Interesting Kickstarter Catch-All

Those looking to get cheap Move controllers listen up: I saw them for $30 at Walmart today.

SuperDave wrote:

Those looking to get cheap Move controllers listen up: I saw them for $30 at Walmart today.

Nice! Thanks for the heads up Dave.

Got the stuff from the Dreadball kickstarter today.

So, I've backed 19... two or three didn't make it to begin with, and most of them are in-process (like Ogre, and the Double Fine Project). I have actually received the proceeds of just two.

The only one I'm really disappointed about, right now, is Ogre. I figured Steve Jackson would know how to ship a game, after doing it for so long. But I think he got overexcited at how much money was coming in, and kind of gave away the store... I suspect he may not actually turn a profit at all. He took in $923,680, and says he just sent a check for $548,000 to the printer, and I'm thinking that's not leaving him much margin for shipping or extra goodies. Unless that's going to leave him with substantially more inventory than what he needs to cover the Kickstarter, I bet he'll lose at least $100K on the project... he's got a ton of swag and shipping expenses to cover with the remaining $375K.

Right now, he's saying that April is the earliest possible ship date -- original date was November. Sigh. And, realistically, that probably means June. But, I do have to admit, the videos of what they're doing look very, very cool. I'm quite sure it will be awesome when it shows up.

Malor wrote:

The only one I'm really disappointed about, right now, is Ogre. I figured Steve Jackson would know how to ship a game, after doing it for so long. But I think he got overexcited at how much money was coming in, and kind of gave away the store... I suspect he may not actually turn a profit at all.

I'll be interested to see what SJ says about his Kickstarter experience in the next stakeholders' report. Ogre is his baby, and he'd been wanting for years to get a new edition out, without having the time or resources to spare on a niche product.

Didn't ogre also blow way past the original goal? That seems to be a recurring issue with many physical projects...

Edit: it couldn't have done too poorly on the margins since they've referenced a Car Wars KS is in the cards for 2013.

shoptroll wrote:

Edit: it couldn't have done too poorly on the margins since they've referenced a Car Wars KS is in the cards for 2013.

Wasn't that introduced via one of the stretch goals for the Ogre KS? It might be more a consequence of overexcitement than a carefully-considered venture.

(But I'm still hoping that it happens, and that I have more money to spare when it does than I did during the Ogre one...)

misplacedbravado wrote:
Malor wrote:

The only one I'm really disappointed about, right now, is Ogre. I figured Steve Jackson would know how to ship a game, after doing it for so long. But I think he got overexcited at how much money was coming in, and kind of gave away the store... I suspect he may not actually turn a profit at all.

I'll be interested to see what SJ says about his Kickstarter experience in the next stakeholders' report. Ogre is his baby, and he'd been wanting for years to get a new edition out, without having the time or resources to spare on a niche product.

I'm interested to hear as well, but seeing that his original plan was to produce OGRE at a loss buoyed by Munchkin's revenue, I think he's willing to turn a razor thin margin on this.

That original order had to include the entire first shipment not just the kickstarter games. It looks like they will have a commercial release about the same time as when the kicked versions get out.

Just came across this one: Nubuwo Winter Bundle

Looking for $8k to produce a DVD on a chip tunes festival from Tokyo, featuring dozens of albums as rewards.

$7 gets your four albums, $10 adds another four albums, and $45 gets you the DVD with another album thrown in.

IMAGE(http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/jeriaska/nubuwo-winter-bundle-transformative-videogame-musi/minichart.png)

I've always got a huge nerd-on for chip tunes, and seriously want to see this happen.

Guilds of Cadwallon

25$ gets you the game and all stretches EXCEPT a sturdy gameboard which is 15$ extra.

(Triple cross-post combo!)

A new edition of ye olde small-unit card wargame Up Front is on Kickstarter, from the folks that 'started D-Day Dice and Airborne in Your Pocket.

It smashed its funding goal ages ago, and now it's all stretch rewards.

$40 gets you the base game (US vs. Ger) and all stretch rewards, $125 gets you the base game and all expansions (USSR, UK, Ita, Jpn, Fra) and all stretch rewards (and amounts in between get you the base game, expansion(s) of your choosing, and all stretch rewards). So you're looking at somewhere between 1,000+ and 2,000+ cards.

The stretch rewards are mainly other nationalities (e.g. Finns, Canadians, Poles, SS, USMC, etc), and the $200k stretch reward is a leather-bound rulebook. It's at $170k right now.

I never played the original, but I'm thinking about getting in on this, with Brits (so I can play proper Canucks) and maybe Soviets too (winter! Finns!). Deadline is January 2nd.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/28...

I thought this was both a neat idea and a good cause. Use gravity to power a light almost like a grandfather clock. This light is cheap and can easily be used in third world countries. Also great for camping and power outages.

You contribute to send one to test in a thrid world country and then you can get one for yourself. Already hit their goal, but stretch goals include developing charging stations for phones among other things.

manta173 wrote:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/28...

I thought this was both a neat idea and a good cause. Use gravity to power a light almost like a grandfather clock. This light is cheap and can easily be used in third world countries. Also great for camping and power outages.

You contribute to send one to test in a thrid world country and then you can get one for yourself. Already hit their goal, but stretch goals include developing charging stations for phones among other things.

Seems pretty cool. I wonder how attainable their "$5 cost" goal is though, the things don't look cheap.

Well, good thing we have the saying, "Judge a book by its cover."

manta173 wrote:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/28...

I thought this was both a neat idea and a good cause. Use gravity to power a light almost like a grandfather clock. This light is cheap and can easily be used in third world countries. Also great for camping and power outages.

You contribute to send one to test in a thrid world country and then you can get one for yourself. Already hit their goal, but stretch goals include developing charging stations for phones among other things.

It's either a hoax or naivete. Either way it won't work as advertised. Don't waste your money.

Math:
Gravitational potential energy is roughly mgh at constant acceleration (normal world applications). That thing looked like it had a one meter descent arm. If the weight is 10 kg (~22 lbs), then the stored PE is 98 joules. 1m*10kg*9.8m/sec^2

A high efficiency LED typical for indoor uses takes about 6 watts minimum. (Wikipedia, typical high efficiency LED data sheet, Another HE-LED producer etc) A watt is a joule per second. So at 6 watts and 100% efficiency, the thing has the energy for 16 seconds of light. This is linearly dependent on mass and arm length, so doubling the travel distance doubles the time. Translation: if the weight drops 2 meters, the time is 32 seconds. This is all done at 100% efficiency. 50% efficiency is good, so half the above.

You could extend the time by making the light dimmer. By the time you get down below a watt, your light is so dim you can't do much. However you can get a run time in excess of a minute per lift for a 1m travel. At 1W, the LED is glowing enough you could probably find a keyhole in a door.

Edited for clarity

There are a few interesting threads about UpFront at BGG. I suggest people read them before backing the project. They're to do with someone owed money, court judgements and so on. It's quite complex and should be considered carefully.

I'm thinking of backing it, but I've still got a few days' thinking to do.

If you could point to a thread, that would be great. The current ones seem to be full of people happy with the response of the publisher to questions about cards, viability and the like.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article...

http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/14...

Of course there are several sides to each story. It's all a bit confusing. I want to back it. I can see good reasons for doing so and ones that give me pause (some unrelated to the situation described).

Since the leather rule book was achieved, I'm almost certainly backing it before the deadline. I'm pretty confident it'll be go through (but be quite late—that's a lot of cards for one man to illustrate). Come on, Black Devils!

Gravey wrote:

Since the leather rule book was achieved, I'm almost certainly backing it before the deadline. I'm pretty confident it'll be go through (but be quite late—that's a lot of cards for one man to illustrate). Come on, Black Devils!

Yeah, I'm very likely going to be in for the full kit by the end of it. I mean, c'mon, how many WW2 games do a proper treatment of all the various nationalities and partisan forces being represented here?
I really hope they make it to $275k so we can get the bag for all these cards.

And maybe some Campaign rules.

Definitely trending to beat 275k, so it looks like we'll get the whole shebang. Really good deal, according to what they're planning to retail it for, over $400 of product for $125. With the usual KS risk attached, of course.

Seems Elite: Dangerous might actually make it with four days to go. They made quite a jump up in two days.

Sparhawk wrote:

Seems Elite: Dangerous might actually make it with four days to go. They made quite a jump up in two days.

Damn. :/

Veloxi wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:

Seems Elite: Dangerous might actually make it with four days to go. They made quite a jump up in two days.

Damn. :/

Bite me

No.

jonnypolite wrote:

No.

Can you go into more detail? I'm trying to decide what to do, so hearing other people's thoughts is useful.

I don't have a problem dealing with the players, i don't have a stake in their disputes. I've seen some chatter about it on BGG, but it's just not worth it to me personally to delve into. I don't know the truth of the matter, none of us can really. I do know that I want this property out, it's a game long out of print, worth a high value on the secondary market, and worth being out in a new edition for new players. On a personal note, I'm willing to risk the capital for it, both in terms of the usual KS risk, and the risk of some other litigation entering in to muck things up.

I actually own all the Up Front previously released, and i still want to buy in, it's a great game.

Thanks Johnny, those are good points.

Yeah, there's nothing but speculation on the part of forumites over the legal issues, so I've nothing to really to make a decision on. In any case, the shenanigans such as they may be don't involve Up Front specifically; and D-Day Dice has already successfully shipped and Airborne In Your Pocket will be out the door soon too.