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New Board Game - Seven Sisters - Now live on Kickstarter

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Tue, 02/07/2012 - 13:45
poochiepup
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Hello Everyone,

After a lot of lurking on this site and drinking up as much information as possible, we are in the process of releasing our first board game publication entitled Seven Sisters. We are looking for as much feedback as possible on the game. Any and all comments on the rules, art, game play, and even concept would be appreciated. Of course, a pledge or two would be nice also. Here is the link to our site.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1621311313/seven-sisters?ref=discove...

We are a very new and small company named Wishing Tree Games. WTG consists of me (Lee) and a partner (Brent) who have both been gaming for more years than we care to mention. After numerous conversations, and being lucky enough to find a great designer and artist we are throwing our hat into the publishing ring!

Lastly, if anyone has any questions on Kickstarter, or even getting something published give us a yell and we will do our best to answer.

Thanks for your time.

Lee

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Wed, 02/08/2012 - 08:20
#1
Cogentesque
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Heya Lee and brent! Sam from

Heya Lee and brent!

Sam from southampton here! (Website guy :D )

Anyway, good to see your first piece on kickstarter man - very nice - crossing my fingers for you that it all comes together :)

I have helped a couple of people out on kickstarter so far (Eric from genegrafter get nearly 15,000 more than 500% over his initial request) and in the middle of helping out escape pod games before they put gunship:attack run on .

I'm going to be a bastard now. I would love you guys to succeed (I even reccomended your company already to the designer of Tact Decks in BGG as a potential future publisher) and as such I have to be frank and to the point in order that your kickstarter page looks top-notch. Please do not think of me as horrible person, I am genuinely trying to help out.

If you can, I would get a genuine photo (not a representation) of a game in progress or one set up to go. With all the cubes, all the art, all the fun of the game in its entirety. This sentance:

"Game layout. Six player screens and 180 servants (8mm wooden cubes) not shown."

Is entirely unacceptable. Why are the cubes not shown? Why will you not show me what I am going to buy? Why must I imagine what it is like? When I can go over to the Chicken Ceasar guys (btw: Hey guys!) and see there game with every single bit in it and decide that I like that more as it shows me a genuine picture of all the bits at the bottom.

Ok, bastardry aside, the above sentance is an extreme example of what I mean. Do not limit the viewers in any way - tell us everything and show us everything.

Brent has a strong background in sales, marketing, and event management, is detail oriented (some would say anal retentive), and will accept nothing less than the best product we can provide.

Knowing that Brent is good at event managment is irrelevant to the point of disorienting to me as someone lusting after a boardgame and even though I know what you mean, I hated reading the word "anal" in your explanation of the game (lol)

We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to check out our Seven Sisters kickstarter campaign. We feel we have a fantastic game here, and would love to share it with you. Your pledges are very much appreciated and we look forward to hearing your feedback after playing Seven Sisters. - Brent Cunningham, Owner/Overlord; Lee Agosta, Owner/Overlord (at least he likes to think so); Brad Champeny, Game Designer; Andrea Mutsch, Graphic Designer/Artist. Special thanks to Ryan Metzler for his work on the intro video.

this is a lovely paragraph, always nice to hear some genuine warmth :)

What I would do as well guys is just take a look at something like VivaJava or indeed our friends Chicken Ceasar - tak a look at the graphics for their hreadings - each heading of the kickstarter page is actually a little image using a fancy font. I would encourage this approach for you guys, it makes the breakdown of the game explanation a lot more simple and would ad some needed colour into your page. Remember most people (all?) don't have time to read everything and large unbroken, unpunctuated (with contrast and colour and images) paragraphs are not worth as much as snappy punchy sentances or indeed pictures on their own.

Again, I honestly want to see you guys succeed and believe that the few brief pointers above might come in handy :)

hope i've helped guys,

sam

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Wed, 02/08/2012 - 10:08
#2
poochiepup
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Thanks for the input

Morning Sam,

First of all thank you for all of your input/suggestions. They are very much appreciated.

I think the idea of a picture of a game in progress is a good idea. We do have photos of the game being played on the BBG site for Seven Sisters. I believe the reason we did not also put them on the Kickstarter page was we were afraid it would get "to crowded" with pictures, and simply overwhelm the viewer. We may have to rethink that.

Why are the cubes not show? That is actually an excellent point. I will have to nudge "someone" for the answer on that. However, I do agree with the concept of showing the customer "everything" he/she is getting.

As for our bio's, we were just trying to be totally honest on who we are and what our background is. As for the anal retentive comment...well that was to be humorous.

Fancy Fonts? We will see what we can do with that. I agree that would spice up the page.

Anyway, thanks so much for taking the time to post with your suggestions. I (we) really appreciate all of the good input you have given us.

Lee

p.s. Gunship project rocks!

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Wed, 02/08/2012 - 12:33
#3
Cogentesque
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My pleasure man - I'll keep

My pleasure man - I'll keep an eye out for you as things progress :)

p.s.

Sam Mercer
277 Coxford road
Southampton
UK
SO165LD

You know .... if you have a spare copy lieing around ¬_¬

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Thu, 02/09/2012 - 10:03
#4
poochiepup
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Update

Update - 5 days in and our funding is at 26% Not to bad!

We are still looking for comments, questions, suggestions from this community. Loafing at work? Check out the rules on BBG and see what you think....Check out the art. And let us know pls.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/100172/seven-sisters

My goal is not to be a pest....(and I hope I am not being one) My goal is to get as many comments, questions and suggestions from gamers as possible. This way we will release the best possible game. As I now like to say.... The "collective consciousness" is much better than the mind of a single human.

A

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Thu, 02/09/2012 - 12:22
#5
PauloAugusto
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How are you going to

How are you going to manufacture the game, and distribute it, and market it? Any/all of those already have a plan?

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Thu, 02/09/2012 - 13:37
#6
poochiepup
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How are we going to...

Hi Paulo,

We have created a very detailed business plan that we have been following. We did not attempt to start a Kickstarter project until all of the pieces were in place.

We are based in WI but we looked printers worldwide. There are quite a few excellent printers that we looked at in China as well as India. In the end we decided to utilize a printer here in the U.S. The decision ended up being based on simple logistics. For a company of our size, the shipping costs simply outweighed the cheaper cost of printing.

Currently we will ship all orders ourselves. We also have a website where customers can place orders directly from us. We are also working with Amazon to store/ship our inventory. Of course, working with them will be determined by how successful we are.

Marketing for us was a challenge. We are utilizing internet sites, such as BBG, BGDF, Facebook, Wishing Tree Home page, etc. We also plan on advertising on BBG. In addition we have done mass mailings to retailes in multiple states with information on Seven Sisters. Our biggest marketing campaing to date has been at smaller conventions. We have already reserved a booth at Gen Con (large game convention in Aug) to "throw ourselves" at the general public. We are getting a video review by DiceTower which should be out this Friday. Hope it is good!!

Lastly, we sent prototypes of the game to individuals across the country asking for them to review our product. Here are a couple links to reviews that we received.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/724473/seven-sisters-review
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/734937/an-early-temptation-of-seven-...

Hope that answered your question....and "thanks for asking"

Lee

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Mon, 02/13/2012 - 18:34
#7
PauloAugusto
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poochiepup wrote:[...] We

poochiepup wrote:
[...] We have [...] a very detailed business plan [...]

Well, that's a new to me. From my perception (i could be wrong), many campaigns just focus on how to successfully fund the campaign (that is: get the money) with no good/real plans on how to conduct their business after they really get the money.

I wish good luck to your business venture, now that i know you have a full business plan, not just a plan to get money.

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Tue, 02/14/2012 - 01:35
#8
wishingtreegames
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PauloAugusto wrote:poochiepup

PauloAugusto wrote:
poochiepup wrote:
[...] We have [...] a very detailed business plan [...]

Well, that's a new to me. From my perception (i could be wrong), many campaigns just focus on how to successfully fund the campaign (that is: get the money) with no good/real plans on how to conduct their business after they really get the money.

I wish good luck to your business venture, now that i know you have a full business plan, not just a plan to get money.

Hi all,

I'm the other half of the Wishing Tree Games partnership, Brent Cunningham. Some of you might know me from BGG and my many posts about the Gaming Hooplas. I just wanted to touch on this comment/question from PauloAugusto, just to share some information. We actually just started our business in March of '11, but spent quite a bit of time writing a business plan and figuring out our goals and mission statement. My background is mostly in sales and marketing, and Lee has done some co-authoring of a couple Chill products from Mayfair Games.

I personally don't believe a business plan is ever really "done". I think that to be effective, especially in a niche market like this, we will need an evolving business plan, based on current market conditions. To tie ourselves to a plan and be inflexible is probably a sure way to fail. Thus, as we move along with our venture, we are very likely to change and adapt our business plan.

Anyway, just a few thoughts from my perspective. We appreciate your kind words and hope that you have the opportunity to play Seven Sisters sometime. Catch us at Gen Con!

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Tue, 02/14/2012 - 01:39
#9
wishingtreegames
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Hi Sam...as always, thanks

Hi Sam...as always, thanks for your fantastic input. I'm working to "refresh" our info page on kickstarter (I have a couple new things to add, like a Dice Tower preview video...thanks for taking the time to offer your insight.

-Brent

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Tue, 02/14/2012 - 06:39
#10
Cogentesque
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My pleasure Brent, always

My pleasure Brent, always keen to offer help to a company - ESPECIALLY one that hired me to do their kick-ass website for th....oh wait....that never happened....never mind

(lol! jokes -I'm being a bastard, don't mind the guilt trip ^^)

But yeah back on track: I like how seven sisters is going man, - are you advertising it around the place yeah?

Have you through about investing in a BGG competition? Its about 1500 dollars, but so far I have had 2 people tell me that it has "paid for itself" - might be worth it? Especiall ywith the dice tower review backing it up? :)

look forward to reading the kickstarter page changes and receiving my free copy for helping you out and being so awesome when the kickstarter succeeds ^^

p.s. make sure you tell me when you have updated it so I can compliment you on the job you did yeah Brent?

s

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Tue, 02/14/2012 - 12:17
#11
poochiepup
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Video Review on You Tube

Check out the review of Seven Sisters on You Tube. It gives a great example of game play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpja3nYCu9I

Also, Kickstarter is up to 40% funding!

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Thu, 02/16/2012 - 05:40
#12
Cogentesque
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Heya poochiepup! lol Or

Heya poochiepup!

lol

Or Brent, or wishing tree or whoever ^^

The new layout is really nice 0 I much prefer it, those little square pics of each of the sins with the blue trill-accent-thing is really nice.

BUT (I am sorry...)

BUT the picture you supply with all the bits, it is ENTIRELY AWESOME, BUT it is perched on what looks to be a wrinkled black bin bag :( APART from the subpar mat that it is on, the layout (with the secret player screens and all) is really nice. But, is there any possibility of putting it on a better background? ^^

Also: if you want this game to succeed a lot, you've got to advertise it out guys, your goal is only 8000 so it is entirely reachable, and you will get more backers towards the end of your poject, but I would reccomend enquiring for ad prices in various different gaming sites around the place to toat your wares.

I cant remember if you do so, but it might be worth trying to push the: "This game is fun for girls!" angle?

Have you sent of press releases to game news sites yet? I cannot remember - you totally should if you havent AND push the "we tried to angle this game to veer away from the "guys only" normal stand of boardgames and to be attractive to girlfriends and wives that perhaps wouldn't join in with the boardgames - we worked to keep it simple, fun, and very accesible !" - or something like that, to give the sites reason to promote your game. Or something.

But year, it looks much better with your recent work :)

sam

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Mon, 02/27/2012 - 11:22
#13
poochiepup
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Update

Update -

We are up to 95% funding. Trying to gather additional ideas for over funding goals!

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Tue, 02/28/2012 - 13:02
#14
Dralius
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poochiepup wrote:Update - We

poochiepup wrote:
Update -

We are up to 95% funding. Trying to gather additional ideas for over funding goals!

Make that 100% Congratulations!

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Tue, 02/28/2012 - 14:14
#15
poochiepup
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Funded

Dralius wrote:
poochiepup wrote:
Update -

We are up to 95% funding. Trying to gather additional ideas for over funding goals!

Make that 100% Congratulations!

Thank you sir! Albiet you saw it before I did.

It seems that when your project looks like it will succeed pledges come more quickly. I guess that is because it seems like you are "pre ordering" a game and not just pledging for an idea.

So thanks to all!!!

Lee

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