Amazon 6-Page Memo

Dreamworks [1]:

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The overall vision for Raccoonyeux is to create an outstanding animation-and-gaming-studio that is self-sustaining.

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My hope is that Raccoonyeux generates an absurd amount of authentic* value (*I’m not interested in get-rich-quick-schemes; I want supporters to actually love what Raccoonyeux makes) that creates overwhelming demand through which monetizing a tiny percentage of that demand is enough to sustain the business on an ongoing basis. 

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Anchors [3]:

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As of Summer 2024 at the outset of the Raccoonyeux launch I perceive that there are three anchors to pull the dream of Raccoonyeux from the ether and manifest it into reality, they are:

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1. Digital Card Game – generate value through creating the world's greatest digital card game. 

2. World Building – generate value through creating the world’s greatest fantasy story.

3. Dev Journals – generate value through creating dev videos that educate and entertain.

 

The Amazon 6-page memo format does not allow for bullets but I’m a contrarian so here we are. That said, I will elaborate on each anchor in the next section to frame the Current State and attempt to be as specific as possible about what I perceive to be the problems and solutions.

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Current State:

 

Digital Card Game

 

The good news is that the game of Poison, Water, Wine (PWW) already exists as it was a successful Kickstarter campaign completed in May of 2019 with a total of 72 backers and $3,892 CAD raised; the bad news is that PWW only exists in physical card format. While I’m proud of the Kickstarter campaign, and I love the idea that somewhere out there someone may still dust off an old deck and play, the reality is that the campaign revealed some of the limitations of the physical deck including:

 

• Challenging rules to learn;

• Simplistic artwork;

• Hofstadter's Law;

• No single-player option; and

• No recurring revenue.

 

I will elaborate on each of these lessons learned but the punchline is this: each of these problems are 100% solved by converting the game digitally and documenting the process online.

 

Problem: challenging rules to learn – there’s a well known phenomenon in literature that when an author dies their work immediately improves (it may not be entirely true but it’s often said that Fitzgerald died thinking The Great Gatsby was a failure) as audiences feel more at ease praising a work when the author is dead.

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I’ve come to believe that Kickstarter campaigns may suffer from similar skepticism and, although justified (the customer is, after all, always right), it’s a problem that must be addressed. If your friend comes over for game-night and they bring any mainstream published game it has a certain intuitive credibility whether players are aware of it on a conscious level or not. A popular "big-label" game has been vetted and edited to death from its inception to the time it gets to your living room. The “payoff” is more of a guarantee and, as a result, people are more willing to give the rules a chance upfront.

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This is the opposite for a Kickstarter campaign. Many self-published products fail to be completed and often the ones that are completed lack the quality and payoff players want. I know the game of PWW is fun because we play-tested it to death and I’ve had first-hand experience laughing hysterically at the treachery and mistakes that can occur in the final drinking phase. It’s this same play-testing, however, that also confirmed how the rules can be confusing at first. Specifically the “2 actions and 1 pour” and the idea that “drinks are also actions” and “the character artwork doesn’t matter" is not intuitive for many people (and I don’t blame them). The challenge is that the “2 actions 1 pour” is an essential mechanic to the game (we play-tested many other combinations unsuccessfully) that allows for enough randomness to be surprising but not so much randomness that actions become meaningless. So the game is worth it if people give it a chance and refrain from rolling their eyes at the initial complexity, however it’s a challenge to get past this initial hurdle.

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• Solution: turning the game into software not only adds that intuitive credibility of a professionally published product that will likely have a better payoff, it also has the ability to make the rules clearer on a number of dimensions (the # of actions remaining can be shown visually, points and scoring can be highlighted, actions can have animations to better explain them, and perhaps most importantly players can just button-mash the game for a few rounds if they don’t know what’s going on and later decide to buy-in and figure it out if they end up liking it). 

 

Problem: simplistic artwork – the Kickstarter artwork for PWW served its purpose but was not in-and-of-itself anything special. I say “in-and-of-itself” because the artistic concepts are hilarious and I won’t have anyone tell me otherwise (when my co-founder came up with the idea of a Unicorn Rider with the catchphrase “more rare than a unicorn itself” it was one of the funniest and most original ideas I’ve heard even to this day). I’ll also add that the simple, cartoony artwork was somewhat intentional as we wanted a more fun aesthetic and going full Magic-the-gathering likely wouldn’t have achieved the emotion we were going for (for the record I love Magic and the artwork is god-tier, it just wasn’t what we wanted). That said the other huge factor was my own personal artistic skill-set was limited as I drew each card and, although I remain proud of that work, I know I’ve improved since then and could likely make each one of those cards better if I were to redo them today. 

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• Solution: converting the game digitally allows a near infinite level of aesthetic improvements that can make the game more enjoyable (everything from using “casino mechanics” of tactile scrolling and clicking, to music, and to special effects – a lot more can be done even for a 2D card game). I’ve also improved my art so even just taking a second pass at everything holds a lot of promise (while continuing to have humility that I know I’m not at the professional tier… yet). 

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Problem: Hofstadter's law – everything will always take longer than you think even when you factor in Hofstadter's law. The Kickstarter campaign was a success but there were delays that crept up on us towards the end. Even though the deck was complete when we launched, there were still outstanding elements to do (some of the outstanding content was intentionally not completed to allow for backers to get rewards built-in by having their names on the cards, for example) and we underestimated how long completing everything would take to finish and mailout when it was all said and done. I’m happy that throughout the process we communicated with our backers and everyone who wanted a deck got one, but to this day it left a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t ever want to take money from anyone without giving them what they want for that money immediately. 

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• Solution: allowing players to download the game (for a small fee or for free with in-game paid aesthetic bonuses) creates a win-win scenario where Raccoonyeux gets money and players get a game. No mailing or delays, just creating value and giving it to people who want it. Additionally, documenting the process may provide Patreon opportunities or advertisements (where I’ll be careful to structure them in such a way that allows the value to be actualized right away, even if that value is simply the feeling of providing a donation to a cause people like etc.). The challenges associated with Hofstadter's law are defeated by either not taking money until the product is done, or taking money for ongoing content creation that is available right away.

 

Problem: no single-player option – the current physical deck requires players to have friends which is…a challenge…in this day and age. 

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• Solution: the digital game can have a solo campaign that will also have all kinds of other potential spillover benefits (e.g. it can ease new players into the rules, can allow for more exploration of the lore and worldbuilding, and from a coding perspective it may initially be easier to create card puzzles rather than fully implement a 4-player online card game). 

 

Problem: no recurring revenue – when the Kickstarter campaign had finished we made just under $4000 CAD in sales, however after all our expenses (including printing the cards, mailing the decks, and spending over a year working on the project) we didn’t make any real money. While I want to drive a Mercedes-AMG as much as the next guy, the real disappointment was that we weren’t able to do the job full time and reinvest in the game. Although we briefly discussed starting up a 2.0 version at one point, I think by then we were both a bit burnt out with the project and life goes on. Needless to say the lesson for me was that you can’t just love the game or the art, you really do need to figure out a business model to get money or even your best ideas won’t exist. 

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• Solution: I don’t want to be a “youtuber” as I think it has a connotation of low-quality cringe clickbait, however I have seen successful approaches that use Patreon and other subscription services that can allow generating support even without having a tangible product fully complete beyond the video itself. I think once the game is complete there will be opportunities within it to generate recurring revenue, but in the interim trying to monetize a percentage of the process may have spillover benefits and also provide marketing for the game for when it finally does release. 

 

World Building

 

I believe that I’ve tapped into a great story idea that I think can be actualized through the creation of a campaign within the card game. PWW always hinted at a deeper lore but we never fully explored it and I think there’s an opportunity to do that with Raccoonyeux while also generating a ton of win-win spillover benefits during the process of creation. 

 

The premise is based on imagining a world where instead of universities or IQ tests, the elites filter their leaders based on how well they play a card game. Of course this is an absurd notion, however the story of the campaign will focus on a civil war based on the absurdity of this notion (one side rejects it) so I think it has potential to hook readers in by exploring their initial rejection of the concept with the ultimate payoff of the story being that the hero wins the game and unites both factions as he’ll be seen as legitimate by both.

 

Similar to how I’ve learned lessons from the game itself, I’ve also learned many lessons in writing (mostly the result of gargantuan failures that require their own 6-page memo to go over) with the biggest lessons I must emphasize in all Raccoonyeux art being:

 

• Characters with dreams are the most important element in writing;

• Promises, Progress, and Payoff is how to structure a great story; and

• Emotion through specific references of showing not telling is why people read.

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There are of course many more lessons but, at a minimum, I believe if I can write compelling characters with big dreams and specific emotions I think the average person will be surprised at how good the writing can be for a simple card game. 

 

There are also entire websites and channels devoted to worldbuilding alone without any underlying product that I think I could try to emulate. While successful worldbuilding can of course lead to potential merch, adds, and Patreon subscribers – I think the real benefit is that worldbuilding content can be created and released immediately even if the story itself is ongoing. What I mean by this is that I can release a tiny piece of cinema explaining one of the cards, or redrawing some of the artwork without having to finish everything. In essence I think I can find ways to monetize the process (which is also about the next section on Dev Journals) 

 

 

Dev Journals

 

All of the above can be enhanced through documenting and sharing the process online. I think humans intuitively like seeing simple process videos – likely explaining some of the success of the Primitive Technology channel as it’s just a regular dude casually working his way into the iron age. Instead of my coding being a weakness, documenting the process in a disciplined way has the potential to be high on entertainment as well as education and, perhaps best of all, the work needs to be done regardless so it’s an added bonus with little additional effort. 

 

The greatest quarterback in the world recently gave an interview where he talked about how initially he wasn’t a starter and he couldn’t control that outcome so, instead, he simply focused on the two practice reps he was given. He decided to make those two practice reps the best practice reps on the whole team, started getting the guys pumped up for those reps, and slowly got more reps and more reps until, well, the rest is history. I like this story in the context of coding for Raccoonyeux as I’m a complete novice however so long as I give my coding reps my best effort I think there can still be a payoff especially if I provide monthly updates on the process and not the ultimate outcome of the game. 

 

Here’s how I conceptualize the potential spillover benefits of combining the three anchors:

 

While there are reputational risks of failing, overall I think so long as I am disciplined and sincere then the content will be interesting (even failing is interesting). By focusing on the process I think it’s an overall hedge as I can control the process, I can’t control the ultimate success of the game. 

 

Implementation:

 

At the end of 2024 I will consider this business plan to have been a success if I achieve the following:

 

1. Create any version of a working game card game in Unity;

2. Finish a rough draft of the story and lore; 

3. Publish 24 videos (two-a-month);

4. Publish a youtube channel, website, and Patreon; and

5. Make $1 dollar from anything Raccoonyeux related. 

 

For each of these five goals I give myself permission to do them extremely badly, so long as I get something complete that is in the ballpark towards the overall vision. The momentum, consistency and process is more important. All of these goals are entirely within my control except making $1 however I think this is important to add given the emphasis on creating a business and not just art. 

 

Approach:

 

While I want to give myself enough flexibility to do things badly and adjust as I go along, at the outset of 2024 I perceive the best approach on a monthly basis will be:

 

• Week 1: Publish 2 videos (1 dev/coding, 1 lore/writing)

  • Swallow the frog and get the hardest items done at the outset, based on the content I’ll work on in the preceding/following weeks. 

• Week 2: 1-hr a day try to code a feature for the game, document the process.

• Week 3: 1-hr a day write lore/campaign/worldbuilding or artwork. 

• Week 4: rest, socials, flexibility to prepare for next month 

 

The meta point is simply to do a little bit each day so long as it directionally contributes towards the Dreamworks in some way. 

 

Conclusion:

 

Raccoonyeux is being launched in 2024 with the overall vision of creating a business (for simplicity I'll call it an animation studio, but at it's core I'll never forget it is a business) that provides insane value through art, education, and entertainment. If we focus on consistently making art, consistently coding in unity, and documenting the process publicly on an ongoing basis for education and entertainment then we will create the conditions necessary for success and luck to find us. 

Even the greatest dragons turn to bone, all that matters is how much they enjoyed the ride.

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[1]  Although Pixar is superior, I’ve learned that the secret sauce of Dreamworks is hidden in plain sight. If you give a character a dream it’s impossible for the story not to be interesting. I use this now in everything, even Amazon 6-page business plans. 

[3] Brandon Sanderson “ideas are cheap”. A vision must be anchored in achievable goals.