Creating a community and customers for your product doesn't need to involve crowd funding, yea it's nice if you manage one but not imperative.
As you said projects can have success even without kickstarter.
What I like to add here is, don't think of Kickstarter backers as "donors", think of them as "pre-payers" for your game, therefore when they pay for the game price or more they are pre-paying for the game and of course, for the development process.
I had an idea of making a dev vlog on the game, so until it's finished I already have a small community build around it.
The idea of posting content of the game, sketches, dev art, concept art, anything you can, you need to flood the media with that.
Indeed, I've been studying these for a while and the most important note I got is "Start blogging !", create a community, a "trust cricle" for your customers where you are the origin of this circle.
Prototype with almost no graphics
It is crucial, it depends on your project, is the prototype "playable" even without graphics? let's take
Minecraft as an example, if you remember back in 2009 and 2010 where Minecraft was just the "Cave Game", it is the prefect example for a prototype, the idea of the an open sandbox world is what attracted customers/players, not the graphics, back in the "Cave Game" era, the graphics were simple and countable, they were from "RubyDung" that became Minecraft.
The point is, Minecraft is marvelous, even back in 2009, even with countable blocks players made "art" using it, thus, it depends on your idea.
Trailer build using the prototype with only the needed graphics for the trailer
If your prototype meets the preceding post then congrats, you're on the right track.
Gathering as much art and screen shots as you can
Catchy screenshots and art is a good idea, some photoshopping might help either.
Starting a marketing and advertising plan
Easy to say, hard to do, it costs money, you can do all the previous steps but when it comes to marketing you have to have a good budge; however, if you have a low budget then Facebook Ads are a good start, it needs a lot of professional responsive banner, catchy phrases, cliches and other marketing stuff. Facebook Ads are good, for like (US)$3.74 you can get around 5,000-12,000 viewers, (US)$20.00 is a good amount, assuming your game price is (US)$4.99 then hoping to make 5 sales with this ad can cover the next one and if you managed to get more sales, then expand you audience to Google Ads, Facebook and of course, bloggers' sponsorship.
Then actually starting to put in motion the kickstarter campaign, which I am aware that it's a whole total process to deal with
I don't think you have to do the preceding part if the Kickstarter is mentioned, Kickstarter
is your starting stage, customers will pre-pay for your game to get it finished and get a "free" copy after the game released.
TIP: Always name the kickstarter's price with the minimum price you want because once you reach your minimum goal you can withdraw the payment, and you can use "Stretch Goal" for advertising and other development subjects.
And only after that long exposure process to actually start to fill the gaps and develop the game based on the feedback you've accumulated
Are you sure you can make it here alive after all this stress ?
if yes, then congrats ! you just succeed with your game !
Good luck with your project, think of every possible response, write down everything that bothers you about the game and fix it, make a to do list, talk with your self, A LOT ! talking with your self is the best way to communicate with your self, yes, I call it "Self-Communication" I talk loud with my self like 2 characters are having a conversation about the project, you might come up with an idea or a bug or an issue you didn't know exists but other you mentioned it, it is possible, I do it all the time, I had to re-code the whole "Checkout system" in my website because of a very little issue I found out when I was talking with my self.