Depends on the size? On par with Do? One, maybe two a year. Smaller stuff I'd go with at most 6/year (2 month cycle), but probably 4/year (3 month cycle) as more reasonable - a year or two ago I'd have said you could support more, but there's a lot more kickstarters out there in use and thus noise out there.
Depends a bit: do you think that most of your backers will be the same as before, or will you be able to attract new ones? With mostly the same backers, their money becomes an issue, I don't think there is many people willing to fund more than 3, maybe 4 projects a year. If you think you can attract new backers with each project, post the next one before the current one is finished and see how much you can fit in a year. It's true that the market is crowded now, but the pool of backers is also much larger than it was before - the ratio money_given:projects is still pretty good on Kickstarter, the real short resource is attention. By going for a new project early, you can use the attention generated by the one you're currently working on to create buzz for the new one.
So a compromise would be something like releasing three games a year, but each one is a different genre and theme that doesn't repeat for at least a year.
I'm curious about how much money people are willing to spend on Kickstarter stuff. It makes intuitive sense that starting more projects will stretch the wallet of your core fans thin, but on the other hand, it looks like there's a significant number of folks who are funding 10+ projects simultaneously.
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has...
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example, you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results tha...
When game designer Paul Peterson was interviewed for the upcoming Titans Series of games from Calliope Games, there was one segment at 1:55 that really caught my attention (emphasis mine): "A couple years ago I was teaching people how to play Guillotine and I hadn't played in a while. The first thing I did was say, 'The first thing you gonna do when you open your game is you look through this deck and you take this card.' I pulled out the Callous Guards card and threw it over my shoulder. Everybody laughed. I said, ' That's the biggest mistake I ever made as a game designer in my life.'" Oof. Those are strong words. What's the big deal? For context, the game Guillotine is all about collecting the heads of French nobles during the revolution. There is only one guillotine, with a line of nobles waiting for their grim fate. On your turn, you play action cards to change the order of the line, then take the Noble card from the front of the ...
Depends on the size? On par with Do? One, maybe two a year. Smaller stuff I'd go with at most 6/year (2 month cycle), but probably 4/year (3 month cycle) as more reasonable - a year or two ago I'd have said you could support more, but there's a lot more kickstarters out there in use and thus noise out there.
ReplyDeleteYour so right about the crowded market these days. Just reading Purple Pawn's weekly roundup is daunting. :P
ReplyDeleteDepends a bit: do you think that most of your backers will be the same as before, or will you be able to attract new ones?
ReplyDeleteWith mostly the same backers, their money becomes an issue, I don't think there is many people willing to fund more than 3, maybe 4 projects a year.
If you think you can attract new backers with each project, post the next one before the current one is finished and see how much you can fit in a year. It's true that the market is crowded now, but the pool of backers is also much larger than it was before - the ratio money_given:projects is still pretty good on Kickstarter, the real short resource is attention. By going for a new project early, you can use the attention generated by the one you're currently working on to create buzz for the new one.
So a compromise would be something like releasing three games a year, but each one is a different genre and theme that doesn't repeat for at least a year.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on the project, but I'd say at least three - six months between them. Two - three solid projects a year seems reasonable.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about how much money people are willing to spend on Kickstarter stuff. It makes intuitive sense that starting more projects will stretch the wallet of your core fans thin, but on the other hand, it looks like there's a significant number of folks who are funding 10+ projects simultaneously.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the delayed payment is contributing to that?
ReplyDeleteYeah, that sounds good. That way you maximize the number of different people backing the project instead of always depending on the same ones.
ReplyDelete