Daniel Solis

Earlier this week I asked which mix of familiar or unusual mechanics and themes you preferred. I asked mainly because Reiner Knizia once advised on Twitter that a design shouldn't be too unusual. To do so would turn off too large a section of your audience. Basically, if you're designing a game for the larger hobby market, he advised either making the theme unusual or the mechanics unusual, but not both. That seems to hold true for a significant portion of poll respondents. Here's the breakdown of 82 responses. Unusual Themes + Unusual Mechanics         35       43% Familiar Themes + Unusual Mechanics         34       41% Unusual Themes + Familiar Mechanics         11       13% Familiar Themes + Familiar Mechanics         2    ...

Time for a quick poll about mechanics and themes in tabletop games. Reiner Knizia once tweeted that it's better to have some element of familiarity mixed in with novelty. Of course he never specified the exact percentages of familiarity or whether it's better to have a familiar theme or familiar mechanics. So, let's turn to the public! Which do you prefer in your tabletop games? Loading... I'll let you draw your own conclusions about the difference between a "familiar theme" and a "unique" theme since everyone has different frames of reference. When it comes to mechanics, the question becomes even more contentious. So, I'll let you make the call.

Last week I asked a whole bunch of questions about what you expect as a backer of a crowdfunded project, including communication levels, delivery timelines and satisfaction with what ended up being delivered. Originally I planned to aggregate all of this data into a nice infographic, but unfortunately it's been an extremely eventful week so I hope it's cool if I just link you to a spreadsheet with the responses. I'll make something else fancy later, promise! Click here for the results! Click here for the charts! Not surprisingly, the vast majority of respondents backed projects in the Games category. That's to be expected given my audience. What surprised me was how many more respondents backed three or more projects. I guess it's not all that shocking, maybe those prolific backers are more inclined to share their opinions on a crowdfunding survey? Anyhoo, check out those results. Lots of raw data for you number crunchers out there.

I want to put together a nice infographic of results from last week's fulfillment survey , but it's been an eventful few days. I'll fill you in on the details of that soon, but for now, here's a taste of some of the anonymous comments regarding creator updates. In that survey, I asked: Care to say a little bit more about your feelings about creator updates? Generally the positive responses cited the necessity of updates to track actual progress in the job (or lack thereof) Regular creator updates are vital, regardless of whether news is good or bad. Getting an update announcing a delay or problem in project completion and fulfillment, with an explanation of the reasons/causes of the delay/problem, is far preferable than not getting an update at all. Some creators have given the excuse that frequent updates detracts from their time available to work on the project; but I (and probably many others) consider this a very poor excuse for inadequate communication. ...

It's time for another Kickstarter/Crowdfunding poll! This time, we're focusing on the delivery/fulfillment timelines for crowdfunded projects backed between January 1 and August 31 of 2012. Answer in the questions below and I'll put together an infographic next week. Loading...

Following up on the poll earlier this week, I asked if you prefer Kickstarter stretch goals that add more perks or improve the perks you already expected. This question got a lot of really great responses and the voting was very tight. Interestingly, though BETTER won the day, MORE had far more supporting comments. Granted, comments from either side had plenty of caveats. "MORE!... Assuming the base product is already high-quality." "BETTER!... Depending on the type of product." So what do you think of the results? Surprised? Relieved? Share your thoughts in the comments!

I've been thinking about the finer points of Kickstarter campaign design lately. In particular, I'm curious to understand more about how stretch goals ought to be structured. For context, stretch goals are funding goals that exceed the original funding goal. In the past two years, they've organically become central to any fundraising drive. Honestly, I'm shocked stretch goals aren't already a built-in feature of Kickstarter's interface. Stretch goals typically promise two things: MORE: "If we hit 200%, all backers will get the latest expansion along with the base game and an exclusive backer-only promo card!" BETTER: "If we hit 200%, the base game will be produced with full-color art throughout and be printed on thicker, more durable material!" Plenty of campaigns mix these two stretch goals or combine them into a single stretch goal, but I am curious what you find more motivating as a backer. Share your answer in the poll below an...