As I mentioned last Saturday in the blog post, Masquerade is currently going through some account difficulties in terms of banking. I'd like to inform you all that the problem is currently being solved. I'm working right now to open up a separate bank account to use for Amazon (the primary distributor of money for Kickstarter).
It's going slow as does most things to do with the bank. My hope is that by the end of the week I will sort this mess out.
Apologizes to having everyone wait like this. I should have looked into this matter sooner, if this were a real job I probably would have been fired. I'd like to promise that a solution will come soon, but considering its bank involved and out of my hands I have no idea how long this will take.
I can promise that as soon as the banking gets sorted out, I'll post that the Kickstarter is up. So stay tuned until then!
Check out the map in the meanwhile! A full hand drawn version of it is going to be one of the prizes for the Kickstarter, it will even be signed.
As of right now, the Kickstarter trailer for the Masquerade project has been completed! I'm a little shaky about the results of it, but for a first time I would say it's not bad at all. I really like how the music fits with the theme of the game and everything.
I followed the basic guidelines that Kickstarter laid out for making the video: talking about who I am, what the project is, where the idea came from, and why your support matters.
Overall, I wish I had a better quality camera and had more help with the footage. Maybe next time I work on a project like this, I'll hire a professional to do it for me so it looks a thousand times better. For now, at least I have the ability to say that everything in Masquerade so far is 100% created by me.
In other news, the website is still underway though I did get to see the results! I don't want to post them here because it's not quite ready yet but it's looking good so far.
Look forward to Saturday when the Masquerade Kickstarter finally gets created!
So some good news before I launch the Kickstarter, I found someone who promised to put up the website before December 1st. And she's a professional no less!
In celebration of this, I've decided to post what the website is going to look like when it's complete. That's right, all the pages up for viewing. Check it out!
The Home Page
I was going with the theme of letters, wax stamps, and childish character drawings. I made the decision that it's actually Mary, from the book, doing these doodles. It's fitting with the style that someone her age would draw in and it adds depth because we get to see what she sees in the world around her.
The About the Book Page
The book page doesn't have the book cover just yet (I haven't created it after all!) but it certainly adds to the feel I was trying to create. There's even a little Mary sketch in the corner of the page.
About the Creator Page
To match the theme, I couldn't use an actual picture of myself so I came up with the Wanted Poster look with a stamp idea of a photo of myself.
About Game Page
This is probably my second favorite page on the website. It's a letter to Newgate, another major character in the game and story. I love the little note from another character, Carnell, to add to the theme.
And now my least favorite page.
Card Page
Yeah, I just don't like how this page came out. In the future, I'll probably rework it. But for now, it's important to have because I want people interested in the game to have a place where they can download the cards from for free.
I know this was probably a post before much earlier back when I finished the Masquerade book, but I'm in need of editors. Not for the 49 chapter Masquerade book, though to be honest if you're interested I'll gladly take your help.
No, I need editors for the different writings I need to do to make both the game and the Kickstarter work.
The press release I've written for the Masquerade project has been written up and I've shown it to one person, my mom. Not that I want to insult my mother, but I definitely need more eyes to take a look at this considering this is what's going to grab the attention of blogs and newspapers. I've never written a press release after all, every pair of eyes that look at it will help with making sure I do this right.
The other thing I've off editing is the rulebook. If you check this link (http://michaelbujtas.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/masqueraderulebook2-0.pdf) you can see the most recent version of the rulebook so far.
So, is anyone reading this interested in doing some editing? You'll get a sneak peak on everything I'm working on so far. Just give me an email at michaelbujtas@gmail.com or comment on the page and I'll get right back to you.
As I said before, the reason I haven't really been posting lately is because there's simply nothing I can show that you're all not going to see already once the Kickstarter begins. Most of it is boring documentation like the press release, which I need to send out to people to have edited before I deliver it to various websites.
For those who don't know, a press release is similar to a news article except it's what you write and send to news reporters to get them aware of you and curious about you. I currently have mine talk about how different the Masquerade project is, how interesting the dynamic between the card game and book is, and how young I am to be working on such a thing.
I would post it here for you to see, but it probably isn't all that interesting. I will be sending it out to different people though once the Kickstarter launches.
That reminds me, I need to have a link to the Kickstarter page at the top of this website soon!
I suppose if you want something for me to show you guys, here's the new logo I worked out for Masquerade. I'll be using this as the official header for most things related to Masquerade unless I can find a graphic designer to create a better one.
In other news, my Thanksgiving holiday is going to be filled with creating the video for my Kickstarter project, finding someone to create the website (problems arose with that this week), polishing the documents I have, and building some connections for the time when I post the Kickstarter.
This is going to be a real thing! I can't wait to prove to the world that I'm not just all talk!
I don't expect Masquerade to explode in popularity, but if I can even get just $5000 in donations from people that would be a great success in my book. It's like my teacher said, at the very least the reward for working on this is going to be an excellent portfolio piece.
I'll post the video on here once I finish working on it over break. I realize I need to update my video blog soon too...
So besides today's blog video, I've also put together the prizes I'm going to have for the Kickstarter. The thing is I'll need some feedback for them to see what you guys think of them. Anyway, here's the video real quick if you're all interested.
Do I seem nervous? I certainly am starting to feel it!
Here's the list of prizes I decided on for the Kickstarter project. If you don't know how it works, basically if you donate the listed amount of money or more, you can choose the prize you want plus all of the prizes beneath it. You can check out the Kickstarter pages for more details (http://www.kickstarter.com/).
$5 or more: You get your name added to the rulebook as thanks
$20 or more: The card game is yours plus all the below
$35 or more: The book is yours plus all the below
$50 or more: Both the book and the cards will be personally signed
by me plus all the below
$100 or more: Special Edition pictures from the original card
game and book plus personal special mention in my blogs. You will also be
mentioned in a special thank at the back of the book plus all the below
$200 or more (Limited to 5): Your name will appear as a
character’s name in the game plus all the below
$300 or more (Limited to 1): You will get to design your own
card that will appear as the special 61st card in the game. This
includes a picture of yourself as designed plus all the below
The limited prizes are obviously limited to only a few people, the first few who donate that much. I decided to make the prize for the Bloody Christmas Contest, which failed big time, the main prize for Kickstarter. I'm not expecting a whole lot but I am going to try to market the crap out of Masquerade once I get started.
Also, here's the card box I'm working on as promised.
I used a design I found online for poker boxes, so it should be about the same size and hold up to 61 cards for the deck. The design is pretty straight forward and I'll go into more detail with it in the future when I complete it.
If you read my last post in the blog, you'll know that I've decided to launch my Kickstarter project on December 1st and there's a lot to do before that. One of the things on the list was to perfect both the card design and the rulebook. This week I've decided to do both, I've already begun to make the new card design with about 20 cards out of 60 already done.
This is all final card art and text, or at least it is for the results from the Kickstarter. Any minor changes will be added before the cards themselves get printed as real playing cards.
There's also the matter of the updated rulebook. I had been working on it for quite some time and there are only a few changes I need to add to it before it's ready for the final print. I also need to be testing it in the Quality Assurance lab here at Champlain.
What I was going for the rulebook this time was a smaller, compact, and more to-the-point design. After all, if I'm going to sell Masquerade to people, I need to expect them to understand the basic rules without me having to explain them.
Please, if you're curious, check out the rulebook and let me know if you spot any errors or inconsistencies. All your editing will be of great help in the future when I finally get around to printing the game. Here's to doing it by next semester!
Sorry, but Blogger doesn't let me upload documents directly to their website, which is incredibly stupid if you ask me. So I ended up having to post the rulebook on my portfolio website. Fair enough I suppose, it's better than nothing.
The rulebook is currently in version 1.1 and is not quite complete. A few things may change over time, but I'll be sure to update everything when they do.
=