I this final part of the series I reflect on how the
Kickstarter failed to achieve its goal. But I also talk about the physical components
of the game and how we were at the mercy of a number of circumstances some self-made
others wholly unexpected.
We gathered up many quotes for Expansionist. As we developed
the game, through play testing. At a basic level we needed hex and triangle
tiles and the number changed as we tested length of play and phases of the
game. We found that sometimes players’ might not get tiles out until the fourth
or fifth turn and so we added an additional foundation tile. We saw that some
of the event names may well be too sensitive and so we changed the design. These
were things that time helped us realise and it is this that you need with your
game. Time. Live with it and ask questions of it. The actual game play can
blind you to some of these design elements that could slow a project or put
people off.
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| Loads of tiles in the Expansionist design |
The decent printing quotes came out of china, which is
not to say we didn’t try other places. My wife Jo, the now appointed Logistics Manager,
was excellent here and gathered the quotes in from other places as well. America
and Europe were all three times as expensive and so we opted for China, like
most publishers do. Of course, this was when coronavirus was taking hold and we
simply had no idea what impact it would have. I’ve had backers suggest to me
that this was the reason why people didn’t invest and it no doubt had a factor,
but I think there were many other factors that meant we didn’t achieve the full
funding goal.
I think the biggest was quite simply that we just had not
put the game out there before we released it on Kickstarter. We had some social
media talking about the hex tiles and the promise of a game, but it was by no
means enough. Putting out there can also mean so many things as well. The
biggest one is not having prototypes to send to reviewers. This in our opinion made
a massive difference and cost us big. We contacted reviewers and they asked for
copies, but we had none. Obviously, we had our prototype, but that was not
going to be shipped around to be lost in a reviewer’s pile of games. The main
reason, though, why we did not have copies was because we have no cash flow and
the time it was taking to have things coming back from China was a big problem,
even if we had had the money to print them. In future we will have prototypes
printed.
Another massive element is we just were not part of the Board
Game Geek network. Something asked of us from reviewers was a BGG page link. A
massive mistake was not to be part of this. I have had a life of tabletop games
and gaming but had never really invested in BGG, a platform that is so vital
for a game’s credibility. It was painfully stupid and so I began to fill my BGG
profile with stuff which I found fun and started to grow this community. My game
collection has waxed and waned over the years, as well as my RPG collection,
and here is a great way to record it. BGG is awesome.
A separate Twitter account for DR Games was also
important and no way as established as it should have been. It still isn’t and
this is because it takes time. I have thousands of followers on Dark Realm Maps
where the drawing all started, but that has taken years to establish and even then,
those followers follow the maps and are not as interested in tabletop games as
I had hoped. They are my awesome map peeps and they hadn’t expected me to
suddenly start talking about making games. I hope they are patient with me because
this is now as serious part of my life.
Probably the hardest thing for me to face was the Secret!
I wanted to keep Expansionist a secret, as I felt the idea was too good and
could be copied but I was naive and overly cautious. There are tonnes of games
out there with great ideas, why would anybody steel mine? It was foolish and I
wish now that I had just tried to tell the world and create the vibe!
That’s what it comes down to: THE VIBE. We had not
created a vibe about Expansionist. All the above things contributed to the game
remaining unknown and, in a sense, still as secret. Ironically by choosing to
keep the game mechanics a secret it remained so even after I wished it otherwise.
We decided to cancel the Kickstarter, as we wanted to
control when it stops and when it restarts and be able to keep our supporters
informed. I am not bitter about this. I have learned a lot and will carry if
forward into the next project which is Dark Force Incursion a free game, I
released a week ago and one which has already seen some interest. The
expansions for this will go onto Kickstarter next week with a much lower target
goal and with a totally different agenda. Keep an eye out for it.
I can list the negatives for sure, but much has come out
of Expansionist our first Kickstarter. Probably the most important is the new
followers who have shared their ideas, given me feedback and are keen to find
out about future projects. They are the real people here, voices who make me
want to push forward and keep designing. Thank you, I very much appreciate your
support and hope you have loads of fun and entertainment out of future DR Games
products.
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