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Hey guys, welcome to episode 
140. 

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Today's episode is all about the
power of the design Sprint and 

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how it's used to shape game 
design and assist in play 

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testing for game designers, 
including my guest from Grodd 

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Games and their trilogy of games
they're working on right now. 

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Now, if you're not familiar as I
was, not a design, Sprint is 

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like a creative rocket booster 
originally developed by Google 

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Ventures. 
It's a fast five day process to 

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take a challenge, generate 
solutions, make decisions, and 

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build a prototype you could 
actually test. 

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It's all about speed, clarity, 
and bold experimentation. 

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Our guest today took that same 
framework and applied it to 

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board game design. 
Instead of spending months stuck

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in development cycles, they used
a Sprint to move their second 

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game from concept to prototype 
and right into the hands of play

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testers. 
This conversation is all about 

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how that process work or is 
working, what was discovered 

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along the way, and how sprinting
through design has changed the 

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way that a game comes to light. 
Joining me today is Devin from 

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Grodd Games. 
Devin, how are you man? 

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Welcome. 
Thank you PJ excited to be here 

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and I am doing well. 
We're actually just chatting a 

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little bit before we started the
show. 

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Currently on a road trip and 
exploring the country, so always

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got to start. 
Sort of like where in the world 

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is Deb and Catherine from Grad 
Games? 

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And we are, we are in Bend right
now for the recording. 

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Can't promise where we'll be 
next, but heading heading down 

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the California coast over the 
next few weeks. 

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So we're very excited. 
But design. 

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This is this is great. 
Yes, this is this is kind of 

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cool because real quick, just to
catch everybody up. 

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So Catherine, your partner from 
broad games and partner in real 

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life. 
She was on the show in episode 

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99, guys. 
That was the last audio only 

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episode before we launched 
YouTube and started recording 

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video. 
So here we are 40 episodes later

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and now you're on for the first 
time. 

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I'm, I'm sorry it's taken this 
long to to get you on, but yeah.

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Thanks for. 
Thanks for it is busy. 

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You're you're definitely right 
about that. 

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So before we dive into design 
sprints, do you want to catch us

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up on the status of a state 
Raise the Realm, the first game 

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in your trilogy? 
Yes. 

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So we have our first game in the
trilogy coming to market. 

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It is actually in production 
right now in China. 

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So we we were chatting with our 
basically our project manager at

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at the factory and they are 
actively printing the game. 

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So we're really excited about 
that. 

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It's good news. 
In a few weeks, we'll actually 

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send someone out to China to to 
check on the production, 

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basically QA it before, you 
know, all of the print is done. 

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So that's exciting that we 
actually have someone that's 

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able to go out there. 
We did not anticipate that, but 

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I I have a family member who was
like, oh, I'm going to China in 

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two weeks for business and they 
happen to be going to the same 

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city as the factory. 
Yes, please go check this out 

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for us. 
That's convenient. 

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Yes. 
So that, that was huge slight 

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delay in the timeline that we 
wanted for the Kickstarter. 

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We had to do 2 more proofs than 
we wanted. 

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So backers will probably be 
getting it end of the year, but 

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most likely January and then 
we'll be releasing it to the 

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broader public later in Q1 of 
next year. 

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How how has the the tariff 
situation like? 

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What is that going to look like 
for your backers? 

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Like how much of A burden will 
be placed on your backers once 

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it ships over here? 
You know, it's, it's hard to to 

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tell. 
I think there's been some 

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situations where folks have used
tariffs to in some cases, 

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indiscriminately raise prices. 
In other cases, yeah, they said,

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hey, you know, do you want to 
volunteer and throw a couple 

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bucks? 
And, you know, here's a rough 

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estimate of our expectation. 
But with the way tariffs have 

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swung from like, I think at one 
point it was 30%, another time 

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it was 70%. 
I think at one point it was like

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150%. 
So it's just, it's really hard 

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to have any like consistent 
messaging around what we like, 

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what we, we talked a lot about 
it, but Catherine mostly has 

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been the, the deciding factor on
that. 

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And I'd say we've settled 
towards this idea of if it's 

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under a certain percent, we're 
we're probably going to absorb 

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it. 
OK. 

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And if it goes up that 
threshold, we'll probably do 

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some sliding scale and just 
communicate I pay, we are paying

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this much per game in tariffs. 
If you would like to as a backer

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support us and and you want to 
pay that tariff, you can, but 

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but keeping it optional. 
And we did do some other things 

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on the back end like we explored
different factors and things of 

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that nature to sort of absorb 
cost in other ways. 

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So that's been helpful as well 
where we decided to get a little

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bit creative and we also 
produced a little bit more 

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volume to bring down our 
productive costs. 

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But then obviously upfront 
you've got more capital cost 

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from the tariff. 
So just any lever we could move,

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we we explored moving and by we,
I really mean that front which 

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she she did a fantastic job. 
So what? 

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Kind of support. 
What kind of support have you 

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received from other designers, 
other publishers, and just 

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manufacturers trying to help you
navigate all this? 

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Yeah, we, we chatted with quite 
a few different manufacturers, 

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especially once tariffs got up 
to that 150% mark. 

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And that was sort of a big 
grimace, not really sure what 

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we're going to do. 
And I really hope this changes 

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and thankfully it did. 
So just that, that was tough. 

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And then also our game is not 
that the game one, it has a lot 

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of, but if you've seen it 
before, the player Matt said 

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this nice indentation to them 
and it's got these pieces that 

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are glued together and that from
a labor cost perspective, it's 

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just not really feasible in the 
US right now. 

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So that's that's one of the 
reasons why we're in China. 

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We did get some quotes from 
European manufacturers that have

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some tooling where they can sort
of do that a little bit more 

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affordably than the shipping 
rates. 

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But from Europe at the time we 
were just like, that doesn't 

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really make sense either. 
Other designers, we've gotten 

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very creative in terms of how we
approach design didn't really 

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think about this component or 
this material cost so much with 

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game one. 
It's definitely something that 

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we're looking at a lot more 
closely in Game 2 because there 

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are some components that are I 
would say are very, there are a 

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lot of manufacturers for in the 
US, example carts, there are 

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lots of cart manufacturers. 
So you might see in the market 

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like now and in the next 6 to 12
months a lot of small box card 

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games. 
And that's because that's 

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something very easily, it's very
easy to domestically produce or 

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very easy to produce, especially
if it's a small set card like 

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small set card game. 
You can probably produce a lot 

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more affordably and then you 
have much lower tariffs. 

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That's interesting, I've noticed
not so much small box card 

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games, although I'm I'm sure 
that's true too. 

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What I've noticed recently is 
the small box card expansions to

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games that already exist and I 
had not even considered the 

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current tariff situation as a 
motivating factor and why it's 

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just a card expansion. 
Yeah, I know. 

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That's interesting. 
Yeah, One thing we did do from a

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design perspective, and actually
I think it added value to the 

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game, which we had a in essence,
in the center of our game board,

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there were a set of cards that 
are like action spaces that 

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change. 
So when you set up the game, 

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there are some game board 
actions. 

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There's a handful of them that 
change from game to game. 

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And initially those were cards 
and it was a separate size card.

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So it wasn't our standard card 
size. 

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And that that actually that 
component added quite a bit of 

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cost and we were able to we had 
extra space on some of our punch

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boards. 
So we ended up using that extra 

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space on the punch board, 
redesigning it into this really 

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nice like punch board tile and 
that didn't add any cost, which 

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was fantastic where we were. 
Able to. 

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OK, that's cool. 
Eliminate, you know, the 

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components still exists but in a
new form factor and we happen to

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have the material that it could 
sit on. 

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So that was pretty cool. 
Because that's like if I recall 

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and the version I saw, I play 
tested this, you know, a year 

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ago. 
And so I'm sure it's evolved. 

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So that was like the, was it 4 
events? 

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There was 4. 
It's like in the very center, 

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there was like a column of four 
and those are now cardboard 

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tiles instead of card. 
I love that. 

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That's, that's awesome. 
That's awesome. 

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It's really interesting. 
You described some of your 

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efforts with managing the 
components and the manufacturing

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as creative solutions. 
And that's why we're talking 

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today, right? 
Is you've gotten really creative

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recently and we're going to talk
about design sprints, which was 

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a totally new concept to me. 
And if I understand just doing 

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some research with Google 
Ventures, the whole plan is it's

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just to tackle a particular 
challenge, right? 

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Or a problem. 
It's a, it's a way to attack a 

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problem, right? 
That results in a prototype. 

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And you, you took the system and
applied it to game design. 

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Did I? 
I hope I explained that 

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accurately in my introduction. 
Yeah, at a high level, I think 

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you captured it. 
It's as a framework. 

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It's designed to build a 
solution to it, which as board 

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game designers, I mean, I'm sure
sometimes designers are coming 

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at as design, design with a 
problem. 

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You know, I played this game. 
I want to make a different game 

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and solve this problem that this
game has. 

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I hear that from a lot of 
designers and I think that 

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that's a valid approach. 
There are there. 

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I'm sure there's also lots of 
other different frameworks out 

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there. 
And I just wanted to give a 

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shout out to the the tabletop 
Game Designer Association. 

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They had a ton of resources as 
the game design for game design.

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So I can take a look at that, 
but focusing on the design 

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Sprint for game one, this wasn't
something that we could use. 

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We were just kind of let's let's
build a game. 

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We want to build a game, but we 
didn't necessarily have a 

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problem solving for game two 
since we're keeping this 

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thematic, you know, narrative 
journey going. 

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We have gotten feedback on Game 
1. 

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You know, there's a handful 
right now. 

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I think we've got like maybe 35 
ratings on working deep and I 

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love them. 
I love when people actually 

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like, leave comments and 
critical feedback. 

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And there were a handful of 
comments that just stood out to 

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me. 
And it's like, like, this is 

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really good feedback. 
And this could be perceived as a

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problem with our game. 
Some of them, we designed the 

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game intentionally that way. 
So let's talk about day one. 

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So there's five days to a design
Sprint. 

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Day one is all about 
understanding the problem. 

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So I collated that feedback that
we've gotten on on game one. 

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As an example, one one piece was
we have a massive deck, so we I 

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think we've got 150. 
Yeah. 

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So some players don't like the 
card randomness, which actually 

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got some great feedback from a 
gentleman MO over at Tabletop 

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Bellhop. 
He's like, why don't you add a 

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drafting mechanic at the start 
of the game? 

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So this is early when we were 
play testing and sort of had our

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first like sample copy that we 
could send out. 

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We sent one to him and got his 
feedback, and that was fantastic

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to get that. 
By adding that card drafting 

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mechanic, we solved some of that
randomness for game one. 

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It was also designed 
intentionally to have that large

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deck. 
I wanted people to have multiple

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times where they're going to 
explore the deck and find new 

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cards from the end of the game. 
But I also wanted to have a 

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unique strategy where players 
could mine the deck for cards, 

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where now that you know the 
deck, there is one leader, like 

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1 faction, one player map that 
does really good at drawing 

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cards. 
So you could intentionally mine 

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the deck for certain cards so 
that the massive deck was a 

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intentional design of game one, 
but it is a problem going into 

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game two. 
OK, more card design. 

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We want to have new effects, 
which were odd more cards. 

229
00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:46,000
If we you know, I did a mini 
expansion for for game one, like

230
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:50,000
an interactive deck and it just 
it we're just adding more cards 

231
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:52,920
to an already very large deck. 
So that's that's one problem 

232
00:12:53,120 --> 00:12:56,680
that we're trying to solve for. 
So real quick, just to 

233
00:12:56,680 --> 00:13:00,760
contextualize for those who for 
those who maybe don't know, so 

234
00:13:00,760 --> 00:13:04,520
you're talking about not an 
expansion to a state, You are 

235
00:13:04,520 --> 00:13:07,240
talking when you say game two, 
you're talking about a 

236
00:13:07,240 --> 00:13:10,600
completely different game. 
And I believe your plan is to 

237
00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:13,120
make a trilogy of games. 
Is that correct? 

238
00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:15,040
OK. 
Just just wanted to 

239
00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:18,480
contextualize that a little bit.
Yeah, I think when some people 

240
00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:22,040
here were doing a trilogy, they 
think that these games will like

241
00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:24,960
cohesively mesh in the sense 
that you could sit down with all

242
00:13:24,960 --> 00:13:28,000
three boxes and play 11 giant 
game. 

243
00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:31,000
But really, they are three 
distinct games that are going to

244
00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:36,600
tell a narrative story. 
So in your mind's eye, do you 

245
00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:40,280
envision gamers once all three 
games are published? 

246
00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:46,320
Maybe on a long Saturday, 
playing all three of them in 

247
00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:49,200
succession rather than one big 
giant. 

248
00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:54,480
I intend to host tournaments 
where you are doing the estate 

249
00:13:54,680 --> 00:13:57,800
journey of, you know, there's 
the game one tournament, there's

250
00:13:57,800 --> 00:13:59,440
the Game 2 tournament and the 
game three tournament. 

251
00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:02,520
And then you have, you know, a 
point ranking based on how you 

252
00:14:02,520 --> 00:14:05,920
did individually for an overall 
winner across all three. 

253
00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:07,480
So I love that. 
OK. 

254
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:13,440
And I think yes, very possible. 
OK, so you've tackled the first 

255
00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:16,760
problem of the massive deck from
game one. 

256
00:14:17,080 --> 00:14:21,840
That's not going to be not going
to be sufficient in Game 2. 

257
00:14:22,600 --> 00:14:24,080
Yeah. 
So that's one problem. 

258
00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:28,120
We've identified another problem
that we have coming out of our 

259
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:31,520
sort of our day, one of which 
may be just taking a step back 

260
00:14:32,560 --> 00:14:35,960
five days, day one, all about 
understanding what are the 

261
00:14:35,960 --> 00:14:39,240
problems you're trying to solve.
And then day 2 is really about 

262
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:42,600
sketching concepts, sort of how 
many different solutions can you

263
00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:46,400
come up with for those problems.
And then three is making a 

264
00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:48,840
decision on what you want to 
move forward with and and 

265
00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:51,240
prototype. 
And then day 4 is all about 

266
00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:53,760
doing that prototyping. 
And then finally day five, 

267
00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:59,000
you're doing that play testing. 
And I would say we as much as I 

268
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,720
would like to take five days off
and do a full week of just in 

269
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:07,200
design and do this design 
Sprint, you don't, I don't have 

270
00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:10,800
the time to do that. 
So we have been breaking it up 

271
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:15,160
over a series of weekends. 
So we've done days 1-2 and three

272
00:15:15,160 --> 00:15:17,720
and we're currently in, in day 
four and we're going to be 

273
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:22,240
wrapping up day 4 this weekend. 
So 2 weekends ago we were in day

274
00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:25,840
three as an example. 
So deciding so I can sort of, I 

275
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:30,080
had done the sketching of Game 2
and it's on basically index 

276
00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:32,720
cards that I've cut to different
shapes and sizes and laid them 

277
00:15:32,720 --> 00:15:35,880
out and basically laid it out in
front of Catherine. 

278
00:15:36,040 --> 00:15:39,080
And we talked through, you know,
this is the various decisions 

279
00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:40,680
that we've made based on the 
problems we had. 

280
00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:43,280
What do you think? 
Or, you know, decisions I made 

281
00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:45,120
based on the problems we had. 
What do you think? 

282
00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:48,960
And literally she found a way, 
you know, I had a game board 

283
00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:53,920
concept and it went from, you 
know, three times the size to 

284
00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:56,000
1/3. 
You know, it's not 1/3 the size.

285
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,360
It's just, you know, great, 
great feedback. 

286
00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:01,640
And that's why next week we got 
to start play testing it to, to 

287
00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:06,120
get more of that going. 
But focusing back understanding 

288
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:08,080
that problem. 
And that's in the massive debt. 

289
00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:11,000
We did have a couple other 
problems that we were trying to 

290
00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:13,240
solve. 
So another problem we had is 

291
00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:16,120
time per player. 
So a lot of games we'll say 

292
00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:20,120
forward 60 to 75 minutes, but 
you play at Max player count and

293
00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:23,040
all of a sudden it's, you know, 
120 minute game. 

294
00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:28,120
So we you're, you're familiar? 
Oh yeah, I have fallen prey to 

295
00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:31,720
that. 
That unmistakable deceit on the 

296
00:16:31,720 --> 00:16:34,920
side of the box. 
But we say our game's about 15 

297
00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:39,640
to 20 minutes per player. 
And that's one thing that I find

298
00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:42,280
as a problem where, OK, we're 
going to add another player. 

299
00:16:42,680 --> 00:16:45,240
We know this game's going to get
20 minutes longer. 

300
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:48,000
So I, I treated that as a 
problem. 

301
00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:53,000
I, I don't want, I, I want our 
games to be, you know, somewhere

302
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:56,640
that in that sweet spot of that 
like 45 to 60 minute where it's 

303
00:16:56,640 --> 00:16:58,880
not too long, not going to take 
up your whole afternoon and then

304
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:00,160
you can go and play another 
game. 

305
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:05,000
So right now, the first game 
was, but I was really concerned 

306
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:08,839
about Game 2 and we want to get 
a higher player count for Game 

307
00:17:08,839 --> 00:17:10,640
2. 
So game one goes up to 5. 

308
00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:15,040
Game 2 is a game that's going to
be designed more for like 5 to 

309
00:17:15,040 --> 00:17:17,040
8. 
It can go down to two players. 

310
00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:20,560
But I'm designing it so that, 
you know, I'm encouraging it for

311
00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:23,440
those nights where you want a 
strategy game but you've got too

312
00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:25,599
many people and you don't want 
to split up into groups. 

313
00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:28,640
Yeah, So time for player was a 
concern. 

314
00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:31,160
We're OK We're going to have an 
8 player game and it's 20 

315
00:17:31,160 --> 00:17:33,320
minutes per player. 
That's too much. 

316
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:35,440
That's a. 
Long time. 

317
00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:39,760
Up and then the third thing we 
got, and this also came from 

318
00:17:39,760 --> 00:17:43,960
from feedback off BGT that 
someone left a rating that's in 

319
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:46,040
game one. 
There's some random single round

320
00:17:46,040 --> 00:17:47,960
objectives which they're not 
quite random. 

321
00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:52,200
In essence, every round of the 
game you introduce some effect 

322
00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:55,120
and it could be positive, it 
could be negative and an 

323
00:17:55,120 --> 00:17:56,840
objective that players will 
compete over. 

324
00:17:57,160 --> 00:18:00,080
But as a result of that, players
don't know the objectives until 

325
00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:02,680
the start of each round. 
So that that was sort of a third

326
00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:05,920
problem where, you know, there 
is a lot of randomness and I did

327
00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,040
that to create variance in game 
to game. 

328
00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:13,800
But there are ways to make 
randomness where maybe you can 

329
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:15,800
create randomness through 
asymmetric information. 

330
00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:20,520
So one player can make a change 
to the game board, you know, 

331
00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:24,120
maybe you're changing out this 
event so this player knows the 

332
00:18:24,120 --> 00:18:26,840
information. 
And I find that that creates an 

333
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:28,560
interesting variance. 
So that's something we're 

334
00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:33,240
exploring with Game 2 as well. 
So that's understanding the with

335
00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:36,800
those, those 3, OK. 
And then we started generating 

336
00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:39,280
solutions. 
So I'm curious, I probably 

337
00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:42,400
already talked to you a little 
bit about this, but yeah, time 

338
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:44,520
per player, how do you, how do 
you think we're solving that 

339
00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:46,400
one? 
I have no idea. 

340
00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:50,840
I know that when I play tested a
state it was originally four 

341
00:18:50,840 --> 00:18:55,680
players and you had special rule
for 1/5 because I requested 1/5.

342
00:18:56,360 --> 00:18:59,720
Yeah. 
And it took forever. 

343
00:19:01,720 --> 00:19:05,480
Yep. 
I'm not sure how you're gonna 

344
00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:07,000
and then you're gonna have eight
players. 

345
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:11,720
How are you gonna solve the 
mystery of eight players and the

346
00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:13,520
length of time? 
I don't know, but I'm hoping 

347
00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:15,720
you're about to tell me. 
Yeah, yeah, of course, 

348
00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:19,640
simultaneous turns, so excited 
about that. 

349
00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:22,840
So we've been playing a lot of 
simultaneous turn taking games. 

350
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:27,240
OK, Planet Moon 7 Wonders even 
that like Captain Sonar as an 

351
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:29,600
example, that's another bit of a
team base, sure. 

352
00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:35,560
So using those as sort of the 
basis where every player is 

353
00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:37,680
going to be taking their turn 
the same. 

354
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:42,720
So that's one of our solutions 
for that problem and I'm very 

355
00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:44,240
excited with how that's turning 
out. 

356
00:19:44,880 --> 00:19:47,880
And then I'll say the factions 
are no longer playing against 

357
00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:49,760
one another. 
They are, it is a team, team 

358
00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:52,720
based factions. 
So you'll have in A4V4, you'll 

359
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:56,440
have 4 factions on each team and
then the teams are collectively 

360
00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:59,840
taking that action together, 
which I'm very excited about. 

361
00:20:00,120 --> 00:20:03,600
So that's. 
Wow, OK, that's interesting. 

362
00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:07,080
I don't know how I'm going to 
find eight people to get to my 

363
00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:09,920
table. 
Wait, so you can, I am designing

364
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:11,880
it for four players and two 
players. 

365
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:15,440
I haven't decided yet. 
And this is also because I I'm 

366
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:18,040
in a two person households and 
we're traveling and camping 

367
00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:19,720
together. 
I don't know how to do that. 

368
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:23,720
So odd player. 
Yeah, that could be a problem. 

369
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:27,640
That's that's an open-ended 
issue with the current version 

370
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:30,360
of the prototype that I have not
resolved yet. 

371
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:36,920
I, I think, I think there's no 
problem with having one team 

372
00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:40,520
with one extra player. 
I'm thinking, I'm thinking back 

373
00:20:40,520 --> 00:20:47,520
to the first team game that I 
ever played in this hobby, and 

374
00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:51,960
that was the Milton Bradley's 
Axis and Allies from the 80s. 

375
00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:56,360
You had three Allies, you had 
two Axis countries, and it was a

376
00:20:56,360 --> 00:20:58,880
three versus 2 to play five 
players. 

377
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:02,600
So I think if you had seven 
players, it's just going to be 3

378
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,400
on four, or if you have 5 
players, it's going to be a 

379
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:07,720
three on two. 
I think that's OK. 

380
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:11,640
Maybe three on two seems a 
little worse than a four on 

381
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:12,360
three. 
I don't know. 

382
00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:16,600
I guess it just depends, yeah. 
Yeah, it's something I've been 

383
00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:19,040
thinking and I think there is a 
way to scale it so that you can 

384
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:21,160
have that odd player count. 
It's not. 

385
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:23,400
So Game 1 is a victory point 
based game. 

386
00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:25,880
There's like 7 or 8 different 
ways to get victory points. 

387
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:30,560
Game 2 is an objective based 
game, so once a team reaches the

388
00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:34,280
required minimum count of 
objectives, they win the game 

389
00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:36,120
over the other team, sort of. 
They win the war. 

390
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:39,240
Game one, you're rebuilding 
after the war, right? 

391
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:43,040
Game 2, you are revisionists of 
history playing through that 

392
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:46,440
war, and you have to meet the 
objectives to manage your supply

393
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:49,840
chain, you know, build out the 
right set of cards for your team

394
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:51,480
to to win that. 
Yeah. 

395
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:55,200
So where were we? 
I got I my brain started 

396
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:58,120
extrapolating and thinking, 
visualizing the team. 

397
00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:02,280
I think we were on We were on 
problem 3. 

398
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:03,800
Step three. 
Step. 3. 

399
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:06,880
So deciding on what to move 
forward with. 

400
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:10,000
So I think we actually, we 
talked about one solution. 

401
00:22:10,120 --> 00:22:12,400
So we talked about simultaneous 
terms for time per player. 

402
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:14,440
The massive deck was another 
problem. 

403
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:17,800
And so we're doing faction based
decks, which that gives you a 

404
00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:22,000
lot of flexibility to introduce 
more unique cards. 

405
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:25,880
So create some really 
interesting theming. 

406
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:30,720
So in game one, there's a 
standard farm, every deck's 

407
00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:33,360
going to have a farm, and I 
would have an opportunity to 

408
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:36,640
feed that farm to, you know, 
each of that, you know, the 

409
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,600
nuances of the different states 
of the state. 

410
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:42,080
OK, that was pretty cool. 
That is cool. 

411
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:46,800
Great opportunity to leverage 
artists to where I have this 

412
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:48,320
vision. 
Don't know if that's going to 

413
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:51,680
happen, but I'm having artists 
do each deck. 

414
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:53,480
So like a unique artist for each
deck. 

415
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:57,760
And that way then you kind of 
it'll just have like a really 

416
00:22:57,760 --> 00:22:59,400
cool artifact and that that 
respect. 

417
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:02,720
But I digest. 
Let's let's get back to design 

418
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:09,560
sprints, faction based decks and
then the the random single round

419
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:12,560
objectives. 
That's sort of being resolved by

420
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:16,360
absorbing into this overarching 
set of objectives that the teams

421
00:23:16,360 --> 00:23:18,160
are competing. 
Right, right. 

422
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:22,200
So that's that's what we decided
on what to move forward with. 

423
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:27,880
And now we're in that that 
prototyping phase of we have a 

424
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,760
game board, we have, you know, a
set basically a period of time 

425
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:35,040
that the teams run through. 
We know what actions they can 

426
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:37,240
take. 
And now I'm in the process of 

427
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,640
designing those decks to start. 
I'm going to be doing a four 

428
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:46,960
player version for like 2000 and
I have been played anyway and 

429
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:52,760
I'm going to be scaled up to 
four and oh is bypassing plug. 

430
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,680
I will have 8 captions. 
I'm guessing I'll probably only 

431
00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,960
have 4 at that point if it 
doesn't take a lot to come up 

432
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:03,760
with those who so my doing 
scenarios. 

433
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,560
There are two sets of four 
things for both sides and then I

434
00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:11,920
can do 2 to 4 persons and then 
group that up for an 8 person 

435
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,600
play tested. 
But that's the prototyping piece

436
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,360
day four and then day 5 is all 
about play testing. 

437
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:23,280
So we're sort of in that hybrid.
We prototyped A2 person version.

438
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,000
We need to scale it up and play 
test it some more. 

439
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,320
So how does day 5, like you're 
just one day of play testing and

440
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:32,000
then you just call it because 
that seems that seems kind of 

441
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:34,720
short. 
You're testing the concept, and 

442
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:38,360
then that's gonna iterate into 
some sort of retrospective where

443
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:40,800
you know, what did you like, 
what didn't you like, what are 

444
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:42,800
we gonna change? 
And then that's when you start 

445
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:45,560
to go through that rapid phase 
of step four and five. 

446
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,040
You're probably gonna loop 
through those multiple times. 

447
00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:51,040
OK, But initially it's like a 
workshop. 

448
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:54,400
I mean, you could condense this 
if you really wanted to into a 

449
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,640
day like the design game jams. 
They, I like some of the game 

450
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:01,640
jams actually, they'll give you,
they'll give you a kit of some 

451
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:03,680
set of components. 
And then you've got to design A 

452
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:05,040
game with this set of 
components. 

453
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,880
And that in and of itself is 
kind of a design constraint. 

454
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:09,600
It's a problem that you need to 
work with. 

455
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,080
So you can use that same that 
same framework. 

456
00:25:12,120 --> 00:25:15,760
There. 
So ideally you do this over 5 

457
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:20,840
consecutive days to get to that 
play test point that you just 

458
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,440
described. 
You're just spreading it out 

459
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:27,160
over several weeks due to 
everything that's going on. 

460
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,720
I honestly I would also 
recommend like maybe spreading 

461
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:34,440
it out too because it gives you 
time to to decompress and think 

462
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:36,480
about ideas that you've you've 
come up with. 

463
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:42,680
So, but isn't the point of the 
Sprint to do it quickly and not 

464
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:45,920
right? 
So that's that seems 

465
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:51,200
counterintuitive to to the 
framework of the design Sprint. 

466
00:25:52,360 --> 00:25:56,080
Yeah, I I'd say if you're 
looking for that rapid 

467
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:59,160
deployment, you're going to want
to do the five day back to that.

468
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:01,560
And if you can't, I mean, 
that's, that's fantastic. 

469
00:26:02,360 --> 00:26:06,040
And then you, I think some of 
the, if you go slower, I think 

470
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:10,560
you might sort of catch things 
where we have a sequence of 

471
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:15,880
actions that players are taking 
and we have been fooling around 

472
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:19,280
with the distribution of like 
how those actions will appear in

473
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,040
the game. 
I feel like I'm being really 

474
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:22,840
like being illusory. 
I apologize. 

475
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:28,240
That's fine. 
And I think if I had gone in and

476
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,240
just like done the five days, I 
would have had a version of it. 

477
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:36,920
But because I made the actions 
on the day 2, which was now I 

478
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,840
think that was almost 4 weeks, 
3-4 weeks ago when we sat down 

479
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:44,160
for day three, I have already 
had several thoughts and like 

480
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:48,520
feelings about those actions and
revise them thing into day 

481
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:50,200
three. 
This is like, it's sort of that 

482
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,600
concept of like, oh, you get a 
few nights to sleep on this. 

483
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:54,760
Sure. 
Like I do think can be 

484
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:58,680
beneficial, but also if you're 
trying to get a game out there, 

485
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:02,680
that's the value of the design 
Sprint is that after a week, you

486
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:05,800
can have a working prototype. 
And I do think it's for a lot of

487
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:11,800
designers where, you know, 
they're very one pulled into 

488
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,280
their their baby or for 
designing it on the side and 

489
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,320
giving them giving yourself a 
framework to run through spread 

490
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:20,320
to the finish. 
So that way you can, you know, 

491
00:27:20,360 --> 00:27:22,400
bring something to show people 
and get feedback. 

492
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:27,480
That's right. 
So Step 5 is play testing. 

493
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:29,240
Is that what does that look 
like? 

494
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,720
So one of the things that I have
observed from a lot of designers

495
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,360
who, you know, they're they get 
caught up. 

496
00:27:35,360 --> 00:27:37,280
This is their baby. 
They're doing it on the side 

497
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,280
when they're play testing, they 
end up play testing in an echo 

498
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,320
chamber. 
Like they're same, they're same 

499
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,960
510 friends at their local 
gaming group. 

500
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,000
And it's like, this game is 
great. 

501
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,640
Everyone loves it. 
And then you take it to a 

502
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:55,480
broader audience of play testers
and it's like, and you know, 

503
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,360
sometimes there's resistance to 
critical feedback. 

504
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:00,600
Other times they're grateful for
it. 

505
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:02,880
Like wow, you know, they're 
like, how did we not catch this?

506
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:04,920
And I think it's because that 
echo chamber. 

507
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:10,120
So how do you suggest to a 
designer planning on trying to 

508
00:28:10,120 --> 00:28:14,400
go through a design Sprint to 
tackle that that fifth day of 

509
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:16,640
play testing? 
Yeah, I actually thought about 

510
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:20,920
that going into our own design 
Sprint and that is a problem 

511
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:23,840
where it's just the two of us 
doing this play testing 

512
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:25,640
initially for the two person 
version. 

513
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:27,880
And when we go up to the four, 
it's still going to be the two 

514
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,360
of us and it'll probably be the 
two of us for another month or 

515
00:28:31,360 --> 00:28:35,000
two before we we bring it to a 
broader audience. 

516
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,880
And one of the ideas that we 
had, which if we weren't so 

517
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:41,520
mobile, if it had been a little 
bit more safe scenery is 

518
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:45,800
planning an intentional day 5 
where we invite a bunch of folks

519
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:51,160
from the community, the broader 
community, like a play test jam 

520
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:55,760
or or find a play test jam to 
use as our day 5, which there 

521
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:57,680
are a lot of play testing groups
out there. 

522
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:03,640
I think like out of Cleveland, 
they need a weekly. 

523
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:05,400
Is it? 
Wow. 

524
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:11,880
I would love to get in with a 
regular, regular meeting group 

525
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:13,480
of play testers. 
That would be exciting. 

526
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,600
There is Pro Spiel in Saint 
Louis. 

527
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:20,160
There's something else similar 
in Indianapolis, but again, 

528
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,040
those aren't always accessible. 
Yeah. 

529
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:27,480
So is is PAX Unplugged going to 
be like you're? 

530
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,360
We're taking it to a broader 
audience. 

531
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:32,720
That's going to be our, our, 
sort of like our public 

532
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:36,200
playground of we're, we've got a
group of folks that joined our, 

533
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,160
our Discord. 
So we're going to do a post 

534
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,760
there and say, hey, if you're at
PAX Unplugged, we need 8 people.

535
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:44,600
And ideally it's, it's either 
eight people we don't know or 

536
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,680
there's a handful of play 
testers that I've noticed do a 

537
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,600
really good job of asking like 
very poignant questions. 

538
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:56,360
So if I could target this, just 
be like, hey, you know, hey Joe,

539
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:58,240
you do a great job. 
Really. 

540
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,280
I want you to play test the new 
version of the game. 

541
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,920
And some of them are are super 
champions of the state 1. 

542
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,000
So I don't think it's a hard ask
for them. 

543
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:08,840
I'm they'll probably be very 
excited to play it. 

544
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,960
But similarly, they are super 
fans, so they're going to be 

545
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:14,400
biased. 
So 4 packs unplugged. 

546
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,520
We're still have some of that. 
I would say some of that 

547
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:21,920
audience bias and we are not, 
you know, in pass packs, 

548
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:27,520
unplugs, we've actually brought 
the game into oh, regarding the 

549
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:30,320
name of the organization, but 
they usually rent one of the 

550
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:36,000
rooms and basically like a 
designer like the space unpub. 

551
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:38,040
Unpub. 
That was my good. 

552
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:41,720
Yeah. 
So we've, we've gone to Unpub 

553
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:47,320
the last three years and part of
the reason why we don't want to 

554
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:51,680
commit to that is because we 
want to have more time to enjoy 

555
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,800
PAX and plug. 
It's one of our OK, one of the 

556
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:58,560
few cons where we have a very 
large amount of friends that 

557
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:00,840
that come to it. 
We are making more friends 

558
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:02,400
though, and now that's becoming 
more talented. 

559
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:04,680
And I want to play other games 
with other people. 

560
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,600
I don't want to just play test 
my game. 

561
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,640
And if I start signing up for 
unpubbed time slots, I'm going 

562
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:11,560
to be like 8 hours a day. 
Let's go. 

563
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:14,160
Right. 
I can, I can see that. 

564
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:15,840
Yeah. 
Well, I mean, you and Catherine 

565
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:19,280
got to enjoy Gen. 
Con this year, right? 

566
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,240
So good. 
Good. 

567
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,560
So that's because we we got to 
squeeze in some time with you. 

568
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,280
So that was that was great. 
It was great to see you in a not

569
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:34,000
professional setting. 
I don't know if is that how we 

570
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:35,520
is that how we refer to 
ourselves? 

571
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:38,920
I don't know. 
Our identities are so 

572
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,600
intermingled with what we pursue
from a business endeavour 

573
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,160
standpoint. 
It is so true, right? 

574
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:48,280
Yeah. 
A lot of ways I feel like my my 

575
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:50,880
person in the podcast are 
synonymous. 

576
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:52,560
And I'm like, hold on, wait a 
minute. 

577
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,040
That's not always the case. 
But yeah. 

578
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,560
So was that your first? 
Was that your you and 

579
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:02,120
Catherine's first convention 
that y'all got to just enjoy, 

580
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,880
not play testing? 
Quite a few years, yes. 

581
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:17,200
So it was probably been since 
maybe 2018-2019 where all the 

582
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:21,240
conventions we've gone to since 
about 2020 have been, you know, 

583
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,120
exclusively to prioritize the 
game that we're building. 

584
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:26,480
Right. 
Yeah, so I'm thankful. 

585
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:29,840
Jetcon was fantastic. 
So many good games were played 

586
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:33,800
and it wasn't good. 
That's good, sure. 

587
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,720
Sure. 
I'm I'm more excited about your 

588
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:42,560
apparel than I am here. 
Oh my gosh, we were at we were 

589
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:44,800
at a restaurant the other day 
and they were selling Hawaiian 

590
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:46,520
T-shirts. 
I was like, we should make an 

591
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:47,520
estate. 
Hawaiian T. 

592
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:56,320
What estate is not set on an? 
I mean, I guess you could, but I

593
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:57,920
don't. 
Yeah, I don't know. 

594
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,760
I just love the estate T-shirts.
Yeah, the third ones we have. 

595
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,400
Are yeah, that burgundy is or 
whatever color is just 

596
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,440
beautiful, beautiful color, 
beautiful font. 

597
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,560
And I love that. 
And I want one terribly. 

598
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:15,040
I'm a sucker for swag, man. 
I'm just, you know. 

599
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:16,880
Noted. 
I'm writing it down. 

600
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,800
Yeah, you just think of swag. 
Oh yeah, absolutely. 

601
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:24,000
I am. 
I am crazy for it. 

602
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,400
So yeah. 
So PAX Unplugged, you're you're 

603
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:28,720
are you. 
So you're going to, you're going

604
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,640
to expose the game to a broader 
audience, but it's going to be 

605
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:33,800
kind of in an unofficial 
capacity. 

606
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:38,480
So the people who will get to 
play Test Game 2, they already 

607
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,680
know they're going to get to 
play Test Game 2. 

608
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:42,840
I have not reached out to anyone
yet actually. 

609
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:45,960
OK, but is that your play? 
If someone's listening to this 

610
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,400
and they're like, hey, I like 
state and I want to play Test 

611
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:49,800
Game 2. 
Yeah. 

612
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:54,320
Feel free to reach out. 
So I think because you're 

613
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,120
currently in Oregon, you're 
going down to California next. 

614
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,680
Pax is in Philadelphia. 
This is a big country. 

615
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:09,840
Springfield is on the way. 
You're you're in spring, there's

616
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,080
a lot of springs. 
Springfield, IL. 

617
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:15,120
Illinois, yeah. 
So we we do have plans to come 

618
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,679
up through Chicago. 
You've gone too far north. 

619
00:34:18,679 --> 00:34:21,960
You've gone too far north. 
But we've we've got to travel N 

620
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,960
to make that trip because we're 
starting from Southern 

621
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,120
California. 
So the road from Saint Louis to 

622
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:31,000
Chicago. 
I'm in the middle where I have 4

623
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:32,800
play testers for you. 
Interesting. 

624
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,480
Because all four of them played,
tested the state and where we 

625
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,520
discovered that there was not 
enough wheat in the game. 

626
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:45,400
Oh my gosh, that was also a 
tough nightmare in terms of 

627
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,000
because we again, going back to 
that component issue. 

628
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,440
So we had added the tiles into 
the punch board and then we were

629
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:53,840
like, oh, there's space on the 
punch board. 

630
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:56,040
If we're short resources, we 
could add a few more. 

631
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:58,960
And it got to the point where 
we're like finagling because 

632
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:03,160
there's the big castle tower and
we were able to like cut down 

633
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:06,800
the the amount of bleed we had 
on the castle tower and that 

634
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,480
made just enough space for like 
10 more resources. 

635
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,280
So. 
Oh yeah, wheat was wheat was in 

636
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:15,840
high demand in that game. 
And it was just like, Oh my 

637
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:17,080
gosh, we don't have enough. 
Wheat. 

638
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:20,400
You've got to make some bread 
somehow, you know? 

639
00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:24,000
You do you've got to feed 
everyone so that that's 

640
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,760
exciting. 
So it's it's interesting that 

641
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,440
you are so are you going you're 
going backwards. 

642
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:33,680
Game 2 is going to be the war 
that predates a state. 

643
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:38,560
It's not going to it's not the 
factions during a state who they

644
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:40,720
built their States and they're 
warring against each other. 

645
00:35:40,720 --> 00:35:46,000
This is the the war that they 
are rebuilding from, yeah. 

646
00:35:46,240 --> 00:35:49,040
So there will be a little bit 
more, I would say a little bit 

647
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:53,080
more take than Game 1. 
So game one was a little bit 

648
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,760
more multiplayer solitaire, a 
little bit of interactivity like

649
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:58,560
oh, you did something. 
I did a slight benefit, not 

650
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,520
much, a little tiny bit of take 
that you know, you had a thief 

651
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:05,200
in there. 
You did, you did. 

652
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:09,120
But there's going to be a lot, I
think a lot more card turnover 

653
00:36:09,240 --> 00:36:11,560
in Game 2. 
And I'm very curious to see how 

654
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:16,640
it plays in higher player count 
games where you're probably 

655
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:18,520
going to be cycling your deck a 
little bit more. 

656
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:23,360
And that's also a big question 
of our distribution in the 

657
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:27,880
factions that we're doing and 
how big the deck is, because I 

658
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,040
don't want to run into the same 
problem and end up with like a 

659
00:36:30,240 --> 00:36:33,040
60 card deck perfection and. 
Right now. 

660
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:35,800
I feel like I'm headed that way,
but you know, you start big and 

661
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:37,200
then you kind of scale back, 
right? 

662
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:39,760
You've got plenty of time, 
you're early in the designs. 

663
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,360
How do you OK, that's 
interesting because problem 

664
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:47,720
number one, too many cards. 
So you've gone through this 

665
00:36:47,720 --> 00:36:51,400
design Sprint process, you know,
obviously you're not finished. 

666
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,640
How do you keep from as a 
designer? 

667
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:58,640
Generally speaking, how do you 
keep from not repeating the same

668
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:02,160
mistakes? 
Yeah, I think there's a lot that

669
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:07,200
goes into like there's so many 
mistakes that get made sure like

670
00:37:07,720 --> 00:37:10,760
wait, that's like our biggest 
thing is like we want to spend 

671
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,960
more time retro in just like 
reviewing what we did. 

672
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,160
Like even from like a 
Kickstarter perspective. 

673
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,360
I would love to sit down with 
our partners and do like a deep 

674
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:21,360
dive. 
We still haven't done that 

675
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:23,400
because it's just like there's 
there's no time in the world, 

676
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:27,440
the schedule across all of us 
when you're across four time 

677
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,240
zones, right. 
But yeah, that's that idea of 

678
00:37:31,240 --> 00:37:35,440
doing like deep and staying 
accountable to what changes you 

679
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,200
want to make. 
And we do that, but we do 

680
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:43,080
retrospective weekly where it 
just on our Kickstarter front. 

681
00:37:43,240 --> 00:37:46,000
So that's a good example where 
we had a number of partners that

682
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,080
we work with. 
So we have a small market agency

683
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,160
that was running, you know, I 
think we're doing like $500 

684
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:58,600
worth a month that we had. 
We had an artist who was kind 

685
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:02,120
enough to do a bunch of social 
media posts for us where they 

686
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:06,600
were sharing their the art that 
they did for the game and sort 

687
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,440
of linking that up to, you know,
just basic collaborative posts 

688
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,680
on Instagram for us. 
But you know what, what was 

689
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:15,400
effective, what went well with 
that? 

690
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:17,600
We haven't had the time to sit 
down on that and retro on the 

691
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:22,360
Kickstarter side, but on the 
game design side, we do have AI 

692
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,880
think a fair amount of time 
where we're sitting down, you 

693
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:28,640
know, almost weekly to review 
like these are the this is the 

694
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:32,720
steps that we took and we ended 
up from point A to point B by 

695
00:38:32,720 --> 00:38:34,840
the end of this week. 
And sometimes you're taking 2 

696
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:36,840
steps back because you're like, 
maybe we actually need to go 

697
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:40,280
back to this. 
And yeah, so going back to the 

698
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:42,800
massive deck issue, that's a 
perfect example of that where 

699
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,720
I've designed these sort of two 
initial factions and had a set 

700
00:38:46,720 --> 00:38:50,680
of cards, but I'm finding it's 
just it's heavily weighted on 

701
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,680
like standard cards right now. 
Make sure I haven't designed a 

702
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:59,000
lot of unique cards yet and the 
so if I start adding in more 

703
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,120
unique cards, the card count for
that deck is going to start to 

704
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,120
balloon, right? 
And there's, there's going to be

705
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:09,320
a happy medium where I need to 
cut down on right now. 

706
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:11,760
I think maybe there's like the 
Agrarian Lord, for example, he's

707
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:13,640
one of the two factions that 
we've designed. 

708
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,920
He starts with like maybe 6 
farms in his deck. 

709
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:20,800
I don't know if the Agrarian 
Lord actually needs 6 farms. 

710
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,960
In there, so you could make you 
could make the farms like 

711
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:31,400
produce the output of each farm,
increase the output and reduce 

712
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,040
the number of cards right? 
So you could do that. 

713
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,080
So there's there's. 
Yeah, there you go. 

714
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,880
There are three games that come 
to mind that suffer from this 

715
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:45,040
exact problem. 
And I want to preface this by 

716
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:49,760
saying that these are three 
games that I love, that I think 

717
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:53,160
are fantastic, but I'm 
frustrated every time I play 

718
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:57,600
them because of this particular 
issue of too many cards. 

719
00:39:57,600 --> 00:39:59,480
And you might be able to guess 
them. 

720
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:03,040
And those of you listening may 
also know the first one is 

721
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,840
Terraforming Mars. 
I love Terraforming Mars, but 

722
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:10,040
that deck is just just. 
Outrageous. 

723
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:12,920
You know, it's like, and you add
the expansions and you get more 

724
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,680
cards and it's just like you. 
Yeah, it's terrible. 

725
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:18,920
Especially if you have a 
corporation in Terraforming Mars

726
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:22,240
that's dependent upon a certain 
tag and those tags never come 

727
00:40:22,240 --> 00:40:28,880
about, right. 
Yeah, exactly, exactly. 

728
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:33,680
Arc Nova is another one. 
Love Arc Nova it too, although 

729
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:38,360
the marine worlds came up with a
interesting mechanic to kind of 

730
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:42,320
you know, like when whenever 
that wave icon came out in the 

731
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:46,360
market, you would sweep a cards 
in the market so that you would 

732
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:50,120
see more cards. 
It accelerated the cards coming 

733
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:54,920
out of the deck a little bit. 
That was great, not amazing, but

734
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,120
it addressed it. 
It was a concerted effort and 

735
00:40:58,240 --> 00:41:03,200
Everdel is just that thing is 
just massive cards, right. 

736
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:08,600
In fact, I think if you have the
entire collection set, the whole

737
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,120
thing now with all the 
expansions, I don't even think 

738
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:15,560
the tree, the ever tree holds 
all the cards anymore, I don't 

739
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:17,480
think, which is kind of 
excessive. 

740
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:21,080
Could you imagine your castle 
not being able to hold all the 

741
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:24,360
cards? 
Well, a very early iteration of 

742
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:25,840
the game, but may have been 
true. 

743
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:30,520
Yeah, so those are just three 
games that just kind of popped 

744
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:33,080
in my mind right away. 
Is like they suffer from that 

745
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:35,120
same issue, right? 
That same problem. 

746
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:41,040
And terrifying Mars does not 
attempt to overcome it at all or

747
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:45,160
Nova does with an expansion. 
But then I'm thinking about, I'm

748
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:49,400
thinking about Kavango by Mazaza
Games. 

749
00:41:49,720 --> 00:41:55,040
Yeah, so it has a lot of cards, 
but the cards are, I can't 

750
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:57,480
remember what they're called and
we just played it the other day.

751
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:01,920
They're kind of like, I guess if
you were to take, if you were to

752
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:06,560
mirror how they manage their 
cards in your game, they would 

753
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:10,640
be ages, right? 
Similar to 7 Wonders. 

754
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:16,360
So you would have age 1 cards 
and then age 2 and age 3. 

755
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:21,320
So they would fall away, right? 
And you could have the same size

756
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:27,000
deck with all the variability 
that you envision, but the the 

757
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:31,320
entire deck is not accessible 
for the whole game because they 

758
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,400
do that the further you get 
each, each round round. 

759
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:40,240
Yeah, round consisting of 10 
turns in, in Comango, there's 

760
00:42:40,240 --> 00:42:45,480
like AB and C decks of cards and
they get increasingly more 

761
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:47,720
expensive. 
That's not the right word. 

762
00:42:47,720 --> 00:42:49,760
We're talking about animals and 
trying to feed them. 

763
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:56,120
But yeah, that's a that's a 
possible way of managing a large

764
00:42:56,280 --> 00:43:02,880
inventory of cards in your game.
I don't know, we almost, you 

765
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:06,400
could, you could reach out to 
Matt and Zara if you wanted to 

766
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:09,760
at Mazaza Games. 
They're very open and they would

767
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:12,760
be happy to talk to you. 
They're working on their first 

768
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,240
expansion for Commando, which 
will be hitting Kickstarter 

769
00:43:15,240 --> 00:43:16,880
soon. 
That's a little plug for them. 

770
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:20,600
I know I haven't mentioned them 
in a long time, so I'm sure 

771
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:24,520
they're excited for me to even 
be talking about them right now.

772
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:26,840
Like, Oh yeah, this is great. 
They're really good people, 

773
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:30,440
great designers. 
And yeah, they would they would 

774
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:32,400
be able to talk you through 
that, too. 

775
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:36,680
Those are the games that I can 
think about with a massive card,

776
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:38,680
Yeah. 
I need to pick up a copy of 

777
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:40,040
Cabello. 
You do. 

778
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:43,040
Noted. 
I will say we almost did that 

779
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:47,480
for game one where we almost 
broke up a deck and had some of 

780
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:53,080
your really more cards. 
I have a separate deck maybe you

781
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:57,160
can only start drawing from in 
round 3, but there are a number 

782
00:43:57,160 --> 00:43:58,480
of reasons why we didn't do 
that. 

783
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:00,080
Don't need to go into full 
detail. 

784
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:03,440
I don't know that it would work 
in a state though, to be fair. 

785
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:05,200
It didn't. 
It did not work. 

786
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:07,520
I don't, I don't think that 
would work. 

787
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:10,640
But yeah, I mean, there's 
definitely, there's definitely 

788
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:12,320
ways to address that though, I 
think. 

789
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:18,200
That's an example of a solution 
that did not make it past PESCO 

790
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:19,800
on day three. 
See. 

791
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:23,120
Bring it back, bring it back. 
Bringing it back, bringing it 

792
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:24,800
back. 
I love that, that that's really 

793
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:26,560
cool. 
I'm still stuck on the. 

794
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:29,280
How do you avoid making the same
mistakes right? 

795
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,280
Yeah. 
So what what advice would you 

796
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:38,760
have to a game designer, whether
they're a first time designer or

797
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,560
a new designer that maybe has 
one game under their belts? 

798
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:46,000
And we're thinking about 
implementing this design Sprint 

799
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:51,960
as a way to get to that play 
test prototype quickly. 

800
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:53,280
What advice would you have for 
them? 

801
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:55,520
I would say start with blank 
paper. 

802
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:02,720
That's for the first entirety of
day one, thinking about the 

803
00:45:02,720 --> 00:45:04,400
problem was just like a blank 
sheet. 

804
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,840
Like I was like, what were the 
problems I had? 

805
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,120
I was like, I remember this was 
you and life and it really irked

806
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:13,400
me. 
And then I always like we did 

807
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:16,360
this retrospective about doing 1
here two months ago. 

808
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:19,200
Let me pull it up. 
So we have like a database of 

809
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:23,120
content that we found just in 
front of like, so we'll record 

810
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,800
our records in there, but let me
pull up that where we mention 

811
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,480
this and they'll add that to the
paper like to start with a blank

812
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:30,600
slate. 
But then to your point, that 

813
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,280
creates the issue of like, well,
you might recreate some of the 

814
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,960
existing things that you've, I'm
like trying to think like an 

815
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:39,880
elegant piece of advice. 
And the only thing that I can 

816
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:42,720
think of right now, it's just 
like you got to play test it 

817
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:47,640
with as many people, as many of 
a variety of people as you can. 

818
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:53,480
And then there's one I don't 
know if I would call it a 

819
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:56,640
problem so much as like a 
feature of the game. 

820
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:00,640
So we we worked with one artist 
for game one and definitely like

821
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:03,760
that artist injected a very 
particular style. 

822
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:08,440
So you the medieval fantasy game
and right, some oxen and I 

823
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,120
feared this story and people, 
you're no one's going to know 

824
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:12,200
it. 
But now that I've shared it, 

825
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:14,080
it's going to. 
Be everyone's going to see it. 

826
00:46:14,720 --> 00:46:17,440
There are no horses. 
You will notice there's one 

827
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:19,040
horse. 
None of his legs are shown. 

828
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:21,720
So that was actually an 
interesting point. 

829
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:24,760
Like our because of the timeline
that we have for art, there were

830
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,520
certain animals that like our 
artists had a tough time brought

831
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:31,120
great beautiful environments, 
beautiful man spirits, really 

832
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,360
cool like night. 
But there were certain like 

833
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:36,320
specific things like it's like 
I'm really struggling with this,

834
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:41,400
like I still get the leg right 
or like the main right, we don't

835
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:43,600
need it. 
Let's you know that was one of 

836
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:47,720
those moments of speed to value 
where just because of the 

837
00:46:47,720 --> 00:46:51,280
timeline that we needed to get 
the art in by like we so we did 

838
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:56,000
10% of our art up front for the 
so we did 90% afterwards. 

839
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,640
OK to get. 
Our timeline commitment to the 

840
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:03,280
masters, we had to really Sprint
on that 90%, which makes it 

841
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:07,200
maybe 98 or so art assets in the
game. 

842
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:13,920
So that, you know, they had to 
do essentially 90 pieces of art,

843
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:17,120
you know, illustrations for us 
over the course of a six month 

844
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,000
period, which is a lot to ask 
for and stay creative on. 

845
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:22,160
I'm sitting here trying to think
back. 

846
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:26,520
There are no horses. 
Yeah, which that'll probably 

847
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:28,240
change for game two. 
There will be horses. 

848
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:36,080
You can't go to war in the 
equivalent of medieval times and

849
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,520
not be on horseback. 
I mean, you know. 

850
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:42,200
Who has the stirrups? 
That's the big question. 

851
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:48,000
Yeah, that's that's huge. 
So Devin, yeah, go ahead. 

852
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,280
No, go ahead. 
Biggest piece of advice, play 

853
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:52,440
test as much as you can. 
Play test as much as you can. 

854
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:55,040
And don't be afraid. 
Like I said, there's also just 

855
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:56,920
this fear, like it's my baby, 
someone's going to steal my 

856
00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,440
idea. 
I feel like we're a pretty 

857
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:01,160
friendly community of 
publishers. 

858
00:48:01,240 --> 00:48:02,760
We, we want to give you 
feedback. 

859
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:06,680
We don't want to like if another
publisher stole a designer's 

860
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:09,600
idea because you'd manage to 
fall out from that. 

861
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:15,720
It would be a bloodbath. 
The content creators, once they 

862
00:48:15,720 --> 00:48:19,280
get wind, would just annihilate 
them. 

863
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:22,440
Yeah, Yeah, you definitely. 
Yeah. 

864
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:26,000
I would not worry about someone 
stealing your idea. 

865
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:30,480
Not in that sense, of course. 
But it hurt and I'm like don't, 

866
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:32,560
it's not going. 
To happen? 

867
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:34,680
Nope. 
And I've often thought like, if 

868
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:39,040
that did happen, like the 
abisceration factor, but also 

869
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:41,640
too like, that's an amazing form
of flattery. 

870
00:48:41,720 --> 00:48:44,240
If that happened to you, like 
someone might sign you for 

871
00:48:44,240 --> 00:48:45,760
another game like that's. 
Right. 

872
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:48,960
I mean there it is there it is 
there. 

873
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:53,480
So Devin, thank you so much. 
This is this has been a great 

874
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:55,000
conversation. 
I love this. 

875
00:48:55,000 --> 00:49:00,960
So tell everyone where they 
could find you if you weren't so

876
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:04,440
damned mobile, right? 
So I'm thinking about I'm 

877
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:06,400
thinking about there might be 
designers who want to talk to 

878
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:08,960
you about this design Sprint. 
I'm thinking we may have 

879
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:11,480
listeners who just want to know 
about the next game play 

880
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,440
testers. 
I'm also thinking about this is 

881
00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:17,800
important. 
I'm thinking about artists. 

882
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:21,320
You talked about the possibility
of being able to feature 

883
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,520
multiple artists in the second 
game. 

884
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:26,760
What if there's an artist, a 
game designer, a play tester out

885
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:30,960
there and they want to be able 
to find you or Catherine and try

886
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:34,280
to connect with you either in 
whatever form? 

887
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,360
Where can they find you? 
In all of the socials. 

888
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:41,480
So we do have an Instagram 
estate reads the Realm. 

889
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:44,480
I think we are going to be 
transitioning that over to grad 

890
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:46,560
games though. 
So I just want to call out both 

891
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,720
terms, which it's grad GRD 
games. 

892
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:53,000
Personally, if you want to drop 
me an e-mail, it's my first name

893
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:57,400
Devon, which is Devon, so 
spelled Devon at gradgames.com. 

894
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,080
Always happy to chat. 
And then if you're looking to 

895
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:03,000
find a copy of the game 
gradgames.com. 

896
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:06,120
We are in pre sales but won't be
delivering until Q1. 

897
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:10,440
And then otherwise, if you're 
looking to meet up in person, we

898
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:15,440
we meet offered to conventions, 
but there's one of three three 

899
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:20,120
that I love origins that's 
unplugged and now I'm adding it 

900
00:50:20,240 --> 00:50:20,800
Gen. 
Con. 

901
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,200
He's adding it. 
That's it done. 

902
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:25,040
It's it's. 
You it's in the roster. 

903
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:27,600
Those are the three. 
Those are the big three. 

904
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:30,880
Pax, you, Gen. 
Con and Origins, I think hands 

905
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:34,720
down are the big three. 
In the US, anyway. 

906
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:37,200
In the US, yeah. 
So, guys, reach out. 

907
00:50:37,720 --> 00:50:42,120
Also, on a personal note, don't 
be surprised if you're actually 

908
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:43,640
talking to Catherine. 
We do. 

909
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:46,880
Swap and you may see a change in
the tone of voice and be like am

910
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,600
I talking to the same person? 
Yeah, yeah. 

911
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:53,200
I'm like, so it's like when 
scheduling for this podcast, 

912
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:55,480
it's like I'm dealing with 
Catherine and it's like, but 

913
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,480
you're coming on and I'm like, 
OK, So what date and what time 

914
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:00,520
and what's the top? 
What are we talking about? 

915
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:03,720
Well, Devin will be on at this 
time and he wants to talk about 

916
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:06,280
this. 
Like why won't he e-mail me and 

917
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:08,280
tell me himself? 
I just want to talk about game 

918
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:12,280
design, but also I get a full, 
Full disclosure, Catherine is 

919
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:16,880
this full time on the board game
and he's creating so much 

920
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:18,320
leverage for us, which is 
fantastic. 

921
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:23,040
Yes, and I get I get about if 
I'm lucky, 10 hours a week. 

922
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:28,880
OK, so my my time is very sacred
right now and especially trying 

923
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:30,640
to put it towards towards game 
design. 

924
00:51:30,720 --> 00:51:34,520
Sure, she's lifting all the the 
heavyweight in a lot of other 

925
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,160
areas for us to to help maintain
that. 

926
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:40,880
Yeah, well, thank God for 
Catherine, right? 

927
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:45,400
Yes. 
So once again, thanks. 

928
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:47,320
Thanks for joining. 
I want to be respectful of your 

929
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:49,560
time guys. 
Don't forget to like and 

930
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:52,960
subscribe to the channel. 
We are still doing our very 

931
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:55,920
first giveaway. 
We've got a six edition copy of 

932
00:51:55,920 --> 00:51:59,920
Katan from Catan Studios that's 
celebrating your 30th 

933
00:51:59,920 --> 00:52:02,920
anniversary this year. 
So that's big news for them. 

934
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:05,920
The drawing ends at the end of 
September and the first week of 

935
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:09,120
October sometimes is when I'll 
pull that lucky name. 

936
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:13,200
So if you subscribe, you get 5 
entries if you like on Instagram

937
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:14,960
and post and do all the cool 
things. 

938
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:17,280
So I check us out. 
I just started a Tick Tock 

939
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:21,280
accounts for the podcast. 
Late to the game there, but 

940
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:27,080
check us out, yes. 
So thanks again and be kind to 

941
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:29,320
each other and let's play more 
games.