Crowdfunding Corner March 2023 — Indie Game Developer Network

An interview with Kickstarter’s Nicole Amato on what is hot this month

by Sean B. Jaffe

Hello, everyone. Shorter column this month, for reasons I’ll get into later.

Since the 2000s, crowdfunding has been a vital step in any major games project. It changes an otherwise-impossible project into reality by overcoming the initial costs to focus on game development. Indie publishers, like we here in the IDGN, would have a much harder time (and in many cases wouldn’t exist at all) without it. We’ve been using this space to explore new and upcoming products, and talk about some of the trials and tribulations facing an indie games campaign. You might find certain setbacks on the road to a Crowdfunding campaign. For example, this month, I was blindsided—literally!—by needing eye surgery. However, fortunately, it was only one eye so I could use the time of convalescence to get a lot of prep and writing work done. Research and planning are a crucial part of setting up a campaign, so we’re still on track for a major one this summer.

Meanwhile, Nicole is super excited about a bunch of new projects coming through Crowdfunding this month. Nicole says, “There are so many great projects up right now! R’lyehwatch RPG, a Cthulhu-meets-baywatch TTRPG...Revenant Society, about solving your own murder...Psychic Kids, about...you guessed it! Psychic kids! Speaking of kids, Ampersand RPG is a great system for parents to play with their kids. There's also Hârn World: Medieval Fantasy RPG, which has incredible art; Alice is Missing: Silent Falls, which is an expansion to Alice is Missing, and the utterly gorgeous Shadowdark RPG: Old-School Gaming, Modernized, which I absolutely recommend checking out. There are also lots of great Zine Quest projects still live, including Camp Elementa, Pressure Point, Broken & Sleeping Hearts, Psychic Trash Detectives, and my personal favorite, Marie Enger's Death to the Wizard Kings: DIY Vat Spawn Kit."

When I asked what’s got her personally excited, Nicole said: “Unsurprisingly, I’m personally excited about some great Mothership campaigns, including Turbulence, Graveyard of the Gods,

Killing in the Name, and The Vulture."

And as all of this is going live, I’m deep in the prep work for our major summer project. This means not just making sure the book is virtually complete, but gathering art, graphics, and other marketing materials to make certain our Kickstarter is the biggest and best it can possibly be. Remember, you’ll want not just the pitch, but the visuals and perhaps even a video to make sure you’ve got the best representation of your project you possibly can!

This article is part of the Indie Game Developer Network's blog series. The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of the IGDN or its members.