A Unique Strategy for Creating and Crowdfunding Games: 6 Questions for Best With 1

Дата публикации: 02-07-2026 16:07:54

Yesterday we announced Wingspan Pocket, a new standalone 1-5 player game that distills the Wingspan experience down to a lighter, shorter, streamlined experience that has each player activate a single row of cards on each of their turns (even on the same turn you play a bird). The cards are all double sided: a food […]

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Yesterday we announced Wingspan Pocket, a new standalone 1-5 player game that distills the Wingspan experience down to a lighter, shorter, streamlined experience that has each player activate a single row of cards on each of their turns (even on the same turn you play a bird). The cards are all double sided: a food side and a bird side. Bird powers are primarily indicated by icons instead of text, and they include a new type of power, ongoing (green) benefits.

On Monday I will have an article about the in-depth pre-production copy testing process of Wingspan Pocket, but I haven’t posted the corresponding design diary entry yet, so today I have an interview about a completely different game from another publisher!

Gabe Barrett runs Best With 1 Games, and over the last few years I’ve seen him adapt a really interesting strategy for creating and launching games. With their latest game, Stonefall, in its final days on Gamefound, Gabe was kind to take some time to answer questions about his methods.

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1. As far as I can tell, you’ve run solo-coop game campaigns once a month every month for several years now. Is that correct? How many games are we talking, and what are the biggest hits so far in terms of the campaign and retail?

That’s correct. Since January of 2024, I’ve run a solo game campaign every single month on Gamefound. Through those campaigns, I’ve shipped around 60,000 games so far with another 8,000 set to go out in the next few weeks.

The biggest hits have been Rome: Fate of an Empire, Radiance, and Small Time Heroes. 

2. Do you manufacture and ship each game independently, or do you have any overlapping production runs and fulfillment (i.e., so multi-campaign backers can pay shipping once for multiple products)?

Each game is sent to the factory independently, but there have been a few instances where the queue line got backed up to the point that several games were printed and shipped at the same time. However, I use a fulfillment company based in China that ships worldwide and charges by the gram, so there are no cost-savings in bundling. 

Games ship as soon as they’re completed, and there’s no crossover between campaigns from an admin level – every campaign is a separate spreadsheet.

3. How have you found the project management puzzle for juggling so many projects? Any key tips or tools that you’ve found work well? Is there something specific about solo games that enables you to have so many projects in the works?

I wish there was some secret or magical piece of software that I could share, but I’ve found that a basic checklist is the best tool overall. I’ve used Trello and other project management apps, but nothing works as well as a good, old fashioned checklist with every aspect of a game’s production broken into line items.

Then, you just work the list and check things off as they’re completed.

The “magic” comes from realizing the checklist needs improvement over and over and over again until you finally get something that works best. And when you run a campaign every single month, you get a lot of opportunities to make revisions.

Nothing about publishing solo games specifically makes things easier, but standardizing as much as possible helps a great deal. I only offer a couple different box sizes which makes designing, publishing, manufacturing, and shipping everything much simpler as I’ve removed all but a few variables. It also allows me to order certain things in bulk and get a better price – shipping boxes and foam, for example.

4. Are you happy with the current pursuit of 1 game per month, or have you considered spacing out campaigns (e.g., every 2-3 months)? I’m curious about what you view is the advantage of 1 game per month. 12 new games a year seems like a lot for you and for customers–what drives that quantity versus any other quantity of games per month/year? Is that based on what backers have told you they want, sheer momentum, company finances, etc?

“Solo Game of the Month” has a nice ring to it. “Solo game of the quarter” or “solo game of the fortnight” just doesn’t sound quite right.

But once the right systems are in place, and you find great people to work with, twelve games a year is really not that hard to get your arms around. We’ll probably end up doing around 20 new games this year in total. Most of those will be Gamefound campaigns, but others will be direct-to-retail.

However, these aren’t expensive games. Most are $25, and a lot of the “extra” games we’re working on in the background are $15. I don’t think it would be possible to do 12 traditional crowdfunding style games that are $100+ and contain boxes upon boxes of minis and content. The customer base would burn out quickly, most people’s monthly budgets can’t handle it, I would probably be speedrunning my time on this earth, and game shelves wouldn’t be able to support it.

But for the price of a couple meals at McDonald’s, you can get a box the size of a VHS case containing a fun game with great art that offers an excellent solo-gaming experience.

And at that price point, people are more likely to give a game a chance when they might not normally vibe with the theme or core mechanisms. Also, since I don’t print very many extras, a game is easy to sell on the second-hand market, if you don’t enjoy it.

Am I happy with the cadence of one a month? Absolutely. 12+ games a year means I can take some chances on games that might not have wide appeal. It means I get more opportunities to find hits. And it means consistent cashflow to grow a sustainable business.

5. Are most backers just picking and choosing a few of your games each year, or is there a significant percentage of people who back every Best With 1 campaign? If so, do you offer a subscription option for them? How has it been to work with Gamefound so consistently?

I have a core group of about 500 customers that buy basically everything, and around 40% of my customers have purchased more than one game, so I get a ton of repeat buyers. People often discover the series through a campaign and then purchase a bunch of the previous games.

And that’s by design. I started the company to create a home for solo gamers where everything would be tailored to a one-player experience. The games are all pretty different, but if you like one, you’ll probably like at least ten others.

As far as a subscription, I planned to have one before diving into things in 2024, but I got talked out of it by someone who was doing one. It’s not that they’re bad; they just don’t integrate very well with crowdfunding platforms, and they create a bunch of extra work and overhead. And since simplicity is one of the main pillars of my company, I opted not to go the subscription route.

However, I’m finding other ways to reward repeat customers. For example, a couple months ago, I sent a free game to all 500 of the core customers mentioned above.

And working with Gamefound has been great. I’ve had an awesome account manager named Luke who has been extremely helpful and pretty pivotal to my company’s success.

6. Last, I was excited to see a game (Stonefall) from Peter and Michael of the One Stop Co-op Shop as the latest Best With 1 campaign. For people who haven’t dived into the world of solo games, are there a few Best With 1 games you recommend they start with?

Yeah, Stonefall is a project I’ve been excited about for a while, and I’m really pleased with how it’s all come together!

As far as recommendations, if you like meaty Euro games, check out Rome: Fate of an Empire. If you like card-crafting and/or rogue-lites, check out Mech Bunny. If you like Slay the Spire and/or deckbuilding games, check out Small Time Heroes. If you like boss battlers, check out Storybook Saga and Witch Hunter.

But in general, if you’re a solo gamer, my catalogue probably has something you’ll enjoy.

And if anyone wants to sign up to be notified when new solo games launch, they can join the newsletter here: https://bestwith1.com/month/

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Big thanks to Gabe for answering these questions! I’m curious to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments. If you want to check out other creator interviews and guest posts, here’s a list dating back to 2012!

If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.

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