Gamelyn Games, responsible for bringing us the Tiny Epic series, has had a long track record of being friendly to backers. Perhaps more than any other board game producer Gamelyn adjusts its campaigns to backer feedback. No matter how painful or how late in the campaign it is.
During the Tiny Epic Galaxies campaign, Gamelyn held a poll to let backers choose the fifth player color. A number of backers pointed out that the color choices would be color-blind unfriendly. Where other projects might brush off such a change, Gamelyn took it seriously and cancelled the poll. They then apologized and let backers know they’d be adjusting the existing green to make it color-blind friendly!
As if that wasn’t enough, many backers pointed out during the Tiny Epic Western campaign that there were very few female characters to play. The observation sparked a divisive battle in the comments that grew to include under-representation of minority groups. Despite the art being “final”, Gamelyn changed the characters during the campaign to resolve these issues.
And it didn’t end there. Backers demanded the double-sided boss cards be replaced with single-sided cards to allow more player choice. Gamelyn made it happen. Backers pointed out the sequential numbering on the bullet dice. Gamelyn changed the dice to have opposing numbers. Backers wanted to be able to purchase extra dice and Tiny Epic Western themed playing cards after the campaign was over. Yet again, Gamelyn made it happen! A backer even suggested the idea of a transparent window card to replace the wanted poster… and it made it into the deluxe content!!!
It should come as no surprise that during Gamelyn’s latest campaign for Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms (Previous Story), backers had a few thoughts on the content.
To put this into context, Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms (UTEK for short) was never intended to be a Kickstarter campaign. It was supposed to be an alternate form factor for Tiny Epic Kingdoms that would allow Gamelyn to reach untapped retail markets. At some point Gamelyn realized that the committed Kickstarter backers should have a chance at the game before it went live. So they sheepishly put the campaign up with only a 7 day window to pledge.
That’s right. The campaign will be over before Kicktraq can even compute a projection of their ending total.
In that context, Gamelyn was very specific that this campaign would have no additional changes or stretch goals. Which didn’t deter the backers one bit…
(Disclaimer: The post from Mr. Banes was written by the author of this article.)
With only a few days remaining in the campaign, I can’t imagine any project that would have actually been able to make this change before the campaign ended.
Word of advice: Don’t bet against Gamelyn!
[D]espite how short this project is, and how final this product was going into it, I looked into the cost and possible setbacks of including a TEK War Die with deluxe copies. Thankfully, my relationship with my printer is of such that I can request urgent prices and they accommodate. I heard back from them this morning and all things considered, if we reach $100k, we will include a custom TEK War Die with every deluxe copy of UTEK! It will be the size, mold and material of the War Dice that just arrived with TEK2e. While it will not fit in the tuckbox, it will fit along side it in the cloth bag. Furthermore, it will not cause a delay in delivery!
There ya have it, you asked and we listened!
We’re halfway through the project and over halfway to $100K. I think we can do this, but it will take some Facebooking, Tweeting, Sharing etc. from as many of you as possible.
To make a change like this to a locked down project at the last minute is something simply incredible! Gamelyn deserves every bit of applause they can get. If you’re at all interested in the Tiny Epic series, I suggest that you head over to Kickstarter and back this fantastic game right now. You won’t have another chance!
Oh, and right after Gamelyn’s update went out…
Coincidence? I think not!
Kickstarting Boardgames 
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