My KickStarter Board Game Success & Failures

Last updated - 16th Jan 2021

Firstly, running a successful Kickstarter campaign, middle of the road or even rubbish Kickstarter campaign is a really tough, really long drag...still here?! Great here’s what I did...

I’ll try not to waffle too much and just give you some solid advice, and as we know all advice is nostalgic and what I have to say is ‘nothing new’ by ‘no one special’, so please keep that in mind, but having said that, others have successfully launched games on Kickstarter so why not us right?!

That’s the spirit :)

A little bit of context...

I’m on my first ever game, no team, just me and right now my Kickstarter campaign page is half filled in, I have 3 email addresses on my email list (one of them mine), and 2 people in my Facebook Group.

Positives for me, I did all the artwork myself, I’m currently a tattooist, was a graphic designer, and also was a marketing/branding guy so that’s a lot of cost/know how on my side. There’s a pandemic on and has been for a while in the UK which has meant I have been able to fast forward this project considerably.

Negatives for me, i’m a terrible procrastinator, so when I was writing this in a note on my phone I wrote this…

“Procrastinator, and very easily distracted, example...whilst I was writing the auto welcome email to my…”

That’s it, that’s as far as I got, I couldn't even finish a paragraph about been a procrastinator because I got distracted…the irony!

I also, have a very ‘scattered’ approach to everything, focused on doing all the bits I think are cool before anything else, I think it will give a more fleshed end product but it doesn’t half take a long time to get anything done.

Basically what I am trying to say is if I can do it you can…

Pre Kickstarter

I had the idea for a Fantasy Battle game whilst having a walk on the beach, I have ideas for this and that every so often, but when I got in I chopped a load of cards up, scribbled on them and made a super rough prototype, played it with the missus, tweaked it, played it, did a bit of artwork for it repeat, repeat repeat…then I mustered up the courage to take it to a local games club, Athena Games, they host a Games Design Night.

I was nervously hanging around the entrance waiting for people to turn up and two chaps did, I pulled my scribbled bits of paper out of my bag and they played it and afterwards they told me what they thought of the game, what bits they liked, what bits they didn’t like they were extremely helpful, these guys really knew what they were on about as well, in fact if it wasn't for them I wouldn't even be writing this, but at the time I just took there critique as that my game was just awful so I didn’t do anything with it for quite a while…

I thought about what they said what they liked, didn’t like and completley overhauled the game from a fantasy battle to a cowboy shoot out game and it is better for it.

Tip #1 - Take it on the chin and learn from it

If you are like me you are doing this on your own and only have a certain amount of time to chuck at it.

I cannot fathom how anyone can do normal life, make a game and keep churning the wheels of social media to ‘keep everyone in the loop’. I am a strong believer in do it rather than just talk about doing it so I suggest finishing the game first, then at the play testing phase start cranking the socials and getting feedback anytime before that would be madness, they’ll still be plenty of stuff to include people going forward.

Tip #2 - Finish the game then market the game

Join a community

Tip #3 - Join a community

Things I’ll do differently next time...

Write a plan…

That’s as far as i’ve got, so until next time take care,

Smalls