Note: Did heavy editting, re-read I guess, and also its kinda chaotic, but I promise every phrase and line has meaning.
Note2: I think I finished the editting, I think the points are categorized neatly
Note3: This message has so much information, all cleaned up too! So much time spent, I could have done so much programming in this time, but no regrets!
Hi Balroth!
Thank you for chiming in, and no worries! I really appreciate the feedback and know that it comes from a shared love the Chrono series and desire to see this succeed. 
I've seen these all over the place, and for the life of me cannot find out how to change it! I tried googling it with no success. It makes me wonder if Kickstarter has since done away with them?
I have no idea, but you could try contacting Kickstarter (their support probably) to help with this, and it kinda makes sense if they have removed it since I haven't seen a kickstarter with a theme background for quite sometime (though, I rarely browse kickstarter)
You make some great points about the video. The songs that I used should be recognizable to Cross fans, though because of the nature of this album there are only two songs that are presented in an mostly unaltered form. The rest have been heavily modified to fit the film narrative. The're easily recognizable to fans of the music, but there are often 3 to 5 different themes playing around in every track - including what you hear at the beginning of the video (Scars of Time, Arni Village, etc.)
Well, the video is made and cannot be changed, so the feedback isn't very useful, but The Scars of Time is the strongest point/hook in that video, and if it started with it, people would just instantly get that nostalgia flowing. A few people will stay and watch the entire video if not interested in first seconds (and as a result, skip this kickstarter altogether) if not hooked at the start, that was my point more or less
P.S. Hearing Scars of Time, in a more "remastered" version kinda makes me think how many variations you can make of it in composition, what a song
The other huge limitation is that I can only use original content. Official artwork (including logos) and game images are copyrighted, so I couldn't use them in any form on the campaign. I totally see your point though, and it would have been nice to use a scene from the game, or the Cross logo to help draw in the audience...
Well, you don't have to make art that explicitly references copyrighted content
I mean, you have made a dragon god poster, but for all you show (or what square enix's executives understand lol) it's just some generic RPG party fighting a dragon.
Imply, don't tell As for the picture instead of Earth, I don't know a lot about CC locations (aside of chronopolis from crimson echoes), but for example, if this was a Chrono Trigger symphony, you could have a picture of a grand mid-air floating palace/castle, with some magicians playing violin or other instruments. No one could claim this is Zeal!
After all, that logo you have is dangerously close to the CC logo, and if they really wanted to sue you, they would do it under any stupid reason
I'm doing a lot to help boost exposure, but you're right and most people just ignore me. haha I'm sending out over 100 emails and messages a day to different people that I'm hoping with talk about this campaign. I've already reached out multiple times to people over at Kotaku, Gamespot, IGN, Reddit, Gamespot, The Verge etc. The big guys aren't interested, so I'm still looking for bloggers and streamers who might be interested in promoting!
Yeah, this is why I suggested "unorthodox" marketting. Having an indie game "heard" atop of all the others is borderline impossible nowadays with the established marketting ways, hence I suggested "Unorthodox" marketting, because in the end of the day, it's what works. Not guerilla marketting, but something that is hard to think but works if pulled properly. Negative publicity marketting included here too, like a developer bad-mouthing/trashing his game is worth mentioning, but I wouldn't suggest it for this project obviously since different genre/medium. If I had such an grand idea "to instantly win kickstarter" I would suggest it, but any time I see something "insane" like that it always works. However, you do have ~20 days to plan something "stupidly insane" that will work (even if it doesn't, you either gain no exposure, or negative exposure which is in most cases beneficial) Hell, even if you do something really stupid to market the
game/productkickstarter, there are 3 alternatives:
a) It's stupid/retarded, and it will be covered by others, aka how negative publicity is still suggested (bonus points if you downplay yourself on purpose, then share details of the marketting move)
b) It goes ignored
c) It is extremely stupid and hurts the brand/sales, but its pretty hard to achieve this tbh. (THQ's recent marketting move comes to mind, like, this is top-tier retarded marketting and no move so simple has hit a brand so hard before)
"Unorthodox" marketting (and its success obviously, because doing something insane doesnt matter if it doesnt work) depends on the genre of the medium. To give you an example because throwing out "Unorthodox" marketting without explaining it a little is counter-intuitive and confusing:
Genre/Medium -> Books
Paulo Coehlo (some author/writer) published his book. Printed it via publishing and.... 100 sales.
However, he pulled an insane marketting move. He gave out his book
for free! on the entirety of internet, aka everyone can read it without buying it, from anywhere.(when you sell a book, especially as a profession, you do it to gain money by its sales)
Legit piracy, literally a .pdf file on the internet and encouraged people to read it there, while every author knowing this openly trashed him, his book and his reputation for "undermining books"(and their sales). However, long story short, it worked, and it eventually made millions because it raised awareness like that.
Disclaimer: I haven't read any of his books, but a lot of gaming's "wtf" marketting methods, usually point to this guy (about piracy, what a surprise lol) and it's a good example of at first glance, this looks "self-destructive"/retarded/stupid but it is genius, and surprising.
"Unorthodox" marketting isn't heard or discussed anytime, because there is no formula or guide, and usually "it doesn't work", but if it doesn't work, who cares if your (default/vanilla) marketting/product wouldn't work anyway
Writing this far, it does sound like a "miracle marketting with 1 EASY TRICk" haha, but it is super hard to conceive such a plan, but I had to mention it, since only such a thing can really get the kickstarter up and running again in bigger numbers
If you have any specific people or places I should reach out to then please let me know! I'm happy to reach out.
I don't have any contacts or anything sadly, but you can check out forums/communities that are vaguely related to chrono trigger. Or to go more abstract, SNES gaming or chiptunes.
But for Suggestions that come in mind right now:
============
Example if you decide to interact with some SNES gaming communities: "Hey guys, Today's music
sucks or w/e, we are having an full orchestra on an underrated gem!" 10/10 bait title, and it sadly works to gather attention.
Giving to known youtubers (mostly ones who have played chrono trigger, so they wont feel like you are spam-mailing them) 35~40$ pledges (without a cost, aka "for free") if they advertise your kickstarter seems a valid way to introduce yourself to them. For bloggers and streamers its harder, since it's hard to make promotions not look like shilling.
I guess, you could try contacting youtuber musicians with interesting deals? This is tricky and needs a lot of thought, but at first glance seems like a no-no, since it expands on the kickstarter itself (rewards/product)
An example would be like contacting any "known" musician who loves CT/CC (JohnyAtma comes to mind), and going like "As a stretch goal, X youtuber will cover Y tracks in his style (heavy metal in this example's case) and even if you don't reach the stretch goal, you will get marketting from that musician's audience. If you choose this, tread carefully
Also, you could try making a personal video, on why you love Chrono (Cross) so much, and it would help people have more confidence in this kickstarter/project
Or even via kickstarter, a stream of you playing some chrono song? Doubtful this will work (I mean it's hard to get this wrong, but too much effort for too little exposure)
I mean, streaming is a science of its own haha so I wouldn't suggest it, except if you can somehow pull a Chrono Medley out of the blue, then cross-post it to reddit/youtube/your kickstarter or whatever
After all, 283 backers so far, but there are soooo many chrono fans (over 10k for sure) around the world! With just the right presentation, the nostalgia should be enough to pay for any "Chrono" content. 10$ to relive nostalgia? Damn, you could even use part of the
product'sKickstarter's presentation as:
"Let's show the world how great the chrono franchise is!".
Because a common trait among chrono fans is this feeling of "this thing i love is ignored and not appreciated by everyone I know", which means that even those who dont like the music, will support this for the game's love or reputation, or supporting other fans!
And one more thing, have you looked into how many backers you have from japan? There are a lot of chrono fans from there, and you could somehow send messages over there for their publications and whatnot(google translate is actually good, ignore the memes)
After all, unlike mainstream publications they won't write you off instantly, because the story/kickstarter you can tell them, can sell a lot of views for them.
Example title of an article for them: "Chrono Trigger is not forgotten in the rest of the world" / "Chrono Trigger has such an impact on gaming that X symphony happens"
Though, the titles are purely fictional and I did extend this too much. Don't expect an answer from them (especially with such bait titles/articles to be made), but I guess japanese blogs or japanese youtubers can cover this. All in all, give this a try at least.
Having contacts/specific peoples = exposure = kickstarter funded, sure, but if I have to emphasize on the most important piece of information on the marketting I could share with you to help, "unorthodox" or not:
====================
It's not so much about contacting specific people but doing
something worth covering, *by*
specific people or places that makes the exposure happen.
====================
What else can I say? I guess, saying sending emails to everyone is not super useful and is easy, but coming up with a great "hook" marketting move outside of kickstarter to help the funding is hard, but it pays off? What I can definitely say is that if you don't see any results from sending emails to many people, try to re-think the marketting campaign from step 1, you still have time. Though, speaking of the mass emails, if not for tempting deals, trying to send emails to people to join the kickstarter sounds good in theory, but it's so slow tbh with many emails to get 1 pledge, and each email must be more or less hand-crafted, so...
That said, I just wish I could help more, but I doubt I can help otherwise. But like I said, you have ~20 days to think of a plan or something, and to gain trust/validity from some communities/people (see reddit and how some subreddits allow advertising if you post often) to ride that one-shot exposure wave via them.
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