Loren

Hey there! I'm Loren, and I'm building Paperize to help tabletop game designers make better games, faster. 
 
<h3>What is Paperize?</h3>
 
<h3>Paperize shrinks the gap between your ideas and the tabletop, allowing you to spend less time making prototypes and more time playtesting them. 
</h3>
 Put simply, Paperize turns spreadsheets into custom print-n-play PDFs. After two beta cycles and gathering in-depth feedback from hundreds of game designers (thanks to this amazing community!), I can say with confidence: This is the tool you've been looking for. 
 
<h3>How It Works:</h3>
<ol>
	<li>Express your game in a spreadsheet<ol><li>Each row an item (a card, a tile, a player mat, etc)</li><li>Each column a piece of data on that item (titles, images, icons, costs, etc)</li></ol></li>
	<li>Define how your game looks in one of two ways: <ol><li>Choose a predefined template that fits your game already.</li><li>Create your own template with the built-in editor to get unique.</li></ol></li>
	<li>Click, drag, and drop each piece of data where you want it on the template.</li>
	<li>Hit print. A PDF is produced for you, ready to print, slice, sleeve, and deal.</li>
	<li>Playtest your game with all that time you just saved!</li><li>Apply new learnings back to the spreadsheet.</li><li>Repeat. And repeat. And repeat...</li>
</ol>
 This basic process has already been used effectively by hundreds of designers, some going on to publish the games they started in Paperize. (Another hearty thanks to the early adopters from the game design community!) <h3>But It Could Be Better...</h3> Imagine: <ul><li>icon support</li><li>template sharing</li><li>more component types: small &amp; big cards, tiles, boards, tokens, tracks, etc</li><li>support for all kinds of free images and fonts from around the web</li><li>scalability so literally everyone can use it without servers melting</li><li>instruction book support</li><li>versioning for your designs (undo, history, forking, etc)</li><li>print &amp; play publishing</li><li>playtest group creation and management (my favorite!)</li><li>...and so much more!</li></ul> I'm very confident I can deliver all this and more in a reasonable timeframe, I only need time and focus. Which brings us to Patreon... 
<h3>Why Patreon?</h3>
 
Patreon is a platform that enables artists to get paid for their creations without charging for them directly. That last part is particularly important to me: I want Paperize to be free for anyone with an idea. I believe the industry needs more than just better tools, it needs more voices. For most in the world, even a single dollar is too much, and it is precisely those voices that I believe that we would benefit to hear from. 
If you're nodding in agreement (and I really hope you are), then you already know why I've chosen Patreon to fund the development of Paperize without requiring anyone to pay for access. 
 <h3>Paperize is Free, and Doesn't Make You the Product</h3> What's the point of making something "free" if we're just going to ruin the experience with distasteful ads or secretly track our users and sell their data? That would be awful, and Paperize works differently! It turns out, if we're just willing to drop all of the "best-practices" of modern capitalism, we can actually create a superior product. To whit: - Paperize doesn't cost money to use, so there's no payment processing or complex tax accounting to be done. - There's no server, so the entire app runs in-browser and is crazy-cheap to distribute worldwide ($1/month in hosting fees? Yes please!) - There's no database, so there's no user data to amass and protect, and no team to hire and manage. - It's open source, so anyone can help out or integrate the code into their own projects. 
<h3>Won't you join us?</h3>

Free

<ul>
<li>Believe it or not, $1 pays the hosting bills during the Alpha stage. Do this, and you'll get...</li>
<li>Access to locked Patreon posts with mockups, screenshots, videos, and discussion of upcoming features and changes.</li>
</ul>

Unlockable Content

<ul>
<li>Buy my coffee for a few days. This is important because I turn coffee directly into code. Do this and you'll get...</li>
<li>Access to the Paperize Discord server where we discuss Paperize and other game design tools and techniques</li>
<li>All previous rewards</li>
</ul>

Feedback Channel

<ul>
<li>2 weeks of coffee for me! (Is the room shaking?)</li>
<li>Access to the the bleeding edge, unreleased features of Paperize. (When there are some.)</li>
<li>All previous rewards</li>
</ul>

Early Adopter

<ul>
<li>A name &amp; logo (small) of your choice in the knowledge base Supporters page.</li>
</ul>

Bronze Patron

<ul>
<li>A name &amp; logo (medium) of your choice in the knowledge base Supporters page.</li>
</ul>

Silver Patron

<ul>
<li>A name &amp; logo (large) of your choice in the app and knowledge base Supporter pages</li>
</ul>

Gold Patron

<ul>
<li>A name &amp; logo of your choice on every page of the app and knowledge base</li>
</ul>

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