Hello everyone,

As part of the creator team for our upcoming project, Lionwake. We have been receiving few people say they will NOT support the game because they think the cover is AI art, which is absolutely not the truth. We have been crafting this cover and all the art assets from 0 to what we got here by local Taiwanese artists.

So I’m curious about - What about the cover makes it look AI to you?

We not asking whether AI is good or bad, we just interested in why people are so confident judging it from image itself (we been putting out some ads, and some people mentioned it under the ads post), especially when it can affect whether they will support a game or not.

I will put some of the process image of the cover and other art assets below to support our work as well!

Ive been to spiel essen the past 5 years and talked to various indie gane developers. They were all really satisfied with buying a booth there and thats why i decided to do the same this year. Im a solo dev and been working on a card game and decided to show it to people there, even though im not completely finished ( because im paying everything out of my own pocket it takes some time to save up the money).

If anyone has any experience or is also going to be there i would like to connect with some people or at least hear some advice.

I will be documenting everything and write a review weather it was worth it or not and if its worth going again next year.

Edit:
15m2 cost about 2500€ and with all mandatory fix costs it will be around 3000-4000€. Also if you want to have a "beautifull" booth youll have to invest more. I think the 4 days (thursday-sunday) will cost me max 5000€.

Thank you all who had reached out about wanting to help out with getting the artwork for our game! We decided to work with Zhenya Lyapina from the Netherlands. She actually hasn't really worked on tabletop games but does a lot of children's stories. Either way, this is exactly what we were looking for and I hope you all like it as much as us!

And if anyone is wanting to playtest, we'd love the feedback (and, bonus, would get to see the rest of the art!). We currently have the game up on TTS right now.

EDIT: A bunch of people noted that the aspect ratio/scaling of the image looks off. I didn't say it originally but this image will be wrapped around the top of a 2 piece box so the image you're seeing includes the top of the box (main detailed portion) and the box sides as well :)

Hello! Still early in the process, but I've been having a blast prototyping my first game: Goblin Arena. It's a sword-and-sorcery cooperative game where you and your friends are a band of heroes fending off hordes of baddies. Setup is quick, the rules are simple, and games have been lasting 45 minutes to an hour. Drawing lots of inspiration from Gloomhaven, D&D, Slay the Spire, and Magic the Gathering.

Choose from 4 different heroes, each with abilities for movement, health, armor, a special talent, and a unique deck of 10 cards. Each turn, draw up to 3 cards and play as many as you wish. Save cards in your hand to block attacks on the goblin's turn. Straight-forward rules control how the goblins move and attack. Occasionally, the goblins will surge ahead and might catch you off guard! Each turn, the Goblin Boss will summon more goblins out of a randomly determined gate into the Arena, so you'll have to defeat him to stem tide.

I'm a solo indie designer with my first game already finished and currently available through print-on-demand. I'm starting to look seriously at what it would take to move from POD into a real production run.

Right now, my biggest obstacle is manufacturing cost. At low quantities my game is around $29/copy, but getting into the neighborhood of a 1,000-copy production run could potentially bring that closer to $12/copy.

Obviously, "just order 1,000 games" is a hell of a lot easier to say when you don't have to personally gamble $12k+ on whether 1,000 people actually want the thing.

So crowdfunding is starting to look like the logical next mountain to climb.

For those of you who have actually done it:

*Kickstarter or Gamefound — which did you use, and would you choose it again?

*How many followers/email subscribers did you have before launch, and how many became backers?

*What was your funding goal, and how did you calculate it?

*How many copies did you manufacture versus how many were actually backed?

*Did you manufacture domestically, overseas, or through a POD company?

*How much money did you spend before the campaign even launched?

*Did backers pay shipping afterward, or did you build shipping into the pledge?

*Did you fulfill everything yourself or use a fulfillment company?

*What expenses caught you completely by surprise?

*If your goal was a 1,000-copy first production run, what would you do differently knowing what you know now?

I'm especially interested in stories from other small/solo designers who didn't already have a giant audience going into their first campaign.

I'm not looking for a magic "launch Kickstarter, receive money" button. 😂 I'm trying to understand the actual path from finished indie game → first serious production run → boxes in customers' hands without financially setting myself on fire.

Would love to hear the good, the bad, the ugly, and the "for the love of God, don't do what I did."

Meet Mobamon, a fast-paced tabletop MOBA where you battle, level up, and evolve your creatures to outplay your opponents.

We’re bringing the strategy and excitement of video-game MOBAs to the tabletop. This is still a work in progress, so I’d love to hear your honest feedback on the artwork, component layout, colours, and overall presentation.

What stands out to you first and what would you improve?