Development Diary #3

Hi all,

Just wanted to keep you informed of a few updates that have been going on behind the scenes. I'll try do it quickfire, as there is a lot to cover.

For a start, I've been trying to fix up the website and the google search a bit. This has been more time consuming than I would have liked. The thing is that AoT, Act of Treason, playaot, are all not showing near the top of the google search page. As you might imagine this is a serious issue. This will WRECK my online visibility. I'm still trying to find out what happened and why it isn't showing up. I'm currently working through guides on how to correct this, but unfortunately the cause isn't clear. All I know is that if I do everything to secure the SOE for my site fortifying my position on the list as best I can, which can only be beneficial. It's painful, but like most painful things, it's worth doing. So I'm doing it.

For the website, the main thing I've fixed is the video link, that would take the user out of the website and to the YT channel. This may seem minor, but is it very unprofessional and a disconnect to the reader if they are navigated away from the site like that. We should be keeping the user there as long as they need to start soaking in the information there, and to hopefully convert them into a patron of our excellent product. Keep an eye out for our next video, it will be coming soon!

How the video appears now

Ultimately, I'll be doing more beatification of the site and the product as I feel that it should at the very least lead into more shares. People will be more inclined to share a link to something of high quality. Almost all shares come from a space of "Hey this looks awesome, I saw it and thought I would share it with you because you might think it's awesome too". This is where being 'good' or 'alright' doesn't really cut it. Having a great product is one thing. But demonstrating that the product is great - totally different story.

A mockup of the game box and setup I've made

Anyway. I've also been coming to grips with online paid advertising using very small dollar amounts, but making sure that I'm still getting eyes on page + gearing up. I want to make it so that when the big day hits I've already have maximized my advertising potential.To this end I have a couple of ideas that will help me to get a rough projection on conversion rate, which will be useful in determining how effective advertising will be, and if I should amp it up, or just let it simmer.

I've also filmed some more footage with the help of my brother and his company bbgroup.net.nz. This is all a bit of a learning curve, but I think video is definitely the way forward and I will be trying to use as much of that medium as I can. I need to make shorter snippets and use them in posts. Something like a live play through and having the rules 100% exposed on the website are examples of this, which is definitely something I have planned to do.

An Actual Act of Treason Advertisement

I'll also be trailing videos to use for advertisements, I think the current one I'm using is good, but it needs a much better readout and a call to action to drive those who are interested to join the mailing list, or follow on the social media. It could also be a lot shorter. 30 seconds would be ideal.

I've decided to release a public schedule of things I have still to do with a rough time frame associated with each block of tasks. Bear in mind this is a ROUGH outline of the things I have left to do. But it will hopefully provide some clarity as we move forward. Bear in mind that timelines may get vastly pushed out depending on what blind playtests reveal. But at the same time, lots of these tasks can occur concurrently.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I had a playtest last Friday, which went awesome. The changes added to the game seemed to have fixed things. As mentioned in Design Diary #1, I would shed some light onto what I was testing, why, and my findings.... But not just yet. That was plenty to cover this week and I have a lot to say on the design choices and my thoughts behind them - So I'll save that for my next post soon. Super excited for everything to follow!

Be sure to follow this blog or out other social media below and make sure to sign up to the Kickstarter Mailing list so we can let you know when the game comes out!

Until next time friends.

 Cheers,
 Tyson

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