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  • Pine Island Playtesters – Game Submission Review Process — Pine Island Games

    Pine Island Playtesters – Game Submission Review Process — Pine Island Games



    We reach out to those games’ designers and arrange a playtest. These playtests are usually with the designer on TTS, although I have been sent physical prototypes to test on our own.

    Pine Island Playtesters

    A relatively new addition to our community is our Pine Island Playtesters. These are insiders from the mailing list, discord, or Kickstarter who’ve expressed an interest in being more involved with the company.

    We loop in our playtesters for the handful of games that we are seriously considering signing.

    We usually have specific questions for our playtesters about game mechanisms, and how they view the game versus other games in the genre.

    There is still room for improvement in our process. But, it’s come a long way, and it couldn’t be what it is, and we wouldn’t have the opportunities we have, without this amazing community.

     

    If you’d like to be Pine Island Playtester and get a front row seat as we look at games to license, shoot me an email at jasper@pineislandgames.com.





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  • Prescriptive Tasks & Workflows – Board Game Publishing — Pine Island Games

    Prescriptive Tasks & Workflows – Board Game Publishing — Pine Island Games



    A task becoming more prescriptive doesn’t mean that it’s less creative. Even though I now have more frameworks around sourcing illustration or graphic design – they are still creative processes. It’s just that I now know how to approach those tasks.

    By the same token, a lot of tasks are iterative. But having a framework for how to approach tasks helps us iterate more efficiently and come up with better products.

    I like this way of thinking about and framing the business. It makes it easier to approach less-well-defined problems, knowing that working through them will help me learn and level up my games publishing craft.

    The next time they crop up they won’t be nearly as scary.

     

    Passing it On

    My hope is that Pine Island Games will grow as a company, and that some day we’ll have in house partners who benefit from the experience I’m building now.

    It’s also why I write this blog.

    I want to help other indie publishers learn processes and methods that help them on their journeys. It’s my way of giving back to this community, which I owe so much to.

    A lot of articles are like this, a little more philosophical and less full of specific device, but I also try and provide some real concrete advice.

    Our Nuts & Bolts series is for instance bite sized prescriptive advice on tackling specific publishing problems. I recommend checking them out:

    Game & Product Design

    Publishing

    Marketing

    Graphic Design, Illustration, Packaging & Iconography

     

    What’s is a complicated problem that you’ve developed a prescriptive method to tackle?





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  • Tools & Models for Indie Kickstarter Creators — Pine Island Games

    Tools & Models for Indie Kickstarter Creators — Pine Island Games



    I wanted to re-share it here along with some linked resources in the model.

    The basic idea is that you can input your development costs (to market costs), along with unit economics (manufacture cost per game, freight, shipping, etc), and see how many games you need to sell to break even, along with your P&L for any given number of games sold.

    Tool 2 – ROAS Calculator (for Ad Campaigns & Review Campaigns)

    This tool is inspired by Crowdfunding Nerd’s e-mail list tool “Kickstarter Success Calculator”, but it has some material differences. It also goes farther with a section to calculate your return on ad spend (ROAS) not just for a paid advertising campaign, but also for a review & preview campaign.





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  • How to Find & Hire a Fulfillment Provider for your Board Game Kickstarter or Gamefound — Pine Island Games

    How to Find & Hire a Fulfillment Provider for your Board Game Kickstarter or Gamefound — Pine Island Games



    They will be able to provide shipping rates by geography – like this shipping estimate for Sigil from Fulfillrite. Most will break down their picking fees, the cost of packaging, and postage costs.

     

    Key Considerations

    Price isn’t the most important consideration when finding your fulfillment partner.

    Reputation: Reputation and surety that they will get the job done smoothly, and without undue product damage, is far more important than a dollar or two savings on picking and packing. I recommend asking around in game design and publishing forums for peoples’ experiences with your with your most competitive.

    Ease of Communication: You’ll need a good relationship with your sales rep to smooth the freight delivery process, and address any hiccups that come up during fulfillment. Make sure your sales rep is responsive and can help you workshop your fulfillment options.

    Technology: My favorite thing about Fulfillrite is their tech platform. They have a dashboard where I can manage inventory, upload shipping details, and best of all, it automatically ties into our Shopify storefront.





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  • Kickstarter Tips & Tricks — Pine Island Games

    Kickstarter Tips & Tricks — Pine Island Games



    A couple of months ago I wrote up a pretty comprehensive guide on How to Structure a Kickstarter page. We’re still deep in the weeds putting together our Kickstarter for Sigil (launching 05/16!!), and I wanted to share some more tips and tricks that for taking your page to the next level.

    Dead Space & Boarders

    Kickstarter automatically inserts line spacing between images (the cannot abut against eachother). This means that when create assets for the page you need to take into account that there will be dead white space between them. There are a few ways to deal with this.

    1. Combine Assets into Large Images

    This is a trick we are doing for our Sigil Kickstarter. Instead of having a headline image, quote, and then what’s in the box image each separately, we are combining them into one master image. We have more control over the flow of the page, and can seamlessly have assets flow into each other without dead space.

    You do need to break images (and have dead space) when you want to insert a link, a button or a video. So, eventually you’ll need to plan for the image to end, and how it will transition to dead space or your next graphic.

    2. Fade Images into the Negative Space

    A good example of this approach is the Elden Ring board game campaign. The IP includes a lot of mist effects which the creators incorporated to allow their images to blead into the negative space that Kickstarter forces between images.





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  • The Board Game Content Ecosystem — Pine Island Games

    The Board Game Content Ecosystem — Pine Island Games



     Paid Versus Unpaid

    It’s important to note the difference between paid and unpaid content. Most review content and round ups is unpaid, while a lot of preview content is paid. Whether content is paid or unpaid will also depend on the individual creator, and the size of the channel’s audience.

    For instance, a smaller channel will likely create preview content for free (to help build its audience and have novel content), while larger established channels will charge a fee for content.

    Not all paid content is created equal, and it’s important to partner with creators whose tastes and audiences align with your design. Even when content is paid, you can tell how enthusiastic content creators are about the game they are covering.

    Getting Coverage

    There are two main kinds of coverage – coverage before your game is released or crowdfunded, and coverage after your game is published.

    I wrote up an article on how to reach out to content creators: How to Query Content Creators.

    It’s worth noting that the process of reaching out to content creators is relatively similar in each case. However, once your game is published you will get a higher proportion of inquiries for coverage, as well as unprompted coverage.

    Once a game is published, unless you are paying for specific content (like a how to play video), the vast majority of coverage will be unpaid (although you may send a review copy of your game).

    Where to Find Content Creators

    Most readers will have their own favorite board game content creators. Those are a great place to start when looking for reviewers and previewers for your game. But, it’s always worth expanding your playlists. Here are a few places to look for content creators for your game:

    Who are your favorite under the radar board game content creators?





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  • Stretch Goals & Startfalls — Pine Island Games

    Stretch Goals & Startfalls — Pine Island Games



    I like to think of stretch goals in a couple of categories:

    1. Component upgrades (ex: black core card stock)

    2. Additional game content (ex: playable character unlocks)

    3. Non-game content add-ons (ex: sticker sheets included with the game)

    4. Out of game content (ex: phone wallpapers)

    While I understand game content as a stretch goal for content heavy games that are still in development (writing quests costs money), I prefer games that have a strong baseline of component quality and include stretch goals that take a game beyond what would be expected in a retail edition – add-ons like sticker sheets, super-premium stock & finishes, or even a box insert (an expensive component for the publisher).

    Are Stretch Goals Powerful?

    Qualitatively stretch goals seem to have at least some impact on campaign success – I noticed more activity on our Nut Hunt campaign when we were approaching stretch goals (which increases visibility). However, it is hard to really know how much of an impact stretch goals have.

    My gut is that monetary stretch goals are more meaningful for smaller and moderate sized campaigns where backers understand that stretch goals are more of a sharing of economics – and the publisher doesn’t necessarily expect all goals to be hit. In this sense, I expect some backers of big (multi-hundred-thousand dollar) campaigns go into backing with the expectation that all stretch goals will be unlocked (as evidenced by big box publisher behavior of unlocking all goals after the campaign even if they weren’t hit).

    In this sense, the power of stretch goals for bigger campaigns is more in the excitement they provide for the community, and the interaction they drive, rather than as an mechanism for component upgrades or additional game content.

    Which brings us full circle to Fractured Sky

    Starfalls

    In forgoing traditional monetary (content & component upgrade) stretch goals, IV Studios has what they call “Starfall Rewards”.





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  • How Board Games are Made — Pine Island Games

    How Board Games are Made — Pine Island Games



    A lot goes into making a board game. From design to development, marketing and of course manufacture. In the past I wrote about the distribution pipeline (see our article: Supply Chain A-Z), and decided that it might be helpful to dig a little deeper into the actual process of manufacturing a board game.





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  • Lessons in Communication – Tone Matters — Pine Island Games

    Lessons in Communication – Tone Matters — Pine Island Games



    It was a frustrating experience – not just because it was money out of our pocket, but also due to the uncertainty over how it would impact our timelines. My update to backers was a no-nonsense look at what was going on, and how it might (but ended up not) impact backers.

    You can read the whole update here.

    I pride our company on transparency and things like this blog as a behind the curtain look at publishing. And, that update did hit those marks in a pretty neutral tone.

    Last week publisher Matthue Ryann had a similar problem with one of his shipments for his game Don’t Get Drunk, and I was impressed by the tack he took. Rather than be negative, or just neutral about the experience, he turned his misfortune into an upbeat and positive moment for his fans.

    [image]

    At the end of the day publishing board games is about fun. I think Matt’s response is an important lesson to keep in mind, to look to create fun in our communities even around the mundane or negative events for us as publishers. 

    Mythic Missteps

    There are a whole lot of cans of worms to unpack from the disaster that is the 6: Siege post campaign management. Here are some recaps:

    There’s a lot that could be said about Mythic’s communication – lack of transparency, apparent dishonestly about why they need more funds (hint: it’s development cost overruns not manufacture overruns), and a Bond villain-esque setting for delivering the bad news to backers.





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  • What a Journey – A Board Game 15 Years in the Making — Pine Island Games

    What a Journey – A Board Game 15 Years in the Making — Pine Island Games



    But, Sigil didn’t start with me. It wasn’t my brain child, and while I helped tighten the game up around the edges, the design fully belongs to Andy Voellmer.

    15 Years in the Making

    If you were near Montreal’s Parc LaFontaine in summer 2009, you might have seen a couple of college aged kids playing a game with maple leaf pennies.

    Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of those first plays – and I’m not sure that those first iterations would even be recognizable to someone introduced to the game as it stands today. The rules were a bit different, spells weren’t even modular, and that’s not even getting into how the game looks.

    But, the spark of it was there.  

    That spark stayed with Andy through a PHD, from Canada to California, and to New York City where we met.

    While I don’t have pictures of those first plays, I do have a picture of one of my early plays with Andy.





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