087: Growing Hatchlings Games & starting a TTRPG Consultancy Business with Rich Oxenham

Courtney: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Roll Play Grow, the podcast for tabletop entrepreneurs, creators, and fans. In this show, we dig into processes, challenges, tips, and really look at how to grow a business in the tabletop role play gaming space. Sit back and join in as we learn from the creators behind your favorite brands, about who they are and how they are turning their passion for gaming into a career.

I don’t know about y’all, but I love a returning guest. I think it’s so much fun to check in with them after a long time to see how things have changed since the last conversation. Today we get to hear from Rich of Hatchlings Games, who I first interviewed all the way back in episode 14, also known as 2021.

We were still in the height of COVID restrictions, and Rich had just finished [00:01:00] creating Inspirisles and was just about to start fulfilling his very first game from a crowdfunding platform. Things have definitely changed over the last three plus years and it was so fun to get to catch up with him and just talk about all of the things that he’s learned over the years and how things have just evolved for hatchlings games and also his new adventure where he Along with a group of three other people offer consultancy advice for other creators wanting to launch a crowdfunding campaign.

So it was just a really good time to just hang out, catch up. I always feel like these sequel episodes, if you will, are just a lot more chill. And I think, you know, that some of that has to do with the fact that the guest and I are like, already comfortable with each other. We know how it’s gonna go. And I tend to really only write a couple of questions down ahead of time because it’s like, all right, we’re just [00:02:00] gonna go with the flow.

And I think the flow is pretty good today. I do recommend listening to episode 14 first, if you have not heard it in the past, just because this really does feel like a sequel episode. So if you are wanting to know things about How Rich Got Started in Gaming, or Why He Decided to Merge Sign Language with Gaming.

Then you should listen to that episode. Either way, I know that you are gonna love this conversation as much as I did. Before we dive into the interview, I just want to say hey to any new listeners to Roll Play Grow. On the show, we chat with some pretty cool folks about business, marketing, hardships, lessons learned, and how to guides across a wide spectrum of industry within the TTRPG scene.

There are honestly so many different avenues in which people have found ways to merge their love for gaming with business, whether that’s designing games, making nerdy [00:03:00] themed tea or chocolates, Or all sorts of cool gaming crafts, and I really love just getting a chance to talk with all of those people on this show and learn from them.

Speaking of those fun little crafty things, I do want to give a quick shout out to one of our favorite dice companies, Dice Envy. My very first interview on this show was actually with David Darris, the founder of Dice Envy, and we have gotten a lot of dice sets from them over the years, as has a lot of our friends.

I highly recommend you check them out, as they have dice in all sorts of materials. Resin, metal, wood. They’ve got chunky D20s and a really cool shape for their D4s. We are affiliates with them, so if you go to diceenvy. com slash lightheart, A D V, you can get some snazzy dice and you’ll also help support this show.

Alright, that is enough for now, so let’s go and chat with Rich.[00:04:00]

Alright friends, we are back with Rich Oxenham, who you might recognize from the name Hatchlings Games, or some Games that came out a couple years ago that are pretty freaking awesome Inspire Isles. That’s our first one, and that is actually what we talked about three years ago.

Rich: Yeah, that’s right. And

Courtney: I’m super excited to have you back.

We have a lot to cover.

Rich: Yeah, it’s nice to be back. It’s nice to see you back on the podcasting.

Courtney: Yeah, yeah, it was A rough year but I’m happy to be doing this again for sure. Yeah, so the last time that we talked, you were just about to publish Inspiratiles. You had a campaign that was wildly successful, a lot more than you expected, and Like you were pretty much right on the cusp of fulfillment.

Rich: Yeah, we just basically had an hour of me being in [00:05:00] shock with how well it funded. The sort of production and fulfillment was a long process like it always is. And then when we eventually got the book out, it was just really successful when it, it, when it, all the backers enjoyed it and we, we produced it to a nice high level.

And we had all the, all the tutorial videos produced as well by my deaf friends. So it was great in the end.

Courtney: Did you give yourself a chance to just like catch your breath after all of that? Or did you immediately jump into the next project?

Rich: I kind of got like a hunger for it, of the game design and kind of um, and I knew that crowdfunding worked because that was the first time I was trying that, and that was a completely unknown quantity at the time, but it was obviously really successful, so I immediately got back onto the drawing board and started to plan out the campaign setting for it, really.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to go beyond that, whether we were just going to focus on those games or whether we were going to stretch out and, you know, produce [00:06:00] other things. But then as you do with social media, you start getting into different channels and I started to get into the indie design sphere and kind of, got the bug from that really.

Courtney: Yeah. I know you have published, I think it was three other games in addition to Overisles.

Rich: That’s right. So Overisles was our big crowdfund after that. That was a game, shockingly successful. I couldn’t believe that either. And it meant we could like, you know, expand the core game and provide more sign language learning.

That was kind of the vision from the beginning. If we could, if we could manage to do a couple of games in a series and hopefully a trilogy next year, then, you know, We’ll have, like, quite a nice introduction to sign language, basically. Still not as exhaustive as, like, a professional course, obviously.

But the game was always meant to just be, like, a taster. And to kind of whet people’s appetite for learning the language, and kind of taking it further. [00:07:00]

Courtney: Yeah, which I think, I mean, just from personal experience, that Yeah, that is exactly what it is, is that it, like, I love the art, like, I love you know, just, like, showing the fingerspelling in the book and those handouts to the side of it, as well as, like, the videos are super helpful, and it’s a really fun way to learn how to fingerspell.

Rich: Exactly. I think also because we funded so well, we had an opportunity to kind of make all the material really inclusive and kind of, you know, have nice representation within the signs because most of the time these BSL, ASL sheets are just black and white illustrations, you know, line art. They’ve got no representation at all, which is fine because they’re, you know, they’re kind of neutral in some ways, but we wanted to have a bit more representation and diversity within the.

The material.

Courtney: Yeah. Absolutely. So I would really love to just have you walk us [00:08:00] through how you went from Inspirisles in, you know, with your plan to release two more expansions to where you are now.

Rich: Okay. A couple of years later, we, we sort of, launched the Crowdfund, the Kickstarter again for Overrules, which is the campaign setting for Inspirisles.

So it’s exploring a different dynamic of the, of the setting and the lore. And then obviously, like I say, like, increasing your sign language learning, introducing, like, environmental signs and signs for, like, movement and things like that. So you’re just expanding the kind of core learning material there, while expanding the world and lore, like I said, the setting.

And that funded really well. I think the reason that funded so well was because we gave the core game for free, digitally, if you bought the, the campaign setting during that Kickstarter month. So basically that, that was a really good decision because it meant people have accessibility to the core rules then and they can just have the expansion [00:09:00] on top of that.

That went really well and that, that managed to fund everything I wanted to do after that. So I did want to kind of that point, because I got a background in creative writing. I did an MA at university and stuff. I love it. I did an MA writing for young people. So I kind of wanted to Explore different game design and different options there.

And that’s where I discovered kind of like journaling games or kind of solo experiences. And that was quite a revelation to me because in my mind, that kind of promotes creative writing. That’s kind of what they do, a journaling game, you know, journaling is like really beneficial anyway, but if you can combine it with like a rule set, then it’s really interesting.

So that’s when I kind of came up with the idea of Dragon Dowser, which is a solo journaling game, setting a kind of solopunk. World, so it’s kind of like slightly optimistic, far future, and you’ve got to rescue and rear dragon eggs. But it uses a really simple system called CARTA, which is like a card [00:10:00] system, where it’s like exploration.

They just lay it down the spread of cards and you kind of move your player piece or dice in our case across the spread of cards trying to find an ace. Which represents an egg. It’s so simple, but like, every card you turn over has got really open ended prompts, and that really encourages creative writing, I feel.

And I’ve since run some workshops with teens on the game, and it’s gone really well, so you can basically put any theme across the top of this system. So like, you can do like a Mad Max type thing, or you can do like a Supernatural. Ghost hunting thing, anything like you want, basically. Magical fiction girls, you know, anything like that, superheroes.

As long as it’s got exploration at its heart. So that was a revelation exploring that, finding kind of like, games that promote creative writing. Because we always have an educational leaning, I think, to our games. And then so that funded really well. We launched a sequel to that called Bao, which is about sailors going across the ocean.

Again, it’s Carter, so you [00:11:00] can put, basically, you can put any sort of theme across this system. I know a couple of my designer friends are now launching games with that, Carter. under the hood. And then our big game recently has been Cryptid Creeks, which is just in time for Halloween, which is basically used the car from Brindlewood system.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, Brindlewood Bay and The Between and games like that. Yeah, and that’s just it’s made, it’s taking that kind of system and making it appropriate for slightly younger players, so like young adults and teens, so they can play it and run it. Not quite as heavy themed or like adult,

Courtney: but

Rich: that’s inspired by Gravity Falls and the Goonies and things I usually really love, you know, spooky fiction.

Courtney: Oh, yeah. As soon as I saw Gravity Falls as an inspiration, I was like, I’m sold.

Rich: That’s basically it. And we’ve got Argo, Argo Zero, Argo Nought coming out in a couple of weeks on Kickstarter. And that’s like kind of a retro science fiction, basically. So like, I don’t know if you ever seen Ulysses 31. It’s a [00:12:00] cartoon I grew up with.

It’s basically like Greek myths, but in space.

Courtney: Yeah. So that is launching October 15th, right?

Rich: That’s right. Yeah.

Courtney: And how long is it going to be?

Rich: It’s going to be running for a month as usual, but we were all ready for that. We, we prepared for it. We got the, you know, we got the launch video and got an amazing soundtrack and stuff like that. And, and the books are going to be amazing.

We’ve got Alex Conley doing all the art. He’s incredible. He did the, he did the mechs for Salvage Union, so he’s like, fantastic at science fiction design.

Courtney: So with that day range this is live right now, listeners, and you should definitely check it out. So let’s actually dig into that game a little bit more, just so that we can know what to expect.

Rich: So it’s based on the Paragon system behind Agon, which is like a A greek myth game made by Evil Hat. In that game you basically play a kind of greek warrior [00:13:00] and you’re moving from island to island a bit like the odyssey mixed with greek myths so like clash of titans sort of thing and each island you go to you’ve got to face a kind of trial so we thought that would be so interesting to take that and make the island’s asteroids you’ve sort of the part of the crew of this Argo which is like these like it’s basically chasing the Argonauts.

It’s based on the myth of Jason Albinos. Instead of a golden fleece, you’re seeking a golden moon, and you’ve got to harvest, like, this golden mineral, which basically power your, sort of, like, outpost. For decades. So that’s kind of the principle behind the game. But the unique thing about the game though, is that not only do you explore these asteroids, but you’ve got to try and find the, like, coordinates to the moon.

If you like these, like, tests and stuff. But the unique thing is that your crew member is sponsored by a benefactor. They represent the Greek pantheon, people like Athena, you’ve got people like Hades, and Ares, and people, but they’re obviously, like, transformed into science [00:14:00] fiction characters. They’ve all got their own motivations, so they want you to do certain things for them on each asteroid, and if you don’t appease them, or if you don’t, like, kind of, like, you know, like, fulfill their kind of, like, desires, then they kind of, like, sabotage your mission.

Courtney: Where did the inspiration for this come from? combination, if you will, come from?

Rich: Everything I’ve made apart from Inspirals. Inspirals was inspired by working at a deaf charity for like a decade, and that’s where it came from. I was running a teen D& D group at the time, so that’s the inspiration, the combination of those two things, learning sign language and writing.

running role playing games for young people. But everything since then has been something I’ve written during my MA. So it’s kind of like, I’m kind of like bringing all these skeletons back from my university course and going, oh, I never, I never made it as a novelist, so why do I make these things into games?

So Cryptic Creaks is kind of based on A book I wrote [00:15:00] called the, well, it was a short story at the time, but it’s called The Preservation Tapes. And it was about a, a kid who’d, whose father had gone missing an action in, in the Falklands war. And then he kind of makes this bargain with like this kind of crypted to like promises to bring him back safely.

But it’s not all lighthearted. So it’s kind of got a Pans Labyrinth type vibe. It’s kind of dark fairy tale. So that’s where crypto creeps come from. Dragon Dows are like, I started writing a fancy novel about. Like, a far future with dragons and that’s inspired by like, Norsca and the Valley of the Wind, like, Studio Ghibli film that I love.

Yeah, so everything’s ba and our goes, like I said, it’s from like, growing up on those retro cartoons like Ulysses 31 and Jason the World Warriors and All things like that, like kind of really slightly hammy science fiction and like classic anime like Gundam and stuff like that. Yeah, so it’s a combination of all those things, but I also like Greek myths, so that’s why I had to have these gods be really [00:16:00] like self serving and kind of self centered and kind of like, yeah, you either have to like appease them or kind of suffer the consequences.

Courtney: Do you have a favourite Greek myth?

Rich: Well, Jason the Argonauts is what it’s based on. I kind of, I grew up reading that. I had like a very old leather bound book that I got from a car boot sale in the UK. what they’re called, yard sales in the US I think. Yeah, I got this book and I read Jason the Argonauts quite a lot of times and and then I saw the the Ray Harryhausen sort of like stop motion animated clay figures in the, in the, you know, I don’t know when it was, the 60s is it or 50s maybe?

Even before that maybe. But anyway, the very first science fiction, you know, special effects rather, film, Green Mist, you know, with the stop motion skeletons and hydras and things. It was incredible at the time, like, I was just blown away by it when I was a kid. So, you know, I write games for young people, but all the ideas that come from kind of Nostalgia, really, you know, [00:17:00] like from childhood kind of like things I really enjoyed.

Courtney: I love that. And I feel like that is really like, it’s a good way to segue into making stories that are accessible to like younger players.

Rich: Yeah. I think if you can channel that kind of nostalgia a little bit, then I think it will come out in your, in your writing a little bit as well and your design possibly, someone approached me the other day on, on Twitter, I was messaging me They want to adapt their world for younger players.

And they were saying like, can you give me some advice on writing for younger people? And I said like, I said quite a few things. I said like, you know, like make the language more accessible, obviously, but don’t dumb it down, things like this. And as I went down the list, kind of finished with like, but it just takes a lot of practice because like some people under the delusion that it’s easier than writing for adults, but it’s really not.

It’s really, really not. Like, even, I think probably the hardest book to write is like a picture book for kids. Well, to get it right, even though it’s far less words. So like, [00:18:00] I’m kind of at the midpoint where I’m trying to make it accessible to adults and younger teens, if I can manage that. And I think largely we’ve, we’ve succeeded with that.

My wife and I.

Courtney: How would you say that your design process has evolved over the last few years?

Rich: The sort of transition point was with between whether I made int sprawls for Dungeon Dragons or whether I went full on indie and developed my own system. If I adapted it for Dungeon Dragons, it might have been a very different conversation now because I probably would have followed that route and I would have made modules for Dungeon Dragons 5e and that would have been my, I probably still would have been similar in in terms of like What I was producing and the level I was producing it because I made a bespoke system for Inspirals.

It kind of encouraged me to, like I said, go into that kind of sphere of indie designers and start to have those like conversations and kind of like, you know, reaching out for advice all the time and [00:19:00] that back and forth and then making friends with people at conventions. And then, you know, I’m not saying people can’t do both.

You can obviously do Dungeons Dragons and indie games, but I was very much focused on that kind of design direction, if that makes sense. And then, the great thing is, is discovering system reference documents that you can use. They’re so intuitive, like Carter’s so, like, it was absolutely mind blowing when I discovered this, and I read through it, I was like, This is just so intuitive and so, like, perfect for what I want to put over the top of it, you know, the themes and the kind of, the explorations and stuff, and the storytelling.

And yes, I can use this, I just have to quote the person who designed it in the game, so it’s like, and the same with Carl from Brindleware, same with Cryptocrease, you know. Like Jason Cordova says, you know, start making stuff with, With this car from Brindlewood thing. And in fact, talking of that, so he’s crowdfunding The Between at the moment on Kickstarter, which has been [00:20:00] wildly successful.

And one of the stretch goals was to create a system reference document for everyone to use. And they’ve just passed that, so that’s brilliant news for the future.

Courtney: Yeah, I love how many games that are within the indie sphere are Like, encouraging people to use their rule system and adapt and just make it accessible.

And how much of that was influenced by a certain company not wanting people to do that very well? I don’t know. But either way, like, just the almost like renaissance of, hey, we’ve created these games. Please use them. Please make other things that other people can see.

Rich: Because it really just

Courtney: impacted the industry a lot.

Rich: From a publishing point of view, it kind of makes sense as well, because you want people to be playing your game. You want people to be creating content for your game. You want people to be spreading a word about it. And that’s a very, I guess, [00:21:00] altruistic way of doing it, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it works for me.

I mean, we’ve, we made Inspirals. We even made the sign language material, like, open for people to use in their own games, you know, even publish with it. Because we don’t want to, like, I don’t know, restrict it in some ways.

Courtney: Yeah, that makes perfect sense, and I do love that you guys have that open license too.

I was kind of stalking your website this morning, I was like, oh right, yes!

Rich: Wiz of the Coast, if they did shut that down, it would hamper them. They’ve got so much content for third party publishers. I don’t understand the business decision behind that, even to entertain the idea of doing that. Not at all.

It quickly got shut down, thankfully.

Courtney: Yeah. Yeah, so one thing that I do want to dive into a little bit is that in our last conversation, It was 2021. There are still a lot of COVID restrictions and I know one of the challenges that you faced [00:22:00] was that you weren’t able to do the play testing for Innsbruck Isles with your hatchlings with the youth that you work with.

I’m assuming that that is no longer an issue.

Rich: No, I mean, I worked with them on Crypto Creek, so it’s brilliant. It’s even acknowledged at the beginning, you know, in the acknowledgement section of the game. So There’s quite a few new ones, new kids, that are sort of working with me. Thankfully, with Inspirals, we managed to do quite a bit of playtests online.

And even nowadays, I think people have switched over to the kind of online communication a bit more anyway. It’s become a bit more natural, hasn’t it? It’s kind of forced onto us a little bit, especially with things like playtesting and stuff. With the advent of actual plays, I mean, there’s very few actual plays that are in person.

So yeah, so, the whole thing shifted. Not necessarily in a bad way, although I do miss in person games and in person playtesting, but the fact that we can just jump online and the [00:23:00] technology’s there to make it smooth and kind of intuitive is fine.

Courtney: So the majority of your playtesting is still online? Yeah,

Rich: yeah, yeah.

It’s almost like a philosophy changed, or like a mindset. Which is, in some ways, good, because it’s not gone away. So it’s like, kind of like, if you get into that habit, and you have the systems in place to accommodate that, then hopefully, you know, if it ever does become rampant again, then we’ll be ready for it.

More prepared, at least.

Courtney: Yeah, definitely. I mean, okay, you said with Cryptic Reeks that you were able to playtest with the hatchlings. So I know that one of the concerns, though, was that, you know, just video and like recording online with minors. Is that, like, how did you get around that this time?

Rich: Just do forms.

Just do loads of forms with the parents. There was always a parent who sat in on the sessions. Even when I was doing the weekly Dungeons Dragons games, [00:24:00] it was the same for playtesting, so you’d just have a parent on the call, and you’d do forms. Same with photographs, you know, if you want to do any photographs, because we had photographs on the website before for conventions with the teens, and then we got permission slips for that as well, so that’s what we have to do, really.

Courtney: Like, having the headsings there, and being able to get their input, like, how is that different than when you weren’t able to do that because of all of those restrictions? And

Rich: I just don’t think you know how the system’s going to come across unless you’ve got the right spectrum of ages. If you’re making a game for teenagers or young adults, which the hatchlings are now, you can test it with them more appropriately, and I think it works out the kinks as well.

Because there’s a lot of stuff when you’re designing something that you, obviously, you, it’s the same as writing a book. Like, the author understands what they’re trying to say, but people playing it don’t. Really don’t, because you’ve got insider knowledge, obviously, and you’ve been with that thing for ages, for like months and months and months.

So you have to step outside [00:25:00] of it, and that’s why playtesting is so essential, really, I think. And the other thing we had was we had someone from, our editor Alex Rabinskis, from the Gauntlet, who made the card from Brindlewood system. So he, He was our main editor, so that helps as well. So it’s when we came with a concern, or a communication difficulty, or something that wasn’t coming across right, or misunderstood, then the combination of everything kind of worked out.

And I think we’ve produced, like, a really, like, accessible game through those elements.

Courtney: Actually, I do want to dig into that, because I know that accessibility in all of your games is, Obviously a huge factor and you want to make sure that it’s as inclusive as possible. So what are some strategies that y’all use throughout all of these games like to help them stay accessible?

Rich: So it’s interesting that it’s interesting because so with Inspirisles, although the game is Like in its nature is promoting accessibility because of obviously learning sign [00:26:00] language and about especially with the video tutorials that was like a main accessibility element we have but in terms of actual RPG production and kind of design I didn’t have a clue about accessibility like you know because I was new to it it was the first thing we did so I knew about accessibility within the my work sphere you know all these things and like documents and stuff and like the way you communicate with with our clients and things But I didn’t know it was in the RPG industry, so I had to research, so it’s, in fact, Inch Spryles doesn’t have an index.

So that’s a pretty good example of the difference between, kind of like, the different things I knew about. So I didn’t even put an index in it. So I put a contents list and I put like a, like a terminology list, but I didn’t put an index in it. But since then, obviously, as I’ve got more and more into the industry, and I kind of like, the longer you’re on social media, the more you learn from different people.

Now with CryptoCreeks, I think we’ve come full circle, and it’s like [00:27:00] very, very highly accessible, so it’s got like a one column text, it’s got like a large font, it’s got an easy read font, it’s got like color differentiations in the background, so it doesn’t, it’s good for dyslexia and things like that.

It’s got a, A read only text for e readers. It’s got like a spreads option. It’s got, we’ve done so much basically with alt text all the way through it. So we worked with Chris Hoppo, who’s like, it’s quite a renowned kind of accessibility consultant. He did things like the Cosmere RPG, which is crowdfunded.

They did things like critical roles games and he’s quite a close friend of mine now after a number of years So like I got him on board and he’s just brilliant at it, you know

Courtney: Yeah, he’s Chris Hover is actually the layout designer for the game that I project managed He’s currently working on it right now Yeah I was like, oh, yeah, I don’t know nice small

Rich: world nice small world

Courtney: God, I love it

Rich: But you can leave it in the put that person’s hands and go well, I really really want this [00:28:00] to be You Accessible to all these people, you know, some of the layout might be a little bit of a struggle for some people.

So you made a, you know, a text only, a read only one with no images and stuff like that. Yeah,

Courtney: for sure. So I want to change gears a little bit and talk about Tattered Bear. So just for those who haven’t heard of it yet, tell me, like, what is your Tattered Bear? Company. And how did that come to be?

Rich: Tad Bear started off as an idea because I found all the systems producing an RPG very difficult at the beginning.

Like there was no, there seemed to be such a lack of advice out there and such a lack of people wanting to share it. And then I tried to get consultancy when I did overalls. It was absolutely extortionate what people were asking for just for advice on simple things. So I said, I approached Steph [00:29:00] Campbell of TTRPG Kids and Scriv the Bard, who’s a close friend of mine, did our Bard RPG recently.

And Josh Somerville Jacklin, who’s, I’ve worked alongside for ages, one of our artists on the Inspirals games. I said, why don’t we form a kind of, almost like a non profit business where we help people produce And crowdfund their games for all ages. So like specifically games for their family friendly or aimed at younger players, help them bring them to fruition and kind of see how we go with that.

And we started off with like different packages. So we had just consultancy for like an hour. It was like, I think it was like 40 or something. And then we had like crowdfunding advice and then we had like full production. So we could like jump on the Kickstarter and set the page up. Could do like images.

And then we sat, we had a marketing package as well. But since then, we’re trying to like narrow it down now because people just want consultancy [00:30:00] because they have so many different things they need to think about. It’s like, it can be overwhelming. Yeah, so now we’re kind of taking that. We’ve got a number of clients on board releasing projects next year now.

So we’ve got three projects next year with consultancy from us, and that’s how it’s gone, and we’ve been successful so far. So now we’ve got everyone who’s used us. Has had a successful crowdfund. That’s quite reassuring.

Courtney: Yes.

Rich: It’s nothing to do with us, but it’s just a, it’s a nice coincidence.

Courtney: That definitely helps to recruit more clients.

And you’re like, Hey, look, they all, yeah,

Rich: exactly. They all win. Yeah.

Courtney: Hey entrepreneurs. I love introducing you to new creators every episode, but I could really use your support. I would love to invite you to join our Patreon page where you’ll gain access to behind the scenes content, add your questions to upcoming interviews, and you could [00:31:00] even receive a shout out on our site in an upcoming episode.

To learn more, go to lightheartadventures. com slash RPG. And now back to the show. So, are you just, like, through the crowdfunding part, or do you help with any of the production after the fund ends?

Rich: Like I said, we started off Offering production and also marketing. But what we’re going to do is we’re going to take that away because nine out of 10 times people are coming to us and going, I really need help with crowdfund.

Like, you know, what do I do for my stretch goals? How do I make this page kind of like pop or things like this? You know, how, how do I reach these people? We’re a startup business and. I’ve got quite a few, like, channels in terms of marketing, but like, I don’t want to be using hatchlings for TATTABEAR, it’s a separate thing, so I don’t feel like we should offer marketing.

support when we don’t [00:32:00] have a huge network just within Tattered Bear. So it seems a little bit inefficient, should we say, but in terms of experience, in terms of experience with the industry, the four people together from us, we know a vast amount really. So in terms of consultancy, we can definitely help.

Courtney: I think that that’s definitely a very valuable service. It’s hard when you’re like, okay, I want to make this thing. I don’t have the money to make this thing. Like, where do I even start?

Rich: Exactly, yeah. I mean, there’s so much to, specifically to crowdfunding as well, there’s so much, like, nuance to it, in terms of like, the way you set your campaign up, you know, your reward system, your stretch goals, your add ons.

You know, your video and go on and on. Like people just don’t realize what goes into it. You know, how you, how you present your shipping, how you present your timelines. And if we can help, it literally only takes like four sessions, maybe three or four sessions, and then transform the campaign in some ways.[00:33:00]

Courtney: Without giving away too much knowledge that you would need to charge by, what are some things that you have learned about crowdfunding that are just different than how you did it for your first couple campaigns?

Rich: One of the worst things is the overrides, right? So overrides. On the surface, it seems like a hugely successful campaign, but I messed up, say, in so many ways with that campaign.

It was the second crowdfund, and I followed the direction of someone else. Every project’s different, and you can’t do that. You can’t You can take templates, you can go to different crowdfunds and sort of find something similar, maybe, and go, oh, well, actually, that’s a card game. How is that done? What have they given for the reward and stuff?

Which obviously would advise people to do, but you can’t follow something exactly in terms of what they’re offering because everyone’s got different situations and this person, the campaign that I followed They worked with an actual external publisher [00:34:00] and quite a big publisher. And I thought, Oh, I can do that.

You know, I can do all the things they’re doing, offer all the things they’re offering, but it doesn’t work like that. So part of the reason that Tab to Bear, I think is quite successful, especially around the Kickstarter and backer kit. It’s because I’m just advising people not to do the same things I did.

So it’s kind of like, don’t make the same mistakes because it will really cost you. One of the big things is scope. One of the big things is keeping stuff simple in terms of rewards and your stretch goals, and there needs to be stuff that you can fulfill. And as much as you can do yourself, rather than outsourcing.

So some of our clients have come to us and they’ve set their page initially, and they’ve got like 20 reward tiers. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, cut that all down. Make it simplistic, you know, keep the pledges within the right scope.

Courtney: Yeah, definitely. Like, anytime I see a Kickstarter or, you know, crowdfunding page for something that is like, oh, this is their first one [00:35:00] and like, wow, they’ve got So many items that they want to fulfill, like even if it’s only a few tiers, it’s like oh, are you actually going to get all of these things manufactured and in on time?

And are you sure?

Rich: It’s doubtful as well. And that’s, that’s the trouble. I think a lot of them run into problems then. And it only takes like, like I say, it only takes potentially one consultancy session for like 40. It’s not expensive. So like compared to what you could gain or what you could potentially lose by making mistakes,

Courtney: you know,

Rich: you got to compare it to that really, you know, it’s no different than a small ad on Facebook or something for a week.

Courtney: Definitely. I think that is just kind of interesting with just having like offering the services. Like, are you the one predominantly the one that does the consultancy or is it split up amongst your team?

Rich: So we split it now. So what we do is we take on clients and then we. Ask the client who they want to be present because we’ve got different skill sets.[00:36:00]

We do cross over a lot but Josh has got very different skill sets because he’s mainly in the manufacturing and the back end of projects and the craft side of stuff and Steph’s incredible at like project management. You know, they should really do that as a career, as well as TTRPG Kids. And I think they probably will in the future.

But I’m very specifically with Kickstarter and stuff like that, and back it recently. And then Scribd’s brilliant at, like, sensitivity reading, consultancy around, like, culture and things like this, and, and, like, graphic design, things like this. So, yeah. When the four of us come together, we’re like the, you know, the X Men or something.

Courtney: Oh, a bad analogy.

Rich: I’m definitely Professor X if you see me.

Courtney: I love it. Yeah, so how are you balancing all of your time?

Rich: So my wife is one half [00:37:00] of Hatchlings now, which is incredible, because she does probably 80 percent of the writing now. I put the design documents down, and then she writes all the sort of like flavor text, she does all of the kind of like prompts for like, for Dragondowser and for Bao, she did, she did all the prompts, and they’re some of the best bits of the game.

So I’m basically just doing a bit of design and tinkering with other games and our ideas, and then she’s helping me produce them. So like, so it’s very much shared and we’re both full time now, so it’s great. So we do it every day and we enjoy it every day. It’s the other stuff I can’t stand, which I wish someone else could do, which is the whole accountancy and taxes and VAT and social media and marketing and all that stuff.

I wish I could just sweep that under a tsunami and just focus on creating stuff, but that, you know, I’m not in a position to do that yet. May never be.

Courtney: Okay. We are definitely going to dig into tell me about [00:38:00] the transition from, you know, you had your career and you were doing this just on the side to going full time.

Rich: It’s been rough because Like I said, there’s a number of mistakes I made, and some of the mistakes, when you’re starting out on something, can be really costly. So, for a while we were treading water, and in fact, we don’t, to be fully transparent, we don’t make any money from the business still. We, we, we just, all the money we make from one project goes into the next one.

But we’re hoping, eventually, down the line, that we’ll have enough games that we’ll be able to spread them out and sell them, you know, there’ll be enough experiences for everyone then. But, yeah, I just, there’s a lot of frustrations to it, it’s, for instance, one of the things is like social media, especially Twitter, because the fact that Twitter’s collapsed entirely almost now, and there’s no engagement whatsoever.

I focus so much on building an audience there, and building like a kind of thing, and in fact they were so active in terms of getting us funded and [00:39:00] things. I think it was overalls was 20 percent was from Twitter. 20 percent of our funding was Twitter, which is unheard of. I think probably since then it’s been completely non existent.

So it doesn’t matter. I’ve got 11, 000 followers on there, but it makes no difference. You’ve got two or 11, 000 still no engagement. So, things have been difficult. Marketing’s difficult, really difficult. You know, there’s all sorts of things, loopholes you have to go through to get your, your name out there and spread the word.

And it’s making being full time very difficult, because obviously we have to take our salaries out of whatever we sell, and it’s hit and miss. I think if I’d made better business decisions, because I’m not a business person, it’s like, it’s almost like a complete opposite of my personality. Like, I’m very much, you know, I’ve come from a care setting, I’ve come from like working with vulnerable adults, to like, Running, trying to run like a business and try and make money for it.

It’s not natural to me at all. And Catherine, it’s not natural to her [00:40:00] at all either. So we’re both kind of like in the dark a bit about it. But we’re starting to find our feet now. You know, you learn from your mistakes, like I said before. This is why Tattabear’s probably quite successful with the four of us.

Because issues we’ve had with our own projects. We’re now making sure people avoid them. So, now I’m starting to find my feet and realizing how it works. I’m trying to reach new channels, you know, I’m trying to get stuff out into the U. S. And that’s been a long road because if I’d done that originally, it would have been much easier.

Courtney: So, even with all of that though, what was the tipping point where you decided that you wanted to just go for it?

Rich: Because, full disclosure, like, the job at the charity was less than minimum wage. Where it’s just barely minimum wage and Catherine and I both work there and we’re both part time. So I always say to my brothers basically like he works in a private school and he’s really into board games and he kind of he’s kind of got a passion for [00:41:00] designing them and stuff but he won’t take the leap to design in one full time because obviously he’s got so much more to lose.

Whereas I felt like Catherine and I moved sideways but we weren’t earning less than we we still take a minimum wage now. But, like, it’s enough to support us, just about. But it wasn’t a huge sacrifice, if that makes sense. I wasn’t in, like, a high powered job or anything. Whereas I know a lot of designers have a really, really successful day job, and they do it as a kind of, like, a hobby, even though you put a lot of effort into it.

But I didn’t feel, I feel, I felt like we could, at that time, move across. Instead of down.

Courtney: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of

Rich: sense.

Courtney: Yeah, like it’s a risk, but like you said, like it’s

Rich: calculated risk. I think that’s what it was. What it was. Yeah, it was kind of like because we could always walk back into into the charity really, to be honest, because we were really good at a job.

So it’s like, and they needed us at the time, but unfortunately, you know, not to go into too much detail, but our [00:42:00] old job was taken over by a business. Instead of a charity, and that changed a lot of our perspective on things, which is a bit unfortunate.

Courtney: That is unfortunate. So it

Rich: felt like the right time to go, as well.

Courtney: How long ago was this?

Rich: 2022, I think. Yeah.

Courtney: Okay, wow, so two years.

Rich: Yeah, yeah. It’s not been that long.

Courtney: But I also feel like in the world of working for yourself, that is a long time.

Rich: Yeah, maybe you’re right, yeah.

Courtney: There are always so many things that come up that you’re like, I’m sorry, what now?

So last time that we talked, you know, I always had that question of like, oh, it’s been the most challenging part. And your answer at that time. was finishing the book. You said that you have just a hard time finishing your projects, and I’m wondering if that is still something that you find really challenging, or if [00:43:00] you’ve managed to find like, more ways to get around that.

Rich: Yeah, that’s got a lot of things to that question, because I don’t find it a problem finishing the actual games. It’s the back end stuff in terms of, like, fulfillment and printing and all these layouts. And I said to someone the other day, like, in some ways it’s lovely to hire freelancers and they do an amazing job.

But you do very much stick to their kind of time schedule in some ways. That can drift because of life and things that happen, you know, like life events and things. Whereas some companies obviously have an internal staff. You have a person doing marketing, a person doing layout, some people do the art for their own games, which is amazing.

So, that’s one thing you have to contend with, but the other thing is the fact that most projects now that crowdfund are finished at launch. Which is something that’s changed massively in that culture. So, when I first did Inspirals [00:44:00] Obviously, all the projects they were releasing at the time were kind of like, part finished.

They were kind of like, we need to pay for art, we need to pay for like, a deck of cars, we need to pay for bringing this person on board to finish it off. And I was like, that was very much kind of the philosophy behind crowdfunding. Now it’s like a, it’s more like a pre order store now. It’s like, we’re going to launch the second edition of this game, it’s already done, all are finished, like, we’re just adding a new cover or something.

Or after a print run, which is far enough, fair enough. So now I’ve changed my, I’m trying to change my philosophy to like I need to get it 95 percent finished before I crowdfund. Because, I understand it, because it’s like, there’s an element of risk to crowdfunding nowadays. Whereas a lot of projects aren’t fulfilled they’re left in the, in the, in the kind of void of being unfinished.

So people aren’t willing to take a chance so much anymore. So in order to mitigate that, you kind of have to get most of the project finished, I think, and demonstrate that you, you know what you’re doing.

Courtney: Yeah, that’s an interesting shift that, [00:45:00] because I hadn’t realized was really happening, but that makes it just like so much riskier for the creator and also like, That means you’re having to put more money out on the line because you do have to go ahead and pay for that art, that layout, editing, et cetera.

Rich: Yeah. Ahead of time. So it’s kind of, I think it’s slightly concerning time for crowdfunding, especially for small indie designers or publishers, because again, It seemed to be an expectation of a finished product, whereas most people crowdfund to get the finished product, surely. Whereas big companies, and you know, I’ve got to know, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do it.

But people like Brandon Sanderson, who’s like a multi millionaire, launches like a hardcover version of his book. He doesn’t need to crowdfund. A novel. Even, it needs to be a finished book, isn’t it? It’s a finished product. So it’s like, so it’s just raking in money, but like, you know, I don’t want to sound [00:46:00] jealous or anything, but it’s just, I just, I’m worried about small indies being crowdfunding out of crowdfunding.

Courtney: No, a hundred percent. It’s never made sense to me when big companies or creators are like, Oh yeah, I’ve got a Kickstarter. And it’s like, but why?

Rich: Like, you

Courtney: don’t actually need it.

Rich: You don’t need it.

Courtney: And I could definitely see how someone like Bren Sanderson’s and all of the book campaigns get people into that expectation of like, well, that’s what it means is means to do crowdfund.

Rich: That’s a little bit of the worry about it. Mm-Hmm. , a lot of people have said like, you know, crowdfunding shouldn’t be a pre-order store. And I do believe that in some ways. But on the other hand. It’s going to be very difficult to survive in the industry, especially if you work full time, unless you have like a very, very polished product.

Courtney: Interesting.

Rich: It’s just the whole world’s shifting this way. The whole world’s shifting into capitalism. So it was like, so crowdfunding has gone the same way.

Courtney: Yay![00:47:00]

Rich: We’re going to try and keep making games that we’re passionate about, you know, that do tap into that nostalgia that I grew up with, and that the games, the sort of games I wanted, I wanted to play when I was a kid. So nothing’s going to change there, but just we have to, might have to shift our kind of philosophy in terms of crowdfunding a little bit, because we rely on it so much.

Courtney: Mm hmm. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, are you like reserving some of the funds from projects to be able to pay for the next projects to start? Like, how are you balancing that?

Rich: That’s basically it. Yeah. So basically whatever extra we’ve got, because every crowdfund we’ve had has made 600 percent more than what we asked for, which is amazing, obviously, but like, but we’ve taken, but that whole, that money’s gone on the next project, basically, and to pay for our salaries in between.

Courtney: Like I

Rich: said, we’re on minimum wage, but like, it’s just, it’s difficult because we’re not making any profit, and we’re not saving anything, but at the same time, we’re building up a [00:48:00] catalogue of games, and that’s the kind of idea behind it. So, yeah, hopefully, this year, I keep saying this year, it’s going to be different, but hopefully 2025, it’s because what happened to be like, To give some insider knowledge in terms of what you should do is you should go with the distributor.

As soon as you get a successful game, you should go with the distributor immediately. And we didn’t do that for two years. So we, we sat on Inspirals for two years without going to like Asmodee or like Spiral Galaxy or Studio 2, anyone like that. We should have done that immediately. We should have gone, this is a successful game.

You know, it’s a lot of people want to play this. A lot of people want to learn sign language. Let’s get this out across the world. The UK, and then over that two years, I kept going to like places like Forbidden Planet, or I kept going to local friendly game stores and seeing other games that I’d like, I’ve been at conventions with on the shelf.

I was like, hang on a minute. How do they go into the shop and they go? Can I have my games? And then, of course they don’t. With a distributor, [00:49:00] like, you wouldn’t, with a novel, would you? You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t decide, like, go into a bookshop and go, Can you put my book on your shelf? No. But, look, these are things I didn’t know about.

I was completely naive. Like, I’m still naive in so many ways. But now I know. I’m going to sign, hopefully, this year with a distributor so that we can get our games across to everyone then. I don’t have to go in person around London. Please

Courtney: put more games in. That is a very exciting development.

Rich: Yeah, but like, it’s a way, way late, way late.

Courtney: Better late than never.

Rich: Yeah, exactly.

Courtney: All right, so I know that we, as we said earlier, you said Argo Zero, but then you said Argo Not. So which one is it?

Rich: It’s Argonaut. It’s meant to be Argonaut. Okay. It’s Argo Zero at the beginning because it’s meant to be like a binary sort of like title, but like, yeah, no, it’s meant to be Argonaut.

So Argo Zero just confuses things.

Courtney: Okay, so Argonaut is currently crowdfunding. Do you have anything else in the works that you can talk about?

Rich: Yep, so, [00:50:00] not here. We’re going to do a small crowdfund for the anthology for CryptoKreeks, which is going to be called Ripples. That’s going to be 10 curses and a few riverbank stops.

They’re kind of like mechanics in the game. It’s a bit like Adventures in Dungeons Dragons. They’ve already been written by, like I said, we’ve already got this 95 percent finished, so they’ve already been written by 10 really, really great writers. We just want to bring an editor on board, Alex, again, and the layout artist, Emily, and then get a couple more art pieces done for that.

So that’ll be February on BakuCat, and then for the summer we’ve got Under Isles, which is the final Isles game in the trilogy, and that will hopefully complete, That sign language kind of system as much as we need it to. And then we’ve got Cryptus Cities coming out in the fall or autumn. So that’s the sequel to Cryptus Creeks which will be in like the metropolis, the urban area, and it’ll have multiple kind of antagonists.

So if you [00:51:00] imagine Brindlewood Bay was kind of quite a quaint kind of little seaside town and then it moved to the between which is like the Victoriana kind of like Monster killing kind of game in an urban setting London. So this is, we’re doing the same thing.

Courtney: I love that you have your whole year planned out.

Rich: Yeah, yeah. Very much so. It took a long time to kind of work it out.

Courtney: I bet.

Rich: I think one of the things that’s changed in me now is that I want to consolidate what we’ve already made. I don’t want to keep doing new things, new thing, new thing. I want to go like, right, how can we kind of like wrap this up? How can we wrap this up?

How can we wrap this up? How can we get more people playing the games we’ve already made, if that makes sense?

Courtney: Yeah, 100%. Amazing. Well, Rich, it has been so good to catch up with you today. In this social media hellscape, where can people find you? My

Rich: website is www. hatchlingsgames. co. uk [00:52:00] and Twitter and BlueSkyHatchlingDM and you can find My wife Cassabray, most social media.

That’s about it. That’s mainly it. We’ve got a really active discord server, Hatchlings Games Discord. That’s about it, yeah.

Courtney: Amazing. All right. Well, at this point, we’re going to go ahead and wrap up the interview portion, but after we do that, I will immediately start recording again, and we’re going to do a little quick question blitz for patrons.

So if you are interested in hearing a little bit more about Rich on, you know, some sillier questions, then you should go to patreon. com slash rollplaygrow and see what happens next. All right. Thank you again so much, Rich. This has been super fun. Thank you. You just finished another episode of Role Play Grow.

To check out the show notes and transcript from today’s episode, you can go to lightheart adventures.com/rpg. To keep up with every episode, please subscribe on your [00:53:00] podcast Player of Joys, and if you’re enjoying the show, I would absolutely love if you would leave me a review and share this episode with your friends.

Your review might even get featured on an upcoming episode. To contact us, you can email roll. Play grow@gmail.com. There are a lot of social media sites out there right now, so look for role Play Grow for the show account, and look for either Ketra or Ketra RPG for my accounts. Lastly, I want to give a special shout out to our editor, Sam Atkinson.

Your hope is always appreciated. Sam, thank y’all so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Role Play Grow.