It’s obvious that the outdoors & adventure is a key focus in your artwork, but what inspired you to carry your art into something as adventurous as creating your game: Waters Edge?

Believe it or not, I was actually meaning to work on a children’s story book!

Researching and exploring ways to help me overcome its challenges led me to a ‘What if’ moment of creating a story in a different way – telling the story through a game!  I liked the idea of creating interactive and engaging / submersive art.

This fitted really well with my current product range as I’m always on the look out for different products for my illustrations too.

With the concept of Waters Edge in your mind, how did you make it a reality?

It began with torn scraps of paper with very rough symbols on to represent the card ideas to try out a mock game.

After many, many mock games between myself and my partner, including times when we would play as two people each to test out the balance of cards for 3 / 4 players too.

Once the cards were decided, I took to developing the artwork for each card (during a quiet spell at a trade exhibition fair in Glasgow!) before sketching them out, painting with watercolour, outlining / ink detail with pen and then fine tuning on the computer.

I printed a test copy myself on card which was then tested out amongst friends and family as well as lots and lots more test games ourselves to fine-tune rules and bring up every possible scenario to make sure these were covered.

Then it came to writing out the rules in an accessible, approachable and simple way!

So what was the reaction?

Really promising!

Everyone who played it wanted to play again and even asked about it at a later date saying they were really looking forward to playing it again!

The artwork seems to be a really strong feature which caught everyone’s attention too.

Did you have to revise the concept in anyway – or was it ‘close to the money’ from the start?

Apart from my initial plans of making a game about a bear catching fireflies…which Waters Edge clearly is not!…. No, it was actually fairly smooth running.

Our first game had one major flaw in it but after a quick revision of making a certain card available from the beginning instead of leaving it to chance, we had lift off and it was just a case of revising rules and thinking about the purposes and stories behind each card so they all had a specific part / reason to be in the game.

You have a natural talent which meant you could create your own illustrations. But were there aspects of this venture where you did need help?

While my partner came up with the initial game plan, the rest has been entirely me – the manufacturing, illustrations, layouts, PR, logistics – you name it!

I’m used to, and enjoy being, a jack of all trades so with the specific remit of creating a game in its entirety, this project suited me really well as I could dabble across all sorts of things!

The Kickstarter promo video was the hardest as I was limited by my animation skills and while we had big big ideas, if I had the resources this would perhaps have been the area I would have opened up to outside support!

Did you undertake much research in producing your game before launching and if so what did that entail?

Knowing someone who has developed a game locally was helpful in terms of contacts for game printing.

The CE documentation is the hardest and most foreign to me i.e. lots of legal stuff to read up on including a super duper long Directive / Guidance document to be able to make head or tail of formulating the required documents.

Other research was mainly in playing lots and lots of other games, browsing shops to look at packaging, what caught my eye etc and really thinking about what I liked about the games I played i.e. what worked, what was captivating, how are the cards designed, whats in a box…. you name it, it was asked!

Once the game was ready to present to the public, why did you choose Kickstarter as your platform?

I did have a brief browse around different options but Kickstarter is the main one I knew of and felt I could trust in its already massive following. It seemed very straight forward, quick and easy to use too.

Perhaps a personal question: how did you decide on your price point for the game?

Research into other games, awareness of the market and what my products sell for already, thinking about what I, as a customer, would choose to pay and balancing this with production costs knowing it would be small runs I could manage.

Kickstarter’s a very popular platform for Creatives, perhaps too popular and campaigns can be lost with the sheer amount of competition; how did you find things went in the first few days?

For this reason, I wasn’t sure if I would get lost amongst the sea of other projects however I was very amazed at the first few days with lots of support coming from across the world and a really high percentage of pledges being people I don’t even know! I was very surprised by this!

Was it instant success or did it take a little more time to see results?

The project funded within 10 days I think it was! Delighted, and slightly nervous that I still had 35 days to keep the project alive and exciting! 

Did you have any moments that made you feel daunted or were you encouraged on by the community?

The wobbly bit in the middle when I started to get lots of backers cancelling!

I started to worry and wondered if I needed to introduce Stretch Goals, or maybe people don’t like it anymore, or maybe people are bored of the campaign!

It turns out, people were just being aware of their finances! Scary for a first timer on Kickstarter though!

But lots and lots of positivity in terms of artwork which was a real boost!

So how did you react; did you adjust your campaign?

Regarding the cancelled pledges, I emailed backers to see if Waters Edge could be made more appealing to them.  

Sometimes there were messages asking very specific questions, so I updated the campaign information where appropriate.

My panic over cancelled pledges actually led me to introduce stretch goals. I did a bit of research into people’s feelings over these and, although mixed, I felt I brought these in appropriately. It is still hard to know if it really was those incentives that helped push it at the end, or if it would have done the same without them anyway!

How much did Kickstarter get in the way of life and daily routine?

I currently work Monday to Friday so my art projects happen in the evening and I am used to fitting in my work around this schedule.

With the excitement of Kickstarter though, I was definitely on my phone much more than normal (to the annoyance of friends and family I am sure), checking on progress, advertising, pushing the campaign, replying to messages etc.

I am terrible for shutting off and would often wake up at 4am and have a quick nosey to see if any more pledges came in! Next time, I think I will be more calmer and know what to expect although I can imagine I’ll still do the same!

Kickstarter is a 24/7 global shop, did you find your backers seemed to originate from one location or was this truly a case of your artwork “going global”?

It really was global – which was such a surprise! I really thought it would have been just people I know pledging but with backers from across the world, I’m looking forward to creating a map of all the parcels when I fulfil the pledges to see where they all go!! Amazing!

How do you go about promoting your campaign?

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for sure – I set up a game test night at a local café in Aberdeen for market research and feedback from people who hadn’t played before as well as sending a few sample games to various friends, family, pen pals etc willing to test it out for me!

My manufacturers have been involved in Kickstarter campaigns before so they have been super duper helpful (DiceSportsLtd) with extra bits of advice and speaking through other things.

I featured in local newspapers and online articles and really pushed the fliers for the game at any market stalls over the campaign days. Blog interviews, fliers to current stockists, etsy buyer orders etc too – everywhere I could although I still feel if I had more time, I could have planned for more! 

Did it work and where there things you wanted to do but couldn’t – perhaps due to funding or lack of experience?

My fear of public speaking nearly prevented me from doing the launch / test night but deciding this was something I just had to do, I booked it and that was it – no choice but to overcome my fear!

I guess holding a larger event due to my own personal public speaking fear – the small one was enough(!) – and maybe a much bigger PR push but due to lack of time and probably funding, this was hard.

At the point your campaign finally funded, how did that feel?

Oh my gosh, amazing! I did it! and in only 10 days!!

Did you feel you had done enough and could now relax, or did you push on to make it even more successful?

Oh no, it didn’t stop there! The goal was set at a bare minimum as I really wasn’t sure how the campaign would go.

Knowing that Kickstarter take 5% + 3% card fee and that the total pledge amount included all the postage, it wasn’t really an accurate representation of funds at all.

I needed to push it much more to make sure everything was definitely covered. It was always my plan to manufacture a good quantity of games to allow it to continue past the Kickstarter project and I know I would likely need to put a small amount in myself but if I could push the campaign towards a higher total, I would have security in ordering enough games to have a stock for shops and continued game availability of the normal edition too!

Definitely keep on pushing!!

As of this article you’re getting close to distribution time so how’s that going to be handled? Personally or via a logistics company?

Personally and I can see the 200+ parcels taking over my living room as I lay everything out for different pledges!!

I’ve already informed my frequently visited post office that there’ll be a large no. of parcels coming their way and I reckon I will need to do this in small batches as I only have 20 minutes with them after my work for posting!!

The merch stock pile for Waters Edge is already growing so I am looking forward to parcelling things up and personally thanking everyone for bringing the game to life!

If you had to step outside your shoes and be honest; was it worth the effort?

Oh yes – absolutely – such a fantastic journey with lots of contacts and links made, learning curves and experiences and just brilliant that people want my artwork! The campaign has enabled me to produce 1000 copies of the game – a run I would never have been able to afford initially and this should allow me to re-invest the game sales into the next game, and/or expansion packs!!

I would have made the campaign a lot shorter – it really is a year long project from initial concept in January to artwork, manufacturing, promotion, campaign length of time, production time and then posting pledges out before looking to find stockists for the game at the end of it.

So we’re at a moment in time where the last pledge has finally been shipped… what’s next? (Apart from a celebratory snifter!)

More games! Expansion packs! Illustrated children’s books (of which a few plans are already around lighthouses etc, so I think it will compliment the game really well). I’d have loved to produce some cheeky seagull and whale soft toys but the production costs for these were far too much for me at this stage – maybe in the future the merch will get very exciting!

Finally: Is there another “Waters Edge” floating around (pun intended) – will there be other games you’ll create and if so would you be using Kickstarter again?

Oh yes, yes and yes!