Kickstarters need videos, and in the particular case of my Kickstarter, I’m in an unusual position: I’ve got a functioning piece of software that I can show features from.

Rather than be a talking head staring into a webcamera and feeling like a dork, I’ve used a program called Screencast-O-Matic to record a video of part of my computer screen walking through what my games are, and what the AVID Assistant does.

Screencast-O-Matic, in the Pro version, has basic non-linear video editing capabilities, and it’s an excellent tool.  It might be worthwhile for Vox Day or Jeffro Johnson to do some show-and-tell with VASSAL modules with Screencast-O-Matic.  One feature that I’d wished I’d found earlier (and will use again) is the ability to write and record a script in smaller chunks of audio, then do the screen capture stuff while the audio is running.  Being able to throw out chunks of audio and re-do them is vastly preferable to trying to do a two minute audio stream in a single take.

It’s been a while since I’ve done voice-over work and sound recording. Audacity is an effective computer-based sound editing tool, once I’d spent two days thrashing around figuring out its user interface. The cost of a good condenser microphone (I got the CAD U37 off of Amazon, plus a pop filter) has also dropped – that U37 is as good as the 150 dollar studio mics I used when I worked in radio professionally, back during the Reagan Administration, and was about a third of the price.

AVID Assistant Kickstarter Video

I had a decent enough experience with Screencast-O-Matic that I’ve set a new funding target at my Patreon, which I’m close to hitting. If I can get to $385 a month, I’ll re-do the “how to use the Squadron Strike Ship Design Tools” video, adding a slice each month or so.

There have been other aspects of setting up this Kickstarter that are worth noting:  The first is that Kickstarter has moved from Amazon Payments to Stripe – which I already use as the credit card back end of my shopping cart software.  It was also much less difficult to set up – Amazon Payments took about 4 days to set up an account, and often had you doing things over a few times as they asked for more information.

I’ve also set up digitized embroidery for the game and company logos, which will be used for backer rewards, and I’m looking into challenge coins, courtesy of a tip from Howard Tayler.

The final backer reward list will be on the Kickstarter, and I appreciate any feedback or commentary you may have.

Another consideration on the Kickstarter is when to start it. You never want to run a Kickstarter in the second half of December or through most of the month of January, because people are either making Christmas purchases, or seeing the credit card bill from making Christmas purchases, and you want to give them a bit of time to recover.

Because I’ll be at a convention this coming weekend, this is likely to go up on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, and it will be ending sometime in March – hopefully on the Saturday after the traditional biweekly payday in the US.