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 

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.

Backing a project .. First hand experience!

So As you know I'm working on this card game called "Invoke" , and I'm planning on starting a Kickstarter campaign sometime in the near future. I'm sure that I'm going to be able to get the funding that I need to finish the game but.. I only have one shot to do this correctly on Kickstarter

So the first thing I did was find all the podcasts I could find on the subject. Lucky for me there was a podcast called "Funding the Dream" That actually is about funding board games on Kickstarter.. How lucky am I that such a podcast exists.? Now being an experienced podcaster myself I realise that all the good podcasts are independent. So I gave it a shot!! I learned TONS!! So if you are thinking about starting a Kickstarter project, you need to listen to this first..

Here are some things that I learned

Plan plan... Look at all the aspects of what you want to do the marketing, Design, Manufacturing and how you plan to deliver what your backers so rightfully deserve!

Get social media revved up early!! I'm starting now... and if you are reading this then something is working!

Back someone else's project...

So that is exactly what I did today.. I booked three projects! Kingdom, Earthdawn 4E, and Japanese the game!

First thing I noticed was a message from the makers of Kingdom thanking me for my support and all I baked them was $1.. Cool huh.. I think that it's really cool that I get to interact with the people who designed the game. I like their project and I think that the ultimate product is going to be amazing!

So I sent a message saying that I would love to interact with them on twitter and offered my twitter name @artofpaint

and within a few seconds I got a reply from them on my twitter feed.... (wait they just responded to my last tweet)

Ok Back!! Wait.... Another tweet

OK back!! The point is that there is an actual conversation going on there. The guys at Black Locust Games responded to my inquires right a way.. And I'm only a $1 supporter. The conversation was not "Hey give us more money" either.. It was about how passionate and proud they are of their product. At the time that I'm writing this they don't have the funding they need but I'm sure they are going to get it. It was the artist.. How to find the Print-n-Play version of the game that will at least give you an idea of how the game plays so you know if you want to get the full version.

Visit their Kickstarter Page and help them out .. if nothing else let others know about this amazing product.

At this point, I want to mention that I'm not getting paid for this promotion. They did not ask me to write this blog post. But what I am getting out of this is the knowledge of how I want to treat my supporters when it's time for my kickstarter campaign. Thanks guys... If I run into some more money in the next 31 days.. I will up my backing category to something nicer ... If nothing else ... I know where my next disposable bit of income is going :)

Links

http://blacklocustgames.com

http://richardabliss.com/funding-dream-kickstarter-podcast/

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1281146833/kingdom-0

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1374838500/japanese-the-game-a-language-learning-card-game

What is Invoke all about?

So here is the story about why I designed Invoke ..

A long time ago there was this new game called Magic the Gathering. I have to say that I really enjoyed playing with my friends deck and decided that at some point I was going to get my own deck. Well what happened was that I got the basic deck and two booster packs because that was all that I could afford .. I had a blast making a deck of Orcs and Goblins and it was a lot of fun.

Example of the Earth Card 

Well one of the guys who always comes to our game group was not really the sharpest tool in the shed. In most games we spent more time arguing with him because he did not understand the rules then anything else. Well once I saw the game ... he had to have it .. so he spent an obscene amount of money on the cards.

This is when I noted something ... "Mark" started winning ... A Lot!  Mark who was never a good player at any of the other games started winning at Magic a lot ... I mean all the time (not that he was a gracious winner either) . Mostly because he had a deck for every situation. A deck vs White, A Deck Vs Blue ... and every single rare card in the book. And he won almost every game.. Not with strategy but deep pocket power. It got annoying really fast .. and I was not the only player who felt that way. Just because you have the most money you should not be the best player ... At what point is this equal footing. Some of the best players I know got slammed by Mark because he happen to have one of those Ultra Rare cards that totally destroyed their strategies. But what do you expect when you spend $30 on a single card.  (I think my total deck was $25 or something)

So here I am ... this guy who was working two jobs just to make ends meet and all I had was one Ork & Goblin deck that really got trashed. Now you loose a game one , twice , 4 times and that is ok .. but with everyone else with disposable incomes vs a guy who felt guilty because I got an extra hamburger for lunch (Big splurge) you start to loose interest in playing. After all the playing field was not level. So my deck started to gather dust. I ended up giving my deck to someone ... I don't remember who.

So here I am many years later .. I'm working in a high end software company doing tech support. one of the software that I supported was a drag and drop  programming software. By Dragging components into an area you could make this software automate an action... Hummmm wait a second .. how could would it be to make a game out of that?

now wanting to be as far from work as possible when I design something like this I chose to have a Magical theme..

It works like this ..
Each Player on their turn draws up to 7 cards.. These cards then can make up a sentence

Fire + Sling = Fireball .. Attacking their target breaking on of the "Lifestones" 

What the players have to do is design the "Spell"  out of component cards provided.. The best part is that all players draw from the same cards .. so it becomes a game of wits and creative thinking not .. Who has the most expendable income. When a player gets a expansion pack .. all the players benefit from the investment.  I hope to have a print-n-play version of the game up soon .

I'm thinking this game is going to be good for people who want to teach logic to their children .. Hell adults are going to love this game.

I have deliberately not listed all the possible spells on this site .. though I am now and then going to be posting pages dedicated to one of the spells.  The idea is that I want you to come up with your own spells (and tell me about them) . I want this to be a game where creativity and thinking outside the box is the key to winning.