The King’s Pardon – A Contest Experience

PlayGames2Learn.com - #PiratePursuitTBG - Contest experience

We recently entered “Pirate Pursuit – The King’s Pardon” into The Game Crafter’s Small Box Challenge contest sponsored by Furry Games. The King’s Pardon is the second of three Pirate Pursuit games we plan to release: the first being “Pirate Pursuit – The Spanish Treasure Fleet” and the third yet unnamed and planned for late 2022.

PlayGames2Learn.com - #PiratePursuitTBG - Card resuse
Read more in the recent post: Two Pirate Pursuit Games?

After submitting The King’s Pardon to the Small Box Challenge contest, community voting began. There were over 150 entries and many interesting games. In fact, all of them highlighted very creative ideas and, even though it took two days, we couldn’t stop until we had reviewed them all!

To move on to the contest semi-finals, participants needed sufficient votes from other game designers and the TGC community at large (eg: previous purchasers of TGC-made games) in order to rank in the top 20. This required both a well-presented game with broad appeal and also success in marketing during the voting period – eg: converting a call to vote into actual votes. You can see the results at https://www.thegamecrafter.com/contests/small-box-challenge.

Unfortunately for us, we ended up just 10 votes away from the top 20! BUT we did get very nice comments:

  • I think your artwork is really fun and I love the simplicity of the game.
  • The lore and history you’ve built in to this game is great, and definitely the first thing that stands out to me.
  • I’m starting to get into maritime tabletop games and I think we need to see more of them about. The art is also top notch.
  • “Pirate Pursuit – The King’s Pardon” looks amazing. The shop page is appealing and all the historical content is intriguing. I love pirate settings and certainly think this game deserves my vote! Well done!
  • Love the look and theme of the game, especially the inky artwork on the pirates themselves. I do wonder though if the divider is necessary for the packaging. Guess I’ll have to pick up a copy and see!
  • The shop page is very well presented with a clear description and images of the various cards. I really like the theme and the artwork is good and compliments the theme well. The rulebook is concise and well thought out. It is a game I would be interested in playing with my family and certainly would be playable in ten minutes.
  • Fantastic artwork and design. An educational trivia game is especially challenging in a small box format where the questions will have a limited use.
  • “Learn real pirate lore while you play!” and “Knowledge is wealth! Push-yer-luck to collect the most!” are great ways to take a popular theme of pirates and actually make every single future pirate thing more enjoyable.
  • Looks like fun! My nephew would love this game and would probably crush me with his superior knowledge of all things pirate.
  • The push your luck element keeps them going to try and learn more, and learning the answer makes sure that it’s fun and not just frustrating. A bit of memory training plus things that they can learn from is a double win. And having all of the cards makes it definitely something that can be played many times. Looks like a great entry and super accessible too!
  • The King’s Pardon is gorgeously presented, especially the packaging. Very professional.

It may be cliché to say, but this is what we were hoping for. It truly warms the heart for our next effort!

This contest motivated us to hurry up and deliver “Pirate Pursuit – The King’s Pardon”, and it strengthened our resolve to complete the trilogy. And of course, we got to experience the contest process along with this lovely positive feedback.

It was a fun experience and we learned a lot. #MakeLearningFun 🙂


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