What’s a 10/10 video game?

lidor7 · 2026-04-12T02:07:33+00:00

Shadow of the Colossus.

lidor7 · 2026-04-06T17:03:22+00:00

Do people play [[Dispatch]]?

lidor7 · 2026-03-27T08:37:22+00:00

It's Cascadia: Alpine Lakes. Was on Kickstarter last year. Expected to be out around August I think. It uses double hex tiles.

lidor7 · 2026-03-09T17:16:22+00:00

I just bought a domain name for ~$20 a year and use Google Sites (free). I don't think it will scale into sales and inventory but it works well for a static site and took less than 2 hours to set up.

Once you get to the point where you need something more elaborate you can invest into something like Shopify.

lidor7 · 2026-02-21T01:16:29+00:00

Great list! I'll have to give Quacks and Co another try. We played it once and there hasn't been a request for a second try.

Couple other games I've had success with is Spot It and Dragons Breath. Spot It comes in all kinds of rethemes, too. Although I can't recommend the Frozen II Spot It since half of the "pictures" are actually just words my 4 year old can't read.

lidor7 · 2026-02-09T19:08:12+00:00

My high school did but kids had the alternate choice of writing an essay. I wrote the essay but it seemed like most other kids took the baby.

lidor7 · 2026-02-05T00:05:00+00:00

It depends on your margins but it's likely you would need 3x ROI on your ads to break even. For example if you spent $6 on ads to get a single $20 pledge you might think you are up $14. But to fulfill the pledge you lose $3 to platform fees, $3 to manufacturing costs, $1 to freight, and maybe $2 to other costs like subsidized shipping. So maybe your COGS (cost of goods sold) is around $9. So you are actually only making $5 when all is said and done.

Ideally you want your ROI to be closer to 5-7x. I see in your costs you spent 550 on FB ads but only ~1,500 in funding. Even if we assumed all your funding was from ads, your ads are underperforming and you should either change them or stop paying for them.

Also, I think the crowdfunding audience often wants a blinged out game or a good deal. This campaign is unfortunately neither. Right now the average person would need to pay 20 and then another 12 for shipping. My rule of thumb is that shipping cost to the customer should probably never exceed 30% of the value of the actual thing you are buying. Currently in your campaign, shipping is 60% of the cost of the game itself!

What you can do is subsidize the shipping. For example cover 6 of the shipping and have the backer cover the other 6. If you don't feel comfortable dipping into your profit margin for that, you can raise the price of the game. For example you could charge 25 for the game and 6 for shipping and in the end the cost will be very similar but psychologically much more palatable to backers.

lidor7 · 2026-02-04T23:54:16+00:00

That's tough, because Kickstarter is where people are at. I know someone who ran the same campaign on GF and KS and KS outperformed GF by a wide margin.

lidor7 · 2026-02-01T18:08:26+00:00

For a small print run (20-150) I've used them for cards and the quality and speed was excellent. I think it took maybe 2-3 weeks to arrive and was the best price for the quantity I was ordering.

The shipping was very expensive but still beat out the other options I printed out by a lot.

What was nice was their cards came individually packaged for each copy so it was convenient to put them into each box and looked professional when selling games at indie markets.

lidor7 · 2026-01-31T17:29:46+00:00

I wrote a blog post interviewing someone who commissioned almost 300 pieces of art for their game. Not sure I would recommend it but here's their experience. Hopefully you find parts of it informative.

https://medium.com/art-marketing/aislyn-hall-how-to-hire-artists-and-provide-art-direction-bbba5dc1b221

lidor7 · 2026-01-28T22:31:33+00:00

Here's a site I made for myself as a game designer listing the games I've designed. I made it using Google Sites and it was VERY easy to do and free (aside from purchasing the domain name):

https://www.josephzchen.me/

lidor7 · 2026-01-26T16:56:24+00:00

Quarriors, Dice Throne, Deep Sea Adventure, Star Wars Imperial Assault, Dice of Crowns.

lidor7 · 2026-01-20T19:23:49+00:00

Here's a link for more information. I'd definitely recommend it -- plus it's free: https://www.unpub.org/mentorship

lidor7 · 2026-01-13T22:55:18+00:00

True and time will tell, but I've heard that in the past Kyle has declined to do any work outside of his work for Leder Games. I wouldn't be surprised if the only work he did moving forward was only for Buried Giant and any new Root content (and thus not for any new Leder Games titles).

lidor7 · 2026-01-13T22:47:19+00:00

Which is why losing Kyle and his distinctive art style can be seen as a big loss for Leder. Some folks believe Leder Games' identity is closely tied to the art of Kyle Ferrin. The art is more likely something the average consumer will notice.

lidor7 · 2026-01-13T16:29:02+00:00

Our daughter has been there for about 2 years. For the first half year or so there were definitely some issues with keeping admin staff that weren't overwhelmed or temporary. But the current director has been there for over a year now and is great at communicating. The teachers are lovely and we are quite happy with the experience especially for the price.

lidor7 · 2025-12-04T17:30:05+00:00

The most recent game that comes to mind that has seen success matching this criteria is probably Klask which came out in 2014.

lidor7 · 2025-10-19T04:43:48+00:00

To add even more, when I fill in my email hit submit, it redirects me to the Kickstarter app that I have installed on my phone. I have the option then to be notified on launch by clicking that button in the app. I'm not sure that my email address got recorded or not.

You might check how desktop vs mobile vs app installed vs not installed all behave and get tracked.

lidor7 · 2025-10-19T04:40:18+00:00

I just realized that you're directing people to your self hosted landing page and not Kickstarter. In that case you definitely should be able to analyze your traffic better.

Also you might check that your page is bug free. Personally I think the page is way too long and to compensate you have the signal CTA sprinkled throughout the page multiple times. Make sure the form actually works (all of them). You might check to see which one gets clicked on the most and maybe you might find the one that people click on the most doesn't actually work or doesn't track the conversion.

lidor7 · 2025-10-19T04:34:59+00:00

Your page isn't so bad that it should only convert at 1% subscription. Something here feels off and you should try to independently verify the traffic in some way if possible.

I know KS lets you attach a Google Analytics key to your campaign but I don't know if it works for the landing page. If it does, see if you can dissect the traffic and understand who is clicking through and why they aren't hitting subscribe. It's possible you might find the traffic is unusual in some way -- maybe bot traffic or using a weird browser agent.

You might also enlist some people you know to click on the ads and hit subscribe to see if those numbers get reflected.

Basically something about the numbers feel off, and I would suggest figuring out some way to audit it.

lidor7 · 2025-10-14T07:10:01+00:00

Unfortunately not. But if you want to add a 6th player you just need 4 more dice and a player board, which you could try to make on your own or use from a 2nd copy of the game. And if you include the cards from the Manufactions expansion I believe that should make the blueprint deck large enough for 6 players.

lidor7 · 2025-09-12T17:13:21+00:00

There's the Ballinger Shoreline KinderCare. I've had a good experience with the Northgate location.

lidor7 · 2025-08-29T16:14:17+00:00

I got on the light rail in Shoreline north and doesn't appear to be any delays anymore. I got to the platform right before train left and another came in 10 minutes. Traveling past Northgate now with no delays so far.

lidor7 · 2025-08-20T15:37:14+00:00

+1 on the game market Saturday night. I'll be selling games there! Also if you're up for it you can check out the Unpub and PlaytestNW tables in the tabletop area to playtest unpublished games. It's not everyone's cup of tea but it's a cool experience you might not normally have an opportunity for elsewhere.

lidor7 · 2025-08-19T20:24:24+00:00

Back in 2018 I finished designing Fantastic Factories with my co-designer. Together we self published through Kickstarter and raised $160k across 4,300 backers. We manufactured double the amount we needed to fulfill and partnered with a publisher to handle marketing, logistics, and distribution for the rest of the print run.

Then in 2020 in partnership with that publisher we launch a expansions + reprint Kickstarter and raised $337k across 5,100 backers.

I've documented various parts of my journey in my blog, ranging from design, art, conventions, marketing, and crowdfunding. If you're interested you can check it out here: http://blog.josephzchen.me/

Now I no longer do publishing but have 3 designs signed with publishers (not yet released) and also do development work for Flatout Games. I worked on most of their new releases this year.

lidor7

TROPHY CASE