Kickstarter project feedback

[lennard]

A couple of months ago I posted an ad. here on Indiegamer looking for an artist to help create some dungeon tiles for a Kickstarter project. Tom Fayen from Stratarealm was one of the respondents and he and I have turned out to be a good fit. He is also an American - an important consideration because, as a Canadian, I can't launch a Kickstarter project and I have been eager to try out this new marketing/funding tool. At this point, we are a couple of days from submitting our kickstarter proposal (Tom is working on a logo) and I wanted to get some feedback on the information and graphics I have on my website which will be used to compose the KS proposal:

http://www.rustyaxe.com/apps/radt/index.php

The graphics being created will also be turned into inexpensive personal and commercially licensed art packs for both Dungeon Demon (my RPG map editor) and as zipped PNG (you get both if you order the commercial license) which you can use in your own computer, browser or pencil and paper games.

[Simon Tomlin]

I do not know much about the D&D market to comment on how much demand you can expect but the artwork is certainly very appealing and I would imagine greatly enhance a face to face game.

What I do like especially is the goal structure of the project. $2k seems very doable plus I like the idea of a ladder system which I feel encourages people to fund it to the next level.

I have seen this first hand with a similar system from GMT Games who produce board war games with their Project 500.

It has been running now for a good decade and it allows players to buy with a discount an upcoming game. People do not get charged until the game has enough pre orders to fund production. Its a great system.

What I have noticed is the snowball affect a game can achieve. Basically you really like a game and think OK I'll place an order for that next month when you check back next week and see that its at 700 pre orders and now you know it will be produced so it encourages you to order before it gets taken off the list and claim the discount plus be in the first batch of folks to receive it.

The point being is that people like to feel part of a movement - I used to work on the stock market and have seen a similar effect.

The opposite is for example someone comes in when the funding is at $100 and the next day checks to see no one else there is a feeling of disappointment on the other hand check in to see it move to $200 and you feel vindicated.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing the results.

[ryansumo]

I'm working on a similar-ish project on kickstarter which can be found here (this isn't an ad btw, it's already fully funded).

I think that keeping the funding goal low is also a good idea. Joe Wetzel's original Kickstarter was a project that would print out miniatures on cards. He set the funding goal pretty high, at 10k, mostly because he'd had some success with an earlier project dealing with dice. Unfortunately it sputtered out around 6k or so, so Joe decided to create a new Project which merged the old one with a new one which offered PDFs of the images that players could use, instead of just minis. This lowered the barrier to entry, and the new project was fully funded within days of its launch.

Anyway best of luck with the project, hope it works out!

[lennard]

Thanks guys - listening to the Kickstarter podcast that was posted on here a couple of days ago got me to thinking about the challenges of getting the proposal up and running quickly so that there is a steady swell of cash so that everybody feels like it is going some where.

Ryan I hope you will post a link when your critters are fully assembled. I'd think some folks here would be interested if there was a commercial license aspect as well.

[BantamCityGames]

lennard, PAX might be a good place to promo this. they love that kind of stuff there

[lennard]

Thanks Bruno, I found an email thingy for Tycho and will send him a note if we get picked up.

I've updated the site with a new logo from Tom and I think it's time to make our submission, I'll pop in with a link when we are live or with the sad news if we don't get accepted.

[gerald216]

yes Lennard, at PAX people do love stuff like this, last year at PAX me and a buddy spent hours developing a system using tiles (except we used 3x5 note cards) that we imagined would look similar to this. you should definitely consider PAX a place to advertise this.

[dannthr]

You should do a PAX timed Kickstarter project with promotional material that has a 3D barcode linking to your kickstarter project.

[lennard]

Thanks for all of the feedback - Tom submitted our materials late last week and I'm waiting to hear if we got accepted or not.

[dannthr]

Good luck, sir!

[lennard]

Hey, for my birthday present today... I found out that we got accepted by Kickstarter! I haven't thrown the switch yet but I expect I will tomorrow after I've looked at the proposal with fresh eyes in the AM. In the meantime you can see how the proposal looks right here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...token=4ca55ac3

any help in spreading the word would be greatly appreciated!