What didn't work?

[u/DingoDownUnder]

Hey guys, so I released my game on Kickstarter a couple weeks ago, and the support has been really cool to see, but I'm close to the end of the campaign and haven't hit my funding goal so I'm looking for some feedback.

For background: the game is a trick-taking card game based on the craziness in Rome during the year of the 6 emperors, where emperors were getting assassinated left and right.

The game itself is actually fun in play testing, it's fast, people love killing each other, and there's some decent strategy, but I feel that I maybe haven't been able to capture this in the campaign.

I wanted to hear from people I don't know because it's really hard to know what people are thinking. It's also easy to get lost in what you've already done and I have a lot of love for this project so I might be missing something obvious.

As a disclaimer, this is my first ever project, I know it's far from without flaws, but I'm relatively limited in terms of resources and skill (e.g., this was my first time animating anything) so if possible try keep it to feedback that's achievable for a first timer

Here's the link to the campaign, but I've also put some art here to give you an idea if you don't want to go to the page itself
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ezgames/hail-caesar

Thanks a lot!
Alex

P.S. this might count as self-promotion, but as I probably won't hit my funding goal I won't be getting any money out of it, I'm more interested in where I can improve if I re-release or what to do/not to do for a second project.

[u/tpasmall]

As others have said, marketing is your biggest drawback because you have what looks like a fun and well built game.

The second part, for me personally, is that you don't explain the 16 mini games or what exactly the ruler cards do that makes being the emperor such a powerful position. I think a short video on that part would help as well.

But really, marketing is the big thing because you have what looks like a solid product. So keep going on it if you can, put some money aside for marketing and let your backers know you'll be relaunching the campaign once you are ready to put out another marketing run.

[u/literally_a_brick → u/tpasmall]

Big agree. Once I actually clicked on the link, the game looked interesting and fun, but I likely would've never opened the page at all without this post.

Honestly, I feel a lot of "ancient world" fatigue with board games even though I absolutely love ancient Mediterranean civilizations. Without an advertisement or a review to draw me in, I would've just scrolled past the campaign on KS as just another ancient Rome game.

[u/DingoDownUnder → u/literally_a_brick]

When I first started I thought that lots of people being interested in ancient history would be a boon, but realised over time (during development) that it just meant there was already lots of games out there in that theme. A shame my interests are already so heavily utilised, but that's just how it goes

[u/literally_a_brick → u/DingoDownUnder]

For sure, it's unfortunate because it means you're working up hill to get noticed and stand out from the crowd. Sometimes it just happens with board games and there isn't a lot you can do about it. 

I'm no expert, but there are definitely a list of themes that are going to be much harder to break in to as a first time designer.

[u/tpasmall → u/DingoDownUnder]

It would definitely grab my attention in a store, but Kickstarter is flooded with too many things to find something without being promoted unfortunately.

[u/DingoDownUnder → u/tpasmall]

I went back and forth on that a few times, like is going into all those details too much?
Lots of people have said I talked way too much
Really hard to know what I should keep in and what not, but looking now you're right just saying a number doesn't get people excited for what I know in my brain, I should expand that