No one cares about your game
Eleventh Beast, second place, promoting your indie game, and Eschaton
TL;DR Summary
⚔️ Eleventh Beast released
🏅 Second place isn’t so bad
📣 No one cares about your game
🎲 Recently played: Eschaton
⚔️ Eleventh Beast
As you might have read, I released Eleventh Beast on Tuesday! It’s a solo monster hunting and journaling game set in 1746 London.
You are a member of a secret daemon hunting society in 18th century London, founded to kill the first beast in 1616. A new beast has arrived every thirteen years since.
Investigate rumors. Learn its secrets. Gather wards and weapons. Prepare for the hunt.
Eleventh Beast was made for the One-Page RPG Jam, so it fits on a single A4 trifold. There are a bunch of optional extras, however, that are available. There’s a printable map, tokens with art by Perplexing Ruins, and even a sonnet in (mostly) iambic pentameter!
Watch the trailer and download the game: ELEVENTH BEAST
🏅 Second place isn’t so bad
Two weeks ago I wrote about how second place isn’t so bad in Wonderland’s War (Eisner, et al., 2022) over at Skeleton Code Machine.
It’s a really fun game that effectively uses both card drafting and bag building to create tension and meaningful choices. The thing that I think is really notable is the emphasis on second place benefits during the battles.
Rather than “winner takes all” combat resolution, adding very attractive second place rewards can lead to:
Increased player engagement
Players that are more likely to join a battle
Reduced overly defensive play
Ability to employ longer strategies
Check out the full post at Skeleton Code Machine: Second Place Isn’t So Bad.
📣 No one cares about your game
I recently watched Thomas Reisenegger’s GDC talk called The Golden Rule of Game Promotion: No One Cares About Your Game.
If you are a game designer and/or involved with pitching and marketing, I think it’s worth watching.
Here are a few things I learned or found interesting:
The Avengers Problem: What works for the “big stuff” like Marvel and AAA games won’t work for tiny companies. Teaser trailers and the kind of advertising you see for major games and movies aren’t the best way to go. Those methods assume you already have the audience’s attention.
Get to the point quick: Frontload video trailers, and rely on the hook in the first 10 seconds.
Don’t assume everyone knows you: Make sure your media (e.g. GIF, reel, video) works as well for newcomers as it does for people who know your games.
Consider the viewing environment: People rarely give your media undivided attention. Assume people will be glancing at it, sitting on the couch, watching television, and distracted.
Know your step in the funnel: The purchase funnel has been around since 1898, and there’s probably a reason for that. Understand the funnel and know which step your media targets.
Show your game: Don’t bury your game footage. Feature it front and center, and use shots that are going to hook people.
Keep reminding people forever: Don’t assume that you’ve told people about your game once so now they know. People forget, have other priorities, and generally don’t care about your game like you do. Marketing is a constant process.
I’m starting to see some valuable overlap after watching GDC talks and reading books on the subject. Knowing your hook and getting to the point were important parts of how to pitch your indie game.
🎲 Recently played: Eschaton
I love deck-building games, and I love area control games. Eschaton (Watts, et al., 2016) does a fine job combining both of those mechanisms, with a dark MÖRK BORG adjacent theme.
It’s interesting to compare Eschaton versus other games that combine deck-building with other mechanisms. Dune: Imperium (Dennen, 2020) is ostensibly a deck-building plus combat game, but I rarely get to cycle through my deck as much as I’d like. Eschaton seems to allow for more deck-building via:
Providing easy ways to draw more of your deck each round
Providing incentives to trash cards out of your deck (i.e. the Sacrificial Pyre)
Also, I noticed that some of the Archon Games team was recently on Limithron’s Ship of the Dead Podcast. I’ve yet to listen to it, but I definitely plan to check that out.
Have you played Eschaton? What did you think of it? Leave a comment below!
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- E.P. 💀