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The view of Kickstarter totally changes once you've playtested a few HORRIBLE games that draw 100,000 or more in 'donations' without correcting any of the flaws during testing. Awkward.
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Jul 5, 2014 19:11
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Dr. Clockwork posted:My friends' game Penny Press is in the final 6 days and they just need a little bit more to hit their stretch goal and include the Newsboy meeple expansion in every copy of the game! Jesus christ this is a game that's perfect for me.
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Jul 5, 2014 20:23
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Mehuyael posted:Well, I thought about it and actually decided against getting both today. Zombicide looks cool and I'll keep it on my wishlist, but is out of my price range at the moment unfortunately (I think. I haven't found a place that ships to Israel at all, which I guess is understandable). You're probably better off shopping online for in-print games anyway. There are some really cool things about Kickstarter, but it's not usually competitive on pricing and if you're not located in the US, you often get absolutely reamed on shipping.
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Jul 5, 2014 21:21
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So it seems like the lights went out at Project Dark, or am I missing something?
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Jul 5, 2014 21:58
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dwarf74 posted:So it seems like the lights went out at Project Dark, or am I missing something? He did update his blog a month ago to say he was approving cover art. I don't think he's disappeared, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if his work on Storium means he's gonna miss the projected release date.
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Jul 5, 2014 22:27
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We're halfway through our campaign for Beasts of Burden, and frankly it's not doing very well. I know that some of that was due to my lack of a gameplay video, so I made a gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCON6-BvQ34 Additionally, I've been working with the artist to get a final layout for the cards, here's a draft version of a tool, a monster and an effect:    I'd be interested in your thoughts. I'm kinda embarrassed that this campaign hasn't been more successful.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:00
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This game seems incredibly random. Like, Munchkin level random. In fact, your gameplay video shows a situation where one dude sorta gets completely hosed because he didn't draw as well as the other player, which is definitely a situation that helps facilitate a fun time for all. Like, is there really any reason for the alligators to be satiated by ONE specific card in the deck (or some number of generic whatsits), as opposed to it being "Sacrifice an animal"? That kind of silver bullet poo poo is not only super restrictive, but makes for an unfun time. Play through the game and think about how many decisions you make whenever it's your turn. Do you just automatically windmill slam what you're going to do all the time? Because that's not usually a good sign, unless your game is like 5 minutes long a la Love Letter. Honestly, there's nothing particularly compelling about the game at all except for the potential for a mistaken association with the comic Beasts of Burden. The rules are trite, I find the aesthetic ugly, and everything has this sort of "we're not really sure what we're doing" feel to it that doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in project completion. Sorry to be harsh.
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Jul 7, 2014 02:30
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I didn't catch this until the other day, but Artipia's new game, New Dawn is up on Kickstarter. Looks to be a bit of a mini-4x, you're exploring, building bases, scuffling over turf, and producing resources to generate victory points with. The rules are available and the game seems pretty straightforward. As usual, Antonis Papantoniou is doing the art and it's really impressive. There's a bunch of preview stuff, but if you've seen Among the Stars or Archon, you'll know what you're getting into on this one. 
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Jul 7, 2014 03:51
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GrandpaPants posted:This game seems incredibly random. Like, Munchkin level random. In fact, your gameplay video shows a situation where one dude sorta gets completely hosed because he didn't draw as well as the other player, which is definitely a situation that helps facilitate a fun time for all. Like, is there really any reason for the alligators to be satiated by ONE specific card in the deck (or some number of generic whatsits), as opposed to it being "Sacrifice an animal"? That kind of silver bullet poo poo is not only super restrictive, but makes for an unfun time. Play through the game and think about how many decisions you make whenever it's your turn. Do you just automatically windmill slam what you're going to do all the time? Because that's not usually a good sign, unless your game is like 5 minutes long a la Love Letter. No worries, I appreciate the criticism. The game is not nearly as swingy/random as Munchkin--most cards have specific "outs" in addition to other methods of solving them so as to prevent the whole "well you don't have that one card so I guess you're hosed" scenario.
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Jul 7, 2014 15:50
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The Treasure Chest of Resources is ending in like 2.5 days. It's a Stonemaier Games campaign so I'm pretty confident that it will ship eventually. Unfortunately the resources they've selected seem really random, even if I played enough Euros to justify these. It feels like there is always something missing for most Euro games, like cloth missing for Caylus, wheat and sheep for Catan, most anything for Agricola, etc. Like what the hell game uses gems (besides Caverna, I guess?)? Or has stone AND ore? In any case, if these are cool and snazzy to you, by all means check it out. I think they were planning a chest 2 for more resources at some point.
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Jul 7, 2014 16:50
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quote:It feels like there is always something missing for most Euro games, like cloth missing for Caylus, wheat and sheep for Catan, most anything for Agricola, etc. Like what the hell game uses gems (besides Caverna, I guess?)? Or has stone AND ore? I'm pretty much getting it just for the gold and brick. The little ingots look super awesome - thanks for pointing this one out.
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Jul 7, 2014 18:03
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Man, I know Jamie Chambers and he's a nice guy, but christ is the Metamorphosis Alpha kickstarter a shitshow. It's now the most-behind Kickstarter I've ever backed that hasn't out and out folded, and it's really sad to see someone squandering his reputation like this.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:06
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Got a couple of games here: Braiiiins! is a filler drafting game for 1-6 players. Basically you play a zombie and you're trying to zombify a town, or in other game modes specific people in the town. You can play 1 of 3 types of master zombies to play - Spawners are what you'd expect a "master" zombie to play as. You kill dudes, and if they're zombifiable you can keep them to raise them as zombies on your next spawn phases. Lychs are really weak but get up to 2 zombies every spawn phase (Spawners can only have 1 up at a time). Brawlers are really strong but of course have a hard time getting zombies, can only get the weakest ones, and their minions die at the end of the turn. Every turn has 3 phases, a spawn phase, locate the living phase, and a combat phase. In the spawn phase zombie masters get zombie minions based on their types. In the locate the living phase humans are drawn from the living deck and placed in the feeding field (the center of the table pretty much), and then the players pick humans to engage. All the humans have to engage a zombie in the combat phase so if not all the humans are taken then there's a mechanic to force zombie masters to pick more victims. Combat is pretty simple, each zombie and human has attack and defense. If the attack is higher than the opponent's defense, then they get a hit. If humans or zombie minions take a hit they die, while zombie masters either have up to 10 hp if playing co-op or infinite hp if playing semi co-op. Rounds go on and on until the living deck is empty or all the zombies die (if co-op). Once that's done if it was semi co-op then the zombie with the least wounds taken wins, with ties going to whoever had the most victims and ties in that going to whoever had the most strongest victims. The game feels a bit too simplistic to me. Humans have all sorts of special effects, but I'm really wondering if there'll ever be a question of which human do you want to take as your victim while which human you want to leave for other players. It's a short game and I guess it might work as a filler for when you don't really want to think too hard. The game goes for $20 (+9 for shipping outside US), but right now you can get it for $18 as an early backer. ------------- Now, for a more interested game (to me). Terrene Odyssey is a battle card game for 2 to(or?) 4 players based on jRPG battles. You build a deck, then pick a terrain and your party members and go to town on your opponent who did the same. What's weird is that your terrain card decides what you get on a level up. I think maybe they should have been called Background cards. It looks neat to me on a first glance, but I'll need to read the rules and think about it before really backing it. The game goes for $60 for the full game, or you can buy Duel Decks that just give you 2 pre-built parties and decks to fight with for cheaper. I'm guessing that if it goes well it'll try to be an LCG.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:30
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Mehuyael posted:
This one does look pretty neat. I wouldn't say it reminds me of any JRPG-type battle system because, outside of the 4-man party, it's got more interactivity with the opponent than those types of games typically have. Maybe they'll come up with some monster fighting expansions if it catches on. The gameplay video (http://youtu.be/alBqd6GZxh4) looks like there's some strategy in timing abilities and use of resources each turn, offering some complexity to the game. It's interesting too that the setup is almost like getting to pick your opening hand and putting it into play immediately. The art is quite nice as well. The only turn off I've seen is there is a dude named Jace, otherwise I'm definitely putting this one on my watch list.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:27
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In case you weren't aware, Terrene Odyssey is the exact same game as Terreria Tactics, which failed to fund last year after garnering $9k with a goal of $35k. They've lowered their goal to 10k, though, which could say some things to those who want to speculate. edit: Third attempt, actually, I hadn't noticed that their profile listed another attempt that managed to get 12k out of a 20k goal. I guess they're hoping that putting it out there enough times will cause it to eventually stick?
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Jul 9, 2014 13:48
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simonwolf posted:In case you weren't aware, Terrene Odyssey is the exact same game as Terreria Tactics, which failed to fund last year after garnering $9k with a goal of $35k. They've lowered their goal to 10k, though, which could say some things to those who want to speculate. Hmm, didn't know about that... Kind of suspect that they don't directly mention this anywhere as far as I can see. They've actually already tried to fund this before with the same name and failed too.
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Jul 9, 2014 13:53
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The Hellfrost folks are running another Kickstarter, this time for a giant mega-Atlas for the titular region---looks pretty likely to make it a day or so in, no stretch goals it seems, but it'll be a good while until the thing is actually done and out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1588759266/hellfrost-atlas-of-the-frozen-north
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Jul 9, 2014 14:47
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simonwolf posted:In case you weren't aware, Terrene Odyssey is the exact same game as Terreria Tactics, which failed to fund last year after garnering $9k with a goal of $35k. They've lowered their goal to 10k, though, which could say some things to those who want to speculate. The game seems pretty solid, they must not be promoting themselves properly. Maybe they just have poor marketing skills overall, their other project for streaming gamer news seems like it was doomed before it started. A 30 minute live stream once every two weeks? They could just do that for free on twitch and work to build it up from there instead of being nobodies that want money for a show. At least the dude made the wise decision of removing all his self insertion art from the promo page this time.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:23
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simonwolf posted:In case you weren't aware, Terrene Odyssey is the exact same game as Terreria Tactics, which failed to fund last year after garnering $9k with a goal of $35k. They've lowered their goal to 10k, though, which could say some things to those who want to speculate. This should be as big of a red flag as flexible funding on Indygogo. If he needed $30k to make the game, what changed so that he only needed $20k? Or only $10k now? Does that affect the scope of the project, or the timetable? None of which I see answered, or even referenced, anywhere.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:34
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InShaneee posted:This should be as big of a red flag as flexible funding on Indygogo. If he needed $30k to make the game, what changed so that he only needed $20k? Or only $10k now? Does that affect the scope of the project, or the timetable? None of which I see answered, or even referenced, anywhere. It is possible that he somehow got funding in the interim. I don't think it's the likely answer, but it is possible.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:37
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Peas and Rice posted:Man, I know Jamie Chambers and he's a nice guy, but christ is the Metamorphosis Alpha kickstarter a shitshow. It's now the most-behind Kickstarter I've ever backed that hasn't out and out folded, and it's really sad to see someone squandering his reputation like this. If I were a superstitious person I'd say the project is cursed. As it is, he's had a terrible last couple of years apparently. While I'm still waiting for the book, I've been waiting and I can keep waiting.
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Jul 10, 2014 02:46
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InShaneee posted:This should be as big of a red flag as flexible funding on Indygogo. If he needed $30k to make the game, what changed so that he only needed $20k? Or only $10k now? Does that affect the scope of the project, or the timetable? None of which I see answered, or even referenced, anywhere. It's sort of on the page. He says it will take $40k to produce the game, but they are only asking for $10k for manufacturing. And then in the chart it actually says $18k for manufacturing.  Seems rather sketchy.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:20
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Kwyndig posted:If I were a superstitious person I'd say the project is cursed. As it is, he's had a terrible last couple of years apparently. While I'm still waiting for the book, I've been waiting and I can keep waiting. It could be worse. It could be Far West.
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Jul 10, 2014 05:04
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Doctor Zero posted:It's sort of on the page. He says it will take $40k to produce the game, but they are only asking for $10k for manufacturing. And then in the chart it actually says $18k for manufacturing. It's likely that as they continue to fail funding and time goes on they're probably saving up more of their own money to invest in their project. It is kind of weird that the only change besides the name is the price goal. Do kickstarter projects like these ever pick up much of an audience outside of the backers? I think someone mentioned something about this earlier in the thread, but I can't imagine many kickstarts end up on the shelves at an LGS or toy store.
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Jul 10, 2014 09:54
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Spectral Werewolf posted:It's likely that as they continue to fail funding and time goes on they're probably saving up more of their own money to invest in their project. It is kind of weird that the only change besides the name is the price goal. There have been a couple of computer game projects that failed to fund the first time and succeeded at a lower goal later. Mel Croucher's Deus Ex Machina 2 was one - it failed to fund at £64k but funded later at £20k. I think initially he'd been trying to cover all costs up front but later went for enough to get back what he'd spent on the voice work (Christopher Lee for a day isn't all that cheap, I suspect). Also the Slightly Magic Kickstarter failed outright but the project was completed anyway; the author felt there was enough interest to do it in his spare time.
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Jul 10, 2014 10:19
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I also recall a Battle Chess kickstarter that didn't make the funding, but was released not that long ago. Might be on Steam now.
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Jul 10, 2014 14:49
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Gravy Train Robber posted:It could be worse. It could be Far West. I'll admit I've been giving Metamorphosis Alpha more leeway since Jim hasn't been a jerk about the whole thing, but yeah after a certain point you do have to start saying "okay, it's been 2+ years, what the hell."
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Jul 10, 2014 15:24
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'll admit I've been giving Metamorphosis Alpha more leeway since Jim hasn't been a jerk about the whole thing, but yeah after a certain point you do have to start saying "okay, it's been 2+ years, what the hell." Jamie hasn't been a jerk, Jim Ward died.
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Jul 10, 2014 15:39
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'll admit I've been giving Metamorphosis Alpha more leeway since Jim hasn't been a jerk about the whole thing, but yeah after a certain point you do have to start saying "okay, it's been 2+ years, what the hell." At least nobody from the project became a travelling wizard.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:11
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mllaneza posted:Jamie hasn't been a jerk, Jim Ward died. Sorry, got my names mixed up.
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Jul 10, 2014 18:11
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Looks like Up Front! has finally gone dark. I didn't have time to wade through all the comments, but Hasbro got involved and some judgements have happened and uuugh. At least I didn't buy in too hard.
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Jul 10, 2014 18:23
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moths posted:Looks like Up Front! has finally gone dark. I didn't have time to wade through all the comments, but Hasbro got involved and some judgements have happened and uuugh. gently caress! I did. edit: Who the gently caress changed my avatar! At least the quote is good, but who changed it?
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Jul 10, 2014 18:28
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mllaneza posted:Jamie hasn't been a jerk, Jim Ward died. Jim Ward is still alive. He had a heart attack and other (ongoing) health issues a couple weeks ago but he isn't dead.
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Jul 10, 2014 20:07
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'll admit I've been giving Metamorphosis Alpha more leeway since Jim hasn't been a jerk about the whole thing, but yeah after a certain point you do have to start saying "okay, it's been 2+ years, what the hell." Yeah, Jamie's had some family and health issues, which I totally get. I feel like if this were a freelance project and he was this far behind (after having been paid up front) the publisher would have sued him, health issues or not. That being said, he's been upfront about communicating about what's happening and he IS making progress, even if it's slow. And he's not the Kingpin Douche like GMS is. I think part of the issue is that these kinds of delays are normal in the games industry but often happen behind the scenes, so fans rarely see when products get pushed for years because of this poo poo, which is why companies don't announce products until they have text and art in hand a lot of times. Kickstarter's just peeling the cover back to a level most fans don't get to see.
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Jul 10, 2014 20:23
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moths posted:Looks like Up Front! has finally gone dark. I didn't have time to wade through all the comments, but Hasbro got involved and some judgements have happened and uuugh.
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Jul 10, 2014 20:37
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Yeah I was extremely excited for it and wanted to go all-in, but the project looked risky so I only backed for $40. Sure it's still forty dollars I'll never see again, but there were warning signs and that's why it wasn't $80+ or whatever. He'd had some successful projects before, and I think that was a factor in my (now apparently) bad decision.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:12
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Peas and Rice posted:Yeah, Jamie's had some family and health issues, which I totally get. I feel like if this were a freelance project and he was this far behind (after having been paid up front) the publisher would have sued him, health issues or not. This is about to stray into "discussing the industry" territory, but I think another big part of it is that projects involving a very small number of people carry an inherent higher risk of failure. A project with more people involved can better tolerate the loss of one person - whether due to illness, incompetence, or whatever. There's a redundancy built in. Another factor is simply experience (and not necessarily experience with KS). Many kickstarted games have highly-motivated but overly-optimistic people running the show. When I read a kickstarter page and it's full of untrammeled enthusiasm, that's a bit turn-off for me. I'd rather see careful optimism tempered by clear-headed caution; budgets and schedules that assume there will be issues and setbacks; and people running the show who are willing to acknowledge and address risks, rather than dismiss or ignore them. I chalk that up to someone with no experience running any kind of big or complex project. This can be your very first foray into making a game and selling it, but if you have any experience with being in charge of a project involving a lot of pieces and man-hours etc., you probably would develop a better sense for how a kickstarter project is likely to go. Or perhaps you're just under the misapprehension that merely admitting problems are possible is a sign of weakness that will drive away customers. That's dumb and wrong, but I've seen it with a few kickstarters, where the backers get really defensive and angry when people start asking simple questions that challenge claims and statements made by the project managers. I'd chalk that up to being not only inexperienced with customer relations, but failing to survey different forms of customer relationship on and off the Web to see what makes customers happy and what infuriates them. Even above and beyond all of those things, though, people pledging money to kickstarters ought to be aware that they are acting in some sense like venture capitalists - and venture capitalists accept enormous risk in return for huge rewards. I will not kickstart a game just to get $10 off the purchase price, because the risk that I'll lose my entire pledge is high enough that a $10 discount is not enough to cover it. I kickstart projects when I'm being offered an excellent deal, and I think it's a project I want to support monetarily the way I might support a charitable cause. That is, I assume some portion of my pledge is essentially a vote in a newly-democratized marketplace where business people present candidate projects and customers can choose to elect or not elect them. People who want me to pledge for their product need to convince me, then, that at the very least, the project is worthy in some way. It should also be a good deal, but being a good deal is part of worthiness - I would not want to support a project whose owners undermine their seed-money investors (such as by selling the product I pledged for at a convention, before I've received my copy). In essence Kickstarter is both a store and a popularity contest, in which competing game designers must convince the electorate that they're the ones who will be the best custodians of the people's interests. Having the sense to plan a reasonable schedule, a budget with some wiggle room in it, maintain good communication, and admit when there are problems are all parts of that good custodianship, right along with designing an interesting and compelling product and offering it at a reasonable price. Of the game-related kickstarter projects that get posted in this thread, I probably reject 80% just due to lack of interest in the product on my part. But of the remaining 20%, I reject a majority due to a kickstarter page that does not convince me the person or people running the show are going to be good custodians of this idea and product that I find interesting. I think an increasing proportion of people who spend a lot of money pledging for games on KS are adopting a similar outlook. To me, that's the big red flag for a project like Terrene Odyssey: it's not that their first KS failed, which can happen for a variety of reasons, but rather that the failure of a kickstarter to fund is a suggestion that the people running it are not competent custodians. They need to address such a concern publicly and openly; just running another KS without addressing why the first one (or two?) failed suggests that either they don't know why those earlier ones failed, or they don't want the public to know. It might well mean they're ignoring a systemic problem in their business - the game design, or the marketing, or the customer communications, or the budget. I don't actually have any interest in the basic idea of the game, so I was never going to pledge anyway. But even if I did, I would need to read their analysis of what went wrong the first time and what they're doing differently this time, before I'd feel confident that they were capable of fulfilling the promise of the kickstarter once it does fund. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 21:16
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Dwarven Forge added three new add-ons for backers of their Caverns Kickstarter: an opaque/translucent ice cavern set (23 pieces for $55) a set of imp-like "devil newts" (12 miniatures in 3 sculpts for $18) and a set of lizardman miniatures (15 minis in 9 sculpts for $18 unpainted or $45 painted) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L01aysI-PUM
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Jul 10, 2014 22:13
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moths posted:Yeah I was extremely excited for it and wanted to go all-in, but the project looked risky so I only backed for $40. Sure it's still forty dollars I'll never see again, but there were warning signs and that's why it wasn't $80+ or whatever. I had a pledge in for the GET EVERYTHING level until I saw that there were potential legal troubles. Super glad I didn't end up backing it, but it sucks that you've lost that money.
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Jul 11, 2014 04:08
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I backed up front for a Ridiculous amount of money. I'm sad it will never see the light of day  I just wanted the game
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