Bad Decisions is a storytelling card game that involves laughing at the really bad life choices that can be made by foolish people faced with unexpected crises. By bringing the Bad Decisions game to Kickstarter, indie game design company Diamond Dust Dreams Inc. (based in Warrenville IL) hopes to make a big hit with its second game. Less than 3 days into the project (found at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/440270803/bad-decisions-0/description ), funds pledged have already reached 47% of the base goal. A web version of the game will be released for free when funds hit 50% of goal, and the mobile app version of the game will be released around the time the physical game goes to the printer.
Diamond Dust Dreams consists of Lead Game Designer Ian Price, who has been designing games since his middle school years and wrote chapters for three White Wolf RPG rulebooks while still at Judson; Art Director Charles Price, who has turned his interest in manga fan art into commercial illustration skills, and the company’s president, Susan Price, a publishing industry veteran who is also their mother. They formed the company in 2013, once Charles had produced art for a prototype of their first product, strategy card game Kitsune: of Foxes & Fools for his senior project at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design.
The team's first Kickstarter project, for the Kitsune game, ran in August and September of 2013 and netted 87 supporters, 126% of the modest $5000 goal, and the conviction that gamers who like strategy games would indeed pay $40-50 for an interesting new card game. The company finished the final redesign of the much-tested prototype over the winter and spring of 2014 and received the first print run of Kitsune: of Foxes & Fools from the manufacturer late last summer. The game is now in distribution to stores through Studio 2 Publications.
The Diamond Dust Dreams team finds most of its new players in tabletop gaming rooms at conventions. At Gen Con, the Indianapolis mega-event where game developers and marketers meet game players each summer, of course. But also at science fiction, anime and Furry fan conventions. Because of their Warrenville base, the focus has been on upper Midwest cons so far: those in IL, IN, OH, WI, MN – plus Gateway Fur Meet in St. Louis, Neko Con in southeastern Virginia and MileHiCon in Denver.
Even while finishing, arranging distribution for and beginning to market the Kitsune game, the idea that became Bad Decisions matured from vague notion through hand-cut rough trial versions to its professionally designed and printed second prototype. During the process, the game has received rave reviews in the course of much trial play at all the conventions mentioned above, plus game stores, libraries, and gatherings of friends. Games stores as well as players have expressed interest in carrying Bad Decisions.
Where did the game’s idea originate? From Price family’s habit of making snide comments about the bad decisions you see every day in the news. The game will remind players of Apples to Apples (or a PG-13 version of Cards Against Humanity), with the addition of a MadLibs mechanic, and maybe a hint of Snake Oil. The content aims at an age 13+ audience, giving it a little edge but keeping it suitable for teens – and yet still amusing for those of college age and older. Anyone can pick it up in seconds. The core game offers fun for everyone – because who hasn't made (or made fun of) bad decisions?
In the Kickstarter, the company has designed one reward level targeting game stores for support, by offering help to stores that back the project. One of the $100 options would give backers 10 copies of the game. For stores, this amounts to a preorder at wholesale cost – with the added plus of promotion through Diamond Dust Dreams crediting the store as a Kickstarter backer and earlier delivery of the games than will be available through distributors.
The Bad Decisions Kickstarter campaign runs through Sunday, April 5, at 6 p.m. Central Daylight Time. The Diamond Dust Dreams team invites you to check it out, saying, “Please, make Bad Decisions with us!”
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For more info, contact Susan Price at susan@kitsunecg.com 630.362.6980 or Ian Price, elderkitsune@kitsunecg.com or 630.362.3737
