Josh Kemper is a copywriter and project manager based in Chicago. In his spare time he's usually trying a new restaurant, going on a long walk with his dog, or begging his friends to play the pile of strategy board games in his closet.
message meIt’s Kind of a Fun Story (IKOAFS) is a competitive story-telling card game I developed with two friends beginning in 2018. The game launched in 2021 after a successful round of Kickstarter fundraising that exceeded $18,000.
The game has gone on to be featured at Target, Uncommon Goods, Books-A-Million, and tradeshows across the country.
I was brought on in the early stages of development to help the IKOAFS team cement the game's theme, brand voice, game mechanics, and target audience. I wrote and edited 320 finalized card prompts to create the substance of the game. Following this blueprint I solo-developed a sister product, It’s Kind of a Fun Story: Family Edition, that was successfully funded on Kickstarter and releases in 2024.
We built a prototype to test the fundamental gameplay. I ran virtual and in-person user interviews with playtests to garner feedback, totaling ~250 playtests over the course of 6 months. We consolidated and reviewed this feedback to inform game mechanic iterations. After solidifying the game, I wrote the official game rules that would make it into the final product.
We developed an integrated marketing campaign that focused on influencer social content and community-building events across the U.S. I wrote video scripts, paid & organic media, sales sheets, trade publication articles (Game Trade Magazine), and all content for e-commerce pages including Amazon.com and Target.com.
At GenCon 2023 in Indianapolis, we produced a live playthrough of IKOAFS onstage for convention attendees and streamed it on GenCon's Twitch channel to the players' collective 3.5 million followers. We've also created booth spaces for New York Toy Fair, C2E2, GAMA, DragCon, and more.
These strategic initiatives strengthened our business case to present to distributors and national retailers which culminated in an exclusive release to Target stores nationwide in 2023. Following this exclusive release period, we've since landed on shelves at Go! Calendar Group, Attic Salt, and Books-A-Million.
