Daniel Solis

If you're marketing your game, there are few practices easier and more fruitful than marketing other people's games, too. We live in a very small sea and the rising tide lifts all boats. Take a look at the chart above for Josh Roby's Kickstarter campaign for his Houses of the Blooded supplement. Note the spike where Do 's Kickstarter launched around April 9th. Josh explains it best via Twitter : "Lookit the curve, man. It had dropped down to nothing, coasting to the deadline, and then all the sudden Boom! I got a lot of backers through You Might Also Like links." Amazon's On To Something: It shouldn't be surprising that a mega-retailer should know a thing or two about people's buying habits. When a shopper is in a buying mood, they like seeing other things that would complement their recent purchase. Thus, we have the "You Might Also Like..." feature. Get to know what other projects are similar to yours and promote them enthusiastic...

Here's the thing about being an public person asking for crowdsourcing. It's all about social capital . In other words, you must first build faith that you are someone who can work and deliver. In my case, I designed small games and posted them for free on my blog. I made sure they're each uniquely branded with their own title, a bit of imagery and a compelling aesthetic. (In other words, I'm trying to be a John Harper of board games.) Here's how I pitched the first call for letters . Though that initial call was successful, I have since learned some better parameters to follow. Prime the Pump: As you build a work history, others will be more likely to have faith enough to offer their own creativity to your project. Write about what work you've done so far, what challenges you face and why you need some help. So let's say you're ready to crowdsource something. First, outline very briefly what it is you want people to contribute and how you'll us...

Many of the Kickstarter supporters mention how long they've waited for Do to finally be available for purchase. One thing's for sure, I've been developing Do off and on for a loooong while. From 2007, it's been an open and transparent process. Throughout that time, we've gone through many revisions, playtests, and brain-blocks. Here are some things I've learned about developing in the open and how that may have helped Do 's Kickstarter support. Progress Comes in Many Forms: My process of game development builds up many, many visual artifacts. I took pictures of scratchy notebook pages and index cards as they piled up, to keep myself accountable to the public at large. I also posted letters, actual play reports, and a TON of Liz Radtke's art. Some Will Be Disappointed, More Will Appreciate The Progress: When you post any kind of document that gets people playing, and then later on you change a critical rule or mechanic, you'll get some disapp...

On this day last week, Fred and I were chatting about the Kickstarter video, cutting length, and making edits to the animation. We were also deciding whether to launch Sunday or go ahead and push the big red button immediately. Boy, am I glad we decided to push. The chart above shows our funding progress thus far. I also translated dollars to meters, just to give some perspective on how great the response has been so far. In less than a week, we have over tripled our initial fundraising goals! After seven days of media coverage, preparing future rewards, organizing schedules for print production and, oh yeah, a very busy full-time job, I'm looking forward to hitting our cruising altitude. If we follow the same trajectory as the past few days, we'll end this campaign in the mid-$14,000 range. We may even surpass the current record-holder for highest funded tabletop gaming product ( e20 ), but I'm more than happy to sit in second-place. Anyway, over the next couple of ...