Little Creature at the Long Island Tabletop Gaming Expo
What an incredible weekend! A few days have passed since the 2024 Long Island Tabletop Gaming Expo and we’re still blown away by how well received our game was!
Playtesters enjoying a funny moment.
This past weekend, we debuted our sports anime-inspired party card game Tournament Arc™ in the unpublished games section at the expo. We have been playtesting the game with family and friends for about a year now, but this is the first time we were able to get impressions from the public.
Why this expo?
We went to the Long Island Tabletop Gaming Expo last year and had a great time exploring the vendor booths, learning new games, and supporting local businesses and interest groups.
While exploring, we noticed an unpublished games (unpub) section upstairs and thought to ourselves, “Hey, maybe we could be here next year!”. Fast forward to now, and here we are!
Not only was this expo a great opportunity to meet others and have people of all backgrounds and ages play our game, it’s also local to us and a good size (not too big, not too small). We really couldn’t ask for a better event.
Getting ready
We registered for a table in the unpub section back in October, several months before the expo. Between registering and the big day, we worked hard to ensure we would get the most out of the experience.
The cards
At that point, we had just finished working with our graphic designer Avery Helm to create the logo and graphic elements of our cards (e.g., card design, icons). Luckily that was enough for us to get started on developing our first printed prototype.
One athlete card from the index card prototype (laminated) next to their initial printed prototype equivalent.
The initial prototype deck consisted of quick doodles by Sky on 150 colored index cards. We wanted to have actual printed cards with the logo, card template, and colors ready for the expo so people could more closely experience what the final game will be like. So, we scanned and processed all 150 index cards to format into our card design to print. Sky has been working on creating full color art for the cards, starting with the athletes (still in progress).
Sample cards from the printed prototype deck.
Once all the cards were formatted, we ordered our first print of the full deck using Board Games Maker. Within two weeks, we had our hands on the deck we were going to bring to the expo and use for playtesting going forward. We were so excited to see our game coming to life!
Everything else
In addition to the game itself, we wanted to make sure we had everything we needed to catch people’s attention, get feedback, and easily share information about where they can follow us to stay up to date.
Packing for the expo.
We wore Little Creature merch to represent ourselves at the event, prepared an eye-catching foam board ad to place on an easel by our table, printed out business cards, and even prepared a virtual and printed out survey to capture people’s thoughts.
The big day and playtester reviews
We were so excited and a little nervous each day leading up to the event! We reserved our table in the unpub section that Saturday (April 6, 2024) and ended up going for many hours!
Sky (game designer and artist) at our table in the unpublished games section of the 2024 Long Island Tabletop Gaming Expo.
Our perspective
Me and Sky had an absolute blast! We felt the whole day went really well, especially after seeing so many different types of people try and fall in love with Tournament Arc™. It was also super valuable to get feedback on how we can make the game even better.
Some experienced board game players stopped by early on and were genuinely impressed with the unique gameplay. It was really great to see that more serious, strategy-focused folks enjoy our game just as much as the many casual players who enjoyed the game later throughout the day.
We also had some younger teens play our game for the first time and it was a joy seeing them get so invested in the game. It was also funny to observe that they were generally much faster at calculating final scores than most of the adult playtesters!
People were so interested that we only had a few minutes here and there to take breaks between playtests.
It was incredibly validating to hear so many compliments about the art, how fun the game was, and just naturally seeing so many people smiling and laughing.
We could talk all day about how we felt about everything, but let’s see what the playtesters think!
Survey results
We asked everyone who played to fill out an anonymous survey to provide their feedback regarding their experience playing our game. We got 14 responses, which doesn’t account for all of the playtesters, but still represents a fair number of the playtest sessions.
Here are some basic stats:
All respondents indicated they really enjoyed the game
All respondents said they would play the game again, with 93% indicating they look forward to playing many more times
Demographics
Age: 20s (36%), 30s (36%), 40s (13%), 50s (13%)
Gender: Female (50%), Male (50%)
Race/Ethnicity: Asian/Pacific Islander (29%), Black (7%), White (64%)
36% of respondents’ favorite card was “Actual Baby”
We also asked how familiar people were with sports and/or with anime to see how much that may impact their ability to enjoy the game. Luckily, it seems that everyone can enjoy the game regardless of how into sports or anime they are!
Respondents’ familiarity with sports.
Respondents’ familiarity with sports.
And here are some quotes from respondents about their impressions:
“Simple to start but lots of fun twists”
“Fun fast game with funny cards. Easy to understand”
“The humor, drawings, scenarios, quick rounds, satisfying”
“The structure of the game was unique and interesting”
“Super fun! Great pacing”
“Greatly enjoyed the game; best for large groups”
“I WANT A ROUGH SKETCH DECK! (Please. It’s so fun)”
“Can’t wait to have my own copy to play with family and friends!”
Where can I buy the game?
We’re motivated more than ever to get Tournament Arc™ out into the world as fast as we can! We plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign early next year to help fund the manufacturing of the game after all the art is done.
At the expo, multiple people asked if we have a pre-launch page ready for them to follow and share, so we are working on setting one up soon.
Have you followed a Kickstarter pre-launch page before? Let us know and join our newsletter / follow us on social media for updates!
