Hey Hey Everyone, Jonny - Co-Founder of
IION Games here. Let me start off by saying, the Boardgame community has been awesome, but I really have no clue about BGG or what you guys like,
so I apologize if I have not been as active as I could on here. I just thought I would start up a thread to discuss how we got from our First Kickstarter launch of
Battle for the Universe, to our relaunch, and now to our upcoming third attempt, rebranded as
The Convergents. Our game began, as many other games do, with
CCG's in mind. We ORIGINALLY wanted to do a game that was collectible, and had a player driven story similar to L5R...but we soon learned that you guys, and Kickstarter, just don't like
CCGs. So we switched up our model to a more LCG style format. The game was decent, but fairly complicated at that time, and while we had some killer card art, it wasn't enough to help push us over the edge
We fell extremely short of our funding goal that go around, mostly because of the fact that I had no clue what I was doing. After this campaign ended, we showed the game to a publisher, and his suggestion really pushed us to revamp the design and play mechanics of the game. We were really pushing the idea of Fun, Fast, and Simple. We completely reworked the mechanics of the game, and it has become something that, when people play it...they love it...they want to play more. We launched the second
Battle for the Universe campaign with the updated mechanics in July, and we still were not able to fund.
We did some market research on this one, and many big time publishers suggested that our graphic design wasn't up to par (The head of CMON as an example.) The various boardgame groups on
FB had said that we should most definitely change our name...in part due to the fact that the name was just too broad, but also because as people searched tabletop games on kickstarter, when they saw the name of our game, the comic theme, and the fact that we were a card game, they passed us by because they automatically assumed we were copying
Sentinels of the Multiverse...which, we were not...while we absolutely LOVE the game Sentinels, our mechanics and the play style of the game were just completely different (and as one of the artists, I feel that the art is just incredible in
The Convergents.) Regardless of the differences, people made an assumption because of our name and theme, and didn't even look at our
KS project. We also realized that the normal LCG format for boxes isn't liked by kickstarter backers...people didn't understand why it required players to buy more than one core box to get a competitive play set of cards. (If you know
FFG's market of LCGs, they always require a person to have 2-3 core boxes to be competitive.) We were just following that distribution model, but many people didn't understand, and couldn't justify the price. So...with that market research in mind, we went back to the drawing board on our name, logo, card layouts, and distribution model...and...
BOOM...The Convergents was born. So...what is different about
The Convergents? Well, let's take a look at the Logo and Name...completely different. Why did we go with that name? Well it plays to the lore in our game...if you want to know more about the Lore, make sure to sign up for our mailing list:
http://facebook.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=20714bbef20815c3fb99a0cf1&id=b663132b63
So, what is the story with the logo itself? Well,
The Convergents is a game that deals with Comic themed characters fighting in a city...as with any good Comic Story, where the characters are is important...Metropolis and Gotham are two shining examples in
DC, and New York in Marvel. Locations are absolutely iconic in comics, and with
The Convergents, it is no different. There is a big light emanating from the logo...that represents something called the Light Bloom, which is also important to the Lore of the game. Then there is the small caped figure...just another way for us to show the theme of the game. ------------------------------------- The next thing we did was update our card layouts.
After hearing our Graphic Design was lacking, we really wanted to push the modern feel of our game, something that really spoke to us saying that "THIS is a professional game." These layouts are what we came up with. This new layout also accommodates those individuals that struggle with color blindness. Giving them iconography instead of just colored dots...extremely helpful! ------------------------------------ So, where are we at on this project now? Well, we are building up our relaunch page for the new kickstarter. We have completely changed our distribution model. While the game will have an LCG style format, instead of doing a core box that has everything, we will be doing team boxes (similar to a starter box in
CCGs.) Where the players can choose a team, have each unique card in that box (full play sets), and instead of spending
SO MUCH money, they can choose which team boxes to buy! (One box for $20, two for $35). This choice was also suggested by the publisher we spoke to. This allows people to get the game for much cheaper, and they will have everything they need to start playing if a friend has the game as well. ----------------------------------- So...what is next for this project? Well...
Let's just say that we also got backlash on the fact that the game was ONLY 2-players. 2-Player constructed deck competitive games are still alive and well in the tabletop gaming world, but trying to market that style of game, as a new publisher, has been quite a challenge. Boardgamers tend to like board games (Or at least solo play games, or games with 3 or more players). Competitive constructed deck players tend to stick with the games they already play... So, how did we accommodate for this? We created a 1-5 player cooperative game format called a
COSMIC THREAT. What does that mean? Well...if you've played the
TCG WoW, they released a Raid Deck, where the players worked together to defeat a common enemy. (L5R also did this before it was sold to
FFG). If you are a comic fan, you know that there are world shaking cosmic threats that will change the world (all the time.) Thanos, Galactus, Annihilus, Darkseid, Doomsday, etc etc. The list just goes on and on... We wanted a Cosmic Threat to shake the story of the game from the get go...and what makes more sense than an Alien Invasion...why are the heroes trying to stop this alien vessel? Because they are heroes...they need no explanation...but the Villains? Why would the villains work together, or even with the heroes that they hate, in order to stop an alien incursion? Well, The Villains have vested stakes in the city, they have property, they have power, and they don't want to lose any of what they have. The Ship is just destroying everything, this possibly includes their holdings...Also, alien tech, villains could use that... The Cosmic Threat will be available as an add-on, and will only include the cards needed to bring the players against the cosmic threat. Meaning if 1 or more players has a team box, they can build a deck to go up against the Cosmic Threat Add On deck. --------------------------------------- In my next post I will talk quite a bit more about the Cosmic Threat and what it entails! Thank you guys so much for reading about our process, and following the winding road of the choices we have been making in this process. We would love to hear your thoughts on this, and let us know if you want to see our kickstarter preview (it's still bare bones, but has some of our pricing and other things there.)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bftucreator/1016438168?ref=364428&token=37297771
Also, for anyone interested, we are running a contest to give away a free team box if we fund. You can find that link here:
https://gleam.io/ClJlw/the-convergents-team-box-giveaway
