Hey guys, welcome to episode one O 8 of Meeple to Meeple.
As always, I remain PJ and unfortunately there's no Gareth
with us. Today is a very interesting
episode. It's one that has had a lot of
problems. It's had a lot of challenges,
but you know, when you're trying to unite Meeples around the
world, there are always challenges.
So this is the second recording of this interview that just did
not go right for Gareth and I before the holiday season.
But I am happy to have with us again the reprise of Josh Wood
from AG Games. Josh, how are you?
I'm doing good. It's been a crazy month or so
for me, but I'm glad that we get to do this again.
I think this is going to be great.
We're going to just nail it more of the second time.
So there you go, We got it. So yeah, it's like we we
recorded this back in November. We had some technical issues.
Then it was Thanksgiving and then you went to PAX Unplugged
and then the holidays. And then recently you just, you
had to evacuate from the fires, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had AI evacuated from the
fires, so I was in a hotel. And then now I'm here in
Atlanta, so I've been just bouncing all around.
But you know, sometimes you have to travel, right?
Is is that a good a good segue? That is a great segue, which is
why you're here. You're here to talk about what I
think my, my prediction is that your game, Let's Go to Japan is
definitely going to be a nominee for the Spiel the Yard for this
year. I think it's definitely made it
into Gareth and I's top 10 for games for 2024 that were
released in 2024. It hit the table so many times,
both Gareth and I, I think, and a lot of our friends who are
always posting, I know there's a lot of folks interested in this
conversation and I think that this is going to be exciting.
So before we dive into it, tell us a little bit about yourself,
how you got into the hobby. How did you become a game
designer and publisher? Yeah, I, you know, I think when
so I think IA little background, I work for AEG.
I guess that's more of the middle of the story.
But you know, I think like a lot of us, we just, we, we always
like gaming and then we get into the hobby of games.
I got, I got in around like 2003 when I first was in college.
And you know, I think like at all points gamers decide, you
know, or a certain number of game designers go.
I wonder if I could make a board game.
And you know, I tried doing that and I sold my first game to AG
and then they gave me a shot at being a developer for Tiny
Towns. And then so and then they hired
me full time. So now I work full time for AG.
So I get to do design work and development work.
And that's sort of my that's the sort of my story.
So when did you you started in the hobby in 2003?
When did you go on board AG as a full time staff?
2018. OK.
Yeah, so. Pretty recent.
Yeah, so I started with it. Yeah.
Because so Cat Lady came out in 2017.
I think I sold it to them. I think the crazy story about
Cat Lady is I sold them Cat Lady in January of 2017 and came out
later in 2017, and that kind of stuff never happened.
Usually when you sell a game, it takes a year, 2 years, three
years plus for it to come out. But I actually did the artwork
for Cat Lady, but that was the current type of art.
And so I had planned for them to find their own artists and
everything. And you know, usually there's a
development cycle, but they're like, look, we think that this
game is fully developed. We love the arts, we want to do
it, but I was not confident with my art.
I was like, oh, maybe we should hire a professional artist to
put like good artwork on instead of my artwork.
Then they offered me a little bit more money to use my artwork
and I was like, OK, I guess, I guess we'll roll with my.
Artwork there it is that's that's awesome.
So let's go to Japan. Is your what was?
It it's my third solo game, yeah, or my third game, yeah.
You know, I do design on like the expansions for tiny towns
and stuff. But if you talk about standalone
games that are Josh Wood products, it's Cat Lady than
Santa Monica. And now let's go to Japan.
Santa Monical's got quite a following, doesn't it?
Yeah, you know, it's, it's great.
All three of my games have had a good following.
People come up to me and tell me that they, they like the, the
various games that I've created. And I, I, I just appreciate any
time someone says nice about the work I, I do, I'm, I'm, I'm
always happy with the products that I put out.
Otherwise like I wouldn't put them out.
And so when people kind of tell me that they like them, it makes
me very happy. Yeah.
So we get to, I guess you're planning a trip to Japan in
2020, right? You've got Santa Monica and Cat
Lady under your belt. People know who you are.
And then the pandemic hits. Walk us through kind of how you
approached making this game and tying it to your plans for your
travel to Japan. Yeah.
I mean, when when the pandemic started, I was supposed to go to
Japan April first. So it was just a few weeks after
lockdowns when we were supposed to go.
So we had to cancel that trip. And there was this kind of
bargain, I guess, that I made myself to like make myself not
feel so bad about missing that trip that maybe if I made a game
about it, I wouldn't feel like if I made a game about the trip
I was going to take, it would maybe make me feel like the trip
actually happened. Or it was like a way to put, you
know, to still like make that trip happen in some way, shape
or form. And, and, and look, you know,
obviously a game designers, they all decided to try to make games
during the pandemic, right? Like, you know, more free time
and stuff like that. And this is a great project for
me to do. I'd already done so much
research on Japan, and then I just did even more.
I even learned how to speak Japanese during that time
period. So I really wins all in because
it was just like, well, I'm just going to put everything I could
into this game. And so that's what I did.
So how? Okay, so the the lockdown is
announced, you can't, you're cancelled, your trip is
cancelled. How long from that point till
you start developing it into a game?
How long did that take? And was it like in a week you
were like, well, I got to turn this into a game or like, how
long did that process take? I guess?
And then emotionally, mentally, like all that.
Yeah, that's the that's the question.
So if the lockdown started, I'm guessing sometime in March if I
recall. I think so, yes.
And I think what happened was April first arrived and, you
know, I said to my partner like, well, we'd be going on to a
plane to Japan right now. And then I think when our return
date hits, which is like 10 days later or so, like April 10th or
11th. And I was like, Can you imagine
we would be getting home from Japan right now?
And I around that time, I think it's when I started going like,
I, you know, I think it's possible.
I started thinking about the idea, but I think that's when I
was like, you know, I think I just got to do this.
And like I said, just just really committed to it.
And, and, and I got to say like a huge thank you to, to AG
because I kind of just told them usually game designers, we make
a game and then we work on it for a long time.
And then we pitched it. You know, I kind of said to AG
like, Hey, I kind of want to make this game.
And then they're like, yeah, try and make that game.
And I mean, they're like, we'll see what happens, right?
But but you know, they they kind of gave me a lot of space to
work on it, which is really nice of them.
Cool, that's awesome. So you get the concept and
development. Is it natural for you whenever
you have some sort of life experience, a trip is cancelled,
you go to a party, whatever experience.
Is it natural for you as a game designer to think I need to make
this into a game? Or did that take some sort of
leap for you to? Yeah, it's interesting.
Designers are usually described as being mechanics first, theme
second or theme first, designed second.
So I think I just run through both those in my head at the
same time and then eventually, like I they just kind of click
in my mind. So for instance, with Santa
Monica, I knew I had this idea to make a tableau game where you
made a big like a card stacked on like kind of panorama that
you would finish the game with. And I wanted people to be like
moving around in the environment.
But I like didn't know what the theme I was going to do.
And then I was at the beach one day, ironically, I was a few
miles north in Malibu and I was I was at a beach there and I
thought like how beautiful it looked.
And I said, Oh, I wonder if I could do this and that.
I mean, that's so that's maybe the best way I can explain it.
Is that like I, I think about both things.
This one was a little bit more theme first.
It's because it's like, well, they know it's going to be
Japan. They know what, you know, you're
going to be planning a trip, which is which is a mechanical
thing, but it's also the thematic thing.
And so a lot of the mechanisms are informed by the theme.
In fact, something that's kind of weird is there's times when
you're making a game like let's go Japan where people go, well,
why couldn't you have a card that scores you points based on
this? And I'm like, well, that
doesn't, that doesn't really exist.
You know, you know, it's like, you know, people like what what
you really need is like more like shopping nature experiences
in the game. I'm like, well, there's not a
lot of shopping nature experiences in real life because
those two are a little bit diametrically opposed.
There is a, there is in the game a very famous mall that has like
a park on top of it. And that's like one of the only
shopping nature cards in the entire game.
But if someone says like, hey, I want more of this in the game,
it's like, well, too bad. It's got to like fit the source
material and you can try to fudge it a little bit.
But to me it was really important to get everything
right, right? Like I didn't want it coming out
and people going like, well, it's not really like that.
So that was important. So I tried to like not break
those rules as much as possible. So you had said your original
trip was for 10 days, 10 days. I think you said you were going
to you were you were intending to stay there for 10 days.
So then the game itself is over six days, right?
Yeah. So talk to me about that.
Why 6 and not the full 10? So for me it made sense to make
it 7 so 10 days would play. I I think too long and you would
need so many more cards for the deck and, and so 7 made the most
sense. It's a week, it's very balanced,
it's very harmonious. And then I think in play test I
just realized that someone just said, let's try shorten it like
by two days and see what happens.
And then I showed it one day because I was like, well, I
don't know about that. And I showed it one day.
I was like, oh, it's a little bit smoother.
And so I, it kind of just stayed that way.
So that's, that's the reason it felt like it.
That's a that's a way that the game, you know, mechanics
dictated the decision overall. So this just proves your point
that you as a designer balance theme and mechanics.
And this is exactly what happened in the final product, I
think. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, So what about the So you obviously did a lot of research
because these cards are just magnificent and they're all real
places that you were intending to go.
There's the three you play 3 cards per day, right?
And you're traveling between Tokyo and Kyoto, possibly back
and forth depending upon how the cards play in front of you.
Why 2 cities and not just say Tokyo and do let's go to Tokyo?
Why the two? Was that because it was a
reflection of what your trip was going to be?
Or is it? Yeah, Yeah, that's, that's
exactly right. So two things.
One, I was going to go to Tokyo and Kyoto, OK.
And also that's kind of the two cities most people go on their
first trip to Japan, OK. And they're also very they're
very much different cities, even though that they're through the
biggest cities and something that maybe people don't know
when they play Let's go Japan, you know, there's the different
icons. And so there's more shopping and
food cards in Tokyo and there's more nature and friends in the
Kyoto deck. And, and because that's actually
how it is like when you go to Kyoto, it's it's more about
seeing the famous temples and shrines.
It's more about seeing things like cherry blossoms or kind of,
you know, it's not as busy of a city where if you go to Tokyo,
there's a lot more stopping opportunities.
And you know, it has the most Michelin star restaurant.
And so you can get great food everywhere.
But that's why you kind of do that breakdown.
So it was kind of a fun way to show two different types of
decks that are similar but different.
There's definitely experiences of both in each deck, but
there's this more of each of those types.
So and I think that frames are actually like a really important
part of like kind of going to Japan.
So it was kind of fun to kind of put a train mechanism in the
game. Right, so that's cool.
So this game was so last year in April, I traveled to England and
it was the first time that Gareth and I got to meet in
person. The very first game we played at
his house was Let's Go to Japan. He had the Kickstarter exclusive
with the porcelain cups and the neoprene mats was beautiful.
It was a great experience, so thank you for that.
Thank the graphic designers and the artists who are like in
Japan. Okay.
All the artists are are like Japan based artists and so they
really make the game like look good that that in the art.
Graphic designer Bridget, he's amazing.
Sorry, continue with your story. So make sure I got that in
there. No, absolutely.
Thank you to the Japanese and graphic designers and artists
for that because it really comes through.
It has a unique look to it compared to other board games
and our collections. But so I had just come back from
four days in London and now I'm in Southampton where Gareth
lives. And so naturally, as we're
playing the game, we were talking about how this could
easily become a let's go to London or a let's go to Chicago.
You could pick different tourists.
And we talked a little bit about this in our previous, our first
try at this interview, right? It's like, could you do, do you
foresee doing other things? One of the things I noticed, and
I really want to get your input on this, is when I have
conversation with people about this game and we talk about they
could do this and this, it's always a single city.
Let's go to London, let's go to New York, let's go to Berlin,
let's go to Paris, right? But the key to this game is
there's two, there's two cities. And so talk about that and how
you would see any future iterations of this game.
Let's go somewhere else. Yeah.
So it's interesting. So let's say I wanted to do
let's go to France next. The problem is that with France,
you're going to mostly go to Paris, and Paris has enough
things to support a big deck. And there are other great places
to go. You can go into the Normandy
region. You could go out to Strasburg.
But like, for instance, I couldn't make a Strasburg deck
because you kind of go for the Christmas markets, for instance,
right? Or like if there is another big
city, it's kind of far away. It's not something you can hop
back and forth on. In fact, your next big closest
city is actually London. And then it's like, well, do you
do like, let's go to Europe and then you're just going to London
and and Paris. That sounds weird.
So you know, I do foresee sometimes like you, I mean, but
you can find examples where you could do it.
You could do Italy and you can make it Florence and Rome.
You can do Venice and Rome. You could do Florence and Venice
or maybe all three of those, right?
There are ways to do it, but there's also maybe ways that
because if I make like another Let's Go game and what we've
been talking about is a couple things.
One has got to be something that I'm interested in doing the
research for because I want to make sure I keep that
authenticity. And then to like, like, I feel
OK with changing the mechanism so maybe the trains can come out
and then maybe I can put something else back in that
makes you feel like a diversity of areas.
Something like we did with the day trips expansion.
Because, you know, let's go to Japan, there was the day trips
expansion that allows you go to Osaka or Nara or Yokohama,
right? Because I knew there was going
to be some people who are like, I really want to have this place
in there, right? And let's face it, there's a lot
of great places to go to in many countries.
So, you know, I, I think you just have to, you know, you have
to try to like weigh what people are expecting versus what can
you give them that's new. How can we change the game?
What can we do differently? Because also like, it's like, if
you just kind of just change the art and the names of the titles,
it's not going to be that exciting.
You have to kind of get something new.
Like I really like how the Great Western Trail games work, for
instance, on giving you something kind of new but
familiar each time. And so I think that's I would
take. Is there any plans for a future
iteration of a Let's go to in the future?
Something you're working on, something you're just having
conversations with AEG about. Yeah, we're, we're having
conversations about places that we could go.
Are we thinking like more abstract things?
You know, someone at my company is like, why couldn't we do
let's go to the moon and it's all about the space race.
Sure that, that was a little too abstract for me, but I, I don't
know, like if I had the idea, I could do that.
So we have had a lot of conversations about like what
places would work, what like mechanisms would need to change.
So there's like a blueprint of like what, what could work.
Right now we're just really excited about let's go Japan.
We really are trying to get the message out about the game,
having people play it. You know, the game is less than
one year old, so we're still just trying to make sure we give
it all the love. But we're, you know, I and plus,
I can't help but think about things whenever I travel.
I went to London last year. I went to France last year.
I went to Thailand last year. And yes, every single second I
was in those places. I'm like, how would I do?
Let's go to Thailand, you know, like, could I put rickshaws in
the game? You know?
And so it gets into your brain. You're always like thinking like
what could I do? So I'm curious, it's kind of a
two-part question. What was your favorite, What was
your element, your favorite experience of developing the
game? And the second part is what was
your favorite or what is your favorite card or location in the
game? It's both good questions.
So while making Let's Go Japan, there was kind of 2 little
breakthroughs. 1 was kind of coming up with the idea of the
highlight of the day, which is if you've collected a certain
number of symbols, you get to score a bonus at the end of the
day that you chose. So that was a, that was a really
cool thing that I learned or that we discovered, you know.
But I think for me, the concept of the walks are really
interesting because they add to sort of that story that you can
tell at the end of the game, because we had the story at the
end of the game and it actually always started with like a story
you told at the end of the game. But I think that it was like a
little, it was like kind of clunky, and then I streamlined
it all the way. And then I was like, well, I
want there to be decisions and things that are surprises
happening because that's a big thing about being on vacation.
You have certain surprises, you go out.
When I was in Japan, I was at the Sensoji Temple, and I've
been to the Sensoji Temple. It's a big temple.
It's beautiful. It's great.
And then as I was like, I wouldn't around a corner and
they had like a baby crying competition going on and I
didn't know that was going to be going on.
Yeah, they have like these. It's it's very interesting.
They had these babies come in and like their parents hold them
and then a guy tries to make scary faces at them and which
someone cries for wins, I believe.
Or maybe you lose because you're about trying to be brave.
I don't quite remember. So like I didn't know this was a
thing and I just stumbled upon it.
And and that's like the thing with the walks is that you put
these face on cards and then you flip them over and you're like,
I was here and then I ran into this thing and I decided to stay
and do it. It's a thing that's like
unscheduled. So that was the biggest
breakthrough. My favorite card in the game is
probably the Cocodera Temple. Cocodera Temple.
Yeah, there's only one of it in the game and it gives you 2
nature, it gives you a temple and a unique experience icon.
And so it gives you a lot of icons.
It doesn't give you any points and it and it costs you money,
but it's it's just it's a good card to kind of set you up for
like later on the game if you played early or you can play it
for its final scoring thing and it's and scores, I think for
nature and unique experiences. So there's like a really fun
route that I like to take if I get that card early.
That's one of my favorite cards the game and and I went there in
real life and it's a really cool experience to actually kind of
it's this temple. Kokodera means Moss temple in
Japanese. That's actually just its
colloquial name. It's got a different name, Sai
Ho do you guys think it's called?
But Kokodera is what they call it, which means Moss temple.
And it's because it's got these like hundreds of different
species of Moss around there. And to get a reservation, you
actually have to mail them a postcard.
There's a way to do online, but for the longest time, you had,
like, mail them a postcard. And so it's like a very unique
thing to do when you're in Japan to try to like, get this
reservation before you go by sending them a postcard and just
seeing what happened. Interesting.
And so like what I think about that card a lot, you know, might
the experience of it. So that that's probably my
favorite card in the game. It's tough to choose.
Oh, I get it. I understand.
No, that's why I asked the difficult questions.
What was, if anything, was probably the most surprising in
the course of the development of the game from concept to finish.
Is there something that just stuck out to you like whoa that
I didn't expect that or? I mean, that's a lot of things
happen when you're designing a game that surprised you.
You know, there was a time when I felt like everything was just
not going to work out. And then just when I mean, just
the whole process, when it starts to work and you go, oh, I
like this. And there there becomes a time
when you get close to finishing the game and you play the game
100 times or more. And when you actually have that
feeling like you're like, oh, I just want to play this game.
Like, you know, let's go to pants now on Porgy Marina.
Yep, and I enjoy just going on board game arena and playing it.
It's it's just still like a lot of fun.
So I think the most surprising thing for me is just how much
I've enjoyed, you know, here's the most surprising thing.
This is technically after the game, but I was very surprised
at how much during the Kickstarter, the comments
weren't like, why is shipping this much?
Or you know, like things that people talk about that like what
are you trying to do? I don't want porcelain bulls or
whatever. But it was mostly focused
around, hey, I had the same story happened to me.
I didn't get to go to Japan because the pandemic.
People were like, I had a cancelled trip.
I was went to Japan. I saw this place.
I look, you know, people tell me all their stories about going to
Japan or similar places that they were going to go to.
I think that's the most surprising is just how how much
that people were able to connect with the theme and the story.
Because originally the title of the game was going to be called
My Trip to Japan, because it was all about my trip I didn't get
to take. And then and then I felt like
that was a bit maudlin or whatever.
So I just was kind of like, let's make it, let's go to Japan
to make it more fun, exciting, because it's everybody's trip,
everyone coming along. And it turned out that's kind of
the true thing. Everyone is, you know, has been
couldn't go, wants to go. I mean, obviously not everyone,
but you know, it's, it's amazing how many people are like, wow,
like I'm going to Japan soon and I'm like using your cards as
like a way to learn more about the cities we're going to.
Definitely. I think that's what makes this
game stand out from so many others is because you're
interacting with very real locations and a very real
culture that you could plan a trip to Japan by using the
components and the cards in your game.
OK, I can plan this. And, you know, think about that.
Do you have for anyone who's either hasn't played the game
yet or is new to the game or even our season, I think we had
an episode where we talked about the emerging qualities in games.
We're playing them multiple times and our different
strategies kind of rise to the surface and play a game over and
over. Do you have any strategies?
Any tips for players when they're playing Let's Go to
Japan? Yeah, there's actually a lot of
like little subtle things that you can learn from playing it.
It's a game that I think some people will play and go again.
I match the icons and I just do my best or whatever.
But there's a lot of strategies that you can do.
So one that I love to do is early in the game, if I don't
have some, like if I see a great card that I want to be my final
scoring card. So that's usually something
that's going to score me at least 20 points potentially I
will play it. If not, I actually might just
take those cards and discard them and put walks down on the
day that wants green symbols, because then you can get some
research tokens so you can start looking for certain cards later.
And then also you're still contributing towards the the
final goal for that day, which is try to match the icons on
that day. That's that's a really good
strategy that I think that a lot of people will get better at if
they can kind of like learn how to do that.
Excellent. So take a walk.
Do not underestimate the role of the research tokens.
Yes, because we take a walk, you get a research token.
And so it's like a good way to get to kind of to slow play the
game because it actually is sometimes good to not commit
hard to a strategy early on because you don't know what
you're going to get, right? So it's like kind of good to
kind of like wait and build up a little bit.
And that's why it's important to be able to change their goal by
sticking the card on top. It's like, OK, I don't feel like
I'm getting enough food for this strategy, so I'm going to change
it to more stopping. I think that's that's my big
thing is like, don't rush in. Just kind of like let the game
kind of build itself. And then there's a certain time
where you need to transition from hopefully playing it to
like, focusing on what you're doing.
That's a great that's great. I hope you guys are listening.
That's great because I have to admit I've I often overlook the
role of the research tokens and that's that's good.
That's that's definitely great. Something to keep in mind.
Do you have any tips, design insights for any up and coming
or new board game designers or just people who are thinking
about designing their first game?
Anything that you would want them to know that you've
learned. Yeah, I think that the most
important thing about being a game designer is get the game
out of your head. A lot of times people go, well,
hold on, I just need to think about it for a couple more
months or like, wait, well, like in my head this doesn't quite
work. And the fact of the matter is,
is that you just got to get something to work.
Like if it's not working perfectly in your head, put it
up, put it to paper, play it because then it will help the
ideas come more play test just will help you and say like, oh,
well, I didn't find this working, so let's go to Japan.
Originally had dice rolling in it.
And like, it's something you would never think based on what
happened. And it was like a way to kind of
represent, you know, fortune and misfortune and, and like, and
let's go Japan. You also had a budget.
You started with just like a certain number of like yen
symbols and certain and every card had a cost.
And so you deplete your your like money as you're playing.
And I thought like, oh, this is a way to make the game have a
lot of texture and because because for me, right, let's go
to Japan. It's a little bit of an exercise
that a lot of games they're doing right now.
It's what like Arc Nova and we span do, which is cards have a
lot of icons and a lot of different abilities on them.
So each card can mean a lot, right?
Like the wingspan of every bird is written in wingspan and it
doesn't necessarily come to play that often, but when it kind of
feels nice, like you feel like, OK, this is a real bird.
Someone took the time, did the research, you know, like
Elizabeth definitely sat down and knew what she was doing.
And so I thought if I had like, there was a whole bunch of
things in there, like I had specific cards can be played on
certain days because that thing is actually closed every Monday.
So I was like, great, I'll put that in there.
And then I had money cost and felt like it was also though
like then too stressful. And so there's still has to be a
little bit of like a little bit of like, let's make this a fun
experience, not like homework. So what do you say to someone
who's thinking about making a game and they're like, but I
don't, I don't have the card stock.
I don't have the equipment to print anything.
Like, you know, it's like it's not going to look good the first
time. What would you say to someone
like that? Yeah, my first prototype of Cat
Lady in Santa Monica. And I'll use Santa Monica as a
bigger example because that game really relies on having art on
all the cards because of like how it builds the panorama.
I hand through scribbles for the waves and everything.
I hand through every single card on pen.
And I just got, I bought blank cards on online for like $15.00.
You don't have to dive in expensively.
And in fact, I wouldn't like, I wouldn't worry so much about
thinking about graphics and art really early on.
Think about things that are clean and concise, that makes
sense. But actually what's going to
happen is you're going to throw away so many copies of your
game. You're just going to make
something and go, you're going to like spend like 5 hours
making your, your game or whatever, 10 hours.
And then you're just going to throw it away or half of the
way. Or you're just going to take
some like white out and just write over it or scratch out
something like you. You're just going to, you got to
get used to. It's like everything can't be
sacred to your prototype. It's just a prototype.
Your prototype is eventually going to get thrown away.
Or if you're a crazy person like me, like I saw some of my
original prototypes just to show people like, look, this is what
it looks like. It's, it's messy.
It's it's. It's weird, but you do it.
I'm I'm so glad you said that I had a play testing experience.
Gen. Con.
I do a lot of play testing and we were play testing a game and
the cards were beautiful. They were glossy.
The artwork, I mean, it looked like that the designer was ready
to launch, you know, Kickstarter, retail, whatever.
I was like, so I was like withholding my comments.
The game had problems mechanically, but it was
beautiful. He left to take a break, came
back and so we asked him, he's like, So what draft do you want?
He's like, this is my second draft and I'm like, oh, so
you're early in the development. I was like, OK, he spent so much
time on the making it look good that I was worried like my
inputs not going to be helpful. And then it's like, OK, yeah.
So I would say definitely don't worry about what it looks like.
Yeah, unless you're like a very like seasoned designer who who
gets to like stage like, you know, three quicker than
everyone else early on, you've got to just know that your stuff
like just just like like don't put, you don't need to put
artwork on unless it's like a game that's crucial about having
artwork. Just, you know, it's fine text
boxes. That's what we need, simple
icons that people can follow. Yeah, you don't.
You don't actually. And actually you're going to be
less. It's going to be less useful for
you because I think like you just said, you were like worried
about getting comments because you're like, oh, I don't want
to. I don't want to upset this
person. Now.
Now I believe play testers should always like even if I
mean, look at you know, the game is like I'm like, OK, we're
about to send the suppressed like you, you know, maybe that's
the only time that you don't you should be like, OK, I'm going to
make these massive changes. If you have something like like
this would be blue because instead of green.
It was a little bit hard for me to to see you know, you know,
you know, play Chester could always feel free to just say
what needs to be said. And sometimes like it, like you
said, things look too nice. People are a little bit scared
to say things. So don't be don't be precious.
Love your game and keep loving your game.
Try to find the reasons why you love your game and keep that
true when you're making your game.
But don't be so precious about anything in particular.
Because there were things that I really wanted to keep them.
Let's go Japan like I thought really hard to keep the money in
the game. People told me a couple times,
like I tried taking it out and I was like, I want to remake every
single card without the money. And like, I, I did all that
research and I just think it's right.
And it gives all these texture, these cards because you can see
that this thing is like, and like I still kept in, like
there's expensive cards and there's cards that wear you
down, but there's like cheap cards or whatever.
But, you know, it was like this whole track and I just was like,
I don't want to get rid of it. And then I got rid of it and I
said, I'm really glad we got rid of it.
Yeah, maybe that was a big surprise that that that happened
making the game that I mean, like I was so stir.
I in fact, like, I feel like it was a it was another AG employee
who kept telling me to do it. It was Neil Kimball, the the
designer of Sheepy Time and and he kept telling me like to take
it out. I'm sure there's other people
that told me to take it out, but he was like very adamant about
it and just I was like, fine, Neil, I'm going to show you that
you're wrong. I took it out and then it was
great and I was like, OK. That's amazing.
I'm, I'm trying to, I'm listening to you talking.
I'm like, what would this game look like with money involved?
Like as a player, I think would make me nervous because like I
got to watch my budget, which of course we have to struggle when
you travel. Yeah, yeah.
And I mean, and that's actually what what I was trying to
simulate because sometimes you go, OK, I'll pony up the dough
to go to this like Michelin star restaurant.
But you know what, We're staying in the less nice hotel where
we're like, we can't sit first class on the train.
We got to the coach area, right? Yes, By the way, the trains in
Japan are always nice, so. Well, there you go.
Hey, Speaking of which, are there any future travel plans
for you personally? Is AG planning on sending you
anywhere soon? Anything you can be looking
forward to? That's a good question.
I mean, because of this game, I was able to go to Thailand last
year and then I went to Philly. I don't know.
I mean, I'm hoping they send me the places, especially like if
we decide to do another Let's Go game, I'm like, I'd like can I
convince them to send me to that place for research, right?
It would be perfect. But you know, can I can send pay
for it? I don't, we don't.
They're not planning to send me anywhere specific.
I mean, I probably will be back at 10 Con this year.
I think I'll try to go back to PAX this year.
I wonder if I could go to Gamma this year or something.
I guess that's close, so maybe not.
Speaking of packs, how was that experience?
I wasn't able to go, but I know you were there.
How did that go? Yeah, PAX is my first time going
to PAX. It was my first time also being
in Philly since I was, I went to Philly when I was like maybe 8
or 9 or something. So a different perspective on
it. And, and it was a lot of fun to
just see people that I usually don't get to see because, you
know, people start to get in place of their conventions.
And it's like, oh, some people only go to like PAX and this
other one that I don't go to. It's like, I go to PAX and Ice
Tower and it's like, well, I don't really go to those two.
But you know, I know, I know you have to like choose.
I mean, like, you know, luckily I get to go to a couple more.
So like work and, and, you know, run the booth.
And it's always nice because when you have a game come out
and you get to try to sell it to people and meet people.
I mean, that was really nice. And we did a lot of cool stuff
at the conventions last year. You know, we got some Gotsapama
scenes and we were giving out these little wooden figures of
like on the Gary rice balls and sushi and little Tori gates.
And that was. AI got I got 1.
Yeah, you got the Tory gates. Nice.
That's my favorite one. I love his little hands he's
got. Yeah, we got this at Gen.
Con. So yeah, I.
You know, you know, I drew all those too.
Did you? Yeah, I, I just, I, it was, it
was my kind of concept. And like, I think once again, I
just like, I kind of want them to look like this.
And then they're like, just let's just use those.
And I'm like, all right, let's do it.
Well, knowing that you drew this makes it even cooler if I'm
being honest. Like that's, that's kind of
cool. It's not like some some nameless
person designed it. But no, no, that's cool.
That's great. Appreciate it.
What any any future plans terms of game titles that you can
share with us from coming from AG AG 2025?
What should anyone be looking forward to?
Yeah, we got a lot of stuff in the works.
We have some expansion stuff coming.
So you're going to see another Tiny Towns expansion.
OK, You will see expansions to a lot of your favorite AG games,
but the next our next big consider actually, I happen to
have it here big heroes. This is from Phil Walker
Harding. This is a prototype, so you have
to kind of forgive it a little bit.
The thing that's really cool about it is that it's a card
crafting game. So right here we see a clever
spirit and it is made-up of a clever card and a spirit card.
And so they combined to have like one ability and a second
ability. And So what his kind of pitch
was, it's like, oh, I kind of want to make like a TCG game,
you know, a game with like 10,000 cards, but he's like, I,
I can't design 10,000 cards. So like in this way, you know,
with like 60 cards, you already have thousands of cards that
could be created. And so it's a little tableau
builder about kind of like putting people in like
arrangements and stuff. It's a lot of fun.
I'm very, very excited for people to play it.
That starts as long as been marked.
I'm a developer on it, so I've been working really closely with
with it and I'm really excited for it because it is.
So we got we hired this artist and he's like super cool.
I love the style we're working on just making the best game it
could possibly be. And I think it's incredible.
So that's awesome. That's that's what I like to
pitch right now. Cool.
Well, thanks. Thank you for sharing.
That's great. So you guys, if you're listening
to this on podcasting streaming services, you missed out, you're
going to have to go to YouTube so you can see what he just
showed us a few little little snippets that was pretty great.
So where can folks find you and AEG on all the social media
platforms? Yeah, I'm on a lot of the social
media platforms, Sir. Josh Wood.
Sir Josh Wood, I found you today.
I added you on Instagram today. Perfect Instagram is the one
that I used the most, although I think it's been a little bit
weird. I feel like I haven't posted
quite enough on this trip. I haven't been playing the board
games actually the last the last couple of weeks so.
You got a lot going on so. I'm, I'm looking forward to
getting back to playing some board games, so hopefully
they'll they'll come around soon.
Well, guys, thanks for listening.
Josh, thanks for joining me and everything we've been dealing
with trying to get you on the show.
Don't forget to like and subscribe.
Please leave comments below. If you have questions for Josh,
he'll be able to see them in the YouTube channel.
Everybody, thanks a lot, Josh. All of our prayers and thoughts
with you and the AEG family as you're dealing with all the
fires in Los Angeles and the larger community in the LA area
as well. Yeah, I appreciate you saying
that and thank you so much and thank you for having me on the
show was it was great. This is fantastic.
I appreciate it. Thanks again guys, and we'll see
you next time.