Why the Castle Automatic is doing a preorder campaign instead of a Kickstarter

In case you missed it, I just launched a pre-order campaign for my upcoming 100+ room, 5 level dungeon The Castle Automatic. 

Click to become an Early Worm!

Instead of doing a "traditional" Kickstarter to fund the book, I opted for a pre-order campaign through Exalted Funeral instead. We're calling it the Early Worm campaign. 

Why?

Most folks don't remember this, but once upon a time, Kickstarter was for burgeoning creators to collect enough cash to hire artists, editors, designers, and other folks to help them make their dreams a reality. Since then, the biggest companies in the industry have come to dominate crowdfunding platforms. They bring completed, polished works to the table and gamify people's FOMO. Now, crowdfunding platforms are really marketing and preorder platforms, not really a place for new artists to launch new projects. And, of course, these platforms are happy to take their chunk of the cash. 

The Worm team has long been skeptical of the current trends in crowdfunding. To fund the core game, we used an Itchfunding model—putting ashcan drafts of chapters up on Itch.io as pay-what-you-will to collect enough coins to commission artists and editors. It took a long time, but it was the right move for the game. 

Now, to fund the production costs for the Worm's next big book, we want to do something similar. 

A preorder campaign is like crowdfunding, but it cuts out the middleman and dispels the kayfabe of "will it fund?" We are confident this book is getting made! 

This approach is more honest, more appropriate for Exalted Funeral's size, and promotes a better culture between me (the writer) and you (the gamer). 

But making a book takes a minute! Artists need to draw the art, cartographers need to draft the maps, it needs to be laid out by a graphic designer, the editor needs to make sure all the cross-references are correct. Then, printing, shipping, warehousing, packaging—all before the postal service can bring you the book. While we're working, we'd like to start gauging interest. It helps us cover these costs up front. 

This isn't a Kickstarter, but I'm still excited to keep you informed every step of the way! 

Current status

Writing is complete and the book is currently in copyediting! Layout should be complete by the end of the year. Print files will be prepared early next year. We expect that with prepress, printing, and shipping, this preorder will be fulfilled in May or June of 2026.

I will update Early Worms with regular updates via email. As soon as the digital files are ready, backers will get instant access. 

As thanks for supporting the book during the preorder campaign, we'll give you a free large scale (A3) isometric map of the Castle Automatic illustrated by Guy Pradel. 

Click to embiggen. Ain't she a beaut?

Join the Early Worm campaign, help us prove our point about Kickstarter, and dig into a Metroidvania megadungeon that will make you fall in love with dungeon crawling.