TG Crowdfunding Thread 3: Far West has been released. That's not a joke.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Crowdfunding Thread 3: Far West has been released. That's not a joke.

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JazzFlight: Apr 29, 2006; Oooooooooooh!

DLC Inc posted:

have no idea what the point of a Darkest Dungeon boardgame was supposed to be. The videogame, but slower and more cumbersome??

I know some goons have pledged for it, so if they enjoy the models or even the gameplay, then good on them. I certainly have a ton of Kickstarter games that were half-baked and only focused on the minis.
However, after following the campaign and trying to guess how fiddly the moment-to-moment dungeon crawling would be, I completely dropped out. It looks like a nightmare to manage. Tons of tokens, cards, side-boards and exceptions, just a huge mess.

# ? Jul 22, 2022 22:58

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# ? May 15, 2024 01:28

CODChimera: Jan 29, 2009

Luckily my friend is a huge DD fan so he got all of it. I swapped my Hel pledge for DD + 1 expansion and i'll either sell it for paint the minis and give the rest away lol

# ? Jul 23, 2022 05:20

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

https://twitter.com/KamalaKaraA1/status/1550704486972268545?s=20&t=33cay2CHq9RWh1HsDhN4Ew

# ? Jul 23, 2022 06:04

gschmidl: Sep 3, 2011; watch with knife hands

For those who wanted to know more about the Kevin Wilson project:

https://www.kinfirechronicles.com/

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ahj00ma/kinfire-chronicles-nights-fall

More info coming soon.

# ? Jul 23, 2022 16:23

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

potatocubed posted:

Finally got around to writing the financial post-mortem for The Map is not The Territory if you're interested in learning from my mistakes.

A disastrous mistake if you needed that money to buy food, an entertainment expense if you're in a position to spend a couple hundred dollars or pounds on a hobby that satisfies you. Your transparency is really helpful for people who may not know what they're getting into.

# ? Jul 23, 2022 17:13

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

potatocubed posted:

Finally got around to writing the financial post-mortem for The Map is not The Territory if you're interested in learning from my mistakes.

Thanks for this! If I get the time, I might do a breakdown like this for Ariadne and Bob, which was pretty similar in outcome. I got enough money to pay everyone else, not enough to pay myself, spent a long time learning new layout stuff... although I already knew from doing Strike! that layout takes ages (and I didn't do nearly the amount of layout work that you had to for TMINTT). I didn't end up losing money, but neither did I make much - the only money I kept was whatever change was left over between the budgeted wordcount and the actual wordcount the contributors turned in. It was less than $200 total - because if I had an extra $200, I'd have commissioned another piece of artwork.

It's always interesting to see how other creators manage things.

homullus posted:

A disastrous mistake if you needed that money to buy food, an entertainment expense if you're in a position to spend a couple hundred dollars or pounds on a hobby that satisfies you.

Absolutely this. You created a really cool thing. And the layout is SO good - I am really seriously impressed by it. Having so many different styles - not just different backgrounds but also everything else - is very ambitious. I considered doing something like that for Ariadne and Bob with its different playsets, but when my KS wasn't able to fund a professional to do layout, I decided that doing it myself was over my head. You just went for it, and you killed it.

To anyone who didn't catch this project when it was crowdfunding, you should go buy it now! 23 cool dungeons/minigames in all kinds of styles with really great production. I'm really happy to have backed it.

# ? Jul 24, 2022 18:58

Selecta84: Jan 29, 2015

StarkRavingMad posted:

You all will have to let me know how it plays, I'm still waiting on mine! As someone who doesn't care about miniatures much, I was really happy that they had a cheapskate standee only version.

So, we played the first Chapter and it was way better then I expected from such a kickstarter.

We played with the app for the narration and the story seems well written so far. The voice acting is also quite fitting and the world is a bit grim dark, but not so much that it's distracting or making the setting feel silly.

We were discussing that part after the session and we are looking forward to see more of the story. Hopefully the way you progress through the story can keep up with the good first impression we got. The choices were interessting most of the time. It seems to balance out between playing saints or murder hobos and I hope the story stays that way.

The battle system is way better then I expected it to be. I played the Warden and the Witch, my buddy played the Archer and the Ursus. Both the Warden and the Ursus are tanks but the Warden seems faster. This is represented fairly well through the mechanics. When you play a card, you play it into slot 0-3. Everytime you play another card into that slot, all other cards in that slot move down. At the end of a round you get every card in the 0 slot back. The Warden has lower slot cards and can move 1 card per turn down one slot. So with a bit of timing you can get almost all of your cards back in 2 turns. The Ursus has stronger attacks but a harder time to get his cards back. So the more slow but powerful Ursus felt strong but a bit slow. The Archer is your standart single target DD and the Witch can choose between fire (AOE) or water (CC and single target damage).

The boss fight was really tense and the different phases of the boss felt very fitting. The special abilites as well. We won with a lucky roll or otherwise we would have been in big trouble. Chapter took 2 1/2 but should be 1 1/2 now that we know how everything works.

Our next session is next week and I'm really looking forward to it.

# ? Jul 24, 2022 20:05

StarkRavingMad: Sep 27, 2001; Yams Fan

Selecta84 posted:

So, we played the first Chapter and it was way better then I expected from such a kickstarter.

We played with the app for the narration and the story seems well written so far. The voice acting is also quite fitting and the world is a bit grim dark, but not so much that it's distracting or making the setting feel silly.

We were discussing that part after the session and we are looking forward to see more of the story. Hopefully the way you progress through the story can keep up with the good first impression we got. The choices were interessting most of the time. It seems to balance out between playing saints or murder hobos and I hope the story stays that way.

The battle system is way better then I expected it to be. I played the Warden and the Witch, my buddy played the Archer and the Ursus. Both the Warden and the Ursus are tanks but the Warden seems faster. This is represented fairly well through the mechanics. When you play a card, you play it into slot 0-3. Everytime you play another card into that slot, all other cards in that slot move down. At the end of a round you get every card in the 0 slot back. The Warden has lower slot cards and can move 1 card per turn down one slot. So with a bit of timing you can get almost all of your cards back in 2 turns. The Ursus has stronger attacks but a harder time to get his cards back. So the more slow but powerful Ursus felt strong but a bit slow. The Archer is your standart single target DD and the Witch can choose between fire (AOE) or water (CC and single target damage).

The boss fight was really tense and the different phases of the boss felt very fitting. The special abilites as well. We won with a lucky roll or otherwise we would have been in big trouble. Chapter took 2 1/2 but should be 1 1/2 now that we know how everything works.

Our next session is next week and I'm really looking forward to it.

Awesome! looking forward to getting mine.

# ? Jul 24, 2022 20:40

Kerro: Nov 3, 2002; Did you marry a man who married the sea? He looks right through you to the distant grey - calling, calling..

We just finished chapter two and it remains super fun. Also the narrator seems to have slowed down from the second chapter onwards which is great.

So far it seems very well tuned as well - the first couple of fights we ended with two characters on a single hp, after having pulled out all the stops to keep them alive. We're really enjoying how different the different characters feel to play and how impactful the reaction abilities can be if used at the right time.

Given it's got a second printing coming, it wouldn't surprise me if this achieves somewhat similar success to Gloomhaven once (in the far future) the second printing is received.

# ? Jul 24, 2022 21:02

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Speaking of financials of running a Kickstarter, here's the final tally for mine for The Dungeon Master's Deck

I did all the design work, photos, and video myself. The only thing I hired out was an editor to proof the final draft and it was a million times worth it. I started the campaign from almost complete scratch with no prelaunch advertising save for a few TikTok videos that did get some interest from a handful of viewers. I used a few social media ads on the first couple of days but they were not paying off so I scrapped those after. 48 hours (and the campaign had found legs on its own so they were a waste).

This project was a little unique in that it was solely card printing which could be done both domestically and in my own city with a reputable hobby game printer, so I was able to save significantly on production and fulfillment. I ended up doing almost all of the labor myself as well for packaging, shipping, etc after my original fulfillment provider fell through when they rescheduled my shipping dates at the last minute. This ended up saving me a significant amount of money at the cost of a lot of time and labor on my part. I would not want to repeat that part and would happily pay for timely fulfillment.

Total raised from campaign $27,478

First draft proof printing $37

Copy editing $75

Printing $5624 ($5.64 x 1000 copies)

1000 bubble mailers $55

Domestic shipping x 690 $2725

International shipping x 205 $3229

Ink and labels $128

Refunds $70

Kickstarter cut $2611

Total cost $14,554

Total profit $12,924

Things I will do next campaign:

Reach out to various outlets that have a following in the relevant RPG spaces for promotion. YouTubers, websites, podcasts, etc. Kickstarter is already incredibly powerful for discovery (~83% of my backers found the campaign from on-site discovery even without having the Project We Love badge) but this is the next best way to get your campaign in front of eyeballs.

Put more into the page design. The photos looked great but I need more info graphics, animated gifs, etc.

Factor packaging into the initial product design. I had a nice card box as a stretch goal but next time it will be a base part of the project.

Produce a more stylized video for both the campaign page and social media.

Charge a lower up front price but not include shipping.

Do domestic only for physical, given the insanity that is international shipping at the moment.

Set up a print on demand service for international backers that don't want just a PDF.

Run a secondary campaign on Gamefound. This will 100% be a smaller scale campaign because the audience is simply not there, especially for RPG content, but it's good to go ahead and establish a non Kickstarter presence given their general shitbaggery. Same with Itch.io, Etsy, etc. I have over 100 extra copies of the deck still in stock so I need to move them on various sites.

Feel free to ask any questions, I think the whole thing was a huge success given the scope of the project and what I expected, and I learned a ton about the logistics of running one and fulfilling it.

# ? Jul 24, 2022 21:36

The Eyes Have It: Feb 10, 2008; Third Eye Sees All
...snookums

I liked the way you added (optional) tarot-like icons on cards/tables, to provide an extra dimension to results.

# ? Jul 24, 2022 23:28

potatocubed: Jul 26, 2012; *rathian noises*

Jimbozig posted:

Absolutely this. You created a really cool thing. And the layout is SO good - I am really seriously impressed by it. Having so many different styles - not just different backgrounds but also everything else - is very ambitious. I considered doing something like that for Ariadne and Bob with its different playsets, but when my KS wasn't able to fund a professional to do layout, I decided that doing it myself was over my head. You just went for it, and you killed it.

Thank you! Taking on ambitious projects and realising about 20% in that I'm going to have to sharply skill up is something of a modus operandi for me.

# ? Jul 25, 2022 09:45

Truther Vandross: Jun 17, 2008

My friends launched their second game today on Kickstarter. It's a polyomino game called Junk Drawer. I've been a part of the playtesting most of the way and it's a really fun, lighter game with interesting placement rules and a variety of scoring cards that keep replayability up.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/junkdrawergame/junk-drawer?ref=discovery_category_newest

# ? Jul 26, 2022 17:56

TheDiceMustRoll: Jul 23, 2018

DLC Inc posted:

have no idea what the point of a Darkest Dungeon boardgame was supposed to be. The videogame, but slower and more cumbersome??

I have literally no idea how to explain this to you except to tell you that the search for the Great Dungeon Crawler board game is basically a personal philosopher's stone for everyone that plays them.

sigh...

# ? Jul 26, 2022 18:49

moths: Aug 25, 2004; I would also still appreciate some danger.

I've been on that loving path since 1987:

# ? Jul 26, 2022 19:15

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

moths posted:

I've been on that loving path since 1987:

Holy poo poo.

I had that.

That was a nostalgia wave. Thanks.

# ? Jul 26, 2022 19:21

rantmo: Jul 30, 2003; A smile better suits a hero

dwarf74 posted:

Holy poo poo.

I had that.

That was a nostalgia wave. Thanks.

loving hell, same here.

# ? Jul 26, 2022 19:22

gschmidl: Sep 3, 2011; watch with knife hands

dwarf74 posted:

Holy poo poo.

I had that.

That was a nostalgia wave. Thanks.

Me too. I wonder if it's still around.

# ? Jul 26, 2022 19:35

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

I have literally no idea how to explain this to you except to tell you that the search for the Great Dungeon Crawler board game is basically a personal philosopher's stone for everyone that plays them.

sigh...

poring over dusty old tomes and notebooks of arcane lore, trying to get a slight step closer to the game you can barely glimpse in your dreams

maybe... just a bit of magic realm? yes, if I can just integrate that with a d6 reworking of gamma world 7e and the rules to the game of dungeon...

# ? Jul 26, 2022 20:19

JazzFlight: Apr 29, 2006; Oooooooooooh!

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

I have literally no idea how to explain this to you except to tell you that the search for the Great Dungeon Crawler board game is basically a personal philosopher's stone for everyone that plays them.

sigh...

Massive Darkness 2 All-In with MD1 All-In and the upgrade pack is probably it for me. A beer and pretzels dice-chucker with unique classes, tons of mob variety and loot, and most importantly one-shot missions so you don�t have to commit to a full campaign.

# ? Jul 26, 2022 20:26

malkav11: Aug 7, 2009

This is the problem. What constitutes "the Great Dungeon Crawler" is gonna vary tremendously from person to person. Very little of what you describe about Massive Darkness would check anything on my list. (Basically: variety, unique classes. That's about it.)

# ? Jul 26, 2022 21:51

Spiteski: Aug 27, 2013

Incan Gold / Diamant is my Dungeon Crawler

# ? Jul 26, 2022 21:58

armorer: Aug 6, 2012; I like metal.

Blacklist games just sent out another Fantasy Series 1 update. TLDR; they have a 360k gofundme set up that literally no one has donated to.

# ? Jul 27, 2022 05:44

JazzFlight: Apr 29, 2006; Oooooooooooh!

armorer posted:

Blacklist games just sent out another Fantasy Series 1 update. TLDR; they have a 360k gofundme set up that literally no one has donated to.

Yep. It's too much money and the donation method is way too sketchy for anyone to want to chip in since it takes your money right off the bat.
This should have happened almost a year ago and with a different fundraising method. I'm going to guess that they maybe end up with a couple dozen thousand at the most.

JazzFlight fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jul 27, 2022

# ? Jul 27, 2022 05:46

Shes Not Impressed: Apr 25, 2004

armorer posted:

Blacklist games just sent out another Fantasy Series 1 update. TLDR; they have a 360k gofundme set up that literally no one has donated to.

So we're never seeing them is my take away after reading all that nonsense.

# ? Jul 27, 2022 06:08

CODChimera: Jan 29, 2009

armorer posted:

Blacklist games just sent out another Fantasy Series 1 update. TLDR; they have a 360k gofundme set up that literally no one has donated to.

there seems to be no plan in place if they don't get the 360k(which they won't, not even close to it imo)

# ? Jul 27, 2022 06:16

FirstAidKite: Nov 8, 2009

If you want some good minis from a reliable source then this person whose work I enjoy put up a new kickstarter.

Left at the Bottom of the Garden Chapter 3
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/statuesque/left-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden-chapter-three/description

quote:

A set of high quality, lead-free metal miniatures of lost toys, suitable for tabletop gaming, painting and collecting.

And from their previous kickstarters (prices in images are not current since these pics are from previous kickstarters):

Left at the Bottom of the Garden Chapter 2

Left at the Bottom of the Garden Chapter 1

The Ghosts of Yellowfield House

# ? Jul 27, 2022 06:32

Comstar: Apr 20, 2007; Are you happy now?

armorer posted:

Blacklist games just sent out another Fantasy Series 1 update. TLDR; they have a 360k gofundme set up that literally no one has donated to.

quote:

Hello backers,

To say lightly, the pandemic really put a hurt on the freight and shipping/fulfillment landscape in all industries.In addition to the swelling list of cost/booking/material/etc domino effects these past years, Blacklist Games has been internally plagued with making one bad decision after another in order to try to expedite things, while clearly showing we had no experience in facing something this widespread and overwhelming. We were a complete mess with information and kept reacting to situations without really having a long-term plan. We let fear of the unknown and a bit of pride be part of our decision making as we didn�t know how long the shipping crisis would last and we had no idea how to face it head-on. This is something we deeply apologize for.

Fortunately, the shipping/freight landscape has calmed down a bit (though still suffering from layoffs and inflated gas prices). While going through this and learning how other, more successful publishers are getting ahead of this, we now have a better understanding on shipping/freight pricing and timing for the future. But�� that doesn�t do anything for this project.

Which brings us to this, we need your help. But before asking for anything, it�s important that you know what the situation is and what we�re working towards.

I actually got Fantasy Series #1, but I have full confidence I am never going to see Fantasy Series #2.

Here's what they said 4 months ago

quote:

Feb 25, 2022

View on Kickstarter

'Adventurers, I�m back with great news!

It took longer than anticipated for the various international requirements to be met and for the banks to approve and transfer everything,but we have finally received the additional capital required to help us complete fulfillment for the final region (US/CA/ROW) of this project. QML has confirmed that they have received the financial portion from us and we will need to provide them with a new backer data export to ensure they have the most up-to-date backer data possible (more on this below). Once this is done, we'll update you once we know what the scheduling is.'

I would hope someone provides a link if/when QML sells the figures. It will be sad to know they go to landfill.

Comstar fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jul 27, 2022

# ? Jul 27, 2022 06:54

EverettLO: Jul 2, 2007; I'm a lurker no more

Their GoFundMe is already canceled, not that it was going to work anyway. They're screwed and have been lying about it for well over a year.

# ? Jul 27, 2022 15:18

LashLightning: Feb 20, 2010; You know you didn't have to go post that, right?
But it's fine, I guess...
You just keep being you!

Comstar posted:

I actually got Fantasy Series #1, but I have full confidence I am never going to see Fantasy Series #2.

Me too, I was a fool for backing the second before the first was sent out. :shrug:

# ? Jul 27, 2022 15:27

Arcsech: Aug 5, 2008

EverettLO posted:

Their GoFundMe is already canceled, not that it was going to work anyway. They're screwed and have been lying about it for well over a year.

Talk on the Kickstarter page is that it got pulled because GoFundMe doesn�t allow rewards for donations. Even hosed up their grift in a boneheaded way.

# ? Jul 27, 2022 16:08

JazzFlight: Apr 29, 2006; Oooooooooooh!

LashLightning posted:

Me too, I was a fool for backing the second before the first was sent out.

IF (and it's a big if) they really did separate each project's funds, I would personally just be fine with them burning FS2 (because to my knowledge it hasn't been manufactured yet) to fund the shipping of all of their undelivered stuff.
It'd be better to take one big loss rather than have like 5 different finished projects in shrink-wrap sitting in warehouses until they get destroyed/auctioned off. It absolutely sucks that all these games are actually finished and just need to be delivered.

If, on the other hand, they already used FS2's funds for everything else and have basically no money, then... whoops.

JazzFlight fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jul 27, 2022

# ? Jul 27, 2022 18:07

Memnaelar: Feb 21, 2013; WHO is the goodest girl?

I've pretty well given up on seeing that last Street Masters expansion. Should have realized something was off when they switched to Indiegogo for it. Live and learn.

Sucks that it pretty much killed the Sadler Bros as an entity though.

# ? Jul 27, 2022 19:56

djfooboo: Oct 16, 2004

Memnaelar posted:

Sucks that it pretty much killed the Sadler Bros as an entity though.

Yeah, a drat shame for sure

# ? Jul 27, 2022 20:38

GrandpaPants: Feb 13, 2006; Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!

Looks like Peterson Games is planning on making a statement on Friday. Let's see how big of a catastrophe this is.

# ? Jul 27, 2022 21:25

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Maybe someone else will buy his games and I�ll be able to get a copy of Glorantha God Wars.

# ? Jul 27, 2022 21:29

Lord_Hambrose: Nov 21, 2008; *a foul hooting fills the air*

If the 7th Sea kickstarter can be saved, any idiotic move can absolutely happen to save a project.

# ? Jul 27, 2022 22:15

JazzFlight: Apr 29, 2006; Oooooooooooh!

Memnaelar posted:

I've pretty well given up on seeing that last Street Masters expansion. Should have realized something was off when they switched to Indiegogo for it. Live and learn.

Sucks that it pretty much killed the Sadler Bros as an entity though.

Could... this be hope?
https://twitter.com/QMLogistics/status/1552394129363111937?s=20&t=2V8VKycH9Vum-oJoGUI66g
Basically QML (the fulfillment company with all the thousands of FS1 miniature pledges in their warehouse) is finally fed up and might work out a way for backers to pay off the shipping directly. That's the only party here that people would trust with their money at this point.

# ? Jul 28, 2022 00:43

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

That is actually the best possible solution because backers won't have to fret over giving QML another penny.

# ? Jul 28, 2022 00:51

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# ? May 15, 2024 01:28

Funzo: Dec 6, 2002

Yeah, I'd pay QML directly to get my stuff shipped out. No way am I giving Blacklist any more money though.

# ? Jul 28, 2022 01:17

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Crowdfunding Thread 3: Far West has been released. That's not a joke.

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