We Kept Our Promise (Now Here's Another One)
about 3 years ago – Mon, Mar 08, 2021 at 04:01:50 PM

Gather 'round, folks. And let me tell you a little story.

Last year, we launched a Kickstarter campaign.  We weren't happy with it. So we cancelled it, even after it had achieved its funding goal. We didn't take a dime of anybody's money. But we knew that by cancelling a "successful" Kickstarter, we'd raised some significant questions about our integrity. And when you're just establishing yourself, your integrity is all you got.

So I did something a little crazy. I promised all of our original backers a free copy of the Starter Set when the game was released, just as a way of saying "thank you" to the folks who were willing to go out on a limb and back a couple of nobody's, pledging hundreds of dollars of their money to what could have been a scam, for all they knew. (There's a whole YouTube channel dedicated to Kickstarter scams)

People couldn't believe it. It sounded insane to them. They couldn't wrap their head around how or why a company would give away upwards of 500 copies of a game for free. I wasn't able to get them to understand then and I'm certainly not going to try now. But it didn't matter because whether or not they believed I was going to do this outrageous thing, I did it anyway.

Of course, it required participation from those getting the free game. They still had to do a few steps, but they were easy:

• Join our Facebook group
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Send us an email with their name, email they pledged with and tier they pledged at

The first two were to keep them updated on the progress of the game and relaunch, while the last was to build the database so we knew who'd be getting the free game. I called this database of original backers, "Grubstakers."

Not everybody climbed on board. Even though everything I was asking was free, and even though I was willing to make exceptions for people who didn't have a Facebook or YouTube account, there were still quite a few people who scoffed at the offer. 

I don't know if any of them are regretting that decision, but despite any doubt that what I was promising was real, a few short days before the new Kickstarter relaunch, I corralled the Grubstakers together into one group so I could coordinate with them and we are now gathering all of their updated information to track their free game and some other awesome perks within this campaign. You see, despite telling them they were getting the game for free regardless of whether or not they pledged on this campaign, they still pledged anyway. Most of them went All-In (Everything & the Stove).

We were loyal to them. And in turn, they are loyal to us.

That's what we are about, here. It's what we've always been about. Loyalty.

When we created the Everything & the Stove pledge, we initially made it for our loyal followers who have been with us from the very beginning and who have jumped onboard our bandwagon even after we cancelled our Kickstarter. They were begging us to give them an excuse to max out their credit cards, so we obliged. We had no idea the pledge tier would be so popular with everyone, especially new backers who had no idea who we were. 

And yet, here we are again, attracting people who have no idea who we are and they are shelling out large amounts of money to make our dream a reality. So, to the Grubstakers, you know I got your back. And to you new folk, welcome to the family. 

This is where we get to the point of the story:

Last year, we formed a posse of Grubstakers and those Grubstakers stood by us. This year, new blood has joined the posse and together, they are holding the line with powerful All-In pledges that drove us toward unlocking the first 3 stretch goals in the first 3 days. Today, we name you our Ride Or Die posse.

We've said over and over that our objective is to hit retail with the largest offering. But it's critical to understand it won't be the only offering. High Noon is unlike any other Kickstarter out there. This is not about getting a one-shot funding goal to produce a thing and trash everything else that doesn't get funded and then maybe do another Kickstarter later for reprints. We are establishing a brand with the singular mission to expand on that brand, just as other tabletop games have expanded theirs.

Will it take more time to achieve if it isn't done on this Kickstarter? Sure. But just because we don't unlock something now doesn't mean we won't go into production on it later. It just means we'll need to build and expand more organically, and that's OK. That's how Warhammer did it. That's how Dungeons & Dragons did it. Are we to suggest we are any better than them or deserve to work any less than they had to? If that's what we have to do, so be it.

But because of you, our Ride or Die posse, we will have an incredibly strong entrance into the market, a powerful flex that turns heads and makes people pay attention. Because of you, our Ride or Die posse, we will be a brand people recognize and explore and invest in. 

You've been loyal to us. Now it's time to show our loyalty to you.

A year ago, I made a promise and a year later, I kept it. Now I'm here to make another one.

Everyone who pledges at the Everything & the Stove pledge and stays at that level all the way through the campaign, regardless of how many stretch goals we unlock, will be added to an exclusive High Noon Ride or Die Club. 

These chosen few will receive everything High Noon releases before anyone else. You'll be our market testers, our product consultants, our privileged insiders and everything we bring to market, you will get.

How will it work?

After the Kickstarter, we will launch our High Noon website, where a community forum will exist. There, we will discuss all things High Noon related. We'll also have a secret Facebook group for announcements for those who prefer to stay on that platform. As expansions go into development, they will be announced in the hub and Facebook group. They'll also be made available in the Discord server, where you all can test them out and provide your feedback. And when they're ready to ship out, they'll go out like any other mailer club.

Now, I fully expect my Ride or Die posse to be exactly that. When you get these expansions, you had better tell the whole world how awesome they are. And you better tell them how incredible and loyal we are to our backers. And when we launch any future Kickstarters for our bigger roll-outs, we're going to be watching to see if you're really with us. But who are we kidding? Of course you are. 😉

Let's ride!

What did you think of this update? Have you been sitting on the fence about going All-In?  Are you already a Ride or Die posse member ready to go the distance with us? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think! Have you joined our Facebook Group or Discord server? Use the links to come on over!

If you like these updates and want to support our campaign, please consider leaving a comment and sharing this post with your friends, family and network. A little word-of-mouth goes a long way.

We Want To Thank You (So Here's How We Did)
about 3 years ago – Sat, Mar 06, 2021 at 11:20:47 PM

It's been an incredible first 2 days and we are so pumped about the response from everyone and blessed to have you all supporting this great project of ours, that we spent the last 3 years pouring our hearts into. We can't thank you all enough but we'll keep thanking you every chance we get. This is one of those chances to thank you, but before I go into that, I want to add a little context to it.

From the very beginning, this campaign has been about bringing the most robust offering of High Noon to the retail marketplace, not just Kickstarter. This is why we stress the focus of the posses vs the assets within them. This isn't a CMON campaign. And that's no slight against them (we're backing their current campaign all the way because...c'mon!).  Whereas their campaigns are mostly focused on their core game, with stretch goals being exclusives that will likely never see the light of day beyond Kickstarter, creating a FOMO to drive money toward them, our campaign isn't a cash grab. It never has been.

We said from the beginning that we already produced the Starter Set. It's going into the retail marketplace whether this campaign succeeded or not. The $60,000 goal was to finance the initial expansions (Monco & McAtte, Jenkins Brothers, Abernathy Gang and Marketplace). With our goal met, we've already succeeded. The rest is just icing. Now we'll be able to enter the market and start populating game store shelves with sexy cool High Noon packaging like this!

And it's all thanks to all of our backers! You guys made this happen. It couldn't have been done without you.

Of course, we're not done. We still have 28 days to go with plenty of expansions to unlock. As of this writing, we're sitting around $93,500, just $1,500 shy of our next stretch goal. $93,500 is a LOT of money. We're still kind of shocked we even got there. All day, I've been thinking about how we could celebrate this achievement and throw some more value at you guys. This evening, I sat down with the team and went over our early financial planning and compared it to what we have going on.

For the last year,  we've been working entirely in the world of What-If. No matter how well we planned or how many numbers we crunched, at the end of the day, while as close to reality as it was, it wasn't real. Nothing could possibly be real until the time of launch when the real backers came to the table. Nothing was real until you guys showed up.

Now that we have a real picture, we have a bit more freedom to do some things. We still have to be prudent, to ensure we're able to fulfill whatever we promise, but now we know what we can promise beyond the initial pledge tiers.

We want you guys to have as many posses and expansions as you can fit on your table, especially you All-In backers. We understand the ask was high and we want to fill that bucket to the brim. You've brought us one heck of a distance from where we started and we want to thank you any chance we can get. 

That's why we're going to go ahead and unlock the Los Hermanos stretch goal right now. You've earned it and we can afford it. That's how we do things. That's an 8th posse straight into the hands of everyone who is All-In on the Everything & the Stove pledge. Everyone else can grab them as an add-on in the Optional Buy store for $30 (MSRP $35). 

And it's a huge posse, guys. An 8x10 polystyrene Saloon starting tile, 5 miniatures, 5 character sheets, additional gold and chip tokens and 40 posse cards. This posse is a beast and super fun to play. They add a lot of character and chaos to the board. You can watch our breakdown of this posse here.

Unlocking this stretch goal reveals the next two: The Bloodcreek Bushwhackers and Father Franklin.

We'll be publishing an update for each posse soon, but for now, here's a sneak peak at their minis. 

We're also squeezing the stretch goals even tighter so you can unlock them faster. Most goals will be around $15,000 apart. 

Frankly - with the standard fare campaigns giving away a single mini or a couple of cards every $30,000+ - with as much value packed into High Noon's stretch goals this close together, you just can't find anything like this anywhere else. That's why we need all of you to spread the word about this campaign and help us reach our goals so we can dish these posses out to you.

We're only going up from here, family. It's an honor to have you all along for the ride. Now let's get out there and unlock these posses and make High Noon the strongest roll-out of an indie game into the retail market the world has ever seen!

The Stove Price Rides!
about 3 years ago – Sat, Mar 06, 2021 at 08:45:05 PM

We heard you guys loud and clear!

It took a lot of number crunching to make it work, but we believe that as we continue down this journey with you, you'll really see the value of the game and its posses that you'll want to go all-in with everyone else and we want you to be able to do that. So we've decided to pull the trigger and let the price of the all-in Everything & the Stove pledge ride on at $300 until the end of the campaign!

If you were one of the first in on the pledge, we thank you for going in on this tier and helping us crush our funding goal on Day one and giving us your feedback about the pledge tier. For those of you who are coming here a little late to the party, you should thank your early-bird pardners for speaking up on your behalf. 🤠

Now let's ride out and unlock them posses!

Funded in 7 Hours! (And Something Special to Celebrate!)
about 3 years ago – Sat, Mar 06, 2021 at 09:19:33 AM

Wow! Thank you all so much for such an incredible start to this campaign! A lot of blood, sweat and grit went into High Noon and are thrilled to share it with you and thanks to your outstanding support, that possibility was made into reality in just 7 hours!

There's been a lot of static recently about campaigns leading off with a "bogus goal" while hiding a secret goal from everyone, hoping that - by achieving the fake goal - they will gain favor from the Kickstarter gods and momentum to reach their true goal. And when they reach their fake goal and fail to reach their real goal, they cancel the campaign knowing they won't be able to fulfill what they promised.

Well, we're very pleased to say that ain't us. With our goal of $60,000 funded, we can go right into production of all of the pledge tiers and add-ons you've selected so far. If this is as far as we get, you can rest assured you're getting what you pledged for and that's something we can hang our hat on.

But we won't.

For now, the hat stays on because we're just getting started. 🤠

As of this writing (March 5th at 10pm EST), we are just south of $3,000 from our first stretch goal: 3D Chips & Gold. This is a stretch goal everybody is going to get, to kick off our stretch goal run and from there, it's on to the first posse unlock, the dreaded Montaña Azul and his gang, Los Hermanos!

The Los Hermanos bandidos are a gang of numbers (5 characters total) and cards that respawn up to 2 previously killed characters, giving the effect that Montaña's gang are legion. On top of respawning, the Bandidos carry an arsenal of tequila bottles on their belts. Some act as medicine to keep them alive while others are stuffed with cloth to be used as deadly bottle bombs causing area-of-effect damage wherever they land. 

Montaña is deadly in his own right. An infamous duelist, he has faced down some of the most ruthless bounty hunters in the West and - unlike them - lived to laugh about it. With a lifestyle of always being the hunted one, Montaña has developed an affinity for bounty hunters and is the quintessential counter to that faction. If Monco and McAtte are on the table, your best bet is on the handle-side of Montaña's revolver.

The playstyle of this posse is to be aggressive and fearless, overwhelming your opponents with sheer numbers. Sure, your bandidos are going to die, but not only can you respawn them, they can also be placed almost anywhere on the map, providing for some very interesting ambush strategies. And the amount of bottle bombs in their deck just makes them a force to fear.

Montana's expansion posse unlocks at $95,000 and - given our great run so far - we decided to do something special leading into Day 2.

Early Bird Extension

This really isn't isn't part of it, but it bears mentioning. We got a few messages that our Early-Bird deadlines were less than 24 hours long and technically not "a whole day." And they're right. So we've extended the Early-Bird deadline up to March 6th at 10am EST. That's a whole 'nother 12 hours to jump into a higher pledge if you haven't already. And there's good reason you should! We'll explain...

We are so incredibly grateful for the outpouring of love and support for our game that we've decided to offer a special Day 2 Stretch Goal Bonus!

That's right! If we reach $95,000 by March 6th at 11:59PM EST, we will DOUBLE our Free Chips & Gold stretch goal meaning you'll be getting not one pack of chips and gold, but TWO! That's a $24 value right there. And with Los Hermanos' MSRP sitting at $35, those of you in the Everything & the Stove pledge tier will be looking at a $47 value-add to your pledge (we're not counting the 1st pack of chips and gold that everyone gets)

But we have to reach $95,000 before March 6th at 11pm EST to get that bonus, so this is a great time for some of you on the fence about going all-in to make that leap. And since we just extended the deadline, you're in luck!

Thank you again for all of your support! We look forward to unlocking more incredible posses and expansions for you to enjoy. Now giddyap! And let's get ta' unlockin'!