A few years ago, I decided to give the digital CCG Hearthstone a try. After playing intensely for a few weeks, I set it aside forever, but one thing has stuck with me over all that time: The animation of opening a new pack in Hearthstone is absolutely stunning.
I know how good it feels to open a booster pack of Magic the Gathering, but I had my doubts that Hearthstone could even come close to capturing that feeling. However, what it lacks in tactile sensation, it makes up for in sound and animation.
You “place” a pack in some kind of runic vault, which glows briefly before pushing the pack towards you. The pack quivers and pulsates, bursting at the seams. Then, finally, as the music crescendos, a burst of light splits open the pack, pushing the 5 cards into their respective positions. Check it out here:
https://youtu.be/saTPURs-tfU
Let’s bring this over to crowdfunding: Has a project ever made you feel this way about a stretch goal reveal?
I didn’t make this connection until I saw what City of the Great Machine was doing on their project updates. Every single stretch goal unlocked is paired with a Hearthstone-like video (but gearpunk themed). For example:
These videos start with the same animation of gears turning and unlocking something, followed by the funding level for the current goal. Finally there’s a moving image of the stretch goal itself, with any text large enough to pause and read.
I’ve been watching the videos without sound, and the visuals make sound unnecessary, which I always appreciate. Also, if you want to skip the video, there’s a big image lower on the update where you can see all of the new content.
I really love this entire approach to stretch goals. Honestly, as a backer I rarely pay attention to stretch goals anymore, but if more projects made the reveals as exciting as City of the Great Machine, I would tune in for those updates.
In fact, the Hearthstone approach makes me want to not know what the next stretch goal is–I want it to burst out of the video as a surprise. That probably isn’t a great approach for some backers, but it’s easy for me to not look at the next goal.
The one thing I might change is that on the project page itself, a backer must scroll way down on the page to see what the next stretch goal threshold is. With this much effort put into these amazing reveals, I’d recommend putting a thin banner at the very top of the page (or on the core image itself) that states the next stretch goal amount. (Or just use Gamefound, which cleverly places that information at the top of the page.)
What do you think of this approach by City of the Great Machine? Have you seen other projects use the Hearthstone method of revealing stretch goals?
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5 Comments on “A Video for Every Stretch Goal: City of the Great Machine”
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Gadgetzan is my favourite. There’s something very satisfying about watching that dial turn to open an explosion of coins.
Wow! thanks for the article. I never would have even looked at the kickstarter page. My first thought was the added cost. Maybe in Russia it’s more affordable? Or the publisher has very good connections. I can see that this could be profitable for publishers, especially because they could outsource projects to other countries. For My Little Pony, some of the animation was done by Top Draw, an animation studio in the Philippines. That was surprising for me. I guess in the future, we’ll see trailers for board games on Youtube like how we used to see commercials for toys on TV.
Going back to the kickstarter campaign page, they should have an interactive stretch goal map so the update animation can be played from the main page. I think that could attract more people. If I’m not a backer, I don’t really check out the updates.
For the future, it would be cool to have interactive stretch goal maps or at least a link to an external site with an interactive stretch goal map if the Kickstarter site doesn’t allow it. Then potential backers have something to interact with and play with online as a teaser for the game, like the Flamecraft campaign – which totally worked on me. I wasn’t going to back it, but I got sucked into it.
Thanks for your thoughts! Can you link to the Flamecraft minigame you referred to (not the project page, but the “something to interact with”). I’d like to check it out.
I think this is a great idea!! Agreat way to keep a little excitement in the campaign for early backers.
I love the idea of this! More work for the creators of the project but I think worth it for the sake of the backers who we are here for anyway. It’s not something I have seen before but am keen to see if this becomes more expected or the norm in crowdfunding!