The Happy Mitten Games podcast has recently featured guests such as James Ernest, Darrell Louder of Unpub, Richard Bliss, Stronghold Games, Calliope Games, and more. The crew blogs passionately about all aspects of the industry too and are focused on becoming an indie publisher. We can relate to wearing a few hats around here at the League, so we were pleased to get the story about the development and launch of their first title, Aether Magic.

FIND YOUR PASSION AND CHASE IT.

Jeff, Lee, and I (Kyle) founded Happy Mitten Games with an intention to design our company’s debut game. We all have an idea of the board games we like to play and the three of us thought we would be able to translate our own idea to the tabletop and presto!, have our debut game.

In reality, the three of us spent a few weeks brainstorming game ideas and began creating a card game about smoothies. A cute concept, but the few weeks of development on our smoothie game was tedious and unsatisfying. That, and a growing understanding of the responsibilities we have as a publisher was proving we could make a better game with professional help.

After reflecting on where are passions lie,

WE STOPPED TRYING TO BE DESIGNERS AND REFOCUSED OURSELVES ON PUBLISHING.

I would recommend to anyone starting a business to meditate on what they enjoy doing before moving forward with a business plan.

BUILD AN AUDIENCE BEFORE PUBLISHING A GAME.

We recognized we were not having fun designing so we instead spent our time developing the Happy Mitten Podcast and writing articles for our website. We feel success in board game publishing is hard without giving back first, and the best way to do that is by creating free content. We have a lot of fun podcasting and feel more fulfilled through that than in-house designing. There are many ways of making a name for yourself, but our podcast has introduced us to awesome people and is really working for us.

PLAY TESTING IS MANDATORY.

Through our blog and podcast, we began to attract the attention of freelance game designers and decided to open our website up to game submissions. We received a lot of submissions where the designer was passionate about their idea, but the game was untested and unrefined. As neat as a game may be, if it’s broken mechanically, it’s not a game (with few exception).

We eventually found a special game from designer Matt Worden which later became the “Aether Magic,” you see on Kickstarter now. We signed Aether Magic after playing it with our friends a handful of times, having an absolute blast. Aether Magic has an auction mechanic in it that creates hilarious player interaction and the game is light enough to facilitate plenty of table talk. It will always be important to the three of us to publish games that have a strong social element, in addition to being mechanically sound.

HOW THE GAME PLAYS, RELATIVE TO WHAT THE GAME COSTS.

Going forward with Aether Magic, we came to the realization that the game was approachable, and played in around 45 minutes. That said, the game had enough components in it to make its retail price roughly seventy dollars, which doesn’t make sense for a game with that length and feel.

Keeping the same ratios, we were able to scale back on components and work with our manufacturer to reduce the cost of the game in ways you don’t see. For example, it’s efficient to have the thickness of your punchboard be uniform throughout the game. Time spent making thickness adjustments during manufacturing raises game cost. Through simple modifications, we got the game down to $45 dollars, and decided to offer it to our Kickstarter backers for a reduced $40 as reward for being such a crucial part of the process.

We hope you take time to check out our labor of love, Aether Magic on Kickstarter now! Thanks for reading!
Kyle Hogendyk

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From the League: It may be a challenge to find your place in this industry. And the League encourages you to explore many aspects, be it design, publishing, development, art or otherwise! You may end up being surprised when you love something new. Or you may find out that your first love is your true passion. As Kyle said, focus on what you enjoy doing, where your passions lie, and that will be the best place for you.