🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
enamel pins with fire, a raccoon with a match
|
Hi Reader, Welcome back to game night. I'm briefly out of the smithy—Udo has to bury all the bronze swords in the backyard for that weathered look, so the ball's in his court. Still, I've been busy. I'm working on enamel pin designs. What do you think? Can you tell what B is? I've also been publicizing the game. I contracted with a consulting company called LaunchBoom to help me, because I don't know from marketing. Little did I know it would drop me into the crossfire of tabletop games discourse. LaunchBoom's main gimmick is to set up a "prelaunch" page for a Kickstarter, where I ask people to plunk down a refundable $1 deposit. If you back the game, the dollar goes toward your pledge, and you get a freebie too (five dice). If you don't, you get the dollar back. People who make the deposit are 20x more likely to back the Kickstarter than folks who just leave their email address. Given all the thousands of dollars I've fed into this game, it sounded smart. Well! It turns out this tactic blew up in board games last spring, when backers pushed back hard, angry to be asked for money before the Kickstarter even launched. Board game publishers have dropped the tactic en masse. And here I am trying to use it again. It takes six thousand raccoons to build trust and just one to burn it all down. I'm keeping my setup for this campaign, but I doubt I'll do it again. I'm grateful to the nearly thirty people who have already pre-pledged. Coming up! I'm going to GAMA Expo, February 23rd to 27th. GAMA's Horizons Fellowship made that trip possible, so thank you, GAMA. I'm looking forward to connecting with retailers and others in the biz. Then I'm a guest at Breakout Con in Toronto, March 14th to 16th, where I'll run both Raccoon Sky Pirates and Defy the Gods. I can't wait! Maybe I'll see you there. In the meantime, I'll try to keep the raccoons from getting into the strike-anywhere matches. Cheers, P.S. Seriously, what do you think of those pins? P.P.S. If you haven't yet, I hope you'll consider making the refundable $1 deposit and then join us in the private FB group. I'm talking more about Defy the Gods in there—including more work-in-progress art! |
Everlasting, Neverending Game Night
🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Make yourself comfortable. On the table, I've put a pint glass with bugleweed and butterweed blooms. They'll take over your garden if you don't get them out—especially the butterweed. But they're cheery for all that. As the Defy the Gods Kickstarter continues, life here has returned to normal. Sort of. There's a rhythm. I'm posting to social media every day about Defy the Gods, which is its own kind of discipline/fun. I get to share details from the...
Hi Reader, It's good to see you again. Please, sit down—let me move these stacks of paper. And these. I'll put them—somewhere. On the sofa. As you can see, this place has been a hive of activity since the Kickstarter launched on Tuesday. I meant to get together with you before now, but there's just been so much to do. Oh hey, didn't I tell you? The Kickstarter is live! If you haven't already, please go check it out—including all the art I'm showing off there. Yesterday, Jay Dragon released a...
Hi Reader, Lovely to see you. Please, come in, sit down. On the table, I have a terracotta vase filled with chamomile flowers, sacred to Inanna, and Mesopotamian irises. The land of Gilgamesh has taken over the game table, as you can see. Because the Kickstarter for Defy the Gods launches on Tuesday! If you haven't yet signed up to follow the campaign, please do at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hecticelectron/defy-the-gods. Then come back. This book got a lot more personal than I...