4 Quick Links About Creativity, Pledge Managers, Taxes, and Game Designers – Stonemaier Games

4 Quick Links About Creativity, Pledge Managers, Taxes, and Game Designers

I hope your week is off to a good start! Below are some links to some external content that you might find informative or inspiring.

  • Creativity: There’s a great discussion about creativity around halfway through this Board Game Design Lab podcast with guest Hankerin Ferinale about creativity; specifically, that even the smallest barrier can often be a deterrent to delving into creative work. It’s an odd thing, but it really resonated with me. I’ve learned that if I want to work on certain projects, I need to keep the files open so that when some design time opens up (or even if I have an idea) I can access them immediately.
  • Pledge Managers: Mike at Rock Manor Games recently made an excellent, detailed post about several pledge managers they’ve used. It especially opened my eyes to the Gamefound service, which I knew little about. UPDATE: Here’s an updated post.
  • Taxes: My accountant–Justin Marty at Anders CPA, who is well-versed in accounting for Kickstarter creators–recently appeared on Gabe Barrett’s podcast.
  • Game Designers: There is a new documentary about game designers called, appropriately, The Game Designers. I think I’m in it very briefly, but I haven’t watched it and don’t remember filming anything for it.

What’s something recent you read/heard/watched that inspired or informed you as a creator?

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14 Comments on “4 Quick Links About Creativity, Pledge Managers, Taxes, and Game Designers

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  1. Hi, I had a quick question. I plan to launch my first campaign on KS in a few months and am currently doing research for it. I see that a lot of first time successful campaigners use marketing services like Jellop. Do you recommend spending funds on marketing before and during the campaign or should it mainly be through one’s network? Also if we should market what should the budget be?

  2. I am a sports scientist in professional sports and routinely apply game theories and mechanics to my player/team stat management schemes. I’ve been following Jamey for a while in you tube and would love the change to “talk shop” about my industry and how to apply his world to mine.

    Mainly, I am looking for some help identifying game systems that apply to my industry (professional sports science). I’ve had lots of success, for example, using resource management methodologies to manage athlete training schemes. My current thought is applying a nice character stat system that includes both stats as a resource as well as the ability to improve those stats over time. Similar to MP and AP in turn based rpgs, but a focus on managing a multitude of characters (i.e. my roster). I have been researching games and mechanics but feel lost in that world, so any help would be greatly appreciated (especially if you happen to be into professional soccer).

    Again, my focus is not to build this into a commercial game, so not worried about competing IP concepts or anything. Rather, to represent my complex field of managing athletes physiology throughout an entire season into a system that is both informative, aids in planning, helps to reveal pitfalls, and illuminate the usefulness of established theories.

    Apologies for the long message as I am excited with this methodology but have hit a ceiling.

    1. Look up “Football Manager” maybe? They deal with a ton of stats in soccer.

      As for the specifics in regards to other things, that is a complicated question and answer. Depends what you’re looking for exactly and how much work it would entail setting up.

      1. Thank you for the reply. Here is what i found when I searched on that game title:

        https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/235785/ufm-football-highlights
        https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/192357/football-managers

        On initial review they seem like most games that focus on tactics. I’ve found more success with fantasy themed approaches rather than direct sports ones.

        One of many different examples is this: Players weeks 9-14 are notorious for being injury season, especially for hamstrings. For me this represents a per unit resource that that has a slow “refill” rate that bottoms out around that time.

        Another Thought: Injuries = location based “damage”. I’ve found some inspiration from MECH style games. But again, they tend to focus on tactics as well.

        I think “event deck” type games represent what I’m after more, as in the team roles I oversee (back room staff) we have to “deal” with what happened more so than have any influence on it directly. Then seeing how those events affect 30 players (Units) AND be able to upgrade them over time (strengthen) in multiple areas (cardio, specific muscles) while maintaining their energy systems (resources) is closer to the name of the game.

        Its the integration of these systems I don’t want to re-invent the wheel on, but rather apply established systems and then analyse what the plus’s and minuses of that system represent.

        1. Oh, I was talking about the video game “Football Manager. I haven’t played it but looked at it briefly and it is like a “sports fantasy” style game with a ton of stats and see my board game friends playing it regularly.

          As for specific board games? I think Jamey Stegmaier mentioned some good ones. Any “campaign” style board game could work, although I’d recommend checking out some RPG tabletop games which are definitely more focused on persistence.

    2. Skylar: I think it’s neat that you’re trying to apply gamification to sports science! In terms of “applying a nice character stat system that includes both stats as a resource as well as the ability to improve those stats over time,” I’m trying to think of tabletop games that do something similar. The closest I can think of are campaign-driven dungeon crawl games where you’re leveling up a character over multiple plays. Here are a few games in that category you can look into:

      Gloomhaven, Journeys in Middle Earth, Imperial Assault, Tainted Grail, Descent, Middara, and Arcadia Quest

      1. Thanks very much gentlemen. Ill research those specific games and I would love to drop you both a line when i get done with my study of them?!

        If either of you are Soccer/MLS fans I’d love to get you some tickets some time (as long as we return to playing!)

  3. Thanks for the shout outs, Jamey. That episode with Hank is one of my absolute favorite episodes.

    Also, I watched The Game Designers documentary a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it. It’s great to watch with people who love you but aren’t designers. It offers a great behind the scenes look into the world we inhabit.

  4. “The Game Designers” came out around October 2019. Been curious about it but haven’t seen it yet. I know Matt Leacock and Scott Alden (Aldie on BGG) are big parts of it along with a lot of other people. Seems interesting and I’ll check it out eventually.

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