Dev Log #14: StoryGuider is live, Greeting Games arrived, and 100+ articles in line
Check out the latest on the TTRPGkids works in progress to stay up to date on upcoming releases! This Dev Log will cover how the StoryGuider launch on Backerkit is going, the arrival (and subsequent shipping) of ALL the Greetings Games cards, and my plans for keeping up with the TTRPGkids website posting schedule… with 100+ article requests in the queue.
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StoryGuider: First Week on Backerkit
StoryGuider launched on Backerkit last week on Sept 9 and had current hit 77% funded (as of the morning of this posting). It is still rolling steadily along towards the campaign goal, but it didn’t have quite the explosive start as some of my other campaigns where they funded in a few hours. Despite my nerves, I think it will at least hit the main goal.
Because of that, I’m going to go over some of my plans and options for funding so folks can see the kinds of decisions going on in the background AND then also look at why I think the launch was different from others I’ve done.
Options to keep funding going + campaign prospects
Because I intend to run smaller “indie” campaigns, I’m not going to be pulling out big ad campaigns on facebook or google ads, and I’d rather have my small advertising budget go towards indie newsletters and podcasts who will be helped more by those funds.
My plan right now is to take out a couple more indie newsletter ads, which I think will give a small boost to the campaign, and to do a bit of a rally in the community through socials or by reaching out to folks who I know well and have worked with on multiple occasions to see if they’re OK with sharing.
I also will probably start advertsing some of the additional campaign perks like the article sponsorship (which gives a bit of advert space on TTRPGkids to creators) and some of the lower cost tiers (in case the BIG BUNDLE seems too daunting amidst current economic situations).
For campaign prospects, my estimates show that it will hit the goal, and I’m pretty confident in that. The timing on that, though, will probably largely determine if any stretch goals will be hit. Usually, projects get a bit of a continued uptick once they fund since folks have more confidence in the project at that point. So, if it hits the goal now, it might also hit the first couple stretch goals before the end. If it hits the goal during the last week… I’m thinking we might just have the core art.
Either way, there’s going to be stretch goals likely left on the table, and I accept that. My plan will be that, during the fulfillment work period where I’m doing layout and writing and the artists are creating, I’ll likely slow fund on itchio to see if we can hit an extra goal (like the hardcover book options OR the French translation) before folks need to fill out their surveys.
I’ll have to play it by ear a bit, but… those are kind of my thoughts on how to proceed and still get the project as far as it can go.
Reasons for different launch response + plan for next time
With StoryGuider, I’m coming off two other campaigns that funded in the first 2 hours (A Construct’s Nature) or just after the first 24 hours (Greeting Games)… and both of those had fewer pre-launch followers than StoryGuider. So, why did StoryGuider not have that explosive start?
I think there’s a lot of factors with this, but here are my top 4 guesses:
Backers are tightening budgets – there’s an economic downswing going on and LOTS of uncertainty in what’s going to happen from day to day, so I think people just have less disposable income for backing projects versus 6-12 months ago
I’m using a different physical print fulfillment method – for physical copies, I’m giving out at-cost POD keys instead of printing and shipping the books myself because it helps mitigate my risk with fluxuating global prices and lowers tariff cost risk to backers (since folks can order directly from my overseas printer location option if that makes more sense). However, it is different, and that can turn folks off.
I was not able to find a collab partner – I had a couple prospects earlier in the year for collabs, but all three delayed or cancelled their projects due to increased risk from tariffs and fluxuating prices. Because I’m niche and have a very specific target audience (folks who want to play TTRPGs with kids under 8yo), it is HARD for me to find another person to team up with with the same audience, so I decided to launch solo and see how it went.
It was part of Printopia which is book focused and does not allow typical TTRPGs – this is a book that has game elements, I confirmed with Backerkit who reviewed and agreed that it qualified, and there are other CYOA style books in the event, but my logo saying TTRPG may be hurting my expected boost from the collab event.
All that said, I’m still cool with how things are going and excited about the project… and I have learned a lot! For future, I’m going to probably still keep with the POD key method but will factor that into my estimates now that I have some data. I’ll also stick with TTRPG only events OR only launch outside an event if I can adjust my timing to align with a solid collab partner so there’s some additional boost active. I’m also going to focus on small projects for a bit, so a single zine or a short book, instead of a 36 book series, so that it’s more affordable for everyone and I can keep my goal costs lower.
Greeing Games cards are in!!
All the cards for Greeting Games were ordered, and they arrived!! I now have well over 1k cards and postcards at my house, but many of them are quickly leaving for their new homes!
I’ve ordered the bulk card orders (25+ of one kind) and all the enveloped orders should be processing through the post office today!
For US orders, these are shipping by standard mail and should arrive in 3-5 business days. For orders going to US and CAN…. I am not 100% sure how long the whole customs process will take, but based on other campaign fulfillment, it is usually 1-3 weeks.
Next up, I’m getting the cards into one doc for the digital bundle rewards and should be sending codes for that out by early next week. While it might seem like the digital would be easier to complete and should be done first… I wanted to make sure the cards got in the mail ASAP, so I prioritized physical rewards first.
Timeline-wise, we’re on the last steps for the project, and it should be closed out by the next dev log update except for the last minute bonus that was unlocked during the campaign (a trilogy set of adventures for little kids) that will fulfill along with StoryGuider timing.
July: Talk to Backerkit about pre-order store for late backersJuly: Send out surveysAug: Finalize artAug -> Sept: Collect payment and lock addressesAug -> Sept : Order cards based on final quantitiesSept: Cards delivered from printerSept: Ship cards to backers- Sept: Digital bundle fulfillment
- 2026: Bonus unlocked adventure set (Tome Traveller) – will fulfill with StoryGuider
TTRPGkids article plan: lots of requests!
While I LOVE publishing games and getting books and cards in my hands, my main focus is still the website, which is a free resource for folks to just use whenever they want. I want to keep building it and using it to actively support the indie TTRPG community.
And… that got popular with creators to the point where I’m trying to figure out how to keep up!
Right now, I have over 100 article requests in queue from creators and interesting folks in the TTRPG x EDU space for reviews, intereviews, article collabs, and more.
This list of 100 is also already narrowed down and they are games I WANT to review – I’ve already vetted them, picked the ones I would like to play, and taken out the ones that don’t align with TTRPGkids because they were either not actually all-ages friendly or they were using AI in published works.
I also want to make sure I’m getting back into my Tips & Tricks posts and crafting ideas; I stopped those for a while so I could handle my crowdfunding campaigns and do more reviews/interviews but I miss those Tips & Tricks and crafts. My last T&T was in March, and my last craft was Dec.
AND, I want to have spots open for coordinated series and specific community highlights that others aren’t requesting but that I still want to do because I see a need for it (like a series of interviews on accessibility, sensitivity, and diversity).
To help handle all this, I’m first focusing on getting an 8 week article bank of reviews and interviews set up at my current posting cadance (2 per week), to both take a chunk out of the queue and to just not stress about how things will keep going if I have another medical dip or need to take a break at the holidays. I’ll be integrating 1-2 personal posts (namely one I’m now in a space to write on how TTRPGs helped me out during post-partum depression) into this, but for the most part, it will be reviews and interviews.
Once that bank is set, I’ll schedule the remaining review/interview posts into 2026… and am thinking about having those personal want articles as part of a ko-fi or Patreon membership tier to make sure that I’m leaving time for myself to do those. They’ll eventually be freely available on the TTRPGkids website, probably on off-weeks from my Dev Log posts, but I think, for my headspace, having them first posted on ko-fi or Patreon will organize it into a different category of posts for me and encourage me to make sure I’m queuing up my personal projects too.
Beyond that, I’m looking at some larger structure changes to TTRPGkids since it’s growing past maybe what one person can do on their own, but I have to let a few of those ideas sit for a bit before deciding what to do… I’m hoping that a couple updates from now, once that article queue is handled, I’ll have it narrowed to the best two options and will see what happens from there.
Thank you for checking out this update and just kind of being interested in what TTRPGkids is doing! I hope it helps with seeing some of the self-pub, crowdfunding, and blog writing process for anyone who is thinking of getting into that themselves!
Until next time…. happy gaming!
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