The Bugg Report is always on the lookout for a unique story about Toys and Games. We were able to track down Cam and Nat, who are the inventors and developers of That Sound Game!
The games category is very competitive and to be successful in this space you need a seriously good concept and a marketing campaign to fit. This new game was conceived during the lockdown periods of the global Pandemic by Cam and Nat and we asked them a little bit about themselves and how this journey has evolved.
So, Cam and Nat, obviously this game is something very different from the norm for you both. Can we start by you telling us a little about your backgrounds?
Cam: Our backgrounds are very different from anything board game related. I’m from South Africa, where I studied Architecture. I moved to Australia 11 years ago and I currently work as a Construction Project Manager in Melbourne.
Nat’s background is originally in insurance and finance. While doing that she started a Taxidermy business, turning it into the most well-known Taxidermy brand in Australia – which she owned and ran for 10 years.
Once you had decided to develop a game, did you study the games category in the market to determine if there was a commercial opportunity?
Nat: We didn’t actively decide to develop a game. Rather, one night during the Melbourne COVID lockdowns we were playing Articulate and once the game had finished I picked up a card and said to a friend “Do this card but as a sound”, upon realising this was quite fun I added “This time you can’t use your hands”.
We played several rounds of this and it was utterly hilarious and stupid. The next morning I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I started racking my brain for a game like it. We have Pictionary (picture based), Taboo and Articulate (word based), Charades (action based) but where are the sound games?. I started to do extensive research on the internet for any party games like it and when nothing appeared, I realised there was a gap in the market and I had a million dollar idea.
I worked on the game for 3 months secretly (not easy to do when you are living in a 1 bedroom apartment together during Covid) and then when I felt I had the bones of it together, I pitched it to Cam to see if she would join as my business partner. She of course said yes as we had nothing else to do in the lockdowns haha, and the rest is history!
What was your thought process to hit on a party game. Was it gut-feel or did you undertake some research?
Cam: As Nat said, the plan was never to make a board game, let alone a party game. But once Nat came up with the initial idea, it made the most sense to turn it into a party game – because that’s the kind of games we both love playing. It’s special when groups of friends or family can get together, connect with one another, yell, let loose and most importantly laugh.
I’m also a massive kid at heart and I always feel like adults forget how to play, but board games are that rare space where society gives adults permission to be playful, and that’s magic.
Who came up with the various categories that define the game? Was there a great deal of consideration as to what you felt consumers would like or was there deep research?
Nat: When I brought Cam into the game we had about 150 sounds and my gut told me that categories would help with gameplay. Cam then got to work splitting these out and finding the commonalities between words. Some categories like Nature, Object and Action were more obvious while Incident and The P’s (people, places and personas) took some creative thinking to come up with.
We also realised we needed to add a scoring system so that we could add in more complex words, otherwise you simply run out of sounds. That Sound Game is not a simple game of mimicry, it’s a game of outside the box thinking, that gets you on your feet and moving.
An example of cards and scoring are:
- 1 point — Sneezing
- 1 sound and movement required
- 2 points — Tiger Fish
- 2 sounds required and multiple movements
- 3 points —Balloon Deflating
- A range of complex sounds and movements that create a scene
The box design is always important who developed this concept?
Cam: Nat and I knew that we wanted a soundwave on the box and had recorded ourselves saying the name of the game and gave the soundwave file to our Graphic Designer. That is basically where our input ends as originally we told him that we wanted a monochrome box with the soundwave on it, but he hated the idea and asked us to trust him.
When he presented the design back to us it was the white box with colour cards and he had simplified our sound wave. We absolutely loved it. When you see it on the shelf next to other games it really stands out for its minimalism and simplicity – and you know exactly what the game is. It really goes to show that you need a good team of people around you.
The game looks compact and simple, was this one of your intentions?
Nat: Yes it eventually became part of the concept to keep the design simple. We wanted the game design to take a back seat to the chaos of the game play. Both could not be loud – excuse the pun.
Did you take on the development and manufacturing component yourself, or did you reach out to a professional in this field?
Cam: We developed the initial design of all the components ourselves, in conjunction with our graphic designer. Once we partnered with our manufacturer in China, Herotime, they helped us refine the components. For example the number of cards in the box to maximise the use of paper and keep costs down.
Once we launched to market we also learnt a lot from our audience. They pointed out that colour-blind people would struggle to see the colours on the dice so our next version of the game included letters on the dice that corresponded with the categories. Another thing we found out after the launch is that people were forgetting to shuffle the category cards and as a result of the way we were printing our card files, all the 3 point cards were at the top of the decks. This would put people off as they would think ‘Well this is no fun, it’s too hard!’ Once we realised what was happening we changed the decks to print in alphabetical order so that if people continued to forget to shuffle they would at least get a good spread of varying points on cards.
How did you fund your project? And did you write a business plan?
Nat: Initially we were told by everyone in the board game forums that we needed to do a kickstarter and get funded in order to break into the industry. But at PAX 2022 we were lucky enough to win a table in the Tabletop Collaboratory space. It provided us with the opportunity to have members of the general public play our game and we noticed very quickly that the people who like party games are not heavy gamers, they don’t know what a kickstarter is and wanted to buy our game then and there.
We went home and I kept running the numbers on what we would need to spend on marketing to get a mailing list together for a kickstarter campaign vs what it would cost to just go straight to printing and marketing the actual game. I just couldn’t get the numbers to stack up to support a kickstarter so we took the ultimate leap of faith and went straight to print. This was the most critical turning point in our journey and the game’s success.
The marketing component of a new product is always a dilemma and can be very expensive. From our research it appears that your product launched on Tik Tok? How did this happen?
Cam: Nat always had the vision that we’re living in a very fortuitous time where we’ve just developed a sound-based game and the largest social platform in the world right now is a sound-based platform (TikTok). We did our research and invested in a few low-cost influencers in the board game space.
I still remember that we were house-sitting a friend’s place in March 2023 when the sales started coming in. Up until that point we had sold 1 game every 3 days, mostly to family and friends, but that Sunday morning we sold out in the USA in 4 hours and in that week we sold out worldwide. Luckily, we turned on pre-orders and it allowed the momentum to keep going.
Your strategy must have been on the money as we understand that you have already sold more than 100,000 games. Was this a big surprise or were you confident it would take off?
Nat: To date we’ve sold over 150,000 games. Cam and I are both people who put our all into something so we both worked at this like it was going to be a million-dollar company. But in a practical sense I knew that we needed to set it up for success from day 1. We placed stock in distribution centres in the USA, UK, Australia and China – this meant that no matter where you were in the world, if you saw That Sound Game on social media you could order our game.
I wouldn’t say we were overly confident; I would say we believed in ourselves and made sure we were ready to scale quickly.
We understand your partner here in Australia is Meeple, who are you working with Internationally?
Cam: Internationally we are working with various distributors: Asmodee (USA, Canada, South America, South Africa, UAE), Big Potato (UK), CMON (Asia & Middle East, except UAE) and Thinklibrary (Philippines)
I see you have already won a couple of awards. How does that make you feel?
Nat: Winning Game of the Year in March 2024 was a big surprise but it felt like all our hard work had paid off.
We’re in Los Angeles in September 2024 to attend the global Women in Toys & Entertainment Awards. Cam is a finalist for Small Business Owner of the Year and I’m a finalist in the Inventor of the Year category. We’re also sitting at a table with our distributor Asmodee and the team from Exploding Kittens – so we’re continuously pinching ourselves at the success of this game and the doors it’s opened.
What do you believe the potential of the Sound Game might be in terms of numbers?
Cam: Our goal is to bring as much laughter to as many people as possible. The amount of reviews we get where people tell us this has brought their family together, they finally found something their teenagers want to play, they’ve never laughed so much, or this is their new favourite game, brings us so much joy. So numbers aside, the ultimate goal is to become an evergreen and be a staple on every board game shelf, like Pictionary or Monopoly.
Are you working on additions to the game such as new categories etc?
Nat: No new categories but we’ve been working hard to expand our range of products. We now have the Main Game, Family Version for mass market, 5 expansion packs and 5 translated versions of the Main Game (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and German).
We currently have in progress a travel sized version and are nearly finished with our first expansion pack that includes braille on the cards. Our goal is for this to not be a feature that you have to seek out and purchase from a specialist store but will be a standard feature that is on every expansion pack no matter where you buy it from: our website, Amazon, hobby stores etc.
In an ideal world, we are hoping this influences the industry in a positive manner and gets some attention from the likes of Vision Australia, the American Foundation for the Blind or a government body that will allow us to reach our ultimate goal of including Braille into all our products, including the Main Game. As a company we want to be as inclusive as we can be.
Will you look to develop new games into the future?
Cam: Time will tell but for now we are trying our best to make this game as successful as it possibly can be. We also try to share our knowledge with as many people as we can in the Australian board game industry, sharing what we’ve learnt about breaking into the international scene.
Australian board gamers have so many great ideas to offer the world.
We have enjoyed our time with you both today. It’s always good to see a plan come to fruition. We hope the game continues to grow for you and perhaps there will be more great products to follow.
This article originally appeared in Edition 48 of The Bugg Report Magazine
