It is a new year with new Kickstarter projects to be backed by enthusiasts who want to see people’s passion projects become a success. I am back with another Kickstarter project, and I am excited to share another look once again into the world of creative minds and ideas that need some help flourishing to become reality. Speaking of reality, this is exactly where the next project wants to take you and so let’s check it out.

I have had the pleasure of conversing with George from Rabble Games for the past few months. He has had success with Kickstarter in the past and has had several board games released under the company’s belt. The latest project from Rabble games begins its Kickstarter on February 14, 2024 and is all about reality tv or at least the feel of it.

Lovestruck, a game about finding love on reality tv is a social deduction game that simulates the feeling of a contestant ready to find love. However, the twist is that though some people are out to find love others within the game are not there for the same reason. Some are here to find fame or maybe simply to create drama. Either way your goal is to find a way to win.

Lovestruck Includes:

100 Action Cards

1 Episodes Board

1 Couples Board

12 Contestant Cards & Tokens

11 Intention Cards

1 Episode Marker

1 Viewership Marker

1 Main Character Token

1 Villa Action Token

Setup:

1. Follow Instructions to setup the board and cards accordingly.
2. Players will then choose a contestant to represent them.
3. Shuffle Action cards next.
4. Deal an Intention card to each player face down.
5. The last person who has watched reality television last will be the main character.

Gameplay:

To play lovestruck you play as rounds called episodes. These episodes comprise of two main phases.

The first episode is called a Villa action and during this episode players try to advance their goals such as trying to find love by coupling up with another contestant.

The second episode is called a Date action and during this phase some of the contestants will be chosen to date. This can affect the viewership of the game.

To end the game a season finale will occur. During this episode players will reveal their intention cards to everyone. The winners will be determined based on couples and actions they took. The game can also conclude if viewership reaches over 10 million.

During gameplay communication and roleplay are encouraged. You can share or retain information to help or hinder certain scenarios in the game if you are trying to push for certain outcomes. For roleplaying you can get into your chosen character and come up with where you want to take your date and what you will be doing.

Victory:

To win every contestant reveals his or her intention cards. Based on the results and who you chose to couple with reveals if they chose the correct significant other with having the right intentions.

Interview:

Who are you and what is your background?

My name is George and I’m one of the founders of Rabble – we make hilarious and thoughtfully designed party games! I started Rabble in 2019 with Jake, my former roommate and now business partner. Our first game, rabble (where our company name came from), did surprisingly well so we started creating more games. Flash forward to today and we’ve released 5 games so far with a 6th (Lovestruck), hopefully on the way!

What is your history with Kickstarter?

We actually launched Rabble on Kickstarter a long time ago. At the time, Jake and I had absolutely no experience with game design or Kickstarter so we were really going into the campaign with zero expectations. Unexpectedly, rabble got funded so we went forward to actually create the game! Since then, we’re a lot more experienced with designing and producing games because we’ve had several more print runs of Rabble and we’ve released other games. But given Lovestruck is our most ambitious project to date, we decided to use what we’ve learned over the past few years and bring it back to Kickstarter.

What do you like about Kickstarter?

I love how passionate the Kickstarter community is. Even though the Kickstarter audience is based around the world, everyone is united by the desire to see a project come to life. As a creator, this is super empowering. It not only gives me permission to push the limits of creativity, but it’s also an opportunity to have genuine interactions with some of our fans.

How was this game conceptualized?

For Lovestruck, I had been tinkering around with the idea of creating a social deduction game for a while. I was obsessed with this idea of creating a social deduction game where you don’t necessarily win or lose as a team (e.g. everyone is in it for themselves). However, I felt stuck because I couldn’t think of a theme that felt exciting for me. But then when I shared my idea with our other co-founder Pallavi, she said it sounded like reality TV. That theme instantly clicked for me and a lot of the other parts of the game began falling in place. There was still a ton of work involved and I must have overhauled Lovestruck’s rules dozens of times, but that’s where the idea got started.

Who or what drives the motivation behind your project?

One of my goals for Lovestruck, and really all our games, is to bring more people into the board game space. I love games and I truly believe there’s a lot of people out there who would also love playing board games if they would give it a chance. So, for Lovestruck, I tried to make the theme and the packaging attractive to both gamers and non-gamers. But even though Lovestruck appears super approachable and lightweight, once people start playing they are always surprised by the strategy involved.

Being that this is your second Kickstarter project, what will you do the same and what will you do differently?

For Rabble, one of the deliberate choices we made was to not overpromise and under-deliver. As a result we kept the campaign relatively simple, and we didn’t have that many add-ons + stretch goals. Even though our capabilities have significantly increased since then, my philosophy for Lovestruck is the same. We’re not going to have a ton of crazy stretch goals because I want the game to be fantastic straight out of the box. That being said, we’re a lot more experienced when it comes to designing, producing, and fulfilling games. So, for Lovestruck we’re actually opening the Kickstarter to people across the world which is something we didn’t really do for Rabble. Not only that, but we’re also giving international backers a chance to add on our other games which is one of the only ways to get our other games if you live outside the US.

Any advice for people thinking about starting a Kickstarter campaign?

My biggest advice for Kickstarter is to just know that there is a lot of work that goes into setting up and marketing a Kickstarter campaign before it goes live. Especially for some of the huge Kickstarter campaigns that you’ll see, the creators will often have done significant community building months in advance to achieve that level of funding. So just be prepared to still have to do lots of marketing leading up to your Kickstarter launch and don’t expect just putting something up on Kickstarter to work by itself.

Where can people reach out to you?

Our Lovestruck Kickstarter page is HERE. People can also visit our website at https://www.rabblegame.com/ to sign up for our mailing list or follow us on Instagram:

How did you come across Boss Rush?

I recently exhibited at PAX Unplugged and found you through their media list!

Bonus Question: What is/are your favorite board games?

This is such a hard question since I feel like my favorite board games constantly change! I’m a huge fan of Oink Games’ games and Scout has been a recent favorite that I’ve played a ton!

I would love to thank George and Rabble Games for allowing me to get behind the scenes looks and insight into the game Lovestruck and the Kickstarter world. It is important to support people in their passion projects to see what could emerge from it. I fully believe that when we support each other in our endeavors we all win in some form or fashion.

As always, I want to reach out to anyone who is planning on a future Kickstarter and get their thoughts on the process. I also would like to be part of a Kickstarter project one day and if you can help me with that dream feel free to contact me. Also please check out my growing series of Kickstarter articles.

Please enjoy other entries in my Kickstarter series.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Share your reactions below or join the conversation on the Boss Rush Discord.  

Shane Kelley is a Senior writer for Boss Rush Network, as well as a writer for Another Zelda Podcast. His favorite game is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. You can find him on Twitter to talk video games, Marvel, and axe throwing.

Featured Image: Kickstarter.com