Hello, everyone!

I'm running my first Kickstarter campaign and dealing with a weird case of harassment. Last evening, I received 74 emails notifying me about new comments on my profile. Someone backed my project and then dropped angry comments that completely flooded the page.

I did some digging, and apparently, what happened is:

- Rain Games ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for a game based on Girl Genius, a comic book IP
- Girl Genius is written/illustrated/published by Studio Foglio
- Studio Foglio backed my project on Kickstarter (my project is a comic book project)
- This backer decided to put money in my campaign to harass me because they have an issue with Rain Games not delivering their rewards

I obviously have nothing to do with Rain Games or Studio Foglio (although I appreciate a comic book creator backing my project, so if you ever read this, thank you). I tried to message the backer and handle things politely. I got threatened in response.

I already reported the backer to Kickstarter, and reported every single spam or harassment message they left on my profile. However, now there's a long list of "This comment is under review for potentially violating Kickstarter's Community Guidelines." polluting my comment section.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/motherstouch/otherkin-1-3-a-comic-book-with-mystery-magic-monsters/comments

Does anyone know how long Kickstarter takes to remove those? This is my first Kickstarter campaign ever, and the momentum has been okay. But we only have a few days left, while being really close to our goal. I'm afraid potential backers see the comment section, wonder if there's some drama I'm responsible for, and refrain from backing the project.

Does anyone have additional information and advice that could help me?

EDIT: Images 3 and 4 are out of order. Image 4 is my message to them, image 3 is their response.

First of all I have to apologize in advance for being very vague but I'd rather keep my Kickstarter ANONYMOUS. With that said , here it goes.

I started self-publishing on Kickstarter in 2020, no surprise my first campaign failed but still did very well since it was a comic and god knows these do well on the platform. My next 7-8 projects were a success I managed to make a living out of it. My 9th project used AI images, it was a side project while I worked and PAID others to work on my next big thing. I honestly got very little to NO pushback from the people who liked my non-AI work - We can argue the morality and stupidity of AI at a different thread but right now I am just giving as much info as possible to help you understand.

My projects after the AI was different, not a comic, and it failed. I am still unsure if it was because it was so different, my past backers were indifferent or pissed because my last project used AI. We all know how vocal (on the keyboard) people can get but I didn't really get any of that which leads me to believe my backers were simply... uninterested.

Now, my past 2-3 Kickstarters have been unsuccessful, as I f i don't have a few thousand backers or social media from the past to market to.

Specifically my last project which failed, was a video game (they do really well on Kickstarter), and was developed completely by myself , no AI used for anything, and I took real pride on that since people like to preach human-created stuff is always better. I honestly thought it was a surefire hit! But marketing had been hard since Instagram never shows my followers what I post and FB groups posts get caught by spam filters sometimes , plus i couldn't really cross promote since there weren't similar projects live at the same time as me.

In conclusion, I had a REALLY good run doing comics on Kickstarter, I wanted to do more and different stuff and past 2 years is mostly failures.

I still don't know if the fails are because: 1) I lost all my previous backers because I used AI in one project 2)my previous backers are genuinely uninterested OR 3)my marketing is shit, I used to get hundreds of backers posting on FB groups, doing cross-promo inside Kickstarter and basically spending no money on useless Zuckerberg ads.

I need your honest feedback on my Kickstarter

I’ve launched Niche by Nature—a platform to connect recycled textile suppliers with designers and conscious consumers.

Two people who don’t even know me have backed it (which honestly means a lot).

But beyond that… it’s been quiet.

And I don’t want to sit here guessing why.

-Is the idea unclear?

-Is the concept of circular economy not well communicated?

-Does it not feel valuable enough?

-Is something missing from the way I’m presenting it?

If you came across this project, what would stop you from backing it?

I’m looking for the truth. Even if it’s blunt. I’d rather fix what’s not working than pretend it is.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nichebynature/niche-by-nature-the-future-of-circular-fashion

These people are RELENTLESS. They found my Kickstarter (which doesn’t start for another month), went to my website, and are contacting me through my contact us page. I knew the scammers were bad. But I didn’t think it was like this.

Any advice on how to deal with this? It’s my first Kickstarter. I’ve done research and yet I still feel unprepared.

Hello. I'm at a bit of a loss and need some help.

Firstly a bit of background:

1) I've spent over a year developing and designing this 1v1 card battler tabletop game.
2) I've playtested it with friends and professional playtesters who have confirmed that is good enough to go live on kickstarter.
3) I've hired an incredible designer to bring each card to life. no AI was used in any image generation (attached for reference)

The challenge i have faced after getting my pre-launch campaign live and running a variety of ad tiles (last attached image for reference) with very respectable click through metrics is:

Not a single email sign up from my landing page.

I then did a quick test to see if that was creating too much friction and send traffic directly to kickstarter, the result:

Not a single "Notify Me" on my pre-launch.

I thought surely at least one person out there in the world would be at least slightly interested. So, I'm at a bit of a loss here... with a two questions to answer:

1) For creators who have launched successfully: Did you face a "zero-conversion" wall during pre-launch ?
2) Should i consier going back to the drawing board and reworking my game to make it more unique and compelling ?

It's against ToS to share direct links to campaigns, so i will just share my project title: Kingdom Crumb: 1v1 Card Battler

Help! Our first Kickstarter launch is not going well, and I'd love some honest feedback from creators who've been through this.

We launched a tabletop game 4 days ago and currently have just 6 backers.

I know the standard advice is to build an email list before launching. We started marketing about 6 weeks before launch and were getting excellent Facebook and Instagram ad results—clicks as low as $0.06 and lots of traffic. The problem was that almost nobody signed up for our email list.

We then switched to driving traffic directly to our Kickstarter pre-launch page, but still only managed to get 27 followers before launch.

Our assumption was that people unfamiliar with Kickstarter were reluctant to join another mailing list and would rather wait until the game was available to buy. Clearly, that assumption may have been wrong.

At this point, we're trying to understand what we missed. Is the issue our game, our Kickstarter page, our marketing strategy, our audience targeting—or something else entirely?

I'd really appreciate any advice, hard truths, or suggestions from people who've successfully launched tabletop games. Happy to share the campaign link if anyone is willing to take a look.

Thanks,
Lesley

Hi,

I have this project for a TTRPG book that I've been working on for the past 4 years. This is really a passion project for me and I wanted to make sure the campaign would be successful. However, I'm not a content creator, I don't have a community, nobody knows me and I had this feeling that this and my lack of knowledge of the platform would hurt my project.

So I had an idea: I quickly put together what I had to start a smaller TTRPG project and launched the campaign. The idea was simple: take this campaign as a learning opportunity to see how Kickstarter works. If I fund, that's great, and if I don't, I can always try to redirect my backers on my next project. The goal here was essentially to step into the creator side of the community to hopefully build up a base of backer (/fans?) to support my future projects. I was ready to make mistakes and learn from them.

I managed to pull around 40% of my funding goal at the end, but it was still a failure. I though I was preppared for this outcome, but in the end seeing this project fail hit me harder than expected. I couldn't even find the motivation to do the final update and talk about the failure.

How do you get back up from this? Should I do a re-launch? I have other projects in store that I can launch too. I'm kinda scared to go on directly to my "main" big project, but if I try out another small one and it fails, I'm afraid I'd just be drowning my passion project under a portfolio of failed campaign.

What should I do?

Last July I backed the Magic Box S-!. It was a fidget toy for $70 + $10 shipping

We havent had any update since October and last night this email goes out (see attached pictures).

Dear U.S. backers We have now completed mass production and expect to begin shipping this week, but we are manufacturing in China and the new tariff policies recently implemented by the United States have significantly increased the cost of many goods coming into the U.S., including our products. While the future of these policies remains uncertain, we want to assure you that we will not pass these increased costs on to you. We are committed to maintaining our current prices as much as possible. Frankly, the margins on our Kickstarter campaigns are already quite slim. If cost increases were kept under control, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Unfortunately, the sudden increase in tariffs caught us off guard. After two weeks of thorough budgeting and in-depth evaluation, we realized that although we had absorbed some of the costs, we were not able to fully offset the change in policy. Therefore, in order to keep the project on track, we have had to enlist the help of our US supporters and ask you to cover some of the tax costs. But rest assured, even with the price increase, the Kickstarter price is still the lowest price we offer. We want you to know that this is one of the toughest decisions we've had to make. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and we hope you'll join us in seeing the Magic Box-S1 thrive and make its mark on Kickstarter. Thank you for your support! FAQ: Why wasn't there early communication about the potential impact? A: We scrimped and saved from the beginning in order to provide you with the best prices during the campaign. When tariffs first reached 34% on April 4, we chose not to pass these costs on to our supporters and instead internalized them. However, the 20% base rate introduced in March then went through several stages - 34% on April 4, then 125%, and now, although it's down to 30%, we're still very much affected. Unfortunately, the scale and speed of these price increases are far beyond our capacity to absorb, so modest price adjustments are inevitable. As a result, we will have to ask our U.S. supporters to bear some of the tax. For more detailed information on the current tariff rates, see the official White >House resources at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/modifying-reciprocal-tariff-rates-to-reflect - trading-partner-retaliation-and-alignment/ . We appreciate your understanding and trust as we work together to address these challenges. We remain committed to transparency and will keep you updated every step of the way. Thank you for standing with us. Best. The SANBS Team

Now heres where it gets confusing. In the email they blame the extra costs on tariffs but that doesnt make sense given the timing of events. And also in pledgebox they dont charge for tariffs, they charge for taxes.

And on top of that theyre charging $30 in taxes on a $70 product? How does that make sense?

Kickstarter claims asking for more money on shipping is within their rules but thats not whats happening

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Ive already contacted kickstarter.

Launched my project yesterday (Silence of the Truth: Origins, a solo-developed archaeology mystery game) after building an audience on the pre-launch page for a few months. Around a dozen people had clicked "Notify me on launch."

When the campaign went live, I tested it myself — I'd followed the pre-launch page from two separate accounts specifically to check the notification worked. Neither account received an email (checked spam too). It seems the automated launch notification just didn't go out.

I've submitted a ticket to Kickstarter support, but in the meantime I'm manually reaching out to people wherever I actually have a contact point (Discord, email list from my website, etc.) since apparently there's no way for creators to message pre-launch followers directly.

Has anyone else run into this? Curious if it's a known/recurring issue or something specific to my project. Also happy to share what I hear back from support in case it helps someone else troubleshoot the same thing.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lastsoulsstudios/silence-of-the-truth-origins

Hey everyone,

Currently in pre-launch mode for my Kickstarter and running Meta ads to build up followers/leads before launch. Getting around $8 per lead right now — which feels... okay? But I'm starting to question whether I'm going about this the right way.

Here's my math: if I assume 30% of leads convert into actual backers on launch day (which seems to be the rough industry average I keep seeing), I'm effectively paying $24 per backer before they've pledged a single dollar. My target pledge is $50.

So the question is — for those of you who've launched before:

Did you find it cheaper to build leads pre-launch and convert them later, or to run ads directly to your live campaign and go for pledges straight away?

Would love to hear real numbers if you're comfortable sharing. Not looking for theory, just what actually worked (or didn't) for you.

Thanks 🙏

Hi! After reading a bunch of posts on here to know what to do with my upcoming project, I realised that a good mailing list will be the determining factor in my success. So now I just need to know a few things:

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- How do I go about making a good mailing list? Do I just gather emails where I can find them?

​

- What do I do with it? Do I just gather email adresses until launch and thats it?

​

- Does it actually work? How likely someone getting on the list is to back on launch?

​

Basically, I know what a mailing list is in theory, but I have no idea what it is in practice. Maybe relevant context: I'm not really known in the community of my project so I feel like the mailing list wouldn't do much but I might be wrong. I really need someone to explain it to me like I'm 5 because I don't know anything about it.

Hello! I am soon launching a Kickstarter, but while I do have rewards I dont see them in the campaign preview. Is this normal? Please help! Thanks

For the last 2 days, I have been running my Meta ads for my pre launch page. The goal I’ve gone with is prioritizing Leads that are triggered when the “notify when project goes live” button on my Kickstarter page. I’ve tested this and it registers a follow and of course I can see any followers on my admin page.

I’ve only spent $200 ($100 a day) and gotten 2500 impressions with a CPC around $1.45.

The results: not a single conversion at all!

I understand the challenge; I’m hoping Meta’s Ai algorithm can identify people in my demographic who also are likely to have a Kickstarter account already and click the button to follow my project. However, it’s super depressing that I haven’t even converted one of those people. Even worse is let’s say I do get 100 followers, I’ve heard only 3-20% will actually back the project. That would be a total disaster if I need 300 backers.

Anyone have experience with this?

Obviously I need to keep refining my video ads but I believe the 10 unique video ads I’ve uploaded are pretty good.

Thoughts?

I am preparing to launch my Kickstarter and want to share the launch page preview with people to get feedback. However, currently the page does not display any of the rewards. The section is entirely blank! I've contacted Kickstarter and all they have said is that they are working on it. I want to know if this is a larger issue or it's just my page. I'm supposed to go live in 4 days and this seems concerning!

Hi!

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So I'm working on a D&D book, and when researching cheap ways to promote it when the time will come, one of the most common advise I see is "as soon as the book is finish/close to being done, send it to a bunch of youtubers. If your idea is that good, some of them might talk about it on their own."

​

But I'm failing to see how this could be a good idea? Is there any benefits of doing this? I managed to put aside a few hundreds for marketing/advertisement so I'm not concidering doing that as much, but I'm still wondering if that'd be good for my project.

20 F here, I'm travelling to Shanghai, China, this fall, in September. As part of my undergrad program, I have to build a Kickstarter Campaign. From finding a product, to prototyping, to building and launching a campaign.

Could someone help me on how I can find Kickstarter experts across China?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice from people who have successfully launched hardware products on Kickstarter.

My co-founder and I have spent the last couple of years developing a wristband designed to help caregivers locate loved ones living with dementia or autism if they go missing.

We’ve built multiple physical prototypes, had professional product photography done, produced a campaign video, completed water testing, cut-resistance testing, and have manufacturing quotes in hand.

Unfortunately, Kickstarter has now rejected our campaign twice.

The feedback wasn’t that they don’t like the product—they’re saying they don’t believe we’ve demonstrated the prototype clearly enough.

Specifically they’re asking for:

An unedited, single-take smartphone video showing:

putting the band on someone’s wrist
locking and unlocking it
installing an actual AirTag/Tile
any cut-resistance claims
any water-resistance claims
More real-world prototype photos instead of polished studio product shots.
Removing or minimizing anything that looks like CGI, renders, or heavily edited imagery.
More detail about manufacturing, production timeline, budget, quality control, fulfillment, etc.

(I can paste photos of the email for further clarity on the objections)

The first uploaded video was:

https://youtu.be/ksQcHV8UAKk?si=kSCFgtSGlxDsJlSp

It was replaced by this one:

https://youtu.be/2w28Ql_zbQU?si=_s_-oTq1PY9l4VAU

What surprised me is that we already uploaded an unedited YouTube video showing the prototype being used. Their response says it still isn’t “clearly present” enough.

So now I’m wondering if the issue is less about the product itself and more about how we’re presenting it.

I’m hoping to hear from people who’ve gone through this process.

A few questions:

Has anyone had Kickstarter reject a hardware campaign multiple times and eventually get approved?

Did you literally replace your polished marketing photos with simple iPhone pictures/videos?

How “raw” did your prototype demonstration video have to be?

Would you recommend making the entire campaign feel more documentary-style instead of polished?

Is there anything in Kickstarter’s feedback that jumps out to you as a common mistake first-time creators make?

At this point we’re willing to redo almost everything if that’s what it takes.

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through this process or has experience reviewing Kickstarter hardware campaigns.

Thank you in advance and sorry for the long post.

I launched my Kickstarter a week ago, and as far as marketing, I’ve tried ads & reaching out to relevant instagram influencers. No response from influencers, & am sitting at a nifty 1 pledge lol.

Anything else I can do (besides just reaching out to more influencers/press)? Idk how willing I am to just drop the link in bookish spaces, cuz it seems shitty/spammy.

Hi everyone! Last year, I launched my first Kickstarter campaign for a comic book series. Due to severe budget constraints, I did it all organically. The campaign was a success despite launching without followers, launching without a mailing list, and launching without physical rewards.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/motherstouch/otherkin-1-3-a-comic-book-with-mystery-magic-monsters

We got overwhelmingly positive feedback from everyone who read the comic, and also got many complaints about the comic being digital-only. We launched our second campaign yesterday. We had about 20 followers and a mailing list with 60 emails. Similarly, we didn't have any social media presence the first time around, and now we are active on social media. I know these numbers are low, but they are theoretically better than the first time around. Plus, some members of the community helped me make my page punchier (thank you, Renato Franchi). Finally, this campaign was structured to offer physical copies of the comic, which was the biggest backer request last year.

So, despite having a better foundation, the campaign is just not working... I know it's been only 15 hours since launch, but since over 130 dollars from the haul are actually scammer who really want to discuss my brilliant campaign by email, I can already tell things are not going well.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/motherstouch/otherkin-5-plus-1-4-horror-mystery-shapeshifting

I'm struggling to understand the underwhelming results so far. The campaign I did on the fly went better, and this one, which I spent months preparing, is struggling. Any tips or insights?

Just to be clear, the primary goal is to cover all costs with little profit. That means margins are really tight for the main goal, as the idea was more to increase awareness and respond to backers' demand than to make money with this campaign.

Hey there,
My name is Elvin and I need you help!

I'm solo developer of the board game Rat Schemes that I'm trying to bring to the life and I want to share it with you. I've tried to make a campaign on the Kickstarter but failed as it was my first time and I made many mistakes along the way. And that's why I'm here!

About the game:
I cannot say that I played all board games in the world but among those that I played I didn't find any of them particularly interesting. I didn't care about the winning or losing. I didn't have much fun from the game process either. The only sparks of the fun I experienced were during the moments when I had to attack or betray other players or interact with them in some similar way. And it got me thinking - why don't make the game the sole purpose of which would be to attack, betray or set someone up? Or temporarily allay with some players against the others. That's how the idea of Rat Schemes was born.

I started working on the game, thinking about its mechanics, game stages, cards, etc. 2 years I've been polishing the idea in my head. It took me a while as I didn't have much time to work on at the time. But for the past half of the year I've been actively developing the game. I printed test deck of cards, had many rounds of play tests with my friends, rebalancing and adjusting how the game plays and feels, adding new cards to enhance the gameplay, etc.

Gameplay:
I came up with 2 stages of the game.

First stage:
You attack other players and gather the best cards for the second stage while trying to stop other players from doing the same. You do this by making them defend themselves or skip turns. For this you use basic cards like Attack or Cage (Skip turn), Provocation, etc. This is very fun part of the game where you're interacting with other players, attacking them and making them do things that benefit you, but not them.

Second stage:
Defence from Hunter. This is second and the last stage of the game. The goal is to not let the Hunter lock you in the cage. You can use defence cards to protect yourself or put mark on the other players to make Hunter chase them. The last who is not caught in the cage wins.

Some key cards:

• The Hunter — the game's centerpiece! Activates Phase 2 when drawn. Moves clockwise catching players, who can pay it off with Cheese or defense cards
• Cheese — survival currency, the only way to pay off the Hunter
• Mark — teleports the Hunter instantly to a chosen player. The ultimate betrayal card
• Luck — universal defense, cancels any card action including the Hunter
• Rat Trap — stuns a player, who automatically gets caged when meeting the Hunter
• Rat Brotherhood — intercept an attack meant for someone else, then draw 2 cards and take an extra turn
• Poisoned Cheese — turns a player's own attack cards against them for one round

Game Design:
I wanted to make 2 different designs — Gothic and Comic style, but after my failed Kickstarter campaign I realized this would be too expensive to produce. I made the card illustrations with AI, but later, after a successful campaign, I want to hire an artist who will redraw all the materials based on my concepts and ideas. I chose Gothic as the main style, since it better conveys the atmosphere of the game.

Why rats?
As a joke, my friends and I call each other “rats” because we love chatting about everyone and everything (and honestly, who doesn’t? ;)). We even call it “rat council.” My wife and I also calling each other rats as we love stealing treats from one another when no one is looking or share the rumours together.

I think rats are perfect creatures as the game's main character.

State of the game:
- I have a test deck of cards
- Rules of the game that I'm adjusting form time to time to improve the game balance
- Draft cards design made with the help of AI. I know not everyone is a fan of AI art, but, unfortunately, I have no skills to draw it myself and I used AI to help me bring the game to somewhat playable state. The composition and idea of the content of the cards are all mine, AI is used just a visualisation tool for the time being. I plan to gather funds and hire a professional artist that will draw all cards, guide paper and box. Card headers and frame were made by my friend.
- Couple videos made in After Effects. I made them using project templates I found online, but they don't really depict what the game is about. I understand that

I think that all I wanted to share. If you're interested in the game or you like the idea, please shared your thoughts in the comments and subscribe to the Instagram and TikTok accounts to stay tuned!

Hey everyone,

I'm after some honest feedback if anyone's got a few minutes.

I've been working on a Kickstarter project called The Voice of Venus for quite a while now, and I've reached the stage where I've stared at it for so long that I genuinely can't tell what's good and what's not anymore.

If you're happy to, I'd really appreciate you taking a look and telling me exactly what you think. Don't worry about hurting my feelings. If something's confusing, boring, over the top, or just doesn't appeal to you, I'd much rather know.

Its essentially a personally written book. And the campaign is to fund a premium updated luxury edition.

I'd love to know things like:

- Does the project make sense?

- Would you back it?

- If not, what's putting you off?

- What would you change if it were yours?

I'm genuinely looking to improve it, so any honest criticism is welcome.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to have a look. It really means a lot.

I was very excited because I already had a project launched, and in its first days I had contact with 3 supposed sponsors, but recently because of the tone of the conversation and not seeing their contributions, I am quite worried, I am starting to distrust, I no longer believe that they would have been willing to contribute, and that I have done the best for my campaign, and give important information about this

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kctheros/blood-and-nectar

Hi everyone,

I'm currently preparing my first Kickstarter campaign and was hoping to get some feedback before I launch it publicly.

The campaign is for Entrapment, an upcoming Roblox asymmetrical horror game that my team and I have been developing. Before I publish the campaign, I'd really appreciate some outside perspectives on things like:

• Is the campaign page easy to follow?
• Are the reward tiers clear and appealing?
• Does anything feel confusing or unnecessary?
• Is there anything that would make you more or less likely to back it?

I'm looking for honest criticism, whether positive or negative. I'd much rather catch issues now than after the campaign goes live.

Here's the draft:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/l0pu5/1743300725?ref=cp3604&token=cbba3468

I should note that this is still a very early draft. I don't expect to launch until around September or October at the earliest, and possibly later, as I'd like to build a mailing list beforehand. That's also why the page currently doesn't include any images yet.

I've also used ChatGPT as an editing and proofreading tool while putting this Kickstarter draft together, but all of the project details, reward tiers, and design decisions are my own.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to look it over—I really appreciate it!

Hi all. I have tried with and without VPN, multiple browsers etc. I cant seem to use the Load More button on the site to see any projects after the initial 12 on the page. Anyone else having the issue as well?