This blog tells the stories of incredible indie board games designers from across the globe. This week I’m chatting with Chris from B+Up Games about their current Kickstarter Dragonlings. We explore the journey of their game: from idea, through to prototype, right to their (successful) Kickstarter.
Read, enjoy, and be sure to subscribe!
Joe: Heya B+Up games. Welcome to the blog. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what brings you to the world of games design?
B+UP: Hey Joe, thanks for inviting us! My name’s Chris. My wife Erinn and I started designing Dragonlings in 2019. I had been programming video games as a hobby with two friends for a few years, but it was never something I could share with Erinn, who is more of a tabletop gamer. Dragonlings changed all that. While waiting for our wedding and the birth of our first child, we started designing a game together that we’d want to play with our family someday.
Joe: That’s really great. How did Erinn turn you away from computer games to the world of the tabletop? And what’s it like working with your spouse?
Chris: Don’t get me wrong, I still love video games – and making them! But I think being able to share game design with Erinn was what motivated me to want to make a tabletop game, since that’s a love we share. Working with her has been awesome. She has such a good understanding of psychology, and what makes player interaction fun. She also has a theatre degree and puts it to good use directing our social media videos.
Joe: it feels like you’ve got a brilliantly complimentary set of skills in your partnership – you’re both really lucky to have found one another and to be creating together.
Let’s turn to your current Kickstarter, firstly can you tell us a little about the game?
Chris: Absolutely! Dragonlings is a card game for 1-6 players where players play as dragon trainers, competing to grow dragons and hoard treasure to win. It’s a cosy hand management game where players build a tableau of dragons that start out as hatchlings and grow to become legendarily powerful, learning abilities as they age. There are lots of ways to win Dragonlings. Growing dragons, laying eggs and gathering treasure all result in victory points. Trainer cards offer even more asymmetric bonus victory points for different strategies.
We wanted to create something family friendly and non-violent, that was easy to pick up but had plenty of strategy for seasoned board gamers.
We wanted to create something family friendly and non-violent, that was easy to pick up but had plenty of strategy for seasoned board gamers. Originally, we had planned to hire an artist, but over the course of a couple years, I taught myself how to draw in digital watercolour and drew all 44 unique dragons myself. It’s been a labour of love.
Joe: love the theme and the fact that you’ve gone for non-violent.
I’m always interested in the process of ideation and creativity, I wonder if you could talk a little about the moment the idea arrived with you both, where did it come from and how did you know it was the Kickstarter idea?
Chris: Thank you! I woke up on Christmas Eve 2019 after dreaming about a card game involving dragons and colour theory. Like a lot of game designers, I’m always thinking of new game ideas. Erinn and I had been playing a lot of Magic: The Gathering, so I think it bled into my subconscious a bit. I imagined it being a game where there were dragons of different colours that had simplified MTG-like abilities based on their colour. I told Erinn about it, we brainstormed a bit, and arrived at a tableau-building system where you hatch dragons from eggs as babies, and as you stack them, they age and become more powerful, learning abilities that can be reused later. The idea was inspired a bit by Pokémon, which we both loved as kids.
It looked so much like a real product – it was a magical feeling.
I made our earliest prototype using Google Images and Photoshop. We cut the cards from printer paper into sleeves with playing cards behind them, stole some egg tokens from our copy of Wingspan, and we started playing together. It was really, really fun. We kept coming back to it. We got serious about it, and playtested it with friends, then game design meetup groups, and people liked it as much as we did! Once we finished making our own art for it, and the first professionally printed prototype came back, it looked so much like a real product – it was a magical feeling. Right then, we knew we had a Kickstarter in the making.
Joe: The power of sleep as a creative tool can never be overstated – it’s quite incredible what can go on behind the scenes whilst our eyes are shut!
The more I learn about crowdfunding a game, the more nuanced and complex the process becomes. Can we talk a little about how you decided on crowdfunding as opposed to other publishing routes? And how did you settle on Kickstarter as your platform of choice?
Chris: It is definitely nuanced and complex – overwhelming even. But since I helped manage a game production LLC with friends already, which was setup for video game production originally, it just made sense for us to try to self-publish and get our name out there. We want to produce, publish, and ship more games in the future, and crowdfunding would help us build up a base of support.
We relied heavily on Jamey Stegmaier’s blog articles on crowdfunding for how to get it off the ground. We chose Kickstarter because we believe it offered the most visibility for new creators, since they’re the biggest name, and have a very large user base that can account for the majority of backers on a project like ours. We found sites like Gamefound offer better pledge management, but it’s harder to get off the ground there without a pre-existing fanbase. Even with Kickstarter’s limitations and costs, we thought it was the best choice for us.
Joe: Jamey’s blogs and books are brilliant for supporting the self-publishers amongst us. His first piece of advice is ‘you don’t have to Kickstart tomorrow’. This advice resonated with me a lot, there’s this pressure (probably only in my head) that things need to move quickly, but they really don’t.
I wonder if you can talk about how you’ve moved your game from idea to Kickstarter, without getting ahead of yourself?
Chris: I can relate with the desire to move quickly. Not rushing it is really good advice. Like most devs, I’ve had a lot of unfinished projects, so we didn’t set out to publish this game from the start. It was on our bucket list to make a great game that we and our friends could enjoy before we had a baby and less free time. We created prototypes, balanced it (so much Excel), removed mechanics, invented others, and redesigned cards. We played with friends and at local game stores until we worked out all the kinks. We added more player interaction, changed wording, added accessibility features, and tried not to get too attached to anything that wasn’t working. We didn’t even have art for the first 2-3 years of playtesting. We spent over a year on that alone.
We’ve been blown away by the support and generosity of our reviewers and backers!
Even when it was ready, we didn’t rush the Kickstarter. We did a lot of research, got quotes from manufacturers and fulfilment partners, and learned crowdfunding best practices. We started a pre-launch page and built a social media following for five months before pressing the launch button. We made a lot of really awesome friends and connections through board game Instagram. We had many very kind reviewers reach out to us to test it, and we sent around prototypes. We invested about 15% of our launch goal on raising awareness, and only launched when we thought we had enough pre-launch followers to fund it. We’ve been blown away by the support and generosity of our reviewers and backers!
Joe: Top marks for patience! One huge part of running a Kickstarter seems to be becoming a master of all trades. How are you managing to keep on top of everything you need to do, and what skills are you actively developing to make sure it all goes well?
Chris: Thanks! Online resources about board game crowdfunding have been invaluable. We’ve also asked other creators and our vendors when we got stuck. Luckily, we have experience with graphic design and marketing, so we were able to leverage that.
The hardest part of running a Kickstarter isn’t the product or the promotion, it’s fulfilment. Global shipping is so, so complicated. If you do it wrong, you risk your backers having to pay extra shipping to get their games delivered, or worse, stuck in customs indefinitely!
We decided to work with fulfilment partners Fulfillrite and Spiral Galaxy for this, rather than shipping ourselves, which I’d highly recommend to any self-publisher. We’ve had to learn about VAT reporting, customs/import fees, warehousing, pick and pack fees, CE/ASTM testing, and so much more just to get this game into peoples’ hands. Our fulfilment partners have helped us immensely with this process. This is still something we are actively learning more about.
Joe: A lot of people have said that the hard part is after the campaign has ended, and I can see why! There’ll be lots of people reading who are in a similar position to me: they have a game, and are nearly ready to take the plunge and start their crowdfunding campaign. I wonder if you have any advice for us, any dos or don’ts that might help us?
Chris: We’ve learned so much, it’s hard to choose! First off, don’t do it for the money, you’ll work a lot of hours for very little return. Do it because you want people to play your game!
On the design side, playtest as much as possible and don’t get attached or defensive when you get player feedback. Take a lot of time to work out the balancing. Close games are a hallmark of balance. Above all, make it fun. Get rid of anything confusing or brutal that gets in fun’s way. (This might be harder than it sounds!)
Kill ads that don’t work. Get on social media. Ignore crowdfunding “guru” scammers.
On the campaign side, don’t rush it. Finish your game 100% first. Read everything you can on crowdfunding and learn from other peoples’ mistakes. Get several quotes to make and ship it. Set aside money for advertising to build a sizable pre-launch following. Kill ads that don’t work. Get on social media. Ignore crowdfunding “guru” scammers. Support and make friends with other creators – they are ready to share the love! It’s a lot, but it’s so rewarding. Have fun with it!
Joe: This is brilliant, super useful advice that feels like it will support a lot of fellow designers.
Let’s finish with a quick plug of your current Kickstarter – where can we find the game? Why should we back it?
Chris: If you like dragons and competitive but cosy card games, Dragonlings is on Kickstarter still until December 11th. We’re offering Kickstarter exclusive discounts off MSRP, and plushies! After the campaign, check out https://bupgames.com for more.
Thanks Chris for joining us on the blog. Make sure to check out Dragonlings (links above) and to follow B+Up Games on Instagram. Then please support the blog, I’m going to start offering early access to blog posts to members, and a free print an play game (Mouse vs Cheese) to all old and new subscribers!
Another great article Joe! And many thanks to Chris for sharing your journey so far, can’t wait to get my copy!
Thanks so much Richard! We very much appreciate your support!