Today we are going to be sharing a look at a Kickstarter we are excited to see starting next week! A good accessory really makes a game go from good to wow when it hits your table. Well what if you could customize your experience with a high-quality personalized playmat? A new company wants to help you make that happen.
Overpowered Game Mats is bringing a Kickstarter March 26th hoping to get high quality playmats into the hands of all gamers. I had the chance to sit down with them to ask a few questions and really get to know them better. Here’s what they had to say:
Tell us a little about yourself and your new business:
Thanks for having me for this written Q&A! It’s always a bit tough to talk about yourself, but what is easy to talk about is how much I love tabletop gaming. There are few entertainment mediums that bring people as close together as tabletop gaming.
We are all so glued to our electronic devices these days that it is refreshing to see such a huge resurgence in board and card games. I’m thrilled to create a completely new business that will enhance an already amazing experience for family and friends around their game table.
What inspired you to start Overpowered?
For years, I wanted to buy a board game table, but I had a perfectly good dining table already and couldn’t justify the price or extra space needed for a board game table.
So after searching and searching…and searching, I came to the realization that nobody made a game mat that fit my dining table right, so I settled with plan C, which was to buy two inexpensive 36” x 36” mats.
They were thin, came in a standard kraft tube with tape all over it, and the edges weren’t stitched, not to mention they still didn’t fit my table perfectly. These worked alright until I finished my attic upstairs and received a large circle table to help furnish our new “game room.”
Well, nobody makes a circle mat to the best of my knowledge, so I found myself right back where I was when looking for a mat for my rectangular table.
I’ve always been an entrepreneur, and so I thought to myself it’s time for someone to make mats that fit any and all tables.
And so OverPowered was born!
What are your goals and hopes with the new business?
Well our goal from day one was to put the end user first. That customer after all was me and my wife, so our goals were easy to create! We wanted to make a premium mat that could be any shape, any size, and any image.
We wanted the business to be fast and efficient. We wanted it to be an American-made product, and we wanted a world-class website that was easy and intuitive to use, allowing people to create their own mats effortlessly online.
My hope is that we can use the success of this new and innovative fully customizable game mat product as a catalyst to dive into other tabletop-related endeavors.
What do you think will set you apart in the industry?
Our customization options are a game changer. We have the ability to cut a mat to be any shape, so ovals, circles, hexagons and heck even dragon shapes are possible. And yes, we have cut a dragon out of a mat!
In addition to that, we can do almost any size. This means we can make even the longest of dining tables (think Michael Keaton’s scene from Batman long!).
And the icing on the cake is we can do any image. Not only did we find five of the best artists in the world to create over 60 pieces of stunning and original artwork for OverPowered that are suitable for even the largest prints, but we also have an upload your own image feature, patterned backgrounds, and an infinite amount of solid color options.
What was the first game you remember playing as a kid?
Oh boy. I have no idea honestly. I’m sure we played the standard lot from Wal-Mart such as Uno, Sorry!, Candyland etc growing up, but it wasn’t until college that I really got into tabletop gaming.
What is your ideal game night? Games, group size, snacks, etc:
I won’t lie, I’m a bit of a homebody, so I shy away from meetups in public areas more often than not. This means that for me the perfect game night is at home with a close group of friends.
While some of my best gaming memories ever are with larger gaming groups, the sweet spot for most games is 2-4 players, so I prefer that.
As for food, you can’t go wrong with any sort of unhealthy, greasy food such as pizza and wings! (Although it’s best to keep the food and games separated when dealing with greasy foods)
What game do you think will really shine with the addition of a good playmat?
Anything and everything. Seriously. If you haven’t played on a nice, thick playmat with stitched edges, you’re really missing out! It makes picking up cards so much easier! So CCGs and LCGs are great fits.
A mat also acts as table protection, so it’s great for dice games such as King of Tokyo, which actually scuffed my wood table from the days when I didn’t use a mat (lesson learned).
And then it can also really improve thematic games such as Star Wars X-Wing when you have a nice space image on the mat, as an example.
So you’ve got a Kickstarter coming up soon- What are the details?
Yes, we are extremely excited to bring this product to market. Our current launch date is March 26, 2019. We will offer our best price on Kickstarter delivering some amazing exclusives. And possibly the best part is that it guarantees backers they will receive their product before anyone else.
Any extra information you’d love to share?
We are thrilled to finally release our custom game mats. I strongly believe that the nearly 12 months of research and development into this product has paid off, and gamers such as ourselves are going to be in for a real treat. The mats are extremely high quality and offer the most customization options ever. We have intentionally placed ourselves in a position to begin fulfillment very quickly compared with most Kickstarter campaigns, and I know that will be a breath of fresh air to many.
Promotional consideration provided through the form of review materials.
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