Episode #28: Playing The Kickstarter Long Game with Joe Slack

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For many of us, this is "launch season" for our toy and game products.  And even though this podcast has given plenty of valuable information about launching a successful crowdfunding campaign, there is always more to learn. So The Toy Coach is back at it, asking questions and getting answers about launching a product on Kickstarter, but this time...it's with a focus on games!

This week, The Toy Coach is joined by educator and Game Designer, Joe Slack, to learn all about his current Kickstarter project Relics of Rajavihara. Joe stops in to share his inspiring journey of launching a game to Kickstarter and funding it in just 4 days! This episode shines a light on the importance of building buzz around your idea for 6 months to a year before your launch. There is also a focus on the value and methods of finding a supportive online community to provide valuable feedback throughout your product development. Joe also shares a bit of his game design process and leaves aspiring game designers with a few words of wisdom.

Ok toy people, let's do this! Pop your earbuds in and take a listen.

• Mentioned In This Episode

  This episode is brought to you by thetoycoach.com

  Joe Slack - Check out Relics of Rajavihara on Kickstarter!

  Relics of Rajavihara is both a solo campaign-style game and replayable solo game. Make your way through 50 levels of puzzling adventure spread out over 5 floors. Each floor introduces new challenges and each level is harder than the last

• Episode Transcript

  Azhelle 00:00 You're listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, Episode Number 28. Intro/Outro + Jingle 00:07 Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you. And now your host Azhelle Wade. Azhelle 00:18 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. Before jumping into today's episode, I want to tell you all about something super special that I've got in the works. Now, this isn't for you if you're in love with learning with me on this podcast, and you have an amazing toy or game idea that you want to create and monetize. In September I will be opening the doors for you to register for my online digital course Toy Xreators Academy. Now if you've already joined the email list, then go you You are ahead of the game and I can't wait to serve you. When the doors open up. Toy Creators Academy is going to teach you how to develop your toy ideas and turn them into a toy business. So if you'd love a little more toy spiration from me and a whole lot of guidance, then head over to toycreatorsacademy.com and join the early access list. If you're on that list, you are going to be among the first to know when the doors open. And to top it all off, you are going to get the opportunity to join the course at an incredible rate that no one else will get not even my regular toy code insiders. So if you've got a few great toy ideas inside of you, and you want to turn those ideas into a toy business, head over to toy creators academy.com to learn even more. Okay, let's jump into the episode. For today's episode, I'm so excited because you know I've been all about Kickstarter at lately and I found a another amazing Kickstarter person and his name is Joe slack. Now Joe is a professional board game designer and author of the number one international best-selling book, the board game designers guide, along with two other books on game design. Joe has taught game design and development at Wilfrid Laurier University. Joe has many games at various stages, from development to Kickstarter success to signed and published games. Welcome to the show, Joe. Joe 02:38 Hey, thanks so much for having me. Azhelle 02:39 So let's just start out I mean, you have I mean, you've launched a bunch of games, but I'm curious how many games you've launched on Kickstarter. Joe 02:49 So this is my second game on Kickstarter, I've, I've kind of taken the route of pitching some games to publishers and letting them do the dirty work and running some on my own. So this is the second one that I've run on my own. And then I've also helped support other publishers on a couple of my other games that were on Kickstarter earlier this year. So they were the actual publisher, and I was just more supporting them. Azhelle 03:09 So how many of your Kickstarter is that you launched have been successful then? Joe 03:13 So out of the ones that I've launched myself, I'd say one of the two, the current one was successful. The first one was kind of a trial run, it was a game that I made early on is the first game I ever made. And I did it with a friend. And we just kind of got to the point where we're like, well, we got to throw it out there and see how it does. And you know, there wasn't the market for it, but I learned a lot from it and really helped with this current one. So it's called Relics of Rajavihara. Azhelle 03:35 Relics of Rajavihara. So yeah, let's talk about that one,Joe 03:39 For sure. So it's a solo puzzly adventure game. So if you picture a mobile game, or one of the old NES, like Nintendo style puzzle games like Zelda and adventures of Lolo, or games like rush hour, games like that, where you're trying to kind of solve puzzles and move on in advance and it gets more challenging what I did was kind of take a lot of those kind of games that I really love to play, and created a tabletop version of it, because I didn't really see kind of a 3d tactile version of these days. Yeah, so that's kind of where the idea came from. Azhelle 04:12 No, yeah, I was gonna ask because I saw I said, it's a solo campaign game. It's like, what is that even a category? Because they normally write normally the campaign game with other people's. That's great inspiration. That's a great idea. Joe 04:26 For sure. And there are there are some games out there that have campaigns you can do different things like try think like gloom, Haven and the seventh continent and games like that. But this one is strictly solo play. I mean, when I first started testing the game, I thought maybe work cooperatively, maybe people kind of collaborate and solve the puzzles, but really right away what I saw was one person was really doing all the work and somebody might be kind of like suggesting things. So it's really, I really embraced that it was a solo game and it is something you want to kind of sit and contemplate and you can play a level and beat that and move on to the next one. You gonna come back to it and you're ready, you can beat an entire floor, which is like the first 10 levels and then come back to it later. And then when the campaigns all done, which is a total of 50 levels that kind of advanced and get more challenging over time, then you open up a new box, which opens up completely replayable adventures, that you can just play just as one offs as much as you want. Azhelle 05:20 Yeah, so tell tell us a little bit about I guess your process, like your game design process. I want to hear more about your testing process, because that seemed to be a big part of this game.Joe 05:30 Sure, absolutely. So with this particular game, it just came with that idea, like I said, just coming up with a game that was kind of like a 3d tactile version of some of those puzzle games and just immediately thought of, you know, pushing crates around and that type of thing. So it kind of started off with creating a couple levels and just kind of figuring out what the mechanics are. How would you be able to push levels move things around and what What's your goal so you know, going to collect, say, a heart You're going to collect a jam or open a door or something like that, and then it kind of evolved from there. As I got to, you know, more and more challenging kind of levels. And I thought, well, it needs more than just these crates. That's not enough to just have one thing people get bored after playing so many levels of this. So I thought, well, I should be introducing new things. So then I came up with new things. And I don't want to give too much of a spoiler away. But things like boulders, for example, that provide obstacles, and you know, some other objects that move around in different ways or that pose different problems for you. So it kind of evolves and changes over time. And as I was doing this, and creating all these different levels, it just kind of, kind of naturally felt like there should be a progression, like, you should start off with some early levels that are almost kind of like tutorials and video games where you just kind of get the feel of Okay, here's how you push a block. Okay, here's how you step on a block. Here's how you move full stacks and that's everything. And then evolving to Okay, here's the next thing you open. I thought it really lended itself to kind of almost like a legacy or campaign style game like I love pandemic, for example, that was one of the things that got me into modern board gaming, and pandemic legacy was something that introduced something new where You beat a level or you beat a mission. And then you open up a new box, it'll say, you know, open up box two or peel off, you know, tab three, and then you get something new. And it was that kind of curiosity, that kind of thing where there's something new, something that's going to help the game evolve. And I thought that would be a perfect way to do that. One floor to the next up 10 floors, move on to the next open a new box, here's something new, a new challenge, here's all these levels and they scale up in difficulty, then you get to the next one. And the whole time you're also facing an adversary who's already gotten into the, into the palace, before you is trying to sum up the spirits. So you're also trying to track that adversary down and you have to do things beyond just you know, getting the gem and putting out fires. You also have to try to actually drop a block on him and before they move on to the next level and try to get away.

  Azhelle 07:48 Very cool. And you're the video also sells your game so well. Like I feel the same energy that you're talking about the game with is like the same energy that you're getting Do hand like where do you even get the vision? Have a video like that? But how did you know that's what you're gonna do? Joe 08:05 Well, I knew that I really good video is super important to Kickstarter, you have to show off the art and the design and how the game plays. And I wanted to come up with a video that had kind of the right balance of almost kind of that movie trailer. Yeah, kind of feeling. But also the balance, kind of showing that and showing that interest to get people you know, wanting to see more, but also showing some of the gameplay at least some hints and a lot of people have said there was a really good balance, and that's what I was really trying to do. So I was originally you know, is getting close to the Kickstarters but six weeks away, and I was like yeah, I really have to figure out what I'm doing for my video. So Azhelle 08:41 You waited until six weeks? Oh, wow. Okay, I know big mistake on my part. But I was thinking, you know what, I've got time still. I mean, I'm doing this full time so I can dedicate the time and I thought maybe I'll do like a stop motion. Maybe I'll do something kind of using tabletop simulator because I was using it on there. And I tried fiddling around with a few things and I thought you know what, this is beyond. What I'm really good at this is this is not my skill set. So I need to hire somebody. And I am. I happened to post something in one of the solo Facebook groups or one of the marketing groups. And somebody said, Oh, if you're looking for video production, you should you know, I can help you with that. I said, Oh, do you do this kind of thing? He said, Yeah, here's my website. And I checked it out. And I got some other quotes as well. But I wound up going with Kagan Productions. Or Kagan he reached out to me and he was like, it looks like a cool project. I'd love to chat with you. And we had a good chat about it. And I had a script already written, I knew exactly what I wanted to go into the game to kind of give that kind of Mystique in the feeling of the game, and some ideas of what I wanted to show like some of the actual movement on the levels, and all that kind of thing. So I had a good scripted idea and a vision, but I just needed somebody to kind of put that together. And after discussion with him, I knew he was the one like i'd spoken to a couple other people, but I kind of knew he was he was the one and he put together a fantastic video. He made some extra suggestions. He gave me some options for different voice actors. And we went Going with the female voice because I thought it really lent it because it's a female, a strong female heroine character, as well. So I wanted to kind of kind of run with that as well.

  Azhelle 10:10It's great. You did a fantastic job. I'm curious, would you be comfortable sharing just kind of some of the ranges of the clothes that you got to do a video? Because people, my listeners are always wondering if I do a Kickstarter, like how much do I have to invest? Joe 10:22 Oh, for sure. So I mean, I could have definitely gone out and gotten more quotes. And I know, I've heard of other people who've gotten them for, you know, between, say, 500, and 1000. And, you know, just all in US figures. But but it kind of depends on what you want to do, too. One of the biggest factors is whether it's just straight up filming, or is it 3d animation. So 3d animation can be a lot more for sure. And that's the way that I wanted to go with it. So the range of mic votes were in the range of about 1200 to about 5000. So, Azhelle 10:56 no, I mean, yeah, they're like that, but industries like that. Joe 10:59 Yeah, for sure. So yeah, and you want it you want to find the right person, somebody who kind of understands your vision, yes, the things that they've done before and you can work well with them and that they will work within a timeline. Like Ori was fantastic. Um, I mean, I said basically, I've got, you know, like, at this point, I'd like about five weeks before the Kickstarter, he said, no problem. He sets a bit tight, but I should be fine and is a bit tight. I know. But you know what, he was fantastic. He got me the video completely all done with even like the couple minor back and forth that we had within like two weeks. So I had, I know, I know. He's actually use it for promotion to use it in some ads to put it on YouTube and things like that. So I could use that video for more than one purpose. So it was fantastic.

  Azhelle 11:41 Wow, okay, let's get let's get into the strategy because I feel like I mean, not only do you obviously, you know how to pitch games and things to just publishers based on your experience, but let's get into some of the Kickstarter strategy. So you have a 10,000 Canadian dollar goal, Joe 11:57 but then throughout my campaign, I tried to At least express what the dollar amount was in US dollars and then kind of in brackets what the Canadian equivalent is so that they will, that's what they'll see when they actually go and pledge. Azhelle 12:09 So you had all these stretch goals, but your stretch goals were a little odd. Like the first one, I think it doubled the initial goal. The second one was less like how did you what what made you to find those stretch goals? Were you already so prepared that you knew you were going to hit your first funding goal? And then the stretch was just something extra? Like I'm curious, your mind your thought process there? Joe 12:31 Sure. Yeah. So I mean, you never know when you've launched something exactly how long it's going to take or if you're actually going to get funded. So, I mean, it was it was very fortunate my campaign funded in just under four hours, I saw Azhelle 12:46 that I was crazy. I didn't think I was gonna happen like you didn't already know.

  Joe 12:51 I was I was optimistic, and I was hopeful that it would leave at least fund and I was you know, hopefully it would fund within the first two days because they always say that Always sets a nice trajectory if you find very early because everybody wants to back a winner. And that's right. Most attention on your campaign. Sorry, hopeful I would get it within the first two days. But I was not expecting within four hours, Azhelle 13:11 but hopeful because you built yourself like an email list that you could market to are hopeful because you had a Facebook ads campaign like why are you so hopeful? Well, I think a combination, I wouldn't say it was any one thing but I was building my email list. I had a Facebook group, and they were very engaged in kind of seeing the game and trying some kind of pinch print and play versions of the game, table top Simulator, I had ads running, I did a lot of demos at virtual conventions. Azhelle 13:37 Oh so, you've been-- how many months were you doing this for? Oh, well, the initial game idea came about about two years ago, but it was it was on the back burner for for a period of time. But I would say in the last It was probably about six or seven months that I was kind of building up the campaign from the point that I kind of is back around maybe last December that I decided. I'm definitely going to be launching this on my own And I'm going to start to look for what the theme is and get the art done. So I have some things to start showing and and then build building the list from there. So So I built it over time, but it definitely was a lot harder without being able to go to physical like events and play with people face to face. Azhelle 14:17 Right. Okay, gotcha. What made you decide with this game not to go to a publisher and to do it on your own?Joe 14:26 Well, there were a couple of reasons I from an early from an early testing perspective, I took it to convention. It's called breakout con, a local convention two years ago when I kind of had the initial idea. And I played with a couple other designers and one guy actually turned out to be a publisher and we became friends and published one of my other games can you indecision, and he was interested in this game right from the start. He said, this is really cool. Like, I like games like rush hour and that kind of thing. And he took it for a while and was was, you know, at the point when I had the 50 levels and headed a little bit further along and He was evaluating it and considering it for publication. But at that point, he was wondering if he could actually put it out as a product and do it at a good price because it relies on a lot of solid wooden blocks. And so it wasn't going to be cheap to produce. So we thought for a solo game like what what are people actually going to pay? How inexpensively Can I get this done and make it still a good product? And eventually kind of said, I love the game, but I don't think I can do it. And the whole time while he was looking at it as well, I was kind of thinking, maybe this is something I want to do on my own because, okay, I've seen other publishers and small publishers, like Artem Sephora who's a local Toronto designer who did unbroken and is a friend of mine had a lot of success on Kickstarter with a solo game and ag AJ portfolio does like hostage negotiator and final girl and some other games and what I understand what I did through talking to a couple these designers, including Artem was just understand how they built up that momentum and a lot of it was just getting Getting involved in a lot of the solo Facebook board gaming communities, for example. Hmm. So, yeah, not just like marketing your game, but just, you know, talking about other games, engaging other people commenting on posts, posting other games that you like to play and that kind of thing. And it's treating it like a business. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's basically when I kind of made that decision. I was like, you know, I think this is what I could do on my own. Like to try it again. And I think there's enough of a market and then I knew that also that the solo gaming market had been really increasing and building up because there's a lot of people who, you know, maybe once they get married or get a little older, maybe they can't get together with their gaming groups. And their partners or family don't really like games that much or not as much as them so maybe, you know, they work a really stressful job and they just want to come home and relax and just play a game on their own. So there's, there's so many reasons why people are doing solo gaming, and I thought, well, this game really works. audience and I hadn't even been planning like, around, like, all the things that came with COVID.Azhelle 17:05 I was gonna say even the COVID---Joe 17:08 Yeah, I mean, naturally, a lot of people are at home and they can't get together at their groups, and maybe they don't want to play virtually. So the the audience kind of just expanded a little bit more for that just because of that reason. So I mean, the opportunity was there. And I had been thinking maybe I'll release this around the fall, I'd been thinking about going to essence feel and demoing it there because I had no opportunity to demo at a table. But I mean, whenever all these conventions and everything all kind of fell apart, I said, Well, you know, I'm going to dive head in and see how quickly I can put this together. And I set out a goal for you know, putting this out in July and I just put my head down and do the work to get there. Azhelle 17:43 How this is I mean, it's great because it's like a real hands-on almost guerilla marketing but in our age, you know, the digital age it's it's different. I'm curious, what percentage would you say of your resources Did you dedicate to guerilla marketing as in going to pay Facebook groups, maybe even you can call it going to trade shows even that because you're just showing your game, you're just showing yourself you're not directly paying for ads. What percentage of your time would you say you spent doing that versus paid ads? Joe 18:13 Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, I don't know if I'd have the exact numbers. But I'd say it definitely escalated in terms of the engagement over the course of the months. And I say within the last, the last couple of weeks leading up to the campaign, I was really spending almost half of my time just being engaged in other groups and just doing all those that kind of activities towards that. But you know, leading up before that, maybe, maybe, you know, 10 or 20% of my time at most I was spending on that and you know, a portion of my time as well on developing ads and running those kind of campaigns and things like that. So it definitely ramped up as I was getting closer to the campaign and then and then even since then, just being engaged in the community even more, Azhelle 18:55 And you still have 13 days to go you're like well over all of your-- you're done. Joe 19:01 I mean, it's doing better than expected. But you actually, were talking about stretch goals early? And I don't think yes, went into them quite quite as in depth. So I thought maybe I just talked about them. Azhelle 19:10 Yeah, go into your stretch goals, please. Joe 19:12 Yeah. So, I mean, one of the things that I had heard from a lot of other campaigns was to be careful with your stretch goals. Because yes, if you put too much up front, especially when you first launch your campaign, you can you can do one of two things that can hurt your campaign, you can either put too much out there or not put enough. So when you launch if I you know, said my stretch goal is 10,000. And then, and then, you know, maybe opening up the next stretch goal like 12, and then 14 and 16, just going in small increments. Well, what would happen if, you know my campaign absolutely blew up, and I funded in like, 20 minutes like some of these campaigns do, and I'm at like, already at 20,000 you know, before I blink an eye, and I don't even have time to react and then I end Then suddenly, I'm thinking, I'm going to run out of stretch goals pretty quick, because I know I have an idea going in exactly how much I can add to it because you never want to add so much content or weight to a box or something like that we're shipping more expensive, it's gonna make your, your manufacturing more expensive, then suddenly, you're losing money or you know, it's just not really feasible. So yeah, I already, you know, planned for it ahead of time in terms of extra content, like adding an extra card here, there is not very expensive, doing some minor upgrades, like some custom equals spot UV finish on the box. So I talked to manufacturers about what are some really cool things that have really good perceived value that don't cost a lot more Yes, do it. So I kind of plan those out. And like I was saying, I didn't want to plan for all these goals that were going to be rushed through really quickly. But at the same time, you don't want to go the other way and say, Okay, here's my game. I'm going to fund it at 10,000. And then the first stretch goal is going to come up with 15 and then a 20. And then what if your campaign is just moving along slowly and it just barely limps across the finish line tip The first funding goal, and then everybody's like, well, there's no way we're even gonna hit that stretch goal. And everybody's kind of disappointed. So either way, you can really disappoint people a lot by either over promising or under promising and under delivering. So what I wanted to do was, make sure to hit the funding goal. And then that would give me an idea of what the trajectory for the campaign was, like, I could look at how long it took me to get to that first goal and to the, you know, a little bit beyond that, and then say, okay, by the end of the campaign, what do I think I could potentially accomplish, and then spacing out my stretch goals, so that I could meet all of them by the end potentially, without having a big gap at the end or without having, you know, four or five that are going to go unfulfilled. So I really tried to space it out that way. And even even then, since then, I adjusted a little bit because it was doing a little better than I expected, and I started to stretch them out a little bit more. And then the funding went down a little bit more per day. So now I could probably go back to that, but I'm hoping that we can unlock all The ideas that I had as well,

  Azhelle 22:01 You can edit your stretch goals while the campaign's going on? Joe 22:04 Yeah, you can you can add as you want. I mean, you don't want something's up there, you don't want to take it away, because people are Yeah, that's like a bait and switch, right? On your stretch goals are set by you. I mean, your funding goal is set on there, like you can't change that funding goal. You can't change the cost of your pledges. You can add new pledges, you can add your countries it's going to be shipped to for example, but you can't change your pledges and you can't change your funding goal. What you can do is you have that control to do the stretch goals because really stretch goals were created as kind of an extra incentive they write sort of first came out like there was no such thing as a stretch goal. I don't know which campaign it was. But yeah, wherever that first person was that did it was like, well, we're hit our goal, like, why don't we add some new stuff and then it's kind of become the standard. So the Creator has that control, to put stretch goals at whatever intervals they want, and to say what they are, which is kind of cool and you can just keep adding to them. So you One, can you add a new one? You know, you don't make it to one you can say, well, we're we're close enough, we'll still we'll still unlock that for you that kind of thing. So you don't really have those options.Azhelle 23:09 This is fantastic. I'm still, I'm still a little bit curious how you were what At what point you became confident that you were like, this is the time to launch this, like, you know, you're building up this game little by little? At what point? Was it a number you hit on your email list? Was it a number of interviews you got for the game? And PR? Was it a number of comments you got on Facebook? Like what? What was the point that told you I need to go on Kickstarter now or by July or what what told you that? Joe 23:40 it's kind of funny because I have a degree in math and statistics. So you'd think it would be very, very strongly tied to, numbers and data you would think, but in a lot of cases is a lot more kind of a gut feeling and kind of planning towards that. So I had seen Through play testing and the development, that there was a genuine interest for this, and people were wanting to play one level after the other, and, you know, demoing it on tabletop simulator and, you know, handing out copies to people to try and, and reaching out to reviewers and that kind of thing. So, I think by about, it was probably around March, I had decided, Okay, I want to aim for July, I think I have, I think that gives me enough of a window to get all my reviewers lined up to get, you know, to continue to build that audience to build, you know, Facebook marketing campaign to get it up on tabletop simulator to do all these things. So I kind of just work backwards from there. I said, Okay, I kind of planned out and said, I think that's enough time. What are all activities that I need to do to get myself there so it wasn't really a straight number was just really the feeling that there's enough interest there. The you know, the comments that I was getting back in the solo persona is posting things about it. People in the Board Game Design Lab community, commenting on how much The artbook that kind of thing. And I just felt like, I think that there's enough of an audience that I can at least get this funded. I try to build this up so I can do the best I can with that did a fantastic job.

  Azhelle 25:11 What's the future for Relics of Rajavihara. Did I say that right? Joe 25:15 You said that beautiful. Yeah, thank you. Azhelle 25:17 So what's the future after Kickstarter, you send in all these boxes, then what? Joe 25:21 Yeah, so I mean, obviously, the first goal, once this is all done is getting the game manufactured and making it look, you know, beautiful, and giving that that experience and getting it out into the backers hands as quickly as possible. But, you know, best quality. But after that, I mean, this game is one of those games where it's just based on levels. So it's so easy and also so interesting for me to come up with new ideas and just, you know, to come up with that new level and say, Oh, this is really going to trick people or Oh, that that's a really cool red herring that people are going to kind of fall for in that. So it's always really interesting to me to continue to make more levels and make more content for this. So my my thought was if this game is successful enough, it is just open for so many expansions and it goes beyond just, you know, more levels with what's already there. It goes to, you know, the thoughts of what else can I add to this to make it really, really, really cool. So, I mean, you've already got, you know, the crates and moving around and everything and trying to solve these puzzles. What if I were to add things like snake sticking in your way? What if I were doing things like bridges that go over top of them or maybe like, like a rope ladder that you could use, but you can only use it once per level. So you have to figure out exactly when to use that or a conveyor belt that will help you move blocks up to other levels, because right now you can't do that. So all these different expansion ideas. So I think if it does well enough, then I would love to explore that and to be come out coming out with and launching an expansion for this next year so that, you know people have the opportunity that have played the game. They can keep playing it and keep enjoying it and Also you know when you when you launch an expansion you also have that opportunity to have add ons to your campaign so if somebody you know missed the first campaign, they can say, Okay, this looks really neat I want I want to back this so they can back it and add on the original game whether or not they want the expansion as well they can just you know, pledge for $1 to get into pledgemanager for example and then do that add on upgrade their their pledge to get the base game and then optionally the expansion as well so you know, they can save on shipping.

  Azhelle 27:30 So you're gonna stay in Kickstarter you're gonna keep this in a Kickstarter family? Joe 27:35 I think so. Oh, yeah. I mean, a couple of people have talked to me or asked me the question about you know, what's going to happen with this afterwards is gonna Yeah, retail and that kind of thing. Um, to be honest, my focus has just been on you know, running a Kickstarter campaign and getting this to be successful. And then kind of thinking about that because there's there's so many options you know, about getting into stores getting you know, doing selling on your website, selling guns. selling it through Amazon through you know, there's always the options. And even, you know, some of the companies that I'm working with for fulfillment and shipping, they can promote and put it on their site and they will store the game and then you know, whether I'm using say Shopify on my site, or you know, some third party app, in order for me, the order will go to them and they will fulfill it because it's in their warehouse. So. And that's always one of the toughest questions I always think about when I'm thinking about you know, somebody else running a campaign or when I'm running a campaign is, say, Get 1500 backers, should I make 1500 copies? Should I make 2000? Should I make 2500? Like, how many more do I think I can sell on my own? Yeah, um, because it's, it's really tough as kind of a first time creator. If, if you have, say, four or five games in your catalog already, you can much more easily talk to a distributor. Yeah, I can look at that and say, Okay, well, you've got a choice of things. I can put these on the catalog and then if retailers ask for them, they can order them but if you only have one you No, come back and talk to me when you have a few more. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, this has been a great conversation really informative, and what do you have anything new that you have coming up that you want to share, I do have a fast paced word game that's coming out this fall with another publisher. It's gonna be a big production. And one of the next projects I want to work on because I also like to help other game designers like I have my course I have my books and everything. And one of the ideas that I've had for a really long time and based on everything is happening right now in the world. And with COVID it kind of brought the idea right to the forefront of something I should really be working on right now, which is a board game design, virtual summit. So you know, if you've seen some of these kind of summits online, where you can go and listen to expert interviews and that kind of thing. That's kind of the idea where I got this and I haven't really seen that done the board game design world. So I thought, you know, this is a great opportunity to do something like that and I've lined up already 18 or 19. Pretty big names in the board game world, whether they're publishers, designers, artists, that type of thing. And we're gonna come on and talk about all sorts of different topics. Some, I'm preparing for the hat, I've got everybody lined up. I've got to do all the interviews, and then I'm going to be hopefully launching that in September, October once I have kind of a firm date.

  Azhelle 30:15 That sounds exciting. And I will give me all the links, I can put it in the show notes. That sounds awesome. Absolutely. You're doing big things in the game industry. Joe 30:24 Just trying to help others out. Because I know how hard it is when you're first starting out. I mean, that that's why I wrote my first book is writing the book that I wanted to want to have in front of me when I started like four years before that, because it was just always, you know, listen to a podcast here. To read a book here, read a blog post here, you're getting all these pieces of information. I didn't really have Yeah, a one stop shop. So I thought, well, you know, this is this is the book. I wanted to write the book that I wanted to have when I started out and I just try to keep you know, putting out new content that's going to help other people whether it's through my email list through blogs and articles, books, course. And then this virtual summit idea as well.Azhelle 31:02

  I feel the same way. That's how that's the reason I did everything with toys. I remember reading books like processes and materials and how to, you know, come up with innovative products, nothing related to toys. And you had to always like, try to apply it to what you were doing, because there was nothing out there that directly related to what you want us to do, right? So Joe 31:23 That can be a real challenge. So I mean, the more we can help others out there who are trying to share our knowledge, the better. Azhelle 31:29 Do you have one tip for new game designers that you would want to give? Joe 31:33 I would just say, one, one problem you often see is somebody who will have an idea for their game. And for one reason or another, and there's a couple reasons I'll talk about. They, they never actually bring it to life, so to speak. So, you know, so many people can have an idea in their head and you may they may say, oh, I've got this real cool idea for you know, a dungeon crawler or game about fishing or a game or whatever it is. And you're like, Oh, that sounds really cool. And they tell about it, they're really excited about it. And then you know, you might see them a year or two later at an event or something and say, oh, how's that game coming along? Oh, I haven't got a chance to really work on, I'm not sure what to do kind of thing. So my first thing is always to just get your idea out of your head and onto the table. And that's just really making that minimum viable prototype or minimum viable product. And it if you have a game and you think it's going to have you know, 300 cards in it, it's going to need fancy arts and everything on every one of them. If you just keep that in your mind, you're going to be feeling overwhelmed. So what you really need to do is just, you know, make a copy of the game that just has, say, 10 cards, try it out, just put it on the table, try it out by yourself, you know, roll some dice, move a couple cubes and meeples around, play some cards, just kind of get the feeling and see how the game would go and where you want to go next. Because the game that you create is never going to be exactly like the game in your head is not going to play exactly the same. So you don't really know until you try it. And I think one of the other problems is people either you know, just either getting idea out or out of their head and making something out of it, or they just can't get past that fear that somebody is going to steal that. Azhelle 33:09 And yes, I know. Yes. It's so sad because no, yeah. Because I mean, though you keep it in your head and then somebody else comes up with it, and then they're not afraid and they take the risk and then it becomes real. Joe 33:23 Exactly. And it's usually an unfounded fear. Because I mean, definitely, especially in the game design industry, the game industry. No game is created in isolation, like Relics of Rajavihara was not created in isolation. None of my games were created just by me like I made the only name on the box, but they only came to be because I put them in front of other people play tested them, get their feedback, hear what they have to say. Like, it's so so so rare for somebody to take in, take a game and run with it and try to steal it and make it their own. And there's lots of reasons for that. It's because, you know, if somebody's already a game designer, they already have 20 games. Is that they're already working on and passionate about passionate about like, right? You're your own idea is always more interesting than somebody else's. Right? Yeah, work on your own game. You don't care about that. Okay, that's okay. It might be an interesting idea. But I don't have time for that I got to work my own game. Yeah. But also you don't want to have a bad reputation, the industry if you get to be that person that it steals that takes that steals that whether your publisher, another designer or whatnot, nobody's going to want to work with you. So you do that once you're done with and exactly, that's the thing is, and I ideas are a dime a dozen, like, you could say, you could go to 10 game designers and say, come up with an idea about a game that has something to do with bows and arrows, or about hunting or whatever it is. And, you know, a week later those 10 game designers will come back and the left 10 games that are all completely completely different. And I mean that that's the thing, like everybody's gonna have a different idea about this.

  Azhelle 34:57It's concept and execution, right like

  Joe 35:00It's, it doesn't matter if you actually do something with it. And that's when it actually becomes something. Yeah. Azhelle 35:05 Ah, thank you for this great conversation. This was fantastic. Joe is a pleasure having you on the show. Joe 35:11 Well, thanks so much. It was a lot of fun talking with you. Azhelle 35:13 Well, there you have it to my people. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Joe Slack all about Kickstarter. And they want you to head over to thetoycoach.com/28 to get all of the links so that you can support Joe's Kickstarter project, which at the time of this recording is still going on. And it's called Relics of Rajavihara. Or just learn more about this amazing game designer Joe slack. So make sure you go to thetoycoach.com/28 to get those links. Now what I really want you guys to take away from this interview why I thought it was so important to have Joe on the show. Joe really talks about the long game, he really talks about how he built up hype for his product by attending shows having people test the product, interacting with Facebook groups that were interested in board games like his. So I know everybody is in Super launch or pre launch mode right now it's just the season four all of that. But I want to make sure that before you're jumping into your Kickstarter, that you've done your due diligence that you've built an email list for yourself, build yourself a bit of a following, and that you have some level of assurance that people are going to back your project. Now, as always, thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Making It in The Toy Industry. I feel really lucky to have you come back each and every week to spend some time with me. If you love this podcast, make sure you leave a review on Apple podcasts. I know it used to be called iTunes. Now they're Apple podcasts and I have to get used to Saying it. So please make sure you leave us a great review. I love reading your reviews and it just puts a huge smile on my face to know that this show is making a difference. Well Until next week, I'll see you later toy people. Intro/Outro + Jingle 37:18 Thanks for listening to Making It in The Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade, head over to thetoycoach.com for more information, tips, and advice.

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