Kickstarter - The Thread.

[ghost]

Here's a nice little blurb about a Kickstarter project called "Dice Age" in which a guy attempts to create an interesting sounding dice game but falls a bit short in his initial endeavors.  It sounds as though he really wants to get it done, however, so maybe it will come out to be a success.  It makes me a little wary of some of the projects on Kickstarter though.  I was already a little wary and have tried to stay with projects that were backed by known entities if they were expensive, e.g. Ogre, Sedition Wars, Defenders of the Realm offshoot game, Flash Point expansions, etc.  

In October 2011, only six dice arrived via DHL, from China. They were injection-molded, all right, but:

-----• All the dice were red! Even the green ones. Even the orange ones. The masters had been mixed in the same molds, despite my instructions. This made the molds useless.

-----• The dice were kinda rubbery, while I had wanted them rock-hard. They are dice, after all. I had been told it wouldn't be a problem, yet the dice were soft. They had also shrunk a bit due to the volume, contrary to my specifications.

-----• I could pry apart the Hydra's head. To my surprise, the dice were made of several parts glued together, despite my specifications of wanting single piece parts.

-----• The material is PVC, a material known to be dangerous for health.

-----• "The Three-Headed Hydra" is too big, and "The Lair of Insanity" too small. I had given instructions altering the sizes, but they simply weren't followed.

At this point, I need to emphasize that all, absolutely all of my instructions and specifications had been clearly delivered, and every one of them had been duly acknowledged.

What the hell?

From November 2011 to February 2012, the manufacturer endlessly told me: "The dice will be finished by the next week", "this modification to be made very soon", "I will be able to know more in a few days", and the like. The dice were supposed to be ready for the 2012 New York Toy Fair, where we would meet with the manufacturer and finally celebrate the release of Dice Age Alpha Edition – but the manufacturer didn't show up at NY Toy Fair. I did finally manage to get a picture of the work in progress, and despite every promise, it appeared from those pictures that no work had been done on the molds since September 2011.

After promising me the product would be ready for May 2012 and not delivering, the Chinese manufacturer finally agreed to refund half of our investment on June 30, 2012. Well, the 30th has passed, and no refund has arrived. We are now contacting the banking system to freeze the money he owes us. To be continued.

[shiznitz]

Good luck getting paid back.  Hilarious naivete.

[ghost]

Yeah, I guess people think that since Apple can do it that everyone is Steve Jobs and every factory over there is Foxcon.

Addendum-  in the guy's defense he really does sound like he's trying to get everything running well.  I hope he can pull it off, even if the game does sound a little loopy.

[Furiously]

And this is why going to a "local" supplier is ALWAYS better.

[schild]

Dice Age was the second thing I ever Kickstarted! If I get my dice, I'll take pictures of their raw, handmade, hippy-tastic likely unbalanced gaming glory.

Edit: Before you ask, I kickstarted that silly shit to use the dice as counters while playing other games. Specifically, Magic.

[ghost]

Well you're in luck, schild.  You can buy a set now off of their website for $75.   

I guess a positive is that it seems as if the dude has worked out some of the kinks on the dice.

[Merusk]

Good luck getting paid back.  Hilarious naivete.

Paid up front without seeing a sample/ Sure who do I write a check to?!

Stories like this only reinforce the idea that the reason Kickstarters need the site in the first place is they're just bad at business.

[schild]

Stories like this only reinforce the idea that the reason Kickstarters need the site in the first place is they're just bad at business.

The number of succesful, well-produced things I've gotten from Kickstarter completely outstrips the one utter failure I've encountered.

[ghost]

I think that if you use common sense on it you're probably fine.  For instance, it's probably a really good chance that Steve Jackson is going to put out a nice Ogre game.  That's safe.  So are games that are already attached to a publishing company (except for Glory to Rome Black Box.  Good job, Cambridge). The dice guy, probably not as much. 

[schild]

Indeed. Fuck Cambridge.

[ghost]

What are they telling you guys that Kickstarted is the release date?  I have a copy ordered from Coolstuff, but may just cancel it at this point.  I have the regular edition and it doesn't really bother me that much. 

[schild]

Sometime maybe soon possibly.

[Sky]

Another angle to how CMoN is running kickstarters, they have a proprietary Pledge Manager they run after the kickstarter closes. Sedition Wars goes to the Pledge Manager (CKPM) in about a week. You can use the pledge manager to sort out what optional stuff you want, so if you bid $170 (for examples not at all based on reality) for the $100 Biohazard pledge level + $40 for extra minis and $30 for the terrain pack, you can select the extra minis and terrain pack in the CKPM to sort that out.

But the EVIL part is you can then add to your pledge...weeks after the fact, when you've had time to think "y'know, maybe I should've thrown in that extra THI carapace".

Pure evil.

[ghost]

I know.  I can't wait.   

It's also kind of nice because you might not have understood exactly what all the options were and I feel like they'll be explained better with the CMON system. 

[Sky]

I'm kind of becoming obsessed with it. When they add in the Firebrand (officially), it will add nice three-way combat without getting too bogged down in rules. And the Strain concept is really great, incorporating the Alien concept with zombies and cyborgs. Looking at some of the early casts, the detail is so far beyond what I'm used to with my old minis, I have maybe a half-dozen (maybe) that are that detailed.

I mentioned in the mini thread that they're running an informal SW paint competition at the studio mcvey forum; I bought a couple vanguard grunts and a resin Kara's Last Stand. But for the CKPM...I'm thinking of a second Biohazard pledge....it's just such a phenomenal deal.

[ghost]

I ordered three.   

Do it! 

I'm sure I'm going to piss the wife off when the CMON dealie comes in. 

[Sky]

Well, I already prepared her for that. It's the extra couple of minis coming from SMV....and I just caved and bought two more from CMoN, because I decided I wanted to paint the Drone they posted a tutorial for, rather than start a Vanguard....and if I'm getting flat shipping I may as well throw in a Vokker, too...even if they're metal vs resin from the UK store.

And then there's the new brushes and matte medium coming from Blick....

[ghost]

Awesome, man!  I have to get some photos on here for you guys to critique.  I find that my painting has pretty much blown away any time I have for gaming.  I was considering getting the Secret World but said fuck it and bought some Warhammer Dwarves. 

[Miasma]

What's happening f13 wise?  Should I do the paypal or not?

[schild]

Castle Story is certainly a thing.

I'll be putting up the f13 donation drive in a week or so. It won't be on Kickstarter. Frankly, I don't want to give them 20% of the money.

[ghost]

They take 20%?  Fuck that.  You should come up with a competing service that does it for 10%. 

[Torinak]

They take 20%?  Fuck that.  You should come up with a competing service that does it for 10%. 

How Kickstarter Works says they take 5%, and Amazon takes another 3-5% for credit card processing.

[ghost]

That seems a lot more reasonable. 

[schild]

Don't know where I got 20% from. Huh.

[Malakili]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game

John Carmack has been talking about VR at QuakeCon this week and is working with this.  For 300 bucks you can get a dev kit.  The thing isn't anywhere near consumer ready, but damned if it isn't tempting to spend 300 bucks to dig into this thing.

[Furiously]

640x480 screens tells me it's not worth spending a penny one.

[caladein]

640x480 screens tells me it's not worth spending a penny one.

Where'd you get that from? "Resolution: 1280x800 (640x800 per eye)"

That's still not amazing going off of Carmack's QuakeCon keynote though.

[Krakrok]

Kind of a cool retro arcade hack and slash game.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1829034266/volgarr-the-viking

[Viin]

The guys behind Zombicide started a new game:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/relic-knights

[Mrbloodworth]

You have about 30 minutes to get in on something at a decent price that might actually be pretty cool:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console

Dear god.

59,385
Backers
$8,029,042
pledged of $950,000 goal
9
hours to go

[Sky]

The guys behind Zombicide started a new game:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/relic-knights

Some REALLY nice minis in that KS and they've not even begun stretch stuff. I wonder if CMoN is underestimating KS fatigue, though. ZC, SW, Red Box, Reaper, Mantic; that's a lot of mini KS in a pretty short period.

Even though I'm not huge into anime, if this KS happened a year from now, I'd be all over it. As it is, I just have to pass because I've got something like 300 minis on the way and no funds in the wallet.

[sickrubik]

Oh good, I was hoping for a minis game that makes me feel even more immature for playing it.

[Viin]

Even though I'm not huge into anime, if this KS happened a year from now, I'd be all over it. As it is, I just have to pass because I've got something like 300 minis on the way and no funds in the wallet.

I agree with your thoughts here - too much too soon saps the wallet and will. They should space these out more. Have they even delivered on their first KS?

[Ingmar]

Oh good, I was hoping for a minis game that makes me feel even more immature for playing it.

Yeah, this is what we needed, TERA art that people will see you playing with. /shudder

[Sky]

Have they even delivered on their first KS?

"They" (CMoN) are just the publishers (afaik). All three CMoN kickstarters are being produced by different companies, so it's not really an accurate question.

However, I believe Zombicide is shipping currently, about to, or something like that. International customers are bitching because US customers are being fulfilled first.