Some Changes
Hey everyone,
I've been talking pretty openly in the Discord about needing to make some changes to the Patreon and I figured it was about time to start putting things into motion.
When I first started the Blackwell Games Patreon, I was making 10 - 16 page expansions for DELVE, RISE, and UMBRA. Eventually, as the Patreon grew, I increased the page count and eventually started doing a substantial expansion every other month rather than making more frequent short content. And that works great for me but it has created a new problem.
There are a number of people each month who sign up, download everything, and then cancel their membership on the same day. And I get it, money is tight. But it is demoralizing.
My solution is to this is to have the Patreon give free access to anything released in the previous 3 months. If you're a supporter when something gets released, all you have to do is go claim it on blackwellwriter.itch.io and you'll have access to it as long as itch's servers exist or as long as you keep a hold of your PDF copy.
If you're a new supporter, you'll be able to claim any games that have released in the past 3 months and then will have access to them like above.
For all you long term supporters, this change shouldn't really make a difference but in the interest of not surprising anyone or locking people out of the things they've helped me to create, I won't be implementing this change until September 1st.
You've got a whole month to go and claim every Patreon enabled project on Blackwellwriter.itch.io if you haven't already!
Fiction Rewards
In other news, I've been getting into writing fiction again and I'm currently editing my first completed novel: Wolf & Fang Detective Agency: The God Thief. It is a fantasy comedy crime story about a werewolf detective and a vampire detective trying to find a stolen statue of a god and uncovering a divine conspiracy that could change the world!
My question to you lovely patrons, is should I include my fiction projects as rewards for some months or would you rather I stuck to games?
Year Of Circus
Next month I'm going to be starting a 10 month long circus course which is going to be awesome but also really tiring. My intention during this 10 month period is to slow down, relax a bit, and focus on Patreon and personal projects.
My goal is to post more "behind the scenes" stuff like deep dives into my Game Ideas folder, maybe share what TTRPGS I've been playing and discussing them, making small experimental games, and sharing progress on my bigger games.
Speaking of which:
DELVE: Reforged
After I get For Small Creatures Such As We and Golf Quest fulfilled, my attention is going to be returning to the long awaited sequel to DELVE. I've been slowly cooking up new mechanics in the background for the past year and a half and I can't wait to get started. It's going to be a long development period on this one as I want to make sure that it's perfect before releasing it into the world but that doesn't mean I have to keep it secret.
By being a patron, you'll get to see what I'm working on with DELVE: Reforged and get to test out the new mechanics as we go.
Comments (18)
Will new Patreons after September still receive access to the base game versions (when supporting at Hero or God level), regardless of when they join? Or will those also disappear (as they're not part of the last 3 months' releases)?
This is a great solution! ...Pardon me for being dumb, but how do I do that? My itch and Patreon are linked but I don't see any obvious buttons ^^;;
Hey Archer, not dumb at all. There's another post above this one called Itch.io Links. Each of those links will let you claim a key depending on your membership :) just click each of them and follow the instructions it gives you.
Hi Anna. I too love having access to everything through itch.io so thanks for the links! Is there a way to link Kickstarter purchases to itch.io as well? I believe I have backed all of your base games there.
Hi Linda, you should have gotten emails from each Kickstarter campaign with a link to claim your copy on itch. Have a look in your spam folder and if they're not there anymore just send me proof of which campaigns you backed and I'll get you keys for them :)
I didn't realize I was on a free tier until this post. Sorry about that
I think having everything accessible on itch is a great idea - there have been times when I wasn't sure if I had the most complete version or somehow couldn't find something I knew I had downloaded so everything in one place is great. As far as fiction I would not put up a full novel on patreon but maybe sneak peeks, bonus chapters, short stories, drabbles etc.
I think this is a perfect solution! Thank you for laying this all out so clearly. Also love Year Of Circus, so awesome. As far as fiction rewards, I agree with what another person said and wouldn’t want you to water down sales by releasing within the Patreon, but I would love some of your “behind the scenes” thoughts about the similarities and differences between writing fiction and playing fiction-creation games (ex. what structural things in more formal writing could help inform game play/story creation with these systems). Just any cross over between story nerd and game nerd, I’m into. Really excited for everything you’ve got going on, you are truly prolific!
Excited for your novel! Would be more than happy to support you by buying it separately, so for me at least, no need to include it here
Joined today, downloaded everything, sticking around. LOVE your work and looking forward to the Delve project.
Hah, thank you :)
If I've been a supporter for a while and plan to remain so, do I need to do anything? Sorry for my confusion, just trying to understand. So anything older than 3 months will no longer be downloadable from Patreon, is that correct? So then we'd need to go through the itch listing and claim? (I'm OK with that, I like having my digital download library at itch.io). Just trying to understand what I need to do. :)
All you need to do is click the links in the post I've just made, link your Patreon account and claim access to everything there :) I'm going to clear any files and use itch.io to distribute everything from now on.
I completely understand, I couldn't help but feel that the current rewards are way too generous, and I think the future plan of free access to anything released the past 3 months is still well worth the subscription. Also, I'll be happy to receive any kind of updates from your projects, be it fiction, behind the scenes stuff, smaller game ideas or new expansions of the bigger ones. <3
Have you fixed the issue that people backing you in Pounds Sterling can’t redeem anything from your itch.io /Patreon linking, as that will become more of an issue with this change.
Hmm, I'd hoped Patreon/ itch had sorted this. If it's still an issue, I'll look into it again and find a solution or workaround.
This is a completely understandable change to make, especially as you've given us so much wonderful content! Incidentally, how do we claim the Itch.io copies of the pdfs? I just have what has been released here on Patreon.
Thank you <3 I'll put together a post just now that has all the Patreon-Access links as it looks like that'll be the easiest way to distribute them. For future releases, it means there will be a link that looks like this > https://blackwellwriter.itch.io/apothecaria-familiar-shelter/patreon-access