Race to Adventure on Kickstarter and the Value of a Good Demo Video


Heyo! Remember when I posted some early previews of the Race to Adventure card designs? I'm happy to announce that the Kickstarter has launched and the game is ready to pre-order! There are so many awesome rewards in this campaign, folks. Pins, patches, expansions... Evil Hat has really outdone itself with some of this stuff.

I really want to draw attention to the awesome demo video they released. Sure, it's become something of a norm to see highly polished promotional videos for successful campaigns. It's quite another thing to see such a well executed demo video for a Kickstarter campaign.

If I was a newcomer to this product, with no exposure to Evil Hat or Spirit of the Century, this video shows several things:

  • It clearly explains the game, first and foremost. That I fully understand the game after watching the video shows that the team has taken good time to fully test and develop it.
  • It shows that the creators have already invested the time and treasure to produce key graphics and art. This isn't absolutely necessary, especially if you're a small, independent developer, but it's still great to see a game that is pretty much complete at launch.
  • It gives me an idea of how to teach this game to my friends who may not have been exposed to any part of this campaign. This is extremely valuable as a marketing tool. When you email your buddies saying "Hey, let's play Race to Adventure at lunch!" you can share this video or just follow its example face-to-face.

I can say from experience that teaching games is one of the harder tasks of game design. You might be a great player, a great designer, or even a great rules-writer, but actually teaching face-to-face or in a video is an entirely different task. Evan, Fred, Jeremy and Paul did a fantastic job here.

Actually, everyone involved in this game has done A+ work and I'm honored to have had a small part in this process. Now, Race to Adventure!

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