The story of Dylan Arruda’s new Kickstarter Game, Cosmic Clash, is definitely one worth reading about. Talking to Dylan was definitely an honor. He has so much insight and passion when it comes to the gaming world. Being a junior in college, Dylan has gone through a huge learning process and has sacrificed a lot of his time to see the project through. Before reading the article, I would like to share a like with you to check out his Kickstarter page:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/246976303/cosmic-clash-dice-game

Backstory of Cosmic Clash:

“I thought of the idea a year ago in July of 2015 and it was originally written down in my sketchbook. I was just mapping out different dice and the symbols that would be on them and I wanted it to have a lot of retail value. I always loved designing games but I’ve never actually gone through the whole process of making one. But after I designed this one in my sketchbook I knew it was something I wanted to continue with.

I made it based on the theme of space, I thought it would be really interesting to have a game in space and I wanted it to be pretty unique so I made it for 4 players and there are 4 different space ships that people can pilot. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses so in order to accommodate that I had to make every single dye different. So I made symbols for every ship. I gave them different amounts of attacks and defenses based on how I wanted to customize them.

I ordered some blank dye online with stickers and drew the symbols that I had made in the sketchbook for the dice and tested out the game. It was a lot of fun, it wasn’t exactly balanced right away but it was a lot of fun and the concept was there. I decided that three dice per ship was going to be the magic number by playing it enough. Another dice game I played had chances to reroll so if you don’t get the exact combination that you want with the symbols that you rolled you have two rerolls a turn to get the combinations that you want.

So once I had a working game I looked to make a professional looking prototype so I could start making the videos and the design and all that stuff. I consider myself a decent artist but I don’t really know how to use Photoshop and Illustrator that well. I am more of an after effect and premier guy. I do the video side of things. So I reached out to Danny Haffel to the design and he agreed. We started working together at the end of last year when I got the copyright back.

So I had an immediate sent out for the copyright as soon as the game was done being designed because I knew it was something that would take a while and the game at that time was already pretty fair, pretty fun style. I filled out all the forms I needed to copyright, for instance the mechanics, the rules themselves. I sent the game copy that I had to D.C. and made another one at that point. I got the copyright back, it was approved, I was really excited. And then I continued with the whole design process working with Danny. Danny made the box and I reaching out to my friends to make videos. I made a website and built up the Kickstarter page, and that was my entire summer. I purposely didn’t have a job just so I could devote all my time to the Kickstarter page. And basically make a project like it should be. And make it fit to the standard of Kickstarter projects in the game’s category. I kind of developed a bit of a marketing plan before I launched, which I think I could’ve done a better job with. But I thought I had a decent amount of people that were going to support me at the launch. It wasn’t as much as I anticipated when it actually launched but the project right now is a little over $1,400. It’s ten percent funded but I still have time left.

It still has been a complicated journey. There is a lot of legal things and I have no expertise in that but I’ve had to read up on how to trademark things, copyright things. I trademarked the name Cosmic Clash. I can’t afford to own the name Cosmic Clash right now but the Kickstarter is funded and I paid for it all throughout this time. I’ve been in contact with a manufacturing company, the same company that produced Pandemic, In Dead Of Winter, and all those board games. I made sure that I accounted for that in the goal and also all the shipping costs because it would produced overseas in China. I’ve made some changes to the quote. Since then I’ve added more components to make the game easier to learn, easier to play, easier to keep track of things. And I’ve added a bar to keep track of the time that you’re defenses are up so you can shields and cloaking devices. You can have those for up to four terms, so if four people are playing, you can lose track of whose up when and what’s up when and I added another bar to keep track of the shields. And all those made the quote go up but they were things that I thought the game should have. So that’s basically the whole backstory.

The Dedication:

I would just wake up, work on it. I worked anywhere from an hour to 7 hours a day. Some days it would take longer because I have to work on the video and edit the video and do all the animations for it. For a while you could see Cosmic Clash as an add on Google, which was cool. But it got be expensive so I stopped that.

Funding Cosmic Clash:

If this doesn’t work out, I have others that I plan to launch. But hopefully this goes well. But if it doesn’t, I’ll try to raise money on the other projects. So that when I launch this, I can lower the goal. No matter what, it was a great learning experience. And I definitely know a lot more going into it now. Right now the biggest challenge is getting the money. A whole new set of challenges will be presented once I raise the $14,000. Right now it’s just getting people that are interested in gaming to want to pledge. Its $20 for the basic game. $2 shipping in the U.S. Which is really low, and I did that on purpose so that people that would get the game wouldn’t have to pay that much for shipping.

The Love of The Game:

I am extremely passionate about gaming and I know that designing games is something that I’ve always loved to do. I’ve never really had the chance to take it this far. It’s a privilege to make it this far so even to be just on Kickstarter right now and have that project put together with all those hours of hard work, that’s already a success in my eyes. To just have my game out there, for people to see and recognize it, even if it wasn’t going to succeed, I just have motivation to keep going with my other ideas and anything I can learn from this experience apply to other games that I want to bring to Kickstarter because this is just the beginning. It’s a really hard industry to break into but I love it so much. It’s worth fighting for, I’m going to keep doing whatever I can to make sure that I do fund the game eventually. I’m still confident that it will work and I’m still working to make sure that it does. But if it’s not funded by September 30th then I’ll move onto the next project and I’ll remember Cosmic Clash.

What Would You Like Your College Peers To Know?:

I would like Stonehill students to know that it’s a lot of hard work and it’s not something that happens overnight. It’s been an entire year worth of effort and motivation to get this project off the ground. I would also like them to know their support means so much, and really anything they can do, whether sharing it with a friend who might be interested in the game, or pledging themselves can make a world of a difference because I could be funded like that if every Stonehill student gave me $4, that would be awesome. Just to know that I have support out there, and to know that it was an incredible learning experience, and there are those skills that you learn outside the classroom, and this has certainly been one of them for me. This was an incredible experience for me. Even if you can’t pledge because you are college students, it means a lot to me if you could check out my game.

What People Need To Know:

People should know if they pledge and the project isn’t funded they get their money back. There is a pending payment of however much they pledge and it just goes back to them if the Kickstarter isn’t funded. If it is funded and they pledged enough, they get a game. If people knew that, they would be more likely to pledge.

Would You Want This To Be Your Career?:

I didn’t really know how I felt about business until I got to college. So I tried business and I realized Marketing would be best to help me market my ideas. That’s my favorite thing to do is come up with the ideas themselves. All the other stuff is extra work after that. So I would love to do this after school, if it was successful for me. If I could make a living at a small gaming company that would be a dream come true. I’m confident in myself that I have the idea in my head, whether it is already written down on paper or it will come into my head in the future. I just have to keep working on these projects and keep making games that people will enjoy, it will be a dream come true for me.

What Advice Do You Have To Give?:

I think that for anybody interested getting into Kickstarter and starting a project, it is a tremendous deal of work. It’s something that consumes your life for a little while. There are so many things that have to be accounted for, so many things that have to be done right. It’s a difficult thing to do but it’s really worth it for those people out there who are passionate about what they’re doing. Also, time management is so important. Make sure you don’t get burnt out or let the project consume you too much because you still have a life. There are other things going on outside of the project."

If you are interested in pledging and helping Dylan out, here is his Kickstarter page again:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/246976303/cosmic-clash-dice-game