Driving Awareness

The challenge from six months ago continues on today, how to get people interested in a game they have never heard of from a person they don't know and a company that has no history.  This is very difficult to do in such a broad and exciting hobby world.
One thing some games and other businesses like to do is contests and giveaways.  I have mentioned giving away a copy of Duel of the Dragons, and will be doing that again.  That can get expensive though, and only gets a prize to a few people.
In Legends of Novus the best visual to the game is the art.  Andrea Butera continues to amaze me with his character and creature work for Novus.  Boris Turano is doing a magnificent job with creating eye catching locations that capture this amazing world we have now created together through story, game mechanics, and art.
So it makes sense to try and share that with people while advertising the game and trying to earn email subscribers (who may end up backing the game later on or sharing the game/links with friends).

This resulted in a decision to offer 12 photo posters, just 8x10s, to give away to random people on the email list the day before the Kickstarter.  I will be promoting it for a full month in hopes to gain more and more email subscribers who like the art and want a chance to win one.  The cost of printing an 8x10 is fairly low (compared to giving away a game or other physical item).

I will share a post stating how many more subscribers this helped bring in during the next blog entry.  Hoping this can gather at least 100 more people in the coming weeks.  That may not sound like much, but again this is an unknown game in a well populated game setting (fantasy).

Here is the Ad Poster....

Updated Components and Art

The past week has been a tremendous time of improvement for the art and graphics of Novus!  I have been working on fine tuning wording and mechanics, playthroughs and social media exposure while Andrea has been working day and night at graphic design for the map, cards, and icons in the game.

The result is a new and improved look to nearly every aspect of Legends of Novus that we feel players are going to fall in love with when they see it, both on their screens (via website, FB, and KS), and when it hits their tables if they choose to support it.

This is not a project that has gotten this far overnight, it has been almost 12 months of daily commitment, from 1 hour on busy nights to 5-6 hours when time is available.  And its not over yet, the next four weeks require even more time and energy to create awareness of the KS campaign, develop video content, make sure rules book is fully understandable one more time, amongst other things.  Then there's 30 days of KS madness, a fun and critical time where I will get to interact with backers and reviewers, and maybe even some media depending on how it goes over.

Here are some updated images of icons and components to see how it is progressing!

Happy New Year!!! The Year of Novus!

It's the beginning of a new and exciting year, 2019 is here!
FunDaMental Games had a small game launch via Kickstarter in 2018, and all backers have now received their game copies.  The game is considered successful in my opinion, in that it was manufactured to the identified quality/specifications, communications were maintained via KS comments/updates and regular emails with the backers, and the product was delivered on time (a rarity in the KS gaming world).

Legends of Novus is less than 50 days away to its KS launch now, and time will feel in very short supply as I attempt to finish the KS campaign pages, conduct a new live playthrough with four players, get a video of the KS completed with a professional photographer/video editor, and finalize details on the core components of the game with the manufacture.  A lot to do, but I feel it is very important to get this completed in the early part of the year and aim for the Feb 19th launch date so that the artists can finalize their work and aim for a December delivery date again to the backers.

To support communication I have launched a new Game Giveaway, of some extra copies of Duel of the Dragons I had made just in case their were shipping/damage issues for the backers.  This will help gain some new email subscribers and awareness of FunDaMental Games prior to the LoN launch date.
Also, very new to me, is the function of paid advertising via FaceBook.  Right now just doing Boosted Ads with links to the email subscription for the game, then closer to KS the ads will be based on Legends of Novus awareness targeting gamers in highly populated areas of the US and Canada (and a little bit in Europe as well).

To anyone reading this post (whether now or months from now if you happen to look back on it), I hope that this year marks a new and fantastic journey as a game developer and producer in the coming year(s).  Creating this small company, investing countless hours of time and energy, and investing in Adobe, art, advertisements, and videos, and creating all of these groups/sites is a big risk to take if nothing comes of it down the road.  Nothing comes without some form of risk though, and there is quote that says you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so this is my big shot this year.  Lets see if it can score!

Constant Progress

I have read and heard that no game is ever truly complete, it just gets created at a point in time when the designer/producer are satisfied that they have a product that delivers the gaming experience they wanted to share.
There are always new images, designs, components, and mechanics that can be introduced to improve or alter the game.  In Legends of Novus the possibilities are endless as to what could change to improve the interface and player experience, such as:

• Adding Minatures vs Standees
• Adding Dials vs token tracking for combat/XP
• Making Character Sheets out of material other than paper
• Making Coins out of plastic vs cardboard (or even metal)
• Changing the size of cards smaller for less table space impact
• and many, many more..

Since I am completing LoN as the only designer for FunDaMental Games, I have to decide which improvements or changes are worth doing, and which are not.  The reasons to make these decisions have to be considered for various reasons, a short list of those are:

• Cost of Components (affects publisher and consumer)
• Weight of Components (increases shipping fees)
• Impact to game play (more/less complex, is it necessary, etc)
• Physical considerations (ie Mini Cards hard to hold compared to poker cards), etc.
• Cost of Art for new pieces/components
• and again, many, many more.

Working with the talented artist, Andrea Butera, has been very beneficial for graphic design, and new art content.  With his support there are many changes that will be implemented, and all with the intent improving the visual and physical interactions with components.  Each of the considerations above were thought out and the decision to change has been determined to improve the game.

See below for some new art / images for coins and standees, excited to see these new options for the game!

New Prototypes

The GameCrafter version 2 prototypes arrived on Monday and I am loving the new look to the cards.  The board also looked much more presentable with the white text/black dropshadow.
After creating new character sheets/rules/location guides at staples it is now time to send out prototypes to previewers/reviewers!

As of right now there will be one copy going the The Bearded Meeple, in London, Ontario, Canada and another copy going to We're Not Wizards over in Scotland.

The hope is that these couple of avid game players may enjoy their initial plays of Legends of Novus, and be willing to give it a positive video to help raise awareness for the game pre-KS and during KS.
Here is a screen shots of the newest game:

Making Links

One of the common things I see in every successful KS campaign is having links to external information.

There is only so many images and words that you can (or want) to put directly on your KS page.  Much of the info you provide most people may just skim over or click out of anyhow, so don't waste their time making a mile long KS page if you can leave some of it out via linked images/pdfs/videos.

For Legends of Novus I really want to share as much as I can about the backstories of the characters, the creatures, and the locations.  If I put all of that into the KS campaign it would be massive, and tough to digest for those who just want to read how to play it.

So that's where links come in.  Using my website as a holding station for all of the documents I want to refer to, I was able to create images that were uniform in size and font for the KS for each character, quest creature, and region of Novus.  But I did not include any story in there, just a note that says you can click on them to learn more.  This is a strategy I saw used to good effect in the KS game "Unbroken", so thank you to Artem for that useful trick ( I am sure others have used it also, but this one stood out to me).

When someone clicks on the image or word (basically anywhere on the embedded jpeg) there is a link to a PDF that is saved on my games website.  This PDF shows the character sheet/story, quest card/story, and location story for the applicable links.

I hope that those who really want to read about the world I've created spend a few minutes reading those.  But for those that don't, at least they still see the art and names of those places and will understand some time and thought have gone into the world design.

If you aren't sure how to do these things feel free to reach out, I would be happy to help you do the same!

Here is an example of some of the Quest Creature link jpegs, and the direct link to Osira story:

Osira Link

What Versions to Include

Variety is the spice of life, and Options generally increases potential interest in gaming groups and across different types of people.
Deciding what type of play styles are available in your game could help reach people beyond your initial idea, and encourage you to make parts of your game slightly different in a good way.

For me that decision came when trying to figure out if Legends of Novus should be just a multiplayer competitive game, or if other play styles should be included.  After thinking about the way the game plays, and how it could be altered, I felt it could be adapted.  So then I had to look at the Pros and Cons..

PROS
- More modes means more accessibility to players, be it solo, duel, or up to five players.
- Easier to share/advertise the game across different FB sites, IG, and Reddit.  IE you cannot try to share your 2-5 player game to a solo boardgame group, or a competitive game to a Co-op group.
- Easier to get people to playtest, as some groups will only playtest certain styles of games.
- Ability to produce game cards specific to styles of play (add/remove during game setup)

CONS
- More rules are required to be printed in the rulebook, which creates additional pages (adding to cost of production and weight of shipping, even if it is minor).
- Cost of additional games cards, if created.
- Requires more playtesting than just one version.  Each version will have unique rule sets that have to be tested to see if the game is still playable in that format.
- People may interpret the game as going in too many directions, not focused enough on one game style.

There are easily more factors to add to the above lists, but the ones above are the core ones that come to mind when making the decision.  I am going to forge ahead with the four versions and see how it is accepted on FB and on KS early next year.  If it receives too much negative criticism then it will be a lesson learned and a change to make prior to a relaunch.

Better get to playtesting these different styles some more!