works sometimes.
And rising — so screw the haters! DC or not, I'm excited for this!

TheOldMan

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #113 on: October 01, 2016, 06:24:34 PM »
NightWolve

Quote
Alright guys, I had an idea, and talked it over with Aaron since I gained admin rights and can help out a little more than just being a bystander. One last helpful marketing push is now being executed!

Did you also change the text on the main screen?
(It used to advertise cases.)
If so, you might want to fix it....

Krimstah

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #114 on: October 01, 2016, 06:30:44 PM »
I know my little PVM doesn't do it justice but absolutely loving the game.



esteban

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #115 on: October 01, 2016, 09:36:53 PM »
Krimstah: mini-PVM = intimacy—we get nose oil on the screen. It's all good. :)
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jtucci31

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #116 on: October 02, 2016, 05:37:34 AM »
I like the banner on the home page :)

blueraven

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #117 on: October 02, 2016, 05:53:35 AM »
Alright guys, I had an idea,

Great idea, Nightwolve. This will really help the team make their goal, and also put it on blast to every member here. You couldn't pay for this kind of advertising anywhere; especially considering that it is the EXACT target audience they are looking for. :D Well done!
[Thu 10:04] <Tatsujin> hasd a pasrtty asnd a after pasrty ASDFTERTHE PARTY
[Fri 22:47] <Tatsujin> CLOSE FIGHTING STREET; CLOSE FORU; CLOSE INTERNETZ; CLOSE WORLD; CLOSE UNIVERSUM
--
Arkhan [05:15pm]: ill brbl im going to go make another free game noone plays lolol

NightWolve

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #118 on: October 02, 2016, 06:00:53 AM »
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sarumaru/henshin-engine-the-game-pc-engine-tg-16-pc-steam

370 backers
$25,655 pledged
4 days to go

That's better!! So after I finished my movie last night around midnight, I did one last check on the server before going to bed, saw that it finished its email blast, backers were at 350, BUT when I checked this morning around at ~8am, I saw it was up 368, now 370, so +20 people (as of this post)!!!  :mrgreen:

SMF's email queue configuration is quirky though... I started the email blast at ~7pm, and it finished at ~midnight, so that was only 5 hours, not 15! Looks like it ran at a rate of 18 emails/per minute, so ~1080 emails/per hour went out!

I actually had an email listserver project for a freelance IT consultant job eons ago for my former CTO when he went independent. He had a client at like the 40th floor of the Sears Tower, so I got to do a little work there for a day, though while I had the gig, I mostly worked from home. About 7 weeks into it though, my father died, and we decided to honor his wishes to bury him in his home village in Greece. I had to be quickly replaced for the month that I'd be gone, so I lost further work with 'em... :/

But I remember from that work, you'd be surprised the money involved in listserver projects for companies, the pricey software packages, nickel'n'diming based on amount of email addresses, like if you have 10,000, 20,000 ... or 60,000 emails, there's a different rate for each case. Other companies just outsource the whole issue i.e. let their customer emails be handled that way! The project was mainly in good hands though, a former coworker/friend we called/nicknamed "Hitech" (rewrite of his real name Hitesh) because he was so good at just getting projects done without much fuss! He's the guy companies pay $120/hr for IT consultant work, doesn't bullshit around, gets the job done! I was just the extra, cheaper pair of hands... ;)

Another tangent note given my understanding, I suspect we lost some PCEFX emails to SPAM folders... Aaron's admin email address is: aaron.nanto {at} outlook.com - that's a slight problem because our email blast was executed from a server behind the "pcenginefx.com" domain... What you write in the "From:" header when constructing an email to send should have an address that matches the server's domain name, like "aaron.nanto@pcenginefx.com" preferably. If not, email clients may feel you're falsifying credentials, and that's part of basic SPAM detection... In other words, if the server sending the email is behind yahoo.com, but I put a gmail.com in the "From:" header, email clients receiving such an email will find that suspicious...

I forgot about this issue, though, as I would've temporarily changed Aaron's admin email address, but oh well. Obviously a good % of emails went through and it seems to work for me with my yahoo.com address regardless!

NightWolve ... Did you also change the text on the main screen? (It used to advertise cases.) If so, you might want to fix it....

Was already ahead of ya, that was the easiest thing to do. Did you not check it before posting ?  :mrgreen:

The ~5K member email list was far more valuable of course. If the average visits here are 12 to 30 people a day or whatever, and 4 days left, it's unlikely that it would've made any dent in getting this project noticed and the effort translating to pledges, etc. But if it maybe at least gets one or two pledges, why not!

Anyway, this was my additional donation to the project. The rest is up to anyone else for these final days! If somebody is friends with those Youtube channel folks, that's where the real marketing value is, I'd pull some strings there! One last promotional video, that sort of thing. They're fans, they're not "objective" journalists or whatever, it's not unethical to ask for marketing help, etc.

Even the shitty videogame journalism industry is just fanboys/girls being mouthpieces for the shit that they like, by and large... And companies buy favoritism with goodies or "honor" credits all the same, e.g. good ole XSEED Games credited a reviewer in the Special Thanks section, Michael Cunningham, just for letting them borrow the SegaCD copy of "Lunar: Silver Star Story." While he avoided reviewing XSEED's Lunar localization upon release for this very reason, you think they didn't "buy" him (curry favor) for future positive reviews, as he's done for other games of theirs in the past ??

Be shameless, who cares...
« Last Edit: October 02, 2016, 06:18:53 AM by NightWolve »

Lost Monkey

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Re: Henshin Engine Game for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine
« Reply #119 on: October 02, 2016, 06:14:59 AM »
FYI - I didn't get an email... mine is a gmail account.. not in spam folder either.

EDIT:  I got your test email... just now...
« Last Edit: October 02, 2016, 06:30:03 AM by Lost Monkey »