The Board Game Design Course

Last week’s article was all about my learnings from the first few days of the Mayan Curse Kickstarter campaign.

But once you’re past the first few days of your campaign and the initial excitement and novelty of your game have worn off, things start to get a bit quiet. Sure, you’re probably still bringing in backers, but at nowhere near the same pace you had in the first few days of your campaign.

So, this week we’re going to talk about some things that you can do to keep people interested in your campaign.

I should also mention that it’s wise to reach out to others and get things in place before your campaign ever launches. If you wait until after you go live, you might find it difficult to fit into other people’s schedules and get the word out while your campaign is active. So, when implementing these strategies, make sure to plan ahead.

Podcasts and Guest Posts

One method that is often overlooked when trying to promote your game is getting on podcasts. Either creators don’t know about these podcasts or they don’t know how to get on them.

They may even just sit back and hope that someone will invite them on for an interview.

However, this rarely happens. Especially if you’re a new creator and people don’t know you yet.

So, you have to be proactive. You need to be the one to make first contact.

But don’t go in simply asking them if you can join them to talk about your game. That doesn’t necessarily make for the best content and may come across as pushy or spammy if that’s all you’re there to discuss.

Instead, come up with an interesting topic idea to approach them. It could be something related to your game or maybe how you’ve used the skills from your day job to create this game or something completely unrelated. Maybe you made a social deduction game and you want to discuss what makes a great social deduction game, including examples of other games that do this well.

Make sure it’s something interesting that people will want to hear about and not just you promoting your game for 30 minutes straight!

It’s also a good idea to know more about the podcast itself. Listen to some episodes to get a feel for the hosts and what they like to talk about. That way, you’ll know the format and how your topic will fit with them and their audience.

Here are some possible podcasts to consider:

• The Board Game Design Lab
• Ludology
• Crowdfunding Nerds
• Board Game Binge (which I sometimes host)
• On Board Games
• Tabletop Submarine
• Who What Why

There are plenty of others out there and new ones popping up all the time. If you can find podcasts that are closely related to the style of your game (solo or co-op gaming podcasts, for example) or even the topic/theme, this might be an interesting avenue to approach.

Remember to think outside the box!

Pretty much every time you’ll be asked about your game at the end of the podcast, which will allow you to make a pitch. Your game may also come up in the conversation as well.

The exact same thing goes for gaming blogs. If you have an interesting topic, approach a blogger and ask if they’d be interested in doing a guest post.

You’ll be surprised how often you’ll get a “yes” from podcasters and bloggers. They often struggle to find guests or come up with material, so if you have a great topic and something interesting to say about it, there’s a good chance this will open up an opportunity for you.

Playthroughs

During your campaign, you’ll really want to show off your game and how it plays.

Doing playthroughs of your game, whether solo or with others is a great way to demonstrate to potential backers how your game works and what’s cool and fun about it.

You can do these demos yourself or you can have reviewers/influencers do these. It can be fun to have them do a live playthrough and be there to watch and cheer them on, as well as answer any questions that come up in the chat.

Influencers

As I mentioned, influencers could do playthroughs of your game (whether live or pre-recorded) but they can also help you in other ways. And I’m not talking strictly about those in the board game space.

It certainly can be beneficial to have reviews and previews of your game from well-known folks in the board game industry. They will show people how to play, what your game is all about, and may voice their opinion on the game or at least say what type of player the game would appeal to. Having these videos, blogs, and comments on your page can help with social proof.

But you might want to look outside of board games as well.

For example, I’m part of an Indiana Jones fan group on Facebook and through this group, I discovered someone who does fan films and dresses up like Indy, travelling around the world. I approached him to see if he would be interested in trying out Mayan Curse, as it has a really Indiana Jones feel to it. He thought the game looked cool, so I sent him a copy.

Hopefully, this collaboration will work out and if he enjoys the game, it may introduce Mayan Curse to a whole new audience. Even better, it will be coming from him, not the creator. People tend to put more faith in the people they like and follow (especially friends and family) than someone they don’t know.

What other approach would you suggest for someone trying to keep up the momentum of their Kickstarter campaign?

Please share your thoughts and ideas.