Dungeon Brawl launches on Kickstarter!

Best of success, Ramon! :)

Looking forward to seeing the playmat...!

You'll want to build on your initial momentum. What this means is that in your first 48 hours, you'll want 50% of your goal reached... And then yeah, every campaign (or most) seem to slowly hedge along for about 25% during the better part of 20 days and then a slow rise again in the last 72 to 48 hours for that remaining 25% + more.

If you don't give up on your game AND you can make it using what is offered by a POD like "The Game Crafter" you can get a real LOW Goal of maybe $3k to $5k... because you're only committing to 100 backers. And you would of course use Kickstarter jointly with all manufacturing and fulfillment using a Bulk Order (BOF)... That what I like about POD, low quantities = low goal.

It's not something you did or did not do... You NEED to have a "following". What this means is maybe 5,000 Twitter Followers who read your tweets because you put out information interesting to them aside from only your game. Or have 1,000 Facebook Friends and then Boost a post to them and their Friends/Family... You can do this on Facebook. Sure it'll probably cost $100 or so bucks... But the word gets out.

Social Goals are also key. By getting people to "follow" the campaign, you encourage them to find more backers. Without this, it's more hard.

Don't be too discourage, re-collect yourself, find another FORMAT. I really like POD because it's lean and efficient. Maybe more costly, but if you can get it to fit the format, well you can jointly KS and you'd have already a POOL of starting backers... To re-contact and say: "Look we've lowered our goal, revised the product format and here is Dungeon Brawl v2.0..."

I'm not saying this is the ONLY option.

I'm just trying to encourage you in not losing hope! There are still other options available to you... You've just got to see if you can re-work things to fit "another" format.

And personally I STARTED "Tradewars" on "The Game Crafter". I sold 34 copies of my game in a Crowd Sale... About $800 USD of sales. Had I given up then, I'd only would have made a minor effort. But I decided to see if I could pitch the game to other Publishers... and sure enough I had found one.

There is no shame in not obtaining your goal the first time around. There are more options than you probably even realize. So don't discount an option unless you fully explore it and its ramifications.

Cheers!

Note: In TGC terms, they call it a KS "Contract". And basically it's an agreement to manufacture and fulfill Bulk Orders post a KS Campaign. You can set as low as a goal you want... But savings on volume break at 100 units. So normally you would KS with a goal of 100x a POD cost price (+some markup for profit).

On TGC you sort of work "backwards". First you get a COST for your game once you've figured out all the component and then NEXT you add a margin of profit ABOVE and beyond that COST amount. Obviously there are economies of scale (and volume) which means there are price breaks up until 100 units (games sets). And that gives you a reward amount and a funding goal to be reached ... which is USUALLY very low... As I explained above.

Here's my link to my Crowd Sale (Just to show you the evidence first hand): https://www.thegamecrafter.com/crowdsale/tradewars-homeworld:-early-access

In your case you wouldn't want to do a Crowd Sale, you'd want a KS "contract"... Once you get the components figured out. Like I said $800 bucks is what I made on TGC (because I was not ready to go the KS route). Nor (at that time) had I known that you could do a Joint KS with TGC...

Update: The ONE (1) thing that could have HELPED with your KS Campaign is a "Play-thru" VIDEO. Showing HOW to play the game. I know you have explained with text and images... But a video which shows how the game is played could maybe have helped too! Just a future suggestion, if you plan to re-focus and retry...

Decided to stop lurking, ‘cause I think you are being hard on yourself.

First of all — there’s still time! You never know...

But more importantly, looking at your kickstarter history, this is a massive improvement already. You are making strides. Raising 1.5k isn’t a small feat, even though we are bombarded with the mega success stories. That’s a good chunk of people standing behind you. I’ll be pledging a small amount tomorrow to show you some support.

I’ve never done a KS for board games, but I used indiegogo to fund my business a few years ago. I remember being deeply depressed when my campaign didn’t pan out initially — but the reality is (unless you’ve spent a ton of cash on ads), you are growing a brand and an image even when the funding isn’t where it needs to be. Find a way to engage with that audience. You have a list of backers — try to get them to opt in for future KS attempts, or follow a game design blog, or grow with you as a developer. Or use a print on demand to fulfill a handful of games at cost for the people who really want it. These people are saying they will buy in to you and your idea, give them more content to connect with you in the future even if it doesn’t work out.

They’ll be there for you when it does.

@quest has a bunch of specific suggestions that might be more helpful than mine, but I still thought it was worth saying.

Well my Publisher has 8k twitter followers... So I know how HE "gets the word out"... Facebook is less 750 friends.

I'm just explaining what "works". Just because Jamey has 10k doesn't mean that other game-industry people have other connections to more backers. What helped "TradeWorlds" was 1,500 previous backers and 8k twitter followers. I can't say Facebook was also not influential at 750 friends... but it pales in comparison with Twitter.

I have 275 friends on Facebook (for "TradeWorlds"). It took a lot of work to get those people and I'm still not certain about any "conversion" rates. My doubt is they probably just like to know "what is going on"...

Confession: I'm working on a dungeon crawl game with miniatures too, so I've been following your progress the past few months very closely. I want you to do well, so it gives me hope with my game.

An unsuccessful Kickstarter can help you build a crowd. If you are up for it, I'd recommend waiting 6 months and giving it another shot. There are too many Kickstarter projects to mention that failed on the first try, and succeeded on the second or third attempt. This is a good, detailed look at one of them: https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-230-is-your-crowd-big-eno...

You've done all this work so far. You've got the game, you've playtested it, you've figured out manufacturing, you've put together promotional materials, etc, etc. Trying to Kickstart it again in 6 months shouldn't be much additional effort, all things considered.

Also, you might have been a little unlucky in timing to have Arena: The Contest begin a Kickstarter a few days before your own: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragorigames/arena-the-contest-tabl...

If you plan another one later, this will give you time to go through this huge list of things you can do to build a crowd before your next Kickstarter: https://tompetgames.wordpress.com/2018/03/05/what-40-board-game-creators...

Good luck!

You're probably right. I keep reading that you basically have to have 1/2 of the funding already raised before you launch. So that would mean it is a crowd of buyers you have cultivated and who are interested in your game. A similar launch of another game shouldn't change it too much, although it could impact a small percent. People love to bandwagon...

I agree to an extent, but try telling that to some of the "big names" on Kickstarter that bring in 500% funding on day one! ;)

That said, 100% funded on day 1 will generate additional interest (people like to back a winner and if everyone else is backing, it must be good, right?).

It's great that the community here is encouraging you to keep going with your game. You are getting some really great advice that will hopefully help you to succeed in the future.

My 2 cents, coming from a visual art background, is to take the time between now and a possible relaunch to really make the art as strong as possible. From the KS page it looks like you reuse the same few character illustrations for the box art, and the different cards. It's a bit repetitive. I know more art is a stretch goal but maybe putting the money in up front to get more art would draw a bigger crowd.
Many games live and die on their art and design alone.

I also agree with having a gameplay video. For me it's really important to actually see a playthrough before I decide on backing a game. A plus side to having that is it might help get backers who may not love the art style. Strong gameplay might get people to back a game with art they may not love. For example I started playing Hero Realms recently. I don't love the art style, but the game is really fun to play so I overlook that. Art is obviously subjective but there are definitely styles that appeal to a wider audience. With the low turnout, maybe the current art style isn't drawing in backers.

Conversely, having exceptional art might draw in backers regardless of how the game plays. I just received my copy of Century Golem Edition yesterday, a game I preorderd solely on the art I saw. I didn't even know how the game played. Fortunately it is really fun to play.

Make sure you show strong art or strong gameplay. Ideally both.