Welcome back to the What If? Blog! This time around I’m chatting with Chris, the designer and publisher behind Unfringed Games. If you’re not familiar with his work, Chris has been quietly building a reputation for creating brilliant family games that pack surprising depth into accessible packages. His previous titles include Zuuli and Molehill Meadows, and he’s currently gearing up fo a dual Kickstarter campaign for Fetching Feathers and D.O.T.
What I love about Chris’s approach is how he’s navigating the world of self publishing whilst keeping his games affordable and his production values high. We dive into the realities of running Kickstarter campaigns, the challenges of designing for print and play versus physical games, and why he’s decided to launch two games simultaneously. It’s a great conversation about what it’s really like to make games as a hobby publisher, and I think you’ll find his insights as useful as I did.
Joe: Heya Chris, welcome to the What If? Blog. Can you tell us what brings you to the world of board game design?
Chris: Thanks a lot for having me on the blog Joe! I was a bit of a latecomer to hobby games and only really started dabbling into the likes of Sushi Go and Carcassonne about 8 or so years ago, even though I was a big fan of Magic the Gathering before then. They properly got their hooks into me during the pandemic and that was when I first put pen to paper and decided to design my own with Zuuli. How about yourself? I know that you’ve got a few prototypes on the go at the moment!
Joe: Too many prototypes, and an inability to finish a project sounds about right!
I’ve been playing games my whole life, but only fully got into the hobby over the last 10 years. It all kicked off when a Games Café (Bay Games) opened up in my town. I went along and started to realise there are tonnes of games designers hidden in the woodwork. Once I started playing with design, I knew it’s what I wanted to do with my spare time.
Chris: I believe that Word Dungeon is your first game that you’re running through Kickstarter (I’m hooked on the mini dungeons btw). How has your experience been so far?
Yeah, Word Dungeon will be my first Kickstarter. It’s a solo PnP, and will be a digital only product – my rationale being that I’m trying to keep this first project simple so I can learn the ropes in relative safety.
How about you, Fetching Feathers is your current project (and it’s quite wonderful!), but not your first…
Chris: Yep, Fetching Feathers is my 3rd game I’m publishing and 2nd that I’ll be bringing to Kickstarter, with Molehill Meadows being funded on Gamefound. This time round I’ll also be co-funding it with D.O.T, another game that I designed over the past year. The reason why I’ve gone back to Kickstarter is that even though Gamefound has much better back-end tooling and makes the creator/publisher side of things much easier, it just doesn’t seem to have the organic audience that Kickstarter does, especially for more family/lighter games. What made you choose Kickstarter for Word Dungeon over the other possible platforms out there?
Joe: Last year when I was exploring routes for another game I was working on, Sky Relief, I had set up, quite firmly, in the Backerkit camp for crowdfunding. Their prelaunch tools were ace compared to both Kickstarter and Gamefound, you could get a real sense of who was checking out and clicking on your campaign.
Over the last year, Kickstarter has integrated more of this style of prelaunch tooling into their product: you can have a decent prelaunch page, which can include links, and you can update the prelaunch which sends an email to all the backers. The integration of these tools alongside the organic audience you describe is why I’m choosing Kickstarter this time around.
Chris: Was there anything that you were surprised by that you’ve had to do that you didn’t realise was part of the process?
Not yet, which worries me. I’m the kind of person who wants to see what it all looks like behind the scenes, and at the moment (in prelaunch) I can only see part of that. I’ve chosen PnP digital delivery only to create a relatively safe project for me to learn the ropes on.
What about you? What surprises did the most recent campaign have for you or what’s on your radar for Fetching Feathers campaign?
Chris: Going for a PnP is a smart approach and there’s no reason you can’t come back with a shiny physical version at a later date (please do, I really want one!)
I think the biggest surprise which I had somehow forgotten was how much work goes into making a campaign page look fancy and professional. Sadly long gone are the days when a great idea alone could still bring in enough funding for a passion project to be made, so it’s been a few late nights recently trying to make all of the assets for my page as fancy as possible.
Another surprise is how anxious I still get when releasing my games out into the wider public for the first time. D.O.T, which is a game I’m co-releasing at the same time as Feathers, is a bit more experimental than my usual games and as much as it’s gone through as much testing and development as my other games, there was definitely a tense few weeks awaiting the first reviews and previews. Fortunately, people seem to really be enjoying it, especially if you’re after a quick puzzly fix and don’t have time for a longer game.
On the PnP side of things, were there any design decisions you made specifically because you knew it was going to be a PnP rather than a physical version?
Joe: I’m looking forward to seeing how fancy you’ve made the page now! The co-release plan is interesting let’s explore that in a moment.
To answer your question, yes I made a choice early on about paper size (A4) which has set the space and ratio for all the dungeons I’ve been creating.
As a side note it sent me down a rabbit hole about international paper sizing – the A-series is such an interesting topic. My top A-paper fact is that A0 is set to have an area of 1m².
My top A-paper fact is that A0 is set to have an area of 1m².
You’ll often find PnPs with multiple size formats (usually A4 and US letter), but as these dungeons are hand drawn doing two different ratios is a significant amount of work – so I opted to stick to just one and allow people’s home printers to do the scaling.
I’ve also gone for black and white as my colour scheme. It’s easy on the printer and aligns really nicely with the game’s theme.
Joe: Can I ask a little about the co-release strategy of Feathers and D.O.T? How did you get there?
Chris: Huh! I did not know that about A0. I feel like we need some more weekly paper facts from you on Instagram 😉
Ah, so the co-release had two major drivers behind it. One was that I’ve had DOT ready for a while now from a design perspective but wasn’t quite sure how to release it, especially as it’s a small box £12 game so it’s very difficult to have a solo campaign for it. Alongside that, Fetching Feathers is also quite a cheap game at £15 and when it comes to running ads for Kickstarter, it’s very difficult to get a positive return on ad spend for such a low price game. After chatting with a few people I was inspired to bundle them together, which will hopefully increase the basket price on the Kickstarter campaign and give the ads a better chance of converting whilst leaving a positive margin. It’s a similar tactic I’ve seen companies like AllPlay use as they tend to release 3 relatively low cost games at a time so fingers crossed it will help for me too but it will be a good experiment either way. The other major driver was that by producing both games at the same time I will be able to save some money on freight, which has helped a lot in being able to offer the games at quite low and competitive prices.
After chatting with a few people I was inspired to bundle them together
It’s definitely been a challenge though and I think I slightly underestimated how much work it would be to prepare a campaign and production ready files for 2 games at a time, especially as I did all of the artwork and illustration on DOT myself. But it’s all a great learning experience and I still love doing it.
Speaking of which, how have you found handling the publishing side of things compared to the design aspect? Given it requires quite a different skill set I know that some people decide that they would rather stick to designing once they dip their toe into the publishing world.
Joe: That’s a tricky question – there are parts of it I’m enjoying. Showcasing and sharing my work has been fun. I’ve also chosen a (relatively) easy route by starting with a print and play, digital only product.
I have a big to do list for the next month, and as I plough through that I’ll be able to work out whether the self-publishing route ticks the right boxes for me.
I have a big to do list for the next month, and as I plough through that I’ll be able to work out whether the self-publishing route ticks the right boxes for me.
As this is a hobby, rather than a job, it’s important that the process remains enjoyable and challenges me in good ways. If it doesn’t then I’m effectively choosing to spend time doing something that isn’t fun, and that doesn’t fit with how I try and live life.
In short, I don’t really know, but I’m looking forward to finding out.
Let’s round this out – pitch me your Kickstarter – when is it and why do I want to back (spoiler I’ve played the game and 100% want it on my shelf).
Chris: Sounds like a very healthy and smart approach and I look forward to following along with the journey!
And thanks for the pitch space! Fetching Feathers and D.O.T are both going live on Kickstarter on the 9th October under the same campaign, with special discount bundle prices to save on RRP and on shipping. If you’re a fan of my previous game Zuuli then I think you’re going to love Fetching Feathers, especially the Limited Edition “early bird” promo card that will be available to all KS backers. And for those of you wanting a very easy to learn but surprisingly thinky abstract battle of wits, then D.O.T is your perfect cosy evening accompaniment.
And as always, if anyone would like to reach out then please drop me a message on any of my socials @unfringedthings
Thank you so much for the space and time Joe and I’m very much looking forward to puzzling through some Word Dungeons when you go live!
There’s something refreshing about Chris’s approach to game publishing. He’s focused on making good games and finding smart ways to get them into people’s hands. The dual release strategy for Fetching Feathers and D.O.T is a great example of practical problem solving, turning the challenges of low price points and shipping costs into an opportunity to offer better value to backers.
What struck me most was his honesty about the anxiety that comes with putting creative work out into the world. It’s easy to assume that experienced designers have it all figured out, but Chris’s admission that he still gets nervous before each launch is a good reminder that vulnerability and creativity go hand in hand. Whether you’re thinking about your first Kickstarter or your tenth, there’s plenty to learn from his thoughtful, measured approach to turning hobby game design into sustainable publishing.
