Love 2 Hate : So - we funded. What next?

So, Love 2 Hate was funded on 9th August 2014.

The next steps largely took place within Green Ronin.  Hal and co came up with concept art which quite honestly blew me away.  Chris had asked me about preferred colour schemes but the design was purely there's and I really couldn't be happier with it.  The bomb/heart motif is fantastic.

We had previously got a few demo decks prepared - we had hoped to have them for Warpcon 2014 where Chris, Nicole and Kate from Green Ronin were attending, but they arrived in the hotel on the Monday after the con!  In the meantime, team GR also had decks in the US, so I could take the ones that arrived then.

These demo decks did a tour of cons as the kickstarter was going on and again  - I LISTENED TO PLAYER FEEDBACK.  The main issue was the font of the finisher cards.  I mean, there were a few typos, but these were only demo decks, so I was less worried about that.  So, the feedback went back to GR HQ and it was agreed that, in the final set, the font on the finisher cards would be block caps as opposed to cursive - thanks for that feedback guys!  Player feedback does (and should) inform the final product.

There was also the kickstarter pledges who wanted to be part of the game and paid for a card of their own to be included (thanks!).  Another lesson on kickstarter - there will be a surge of people coming back to on you on such pledges and then ... nothing.  I took on the job of talking to the pledges regarding their cards myself as the creative guy behind Love 2 Hate (man, that sounds more pretentious than I wanted it to be).  I wanted to say thanks to some pledges and work with them.

Some people pledged and didn't want cards, I guess, but we got the vast majority of the bidders' cards in and worked with them on their suggestions.  I then filled in the blanks and sent it to Chris for the final editorial pass.

I also finalised the card list for the main game, again based on feedback form players, toning some cards down and taking out others to produce a friendlier set - the game is fun and rude and naughty but genuinely (I hope) not offensive and we have done out best not make it a trigger for anything.

So the next step was work, more refining and working with the bidders.  Important lessons learned were:

1. Not all bidders will reply.

2. Have more cards / components than you need ready in the early design stage and keep them, as you never know when you will need them.

3. Bidders are not designers.  They ideas may not fit with your vision.  Accommodate them as bets you can - remember they *paid* for this and deserve their input.  But the are also people and understand compromise for the best product.  But be gentle and work towards their desires, rather than you own.

4. Keep refining.  Keep play testing.  Keep listening you your players.

Next entry will be sooner, I hope, and on the experience of the editorial pass up to current day!

Thanks for reading