Tradewars ~ Homeworld launches today!

The latest Update now included a vote link to the survey for the "Tactical Core". This is a breakthrough in deck-building, since no game features a game board as a way of introducing tactics into the game...

Trying to innovate... Please share with us your thoughts.

Cheers!

Well our campaign has unlocked 11 Stretch/Social goals. If you want to get in on the action, consider pledging today or tomorrow as we are in our LAST 48 hours of the campaign!

We've still got a couple Stretch Goals that are available such as the Battle Front Scenario (which adds +36 cards to the game) and a box upgrade (which I will not reveal unless the Battle Front goal is met)...

But we're giving amazing value and you get a whole whooping amount of cards, scenarios, dice, expansions, minis (if you choose those), etc. For the price of those rewards, you can choose how much you want to spend. Heck a $29 USD base/core game set comes with all the Stretch/Social Goals. It's an amazing value... Or if you want nicer custom dice and another expansion or you want minis, you can upgrade to get those too - by choosing the $39 or $49 pledge levels.

Anyways for those who participated, thank you. Weather it be helping along the Social Goals, or sharing the campaign with friends, or even pledging a reward tier, we greatly appreciate the support.

Cheers!

Will there be a way to get the board an minis as an expansion later? It all sounds cool to me, but I don't know if I can get my wife to play it with me if it's a tactical battle game, but as a deck builder I think I can get to play it more often :)

Cool - I'm already set with the vanguard, just been debating the rest but good to know I can get the tactical core later.

Only 2.5 hours to get a product that has over 12 unique Stretch/Social Goals!!!

Even if you buy the "Explorer" version for $29... You're getting a TON of additional content for the price. You are probably saving yourself about $20 USD ... that's almost 40% off the retail price!

Anyways if you have time, check it out... No harm in looking!

Cheers everybody.

With just a few more minutes left! I love the spike up you guys got today.

I got the Vanguard version but that is great, and can't wait to see it come in the mail.

I am so glad people got in on this and helped to get everything unlock.

Good job!

@BHFuturist

Congratulations on the successful campaign! I remember seeing posts about progress with TWHW here and it's nice to see it succeeding. I need to make an effort to check this site more so I don't miss these sorts of campaigns. I'm sure there'll be another update here once the game hits retail?

On another note: Could you talk a bit about the scope of publicity work you did prior to launch to get good numbers in your first 24 hours? I'm considering a Kickstarter for my game Robot Rumble: The Unpluggening, and I feel that the extent of publicity work needed is one of the bigger areas I still need to familiarize myself with. Information on your experience with that would be a great help.

I see that there are two (2) roads you can follow. If this is your first game and you are an unknown designer... Well if you handle all the campaign alone, be ready to get less than 250 backers. Because that's typically what first time creator manage to get. But 250 backers doesn't mean your campaign is a failure - on the contrary it's a "stepping stone".

The idea is when you Kickstart your 2nd game, you will have 250 backers who already know you and might support you again IF they indeed liked your 1st game...

The other alternative is to "partner" with someone who has already KS-ed a game and make awareness of your game to their pool of backers. This is what I did with Outer Limit Games. I knew they had a pool of over 1,500 backers and we ended up with just shy of 1,000 in total.

As Joe says it, on Day 1 you want HALF of your funding goal to be met. And then you need Social/Stretch goals to fuel the fire (so to speak). It's only when you reach the last 48 hours and people see what a great deal they get if they decide to back the game, that's when another spike in backers might occur... So it's a combo Day 1 and Last 48 hours.

Going with a smaller Publisher may allow you to "partner" with them provided you have "invested" in something. E.g. You have a game with artwork - mostly what the Publisher needs to do is handle the campaign.

What I have learned is that it take an ENORMOUS amount of work to run a KS campaign - and that I would have never made it had I tried alone. There are so many aspects to the KS campaign, you need a Full-Time Graphic Designer (In my case Mike from OLG), then you need someone to handle all the shipping from China, know how to quote for China, manage the fulfillment warehouses around the world, offer Pre-Ordering via a service like Celery, interact with backers during the campaign, answer questions and build a FAQ, etc.

There is a 3rd road that you can travel and that is KS-ing with "The Game Crafter". Basically your goal is 100+ backers and it's a goal under $5,000 ... which makes it a very realistic campaign - with a bulk order for fulfillment and all manufacturing and shipping is handle by TGC. This will allow you to "get wet" without too many headaches.

I often mention this - because it would have been my avenue had I not connected with the Strickland's and Outer Limit Games...

Cheers!

Update: Another reason why I say "invest" is because if you choose to go it alone OR with TGC - you will need to have artwork being done. You just can't put out a "vapor-game" (something that will never be made) because of the Accountability of Kickstarter.

The point with partnering is "sensitive": some publishers (the smaller) ones may want something with artwork already - and all they need to do is focus on the KS campaign. Larger publisher may only want the "game concept". But from my experience, it is easier to sell a "game" than a "game concept". I tried Sell Sheets and contacted several publishers...

I think it has to do primarily with the SIZE of the publisher. You want to peek the interest of the publisher in some way or fashion. Sometimes it's a good game with great artwork, other times it's a great game with average artwork, etc. There are multiple combinations that may work.

Actually the key with TGC is getting 100+ copies of the game SOLD on the KS. Why? Because they give you the deepest discount at that marker. So say your game price is $30.00 and you produce 100+ copies, that means each copy will cost $15.17...

So it just means that your $30.00 copies will get a KS "discount" of say $5.00 (which is pretty normal and acceptable). Your MSRP would then be about $30.00 (and 50% = $15.17)...

You can still get a SLIM "margin" on the $15.17 units (maybe make $5.00 or so...) and still allow you to sell direct to stores. Although TGC price points allow this - it will be near impossible to use distribution. The TGC price simply doesn't allow for the correct markup to make this happen.

But still you can sell to online stores, big FLGS that have both an online and brick & mortar stores, and even offer a $1.00 pledge for stores to contact you directly concerning buying for retail...

So it's very possible, but you have to PLAN for it. For example, if you sell 80 units, if you buy 20 more, you'll get the 100+ discount ... so this means you need to BUY "over the 100+ mark". Or after the campaign is over STOCK of 100 units at a time... What this means is that you would order 100 units to get the best discount. Then you can sell to stores from that stock and offer them the 50% retail markup.

Cheers.