Why is my Kickstarter not ready Part 1 of 3

WARNING! This blog post has not been edited .. I'm Dyslexic (see Below) I make mistakes. DEAL WITH IT ... I will have someone edit it later. 

So the whole point in this kickstarter is to give me the funding to create an amazing game. If I am very lucky I may be able to cut back my hours at work ... And if I am really really lucky maybe even quit!

So like many creative people I do tend to jump into things with both feet and think that I will try to learn how to swim on the way down. Sometimes that works and sometimes that does not .. With Kickstarter that is a bit different for me. I just saw a good friend of mine who had an amazing project miss his funding goal by less then $3,000. This was very eye opening for me because I really like his work and much of his previous books have been AMAZING and successful. He posted some very insightful reasons why he thinks his project did not succeed. With this I started to take another look at my own project.

My Kickstarter preparation check list  

Now a few of these items are checked off my list .. and I have created a nice spreadsheet that calculates how many items I have to complete .. This spreadsheet does not put into account items that are more important then others. However these are just a few things that you need to think about before starting your kickstarter campaign. at first I was thinking about making comments on all these Items ... then I started to realise I'm not writing a blog about how to do a kickstarter ... I'm writing about MY Kickstarter... This is something that I might revisit . but for now I'm going to just work on my own project. 

Invoke Card Game Design Checklist 

Rules proofread

Rules posted on website

Print and play version posted

Email sign up list created

Play testing 1-20

Play testing 20-40

All cards proofread

Cards uploaded to games crafter

Prototype ordered (Three Deck version)

Spell list sheet created

Domain name

Blind play testing

Creative Commons  licence (print and play)

Artwork for all cards

Box design

Instructions booklet

Create symbols for the three decks

Create suit for events

Re-create Cards for easy viewing

Kickstarter Tasks 

Submit approval

Create kickstarter page

Shoot video

Calculate costs of shipping US

Calculate shipping Au

Calculate production of all reward levels

Reward levels

Submit press release

Proofread kickstarter page

Back 5 projects (others)

Interview successful projects

Listen to all "Funding the Dream podcast"

Make comments on on other projects

Help promote others project

Amazon payments

Have someone else view my project page

Create and calualte streach goals

Marketing tasks 

Get involved with the board game community

Board game geek forum

Fiverr ad

Facebook ad

Email all friends

Host board game parties where someone brings a friend

Game con

Send out print n play versions

Contact local papers

Flyers at game stores

Be on at least 3 blogs

Get ads on 3 podcasts

At least 20 Blog posts.

Photo tagging promo on facebook

Factors not on my list 

These items I am going to talk about a little bit because they are more important to just put on a to do list. 

My Dyslexia

By the time your eyes have come down this far you may have noticed a few mistakes. .. yes yes I know you have seen me write about this before .. but its a huge factor. Think every single step requires me to wait for someone to help me to insure that there are no grammatical or spelling errors ... these is not something that "Spellcheck" can fix. So a major part of my time is waiting. The problem with having Dyslexia .. I cant just post something and have a mistake overlooked because my brain works differently. This is the internet ... Where the Grammar Jackals are just waiting to rip apart a creative idea due to a misspelling or misuse of tense. So I wait . 

Nobody knows me 

All my social media has been focused on being an artist. This is fine and all but I'm not one of those game creators who have other games out there. Lets face it the Fine art community is not excited because I'm hand painting a card game. So I have started mostly on Twitter looking to actually connect with people who like games .. and I'm not talking about following them just to follow ... or buying followers I'm talking about actually connecting to as many people I can and have real conversations with them. I'm not focusing so much on facebook because I feel that its not all that great for businesses. 

Playtesting 

So I can come up with some crazy ideas now and then .. And I'm sure that Invoke is one of those. The problem with having really out there game ideas is that some of the things that I consider fun may not be so for other people. My wife has told me that as much as she likes the game there is a huge list of other games she would rather be playing. So I want to find out if others are going to like the game. I also want to make sure the game is easy to understand (or at least as easy as possible and still keep the theme of the game) 

Print and Play 

At the time of writing this the print and play version of the game is NOT ready yet .. At one point I had a version of the game out that was so bad that I am embarrassed that I even told anyone about it. My Plans are to make the print and play free for anyone who would like to play. Currently the plans are to keep it that way (Funding my change my mind but as of today ... its free). My hopes is that you are going to like the game and play it with a few friends. If I am really lucky then one of those friends are going to want to own the retail version :) 

I only have one computer

That is not true ... I also have a phone and a cheep Android tablet ... but neither one of those will allow me to edit the cards. So when my wife is not using her computer is the only time I can work on the game. Sure there are parts where I don't need a computer like painting the creatures and such but that will not help me get the print and play version done in time. So I wait . 

I get funded with Kickstarter ... now what? 

Now here is a problem .. I have to start thinking longer term then getting the money to make the game.. I have to look into how its going to get to the stores ( if that ) .. and how much effort I need to put into it. So far its my dream to quit the day job ... stay at home and just do creative projects with my wife all day! with this comes planning. 

So there we go ... this is why my Kickstarter is not ready!
When ... I'm thinking Sept 15th 2014 

Trying to explain Invoke to someone who speaks English as a second language.

Some things that you never think about till you have to explain it to someone who English is not their first lanugage.

So I have a very good friend of mine from Japan named Maaya. Later on when we start working on more video you will see more of her. (Well you are going to see a lot of her work... she does video editing) .. So we were talking about the video project today and she had asked to play Invoke because it will give her a better idea how she wants to set up the various shots. We started to play..  I want to mention that her English is really good.. But there are some words and phrases that slip through the cracks now and then.. So explaining a game like Invoke can be a bit of a challenge. During the process, I started to have to really think about how I explained the game. I really had to take a step by step and explain the "Why" you do something and not so much if the how you do it. Then I started to think, at what point is this different from having to explain to someone who has never played before.. What is a better way of expressing the concepts of the game... So I took some notes

• The why you do something is harder to explain then how to do something 
• Clearer and constant terms are needed .. such as subject vs target .
• Colours of the cards are a huge help. 
• Images on the cards are priceless. 
• A well written manual is helpful no matter how good you are at explaining a game. 
• Playing through 4-5 hands showing all the possibilities with out actually competing is also helpful . 
• Sometimes its better to have a group so they can watch the others play. 

So it was not long before she started to understand some of the more complex parts of the game. Once i described the game as a sentence it started to make sense. (Though the use of target cards needed some better explanation on my part) 

So there you have it.. what I learned from trying to teach someone how to play Invoke. 

Yes this means Invoke will be translated into Japanese soon ! (once the english version is working correctly) 

Things only play testing will tell you.

The things that only playtesting will tell you.
So one of the key things about playtesting is to look at things in actual game play.. Sometimes you have an idea of "Hey this would be an awesome card... there should be three of them in the deck" . What happens during playtesting is that you find that the card you thought should have been 3 in every deck really should be only one because it changes the game play.

So yesterday my good buddy Mike came over to pay test Invoke. We must have played 6 games.. Something that we discovered was that the deck was too small with 108 cards. Mainly because those 108 cards have been split up into the three decks. The result was that we had to shuffle the discard pile often. Now that is not too bad, but when you consider that the game is best played with 3-5 players each with 7 cards in their hands.. With additional 2-30 cards in play at any given moment. That does not leave a lot in decks... and that is only one round.. Sp I am going to have to make more cards types.. And increase the number of the cards.

From a game design point of view what this does be making the game harder to ship mainly because it's larger.. The printing cost also goes up. ... So it's all about testing different amounts of cards and comparing the price.

The Print-N-Play version 

So the Print & Play version of Invoke is still on its way. I'm thinking that I want to get that out as soon as possible. With the understanding that the rules are going to be located on the website. (make the printing of the rules option) because there are going to be lots of changes over the next few months. I have also decided that I'm going to wait a bit longer for the kickstarter.. Though I have had some success with the cards so far I and really wanting to have more momentum in the social media area first.