Going Digital - Part 1
We built our own free to play, browser based (so nothing to download) digital implementation for our next game Sigil: https://sigilbattle.com/
I am extremely proud of the program. A lot had to go right to make it a reality. Some incredibly talented people put a lot of hard work into making it what it is – and we have even more functionality like automatic matchmaking coming down the pipeline.
[If you are looking for a match, the best place to find other players is through our discord]
And, to be candid – we punched massively above our weight with it.
While most board games have some form of digital implementation, they are usually component ports into environments like Tabletop Simulator, Board Game Arena, or Tabletopia.
You don’t typically see analogue games with their own platforms until they sell hundreds of thousands (or more) copies – the Wingspans, Spirit Islands, and Gloomhavens of the world.
So, let’s talk about our thinking around the digital implementation, what we’re working on, and the circumstances that allowed us to pull it off.
Not All Ports are Equal
A big part of an analogue game is the tactile experience. Not all games are created equal when it comes to how attractive and enjoyable a digital port would be.
For instance, I think Nut Hunt loses a good amount when translated digitally. Our TTS and Tabletopia mods are still a lot of fun, but a big part of the game is the social fun created around the fox, and the tactile experience of scatting squirrels.
A game like Gloomhaven ported well digitally, because although it loses the table presence, and a bit of that classic Talisman-esque dungeon crawl experience, it more than makes up for it by taking care of the rules enforcement and bookkeeping.
Two player dueling games (like Chess or Magic: the Gathering) make some of the best digital ports.
Strategic depth and tactical decision making aren’t sacrificed in digital implementations, so games that skew towards those player preferences (and psychographics) should retain a lot of their appeal digitally.
Sigil gamer preference profile
As a two player abstract strategy dueling game, Sigil skews heavily towards player psychographics that value strategic depth, and player conflict. In Magic: the Gathering terms – they are the Spikes.
Because of our target audience, we expect competitive focused gamers to be a driver of interest in Sigil Online.
One of the next features we’ll be rolling out is automatic matchmaking along with a ranked ladder.
Challenges of Automatic Matchmaking
Right now, Sigil Online supports a simple single player mode (which is mostly there for getting used to the interface), and a private match system.
Our next big implementation will be the roll out of automatic matchmaking.
From a technical standpoint we have the functionality mostly in place (the back end is built, and we are improving some UX).
The issue is queue times.
My gut is that queue times > 3 minutes will be a turn-off for a lot of would-be fans, and obviously even shorter queue times are ideal.
In order to ensure a high enough density of players on the platform, we’ll initially be opening automatic matchmaking and our ranked play ladder for limited periods.
That is, we might open ladder matches from 6-10 EST/EDT on Thursdays (this is our current best guess based on alpha tester traffic). As our player base grows, we’ll expand ladder matches to additional time slots.
We spent a lot of time thinking through the best way to ameliorate wait times for pairings.
A lot of larger gaming companies follow one or both of two approaches:
They run bots which match once a player has been in queue for a certain period
They pair the launch with a large marketing push
Bots aren’t really our cup of tea. It takes time and capital to deploy real feeling bots, and we’d much prefer our players get to play other players.
In terms of marketing – we’re an indie board game publisher - so, while we do have a marketing budget, our reach won’t be large enough to ensure a day one crowd in the ~4 thousand range that I’d estimate we’d need for consistent short queue times across geographies (here is my math).
What we do have is an incredible (and growing) community.
And, over a smaller time window, it doesn’t take a ton of players to ensure reasonable queue times.
And, there’s something exciting about Thursday Night Sigil. I think it will be a great way to bring our community together around an event.
As our numbers grow, and we can ensure short queue times across longer periods, we’ll expand when automatic matchmaking is open.
A Potential Powerful Marketing Tool
A pillar of our marketing strategy for Sigil is to leverage the digital version to build a crowd for the analogue game launch – which we expect to Kickstart in ~March 2023.
Once we launch automatic matchmaking / ranked play, we’ll be making a pretty concerted push to get people to check out the platform.
This will include a modest sized twitch stream campaign, as well as some content on TikTok and our social media.
Mtg streamers like Reid Duke are a great example of the kind of audience we are targeting. Who would you like to see stream Sigil?
Leaning on the digital platform as our primary marketing avenue is a real risk. It’s a relatively untested approach in the board game space. But, I think it’s the best way to get Sigil in front of as many people as we can.
I have a huge amount of confidence in Sigil as a game.
I believe there is a real audience of gamers who will fall in love with the digital implementation and will want an analogue version of what might be their favorite game.
It’s now my responsibility to get it out there. And, to make it shine.
Why don’t more games have their own digital implementation?
The short answer is cost. The longer answer is cost and expertise.
Uploading game assets to something like Tabletop Simulator is pretty straight forward. Coding up a digital version of a game on your own platform can easily cost six-figures. Even a mechanically straight forward game like Sigil should cost tens of thousands of dollars (if not more).
We are extremely fortunate with our partners on the project - Andreas Voellmer and Matt Stow -who made Sigil Online possible.
Andy designed Sigil and happens to be an all-star developer at Google. Before we had acquired the rights to the game, he’d substantially developed the back end of a digital version (that is all the non-user facing programming).
Andy continued to put hundreds of hours into developing the platform and managed the overall technical process (which is way over my head).
Matt Stow is managing the front end of Sigil Online, including all the animations, user interface, tutorial, and more. Under normal circumstances I’m doubtful that we could afford his expertise – but he is a friend of the company, already knew us through the Nut Hunt campaign and this Blog, and wanted to be a part of our project at a rate that we could make work.
I am massively grateful to both Matt and Andy.
Their expertise and hard work allowed us to create a product that is well outside of the reach of most indie board game publishers.
And, I’m hopeful that I can live up to what they’ve created and use Sigil Online as a tool to introduce Sigil to the world.
What board games have your favorite digital implementations?
