Dwarves of Iron Peak
- Launch date: February 14, 2017 (Valentines day!)
- End date: March 19, 2017
- Goal: $12,000
- Cost for a copy of the game: $45
- Designed by: Greg Breault
- Published by: RocketSlug Games
- Campaign link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocketsluggames/dwarves-of-iron-peak/?ref=TIGR
Why don’t you start us off by giving us a brief overview of Dwarves of Iron Peak.
Dwarves of Iron Peak, or ‘DoIP’ (go ahead, say it, its fun! Doy-p!) is a 2 player game that take about 30 minutes to play. One player takes charge of 8 Dwarves sent by their King to retrieve an ancient Relic. The other player plays the Troll, who’s represented by two large dwarf crushing 2 inch feet, and a Hammer of extreme dwarf bashing. He also has Cave Spiders under his control who just mainly eat things that enter the trolls cave. Which happens to be Dwarves this day.
This is your second time launching a campaign for this game, can you tell us some of the mistakes you made the first time around?
One big mistake was my goal price. Not only did I offer free shipping and EU/UK Friendly, which is a huge cost and time sink, but also, no one KNOWS me. So this time around I’ve gotten the manufacturing costs down without any quality loss, but I also had to drop Free shipping and EU Friendly because it was just too much for me as a ‘one man team’ and also for my goal. Secondly, or is that Thirdly? I am so tired! …I also did absolutely NO social marketing, which was another huge mistake. Literally Marketing and the logistics for EU/UK Friendly , take two people to do right.
What have you done differently in your approach to this campaign than your previous campaign?
I got my costs down on manufacturing, cut costs with Free shipping and EU/UK Friendly, and I’ve spend a lot more time trying to get DoIP out on social media.
How did you spend your time between campaigns? What changes did you make and how did you spread the word about the relaunch?
I spent a lot of time talking to manufacturers and working and reworking art and sculptures for the miniatures. I’ve also reworked a lot of the gameplay and fine tuned it. Blind playtesting was a must and it opened my eyes up to a lot of situations I just didn’t see. Everything had to be reworked and fine tuned. I spread the word about DoIP through social marketing but also just by shaking peoples hands at local game stores and telling them about the game. I’ve made a lot of great contacts that are now good friends.
I noticed that one of your reward tiers is for source files for people to print their own 3d miniatures from a 3d printer. This is a really cool idea that I don’t think I have ever seen before. What made you come up with this and do you think people will be interested in it?
I am a big 3D sculpture guy and I work in that medium all the time as well as traditional sculpts’. So I am in that community a lot and it’s very friendly. I wanted to offer to anyone out there with a 3D printer to be able to print out and play with pieces they made in their own home. I also just wanted to share what I made so other players could enjoy it. My MAIN goal is to make Dwarves of Iron Peak and see it produced so if you can support me by buying the $15 3D printable STL files, that’s awesome in my book!
You also have two reward tiers for the base game, one of which contains a shield token. This seems like your way of including an early bird without including an early bird. Did you include this to entice backers to back early on and what function does the shield token serve?
I tinkered with this a while and I know Early Bird’s are not liked. I really wanted to show my original backers that I appreciate them coming back! So instead of an Early Bird, you can get a 2 inch Dwarven Shield for your desk. “You are my Shield!” * crying *
I also saw a reward tier that includes a bust. What is the best, is it functional in the game, and what makes it a must have?
The bust is of King Khorum, the current King of the Iron Peak Dwarves. He is very proud, yet greedier than his father before him who originally lost the Relic that he now has his Warriors and Lancers seek out from the Troll. Ok, sorry, went into some Lore there! The bust is a 3.5 inch made from resin. It just sits there, on your desk or table and watches over your game as you play. He brings good luck to the Dwarves if present…sometimes. If you enjoy having a cool looking Dwarven King Bust on your desk/table, then its a must have!
This game seems like a good sized game but is only for 2p. Did you consider making 3-4p work so that it could have a broader appeal?
I did consider and have played DoIP with 4 players. It’s not officially in the rulebook but I might add optional rules for more than two players. If you have three players, let the third play either the spiders, or split your dwarves. If you have a fourth player then the third player controls the spiders (who ‘should’ help the troll, but hey…they ARE spiders) and the fourth player takes half of the dwarf forces which are 1 Warrior and 3 Lancers. Done. Lots of Dwarf crushing!
Your campaign is running quite long, what made you decide to run a longer than 30 day campaign and do you have a lot planned during the lull period to keep interest piqued during that time?
As I mentioned above a few times, I am a one man team here. That being said I knew I would need the extra days to really get my head wrapped around all of the things I’ve missed with marketing, ads, blogs, chatting with people and general promotion. It was a buffer of sorts.
Lastly, say that I am not sure if your game is really a good fit for me, what final words do you have to convince me that I should back this game immediately?
Troll Feet and Great Lances. ‘Nuff said! ….A lot of people don’t truly understand Dwarves of Iron Peak until you play the Troll and you are literally destroying and crushing your opponents dwarves in one hit as you simple walk across your cave floor (which is already littered with dwarf parts, the board art is not done!). Until you play the Dwarves you don’t realize how FUN it is to pin the nasty Troll players feet to the ground and prance around him stealing his precious Relic and stabbing at him (He Regenerates so be careful!). The Cave Spiders are also a lot of fun because they are a huge annoyance to the Dwarf player with their in-and-out tactics to poison and then run away, ready to poison another dwarf on the next turn.
Everyone that is sceptical of Dwarves of Iron Peak soon changes their entire outlook on the game after they’ve had one playthrough and made the opposing player cry a few times. It’s all about the huge Feet and nasty Dwarf Lancers.
Thank you very much and I hope I can get your support for Dwarves of Iron Peak!
(PS, Kickstarters also make your stomach ache and you will bite your nails a lot)
Very big thank you to Greg Breault for doing this interview with me! If you like giant troll feet and stomping dwarves, head on over and check out the Dwarves of Iron Peak campaign!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocketsluggames/dwarves-of-iron-peak/rewards