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Headhunter Kickstarter Announcement

Hello All,

I suppose that this can be considered a formal announcement that we will be launching our game Headhunter: Hilarious Hires from History on June 18th. We've been busy, having a new baby, renovating a new house, and having my sister get married. Unfortunately, general business won't end any time soon, so June 18th is it. Thank you all for your support specifically regarding our game over the past year or two or however long I've been here, and also for general tips and tricks that have been shared by everyone on the forum. For some information about our game, please see our website https://legendsofravenhall.com/headhunter-hilarious-hires-from-history/

Thanks!

-Austin

Comments

Good luck! You know about the

Good luck!

You know about the tariff thing, right? Sending 25% of your manufacturing cost to Mr. Trump.

Thanks Jay! Yeah, I know

Thanks Jay! Yeah, I know about it- we've been basically putting off the campaign due to business for a few years now, and despite the fact that the situation will never improve, we figured we should just schedule it and go for it. Of course the U.S. and China tariff changes do add a complicating factor, we can still give it a shot. Worst case we could publish and have the game as a print on demand like on Gamecrafter or something. But we would like to go down swinging first, you know? Thanks for your good luck wish and your support :) How is heroes and treasure coming along?

Thanks

-Austin

Timing is Everything

Seems like now rather than later is the time to be dependent on international shipping. There's no legit indication that tensions will diffuse any time soon.

Best of success on your campaign, Austin! :)

let-off studios wrote:Seems

let-off studios wrote:
Seems like now rather than later is the time to be dependent on international shipping. There's no legit indication that tensions will diffuse any time soon.

Not for.. 20 months or so, anyway.

Announcement

Austin, please remember to post an announcement here at BGDF when you launch your Kickstarter. :)

Share with us a PREVIEW link!

@Austin: if you want to PM me a "PREVIEW" link to you campaign that might prove useful to ensure that there are no mistakes... Or you can share the link with the BGDF community (if you feel like this is what you want to do)?!

It's good to have a second opinion on the campaign BEFORE it launches. We've got a couple of weeks to check it out, respond (with questions or things that need revision, etc.) and give you the time to update the page, etc.

Just to be smart about the campaign. @Jason (jay103) shared with us his preview for "Heroes & Treasure", @Andrew (harmon89) also shared with us "Portal & Prophets" where we discussed the pitch and getting more broad audience, etc.

If you'd rather NOT... That is okay too.

I'm just saying sometimes you can get invaluable feedback which can help your campaign be BETTER than what it currently is.

Cheers!

Here is Andrew's request for KS feedback

https://www.bgdf.com/forum/game-creation/publication/sharing-preview-kic...

That's the BGDF Link/URL to the thread containing advice following him asking to the other members to take a look and see if there is anything incorrect with his KS page...

Like I said, if you prefer to keep it CONFIDENTIAL that is OKAY too!

I'd just advise to share it... So we can make sure everything looks good to go...

Kickstarter Link

Hey guys thanks for thinking of me :) We will definitely post the link- I will need to check on its progress. I remember those campaigns and think you are correct, the community here is very helpful and supportive, which is one reason that I like this place :) My brother is working on the page, so I will follow up with him and see where he is at. As soon as he has something good to post, I will have it here for you to review.

Thanks,

-Austin

Kickstarter Preview Page

Well, well, well, here we are. It may have taken longer than expected, but here is what we have for now. Please feel free to take a look over the preview page. We already have things that we want to add/edit, but here is the working draft for this coming week.

An initial critique/note: the video is not up yet. It is being worked on this weekend. The video that is up is a placeholder that was there to get the page approved. It is a rough gameplay video that will be included below in the story.

Thanks!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1833981685/1298729591?ref=btai7a&to...

-Austin

Exciting!

I think it's very cool that this is a family effort. Looking forward to seeing your campaign get off the ground.

Best of success on your campaign, Austin! :)

"1) Die (unique to

"1) Die (unique to Ravenhall)" In what way?

Is your price inclusive of shipping? If not (or even if so), you probably want a Shipping Info section.

If it IS inclusive.. are you going to lose money on this? You'll fund with 320 orders, which is a lot of orders, but I hope you've confirmed that you can get your full printed order to a warehouse for under $6000 or so...

500 Followers is an extremely unlikely event. I'd make that a dollar value goal. My original Kickstarter sold like 350 copies and I think I added 60 followers, and that was WITH a goal to add some followers.

Your card art is.. sparse. You know this. I'm just wondering how you got the box graphics of all the famous people's heads on the other bodies and whatnot. You own a license or copyright I hope?

Left-Off-Studios: Thanks!

Left-Off-Studios:
Thanks! Yes, it is a family effort for sure. Though I personally tend to want to do everything, I sometimes just have to sit back and let others do stuff sometimes. Try to get others involved, you know? Everyone has their own strengths and that helps the group as a whole. I hope you like the game and/or page, and I thank you for your comment :)

Jay103:
Thanks for your page review! To answer some of your initial observations, first, the die is a custom die that we have made. (You can see more about it on our website). The shape is unique (technically a rounded beveled shape, not rounded or squared) and there are other subtleties, such as pip shape and depth (things most "normal" people don't see or care about). If you are looking for dice for a game or something, please feel free to reach out lol :) To you second point, shipping. The first two rewards (25 and 30 level) do not include shipping. Shipping is an additional 8 U.S. and 15 international. The other rewards offer Free shipping to U.S. and 8 international (I believe those were the numbers last I knew). I think the rewards that offer free shipping say that in the description, but we can confirm. If you have further thoughts on this, please feel free to let us know for sure. Your third point regarding follower stretch goals- yes this does seem high compared to what you are saying. We will reevaluate these stretch goals. Lastly, the card art and box art. The cards are sparse, yes. It is for sure, we didn't have money enough for further artwork, and what is on there is enough for the game. Regarding the box- those caricatures are our own since we hired an artist to make those.

Further comments are welcome, thank you all!!

-Austin

In an effort to continue

In an effort to continue self-promotion:

The "Ravenhall" Dice also have unique pip patterns etc.

https://legendsofravenhall.com/ravenhall-dice/

Thanks,

-Austin

MAR wrote:Jay103:Thanks for

MAR wrote:

Jay103:
Thanks for your page review! To answer some of your initial observations, first, the die is a custom die that we have made. (You can see more about it on our website). The shape is unique (technically a rounded beveled shape, not rounded or squared) and there are other subtleties, such as pip shape and depth (things most "normal" people don't see or care about). If you are looking for dice for a game or something, please feel free to reach out lol :)

No, I was just looking at the photos, and you made a point of calling out that die. The die is in no way a selling point for your game, even if it is a Ravenhall hallmark or whatever. It's a waste of a photo, imho. And it's the FIRST photo. If this was a Kickstarter for a set of dice, that would make perfect sense to me.

I looked at your website.. did you actually seek trademark protection for a die? And copyright for.. I don't know what.. pips in a circle? I wouldn't think either of those protections would apply.

Quote:
To you second point, shipping. The first two rewards (25 and 30 level) do not include shipping. Shipping is an additional 8 U.S. and 15 international. The other rewards offer Free shipping to U.S. and 8 international (I believe those were the numbers last I knew). I think the rewards that offer free shipping say that in the description, but we can confirm. If you have further thoughts on this, please feel free to let us know for sure.

You should for sure have a "Shipping" section in your text.

Quote:
The cards are sparse, yes. It is for sure, we didn't have money enough for further artwork, and what is on there is enough for the game. Regarding the box- those caricatures are our own since we hired an artist to make those.

Okay, I just wanted to confirm because the two things were very far apart, and if you'd taken, say, images from a google search to make that title graphic, you could get in trouble pretty quickly.

Oh, and if one of the images also included the BACK of the card deck, that might improve the graphic-ness of the overall look and feel..

KSPage wrote:

Headhunter: Makers of History Edition will make available as a print on demand game online. It will include Character Cards and More Job Position Cards. The quantity of cards will be determined by the number of cards that are created by the Backers of Headhunter: Hilarious Hires from History. The Special Edition of the game will be available later this year about the same time that Headhunter is developed and shipped to supporters. This "Special Edition" of Headhunter is an expansion to the base game and is not a standalone game.

So it's POD.. by the same people printing the main edition, I hope. Also maybe make clear the distinction between this and "print and play", which is a much more common phrase to see on these pages. Mainly that you have to pay for it :)

I don't think that's a very strong incentive item, personally. It has no bearing at all on the regular supporters (except maybe to show that you intend to expand later), and it creates a lot of work for you later for what might be very little return. What if there are only one or two premium supporters, for example? Or.. do I really want to later buy a POD game that has stuff created by random strangers, with pictures of those strangers on the box? Sure, if I'm one of those strangers, but otherwise... it's really just a vanity purchase I think.

I'm not saying the entire idea is a poor one.. I sold some premium items by putting people's images on the box cover. But you're putting them on the cover of something different..

Best of luck!

Jay, thanks for the further

Jay, thanks for the further comment! Some really great points here.

The Dice- yes. It is "unique" or another thing that we do or whatever you want to say, but we didn't want to make that the focal point. I will definitely look into revising the wording so it's not confusing. Also, a good point about it being first in line. At minimum we should put in after the cards. TM/Copyright? Pending currently.

I like the idea of featuring the "back" of the cards too (it does show an image of a suitcase like the logo).

It is a good idea to have shipping language in the reward description, we will work on changing that.

Yes, you are correct about the artwork, but that's why we put our small budget towards that at least. I doubt we would have been able to find those perfectly matched characters wearing strange outfits anyways, lol. Thanks for checking, that could have been a big deal.

The "regular" Headhunter game is not POD, the "Special Edition" is. Currently they are not through the same company, but we can surely look into pricing and time for it. Worst case we could do the POD on the gamecrafter, but we will have to see the results of interest. I figured that there wouldn't be as much interest in the special edition unless you are one of the backers that are in it (everyone besides the very bottom level backers will have 1 or more cards in the special edition game).

As incentive, yes it is a vanity item of sorts. But of course there are card contributions from everyone (whether anyone besides backers would want them or not) and there are going to be more job position cards, so it would add replayability to the base game. Of coruse, on our end, it is mainly to honor and thank the backers, and especially highlight any top level backers to represent the backers as a whole, since of course "you guys" or "they" (depending on if you are a backer or not reading this) made the game.

There is some insight into the thought process anyways. Either ways, everyone can get their personal cards for fun.

Thanks, further suggestions are always helpful

-Austin

Trademark and copyright

Trademark and copyright really make no sense at all to me for dice.

I think a design patent may be the right protection for you.

I'm not a lawyer, but I do have copyrights and trademarks and patents :)

As for shipping, make a graphic or something like that. If you scroll way to the bottom of https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/727578181/heroes-and-treasure-rpg-b... you can see the one I went with (which I'm not claiming is wonderful.. I did it myself, and a graphic designer I am not)

My point about the POD is that if it's an add-on pack, not a stand-alone, then the cards need to match (the backs, at least).. which they might not.

My other point was just to make sure you're not committing to $1000 worth of effort to fulfill $200 worth of pledges. If even one person gets one of those pledges, you're on the hook to produce the set.

Jay, I see what you're

Jay,

I see what you're saying about shipping. We should have a whole section dedicated to it, with some kind of graphic showing shipping costs per pledge level/ vs location. Good idea. Your graphic was just fine to me :) It relayed the information that you would need. We will look into the design patent- thanks for the suggestion. Regarding POD, yes, I see your point. I mean, the artwork will be identical, BUT the printer might vary slightly with the cut/shade. This is not really a big issue for some of these items, but it might be for others. We will look into it for sure.

Thanks!

-Austin

I only had a few comments...

I left my feedback on the KS Page itself. My biggest worry is PROTECTION in the event that there are TOO MANY "Custom" Cards. What I suggest is a process of REVIEW by your Family/Team.

Check out my other comments on the KS Page.

Oh yeah... Check out "Reward Items (Optional)". They can be used effectively to be SHARED with multiple Rewards.

Cheers!

If you REALLY think about it...

Your "core" product is the Headhunter game. And in this game, there are 130 cards for "Characters"... Using your $30 Pledge Level (Reward) and your goal of $8,000 USD, that works out to 267 backers. With all the other tiers, my guestimate the target number of backers would be about 250 backers.

So IF you have ONE (1) "Custom Character Card" PER BACKER, that's 250 cards. Already almost TWICE (2x) the number of cards in the "core" product...

Do you see what I mean???

Therefore I would strongly think about the rewards and FOCUS them to be ONE (1) "Custom Character Submission" per Backer. And ADD to this a sentence like "Our Team will review the Custom Character Submissions and select those our Team feels most interesting and appropriate for the 'Makers of History Edition'..."

This is a loophole where IF you get 500+ Backers... Do you really want to design a game that has almost 5x the number of cards from your "core" game...??

I would expect that you would want to drive down the cost of the game significantly especially IF you have a LOT of backers.

Cheers!

I'm NOT saying it's a BAD thing

To have too many backers... Financially it's really positive. But in the case of this "custom" version of the game... Perhaps no more than 250 "Custom" Character Cards is sufficient. Like I said it's ALMOST two times (2x) the number of cards in the "core" product.

Even if some backers on the $1 tier get chosen, no big deal... The thing you want to ensure is that YOUR "Team" is in control of the vetting process.

Stating that "ALL" Custom Character Cards are going to be a part of the end product for that Edition, IMHO is a BIG MISTAKE. It could bloat the product and have 500+ Custom Character Cards.

While this is a POSITIVE problem to have... Without the "Team Review of submissions" ... it will most likely create a product with TOO MANY "Character Cards".

You definitely need a CLAUSE to ensure that you can sift through the submissions and choose the best ones for that "custom" Edition.

Quest, Thank you for your

Quest,

Thank you for your thorough review and considerations. Yes, I see what you are saying and think you are correct. We will discuss this and edit this tomorrow. I may be sending you a pm to discuss the optional reward as you have described in your comments on the preview page.

Thanks!

-Austin

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