Kickstarter preview

$7 advertised in the image and print and play rules as first paragraph are great. Good reel in. Card design looks great.

Print and play rules need an edit, right from first sentence, "One of the greatest game[s] of poker you'll ever play!" One of the primary "I'll never back a KS again" gripes that I hear is bad editing in the final product. Not that this has stopped games apparently written by dyslexic people with English as a 24th language from funding. Tagline is also very generic and not particularly compelling.

Extra space at start of 2nd P: " Smoking Aces is hybrid poker . . ."

"amazing atmosphere of fun" is a bit much, more like something you'd hear from a carnival hawker. Be sparing with hyperbole, and your claims will come across as more genuine. "a fun atmosphere."

"Also, I want to ruin my friends chance at a straight with the 3 of Spades. Or 6 of Diamonds. Or many, many others." This makes no sense to me. You are going to use the 3 of Spades to ruin his straight or are you stopping him from using it? Obviously there are many, many other cards -- 52, right? Perhaps you are meaning many, many other techniques, but I have a hard time interpreting it that way. The series of sentence fragments is also unwieldy.

3rd P: "who enjoy tradition[al] styles" Delete "any" and "as well." Also, traditional playing cards are so inexpensive that this is an unnecessary feature. Poker players already own at least one deck, which they will favor over one splitting the card face with a gimmick game.

How to Play, 2nd P: "modeled after aged western playing cards [and] combined with game changing effects."

3rd P, Revised as: "Start by selecting one of the three different setups (Stud, Draw, [comma after "Draw," unless you are English] or Hold 'em). Players then take turns playing one card from their hands into their pockets [term not defined]. Each card resolves an effect, which alters the other players' [apostrophe after "s" for plural possessive] chances of assembling a high scoring pocket by the end of the game."

4th P: "Wielding high powered effects" Elves wield magical swords, but players wielding high powered effects is more verbose than clear. Consider rewriting this and the previous paragraph for clarity and simplicity.

Continuous effect: "Some may have you activate effects at the start of a turn." Previous references to "players," now "you." Consistency is generally good.

I don't have time to add much else, but a few other quick notes:

"People are waiting to get their hands on a professionally manufactured version of the game . . ." Only write this if you can back it up with several pledges within the first couple hours of the KS starting. Otherwise, empty rhetoric.

Stretch Goals, revised: "Smoking Aces balances a fun, family friendly atmosphere with aggressive game play that will engage even hardened poker veterans."

" My morality; and target audience of 8+ might think negatively on such rules being included in what is meant to be a family friendly game . . ." Don't refer to your morality. It'll be misconstrued as you being a Mormon or a prude.

Revised as, "Smoking Aces is a family-friendly game, but with your help, we will include a separate rulebook that explores more adult-themed mechanics, including rules for everything from strip poker to drinking." Don't mention gambling, as not all states have an exclusion applying to home poker games in their gambling laws. You don't want any legal liability.

$100 Pledge: I don't know where you are located, or what sort of mileage your car gets, but hand delivering games can get expensive. Are you sure that you want to offer this? For example, let's say you live in Rochester and someone orders from Pembina. That's 320 miles, which if your car averaged 20 mpg and gas cost $2.50, would run you $80 for the round trip, and can get worse if you aren't centrally located. Add to that the cost of food, wear and tear on your vehicle (wouldn't it throw a wrench in things to have a car accident), the extra cost in time and money if you get lost, and the chance that the person you are delivering to is Hannibal Lecter. You may want to give this option some thought.

Remember to log it. The gas, wear-and-tear, and travel expenses are all potentially tax deductible as business expenses. That's one nice thing about hobby industry side projects if you earn a decent income and can benefit from the deductions. I know a couple guys who ran a by-appointment gaming store out of a hole in the wall at a loss while working their day jobs. They enjoyed the retail discount on their own purchases and had a place to play and stash their stuff, and then recouped everything as write-offs when tax time rolled around. Fun times.

Also, have you registered as an LLC yet? If you have, don't forget to indicate it on your site and KS. If not, you'll want to look into it for the asset protection, credibility, etc. that you aren't going to get from a sole proprietorship or general partnership. Let's say you raise five times what you were hoping for, you spend the money, and a disaster destroys the inventory before you can ship it. As an LLC, your personal assets remain secure even if damages are awarded to your backers in court.

I find large header images to be obtrusive, but I'm also not a huge fan of any image if I can name all of the PS filters used in it at a glance. The image headers are quite glaring in contrast with your more nuanced playing cards, which I really do like. Also, if I may make a suggestion: http://www.helpscout.net/blog/psychology-of-color/

Red is an aggressive color. Consider what comes to mind when you think of it: Blood, guts, firetrucks, stop signs, warning labels, fast cars, etc. Sure, you have strawberries and apples too, but even then there is the underlying cultural context of the forbidden fruit. It's a fine color for this product in terms of packaging and branding, because the target audience is that prime 18 to 35 male with the right sort of high energy crossover interests. It is an atypical promotional color though, because you usually reserve it for the "LOOK AT ME" detail, like a Click Here button or clearance prices. The brown faux wood background kind of muddles it. It's a poor psychological contrast, like a Ferrari parked next to a UPS truck.

You may want to consider black and gold for the headers, something that reflects the exclusivity of a high stake poker match. Green also has associations with the felt tabletops. Personally, I'd consider poker chip images, either on their own with the text on them, or as an oversized bullet point with a black or green background. All-in-all, keep it simple. Drop the textured background and keep the text easy to read. For anyone putting together a website or KS project page, it is good to read up on color theory just for nailing the aesthetics of things: http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory