This is an argument ? C'mon guys!
I saw Rover's post, read it, and thought the same as esteban, hey, that's cool, Rover took the time to actually give him some sound advice which I didn't feel like doing myself (or felt that I could), assuming he ever returns to read it.
Sure, you don't have to take every piece of advice you ever read, but there're certainly no-brainer issues like getting a better writer, making your KS page look more professional, and mass marketing/plugging/spamming when you start your project... It massively helps if you can get Youtube gamer shows to demo/plug your game, but that takes long-term connections, contact-building, throwing freebies their way, etc. which Sarumaru had worked on over time.
Making the main character standout, well, I kinda see what Sarumaru did with his Yuki character and how it also plays to nostalgia. He's an old skool PCE fanboy that remembers the Johnny Turbo crap comic book that NEC "blessed" us with growing up and he used that for Yuki. Johnny Turbo fightin' the good fight against the forces of "FEKA..." Even as kids we knew this was crap propaganda, but we developed the underdog sentiment for the system against Nintendo, Sega, etc. and while Johnny Turbo was embarrassing, by God, he was OURS at least!!! You mess with Johnny, you mess with us, buddy!!!!
To the point, something about Yuki stands out. Yeah, she's a cute anime girl, and that plays to the male demographic right off the bat, but she's a fangirl that wants to get a job in the videogame industry for "JEC" to eventually fight the "SG Corp..." It's corny, it's lamey, just like Johnny Turbo was! It's playing right off of it!!! Ha! And I appreciate the work that went into that, not many PCE fanboys left that would remember these things, but it'll live on somewhat in 2016 and forward! Heh.
So, making a character stand out won't hurt, it's gonna help more times than not...
It's about creating a legend around your game, I think... E.g. Mario, the Italian plumber and his brother Luigi, the Mario Bros... He's got the suit, the accent, "Hey, it's a-me, Mario!", etc. Adol, the red-headed adventurer roaming the lands of Ys, or, I dunno, something recent, Shovel Knight...there's something cool about him, his look, his shovel, they got the avatars, artwork, desktop wallpaper, merchandise, they got the jokes, "Prepare to taste justice...SHOVEL JUSTICE!" or "
Some knights may make fun of your shovel, but between you and me, I dig it!!" ...Can YOU dig it ?? Shovel Knight, who must save his love, Shield Knight, against the Order of No Quarter! Some kind of angle with/around the character could really help, even as basic as that!
Of course, this aspect is NOT easy, few can really create a good legend or "mythos" around their character that'll stick, but it's worth thinking about IF you can do it, get the talent in your team to help, etc. But yeah, I think Saru kind of did that with Yuki, there's all this great artwork around it, a comic book playing off Johnny Turbo, there's an angle to the character and it adds extra interest in wanting to play the game even before you've seen any levels, etc.
One more thing that always helps: a killer soundtrack... Hands down, some of the greatest series that I love is because of the music like Ys, or Gate of Thunder, etc. The opening soundtrack of Saru's homebrew game is wonderful and I enjoyed listening to it many times, that factored into my decision to spam/plug it on my Twitter/Facebook, and eventually back it, etc.
Anyway, I'm no expert here nor do I play one, just giving my 2 cents on if I had to really think about it, what advice would I give, what ideas would I bat around to see if they could be put to good use. There's not quite one way to do this, but it doesn't hurt to put all ideas on the table that have worked in the past for others!
