Australian designer Jay Bendixen used Launch Lab to bring his award-winning game, Stoked, into the world. 

Seize and surf the best waves at the beach in the 2-6 player family card game Stoked. Surfers need to get respect from their fans, and paddle fast enough to avoid jellyfish stings, outsmart opponents, and catch waves - but paddling too fast could mean collisions and a total wipeout. 

Using Launch Lab, Jay was able to whip together a last-minute copy of his game for the 2022 Rising Stars competition. Run by Tabletop Game Design Australia and supported by Launch Tabletop, the competition seeks original and notable games from Australian designers. 

Since then, Jay has produced three copies of Stoked through Launch Lab, each comprising two decks of poker cards, punchboard tokens, and a rulebook in a pocket-sized rectangular box. He put these to good use in playtests and demonstrations at PAX Australia in 2023.

Jay's design went on to sweep first place in Rising Stars 2022.

You can follow Jay and his game design at 

TestimonialBlock

Jay Bendixen, designer of Stoked

Stoked

Launch Lab Case Study | Stoked by Jay Bendixen

Designer Jay Bendixen leveraged print-on-demand to create his award-winning game Stoked's card game with Launch Lab.

For Melbourne-based game designers Nat Delaney-John and Cam Jansson, the pandemic lockdowns brought a new perspective to game night. At their first in-person games night in a long time, they watched delightedly as their friends used gestures and sounds to help convey a verbal clue in a word-guessing game. Reflecting on how much physicality matters when playing certain kinds of tabletop games, Nat and Cam began to wonder what a charades-style guessing game would look like if players were only able to use sound: no words, no hand gestures.

And so, That Sound Game was born. Created and playtested during another lockdown, That Sound Game is a fast-paced, noisy, interactive party game that is easy to learn and can be enjoyed by players of all ages. In teams, players must guess as many answers on the category cards as they can in one minute, using any combination of sounds and movements to convey the clue to their teammates - as long as a player can make those movements with their hands behind their back.

Nat and Cam used Launch Lab to create publicity copies of That Sound Game, along with a copy for entry into Rising Stars 2022, a game design competition run by Tabletop Game Design Australia and supported by Launch Tabletop.That Sound Game is now available to buy at 

That Sound Game

Launch Lab Case Study | That Sound Game

Nat and Cam from That Sound Game utilised print-on-demand with Launch Lab to produce sample board games and enter the Rising Stars 2022 competition.

Launch Lab helped Chris Solis bring three of his games to life.

 is an asymmetric sci-fi base defence game. In order to run demos at Gen Con and other gaming events, Chris produced four 

 kits through Launch Lab. He used these prototypes to beta playtest the game with fresh audiences, and photographed them to show backers the finished components they could expect to see in the game. 

 successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2022.

 A big problem designers face with games in development is that it's tough to get people excited about a finished product they can't see. Launch Lab enabled Chris to produce components for a demo copy of 

, which the game designer used to showcase the design on panels and in industry meetings. The importance of physical copies of games during development can't be overstated: seeing is believing, and people who believe in your product will back it. 

These two expansions for the lightning-fast pocket-sized duelling game feature characters from 

. Chris used Launch Lab to whip up a marketing blitz with a large number of media kits containing most of the content of the finished game, and sent these to influencers and content creators ahead of the February 2023 Kickstarter. These media kits included a thank you card, rules cards, and action item cards, built around the structure of a "for your consideration" campaign. This kit was also used for photography, to create in-house social media content ahead of the Kickstarter, and as a demo play copy during the campaign's launch livestreams. 

Chris Solis

Pocket Paragons Round 2

Launch Lab Case Study | Pocket Paragons by Solis Design Studio

Chris Solis uses Launch Lab for small-batch board game printing to create media kits for Pocket Paragons Round 2 in preparation for Kickstarter.

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