Why Crowd Funding?
When putting your Kickstarter story together, you have to answer certain questions. As a first-time crowd funder, I’ve done a lot of research, and a lot of reflection. I’ve been asking myself the same questions I know potential backers will ask: Why crowdfunding? Why this game? Why this project? My aim is to give the most honest and transparent answers I can.
Why Back It?
Meadowvale is a true Kickstarter project, the kind crowdfunding was originally designed to help get off the ground. It is not a corporate production line. It is a single person creative vision, and it is more than a game.
Inspired by long bike rides through the Cotswold countryside, Meadowvale brings together my creative outlets for the first time in one project. I am a printmaker, a composer, a designer, a writer, an educator, and of course a board game enthusiast. The chance to bring all of these practices into one vision is, for me, deeply exciting.
The result is a game that is elegant, thematic, and, I believe, genuinely good. But it is also a project that feels different from anything else because of the combination of art, design, and ecology that shapes it.
Why Now?
I keep returning to the same questions: Why crowdfunding? Why this project? Why now? And the answer is always the same: passion. Meadowvale has grown through prints, prose, prototypes, playtests, and endless revision. Crowdfunding is the way to carry that passion forward and make it real. Without crowdfunding, this project simply wouldn’t be able to exist at the standard of quality it deserves.
Trust
I know there will be understandable reservations. As crowdfunding has matured, backers have rightly become more careful about what they support. Unfortunately, it also means that true indie creators can sometimes get lost among bigger companies who now use Kickstarter as a storefront for their next release.
This is my first published game, and I am a one-person studio. That does carry a perceived risk.
But I can also point to my other creative outlets and the experience behind them:
I am an award-winning printmaker, selling and exhibiting internationally. My work has been shown in galleries including the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, and I have completed more than 300 sales through Etsy and Shopify with 100% five-star reviews.
I am a published and award-winning composer, with music performed by orchestras and choirs across the UK.
I have years of experience in e-commerce, fulfilment, and customer service — packing and shipping artwork worldwide, working to deadlines, and meeting the quality standards required by galleries and collectors.
All of this means that while Meadowvale is my first game, it is not my first time producing, fulfilling, and supporting a creative project at an international level. I personally handle all of the design, production details, and fulfilment. Quality, communication, and trust are already the foundations of my practice — and they will be the foundations of this campaign.
Why Crowdfunding?
At its heart, Meadowvale is not just a game, it is a way of bringing together my art, my writing, my love of the outdoors and my passion for strategy into one project. Crowdfunding is what makes that possible. It gives me the chance to share a creative vision that would never find its way through traditional publishing channels. I believe Meadowvale offers something genuinely different, and I hope you’ll join me in bringing it to life.
Why crowdfunding? because without it, Meadowvale simply wouldn’t be able to be realised. .
