Last week, Palladium Books launched a project on Kickstarter, Robotech RPG Tactics. It hit its goal of $70,000 in 3 hours and has raised over $350,000 in one week. In Part 1 of our exclusive interview with Palladium’s founder and Chief Game Designer Kevin Siembieda we about how the project got off the ground and the partnerships they made to create the miniatures.

MTV Geek: How did the Robotech RPG Tactics game came about?

Kevin Siembieda: At Palladium Books, we’re all gaming geeks ourselves and the fans are an extended part of the Palladium family. They are always very giving with suggestions and input, and we always try to listen to what they have to say. In the case of Robotech, a thread started on the Palladium Forums about us expanding the Robotech roleplaying game into a tabletop strategy game with tactical rules and miniatures. The thread grew like crazy, but my initial reaction was, “I’d love to see Robotech game pieces myself, but we don’t do tabletop games.”

I didn’t express those thoughts in public, so the discussion kept going. Around the beginning of Spring 2012, it had spread to the Palladium Facebook page. The fans were quite passionate about the idea and one guy named Tom Roache seemed to be spearheading it. What helped this chatter online was that it was all very positive, not negative or nasty. It got me and the Palladium crew to read what they had to say.

Read the part 1 of the interview or part 2 at MTV Geek.