And so the craziness that is Kickstarter for DreadBall comes to an end. And what an end!
$728,985 from 2,539 backers.
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who took part, whether you pledged or not. It’s been great to talk to so may people about the game and the buzz has been really exciting. All that and the game isn’t even out yet!
Also, whilst the cash is great and allows Ronnie to jump straight into production, I am pleased and flattered that so many people got involved because that means there is an instant community the day the game launches. In fact, people have already begun registering URLs for DreadBall, DreadBall leagues, etc. This excitement and this sense of an already growing community of passionate players is the real prize of Kickstarter for a game like DreadBall.
For me, of course, this locks in a load of work to get the teams and MVPs we’ve promised for Season 2 and Ultimate finished off and playtested to within an inch of their lives. The first 4 teams are very well balanced and it’s a high standard to bring everyone else up to. It is, however, the only standard I ever aim for. So over the next few months I’m going to be playing a great deal of DreadBall, tinkering with rules and talking about it here. Now that people have access to the basic rules and that I’ve covered the core concepts, I’ll also be writing posts about some of the details of both design decisions and tactics within the game. I’ve already had a couple of excellent questions which beg an involved reply, so expect some in-depth discussion. As always, your comments and feedback are very helpful, so keep ’em coming 🙂
The end of the DreadBall Kickstarter also gives me a little more time to tidy up round here and answer the stray comments about DKH and Pandora which have been sadly neglected in the furore. I can normally just about keep up with comments, and like to have replied to everything that needs it, but I’ve just been inundated by emails and other comms of late, plus writing stuff for the KS updates, so a few have been missed. Rest assured they are all in a file to be dealt with and are not forgotten. Aiming to catch up within the next 7 days.
So when I said “relax”…
Quirkworthy 
I am pretty excited. It seems like we have a lot of bloggers stepping in so I am quietly confident we will have a lot of Dreadball content coming soon which can only be good to keep the profile high as it starts to roll out to retail.
Now Jake about the Warpath tell me you’re being pulled into that for next year as well also please?
Sorry Minitrol, I’ve got nothing to do with mainstream Warpath development. Of course, some of my crazy alien goodness will undoubtedly flow back into the main game at some point, and Project Pandora has a minor influence too, but I’m not expecting to work directly on the main battle game at all.
I’ve got 2 Season 2, Ultimate and some DKH to write, plus some other stuff that’s not for Mantic 🙂
(plots ways to trick Jake into working on game)
Have you got time to look at my new project Path of er War? : P
I think that’s the best (intentional or happy accident?) effect of Dreadball fleshing more the of the setting for Warpath and the new creatures and races are unique (suck it detractors) and quite spiffing.
It brought a tear to my eye to see the return of sci-fi armoured space simians I won’t forget that in a hurray.
Who wouldn’t want an army of Teratons!
Yes, it’s a fun spin off, and one I’m happy to have contributed. Hopefully it will help make Warpath an even more exciting background to game in.
I caved in on Saturday and upgraded from a single team to Jack and a friend went in on Striker at the last minute so hopefully we can kick off a scene up here. Was disappointed not see a Coach Thonton mini as a stretch goal lol
Me? A model? I don’t think I’m distinctive enough.
Obviously I’m talking about someone called “Jake Thonton” lol. Either that or I’m an appaling spelller lol
Oh, him. You can make a model of that Thonton fellow all you like 😉
Jake,
Just a simple but sincere ‘thank you’ at the moment.
I look forward to playing the game in all its guises, and perhaps even winning a few. 🙂
Yours truly,
Bill Roy
My pleasure Bill.
Jake, it was nice to meet & chat with you a little on Saturday morning. Thanks for giving up a little of your time to answer some of my more specific “rules” questions. Marc
That’s why I was there 🙂
I don’t think you told me you were moocifer, which is a pity. Always good to put faces to netnames. Or perhaps I forgot in the clamour.
Some DKH? DKH 4 is on the way?
Slowly, slowly, but yes, it’s starting to move gently off the blocks and towards a first draft. No release date as yet, but I’ll keep pestering Ronnie 🙂
I run my DKH with 100 point war bands. I did some goblin rules and I am happy with character and balance. I expect you already have rules for them but it not you are welcome to them. Be interesting to compare what you did vs mine if you have done them already. I also have a 100 point wizards band – with ogre but that needs a bit more work on the spells to be balanced (lot of fun though and I am not a big magic fan). The undead are still a problem for me and currently I am leaning toward a modification of my wizard war band for them. Just wanted to remind you that DKH is not done yet and I have been using points based pickup style games in my hirstarts ruined city for some time now and it is a lot of fun. 🙂
I was told at the weekend that several groups had been quietly making their own DKH scenarios, and I need to have a hunt round the net to seek them out.
You’ve got my email, so you can send me the Gobbo rules if you like. I have indeed got some of my own, but it would be interesting to compare them. They’re based on one of those ideas I had for something else way back for Dead Rising, but which seemed like they would be best saved for Goblins.
Good to see DKH 4 is al least being developed, DKH 3 is the best thing since sliced bread for me.
Please include rules for solitaire game, XPs and levels, rules for Mantica’s special characters, traps and treasure, and…ehem
An excellent result for the Kickstarter Jake. I have to say your outlines of the rules and your thinking behind them was one of the main reasons I pledged as much as I did.
Thanks James. I sometimes wonder if I’m making as much sense as I think I am. It’s also good to have some positive reinforcement for burbling about games.
As if I needed encouragement to do so 😛
There are at least six of us here in Auckland who pledged at the Striker level (including three of us going in on a Showboater). Now we need to wait for the models to arrive. Such an agonising wait it will be.
That said, we’re already planning a mini-tournament in February at our local gaming convention. We want to run demos on the first day, then get people competing in the tournament on the second day (with borrowed teams for the newer players). It’s very much in the “hey, let’s do this” stage, but I’m sure we can pull it off. Im also thinking of ways to run a league, but that may have to wait till we’ve received the Season 2 models.
Sounds brilliant. You’ll have to remember to pop back with a link to some pictures when it’s done!
Of course. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.
Good to see there’s a bunch of support in Auckland, I know there’s at least a couple of us in Wellington (I pledged Striker, but with enough for basically all the extras), so we should have a base to build up the New Zealand game.
All we need to do now is convince people to play it at conventions instead of the other games 😉
Build it and they will come!
If you go with enough people to fill half the slots in a modest event then you’ll be able to run something even if you don’t fill the rest. You could also try running demo and exhibition games for a season to seed the ground, as it were.
Mind you, given the buzz on the net so far, I would expect that you’ll not have too much trouble finding people to play 🙂
Wellington is just about doable for me!
Thanks for that game Jake! 2500 people is not bad to start a community. It’s great to have a rallying game like that. I have successfully lured a few friends into pledging, and a good, intense game. We can’t wait for the full rules so we can start designing our league, as ugly as it’ll look until we get those kick-ass minis in december.
Just as added pressure, here’s how ugly our gaming looked, pre- and post- game, so you can pity us and send things our way ASAP 🙂
Hi, when you will send the Rulebook in PDF?
Good question. I don’t know the answer so I passed your comment onto Mantic and asked them to reply here.
Hi Calipso! Firstly we need to collect all of the data from the survey – which will be released in the next two weeks – and correlate that against who has paid and who has’t. This will then give us an email list that we will be able to send the special URL to. We anticipate having it out by the end of October, but it might be early November!
Thanks guys! Your are the best company!
I have a question for you, Jake. The one thing I was surprised at was the male and female corp team. Why did you choose to seperate by gender rather than having, say, different companies, or even different companies that favour different genders. The latter choice gives more options for variety, I think, stealing a little from the Space Marine mold.
The short answer was that I didn’t make the original choice. It was an idea Ronnie had, and it works fine. I was always intending to include more than one variation of the Corporation as a variation in style of play, and making them girls works for me. I’ve already talked to people who want to field a mixed gender team, and that sounds like a fine idea. There’s no reason you can’t field a mixed team, or even field a set of male models with the female stats. As long as your opponent is clear on what team stats you’re using, and what each model represents then I don’t see a problem there.
Also, when we started there was only going to be one model of each player role in a team, and I didn’t want to characterise a particular role by gender. This meant picking one gender for the team.
Ah, brain didn’t get to the ‘one fig per position’ stage. 🙂 Hard to remember that but a month and a bit ago, there wasn’t really much of anything!
Yup. Kickstarter made a BIG difference 🙂
One thing I like a lot with your game (DB), Jake, is the fact that it’s built with simple mechanics at the base and then expands with subtleties and options (i.e. cards, coach dice, etc.). These days
I play games mostly with my oldest lad and lass (ages 8 and 7) for lack of time (being a working dad and all), and this approach allows me to start gradually with introducing more elements in the game step by step to them and keeping them interested without overwhelming them. The fact of having 45 minutes games with 8 models per side also is a great option for working games during lunch break: these two factors, the coolness of the minis, the quick and streamlined dynamics of the game where what motivated me in investing over 200$ in the game without even reading lots of reviews or having in depth look at the minis, something I’m not doing usually (I’m a prudent guy). So my compliments for having found this specific market niche to fill, the “professional gamer with kids and a tight agenda”, that’s what got me into DB a lot!
Thanks Erick! It’s been very flattering to see how much people have got behind this project, and I’m really looking forward to everyone getting the real thing and getting the models on the table. It’s going to be a blast 🙂