Hi all, at long last the Puzzle Strike 2 Kickstarter will launch on January 11th. The actual Kickstarter URL is here, though you might want to link this landing page instead because we are better able to notify people about the Kickstarter through it.
Puzzle Strike 2 is a completely new game and not a new edition or mod of the previous Puzzle Strike game. This time around, production values are a lot higher, turns are cleaner and can be played asynchronously, new players can more easily avoid playing disastrously poorly, and there’s big emphasis on the unusual comeback system of the game producing “miracle,” memorable big turns. Plus the custom-molded gems are pretty awesome.
What I’m asking for is your help. The way Kickstarter works, the first 48 hours are absolutely critical. Part of this is because a lot of pledges then makes the analytics of a project look good, then Kickstarter itself will give more favorable placement, and other sites will mention it more too. Partly because momentum at the start builds more momentum (and the lack of it really kills a project). There’s probably a lot of factors, but the point is we know from extensive KS data on this that it maters a lot.
So first, if you already plan to pledge for Puzzle Strike 2, it’s better if you do it during the first 24 or 48 hours. No matter if you pledge then, or halfway through or something, you’ll be charged at the same time anyway: after the campaign ends. It’s just that your early pledge helps the most because of momentum and metrics. Also keep in mind that it’s not any more “risky” to pledge to a Kickstarter that hasn’t yet reached its funding goal because Kickstarter will not charge you anything anyway unless a project does reach the goal.
Second: tell a friend! Even if you don’t plan to pledge yourself, it would sure help if we could get more people knowing that this game exists at all. You don’t need to do obnoxious spamming, but if there are other forums or sites or Facebook groups or subreddits, etc that would be legitimately interested in the game, tell them. The nature of the game means that pretty different groups of people might be interested. Puzzle Strike 2 is a strategy game, like my other games, so mathy hardcore people will probably like it. But the theme, colorful art, and fancy components mean that it has a much wider possible audience than that. People who play match-3 games on their phones will probably connect with it too.
Oh, and there’s already a BoardGameGeek.com page for Puzzle Strike 2 right now. The forums there are a good place to post your excitement or answer questions for other players.
Something that really stuck out to me about the video game Puzzle Fighter (which inspired Puzzle Strike) is that for over a decade in arcades, Puzzle Fighter stood out as far and away the game that had the closest gender mix. Men and women played it in about equal proportions, which was certainly not true of the majority of other arcade games at the time. Puzzle Strike 2 has similar art and style to that and in our testing has appealed to women as much as men. So keep that in mind: a girlfriend who wants to play with her boyfriend, or a family are examples reasonable players here, in addition to the hardcore mathy people who generally enjoyed my previous games.
Third: brainstorm ideas here in this thread about how the community can help boost the game. What’s most helpful here is ideas for what you all can do (rather than ideas for what what we can do). On our end (Sirlin Games company), we’re already busy (too busy!) doing our best to line up press coverage, place ads, write a series of articles about the game, and more. Any ideas what YOU all can do to help build hype though? Also feel free to talk to Leontes about ideas, he’s our community manager hero.
Speaking of community heroes, Grag has also developed a Tabletopia (virtual tabletop) version of Puzzle Strike 2, and we’ll make that freely available in about a week. So that could be another tool for you all (multiplayer is supported, of course).
The manufacturing costs on this game are brutal, and much harder to deal with than any of my previous games. I’m pushing forward because I think the custom components give it great table presence and just feel great to play so I want the game to exist in the best form it can. That’s why I extra need your help on this one to get a lot of pledges. If it can actually make money, rather than lose money, it will help us be able to release the new Yomi game that my patrons on Patreon are playing, as well as more after that.
Thank you everyone for your support!