I've been preparing all the materials over the last 6 months for the new game, Roll Player.  One of the questions I often get from playtesters or friends is "When it is going up on Kickstarter?" That was actually a tough question to answer, as there are a TON of things that all have to get done before you can press that launch button. 

In the Spring, I was saying late Summer. 
In the Summer, I was saying September.
In August, I was saying October.
In October, I FINALLY drew a line in the sand and said Nov. 10.

So, there is it.  The official ​​ launch date.​​​

​There are quite a few things to consider when picking a launch date.

1) Is the project ready?
I like to have the game as close to 100% complete as possible before going to Kickstarter.  This project has a LOT of artwork, and I was happy to have John Ariosa working on the game with me. The problem was I couldn't really afford to have it ALL done at once. So, I gave John work when I had cash, and when he was available. This meant, that it took a long time to get all 53 or so illustrations done. Once they were done, my graphic design, Luis Francisco could start doing more serious passes on stuff. Locking down the Character Sheets too a long time, as they are super critical to gameplay. It's the real focus of the game. It has to be highly functional and look amazing too. Finally in September the game was close to ready, but I still needed time to get review copies in people's hands and they needed time to get their work done as well.  So, I put it off until Nov.

2) Is the timing okay?
Conventional wisdom says there are more opportune times to launch KS campaigns than others. The KS creator community does a fair share of data mining to try to figure out the best time of year to launch, which days work best, etc... The data says that usually Tuesdays are the best days to launch in the mid-morning with a 30ish day window​​. Also, it's best to avoid other large campaigns out there since you want to minimize the competition for your customer's dollar, especially if the competition is a similar game in theme or mechanic. The easy example right now Jamey Stagmaier's juggernaut of a game on KS right now called Scythe. It looks amazing and is standing clearly in the KS backer spotlight right now. One of the advantages to waiting till Nov, is that I can avoid some of that and try to get an opportunity to be in the spotlight while my campaign is running. Another consideration is proximity to Christmas. Historically, Kickstarter campaigns have not done well if run during the busy shopping season.  So, I clearly don't want to wait too long.

There always seems like there's some reason why "now" is a bad time to launch.  The game looks great. There's no way to avoid all competition, as more and more KS campagins are launched every year, especially in the board gaming area.
​
In the end, I have to launch it when I'M ready.  And I'm getting pretty close to that.  ​I'm excited and anxious.  I love this game and I think my fellow gamers will too. 

Till next time.

Keith

It feels really good to be on the back side of designing a game, putting it up on Kickstarter, navigating the madness of running the campaign, making it through production relatively unscathed, and getting games out to all my backers.  The questions I get most from people is about fulfillment. How did I get games to people all over the world and how did I plan for that?  

Self-publishing a board game is all about logistics and moving stuff around. Fulfillment is the last part of the Kickstarter portion of this process, and it's where project managers fall down the most often. So, I was nervous about how it was going to play out. 

When I was planning the project, I was tempted to fulfill the whole thing myself. There's something kind of "DIY romantic" when I think of inviting all my friends over, providing pizza and going about the merry work of packing boxes and slapping address labels on them. In the end, that seemed like WAY too much work, and I suspected it wasn't nearly as fun as I dreamed it to be. I ended up trying to find a partner that specializes in this. So, after getting a handful of quotes from companies I had heard of (and a little soul searching), I ended up going with Fulfillrite. Why?

Communication
These guys don't mess around.  When you email with a question, they respond very quickly and often follow up with a phone call, if it's a complex issue.

Rates
Fulfillrite has competitive rates including specific Kickstater fulfillment reduced rates.  They're also always looking for opportunities to reduce costs for their customers.  They are able to ship at lower rates with the USPS than I am able to (as a low volume shipper).  So, many times, it was cheaper to have them mail packages for me than for me to do it myself.  Also, in the time I've been using them, their payment fees have actually gone down.  Does that happen? 

Speed  
The team at Fulfillrite got the shipment of Bullfrogs from the port on a Monday.  By the end of Tuesday, all 800+ packages were out the door off to my backers.  It was amazing.  I had games on their way to me in Wisconsin on a separate truck to hand deliver to local backers.  I had backers as far away as the UK and Australia getting their games before I was able to hand a copy to the guy in the neighboring office at my work!

Backerkit Integration
I used Backerkit to manage my backers and pledges. Backerkit integrates directly into the order/shipping system at Fulfillrite. It was amazing simple to use. Group a bunch of backers in backerkit, press the "Send to Fulfillrite" button, and the orders just populate in the Fulfillrite system and the folks at Fulfillrite get to work sending them out the door. This saved me an AMAZING amount of time.

Ease of Use
Fulfillrite has an reaally great web portal that I log into.  I can see my inventory, and I can alert them of incoming shipments, add money for shipping, etc.. Most importantly, add orders on the fly, even after the Kickstarter has been fulfilled.  As I get orders for copies on Amazon.com or ebay, or on my website, I can just add the order on their web portal, and I don't have to worry about it anymore.  My partners over at Fulfillrite take care of it.  

This is especially nice for international orders.  I REALLY dislike filling out international shipping forms.  Bullfrogs had a lot of international backers (especially in France).  I'm so happy I didn't have to fill out all those forms!

If you're running a Kickstarter, figure out who you're going to use for fulfillment early.  Get lots of quotes from different companies with sample quotes going to a lot of different countries.  Shipping is tricky and expensive.  Don't dig yourself into a hole.  The easiest way to avoid falling down is finding good partners.

I'd love to hear about other KS projects completed their fulfillment.  Who did you use (if anyone)?  What was your experience?

Till Next Time

Keith

I swear, everywhere I look, there are enthusiastic aspiring game designers.  It's awesome!  In Madison, there are a ton of board and card game designers.  Some published.  Some pending publication.  Some just starting to get their ideas out.  I wanted to share some of the cool games people I know are in the publishing pipeline or have had published.  There's a lot of talent in this town.  See for yourself.

Who are some of your local designers?

Till next time.

Keith

Hey readers.  So, I decided to start a blog.  I wanted an opportunity to have place to share my thoughts on this new game publishing venture.  Thanks for finding me and thanks for reading.

This all started with a game.  I had been working on a few game designs and had been play testing them over a year or so.  I hoped to publish some day or maybe self-publish, but hadn't really committed to any of it.

I had just gotten home from my usual Tuesday night gaming.  Near the end of the night, I had played a game of Reiner Knizia's Battle line that night with a good friend.   I hadn't played it in a long time and was reminded how cool and simple the gameplay was, while still having interesting decisions.  I has this classic "Play a Card then Draw a Card" mechanic.  It's an older game that I still find really interesting after many many plays.

So, there was a design convention coming up in a few days called protospiel.  It's a great convention for designers to get together and give feedback to each other.  I had purchased tickets for the Milwaukee event and it was a few days till the event, but I hadn't given the convention much thought.

Anyway, playing Battle Line had me thinking about the protospiel event.   I decided I wanted to bring a new design instead of bringing the one I brought last time.  I grabbed a deck of cards and some bits.  Could I come up with something interesting using just cards, a few bits and a simple "play a card / draw a card" mechanic?  I wanted something multiplayer, whereas Battle Line is 2 players only.  I scribbled on some cards and pushed bits things around and in about 30 minutes I had a playable game.  I played it against myself 2-3 times.  It was a game, true.  It didn't seem broken.  Was it fun?  Probably not yet. :)  

I launched straight into play testing mode.  I got a few playtests in the next day, reworked a couple of the main mechanics and then I was off to Protospiel.

I got to protospiel early and it was the first game played that day!

I got lots of great feedback that day from various designers.  I ended up getting it play tested another two more times that day.  I'd recommend protospiel to any designers out there.  It's a great opportunity to get honest feedback from really design-minded folks as well as a cool way to meet other game designers.  

Overall, the feedback was positive.  It wasn't perfect.  There was lots of refining that needed to be done, but the basic idea was there.  People liked it.  For this, I was stoked.

Again, thanks for reading.  Till next time.

Keith