I’ve never launched a Kickstarter campaign in my life. I can’t even begin to know what you’d need to do to in order to launch a successful Kickstarter campaign.

But Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games does. He and Alan Stone have launched several very successful campaigns, funding Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia, Viticulture and other projects via Kickstarter.

Not only that. Jamey, true to his own lessons, shares his experiences through a series of blog posts ranging from how to build a brand (tip: don’t try to sell, help others, and keep sharing) to the intricacies of shipping and fulfillment. (more…)

I’ll never support another Kickstarter in my life, I swear! There, I’ve said it. I’ve shown myself to be a heathen, an anti-developmentalist and probably an internet-hater as well.

Or I might have come to some conclusions about myself.

See, I’m bad at recognizing games. Some people are great at it. I know several of them. D. can look at a new game and go “oh, it’s a cross between Candyland and World in Flames”. He doesn’t even need to skim the rules. A. reads the rules and has a perfect image of not only how the game plays but also of the winning strategies. S. watches a gameplay video and can tell you if the game is broken. Me, I’m a chump. (more…)

There’s gotta be something wrong with the world when a game, that’s barely a game at all from what I’ve been able to see on their Kickstarter page, garners 200 000 backers and $8,8 million. That’s double the amount of backers that the children’s literacy project Reading Rainbow managed to attract, and Reading Rainbow only made $5,4 million.

Exploding Kittens is a highly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette. Players take turns drawing cards until someone draws an exploding kitten and loses the game.

This can’t be about the game – there’s not enough information about it except how it got started: (more…)