9 Ways to Avoid Despair and Move Forward After Failure

Posted on Brandon Rollins6 CommentsPosted in Start to Finish

This is the last of four articles in the Failure Recovery series on Start to Finish. My own recent failure to launch a board game in 2018, Highways & Byways, is what inspired this detour from the originally planned articles. I think that a frank discussion of failure – what it looks like, the consequences, and moving forward – is really important for new creators to learn.

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Failure is brutal. Nobody wants to fail. Nobody sets out to fail. Yet when we take on projects that are bigger than we are able to complete with our skillsets and resources, failure becomes part of life. Success often comes from what you learn from a string of failures. That’s why today, I’m going to talk about nine ways you can avoid despair and move forward after failure.

Step 1: Focus on diagnosing the failure.

I talk about this in more detail in How to Diagnose Failure & Move Forward as a Board Game Developer. Long story short: map out your process, work backward, and see where it broke down. This is good for your rational business interests, but I think it’s also good for coping, too. For me, I found it much easier to analyze business problems than to handle the raw emotion of Kickstarter failure in the week or two immediately following the cancellation.

Step 2: Make a plan to fix the failure.

This is also covered in the previously linked article in Step 1, but it bears repeating. Having an action plan based on careful analysis of what went wrong can make you feel like your failure is useful. I believe that failure is most painful when it is not given meaning. When given meaning, failure becomes bearable. Once it’s bearable, it can be useful and perhaps even motivating.

Step 3: Let it hurt.

Failure hurts. It really, really does. That’s okay. Disappointment, pain, and frustration are part of the human experience. It is unavoidable and you can ask Buddha if you don’t believe me.

It’s okay to let it upset you, take it personally, and be frustrated. If you need to take a day off, do it. If you need to take a week off, do it. If you need to sulk, sulk. You obviously don’t want to succumb to the siren song of self-pity for too long, but you need to release your emotions so that you can move forward. Bottled emotions are painful at best and dangerous at worst.

For me, the raw emotional upset of the Highways & Byways campaign didn’t hit me until the middle of April. This was after I had cancelled the campaign, made a Plan B, and started executing a pivot. For some reason, it was after doing all these things that I was most comfortable processing the pain.

Perhaps for you, feeling the pain will come before you can take action. Perhaps it can come many months later. No matter what: don’t feel bad about feeling bad.

Step 4: Look for the silver lining.

Should you find yourself succumbing to the siren song of self-pity for so long that you risk being dashed upon the rocks, it’s time to take a step back. Positive things come out of failure, even though failure seems devastating. It’s like a forest fire in the sense that it destroys a lot of trees, but creates fertile soil from which stronger, better trees can grow.

For example, when Highways & Byways failed, I had a better understanding of the need to do market research. That’s a clear takeaway, but what most people don’t see is that it cleared up my calendar since I wasn’t busy running a campaign anymore. I was able to focus on doing more things I enjoyed in game development. Furthermore, it instantly broke me of my bad habit of working alone – one of the most dangerous things you can do in business.

Even if you fail fantastically in a public place, it’s probably not a complete wash. You’re probably walking away with more knowledge, more experience, and perhaps even more resources. Even when you feel bad, there is probably something that can make you feel better.

Step 5: Keep some perspective.

Just about everybody who is successful has experienced setbacks. I could list examples of CEOs and athletes, but it’s cliche and you’ve heard it. That’s because it’s true and you’re no exception.

Think about the difficulties your heroes must have faced to get where they are. The path to success is not an easy one. It’s special because it’s uncommon and hard to reach. The scarcity of success is what makes it sweet, so acknowledge the scarcity.

Step 6: Start something new.

Nothing cures the sting of failure like starting something new. In fact, this is what Hayao Miyazaki – creator of the movie Spirited Away – suggests for escaping disappointment with past projects. I find it personally to be true as well. Nothing cures your frustration and desire for self-pity quite like hard work. You still need to carefully balance your workload so you can stay healthy for the long road ahead, but excessive downtime after disappointment is a recipe for disaster.

Open up your heart to pursuing passion again. Try something new. Work hard to make something beautiful. Just be smarter about it next time, like I know you will.

Step 7: Build a dream team.

It’s dangerous to go alone. When you work alone, it’s really hard to recover from a failure. If a team of five launches an unpopular product, that’s okay, because they can likely create something new within a short period of time. Someone working alone may take a year or longer to recover.

For that reason, the period of time that passes right after a failure is the perfect time to build a network and find teammates. Together, you all become stronger and you can make better games as a result!

Step 8: If you’re still stuck, take a break.

If you’ve been grinding away for months or years on end, it’s easy to get stuck in the same ruminative thought patterns. Even the sting of failure is not enough to break repetitive thought patterns sometimes. Only time and distance can do that.

If you’re able to and it’s appropriate, take a short break after a high-profile failure. Do the immediate damage control and take a few weeks to sort out urgent crises. Then go to Hawaii. Or at least reconnect with some friends or family.

Step 9: If you’re still stuck after a break, seek professional advice.

If you’ve recently suffered a setback and the steps above haven’t helped, then it’s time to call in the calvary. By that, I mean any qualified professional who can help you see a way forward. That might mean a career counselor, a therapist, or maybe even a life coach.

The point I’m making here is that if you are frustrated, disappointed, or anxious and you feel deeply in a rut, it’s okay to reach out for professional advice. In fact, it’s more than simply okay – it’s smart!

This is the end of the Failure Recovery series. We’ve covered how to diagnose failure, move forward, recognize common pitfalls, save your reputation, and resist despair. I hope these articles have helped you recover from a recent failure, prevent failure, or lose your fear of failure.

Do you have a good way of coping with failure? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear it 🙂




4 Lessons from Quacks of Quedlinburg for Aspiring Board Game Designers

Posted on Brandon RollinsLeave a commentPosted in Uncategorized

In 2018, Quacks of Quedlinburg won the elusive Kennerspiel des Jahres award. It has since remained a hot game on Board Game Geek and a perennial favorite in Pangea Games board game giveaways! So with that in mind, what can we learn from this award-winning board game with a silly name?

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Before we talk about what we can learn from Quacks of Quedlinburg, let’s talk about how the game works. For that, we’ll borrow the following blurb from the game’s Board Game Geek page.

In The Quacks of Quedlinburg, players are charlatans — or quack doctors — each making their own secret brew by adding ingredients one at a time. Take care with what you add, though, for a pinch too much of this or that will spoil the whole mixture!

Each player has their own bag of ingredient chips. During each round, they simultaneously draw chips and add them to their pot. The higher the face value of the drawn chip, the further it is placed in the swirling pattern. Push your luck as far as you can, but if you add too many cherry bombs, your pot explodes!

At the end of each round, players gain victory points and also coins to spend on new ingredients to add to their bags. But players with exploded pots must choose points or coins — not both! The player with the most victory points at the end of nine rounds wins the game.

1. The name is immediately funny, and the theme adds another twist.

When you first heard Quacks of Quedlinburg, you probably chuckled a little bit. The name itself is ridiculous, calling to mind images of ducks wandering the cobblestone pathways of Bavarian towns making a ruckus (as if they were geese). It’s a funny image that warms the hearts of non-gamers who aren’t enticed by the idea of trading wood for stone.

Once you open the box, though, you find out that you’re actually playing as a quack doctor, pushing a different kind of canard! You compete against others to make life-improving elixirs for the uneducated populace. Of course, if you fail, your whole pot will blow up like you dropped Mentos in Diet Coke.

It’s absurd and you can’t help but smile at it. Aspiring board game designers should take note of how the name and the theme tear down barriers that would otherwise keep would-be-gamers out of gaming.

2. It’s an example of push-your-luck par excellence.

Quacks of Quedlinburg is unabashedly, unashamedly push-your-luck. Not everybody is into this kind of mechanic and many find it to be unsatisfying. But this game leans into it, and instead of trying to shoehorn push-your-luck elements into a game where it doesn’t belong, it fully embraces it.

Throughout the whole game, you are building your bag to have different ingredients which you draw at random and add to your potion. You know that adding ingredients gives you a better chance to win, but you also know that adding too many will make the whole thing explode. When playing, you have to constantly ask yourself, “is it worth the risk of adding that one, final ingredient?”

The trade-off is dead simple and couldn’t be more obvious, but it works.

3. Mitigate push-your-luck with a good catch-up mechanic.

Unfortunately, push-your-luck games can quickly become obnoxious. This is because any game that proudly proclaims that it is luck-based runs the risk of becoming unfun very early on. You are, after all, one bad dice roll away from ruin in many push-your-luck games.

Smartly, Quacks of Quedlinburg included rat-tails, which act as a catch-up mechanic. In essence, you will receive an amount of rat-tails proportionate to how far you are lagging behind the first player. The first player, of course, will receive no rat-tails. Without getting into the specifics, the important part here is that losing players receive a handicap that matches the number of rat-tails they receive.

The upshot of all this? The game works to give losing players a chance, not unlike Mario Kart, which gives better items to players who are losing.

4. The time to play each game is matched perfectly to the game’s weight (as suggested by theme).

When you have a game that is proudly luck-driven, you have to keep the play-time short. Even with well-designed catch-up mechanics like rat-tails, luck-based games are like firecrackers. They’re fun for a short amount of time and they fade away quickly.

That is to say, a three-hour luck-based game would be Monopoly intolerable. A forty-five minute luck-based game, such as Quacks of Quedlinburg is much better.

Now that said, one of the common criticisms of Quacks of Quedlinburg is that it runs too long. The game has been generally received as positive, so the time to play is not a particularly nasty issue. That said, if you’re creating a luck-based game, let this be a lesson to you: even with a catch-up mechanic and a fairly short play-time, you will likely receive the same criticism.

Final Thoughts

Quacks of Quedlinburg is a fine example of a heavily luck-driven game done well. It’s enticing to newcomers and has a good sense of humor. The play-time is short, keeping the game from feeling like a long game of roulette. The presence of a catch-up mechanic keeps it from feeling like the die has been cast from turn 1.




Passion isn’t a Pitch and 6 Other Ways to Misunderstand Board Game Kickstarter as a Marketplace

Posted on Brandon Rollins1 CommentPosted in Start to Finish

I’ve made my fair share of mistakes while building this business. I don’t sweep them under the rug. In fact, I even pulled apart the broken bits of my failed Kickstarter campaign for my understanding and published them online for public benefit. Being able to analyze and move forward after failure is critical to your success and a big part of getting your game from Start to Finish. This is part two of four in the Failure Recovery series.

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Today, I’m going to be covering six really common ways board game Kickstarter campaigns fall apart. This is based primarily on my observation of Kickstarter as a market in 2018, not necessarily how it was in the past. The market is shifting and maturing, moving inexorably toward large companies with established intellectual properties. That’s not a bad thing – it brings more people into the hobby board game world we enjoy! It definitely changes how you have to approach the business, though.

Mistake 1: Emphasizing passion instead of the game.

Kickstarter started in 2009 as a way for people to fund their passion projects. That may not have been the intention of the company from the get-go, but that’s how the site was interpreted by the general public. For a long time, emphasizing your passion for the project while simultaneously pitching it was a reliable way to appear human and receive funding.

I’m not so sure about that anymore. Don’t get me wrong: passion is a beautiful thing. Passion will see you through difficult times, make you more charismatic, and give you a compelling story that people can rally behind. However: passion isn’t a pitch.

When you make a board game today, you’re on the same platform as CMON and other very high-profile publishers who can reliably pull more than one million dollars per campaign. These companies are very rarely mom-and-pop shops like old-school Kickstarter. They make a lot of money because their products are carefully crafted for the audience, their pitches are extremely strong, and the games are good.

Your game’s fit for the market is more important than your passion. So many indie creators, myself included, emphasize passion to the detriment of the product itself. Passion needs to be at the root of your product. It’s not a selling point.

Mistake 2: The game lacks a hook.

Because Kickstarter is so crowded these days, you need to catch each backer’s attention in a few seconds. The only way your game can survive in this environment is to be a good game and a good product. Good games have clever themes and mechanics. Good products are made for audiences using hard data to figure out what people like. If people like sci-fi and fantasy, you give them sci-fi and fantasy. If people like worker placement, you give them worker placement.

That’s only the beginning of making a good product, though. Even something as ideal for Kickstarter as a $20 fantasy worker placement small box game needs something to catch people’s eyes. It could be great components, a unique rule, or really special art. Your hook can be lots of different things, but it needs to be both tested with your intended audience and strong enough for people to identify your game as “the one with…”

Mistake 3: Poor price point.

An overpriced game won’t sell on Kickstarter. This concludes Economics 101, hope you enjoyed the blog, sign up for my mailing list and Discord…

But seriously: you need to pay attention to people’s purchasing patterns. A poor price point doesn’t necessarily mean you’re making your game too expensive. You can make games with an awkward price point that people aren’t buying at the moment. At the time that I am writing this, the campaigns I’ve seen succeed the most are expensive games or light games that are at or under $25. Much of what is in the middle is struggling.

Kickstarter is a giant open data set. Use hard data to figure out what price point core rewards are going for on successful campaigns. Try to match that price point.

Mistake 4: Poor components.

Lackluster components won’t necessarily sink a board game Kickstarter, but they won’t do it any favors. Having custom meeples, miniatures, or something creative and eye-catching helps a lot. In a lot of ways, it functions as a hook.

For better or worse, board gamers sometimes equate components with value. Do some research on Facebook or Board Game Geek to see what components gamers find valuable. You’d be surprised how often manufacturing price and perceived value don’t match up. I did one poll where wooden cubes scored higher than cards on value, despite cards costing three times as much to print and requiring extensive art creation.

Mistake 5: Poor art.

You have a few seconds to catch people’s attention. Art needs to not just be good in traditional artistic terms, but also good for product design. While there are a number of ways you can ensure your art is well-made from a tactical and technical standpoint, the most important thing to remember here is: test your art with your audience.

It’s impossible to know what art will resonate with people without running it by an audience. If you have a Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram account, try using those sites to see what people think of your art. If your art receives far higher engagement than your typical posts, that’s a very good sign. Every single art piece should ignite passion and interest in others. Otherwise, you could run into a situation where your game isn’t eye-catching enough to stand out in a crowded market.

Mistake 6: No reviews.

There are still some Kickstarters out there that go live without reviews. I don’t believe reviewers are the gatekeepers that they used to be, but it’s still a gigantic red flag when a campaign has no reviews. (Product-market fit, I believe, is more relevant than reviews, but I spent basically five points on that already.) You need social proof and reviewers act as testimonials to the quality of your product.

You need to print a few copies of your game from a print-on-demand supplier to send to reviewers. Thankfully, it’s easier than it’s ever been to get started with the actual printing process. For that matter, you can reach out to the majority of small reviewers by Twitter DM. The cost is relatively low compared to the rest of your project and the consequences of not having any reviews are too severe.

Mistake 7: Treating Kickstarter as the endgame.

Last but not least, one of the biggest strategic business errors you can make on Kickstarter is to only think about Kickstarter.

Sure, if you’re just making a single board game because you really want to see your name on a box, thinking about the Kickstarter campaign alone is fine. If you’re purely pursuing a passion project and don’t have your eye on distribution, designing other board games, or running a sustainable business, then you can treat Kickstarter as the endgame.

But if that’s not the case? Well, whether you’re trying to design a bunch of games, make passive income, or build an enterprise, your journey will not end with a single Kickstarter campaign. You won’t just fund and, POOF, all your dreams have come true.

In short: don’t just build a board game, build a business.

Board game Kickstarters can be complicated to run. Hopefully by spelling these common pitfalls, you can avoid them and fund successfully. Recognizing pitfalls is a great way to avoid failure.

If you have any additions to what you see above, please let me know in the comments 🙂