1 , 2 Next »
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
I've meantioned this before, but Tammany Hall is coming to Origins.
Pandasaurus Games is hitching up the wagon (er.. hopping on a plane) and heading to Columbus, OH tomorrow after I sneak out of my day job early. Pandasaurus Games consists of myself and my lovely fiancée. She is a pescatarian (I think this actually means she only eats fish, but she eats plants too!) and I am a meatatarian (I think this means I only eat meat, which is mostly true. Sometimes she makes me eat plants).
So, other than 4 days of board gaming goodness, what should we be doing in Columbus? Food, drinks, fun outdoor things, fun indoor things, not fun things (ok, maybe not that one). Preferably things that both a meatatarian and pescatarian might both enjoy (this only really applies to the eating things; we generally enjoy the same not-eating stuff).
Also, be sure and find us at Origins. We’ll have Tammany Hall there for people to play, Pandasaurus stickers, Tammany Hall flyers and some subversive campaign buttons (My favorite is “Democracy works when Tweed counts the votes”, other favorite “Tammany Hall: Rigging elections since 1850”). Even if you don’t want any of that stuff, come say hi. We’re nice! I promise!
- Nathan
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/872179144/tammany-hall
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
A few weeks ago I put up a blog about my personal copy of Tammany Hall traveling the country so that the game could get some more professional reviews on BGG and around the web. Every review that has come in so far (both from my copy and others) has been really positive. I think it’s one of the best games out there, but it’s good to get some unbiased 3rd parties who agree.
There is some pretty awesome news. UndeadViking has finished his review of Tammany Hall, and the review is a lot of fun. It’s pretty long (but really entertaining), and if you haven’t you should really check it out. He liked the game for all of the same reasons I fell in love with it in the first place.
Check out the review on BGG: http://boardgamegeek.com/video/17244/tammany-hall/avraw-111-...
There is however a bit of a detour on the games review path. The next reviewer in line for the game is Stormseeker75 and he’ll be getting it as soon as possible, but the game is actually making its way back home to Austin, TX. It’ll be good to get a couple games of Tammany in myself, but the real purpose of the detour is so I can bring it with me to Origins. When I made the decision to go to Origins I realized I had a problem: I still only had one copy of the game, and it was in Minnesota.
So, once Origins is finished I’m heading to the post office in Columbus, OH and sending it on to the Garden State. From there, it’ll continue is journey hop scotching the country, collecting as many reviews as it can get, and a few signatures on the back page of the instruction manual.
- Nathan
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/872179144/tammany-hall
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
It took some jumping through hoops and a few last second surprises, but Pandasaurus Games will be coming to Origin’s 2012 to show off Tammany Hall!
It’s the first large Con I’ve been to since BGG 2010, so on top of getting to share Tammany Hall, I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of designers and publishers myself.
We don’t have a booth (that is a long story, involving a table being rented to us when it shouldn’t have and a not so fun phone call yesterday), but we will be in general gaming (Thursday through Sunday) with a few copies of Tammany Hall and some flyers to hand out.
Origins is a few weeks before the Tammany Hall Kickstarter ends, so it’s a great chance to play Tammany Hall during the campaign! So, swing by and see us (we’ll be wearing the Pandasaurus T-shirts) and let your friends know! We’d love to show you Tammany Hall.
It’s also going to be the first time I’ve met with the team at Stratamax, so I’m really excited to meet the guys behind the game, and of course to check out some of their other games.
If you’re going to be at Origins, send me a geek mail or facebook/twitter message. We would love to meet as many of our fans as possible!
-Nathan
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/872179144/tammany-hall
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
So, here we are, just about two weeks into Tammany Hall being live on Kickstarter, and it continues to be a really fun process.
One of the things that separates this kickstarter from a lot is the fact that the game is out there (though limited) and can be played (though, it can be hard to find a copy) and has some reviews out there (though, not as many as I would like).
So one of the things that I wanted to do as part of this campaign is to get this game in front of as many gamers as possible. It’s kind of nice to be running a kickstarter on a game that’s one of your favorites and a game that gamer’s will love if they play it.
There are some reviews up on the Tammany Hall page on BGG, including a video review by the Dice Tower and a really nice review from Giant Fire Breathing Robot, but I’ve also sent my copy of the game out to some reviewers to get more reviews out there during the campaign (Undead Viking has it now), and hopefully those will start flowing in.
The game also has a really cool online implementation at www.slothninja.com. I’m in a game right now, and though it’s a different experience than sitting across the table from someone, it’s really good.
There is also going to (hopefully?) be a Tammany Hall Weekend coming up this weekend. We’re trying to match up owners of Tammany Hall with players in this thread: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/803172/play-tammany-hall-wee...
So if you own a copy and want to host a game or two, be sure to post so some new players can check the game out!
- Nathan
Tammany Hall on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/872179144/tammany-hall
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
So, here we are, a little over a week into Tammany Hall being live on Kickstarter, and it’s been an absolute blast. I’ve gotten to speak to a lot of gamers about the game, the process and everything behind it and pretty much everyone has been awesome.
The thing that no one told me before doing this is how collaborative the experience feels. It’s not a typical “you buy my product, I sell it to you” relationship that I expected. It’s really been a project that has evolved and changed in a lot of ways based on feedback and suggestions that I have received from backers.
The support has been amazing. Obviously the literal support of the game on kickstarter has been great (just days after hitting our funding goal we’re close to unlocking our first stretch goal!). But the encouragement and enthusiasm that has been coming from supporters has been just as critical.
This project has been a ton of work, but it makes it worth it. And heck, I’ve even gotten some nice crowed sourced grammar help (thanks again everyone who caught the billion errors on the kickstarter page) and a few really awesome suggestions for pledge levels that will be coming up soon. That’s something I really didn’t expect when I started this.
So, thanks everyone who has supported the project in any way, you’ve made this insanely rewarding.
- Nathan
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
Last week I wrote a thank you blog to a few of the people who made kickstarting Tammany Hall possible. So I’m going to try and keep this from becoming another thank you letter, but I do want to thank everyone out there who has helped make this possible, especially the members here at BGG who have provided endless encouragement for me and the game.
At this moment, Tammany Hall is on the BGG hotlist for the 2nd time in the last month, which is really awesome. I don’t know what kind of math goes into the calculation, but I know it means people are checking the game out, so that’s really great. As far as games on kickstarter, it’s one of the ones with the most info available (and more reviews should be going up in short order) so hopefully people like what they are seeing.
I’m filled with pretty much equal parts sleep deprivation, excitement and nervousness, not unlike Christmas Eve when I was a kid. I’m roaring and ready to get this game launched, but there is that little bit of fear that after all of this it won’t do as well as I hope.
I think Tammany Hall is going to do well, and I really hope it does. Obviously I have a stake in this as more than a fan, but it’s really really exciting to me that Tammany Hall may finally see a wide release. This is a game I’ve been evangelizing for over the last 2 years, and I know I’m not the only one here on BGG. Actually being able to get this game out there and played is a good feeling.
I know there have been some questions asked, so for anyone wondering, 9 AM central time tomorrow is launch time, and I’ll try and get that as close to the second as possible.
I’ve also gotten some questions about the contest that we’re running on our website right now as well. The winner to that free copy of Tammany Hall will be announced prior to the launch, so no need to worry about whether or not you’ve won a copy before you pledge.
We also got a few shout outs this week in the podcast land:
Royal Society of Gamers – 46 minute mark.
http://www.royalsocietyofgamers.com/?p=601
Weekend Confirmed – 1:52:30 mark
http://www.shacknews.com/article/73554/weekend-confirmed-110...
- Nathan
www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
Here we are just a few days away from launching Tammany Hall (May 1st !) on Kickstarter, and almost all of the heavy lifting is finished.
Running this kickstarter has been a very draining process, and the game hasn’t even launched yet. That said, the amount of work I’ve put in is nothing compared to the awesome work and help I’ve received from friends and gamers. This didn’t start out as a thank you blog post, but it turned into one, and I think that’s only fitting. I really couldn’t have done this without a million people helping me in ways small and large.
My fiancée is the person I have to thank most. She’s been so amazing. She supported the crazy idea of starting a board game publisher, and more than that has been so supportive of this whole process and jumped in full throated into running the marketing for the company. She is marketing whizz and I’m pretty sure without her help no one would be aware that a Tammany Hall reprint is even in the works, and I know for sure I would still be behind some DJ named P. Rex on Google searches!
Stratamax Games, especially Doug and Max have been a great group of guys to work with. Doug designed one of my favorite games ever, and then they decided it would be a good idea to let me handle the full scale publication. They have been game for whatever I’ve asked them with help on and have been just amazing all around. Thanks for giving us this shot!
I have to thank my amazing friends at blue goggles films ( http://bluegogglesfilms.com/ ). They shot the kickstarter video for the project, and it looks amazing. If you haven’t heard of them yet, you really need to check them out. They have some really amazing video game related shorts and a new web series called Depixelated that just launched on Game trailers ( http://www.gametrailers.com/video/operation-raccoon-de-pixel...).
La Donn and Adina! Two of my best gaming friends, and a really awesome couple. When I sent my copy of Tammany Hall off to be reviewed, I wasn’t thinking about the kickstarter video! They brought their copy to my house on Monday and didn’t bat an eye at staying until well after 10PM even though they lived 45 minutes away. Thanks so much guys!
Last, and certainly not least the members here at BGG! Thanks so much guys, your dedication and excitement keeps me motivated when things have gotten tough. It’s great to see players excitement about the game on the forums, it really is the best pick me up when I’ve been up way to late trying to fix a bug in the website that I can’t figure out for the life of me. I think it’s really easy to get caught up in the kickstarter thing and look at it in cold hard numbers. Fans, Backers and Supporters shouldn’t be reduced to that. You guys are amazing, and you’re the reason I’m here at the end of the day. Out of everyone who has helped get us this far y’all are the ones that I have to thank the most, because your help has been purely out of a passion for board games and Tammany Hall in particular. So from the absolute bottom of my heart, thanks guys. None of this would be happening were it not for y’alls amazing support and dedication. I really don’t think I can ever articulate how much you guys have meant to me.
- Nathan
www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
We here at Pandasaurus Games are proud to introduce the world to Weiqi, our amazing mascot who finally has a name!
About a month ago we asked the gaming community to help us name our Pandasaurus Mascot and we got some great responses, but the ultimate name came from BGG's own former Geek of the week :
Eurojuegos Buenos Aires
Argentina
Buenos Aires
Capital Federal
When we heard the name Weiqi we knew it just fit the Pandasaurus. It's almost as if Weiqi was his name all along and we were just waiting for someone to tell us. Weiqi is the original Chinese name for the game most of us know as Go. It fit perfectly, as Pastor Mora put it "It's short, it's cute, it's ancient like your dino, it's Chinese like his panda part, and it's gaming-related to one of our most beloved game ancestors."
I sat down (well, virtually sat down) with Pastor Mora and asked him a few questions about himself and Weiqi:
Weiqi is an amazing name, how did you come up with it?
Well, I’m very fond of ancient oriental cultures. I studied Japanese (unfruitfully) for years and even designed my own game on the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. So I had a baggage of ideas to pick from.
Weiqi is the original ancient Chinese name of the game Go (we know for its Japanese name). It's short, it's cute, it's ancient like your dino, it's Chinese like his panda part, and it's gaming-related to one of our most beloved game ancestors. So I thought it was very suitable.
When the talented Damian Isherwood first showed us his design for the Pandasaurus we were smitten, what did you think of the mascot?
It instantly made think about my boys (aged 1.5 and 3). They are cute and huggable, but can easily tear things down to pieces if you let them loose. It is also a very common combination for a mascot, but taken to a whole new level. Very cool.
Speaking of huggable, the other half of Pandasaurus games (my fiancee) thinks I should get a tattoo of him. Please reassure her it's a terrible idea.
I’m married to a French girl, so nothing sounds too weird for me. If it works for you as a couple, go right ahead! Anyways, I’ll say you keep it to your buttocks, for her private amusement.
Enough about Weiqi, how long have you been a hobby gamer?
I’m genetically ambi-undexterous, so I was very into games as a fun exercise from my early youth. I’ve been designing and playing games since I was in Elementary School. I played mostly tabletop RPG and some tactical wargames and print-and-play games with my friends. Then, about a decade ago, University, work, family, life, etc took over, and so did eurogames.
Awesome, so how did you get into hobby gaming?
I’ve been a hobby gamer since always. I had to be, to get my hands on anything to play. This is because boardgames –other than a few mainstream titles– are not something you run into here (you cannot even get Settlers of Catan in Argentina!!!). I had to start my own FOLGS to remedy that!
Awesome, any favorite games?
In my youth, the few games I had were my favorites, but above all History of the World (not the Brief one). Now that I have a huge variety of games available, I’ve actually turned to be very promiscuous regarding my favorite game. I immediately fall in love with a game, only to trade it away for the next fancy title I run into. Over the years, I have dated Saint Petersburg, Ys, Caylus Magna Carta, Shogun, Thunderstone, Macao, and Navegador.
Any big gaming moments that stick out in your mind?
The last session of an eight months RPG campaign I wrote and mastered. It took about 14 straight hours. Memorable. The first time my group played Twilight Imperium. A couple of 3-hour tutorial setups and a full game. It also took about 14 hours. Epic. And lastly, Troy appointing me his successor as Geek of the Week in BGG. That took me the whole week! Something I trust my geeky grandchildren will tell their friends with pride.
A lot has been made of Tammany Hall as a "holy grail" game for a lot of gamers, do you have any holy grail games?
Oh, I have a ton. Right now, I close my eyes at night and dream about the latest edition of Rallyman (with Dirt and the cool mini metal cars), the 3rd cool-looking edition of Dominant Species (not the previous prototype), the Spanish edition of Twilight Struggle or playing Epic Thunderstone over Yucata. Unfortunately, sleeping is something that doesn’t happen to me too often for the last 3 years. Ahh… those little pandasaurus… you’ve got to love them…
- Nathan
http://www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
As you might have seen from the BGG news article last week, my blog post and news from around the interwebs, Pandasaurus Games will be publishing Tammany Hall via kickstarter. If you can’t tell, I am extremely excited about this. If you don’t believe me, check out my last blog post.
One of the issues I’m trying to resolve right now is the number of reviews Tammany Hall has. The reviews the game does have are very good (Board Game Blogger, Cartrunk, Dice Tower one I wrote over a year ago before I had any connection to the game that I should probably remove), but the more the merrier.
Where the rub comes in is that there are very very few copies of the game in the US. I am lucky enough to own one of them, but it’s not like a pile of review copies exists somewhere that I can happily send out to every reviewer.
The only solution I could think of was to begrudgingly part ways with my copy of Tammany Hall and send it on a whirlwind tour of the United States. Being one copy, I’m not going to be able to get it to a ton of reviewers, but the reviewers that are getting it are really well known and respected on the geek. Hopefully they all love the game as much as I do.
At the suggestion of
Lance
United States
Moorhead
Minnesota
The coolest best thing I have ever done in my life is being a father
Caleb, the best 6 month old little brother ever
I’m going to be including a post-card in the box for all the reviewers to sign and mark with their location. It should be a fun visual way to track where my copy of the game has been, so once she returns home to me I’ll at least get a great story out of the parting of ways.
So, keep your eyes out for some reviews of Tammany Hall popping up on BGG in the next few weeks and months, and if you want in on the traveling review chain let me know! It may take some work, but I might be able to squeeze a few more reviewers into the traveling chain!
- Nathan
www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
Nathan McNair
United States
Austin
Texas
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
-
An important, but often overlooked part of starting any business is your web presence. Obviously for a board game publisher, interacting with the community at BGG is critical. I love it here, and I’ve been coming here much longer than I’ve even thought about getting into the business side of board games. This site is where I have researched basically every purchase I've ever made. I love the fact that you can find out about games in extreme detail, watch videos, get reactions from actual players before you ever play the game.
Facebook and Twitter are important as good ways to communicate with your customers and fans. Google Plus is, well.. there I guess. Maybe someone uses it exclusively. I have one, I post to it, but the activity there is pretty minimal.
I have a mailing list, and that’s awesome. It’s probably the best way to make sure your fans will actually read what you have to say. With Twitter and Facebook, by the time they log on your post could be at the bottom of the page. That said, if you have a mailing list, don’t blow people up. I’ve sent out 2 emails in the last 45 days and plan to keep that pace. I’ve signed up for mailing lists before and gotten emails literally every daily. I don’t care about anything enough to get an email a day, so I unsubscribed.
All that said, you need a website. Preferably a decent one (I think mine is ok, though it needs some work) so that you can get people as much info about your game as possible, and give them a way to get in touch with you. For a business without a brick and mortar store, your website is the closest thing you have to hanging up your shingle.
Getting people to find your website is a war that most people have no idea is taking place. You don’t want to rely on people clicking through links to find you. You want to be as easy to find as possible. This is where Google comes in. You need to be on Google and you need some SEO (search engine optimization) work to make sure that you actually show up on Google.
Right now I am in the middle of an SEO war with a Facebook page and Urban Dictionary.
I finally bumped BGG for the top few spots for a "pandasaurus games" Google search, which is the main thing, but I want people to find me even if they only search for “Pandasaurus”. I don’t want too specific of a search to be required. Luckily Google is doing a good job of correcting spelling for this made up word.
My problem is I'm currently sitting 2nd for "pandasaurus". I keep oscillating between 2nd and 3rd with some DJ on Facebook named Pandasaurus Rex. Urban dictionary is sitting at 1st for their definitions of Pandasaurus. My fiancée is a new media marketing expert and she has told me getting in front of Urban Dictionary is one of the hardest things in the SEO world.
My understanding of SEO is pretty limited. You want good content, Metadata and people linking to you and you’ll move up. My fiancee keeps saying something about Panda chaning everything and quality being more important than quantity.. But I don’t really understand what that means, except Panda has nothing to do with Pandasaurus.
Still, were it not for her efforts I would still be on page 3 of Google behind some dude's Steam account and one of those weird girls that likes to dress like Japanese dolls.
Also, I’m at the top of Yahoo and Bing searches. But, who honestly cares. I think I've had like 5 hits from Bing in the last month, and I'm pretty sure those were me testing my Bing ranking. I think I’m the guy out there that actually uses Bing, and that’s only because Microsoft buys my love with free Microsoft Points.
- Nathan
http://www.pandasaurusgames.com
1 , 2 Next »
|
|
Check out Pandasaurus Games at www.pandasaurusgames.com
