Well, we didn’t quite make it. Still, this has been a very positive experience for all of us at Move Rate 20. We’ve learned so much about the process. and gotten some great feedback. And to have acquired over 100 backers for our first project tells us that we’re not far off. So, THANK YOU so much to all our supporters, everyone who backed the project, and took the time to like & share our posts, we really appreciate it! Now we’re going to take a little time, apply everything we’ve learned, retool things a bit, then come back with a new & improved campaign later this year. We hope we can count on you all again when that happens, but regardless, thank you all again for everything. We’ll be posting updates on our progress via the Move Rate 20 website, Facebook pages & Twitter (@MoveRate20). In the meantime, enjoy the weather, and we’ll see you all again later in the year!
Happy Gaming!
Best, The gang at Move Rate 20 Games
Will the last 24 Hours of the Kickstarter be as exciting as the first?
Nervously watching the Kickstarter in its final hours
It all comes down to the next 24 hours (where’s Kiefer Sutherland when you need him). We are a little less than $2,500 short of our Kickstarter goal. A long shot? Yes, but we’re not going down without a damn good effort. As I’ve said in earlier posts it’s been a learning experience and I plan on writing a blog post after similar to my “5 Things I Learned About Myself At TotalCon 2016“, but I need to wait to see how the story ends.
Of you are reading this before March 30th 10:00am EST, please got to our Kickstarter page and back us! Share with your friends.!
If we don’t make it, it’s not the end, we’ll take what we learned and revamp, retool and rest the campaign in a few months and try again.
Thank you for your support, no matter how small, it all means a lot!
We got a nice write up about “Master of Spies” on the “Care And Feeding Of Nerds” website. It’s a nice FAQ that allowed us to explain Master of Spies a bit more and the process behind it.
So here we are in the thick of a Kickstarter campaign!
So we’re past the initial rush of launch, the wellspring of support from our family and friends and now we’re into the part of the Kickstarter campaign where the real work begins, getting the world to notice “Master of Spies”. We’re looking at some strategically placed ads, reaching out to gaming websites and even doing some “street-team” canvasing of the local gaming and comic stores around the area. And we, of course, appreciate all the work you guys have done by sharing the project and your helping us to get the word out there!
Our deepest thanks,
Steve R, Steve P, Rob & James
The Move Rate 20 Games Team
After the second day of running a Kickstarter for and Indie Game, you begin to see things you should have done.
Today was, well let’s be honest, a little slow compared to yesterday. But that’s ok, we were expecting ebbs and flow. We are continuing to reach out to our friends in the local indie game community and planning to do some touring of the local (or not so local) gaming stores to carry the banner of Move Rate 20 Games out into the field. If any of you, our supporters, agents and mountebanks, have a local gaming store in the New England area) that would be open to us coming and giving a demo at, let us know and we’ll follow up. In the mean time spread the word, share the Kickstarter so we can all see this game made a reality.
As I said above, I’ve realized that there probably were some steps that we missed along the way to this moment, but there’s nothing we can’t fix with the Kickstarter campaign that can’t be fixed with some good old elbow grease (ew, always an unpleasant mental image for me). We love our little indie game and will do whatever it takes (within reason) to make it a reality.
After a year’s worth of work, the Kickstarter is finally here!
It’s a very exciting day for us here at Move Rate 20 Games as we launch our first (of many, hopefully) Kickstarter campaign. We’ve set what we believe is a very modest goal and reasonable backer levels, since this is our initial delve into crowdfunding.
It’s a momentous moment for us as after this, we will never be Kickstarter virgins again! For now though, we are ready for whatever happens, or as ready as we can be, we hope.
Please be sure to check our our Kickstarter page, back us if you’re interested in playing a fast, fun, quick to learn card game.
Total Con 2016 has come and gone. For us at Move Rate 20 Games, the last year was spent play testing, making demo copies and planning for this, the 30th year of Total Confusion and it all came together perfectly, though not without a few bumps along the way. But, I wanted to focus in the blog on what I learned about myself over the convention and the previous year in prepping for it.
Stuff I learned about myself at Total Con 2016
I love to teach kids how to play games. When they are into it, you can’t get a better experience than explaining how a game is played to a young mind. They pick stuff up so fast and in doing so enjoy the game so much quicker because they grasp it within a few minutes. James (a.k.a. The Gamebreaker) and we came to the agreement that younger players don’t have and preconceived notions about what a game is or wondering if the mechanic is the same as another game they’ve played; they just want to play and have fun.
Not every game is for everyone. This is a no brainer, but it get’s driven home every once in a while, when a person sits down to play and you can tell their just not jazzed about your game, or they don’t see the “tactics” or “how the mechanic works” and let you know they’re not impressed. I’ve learned to deal with that, not take things personally, listen to what their saying (since if you hear the same complaint enough, it may be part of a larger design issue). Most of all I’ve learned to move on, think on all the other folks who played and loved it.
I use “italics” way too much. It’s a pretty big deal when an industry legend plays your game, and likes it. Frank Mentor sat down with us on Sunday morning and played Master of Spies. I was nervous, who wouldn’t be, this guy has been in the gaming industry since the 80’s, worked with and was friends with Gary Gygax. He said the game had a “solid mechanic” and his only “complaints” were about card design. He gave us lots of feedback on the graphic layout and pointed out that I use italics WAY too much on cards, making things more difficult to read. So now I need to put a picture of Frank near my computer with a text balloon saying “Stop using Italic fonts!”
When in “Costume”, bring everything you’ll need to the table,Here I am all dress up at Bartholomew Vahn-Mott, merchant and Trader in the world of Eldinar.
including water, snacks and a fan. I like to think I come to an event as prepared as possible, which paid off. Since we we in an interior suite at the hotel I brought a small desk fan so the room wouldn’t get stuffy. Well, Saturday was unusually warm and being in an undershirt, a “blousey” shirt, a frock coat, plus a sheep wool and leather mongol hat, I was a little sweaty. So I asked my lovely wife Naomi to run back to the room and grab our fan. It was a life saver and prevent the frock coat from needing to get dry cleaned.
Your Goals can be reached. Three years ago we set a goal to have the game we were developing at the time (a.k.a. by its working title, Project Lightning Sword) ready to show our friends by Total Con 2015; which we did plus having an early version of Master of Spies to show as well. Our next goal was to be an exhibitor at Total Con 2016, have a Kickstarter ready to go and get Frank Mentzer to play test it. After a year’s worth of play-testing, networking and planning we managed to get all that stuff done. Our Kickstarter will launch in a couple days (Feb. 29th) and I believe we are as ready as we can be.
So there are the 5 things I learned about myself at Total Con 2016, now we begin to set our goals for Total Con 2017, which will probably have something to do with Project Lightning Sword getting a proper name and a Kickstarter next February.
Total Con 30 was great fun and a real success for MoveRate 20 Games (despite the fact that I missed a Constitution Check and had to leave early Sunday with a stomach bug!).
The demos for our upcoming game, Master of Spies, all went great and all feedback from players was positive as we head towards the Kickstarter on Leap Day!
Our exhibition table set up for Total Con 2016
I would also like to send out a personal set of thank you’s to the people who went above and beyond this past weekend:
Naomi Price: Thanks for giving us a hand all weekend at the demo table. Takes a special kind of person to put up with me all weekend! More mudslides anyone?!?!?
The Team at “Thunder” Role Playing: Thanks for your time and patience in answering all our questions and we look forward to working with you guys in the near future.
Don Higgins: Thanks for agreeing to do that ‘last minute’ art job we threw your way!
And a special shout out to Mr. Frank Mentzer, who not only came to Massachusetts a day early to game with us, but also played Master of Spies with us. Your insight and wisdom is invaluable sir…..!
See you all for the Kickstarter launch on February 29th!
I decided to post the rules for Master of Spies so people can take a look at them and comment if they make sense to people who never played the game before.
Please try and be constructive in your critiques and thank you.
(2/15/16 additional) Here’s the video on how to play Master of Spies as well
https://youtu.be/2xsKtemQPx8
Stephen P.
Art & Marketing Director
A.K.A. The Creative
I know we’re been quiet here on the Move Rate 20 blog, but between the holidays, gearing up for the next batch of gaming conventions and getting our Kickstarter for Master of Spies set up, there just hasn’t much time to blog, Sorry about that!
Kickstarter!
Anyway, we are planning for our Kickstarter to launch Feb. 29th with a modest goal of $6,000 dollars, you can see the preview here, please comment if you see anything that looks like it could be improved and please be constructive with any comments you make.
Working on the Kickstarter project page.
Setting up the campaign is about what I expected, work-wise; but it can be time consuming to gather up all the info the need as well as set up Backer Levels and Stretch Goal ideas that won’t completely throw off the budget. Another issue is how do you get a frickin’ package to Canada without it costing a fortune? I hope we can come up with some sort of a solution because I don’t want to leave my brothers and sisters to the North out of this.
We’re also in the process of getting review sample together, admittedly we let this slip through the cracks, but I’m busily working on it!
Putting the demo deck, rules, chits and contact card together after the big(?) snow storm of 2016.
February Cons & Networking Events!
So here’s a list of where we will be over the month of February to spread the word of our little game and demo it to the public.
Feb. 5th & 6th Captain Con at the Crown Plaza in Warwick, RI
We will be there demoing Master of Spies Friday night 6p to 10p and Saturday from 2p to 6p.
Feb. 9th Board Game Night at 745 Atlantic Ave, Boston, MA
A monthly networking/Boardgame night for professional looking for fun and to connect, Meetup.com info here.
Feb. 19th, 20th & 21stTotal Con at the Holiday Inn in Mansfield MA
We will have an expo table set up to demo the game and we’ll be there with our friends from Wyrmwood and Rivendell Books & Games.
We are also hoping to get to a few demos at local gaming stores in over the next several weeks as well.
