As a Kickstarter creator, one thing you cannot plan for perfectly in advance is where your future backers live. But if you are shipping a physical product, the amount of money you need to raise (your actual funding goal!) depends on it. The total pledges on a Kickstarter campaign can be very misleading, and I pay much more attention to the total backer count on my projects than on the total pledges on my projects. Let me explain why.
An interesting dynamic of many Kickstarter campaigns is that they have a huge influx of backers at the end. (We did for Relic Expedition.) Plenty of projects struggle through a long slow campaign, unsure if they will reach their goal, and then the final days can lift the project to exceed its goal by another 50%. (The recent successful funding of the Grow Kickstarter campaign is a perfect example.) Why does this happen? Can it be avoided?
Today is the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, an inspiration for the game’s “harvest festival.” I posted the PnP and a press release to BGG.
I sent out a newsletter to our email subscribers with a sample of the artwork, an update about Gen Con, and a link to download a print-and-play prototype.
I mailed off a dozen preview copies right around Labor Day weekend.
The first review of Lanterns appeared on BoardGameGeek yesterday, based on the print-and-play. “Lanterns really hit a sweet spot for us.”
I created the first draft of the 1-minute introduction video script tonight, as well as a very rough storyboard to be used as a reference.
I ordered review copies this week, and I will be reaching out to reviewers over the weekend to have reviews available when the campaign launches.
I had such a good time demoing Lanterns at Gen Con. Here are some of the photos and comments that people have posted online so far.
I’ve been hard at work getting ready to promote Lanterns at Gen Con, and I have also spent some time adding some content to the campaign page.