Let the sleeping dead lie…
Well, as we can tell, the funding for Graveyard Shift was unsuccessful. Still, at 75% it’s a great attempt for a new game from a new game designer. Despite the lack of funding I have several takeaways from this project that will be taken care of next time.
More images and gameplay
I’ve had several requests for more images, including video of gameplay in the real world with real cards. So that will be number one on the todo list.
Shipping
So my shipping decisions (to hold off calculating shipping till the end of things) came back to haunt me. Both domestically and internationally. Next time I’ll include the shipping costs in the campaign, and will look for a company in the EU who will do small scale distribution to try and keep the overseas shipping to a minimum. One of the main reasons I left shipping out was because I was looking for such an EU distributor and didn’t want to charge outrageously just to get the game to people.
Networking
We did all of our marketing on Twitter, and to be honest, even without the upheavals Twitter is going through, I have barely over 300 followers there. It is my most active social network (the other being Mastodon, which I only started up last November). That being said, for a reach of only 300ish people, this project performed rather well. I have a lot of folks who were happy to retweet and boost Graveyard Shift, most daily, and several big names came out of the aether to help. It seems I have the kind of friends who always have a shovel, tarp and free time for their buddies, and on a game like this, that support is essential.
What’s Next
Graveyard Shift will be put on the shelf for 6 months. I’ll spend the spring and summer building up social connections and getting the word out in the communities and re-try in September. In the meantime I’m working on some other things, some new games, some just silly things. I’ll share more when I’m ready to announce.
The zombies will be back in September, we will rise again!
Thank you all for your support!
–Matt
