Kickstarter is hard (delaying the launch)

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[troyd]

I was one of the 130 that clicked notify. I reached out to some of my friends. I'm sorry I couldn't make a bigger impact. But to be fully transparent with you, dev to dev, people judge things at face value, man. I've learned this from my own failed Kickstarter. People who don't know you or your art style, aren't biting. I wish you well and hope you can get this campaign up and running!

[BrandonCourt]

Some random ideas for posting Murder Bunnies on socials: 1 high production vid of a group of friends playing the game that captures the kind of fun the group is having and showing the emotions the game is intended to elicit (vid can be recycled and chopped up for multiple posts), close up picture of the physical card held in your hand with finger pointing at a feature then short text explaining in a comedic way that feature (repeat this format for each card for many posts), candid and comedic tiktok-like vid of someone making a play on the opponent (needs to be understood by anyone who never seen the game b4).

[mattp]

To be honest Tim,
Unlike Philophobia, murder bunnies doesn't pull me in because I don't know much of it and don't have people to play with really. Especially during Covid not much people are gathering around and playing a card/board game.

If murder bunnies came with an online version I'd totally be interested in supporting and buying the game.

[andreypopov]

I wish you luck on this Tim. You motivated me to start my gamedev career. Right now I have a successful steam launch and gained more than 20k$ in its first 9 months. Some of that success was achieved by listening to your advice on YouTube. If anyone in the world can do this - it’s you, man.
I’ll be waiting for more info on the game. Also - will it be available for shipping in Russia?

[refractionpcsx]

I think part of your problem Tim is your primary marketing platform is computer game developers not card game players. I know you've posted it on some board game forums but if you remember Philophobia, most of your purchases were from gamedevs and people who follow this channel, I don't think that audience is satisfactory enough for a card game. You're probably going to have to rethink your marketing strategy, maybe find some card game websites that can preview it or something, i dunno, but your safe space for marketing is not the place.

I do wish you luck with your kickstarter though!

[Vimlark]

Sorry for the delay but low key hyped I can back when it goes live on my birthday!

[rickrouse]

If you used your youtube and your brand to market MB then I believe you targeted the wrong demographic.

We follow you because of video games and interest in your style and presentation. I'm confident most of us are not avid card players. Hit the facebook and party themed groups. Clubs and persons who purchase board games and party games is your target. Us video gamers are waiting for your BBT :)

[BrandonCourt]

Appreciate the honesty here. I couldn't keep up the posting on socials very long at the rate I wanted. Started dreading the post itself and making the content. I know I need to get back into it and keep posting. Still trying to figure out the right balance and how to efficiently "switch hats".

[robdaytona]

Hi Tim I have clicked the notify me on launch button in Kickstarter, , I wish you the best, will be eager to see how you get on with it. Possibly the best video you have ever made in terms of connecting with someone like me in your audience. Touching video, thank you.

[Tomrel]

board/card games are definitely a different beast. You typically are paying for manufacturing. You need a complete game at that point. (i'm mostly a analog game designer myself who dabbles on video games)

[philippe]

To be honest, I never click the notify my on launch button, but I still back devs I like, so I would back your kickstarter when it launches probably like many other people that don't click on the follow button.

[Sethalonian]

Show actual gameplay. You only have 3 videos on it, and only one of them shows gameplay. If I hadn't caught part of the playtest stream I wouldn't have cared enough to get notified on kickstarter. And most people aren't gonna re-watch a 3 hour stream about a game they don't know if they care about.

We need a 1-5 minute video showing gameplay of how cool the game is.

[Osarion]

Thanks for the video! I know what you are going through. (we'll be launching a Kickstarter for 'Unsung Warriors' in 15 days). I wish you all the best during your launch!

[AlysonWarner]

Awesome content, thanks. Adding to the folks here saying you have really different markets in tabletop vs digital. TT isn't big on Twitter or Discord but they are HUGE on Board Game Geek. My last KS tabletop had something like 40% of traffic coming from BGG. Ads are effective but also regular forum posts. Get on the Hotness and you are guaranteed to get those wishlists up! GL!

[coobbyo]

Love your videos! They are always so real and informative. Thank you for telling it as it is. You don't over glorify it to be better than it is, but you also acknowledge how good it can be. It's nice to know I'm not alone 😅

[briankarcher]

Kickstarter is tough. Like you said, it is a launch. For both physical and digital. For digital you need a full vertical slice of your game ready - and looking really, really good. You need a demo. It takes a lot of time and money to get to that point. Not to mention the months of marketing leading up to it.

[hypedoncoffee]

Tim - always love the transparency, keep making these type of videos! Your experience and insight always appreciated by other indie devs.

Would love to see a video about tools and processes you use to keep things in order and stay sane (or not!). Stay strong!

[BenoitFries]

Physical card games in general are very hard to sell, much harder than video games IMO.
We launched one in 2015 : (+ a separate campaign in French)
Lost or stolen packages, shipping costs were terrible, very high expectations from players (look at reviews of games you like on boardgamegeek you might be surprised), market is saturated, printing costs, very low margins, most stores don't care about indie games, translating means you have to do a print run and store the inventory which costs money, etc.
Hopefully your experience will be better, but maybe you should consider launching a videogame version first ? (not Tabletop Simulator, but a standalone game that you can promote. Could be free, at least during the testing phase, to reach as many people as possible ?) It could help with playtesting too, because the frustrating thing with physical games is that once it's printed, you can't change anything.

[PhasmalForge]

You mean everyone else doesnt just do it all?

[codecareers]

I'm curious as to why you had the conclusion you did. If saw the game and you got 100 interests, that is a CPI of 0.1%. When you see these metrics in any games business, you know the right move is to can the project...