A Secret Faction with a Sold-Out Reveal

Shadow Caste - CMON Global Ltd

 

TLDR

Don’t on outdated platforms to carry major moments. When you need to create buzz, move fast, and make users care — design and strategy aren’t optional. They’re the difference between being seen… and being remembered.

The Mission

CoolMiniOrNot needed to create buzz for Shadow Caste, a mysterious new faction for their game Dark Age, at GenCon — the largest tabletop gaming convention in North America. The objective: surprise fans, spark conversations, and sell out promo materials at the booth. The initial idea? Hide a new page on an outdated site. That wasn’t going to cut through the noise of GenCon.

The Product

A bold, minimalist microsite built for speed and clarity, featuring model galleries, downloadable reference cards, and shareable content — all optimized for the unique environment of GenCon.

The Impact

By launching a sleek, mobile-friendly microsite, we gave fans a way to engage instantly — even with poor reception inside the convention center. The site fueled real-time buzz, supported the sales team, and helped sell out Shadow Caste promos in just two days.

Services

  • UX Strategy

  • Stakeholder Alignment

  • Data & Traffic Analysis

  • Persona Development

  • Responsive Design

  • Visual & Interaction Design

  • Front-End Development (HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript)

The Goal

CoolMiniOrNot, a well-known game developer and publisher, wanted to make a splash at GenCon — the biggest tabletop gaming convention in North America. Their goal was to reveal Shadow Caste, a mysterious new faction in their miniature wargame Dark Age, in a way that surprised fans, got people talking, and moved merchandise off the table — fast.

They needed an online experience that would fuel curiosity, support an in-person reveal, and drive sales.

GenCon isn’t just another event — it’s the event. For five days, tens of thousands of board game fans, content creators, and industry insiders descend on Indianapolis to see what’s next. CoolMiniOrNot saw an opportunity to build buzz by hiding Shadow Caste promo materials in plain sight at their booth, mirroring the faction’s lore of secrecy and subterfuge. To pull it off, they needed a site that could amplify the surprise, get people talking, and support a successful product announcement. And it had to be ready yesterday.

The Process

Original Dark Age Website

First Ideas

The initial plan was to simply hide a page on the existing Dark Age website — but that platform was dated, hard to navigate on mobile, and visually cluttered. Worse, it didn’t match the energy or exclusivity the reveal needed. In a convention full of bold, polished experiences, the old site felt flat — and would’ve killed the hype before it had a chance to spread.

There was no clear way to track user interest, no mobile optimization, and no intentional user journey. This wasn’t just a design gap — it was a missed opportunity for strategic engagement.

Rather than bury content on a legacy platform, I proposed a different path: a lean, high-impact microsite built specifically for the event.

It would be:

  • Mobile-first, so fans could access it on the convention floor

  • Visually distinct, to signal that this was something new

  • Easy to share, so the marketing team could fuel the conversation on Twitter and Facebook

  • User-centered, designed around the behavior and expectations of real players

This meant pushing back on the original scope, working under very real time constraints, and shipping fast — without sacrificing clarity or quality.

Stakeholder Research

I kicked things off by interviewing the Director of Miniatures Marketing to clarify strategic goals: build hype, spark conversation, and drive booth engagement. From there, I translated business needs into UX goals, including:

  1. Design for excitement and exclusivity — to create a sense of discovery that mirrored the secretive nature of the Shadow Caste, giving players something worth talking about and sharing immediately.

  2. Optimize for mobile usability — knowing that attendees would be accessing the site from a convention floor with unreliable reception inside a concrete building, the experience had to be fast-loading, responsive, and effortless to use on smartphones.

  3. Highlight downloads and model galleries — because existing analytics showed these were the most frequently accessed areas of the site, surfacing them prominently meant we could meet player expectations and support faster decision-making on the floor.

  4. Bake in social sharing tools — empowering the marketing team and fans to create real-time buzz on Twitter and Facebook with minimal friction, increasing reach and sustaining momentum beyond the convention.

I used Google Analytics and social media patterns to create lightweight user personas, ensuring the experience would appeal to both the expected audience (men 25–35) and a growing segment of women and families.

With time short, I designed a minimalist, cinematic layout in black, white, and red — a stark contrast to the busy industrial gothic visuals that typified Dark Age. I featured unreleased pieces of Shadow Caste art to make the reveal feel new and intentional.

I built the site on Bootstrap for fast development, with lightweight pages for models and downloads, and embedded social sharing prompts right into the design. The result? A tight, immersive digital experience aligned with the in-person booth strategy that worked on even the oldest devices in the worst conditions

The Impact

The impact was immediate:

  • The Shadow Caste promo materials sold out within two days of the convention.

  • The site helped the sales and marketing team create buzz, answer questions, and close deals

  • Fans felt like they were part of something special — because they were.

By using a bold, UX-led reveal, we transformed a passive announcement into an interactive moment that delivered on the hype and ROI.