This week we’re explore the experience of sending your game out into the world of the influencers to get reviews. I’m catching up with Harry from Quaeleon’s Quest to get his perspective on what can be a scary part of the indie games design process.
Joe: Hey man, first, congrats on your new kid! So, all the more thanks for taking the time for this conversation! We’ll start with an easy question – who are you and what brings you to designing board games?
Harry: Hi Joe, my name is Harry! Former physics student turned programmer turned fabric printer turned game publisher 😅. I was first inspired when sitting and waiting for my turn in a 6-player game. People’s turns came around very infrequently, and I thought, “Is it possible to combine the same strategic gameplay, but without waiting for other players’ turns?” and so Quaeleon’s Quest was born.
There are so many talented, inspiring people out there – it would be great to help them reach their goals of selling great games.
Since then, I hope to become a game publisher and help others publish their games. There are so many talented, inspiring people out there – it would be great to help them reach their goals of selling great games.
Joe: That’s quite the journey! Can you tell me a bit about Quaeleon’s Quest?
Harry: Sure! Quaeleon’s Quest pits 2 to 6 players against each other, with the challenge being to eliminate your opponents, and the victor is the last person left standing. Players simultaneously build a stack of cards that then play out on the field of battle, reducing downtime waiting for other players to take their turns as all decision making happens in advance.
The cards are meticulously designed to offer lots of strategic gameplay and opportunities for huge effects and combo building, with enough chaos mixed in to keep gameplay fresh every time. Sculpt the perfect defence, scheme the perfect attacks, or use magical effects to scupper your opponents’ plans and emerge victorious! Games take around 20 minutes, even for 6 players, and require minimal table space to play. Everything you need is in one little box, and it should retail for under £20.
Joe: Love the concept, and can’t wait to see it become a reality. You’re in this interesting bit of the process where you’ve just sent off copies of your game for different people to play, and potentially review. Firstly, how does that feel?
Harry: Nerve-wracking! You have to make sure the game is solid, both in terms of gameplay and how the rules are written. Any slight stumbling block is going to put people right off, so you better make sure it’s well playtested. Then you’ve got to try and find people who are going to love the game. I’d actually had a few people reach out and ask for copies of the game, so they were definitely on the list.
you’ve got to try and find people who are going to love the game
Joe: Can we explore that a little more – what were your criteria for finding people, where did you find them, and what do you think you’d done in order to get them to reach out?
Harry: First, you need to know what your target market is, and then find some influencers who fit that mould. For us, we were looking for strategy gamers who enjoy 2-6 player, fast-paced games with a fantasy theme. We were steering clear from players of heavy games and very light/family games. Magic: The Gathering players, tabletop RPG gamers, and young couples are some good areas.
How did we find them? Mostly through looking at Instagram and following people! Then we just reached out with a message. The people who reached out to us were just followers engaging with our content on Instagram!
Two such reviewers were the amazing @tabletopprincess, a young member of the board gaming community sharing her amazing board gaming journey as she goes to events and plays and collects new games, and @gamechanger_bykarine, a mom of 2 from the US creating great viral content and sharing her game playing experiences. Both are lovers of snappy strategy games, so were perfect review partners.
Joe: It’s great to have people reaching out to you as they want to review. Aside from fitting the niche, were there any other criteria you were looking for? For example, reels vs posts as they favoured review type, or number of followers?
Harry: I tried looking for influencers that get more engagement. There are a lot of people out there who post a lot and have lots of followers, but if you look, their posts get 1-2 comments and only a few likes, so I tried to find people who have a better core following – but that is difficult as they tend to be the busiest! I had a lot of people not even reply to my messages 😅. I’m looking forward to some of the upcoming reviews – the 60 Minute Gamer being one who gets a lot of engagement and is really on brand for Quaeleon’s Quest in terms of messaging.
Joe: As reviews come in, how are you capitalising on them? Are you storing them for later, to share alongside the Kickstarter, or do you promote them as they come in to build a following?
Harry: I was hoping to boost those posts on Instagram, but unfortunately, I didn’t think you could boost a post created by someone else, even if you’re labelled as a collaborator! I had resigned myself to just using the reviews as future marketing content. Having just looked it up, though, it looks as though it is possible – there is just a toggle in the settings of the post to make it possible; I will investigate this now 😅.
Facebook Marketing – I’ve found the website subscriptions count to be quite unreliable, presumably because of cookie acceptance – the real total was around 200 during this time, which isn’t quite as bad! I’m also using them for remarketing – I have a newsletter subscriber base, and after sending out a newsletter about the reviews, a few of them have converted into reservations 😁.
Joe: One worry I have is bad reviews, and how to manage them. Have there been any reviews that you’ve been less keen on, and what’s your strategy when something comes in that is critical of the game?
Harry: It’s important to realise not everyone is going to like your game – the most important thing is that some people are going to love it. As such, you’ll definitely get some criticism of your game. That’s been the case with Quaeleon’s Quest, and I fully acknowledge that it’s not a game for everyone – but for those who do like it, they tend to love it and find it very rewarding and addictive.
All publicity is good publicity – it’s good to get people talking about your game, whether they love it or hate it. I was hoping for at least one truly scathing review because that would have been good publicity! But most reviewers don’t write scathing reviews – I think they would rather not post at all, which is human nature. My advice would be to focus on the positive. It’s much better to make something polarising, that some people love and some hate, than something everyone just “likes”. Of course, if everyone hates it, that’s a different story…
Joe: Last question, what comes next? After the reviews are in, how do you decide when to progress the rest of your project?
Harry: Now: advertising. I’ve got to get a good number of people interested and aware of Quaeleon’s Quest, and hopefully, the reviews will back that up. Social proof is really good when it comes to sales, so hopefully, that’ll help people take action and reserve their copy. Now, I’ve just got to get their attention!
I’ve been really trying to think of the target market and generate some imagery specifically for that market, so we’ll see how that works out!
Hey dear reader, a couple of tasks for you – go and find Harry on Instagram and give him a follow. Then help me out by dropping your email into the subscribe box below!
