Rebooting my business: Launching The Growly Darks
Donation protected
Overview:
Help me reboot my business model from freelancing to creation of products and content. This helps me develop and launch the kickstarter for The Growly Darks- a mental arithmetic free game for dyscalculia, ADHD, ADD, vision impaired and other players barred from enjoying TTRPGS.
About Me:
I am an artist and game designer working in the games, film and television industry for over 20 years. My work includes games such as Dragonage: Origins, Unreal Tournament 04, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, Civilization IV, Stellaris HD and many more. In films, I helped bring Carol to life for Where The Wild Things Are. My other works include Max The Bear for Hotels Combined and the award winning Rabbit commercial for Comcast.
Check out my work here:
www.delaneyking.com
The Dilemma:
I was born intersex, (which means biologically I fall somewhere between male and female).
For the major part of my career I presented male, however I had crushing gender dysphoria, so to deal with this I transitioned to present female. The industry presented itself as very open minded, so I expected to lose some business and contacts, and rely on my vast experience and shipped titles to keep my career going.
Yeah, well, see the thing is that is that saying you are open minded and acting on it? Very different. I found massive changes in hiring practices between genders, and studios that head hunted me as a male, instantly tossed my job applications into the bin as a female. Even when I did get hired, I faced crushing discrimination, abuse and harassment. I returned to freelancing for my own health and safety.
But freelancing has changed too. Despite my experience and skill levels, I can no longer pull in enough money to save, and lead a hand-to-mouth existence regardless of how hard I work. With aging hardware and subscription based software licenses, the future is grim. I am one hardware failure or one bout of flu away from disaster. I have no savings and no prospects. I cannot relocate to transphobic countries such as the US. I am stuck, and am spinning my wheels in the mud.
The Solution:
I want to change up my business model from client-only service to creating products. Things like tabletop games, books, dice, tutorial videos, posters, miniatures and merch. I want to have time to properly leverage kickstarter and patreon- but I just cannot do this whilst grinding away on low paying freelance jobs. So I need your help to shake things up.
The first project: The Growly Darks:
The first project I want to develop is called The Growly Darks (twitter #TheGrowlyDarks).
The Growly Darks is a fantasy role playing system that I have designed specifically for neuro-atypical people, who face challenges with current systems. The game is ideal for players with dyscalculia (think of it as number dyslexia), ADHD, ADD, vision impairment and memory issues. It is also a great system for younger players.
At the core of Growly Darks core is an innovated mental arithmetic free dice mechanic. It can use regular d6, or our custom high contrast, numberless, tactile dice (growly dice). All math is done by physically picking up, dropping or pushing dice around. Physical slot based laser cut damage trackers help keep everything tactile.
I also use patterns and tricks like aligning values (1 dice hit = 1 square = 1 armor point = 1 encumbrance point = 1 magic point = 1 hit point = 1 gold coin) to make remembering rules easier. Coins all work with a decimal system (10 Copper = 1 silver, 10 silver = 1 gold etc) and coin metal initial indicates quality (copper = cheap, silver = standard, gold = good, electrum = excellent)
The rule book is designed with small blocks of text and highlighted keywords for attention deficit disorders. All examples are illustrated, and all items and spells have their info next to an image rather than being in huge lists.
Kickstarter:
I will need to cover rent, bills and expenses to take time off to develop, launch and monitor the kickstarter. That is what this GoFundMe is for.
The kickstarter will cover PDF version of the rules, with stretch goals for physical dice, tokens, coins, damage trackers, creature cards and even more art.
What's next?
* Taking a couple of days a week to shoot and edit art tutorials, mini painting tutorials and articles.
* 3D print and cast miniatures to expand my Darkling Range
* Create expansions for Skulldred, my mental arithmetic free miniatures rules.
* Produce PDF download books on digital art, game and miniature painting tutorials.
* Create asset store assets for Unreal and Unity.
Thank you
Well, that's the gist of it. I wanna make cool stuff and have a future that I can look forward to. I wanna make games that are kind and help people have fun experiences.
A big thank you if you help me out. I appreciate it.
Help me reboot my business model from freelancing to creation of products and content. This helps me develop and launch the kickstarter for The Growly Darks- a mental arithmetic free game for dyscalculia, ADHD, ADD, vision impaired and other players barred from enjoying TTRPGS.
About Me:
I am an artist and game designer working in the games, film and television industry for over 20 years. My work includes games such as Dragonage: Origins, Unreal Tournament 04, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, Civilization IV, Stellaris HD and many more. In films, I helped bring Carol to life for Where The Wild Things Are. My other works include Max The Bear for Hotels Combined and the award winning Rabbit commercial for Comcast.
Check out my work here:
www.delaneyking.com
The Dilemma:
I was born intersex, (which means biologically I fall somewhere between male and female).
For the major part of my career I presented male, however I had crushing gender dysphoria, so to deal with this I transitioned to present female. The industry presented itself as very open minded, so I expected to lose some business and contacts, and rely on my vast experience and shipped titles to keep my career going.
Yeah, well, see the thing is that is that saying you are open minded and acting on it? Very different. I found massive changes in hiring practices between genders, and studios that head hunted me as a male, instantly tossed my job applications into the bin as a female. Even when I did get hired, I faced crushing discrimination, abuse and harassment. I returned to freelancing for my own health and safety.
But freelancing has changed too. Despite my experience and skill levels, I can no longer pull in enough money to save, and lead a hand-to-mouth existence regardless of how hard I work. With aging hardware and subscription based software licenses, the future is grim. I am one hardware failure or one bout of flu away from disaster. I have no savings and no prospects. I cannot relocate to transphobic countries such as the US. I am stuck, and am spinning my wheels in the mud.
The Solution:
I want to change up my business model from client-only service to creating products. Things like tabletop games, books, dice, tutorial videos, posters, miniatures and merch. I want to have time to properly leverage kickstarter and patreon- but I just cannot do this whilst grinding away on low paying freelance jobs. So I need your help to shake things up.
The first project: The Growly Darks:
The first project I want to develop is called The Growly Darks (twitter #TheGrowlyDarks).
The Growly Darks is a fantasy role playing system that I have designed specifically for neuro-atypical people, who face challenges with current systems. The game is ideal for players with dyscalculia (think of it as number dyslexia), ADHD, ADD, vision impairment and memory issues. It is also a great system for younger players.
At the core of Growly Darks core is an innovated mental arithmetic free dice mechanic. It can use regular d6, or our custom high contrast, numberless, tactile dice (growly dice). All math is done by physically picking up, dropping or pushing dice around. Physical slot based laser cut damage trackers help keep everything tactile.
I also use patterns and tricks like aligning values (1 dice hit = 1 square = 1 armor point = 1 encumbrance point = 1 magic point = 1 hit point = 1 gold coin) to make remembering rules easier. Coins all work with a decimal system (10 Copper = 1 silver, 10 silver = 1 gold etc) and coin metal initial indicates quality (copper = cheap, silver = standard, gold = good, electrum = excellent)
The rule book is designed with small blocks of text and highlighted keywords for attention deficit disorders. All examples are illustrated, and all items and spells have their info next to an image rather than being in huge lists.
Kickstarter:I will need to cover rent, bills and expenses to take time off to develop, launch and monitor the kickstarter. That is what this GoFundMe is for.
The kickstarter will cover PDF version of the rules, with stretch goals for physical dice, tokens, coins, damage trackers, creature cards and even more art.
What's next?
* Taking a couple of days a week to shoot and edit art tutorials, mini painting tutorials and articles.
* 3D print and cast miniatures to expand my Darkling Range
* Create expansions for Skulldred, my mental arithmetic free miniatures rules.
* Produce PDF download books on digital art, game and miniature painting tutorials.
* Create asset store assets for Unreal and Unity.
Thank you
Well, that's the gist of it. I wanna make cool stuff and have a future that I can look forward to. I wanna make games that are kind and help people have fun experiences.
A big thank you if you help me out. I appreciate it.
Organizer
Delaney King
Organizer
Collingwood, VIC