Tell your overdue Kickstarter story

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So far, the only Kickstarters that have fulfilled their promises are those belonging to EN Publishing's Level Up RPG.

Man, that is some brutal luck. I am into the three figures on campaigns backed and the only two that didn't fulfill were one about someone making a movie about their quest to become a stand-up comedian and one that was going to be a Fighting Fantasy-style gamebook focused on dwarves, and that one at least gave backers codes for game apps from a developer that was going to be doing an adaptation of the book that never happened.

Looking over my list, it looks like all of my RPG campaigns I backed came through, usually within six months of the original ETA. Even a campaign for an RPG product where one of the creators died before it was fulfilled did so more or less on schedule. The current tariffs have quite a few pumping the breaks right now, but all of them are clearly still making progress, and several of them have already released finalized PDFs to backers.

 

[chuckdee]

Who knows if it'll deliver, but this game currently on KS looks like a much more playable take, imo, on similar themes.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/molombo/zairoo/description

I have little confidence - so backed for $1

 

[Corinnguard]

Man, that is some brutal luck.

I am not too put of out of it with regards to the overdue Kickstarter products. Backing a Kickstarter is going to be something of a gamble for anyone who decides to back one. Of the three, my favorite has to be Ryoko's Guide to the Yokai Realms by Loot Tavern.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's really weird. Part of me is really angry at the lack of communication. I'm sure something happened in his life. But aside from getting crippled, dying or something like that, I figure out that at one point you get five minutes to let the people around you know that you're out of order and can't fulfill your obligations. But at the same time, it's just a zine, it cost me twenty bucks. It's not a big deal.

It is a very common phenomenon for people, once they've missed enough cycles on response on Kickstarter to just--hide. Its kind of a reversed sunk-cost-fallacy thing.

 

[cbwjm]

I also backed Dolmenwood.

It's finally rolling out to the rest of the world, but the USA and Canada are lagging behind even now, understandably.

What a mess. Bonus salt in the wound: us Canucks will likely have to pay extra fees (taxes? duties? brokerage?). It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Lagging a bit down here in NZ as well, sounds like they are sending a pallet load of books down to a distributor down under before fulfilling individual orders. Postage costs jumped up a lot since the kickstarter if I understood the last update correctly.

 

[chuckdee]

It is a very common phenomenon for people, once they've missed enough cycles on response on Kickstarter to just--hide. Its kind of a reversed sunk-cost-fallacy thing.

Yeah, and I think that putting something on your calendar and just saying something gives you a lot more grace with backers than hiding.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Horizon Rising by LF.OSR

Crazy to me that he just basically disappeared. Esp. since he'd put out lots of stuff successfully and been active in the community up till then.

Same thing happened with Gio Lasar (Dice kickstarter) and most recently with J.D. Maxwell (Grimwild kickstarter)

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

I also backed Dolmenwood.

It's finally rolling out to the rest of the world, but the USA and Canada are lagging behind even now, understandably.

What a mess. Bonus salt in the wound: us Canucks will likely have to pay extra fees (taxes? duties? brokerage?). It's the gift that keeps on giving.

I backed it too and I'm not going to agree with that "understandably" part - the original quote for delivery was September 2024. If they had been 3 or 4 or even 5 months late there would have been no additional complication. Now it's a full year late and they have yet to start shipping to the U.S. I'm not inclined to cut any slack here.

Other notable campaigns:

• Reaper's Dungeon Dwellers RPG - Delivery date July 2024, latest update from a few days ago: They're still working on the book, showing some test prints, and making the miniatures. Well over a year late for a variety of familiar Kickstarter reasons. The one that was new to me was warehouse disruption due to running a con ... which they run every year ... and which has now disrupted progress on it twice. Who could have seen this planned annual event coming?
• GKG's d6 System Second Edition - Delivery date May 2025 so we're now at the six-month past due mark. Latest update is that they are taking feedback from the PDF they put out and making updates and edits. No concrete release date yet.
• Scientific Barbarian #6 by Jim Wampler - Delivery date Feb 2024, now at 2 1/2 years late, latest update was in May and "final art was in and layout completed" in April. This one stings because Jim Wampler has delivered very well in the past and has been a big part of supplementing the Mutant Crawl Classics game and I had no reason to expect any trouble here. Medical issues were mentioned second-hand at one point but communication has really fallen off of this one.

Even with SB6 overall these creators have kept the communications going, even when it's not good news. That's a step up from some of the early days of crowdfunding experiences.

And to avoid being a total rain cloud here there are people who know what they are doing and do it well. Kevin Crawford's Without Number games come out regularly, on time, and with zero drama. If a one-man operation can do it consistently, it's hard to make excuses for some of these larger teams.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I backed it too and I'm not going to agree with that "understandably" part - the original quote for delivery was September 2024. If they had been 3 or 4 or even 5 months late there would have been no additional complication. Now it's a full year late and they have yet to start shipping to the U.S. I'm not inclined to cut any slack here.

Exalted Funeral is generally late with products, although usually not a year late. (I'm waiting on Glumdark from them, which supposedly is going to be shipping this coming February, but which I expect will more likely show up next summer.)

That said, when the products do arrive, the physical products tend to be beautiful, so everyone cuts them a lot of slack.

I suspect everyone who ponied up for Dolmenwood will be pretty happy with the books when they finally arrive.

 

[Morrus]

And to avoid being a total rain cloud here there are people who know what they are doing and do it well. Kevin Crawford's Without Number games come out regularly, on time, and with zero drama. If a one-man operation can do it consistently, it's hard to make excuses for some of these larger teams.

Paradoxically, it can be a lot easier to get things done quickly for a tiny operation than for a larger one. Growth has its downsides, and one of those is often agility.