I am so excited to share another creative adventure with all you veteran Dungeoneers, and am thrilled to welcome the newbies to the team!
In the world of Kickstarter, early funding helps projects reach new backers (many people filter by fully funded), which means more stretch goals get unlocked, and everyone gets the most spectacular amount of extra bonus cool stuff possible! It also means that everyone who hits the “Remind Me” button is greeted with a thoroughly spectacular project when they get their 48 hour reminder email. They see a group of committed fans, excited for a new adventure, helping shape the project with their feedback and ideas – that’s an exciting group to join.
1. Do you have a favorite tabletop game podcast, blog, or YouTube Chanel? Share Sunken Dungeon with them! Some of our biggest fans found us through mentions on these platforms.
2. Sharing through social media is always great! It’s especially helpful if you share with gaming groups or pages your are a part of, and if you’re a Dungeoneer with some of your own characters or experiences to share – all the better! If you need ideas beyond groups you’re already a part of, here are some Facebook groups we’re familiar with:
Board Game Revolution Community
3. Pool your resources and start a group buy with others in your area. We’ve got a 10 copies for $80 Reward Tier, which is a great discount – and bulk shipping costs less than mailing each book to a different address. Help your friends and family save some cash with this option!
4. Help complete the Battle Against Ol’Inky! We’re fighting to defeat this malevolent octopus and win back Swampy’s ancestral home
We earn weapons, tactical advantages, and backup by sharing, sponsoring books, reaching pledge goals, and gaining backers!
5. Give this Sunken Dungeon cover image on Board Game Geek a thumbs up!
6. Let me know if you have any other ideas to help spread the word about Sunken Dungeon! Send me a message on FB, email me, or drop a comment on the Kickstarter campaign page – I would love to hear your ideas.
Thank you for joining our crazy crew. The adventure that started with Cloud Dungeon has been exciting and humbling – sharing my love of stories, games, art, and humor with all of you has been an amazing journey. Can’t wait to see where this next chapter takes us!
-Andrew
PS – We’ve loved Kickstarter for so long, sometimes we forget the whole world doesn’t know how it works, so here are the basics (feel free to copy/paste to share with your friends and family!):
Kickstarter is a website that allows creators to get pre-funding for their projects. Basically, someone has an idea, has developed it, figured out what it would take to make that product, but doesn’t have the overhead to fund enough production and marketing to reach a wider audience. Traditionally, a creator then had a few options:
1. Continue their work on a small, hobby level scale.
2. Find a publisher.
3. Get a loan.
4. Find an investor willing to bankroll the project.
Kickstarter allows creators to present their product to potential customers and ask for financial backing to make production feasible. This is where it gets fun. Creators set reward levels, basically a preorder system, that allows backer to financially support projects they are interested in. When you get a crowd to believe in your work, it only takes a small contribution from each person to get the startup funding needed – hence, “crowd funding”.
There is a small risk to backers – there have been horror stories where people have fully funded their project and never delivered. More and more laws have been put into place so this is harder to do – there are more consequences for not holding up your end of the deal. The biggest risk we usually see now is creators having too ambitious of a timeline and delivering late.
One of the coolest things about Kickstarter is the interaction it allows between creator and customer – a real connection can form when you are cheering on someone’s creative endeavors. Many projects ask for input from their backers, so they have some influence in shaping the project. People start to know the style of certain creators, and just know that they connect with their work and vision, becoming regular patrons or “super backers”.
Most of all, from a creator’s standpoint, Kickstarter removes many of the practical barriers to moving beyond hobby-level creating. Many successful small businesses started with a Kickstarter campaign. If you’re interested in supporting the development and continuing success of small businesses, Kickstarter is a great place to do that.
