This is Part 2 of our experience going to BostonFIG 2019. You can read Part 1 here.
As the title may have given away, our game Alythia won the “Best Hobby Game” award at BostonFIG this last weekend! We are so grateful to everyone who helped make BostonFIG happen, all the other designers, and all the people who stopped by our booth. We were blown away at how friendly and helpful the community around BostonFIG is. But before going too much into how much this award means to us, we should start at the beginning of the weekend.
The Long Journey
And the small leg room
BostonFIG is an annual convention for indie publishers (FIG = Festival of Indie Gamers) to showcase their unpublished games. As its name suggests, the event was held in Boston, Massachusetts – this year at Harvard’s athletic campus. Unfortunately, we live in south-eastern Pennsylvania, so the weekend started with borrowing a family member’s van, strapping a car-top carrier to the roof rack (to complete the image of being a complete tourist), and cramming us, our wives, a ton of booth decorations, and a 2-year-old in for the 8-hour drive. Finally, we arrived in Boston just in time to unload our booth decorations and begin to set them up. We were fortunate to get a good location and decorating went smoothly – except for twine that kept breaking and had to be replaced with a chain of zip ties. Mental Note: bring better rope for the next event! We finally got everything set up, and we were starting to feel excited and ready for the next day.
The Day Itself
Encouraging, validating, …so exhausting
After a fitful night’s sleep, we got up bright and early to get to the convention and set up the games before the attendees started to arrive. Our strategy for the day was to try and engage as many people as possible as much as possible, using a funneled approach:
- First, someone was out in front of the booth “tabling” people and asking if they wanted to hear about Alynthia.
- Next someone was at the front of the booth to give a short pitch about Alynthia and ask if they were interested in seeing a demo.
- Then someone was running a demo turn of the game – explaining each part as they went.
- Finally, if someone was interested enough in the game, they had the chance to playtest it (or got put on a waitlist if a game was currently running).
At every level we mentioned our email signup list (with special giveaway offer). People were also able to leave if they weren’t interested or didn’t have the time, but it allowed us to engage as many people as possible in a mutually beneficial way – only those interested made it through to the longer pitches and playtests.
The only way we were able to do that method, however, was because of the amazing support of our families which allowed us to have a fantastic day despite the busyness.
The Awards Ceremony
Icing on a delicious Figgie cake
In a flash, the day was over and the attendees had to leave the building. It was amazing to look back over a day full of sharing our game with people and realize that the feedback had been overwhelmingly positive. Up to this point the large majority of people who had seen our game were friends and family, so it was so encouraging to get positive feedback from people who had no reason to lie to us. Our main goal for the day was to get Alynthia in front of as many people as possible, so we already felt like BostonFIG had been a huge success. But before we could reflect too much on the day, we headed over to the ‘Figgies’ awards ceremony to get a seat. At the bleachers filled with the tabletop and digital showcase contenders, we began to brace ourselves for the possibility we wouldn’t win anything. However, Alynthia was one of the nominees for “Best Hobby Game” and after a stressful few seconds, it was announced we had won! It was so incredible to have the validation that this game we loved so much was something other people thought was great too.
The Aftermath
What’s next for Alynthia?
We are back in Pennsylvania and recovering from the weekend, but we’ve got a lot planned for the next steps after BostonFIG. We loved being able to share our game with people at the convention, and want to go to more conventions in the future. As we are also working on the next steps to move towards a Kickstarter for Alynthia, we’re so thankful we made the trip to BostonFIG and so excited for what the future holds.