#275: 3 Unmissable Lessons to Turn Your Hobby Into a Hit Game
Can your hobby become the next best selling board game? If you’ve ever wondered how to turn your weekend hobby into something magical and marketable, this episode is your cheat sheet.
In this episode of Making It In The Toy Industry, I’m unpacking the gold that Elizabeth Hargrave, the brilliant mind behind Wingspan, dropped in our conversation from last week’s episode so you don’t miss a thing.
You’ll discover why designing around real-life experience is the secret to a standout game, how Elizabeth’s deep love for birding led to Wingspan’s immersive mechanics, and why tapping into the right creative community can level up your game from legal tips to pitch feedback.
Plus, you’ll hear the exact strategy Elizabeth used to land her first-ever game deal, including the simple practice method that helped her pitch with confidence and clarity. You’ll even hear a little brainstorm from me! Turning my salsa dancing obsession into a hypothetical board game and I promise it’ll get your gears turning!
Listen For These Important Moments
[00:02:33] - Learn how designing from real-life experience makes your game stand out. Elizabeth’s love of birding didn’t just inspire the theme of Wingspan, it shaped how the game plays and feels.
[00:04:55] - A live creative brainstorm (from me!) on turning salsa shoes and slippery dance floors into gameplay strategy, showing you exactly how to think about your hobby in a whole new way.
[00:07:47] - Discover why joining a game design community like TTGDA can protect your rights, elevate your skills, and connect you with support you didn’t even know you needed.
[00:09:56] - No connections? No problem. Elizabeth shares how playtesting, persistence, and practice helped her confidently pitch Wingspan and land a publishing deal on her very first try.
[00:14:00] - The 3 biggest lessons from the episode plus a simple challenge to help you turn your favorite hobby into a playable game idea this week.
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Visit the Tabletop Game Designers Association at ttgda.org to become a member and level up your tabletop game journey.
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, episode number 275.
[00:00:20] Azhelle Wade: Hey there, toy people, Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It In The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com.
[00:00:33] Azhelle Wade: Now I owe you guys big time because we have had a series of incredible interviews over New York Toy Fair and then some solo episodes, and then followed up with even more incredible interviews, and we haven't gotten a chance to do our recap episodes. Why is that? Well, we had so many great conversations that needed to get out.
[00:00:53] Azhelle Wade: Some of them were timely due to tariffs. Others were timely due to new sources to create your product outside of China. Others were timely due to product releases and I just couldn't justify spending a week on recaps in between those episodes. So this week we're gonna pick up our recaps and we're gonna start with our previous week's episode.
[00:01:16] Azhelle Wade: Turn Your Hobby into Award Game was last week's episode, episode number 274. So this week, we are gonna be focusing on key takeaways from that episode. Key lessons that maybe you might've missed if you're just listening to the conversation and the laughs and the moments that we have and shared in that chat, which were so fun to listen to.
[00:01:37] Azhelle Wade: If you haven't heard it yet, go back and we're just gonna focus on the key takeaways and the to-dos. The most important things that I want you to get out of these episodes.
[00:01:47] Azhelle Wade: Our guest last week was Elizabeth Hargrave, designer of the award-winning game Wingspan and upcoming Sanibel. She broke down how she transformed her love of birding into one of the most successful strategy games in modern history. If you missed it, the episode's still there for you.
[00:02:03] Azhelle Wade: Head over to thetoycoach.com/274 to give it a listen. But today we're gonna unpack that magic and the detail of how she started with the hobby and turned it into an immersive bestselling game. We'll talk about the community and everything else. By the end of this episode, you will learn how to turn something you love into a meaningful strategic board game, what it looks like to build up your game design career with the support of a thriving, aligned community, and finally, how to structure and deliver a winning pitch that gets attention even if you're brand new to this.
[00:02:33] Azhelle Wade: First up, transforming your hobby or your passion into a board game. When Elizabeth created Wingspan, she didn't just sit down and say, I wanna make a bird theme game because birds are trendy. She did it because she loves birding, and that's what made the theme so immersive or able to be immersive from her creation because it was born from her real experience.
[00:02:57] Azhelle Wade: It wasn't just some marketing idea based on a trend she saw online. It was something that she really knew well and loved. She started by asking herself, what if a game that she loved to play "Race for the Galaxy" had a nature theme instead of a sci-fi one. That idea, that question led to her creating a game where real bird behaviors affect game mechanics.
[00:03:22] Azhelle Wade: The brown headed cowbird lays eggs in other birds' nest, for example, in real life. So in Wingspan, that's exactly what its card lets you do. Her love for birds didn't just inspire the theme of the game, it helped shape the gameplay itself. So this is a reminder: when you build from something that you genuinely care about, you are far more likely to create something unique, fun, and impactful, and that is because you're creating gameplay that is immersive and experiential.
[00:03:53] Azhelle Wade: In our conversation, Elizabeth talked a lot about creating the experience of birding, not just translating that theme of birding into maybe a roll and dice concept board game? No. It was really important that the experience of birding and different bird behaviors actually affected the game play.
[00:04:15] Azhelle Wade: So that is the number one thing I want you to take away from that conversation: experience. That is a word we're walking away from this, key point number one with. "Experience". How can you make your board game feel like whatever it is, the theme, the hobby that you are modeling it after?
[00:04:36] Azhelle Wade: Let's say you're making it after, train cars. Let's say you're making it after salsa dancing. How can the different turns of your game, the different win-lose aspects of your game, the different game mechanics, how can they add to the feeling of the thing that is your hobby?
[00:04:55] Azhelle Wade: So just thinking from my own perspective as a salsa y bachata dancer, and taking from what Elizabeth said about birds doing different things like certain birds laying eggs in other birds' nest so they don't have to care for their young. Okay. So for me, as a salsa dancer, what would be something similar?
[00:05:15] Azhelle Wade: Okay. As a salsa dancer, there are different shoes. There are different shoes that you wear for different events. There's different high heels. There's also different levels of glitter and glam that you wear for the performances versus what you wear when you're going to a social versus what you would just wear if you were going street dancing.
[00:05:32] Azhelle Wade: They actually have certain shoes with different soles that look like sneakers, but they're really dance shoes. So perhaps if I were to build a game around salsa dancing, something about the shoes that you get or collect might affect how you can move on the board. Maybe how far you can spin or dance around the board or maybe how many steps ahead you can go or back.
[00:05:55] Azhelle Wade: There are also times where people will go to events and forget their shoes and then. Maybe the floor is not an ideal floor for their shoes. Oh, that's actually another idea. So sometimes in salsa dancing, you might show up with your amazing salsa shoes and you're ready to go, but the floor that the event is at is not good for salsa dancing. And no matter what shoes you bring you're not gonna have a great experience. I actually popped a knee at one event because the salsa floor was a plank patio. On a spin, my heel caught and I, my knee popped and it hasn't been the same since. I'm very upset. But that for me, it could also be an issue of different floor surfaces, so maybe different spaces in my game would actually all be different surfaces. So depending on when, where you land, not just what shoes you have, but where you land that might affect how you play the game. Oh, so many ideas here. I want you to take this and run with this for your own hobby. But really thinking about experience and game mechanics and how that's gonna change how people play your game with and how it has them each player interacting with one another, not just how it affects the player individually, but how it could make a player interact, either help or hurt another player based on the floor they land on, or the shoes that they have to dance. Or an Elizabeth's example, the type of bird they're collecting and the abilities of that bird.
[00:07:23] Azhelle Wade: Let's move on to key takeaway number two from our episode last week, and it's around how community fuels growth and protection. So Elizabeth talked about Tabletop Game Designers Association, the TTGDA, and she co-founded this nonprofit to address a huge gap one where most game designers don't have easy access to contract support, negotiation tips, or even getting proper industry credit.
[00:07:47] Azhelle Wade: So they're really lobbying for. The benefit of game designers in this nonprofit. As Elizabeth said, and I've repeated here, they offer contract reviews, some pitching resources and educational webinars like the one Elizabeth mentioned in our chat where the Gina Davis Institute helped designers think through inclusive character designs.
[00:08:08] Azhelle Wade: They're also advocating for fair representation in awards and lobbying on issues like international tariffs and direct. Impact of game, international tariffs that are directly impacting game manufacturing. So another interesting part is the T-D-G-D-A community is active on Discord, and that's where designers are sharing advice, getting feedback and real time support.
[00:08:34] Azhelle Wade: So if you're ever feeling like you're designing in a bubble,this might be a community that you want to check out and be a part of. I'm a part of many communities,don't think oh, but I'm in Toy Creators Academy, or I am in one of your TCA Accelerator Communities.
[00:08:50] Azhelle Wade: Should I also be in this one? Why not? Especially if there are some free communities that you can be a part of. Join them, take part in them. And then you might supplement with other paid communities, like the communities that I offer as part of my program, Toy Creators Academy. You might also be in another organization like Women and Toys you might be in the Toy Association.
[00:09:12] Azhelle Wade: There are so many programs and communities. Join as many as your budget and time can afford,and make the most of them. Community is everything. It's so hard to go it alone. not only in board game design, but just in the toy industry, just in entrepreneurship on its own. So, yes, yes, yes. Join all of the communities.
[00:09:33] Azhelle Wade: Alright, let's move on to our final takeaway from this episode, our final and third takeaway from this episode.
[00:09:38] Azhelle Wade: It is pitching like a pro and how to do it, even if it's your first game. Even you're new to this, So, Elizabeth. Her story of pitching Wingspan is one of my favorite parts of last week's episode. I'm sure you saw the shock on my face when I realized that this was Elizabeth's first game. This was her first game.
[00:09:56] Azhelle Wade: She had no previous launches, no big industry contacts, but what she did have was a series of play tests behind her and play testers that asked her where they could buy her game. So she had the confidence that she knew she had something. She was prepared. So Elizabeth shared that before she went into her pitches, she rehearsed her pitches by recording herself over and over until it felt natural and confident.
[00:10:24] Azhelle Wade: Oh my gosh. This is such a good way to practice. Any speech that you have to give. Years ago I had written a poem, a slam poem, and I wanted to deliver this slam poem on stage live. And what I did was exactly what Elizabeth did. I recorded myself, sang the poem, and then I actually played it back and listened to it over and over again.
[00:10:50] Azhelle Wade: Then I would say it with myself to kind of like copy and practice saying it in the way that I wanted to say it. And then I would turn, obviously, turn off the recording and then just say it on my own. But I have to say, what's so great about recording yourself is once you are at the event, and you just wanna practice out loud again and again, but maybe you're in a situation where you can't say it out loud, you're around other inventors, you're around other people, or you're just in a closed quarter.
[00:11:17] Azhelle Wade: You can always play it to your ear again and again and again. So you're hearing it and that's the thing in your mind. And because Elizabeth had no contacts, she also shared that she just cold emailed different publishers and Stonemaier Games was a publisher that took her pitch, gave her notes, and she took the notes that they gave her on her game.
[00:11:38] Azhelle Wade: Seriously reworked the game and came back. Even stronger to pitch to them, and they eventually offered her a contract and the rest is history. So all this is proof that you don't have to be well connected. You don't have to have a massive portfolio to break through. It is, this is a rare occasion, but it's so cool to note that it can happen.
[00:12:00] Azhelle Wade: What you definitely do need, whether or not you have a magical moment like Elizabeth or not. You've gotta be prepared. You don't wanna walk in there not knowing what you're gonna say and what you're gonna pitch. You wanna have a product that you're passionate about. One great way to have that passion is to build a product off of a hobby that you love.
[00:12:18] Azhelle Wade: Like for Elizabeth birding, for me, dancing. But then you also wanna have that confidence behind pitching that product. How do you get that confidence? You share it with other people. So you run play tests. You make changes, you make revisions, you run play tests so much that people say, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
[00:12:35] Azhelle Wade: Where can I buy this game? That all that together is gonna give you the confidence to pitch like a pro. So if you go out there, you start pitching to different game companies, toy companies, whether or not they pick your product up, you are gonna feel like a winner, gonna feel like you won some great relationships, or even if you don't get a contract out of that first conversation.
[00:13:00] Azhelle Wade: So I love Elizabeth's story that she was a first time inventor and she was able to make this happen. Immediately, with a company, but do not feel bad if this does not happen for you, but you do still wanna go in giving it your best shot, giving it your all. One thing you don't wanna do is, I know sometimes, we can get discouraged and frustrated.
[00:13:21] Azhelle Wade: So after you've been pitching for a while, you're just like grumpy and you just. You just don't wanna give it your all anymore. You're like, does it even matter if I memorize this? No one cares, but people do care. It's gonna always be the moment when you let your guard down that all of a sudden people are gonna be like, Hey, what?
[00:13:38] Azhelle Wade: I was actually looking forward to this pitch, and this person's really not giving it their all. Don't let that happen. Give it your all the time so that when your moment comes, whether you know it's your moment or not, you strike at a hundred percent. You wanna be your best of your best self whenever you can.
[00:13:54] Azhelle Wade: Okay. That is the last key lesson we're gonna take from our episode last week.
[00:14:00] Azhelle Wade: So quick recap of the key lessons I want you to walk away with today. Number one, You can use your personal hobbies and turn them into board games, but what you've gotta remember is to focus on the experience.
[00:14:12] Azhelle Wade: How can you make the board game feel like your hobby? Two, don't go at it alone. Communities like T-T-G-D-A or the Toy Creators Academy Community are there to help protect you and help you level up your skills. And three. Remember that your first pitch doesn't have to be perfect, but it should be practiced.
[00:14:33] Azhelle Wade: Always give your a hundred percent, give whatever you've got because you never know when your moment's gonna hit. It might hit the very first time you pitch. Like Elizabeth's, it might be the hundredth time you pitch. Don't lose steam, don't lose focus, keep practicing and focusing and giving your best pitch.Now let's get into your action item for this week. I would love for you to write down a hobby or interest that you have and start brainstorming three game mechanics that you could use to bring that hobby to life as a game. Think of how players might move pieces, collect tokens, or strategize around that interest.
[00:15:15] Azhelle Wade: I am so curious to see what you come up with. Honestly, what I've brainstormed here in this podcast was a little interesting to me. Now I wanna explore it. I'd love to see what you're working on, post it on Instagram. Tag me @thetoycoach. I'd love to respond and cheer you on. If you love this podcast and you haven't already left us a review, what are you waiting for, my friend?
[00:15:35] Azhelle Wade: Your reviews mean so much to me. I get a notification every time anyone comes in and it puts a huge smile on my face. So if you want me to text my sister about your review. Then you should leave one asap. So wherever you're listening to this podcast, Apple, iHeart I don't know where else do people go?
[00:15:51] Azhelle Wade: Cast box, please stop whatever you're doing and just leave us a review. I would so appreciate it. Also, please consider supporting the show. Visit thetoycoach.com/support. This podcast has helped grow and launch businesses, build relationships, inspire new ideas. If you love this podcast, your support at just $3 a month could help it keep going and reach even more toy people like you.
[00:16:16] Azhelle Wade: We have some great supporters and I thank you guys so much for giving back to this podcast. Really, honestly, the supporters we currently have, you mean so much to me. I see your names every week when we're logging in to do a new episode, and you have no idea the amount of confidence and support and like the virtual hug it feels to see that you are financially supporting this podcast out of your own free will for nothing more than just to listen and enjoy.
[00:16:46] Azhelle Wade: So I, I really appreciate you. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that there are other podcasts out there, so it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one. until next week, I'll see you later Toy people.
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