Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode– A bonus episode of the Indie Board Game Designers podcast. This is the sixth and final installment in the Simple Elegance series. We spent, “We” being me and Cody, spent the last three months or so working, preparing, and entering a game into the Simple Elegance contest on The Game Crafter.

Patrick Rauland: This is just the final episode about how everything went. We're going to talk about how our process went, and also about all the other games submitted. This one will probably be a little bit longer than the rest just because there's a lot of stuff to get through. But before we get onto the contest, Cody, how are things going?

Cody Thompson: Good, Patrick. Thanks for having me back for one final episode before you boot me off the channel forever.

Continue reading “#84 – Simple Elegance: Resolution”

Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer every single week, and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'll be talking to Julio Nazario, who designed and signed a handful of games, although none of them have come out quite yet. Julio, welcome to the show.

Julio Nazario: Hey Patrick. Thanks for having me.

Continue reading “#83 – Julio Nazario”

Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer every single week, and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'll be talking to Christopher Wiley, who designed a ton of prototypes which are available on his website or through print and play, or through The Game Crafter. Some of them, there's a lot–

Christopher, welcome to the show.

Christopher Wiley: Thanks, Patrick. I'm so excited to be on the show today.

Continue reading “#82 – Christopher Wiley”

Hello everyone and welcome to another bonus episode of the Indie Board Game Designers podcast.

My name is Patrick Rauland and today I want to chat about my experience at Origins.

Introduction

Origins is a board game convention in Columbus Ohio and it’s one of the bigger board game events in the US. I went for the first time last year and you can hear about it in episode #9.

I really enjoyed my experience last year so went again and had an even better time so let me share what went really well. I did three main things for board game design.

  1. I did publisher speed dating as I did last year
  2. I reserved a table at the Unpub room
  3. I setup 2-3 meetings with publishers ahead of time

Publisher Speed Dating

Publisher speed dating was really good. There were ~24 designers and about 12-14 publishers. So you had a table where you had your game setup and publishers listened to you for 4 minutes and then moved to the next table.

Last year I had pretty good feedback and 2 publishers wanted to take my game home to playtest it.

This year I brought 2 medium games one is Streak which is a Tron inspired racing game. And the other is Bank of the Realms which is a 2-3 player abstract you can hear about in the Simple Elegance series. And I asked pubishers which one they wanted to her about. It was about 50/50.

This year I had even better feedback but no one wanted to take either of my games home. 

I heard that the abstract looks great but it’s really hard to sell an abstract. Which is a bummer.

I got a bunch of business cards and emailed a how to play video to maybe ~8 publishers so there’s a chance they’ll get back to me. We’ll see.

So speed dating was okay.

Unpub Room

The Unpub room was new. Last year I didn’t know I had to reserve a table. I did so this year and got a ton of play testing and lots of validation. And interestingly enough I happened to have a publisher stop by and played my game with them and they asked me to send them a copy of Bank of the Realms. 

So I got more interest by playing the game than doing a pitch in speed dating.

I also got really good feedback. I got okay feedback on Bank of the Realms and will make some tweaks.

I got some pretty good feedback for Streak. It’s a minor change to the game but I think it will add a lot of enjoyment. So I can’t wait to implement that feedback.

I really enjoyed play testing and meeting designers. If I could recommend you do one thing it’s reserving an Unpub table to playtest, maybe get in front of a publisher, and meet other designers.

A friend of mine signed his 2nd game by showing it to a publisher in the Unpub room. They had a contract for him ready by the end of the weekend. So you can get lucky that way.

Publisher Pitches

I also setup meetings with publishers ahead of time. I showed them Bank of the Realms since that’s what I’ve been working on for the past few months but I kept hearing that an abstract is hard to sell which is a bummer.

In retrospect I should have been ready to pitch Streak but I was so focused on Bank of the Realms I didn’t think about showing my other games.

And Samhain which I submitted for the Holiday contest and is a finalist. I’ve been so hyper focused on one game I totally forgot to pitch what is already basically done and just needs to find a home.

It’s so easy to move onto the next thing and I need to do a better job pitching games I’ve already finished and just need to be published. I’ll work on setting up some meetings for Gen Con.

Gen Con

Speaking of which I happened to run into Adi & Liz from Episode #5 and they mentioned they were desperate to find volunteers for Gen Con. I wasn’t planning on attending since it’s pretty expensive but since I’m volunteering they’re helping pay for my hotel. So that’s a huge benefit of going to Origins! I found a way to help someone and make my trip less expensive!

Wrap Up

One more thing – I’d love to hear what content you like most. Is it the interviews? The contest series? These updates? 

I have a very short survey at http://indieboardgamedesigners.com/survey

If you could fill that out I’d really appreciate it so I can make more of your favorite type of content.

That’s all for this bonus episode. I just waned to share what I did and what I learned from it.

Again if I can recommend one thing – reserve those Unpub tables. Doing speed dating and publisher meetings are great but #1 has to be the unpub tables!

I’m outta here. Happy designing!

Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer every single week, and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'll be talking with Ryan Langewisch, who designed Tasty Humans, which is a game about eating humans and trying to fit them in your belly. It should be on Kickstarter when the episode is released. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan Langewisch: Thanks for having me.

Continue reading “#80 – Ryan Langewisch”

Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer every single week, and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'll be talking with Jennifer Burkhart who designed Panic Mode! Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Jennifer Burkhart: Why thank you. Happy to be here.

Continue reading “#79 – Jennifer Burkhart”

Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer every single week, and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'll be talking with Eric Raue, who designed Town Builder: Coevorden, which was just on Kickstarter earlier this year and you can still preorder it. He also makes board game companion apps, Shop ‘N Time and Zombie Slam. Eric, welcome to the show.

Eric Raue: Thanks.

Patrick: Did I get Coevorden, right?

Eric: Coevorden.

Patrick: Coevorden, there we go. That sounds much better.

Eric: It's Coevorden.

Continue reading “#78 – Eric Raué”

Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another bonus episode of the Indie Board Game Designers podcast. This is the fifth installment of the Simple Elegance series, which is all about myself and Cody preparing for the Simple Elegance contest on The Game Crafter.

Patrick: As of this recording, we have five days left, so we are totally running out of time. We are going to be talking about final preparations and submitting the game to the contest on The Game Crafter. You can obviously listen to this, but I'd recommend going back to the beginning of the series and starting there, listening to these five episodes. Then I'm just thinking it might be nice to have a wrap-up episode in a couple of weeks, probably when Cody and I get a chance to look at the entries and maybe guess how we'll do against them, or something like that. So, there might be one more– There probably will be one more after this. With that, Cody, how are you doing?

Continue reading “#77 – Simple Elegance: Preparing for The Game Crafter”

Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer every single week, and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'll be talking to Jordan Sorenson, who designed Muse, and he's working on a game about navigating by the stars. Jordan, welcome to the show.

Jordan Sorenson: Hello. Thanks for having me.

Continue reading “#76 – Jordan Sorenson”

Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer every single week, and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'll be talking with Darren Terpstra, who designed Ignite, which recently funded on Kickstarter. Darren, welcome to the show.

Darren Terpstra: Thanks so much for having me.

Continue reading “#75 – Darren Terpstra”