Rock Vibe has had a great response overall. It’s been featured in Kotaku, Gamezebo, and on MSNBC’s In-Game! It’s even attracted pledges from some serious people in gaming.

Fortunately, I’ll be relaunching the Kickstarter campaign next week or this weekend with a new goal. I’ve been through the budget and have decided that some things can be cut, allowing for costs to come down. For example, custom enclosures for the electronics can be replaced with standard enclosures that are customized by hand to accommodate the external wiring. More affordable fabrics can be used, and more of the production can be done by me and some handy volunteer helpers. Additionally, I now have a solid understanding of the varying pledge levels, which makes it much easier to calculate Rock Vibe’s total expenses.

In addition to the change in the funding goal, I’ll be rewording the rewards, making them easier to read and understand. I’ve also received permission from a humorous musician to use one of his songs in a Rock Vibe demo video, so hopefully, I’ll be able to code up his song soon. His song, however, is notoriously difficult, since it’s crazy fast!

All in all, I’m confident that the next Kickstarter campaign will be a success. The new goal will be much closer to what has already been raised via Kickstarter, so if the same wonderful backers come back for more, Rock Vibe should be going full speed ahead!

I’m still surprised that I raised as much as I did! It’s certainly something to be proud of.

The wireless system is too expensive to build with low-volume production. The wired system is not. The cost savings are quite large!! Wireless also introduces annoying occasional latency issues. For music, perfect timing is key. Also, the wired system is bus-powered, so no nasty batteries!! That’s a plus for the environment and makes it cheaper to maintain the system over time.

The Arduino is now gone and has been replaced by a proper circuit. This, of course, cuts costs considerably and is always the smart way to go…yay!!