3 Ideas for Better Kickstarter Rewards

This whole train of thought began a long time ago with a post by Ze Frank, who ran a Kickstarter campaign to bring his show back.

"I am surprised by the number of campaigns that offer higher value physical goods at low reward tiers. This is basically a pre-order strategy, which although potentially effective, might mask supporters’ genuine interest in just helping out. I would strongly recommend... thinking about personalized virtual and physical goods that are lower in cost but greater in love." - Ze Frank

Greater In Love

It is this point that I'd like to extend way beyond where I probably should. My bias here is that I frequently fund projects for less than the cost of the physical good simply because I like the project and want to stay updated on it. Ze Frank would say I am a supporter with a "genuine interest in just helping out." But I rarely am able to choose a reward because my behavior is unlikely to be considered when planning reward tiers.

Three things really stick out in my mind as methods of offering rewards that are greater in love and I want to spend some time on each one. They are:

• Early-Bird Offers
• Pledges of Future Sales
• Lines of Communication

Early-Bird Offers

Backers who find your project early will be ardent supporters. Especially in America, the desire to be in on something before it grows to be popular is intoxicating. Browse a few projects and you'll see that a common strategy to serve this audience is through offering a limited number of price-reduced rewards.

I'm going to kick myself if this catches on because right now I've saved quite a bit of money on early-bird offers, but I really think that price-reduction is the wrong strategy. Many potential backers that find your page early would probably be willing to pay full price. Instead, why not offer your early-birds something personal?

Do something that comes through the mail. A letter of thanks or a name on a website is fine for those $1 tiers, but having something to hold, that you know was created just for you, is a great feeling. When board game projects offer pieces of the original game art and prototypes, I'm always tempted. Even a personal letter of thanks for those that helped you out early can be extremely meaningful. While I'm at it, don't offer so many early-bird rewards; keep them special.

Pledges of Future Sales

Project authors have many ways to convey the idea that being part of a project on Kickstarter is a special experience. But rarely do I see them accommodating potential backers that aren't yet ready to drop money on physical goods.

Many valid reasons exist for people's aversion to give you money. A big one is the unknown potential for failure but an even bigger one, I'd argue, is that the physical good is a deferred gratification.

Find a way to help these people give you some money. A great way to do so is to have a pledge level at around the $5 mark that gives them access as many of the Kickstarter exclusives as possible, even after the project is funded.

For the most part, this access will be the ability to get the physical good you're offering before the general public. If I'm skeptical about your project, but really want the physical good you're offering, this is my dream come true. When backers start to receive their rewards and love them, I can rest  assured knowing that I'll be one of the first to receive my order from the official orders.

If you can, allow these backers to also get access to the Kickstarter-exclusive version of the product. One of the common exclusives projects offer is that their product is available in green only on Kickstarter.

Finally, it's worth noting that you should bear in mind that these users may up their pledges before the project is over. If it doesn't look like your project is going to meet its funding goal, having users waiting in the wings at these low pledge levels is an easy way to get new funding.

Feedback Rewards

Your most invested backers want nothing more than to have their voice heard. Why not make it part of your rewards?

Many projects have prototypes, digital items, and other bits that need to be reviewed and tested before the physical good is finalized. You know who would be a great tester? People who paid extra for and selected a tier that would let them do this.

If you're not totally done with development and you could still use some new ideas, or are trying to choose between various options, you can get some quality feedback without being overwhelmed. Kickstarter lets you send messages based on reward level, so this type of communication is already baked in.

It doesn't stop there, many projects will want to test to make sure their products ship safely, how long it takes for them to be received, and gain feedback on the unboxing experience. People will pay dearly to help you. Keep that in mind.

What Do I Know?

Please don't follow these ideas to the letter. I don't know what will actually work for you. But I think these lines of thought are great places to start. Offer rewards that are lower in cost but greater in love.

Use Kickstarter Updates To Your Advantage

"Backers told me that they enjoyed projects that had interesting updates throughout the campaign that conveyed the aforementioned passion. But after a few weeks, backers started to focus on a different side of communication: post-Kickstarter updates... Time after time, backers told me that all they really wanted were regular updates (once every few weeks) that gave them a behind-the-scenes look into what was happening and provided honest insights into the progress, whether it was good or bad. I have the feeling that many of these backers had been scarred by some negative experiences where they didn’t hear from a creator for long stretches of time during delayed projects. That’s just a guess. But this was the advice that I heard the most often, by far, so it’s something I will pay particular attention to in the coming weeks." - Jamey Stegmaier

I don't really care about sourcing my opinions, but I really felt that I couldn't write this article until I had a little bit of information to back this up. I've seen far too much debate on other sites about whether backers want the product or the experience to share an unsubstantiated opinion and open myself up to a pointless argument.

As Kickstarter matures, as there will be higher profile failures made public, as people become better educated, they will continue to add more and more indicators of potential success to their mental checklist. One of them is the frequency and quality of updates.

What's an Update?

Each Kickstarter project has a blog where the project own can let everyone know what's going on. Project owners have two options: public updates and backer-only updates. Both types of updates should be used with almost equal frequency.

Public updates will give potential backers a flavor of what to expect from the backer-only updates. Use updates to provide reassurance, openness, and responsiveness. If a potential backer visits your page and is on the fence, seeing that there 1) there are updates and 2) the updates indicate a a high level of dedication from the project owner, they are likely to be swayed.

Backer-only updates create a community, a feeling of getting your money's worth, and can help prevent buyer's remorse. It's the best place to provide calls to action, enlisting an army of backers to get more people involved. On top of all this goodness, potential backers will see that these posts in the feed as backer-only updates but won't be able to read the content. It's yet another way to bait potential backers into becoming part of your project.

Stick With It

Maybe I need to provide an extreme example of the importance of project updates. Republique, a Kickstarter project attempting to make a reference-quality video game for mobile devices struggled for almost the entire duration of the project. Their updates revealed new information about the project, they shared videos of meetings where they discussed compromises they may have to make to get the project funded, they called on the help of their backers to get the word out. It really looked like their funding was going to fail until it suddenly picked up toward the very end of the project.

Kickstarter projects are work because you can't depend on your product selling itself. Were that true, you wouldn't need Kickstarter. You are marketing, community building, and documenting all at once.

Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter Project

I backed a pretty cool project on Kickstarter a while ago that promised a toy car that was propelled using only magnets and a lever. Then I got an email that they had canceled their project. I kept a tab open in my browser to the company's web site to see what direction they were heading in now that they had ditched Kickstarter. To my delight, they posted a long, rambling, conspiracy-theory-filled rant.

"Cancelling[sic] a project is never an easy thing to do, and it leaves everyone with a sour taste, but sometimes it is necessary. In this case we believe it was necessary for the reasons above. That said, we also believe we have gotten out of a dead-end bad situation just prior to is[sic] becoming detrimental to our morale and more importantly for the sake of our product and our thousands of fans waiting for one, as Kickstarter had already expended too much of our time."

Read it. It's really funny and has all sorts of gripes both real and imagined about Kickstarter. It's fascinating to say the least.

It's an odd feeling to be grateful that a Kickstarter project has been canceled. I don't worry about many of the things that Jeff ranted about, but I do worry whether the companies I choose to give money to are run by crazies.

"Liberty" Kickstarter Project Feedback

One of the things I want to do through this site is give solicited feedback to Kickstarter project owners, hopefully before they launch their projects. Travis Vengroff reached out to the Funding the Dream with Kickstarter LinkedIn group I follow asking for feedback on his project, Liberty: A Comic Book Series. Below is what I sent Travis and his response:

My Feedback

At the beginning, I love to hear the professions of the creators. Tell your potential backers who you actually are, what city you live in, what your current job is right now (not what you aspire to). It piques my interest when I hear about someone with a full time job aspire to the type of project they are currently pitching. It means there's a story and we all like stories.

I didn't much care about seeing a picture of your partner. I still want to know a little about him, but you're the focus of the video and it's easier for me to get emotionally invested in the story of one person.

You state the number of issues without touching on why it matters. Later in the video, you explain that you have to do all 15 issues to be able to release monthly. I think you can just leave it out and say that it's a "series".

You say you were working on it for the last couple of years without any context. Adding something simple like "This has been a passion project of ours for the past couple of years." would help a ton.

Your list of "this is for you" things didn't resonate with me, but I still like the overall idea of the video. Be careful about saying things that people can use to put your idea into a box. It's better to appear new and original, which I think your story is.

I would have stopped watching at the 1 minute mark. I would have stopped because I didn't know where the video was going and I wasn't invested in watching it.

You introduced the video by saying "So what's it about?" rather than introducing it. Say "I'd like to show you a quick video introducing the world of the comic book series along with some of the drawings we've done so far. After that, I'd like to tell you more about our journey so far and what rewards we're offering." I'll sit through a video if I know the project author will be back to explain their passion.

My thoughts about the story introduction:

"Too afraid of uniting the rioters and anarchists that have become concerned with infighting..." Do you mean integrating? I think locking them all out would unite them. And do you mean just normal fighting instead of infighting? Infighting implies they are fighting amongst themselves, so why would the city be worried?

Why did you add the bit about technology becoming foreign? It seems like they'd forget their Earth-based roots just because it's been so long.

There are a few jumps in the explanation that assumes we're going to be okay with huge plot introductions. You say that they're "stuck inside a giant web of government control" instead of saying "The government has resorted to control and propaganda which the citizens find themselves stuck in". You also say that "still feel that they are better off than the savage cannibals" without explaining that the area outside of the city has devolved into cannibalism.

I would add "Our story focuses on the population of the inner city". There is a lot of focus early on about those locked out of the city and I had assumed they'd be a focus of the story as well.

After the Video:

There was no break between the comic introduction and going back into the story of the project. It would help to see you back on camera at least for a few seconds so that I can switch my brain over to a new type of content.

Overall:

I would say that the thing you need to be careful of is when things are unequivocally stated. Just pay attention for statements that don't build on previous thoughts and try to either transition into them or leave them out.

His Response

First, thank you. This is absolutely fantastic! 

I was starting to lose faith when another person who messaged me started to explain that I shouldn't ask people for money I needed to complete the project. :p

After revising my page a bunch of times I started to lose the a fresh perspective on what i'd written, so I'm going to make most (if not all) of your suggested revisions once I get to my editing computer in an hour or so because I think your comments are spot on. It also gives me an excuse to re-record some of the guitar parts for the music track. If you're able to, please respond sooner than later as i'm going to start work on this shortly.

Launching Without Superlatives

Alex Hillman:

Here’s the fun part, and where Kickstarter’s stats start to lend credence to a different dynamic.

By bringing your supporters into the project, they can share in the beliefs that you believe and know and so that they can realize that they are a part of the world that you have access to, without having to use the bombastic claims.

And then when the superlatives come, it’s from your fans, not you.

They want what you want, just as much as you do (or more).

I was going to write this, and now I don't have to

Kickstarter Should Be Exclusive

Of all the things you could possibly do to create a backer revolt, the worst would be to sell your product, with exactly the same price and benefits, outside of Kickstarter without telling your backers. The topic of exclusivity is a great tool in understanding a lot of the emotional underpinnings Kickstarter creates.

Exclusivity has been something I've wanted to write about for a while. I just posted an article on how trailers should be used in Kickstarter projects and this topic pairs really well with it. Before I forge ahead, there are a few things that, if you're doing, you probably don't need to care about this stuff. If you have a polished trailer or a product that can be produced without the help of Kickstarter, most people have the expectation that they're simply pre-ordering. That's a whole other mess of problems I'll get to later.

Kickstarter is a club. You could also call it a tribe, as Seth Godin calls these types of communities. Breaking it down even further, each project has its own tribe, its own community, and its own whims. It grants its backers feelings that are hard to quantify but are basically the same ones that underly any community with a shared goal.

What you need to be mindful of is how fragile these emotions are. Many of the things that led a backer to buy in to your dream are projections of the things they want (apart from your project). 

One of these projections is a desire for discovery. Take a look at the attitudes of hipsters who insist they liked everything before it was cool or claim that the latest band that signed on a major label "sold out". Ever have a friend that recommended a book to you a few months after you recommended it to them?

If you want to really ramp up this feeling, consider being way  more aggressive with early bird offers. Reward those that find your project at the beginning as these people are probably huge fans of yours or the type of people who spend their leisure time seeking out interesting projects on Kickstarter.

Ensure that these feelings remain with these backers on Kickstarter. There is a temptation, especially with projects that could use the extra money, to try to attract sales outside of Kickstarter, or to open up a sales presence after Kickstarter ends. Not that there's anything wrong with driving as much funding to a project, you just need to be careful how you do it.

Be totally honest with your backers, you've (hopefully) already told them how important extra funds would be to your project. Inform them of how much worse the deal is going to be for those not on Kickstarter. Reiterate all the things they're getting that other aren't and how much sooner they're getting it.

You owe your backers. If you could have just gone out and put up a store, why didn't you do that? At worst, you're cashing in on the popularity your backers helped create. Just less than worse, you're behaving as if you didn't even need to come to Kickstarter in the first place. Either way, you could come across as if you didn't need your backers and didn't need Kickstarter.

Intersperse Your Demo In Your Kickstarter Video

You've done a lot of work and have a great demo or trailer of your product. Maybe you even hired a professional to put your trailer together. Everyone in the world should know about the wonderful work you've done!

Where they don't need to see it is in your project video. What I mean to say is that your demo or trailer should not appear in its entirety when you're introducing your project. Do you think your trailer speaks for itself? Do you think your demo explains your project? It explains your product maybe, whatever it is you're selling, but not your project.

Your product is definitely a huge part of your project, but there are so many other things that contribute to a potential backer's decision to give you money. Don't give people time to forget about these other motivations, they may stop watching your video.

If you have a great demo, split it up and explain it as you go. If you have an awesome trailer, talk it, how much work it was, who helped you with it. Put the full trailer elsewhere on your project page and let people know it's there. Even though your potential backers may not be expecting a trailer when they visit your project page, it may be a great resource for them to get others excited.

An example of the type of projects that do this well are board games. Because of the length of a good demo video, it has no place in a project video. It's common for board game projects to show bits and pieces of gameplay, even from the demo video, then provide a full demo video below.

What if you don't have a demo or trailer? If you're trying to kickstart the development of a product, you can still do a lot. Highlight the work you've done toward your product and demo it as if it's the product itself. Sketches you've done, notes you've written, and the connections you've made are like crack to potential backers.

Your Kickstarter Blurb

Kickstarter recently redesigned their project page. Putting the "blurb" (the short description of the project) on the project page is my favorite addition. I've always loved reading these little 140 character descriptions of projects, but it seems like most project creators don't spend a lot of time working on them.

Search results, project discovery, and the widgets all display the blurb. For these reasons, you should be clear and concise in describing your project as these are some very common ways people  find your project. Really, though, do you not have a 140 character summary of your project? If you don't, you're going to have a hard time pitching your project anywhere, not just on Kickstarter.

When you fill out your project page, Kickstarter provides the helpful text:

" If you had to describe your project in one tweet, how would you do it?"

Very few projects seem to follow Kickstarter's helpful advice. Check out @kickblurbs, where blurbs are taken out of context to show how meaningless, trite, or silly they can be.

"Hey everyone! please help"

Think of it this way: Someone may visit your project page, decide to share it with their friends, and look for a quick summary of your project to copy and paste. I am this sort of person and I share a lot of Kickstarter projects with my friends. Some projects provide me with not a single sentence that describes what they are doing or only do so in their project video.

It should be obvious by what's been said that you shouldn't write your blurbs in the first-person, using pronouns like I or we. Let me state it anyway: Write your blurb in a way that people can copy and paste it without having to change pronouns.

I forge ahead and write my own summary of the project, but many people will give up because they can't be bothered. They may love what you're doing, be overjoyed they're participating, but not care a bit if their friends miss out on it.

More

"You could have the most amazing idea in the world, but if you can’t communicate what it is to me (and your potential backers), then it’s going to be a hard sell." - Jonathan Liu

Are Slideshows Okay on Kickstater?

No. Stop being lazy.

A Likable Public Face In Your Kickstarter Video

Our fondest memories are usually stored away behind something that represents the memory. We typically call these representations "icons" of which some are intentional and others are not. Advertising agencies are well aware of this and you probably can look at a Coca-Cola or McDonald's logo right now that will trigger the recollection of a ton of great stories.

What you want to do with your Kickstarter video is to provide your backers a neat little icon they can direct their emotion toward. In some projects, the icon is the actual product. But the backbone of Kickstarter is projects that are still dreams, that are hard to visualize and think on. Yet these are the projects that most create feelings of hope, community, and passion.

I'm going to argue that the best icon you can present to people is yourself. If you sell yourself honestly, they will see themselves in you and sympathize with what you're doing. Your dream will become their dream and they will assume that the things they hope for are the things you hope for.

You can easily screw this up, though. To address one of the more common problems, some people simply don't want to appear on camera. Don't even waste a second worrying about this; get someone else to appear on video in your place. Have them be your advocate, don't explain why they're the ones presenting (and you're not), and make sure you educate them on your passion for the project so they can communicate it for you. Think about your most likable friend explaining "He loves working on this project so much, I came over one night to find him asleep next to one of his prototypes".

Another sure way to get things derailed is to divide the attention of your backers. Giving someone too many outlets for their emotion is a sure way to minimize its impact. Entire teams sometimes appear on Kickstarter videos, with each person getting equal screen time. Even jumping back and forth between two people can create confusion where there doesn't need to be any. An easy way to get around this (if you have to) is to have everyone in the same shot. You can still lose your potential backers again if you jump back and forth between people, so make sure there's a primary spokesperson at the center.

Finally, the hardest obstacle of all is when you're an unlikable person. Unfortunately, people tend to trust people they like. And Kickstarter has quite a bit to do with trust. If there's any doubt at all, get your most likable friend to be your advocate, as I outlined above for those afraid to appear on camera.

Think this whole thing is stifling your project? Don't forget that you can post as many videos as you want elsewhere on your project page. Just make sure you label them so that people have clear expectations about what they're getting themselves in to. If they want to meet the whole team, post a video that is clearly about meeting the whole team. If you are going to highlight your unlikable project owner, have fun with how you present it. Use self-deprecating adjectives, appear uncomfortable with the whole thing. A video titled "Grumpy Karl Finally Speaks" can make your character flaws endearing rather than abrasive.

Instant Gratification In Your Kickstarter Video

I look through a lot of Kickstarter projects each day. Being a programmer has allowed me to write a fun little script that writes out a neat list of projects that overcome some minimum criteria. Each project that shows up in this list is merely a title, a video, and the project blurb.

More often than not, after reading the blurb, I don't even watch the video. You can find a million articles on how to write a good tweet, and you should use those resources when crafting your blurb. What I want to talk about is the video.

If I'm really dedicated, I will wait 30 seconds to a minute for the actual project overview to be presented. Even then, a lot of it depends on how entertaining your filler is. Too many splash screens, title screens, "funny" editing mistakes and I'm out.

You need to appear on screen as quickly as you can, tell potential backers who you are, and tell them why they should keep watching.

Of that small list, the most important of all is to tell them who you are. Tell your potential backers who you actually are, what city you live in, what your current job is right now. Don't list the job you aspire to as if it's your actual job, it's disingenuous.

You're a plumber from Detroit? That's cool. I'm a programmer in Des Moines, I don't do anything fancy either. But you're presenting an art project? Interesting, I wonder what chain of events caused this plumber to decide to become an artist.

Now that I have a feeling for who you are and I'm curious about what brought you to Kickstarter, fill me in a little on what's going to happen. If you'll be showing a demo, let me know, I may stick around for that. Even if you're just going to do a single shot and talk the whole time, at least I know what to expect. But get this stuff out of the way quickly. You need to assure your potential backers that their time is valuable and this is a great way to do it.

Sharing "The Struggle" on Kickstarter

"Kickstarters are dreams, and that's their strength rather than their weakness. People back projects on Kickstarter to fund the development of a new creative work or a consumer product that might never see the light of day via traditional financing. But what if Kickstarter is more about the experience of kickstarting than it is about the finished products? When you fund something... you're not pre-ordering [something] that will be made and marketed, you're buying a ticket on the ride, reserving a front-row seat to the process and endorsing an idea. It's a Like button attached to your wallet." - Kickstarter: Crowdfunding Platform Or Reality Show? by Ian Bogost

You should really read the whole article, I'm not going to quote the whole thing. If nothing else, it serves to contrast some of the attitudes about what Kickstarter is. Ian is responding to  a Penny Arcade article written by Ben Kuchera on why he thinks one of the projects on Kickstarter doesn't deserve its hype.

What Ian describes with lots of words, I like to call "The Struggle". It's the one thing that, if absent from your project, could leave your backers missing out on that feeling Ian was describing.

The Struggle comes in many different forms. Ultimately, you are trying to convince people that they can have a hand in making some improvement to the world greater than their individual contribution. The Struggle in the project Ben was criticizing above is to unseat Nintendo, XBox,  and Playstation as the gatekeepers of console gaming. Disrupting established companies is a major thread in many of the highest funded projects on Kickstarter.

Don't worry, there's no need to claim that you will unseat a stalled-out industry. Just find a way to convey something about your project that people can help you overcome.

Simple example: a friend of mine was showing me his Kickstarter video for a project to upgrade from a food cart to a food van. After watching the very informative video there was a scene, presented as an aside at the very end of the video, that showed how much effort it was to push the cart around the town. It was The Struggle, but it wasn't even mentioned!

Let people know why you matter. Tell them what you're overcoming, even if it's as embarrassing as having to push a cart around in the summer heat. Don't be afraid to be proud if you've come up with something revolutionary, even if it's as nerdy as creating a new way to make a better chocolate bar. Allow for people to help you. Ask for help! The crowd will be there.

"Hello Kickstarters" is No Way to Address a Potential Backer

"My name is Neil. I am a human man. I have thoughts and feelings."

Every time someone refers to me as "Kickstarter" in their project video, that is what I tell myself. Am I the only person that finds it disconcerting to be addressed as an inanimate crowdfunding service?

Am I being too literal? Perhaps the project owner was simply addressing a crowd in this video I am watching by myself. Are there clubs I am missing out on that gather together by the soft glow of a single computer monitor?

"Hello internet". Hello Kickstarter". "Hello backers". "Hello Kickstarters".

Even if this trend doesn't creep anyone else out the way it creeps me out, it's still a bad idea. Inspiring people to consider they are part of a greater force is definitely a good idea, but you'll have plenty of time to convey this during the rest of your video. I want you to talk to me, like you're pitching directly to me, like my contribution is the most important thing to your campaign.

"Hi. Thanks for taking the time to watch my video."

But I think I may be giving these project owners too much credit. It's much more likely that speaking to me in the plural is a symptom of what could be much more detrimental to a project: a lack of perspective. You're not talking to a crowd, you're talking to a single person. You're selling to one person at a time. Keep this in mind throughout your project, from beginning to end. Each person that visits your project page, that watches your video, that sends you a message is unique. Ask a backer what part of your pitch persuaded them to go ahead and back it and you will get a wide variety of answers.

Fixing Dead End

"That game is just garbage... It's not garbage, it just needs something." - Chevee Dodd

The day I discovered the wonderful Twitter account of Cardboard Edison, they retweeted Chevee Dodd's request for help on the rules for his game Paper Route. I'd just gotten into board game design and, after going through and commenting on that Google Doc, I discovered I really love editing board game rules.

I started chatting with Chevee online about his other board games. Then about life, relationships with our parents, having an obsessive personality, and hundreds of other topics I don't feel like listing out. I playtested the game being discussed in the quote above, Hedeby, and started to read through his blog archives where he discusses his other work. I learned that Chevee thinks most of his games are garbage at one point or another, and I learned that Chevee likes to make grand, sweeping changes to his in-progress games that may or not be broken. And then I stumbled on Dead End.

Dead End places you in a house being attacked by zombies. Each card you play is dual purpose, allowing you to follow card text or introduce zombies to the game to attack your opponents. But if you do end up with too many zombies attacking, you aren't eliminated, you instead spend turns moving zombies away from your house, with 2 chances to return to active play.

You can get a feel for what he thought about the game by reading his last official post about Dead End:

"I couldn't remember how to play my own game after only a month! It was worse than that. What went horribly wrong during this test is that I wasn't having fun. It was dry and boring. Play a card here, flip a card.... blah blah blah."

Chevee implemented some of the changes discussed in that post, but hadn't uploaded version 7 of the print and play files. I begged him to put up the new rules and cards and, on November 16th, he finally did. We then discussed what he was trying to do with the game and why he thought it wasn't fun. I promised I'd take a look at the game over Thanksgiving.

I loved the game. The major ideas were pitch-perfect. Dual natured cards, the action and weapons phases, having two different types of gameplay, all of it. I could see some flaws with specific cards, but the game itself was solid.

As an app developer, I find myself in a similar situation a lot. Some new feature will need to be developed or customers will call to complain about how they can't figure anything out. I'll give it a once over, diagnose the problems, explain how in a book or article I read, they taught me all about it. My solution never goes directly from idea to implementation. We have a team and it usually takes all of us working together to crack it. Even then, the solution is usually the combination of several different proposed solutions.

So after giving Dead End a once over, diagnosing the problems, finding the book or article that taught me all about it, I had a pretty clear vision in my head of how good the game could be. So on December 4th, I said:

"I think I might just make some changes to it myself and see how it plays"

We had a plan. The conversation eventually drifted back to Hedeby, a game he had already reinvented at least one time. I was already worried he was going to do the same thing to Dead End, when he confirmed my suspicions:

"Well, that's my problem with Dead End right now. It needs reinvented"

I knew I had to prove to Chevee that his game didn't need a ton of changes, just some editing. He had already vowed to leave the game alone until March, so he encouraged me to give it a go and see what happens.

I started the process by getting every card into VASSAL so that I could playtest without having to print anything out. One big issue stood out from the early playtests and I'll copy just the most interesting notes from my first few experiences:

• Having Zombies! cards is lame - definitely need to get rid of them.
• Yup, I died with no real way to save myself with 2 Zombies! cards
• Having the Zombies! cards be more helpful to nearly dead player is important.

As I made changes to the cards, I kept checking in with Chevee to figure out why he added each card. I didn't want to destroy the spirit of the game, so I made sure that every change I made retained the spirit of the original. It can be hard to trust your gut sometimes when an idea doesn't work out. What was important to me was to leave the ideas intact and try to mess with the game until I could implement it properly.

I learned that the Zombies! card was added by Chevee so that players would be forced to add zombies to the game to push the game forward. But I had hit on something with my notes; the cards that force you to add zombies took up space in your hand during the time you most needed help. The function needed to remain the same, adding zombies to the game, but I could add a card action that was only useful to players that are almost defeated. By doing this, you end up with a very elegant system of feedback where lots of zombies are added to the game when players aren't in trouble, but players have a way to remove zombies from the game as they risk being forced from their house by the zombies.

Other small issues existed, and I made small tweaks to most of those cards. I made the weapons more varied, made them objects you would typically find around a house, and made some of them dual purpose (skip or discard for other bonuses). I added some cards that allowed you to remove resources from other players to prevent one player from getting too far ahead.

My next solo playtest was already much more interesting. I tried to document some of the new interesting interactions created by the cards:

• Awesome moment: Used Help! to force player with Chainsaw to help (could have gained them 5 zombies)
• Played a Zombies! replacement card because I didn't need the effects. Felt good to have the choice rather than being forced.
• Stupid decision: Was really funny playing Quick Shot with Machete. Machete removed no zombies and Quick Shot penalty added 5 zombies.

I was pretty happy with the game. A couple weeks later, I bought a set of 100 zombie miniatures and a deck from The Game Crafter. Friends stopped by the house and we had a really great time playing it. After the game, I had lots of tweaks to make, but the changes I made were working the way I had hoped.

One thing happened during this playtest that really caused me to screw things up. My friends, though great people, try to take advantage of any ambiguity in the card text. So I worked feverishly to remove anything that could be misinterpreted. What I ended up creating were cards with dense text that tried to do to much.

I got a final deck printed before Protospiel Milwaukee, where I would be meeting Chevee after working on the game for almost 4 months. At this point, I had made a lot of changes to the game, and I wanted to be able to explain why the changes I made mattered. On my dining room table, I spread out all the cards and started to categorizing them.

I was very happy with the result:

• Weapons: 8 types, 16 cards
• Mechanic Alteration: 4 types, 16 cards
• Player-Controlled Balance: 7 types, 17 cards
• Zombie Addition/Near Death: 5 types, 12 cards
• Death Wishes: 2 types, 6 cards
• Events: 2 types, 5 cards

Four categories exist with an almost equal number of cards. Chevee's vision was to have a game that ramps up quickly with players spending most of the game hovering around being overwhelmed by zombies. Seeing it split up like this helped me understand what worked about the game.

Zombie addition made the game ramp up quickly. At the beginning of the game, these cards are designed to have almost no upside, so their played to add zombies. But as the game progresses, these cards start to hold the zombies at bay. Combine this card with some of the player-controlled balance cards - which let you do things like manipulate the total number of zombies in the game and move zombies between houses - and that state of tension is even more pronounced.

Both weapons and the mechanic alterations give players a leg up in the game. Other player-controlled balance cards let you take these cards away, often at a small cost, so no player is able to shoot ahead, but not used flippantly.

I was really happy with the game going into my trip to Protospiel Milwaukee. More than anything, I felt like I was going to be able to prove to Chevee that his game was good, the way he had originally dreamed it up. It also got me thinking about how important it is to open your ideas up to other people.

After Protospiel Milwaukee, things started moving in the other direction. Chevee was now asking me why I made the decisions I did, and we've been brainstorming ways to make the cards even better. When I first started, I was taking Chevee's ideas and trying figure out how I could implement them better, and now Chevee is taking my ideas and seeing how he could implement them better. It's an interesting experience to see your ideas communicated better by someone else. I've watched some of the ideas that I thought were just amazingly clever *cough*All Hands*cought* turn into a card that's blown my mind. I'm excited to play the game that we're creating.