Hey guys, and happy Mardi Gras to all of you.
That's right, it is Fat Tuesday. They are celebrating parades in
my hometown of New Orleans. So once again, happy Mardi Gras
to everyone. Welcome to episode 161 of Maple.
To Maple, it is worker bees and worker placement.
So today we're exploring a truly sweet new title that's going to
be coming to Kickstarter soon, and that's APIs Milafera.
It's inspired by the amazing world of bees.
This game combines the beauty of nature with the strategy of
worker placement. You're going to take on the role
of a hive leader, managing your colony of industrious worker
bees, gathering nectar, crafting honey, all while navigating the
challenges that could either make or break your hive.
Bees make the perfect workers for your worker placement game.
Today I've got Henry from APIs Gaming Corp.
Henry, how are you? I'm doing great.
How are you doing, PJ? This is fantastic.
Thanks for joining. I really appreciate it.
Recently we talked about, I want to say it was last week, it
might have been the week before, I talked about how this podcast
marries really well with play testing of prototypes, and this
is a perfect example. You sent me a prototype of APIs
Melifera. We played it a couple times and
I got to experience it. We shipped it off to the next
person and now here we are. We're going to talk about your
game. Yeah, I know.
I think a lot of the the content creation really ties well in
with prototypes. I think that's actually How I
Met you. As we are play testing another
prototype for my cousin, I see his game right behind you his
his expansion for Time Lancers. That's right, that's right.
That was a Gen. Con last years.
Yeah, that was that was fun. We didn't get a chance to play
your game, but I'm glad you were willing to stick it out with me
and send me a copy. And we did.
My wife and I play a lot of games together, just the two of
us. So we did play it at 2:00.
We had our local game group over, so we played it at 4:00 as
well. So we got kind of experience the
game and it it's pretty incredible.
But I want to start, tell me about you and your how did you
get into the modern gaming hobby yourself?
So I myself started playing games when I was actually really
young. So my dad was a big war game
person, a strategy game person. So like I was playing very
complicated war games that were like made in the 70s and 80s
when I was like a teenager with my dad.
So, you know, you had a weird balance of like, oh, I would
play Monopoly one night with the family and then another night
I'm playing, you know, the Third Reich, which is a giant World
War 2 strategy game that takes like 4 hours to play.
I really started expanding beyond those kind of games in
college where we, you know, we learned the games are more
popular at Catan to get tried and then we jump to Twilight
Imperium as a group. And so that's it really was it.
We, we talked about all the time where we won, you know, in
college we would play it for six hours one night, like it just
stay up all night doing it. And then after that, we've kind
of played a lot more games since then.
I asked this just about everyone.
Do you have a favorite game of all time that you enjoy playing?
Or if not, do you have a game that you enjoy playing like
right now? Yes, all time would be Twilight
Imperium. OK, and maybe it's cuz I haven't
been able to play it enough to be sick of it yet, but that's
just cuz it's hard to get, you know, four people to commit six
hours of their day, you know what I mean?
But Imperium is my favorite game of all time.
I would say right now my favorite game to play aside from
APIs Mel Fiera. My game would be a Viticulture
or Terraforming Mars. Like those are the two I've been
playing a lot lately. So I know that APIs really is,
at its core a worker placement game.
I mean, it has other elements and we'll definitely get into
that. Is worker placement a favorite
of yours? Favorite mechanic?
Or like what gravity? What gravitated you towards that
mechanic and that theme? Yeah, it's actually one of our
my favorites and one of my business partner Drew's
favorites. And what gravitated toward that
theme was I was telling Drew that my cousin Kenny makes board
games and tell him about Time Lancers.
And he's like, well, I have an idea for a game.
And it was BC. And I was like, well, you know,
you make an outline and I'd like it, we'll go into business,
we'll make it together. And he did.
And I was like, this got a lot of potential.
Like this is very enjoyable. And so we've been working on it
ever since. And it just happens that worker
placement goes very well with BS.
And it is both of our favorite type of game.
So, and I guess I should say hello, Drew.
Sorry you weren't able to make it on the show.
Drew is he, does he keep bees like outside of his designing of
a game, is that something that he does?
Yeah. So it started off as a hobby for
him where he would actually keep bees, and he actually made Mead,
you know, like a wine that's based out of honey.
So he did as a hobby and then eventually found a position, a
job position that doesn't do it for a living.
So he's like a regional manager of different beekeepers.
And so all the science in the game is based on his knowledge
of beekeeping. Wow, wow, that's I didn't
realize like you could make a living keeping bees.
That's that's. Kind of cool.
A lot of businesses are really getting into this, you know,
that green movement. And so they'll bring in, you
know, people to bring in beehives and then they'll need
people to manage those beehives when they're on their property.
So you get some like tax benefits for it.
And it's also a good public image thing.
And these are just an important part of our ecosystem in
general. And so Drew manages a lot of the
part time beekeepers that keep those hives together.
So he'll work with other businesses like, hey, we'd like
some hives here. We'll coordinate to get him the
equipment, find somebody to manage that hive locally.
So he handages like a whole southeast region.
I think that's. That's cool.
We have a a colleague in our professional world outside of
gaming who also keeps bees as a hobby.
I was thinking a lot about that and asking him a lot of
questions when I was looking at the prototype of APIs.
And I was like, hey man, is this like, you know, And I was
telling him about he's like, that sounds amazing.
I'm like, right, who knew? Right, Who knew?
Yeah, I mean, when we were at Gen.
Con, one of our play testers specifically, we did the the
play test room and when somebody specifically signed up for it
because they were a beekeeper and they loved it.
And that's kind of our exposures like people that keep bees that
really love this because we put a lot of we really try to build
the mechanics in the game around the science beekeeping.
And that was kind of where we came together where Drew would
have the idea of like, hey, this is how it works in real life.
And I'm like, OK, well, we have to match that with how we can
mechanically make it an enjoyable game.
And so that was kind of the the creative path that we took.
So Drew presents you his idea, right?
And did you know what the theme was before he meant?
Yeah, he just said it was going to be bees.
A bee themed worker placement. That was all he said.
OK, so the only thing you knew was, hey, I've got this game
that I'm designed and it's a bee themed worker placement.
That's all you know, right? So there's your slate.
So then you get it and it's about keeping bees.
And I assume you don't know anything about this.
What was your initial reaction when you when you saw this?
Yeah, I know. I I didn't know anything about
bees, I'll be honest, except for I knew that he had bees and that
he made meat out of bees, which I have drank his meat, which is
great, right? But when I saw it, I was just
like, as he was explaining to me, I was like, oh, OK, what is
this, though? And he kept explaining the
science of it. I'm like, OK, I see how this is
all connecting. And it really started to
formulate in my head of how to really change the game to make
it such a a compelling play that people would want to play it
again and again. So like you, I went into it
cold, not knowing. And I really, I mean, at this
point, I know I probably can keep a lot of bees because I
know a lot of, right? So, so that's interesting
because I was wondering this myself.
You think that if you've played this game enough, the knowledge
would transfer to the real world.
Yes. However, I don't think you could
just play this game and then be able to raise a hive.
The reason I know it is because I had to ask those in depth
questions to make sure I understood it.
You know what I mean? Like I didn't want to create a
product that I didn't fully understand the science behind
it. So in the process of creating
this game, I think I could keep beehives quite successfully.
But yeah, if you just play it, I don't know if you'd be qualified
to do it. But I will say there are a lot
of easy ways to get involved in beekeeping.
A lot of associations in every state and local areas that you
can go to. I live here in Asheville, NC and
they have a beekeeping club that meets and talks about different
problems and helps you start your hives if you want.
Did you, did you reach out to that organization in the process
of making the game to educate yourself and did you share the
prototype with them to get their feedback?
We've reached out to a few beekeeping associations, but we
didn't give them a prototype yet, but we plan on to.
So we've talked to a couple. I live in North Carolina and so
I talked to the North Carolina association.
I've also there's a local one that I plan on going to and kind
of introducing it, but they kind of been on pause for the winter.
So that's kind of part of it. Sure.
Yeah, but Drew is he does a lot of the beekeeping networking, so
in Georgia and all of the his business ties like he kind of
talks about like and he gets their feedback too like hey,
what do you think of this? Does this make sense to you as a
non board gamer but a beekeeper and things like.
That I think that what I've observed recently is some of the
really hot, the hot games that people don't realize or the kind
of the they're not really sleepers, but are games that
appeal to the non gamers as well as the gamers, right?
And I I think APIs achieves that based on my experience, right.
And for those of you watching, Please note that I did play a
prototype. So we have no idea what the
amount of products are going to look like.
You know, once once you got it all cleaned up, I can only
imagine it's just going to be the Sky's the limit from there.
So tell me about the process you so you get started.
Drew's giving you his idea the plan Where did it all begin?
It's. Important to know we live, we've
always lived in two different states since we started this
project. So when it first started, I
lived in Florida, he lived in Georgia still, he still lives in
Georgia. So it started on Zoom back in
2021, you know, and it was on PowerPoint.
So basically we did have a, you know, a knowledge of how to make
table tops and everything yet. So we basically just have
PowerPoint slides and one of us, like usually me, would move
around little bees onto the spot, little pictures of them.
And then we would just keep track of the tally of of the
resources and things like that. What then then developed into is
we did a business trip and we actually made a little prototype
of like a poster board and a little sticky notes, you know,
your standard, how you actually start a board game thing.
And that that was kind of how it all started.
So in the process you you're going to be launching on, you're
going to be launching on Kickstarter, right?
Is that correct? Yeah, when at some point you
you're you're ready to pull that trigger and I know it's coming
up. It hasn't, it hasn't launched
yet. But what made you decide to go
with a crowd funding platform as opposed to reaching out to a
publisher? Maybe you did reach out to
publishers and have them publish it and sell the rights off
rather than self-publishing. Because that that's a really
interesting conversation and I've gotten a lot of different
answers from designers. Well, so admittedly we started
from the very beginning thinking Kickstarter, I think mainly
because that was what we were used to.
You know, we'd, I had backed games on Kickstarter before my
cousin had done his games on Kickstarter.
So that was what I was familiar with a couple years ago.
The idea of pitching it to a publisher came up at a
convention in Georgia was a convention specifically for game
designers to pitch their games to publishers.
We'd never really thought about it.
So we're like, yeah, we'll try it and see what it's like.
And I think we realized that we want too much artistic control
over the game that we don't want to change.
And so even though we had some good conversations with
publishers, we never found anything that we really wanted
to to work with because we didn't want to lose that
control. We wanted to really stay to the
theme of beekeeping. And I know there are other games
out there that once you get pitched to publisher, they're
going to change stuff the way they want it.
And we just, we didn't want to lose that.
It's our it's our passion project.
Yeah, so, so tell everyone about let's let's talk about the game
itself, right? So when someone backs the game
and hits the table, you know, it's finished, fulfilled, it's
launched, everything's great, everything's happened and it
reaches their table. What can they expect when they
open the box? So when they can, when they open
the box, they should first expect to be hit with what they
saw on the pictures of a a very pretty game that is very gentle
and easy to kind of pick up. So even though it's AI would say
a, a worker placement is naturally going to be a little
bit heavier of a game. What we found is it's a lot
easier to learn. You know, when we send it to a
few people to do tests, play tests and previews, they're
like, yeah, they picked it up in like 20 minutes.
It suffers from at the very beginning the the thing all
worker placement stuff suffer from, which is that, you know,
too many options to do right, analysis paralysis.
But once you start immediately starts flowing and then it just
is easy after that. So I think people would open it.
They're going to look at me like, oh, this is beautiful.
They set it all up. You know, maybe they're like, oh
man, there's a lot going on. But once they've learned how to
do it in like 10-15 minutes, it'll be they'll be smooth
sailing right after that. And so that that's kind of what
we wanted was a a vibe that was very nature specific.
Think Wingspan thinks of those kind of games but a worker
placement that also wasn't too hard for your non gamers to play
like one. That would be have a meat to it,
but also be easy to learn. So it's it's really similar.
Now, this is all contingent upon not too many changes based off
the prototype that I saw. So I can only speak from that.
But you're going to have the main board in front of you.
There's for seasoned gamers, there won't be any surprises,
places where you will place your workers, get resources, things
like that. But talk about the player
boards. They're probably my favorite
part of the game. Describe those two.
Yeah, so like you said, that there's going to be a shared
game board, which is like the world.
You send your bees out to the world.
Well, your player board is your hive, and there's two parts to
the hive. You have the actual hive
structure, which is kind of shaped and designed like an
actual beehive. And then on the other side would
be different actions that bees would do within their hive.
And so you have this really fun thing where you have waxed out
frames because bees will basically take wooden frames
that beekeepers give them, wax them out and then hold stuff in
them. And then beekeepers can also
expand their hives, stack them up higher.
That's why you see some hives that are short, some that are
really tall, things like that. And so then on the other side
would be the actions the bees would be doing in the hives,
things like turning the resources they got into honey,
you know, it's the most common one, laying eggs to make more
bees, those kind of things. And so every player board, it
has their own unique actions that no one else can take.
But then the game, the shared game board, the world is your
traditional work replacement where if someone takes a spot,
nobody else can take that. With a few exceptions, of
course. I think what's really cool about
the the player board in front of you is you were talked about it
a little bit, the wooden frame and they will would you say wax
it out wax. It out.
Yeah, that's that's kind of what we call it.
Yeah. So as an action, you can wax out
your frame and you take basically beeswax.
The bees will make beeswax and then they wax out the wood
that's in there. Now those wax frames can hold
resources the way that hives normally would hold resources.
So you can expand your hive and that's going to give you access
to more resources, right? Yep.
It can hold more resources, allow you to do more things, and
of course, the larger your hive goes, the more resources you
need to keep your bees alive. So.
Because they need to eat. So yeah.
What about? If I recall, you only start with
a small number of bees and there are ways to gain more to do more
actions in future rounds. Yeah, so a lot of worker
placements will slowly grow your amount of workers.
Think Fees for Odin, where you'll get one extra worker
every round. In this game, you make your
workers by either laying eggs, which will hatch into new
peoples, or you can buy some from the beekeeper.
And that's a pretty common actual bee practice is, you
know, a lot of people hear about buying Queens.
So if you're a new beekeeper, you might acquire a queen from
another seller, but you'll need some bees to also go with that
queen. And so you can buy bees for a
little bit cheaper of a price. In the real world and in the
game, you buy bees and add it to your hive.
And so this is, like you said, this is something that really
happens. Beekeepers do this.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
If you're a new beekeeper, like you can't just put out a hive
and hope a bee occupies it. I mean, there's a small chance
that might happen. But in general, if you're a new
beekeeper, you'll purchase a queen, and usually it comes with
some bees of some sort. And then you kind of you
purchase all the equipment and you kind of introduce the queen
to the hive, and then it slowly grows from there.
But most beekeepers will start by buying what they need.
Right. So for those of you who like me,
have no idea how beekeeping works, but you've seen it.
There's the big box, right? There's like a wooden box.
And then you, you will see the beekeepers, they pull out the
slats of wood, right? And and that's, that's
essentially what the player board is, right?
Is that is that slat of wood? Is there a name for that?
I can't remember. That's a a frame.
A-frame. So yeah, that's a so a wooden
frame. And most wooden frames will have
like this little substance in it that kind of starts the hexagon
shapes for the bees, makes a little bit easier for them, and
then the bees just kind of pile into the wax on that.
Yeah, and that and that's what you're building up on your
player board your. Yes, yes.
Waxing out, I believe you. Yep.
If building it, you take the wooden frames, you wax them out,
you're building up that hive size and then there's an empty
space in there that you can also expand by in the game, paying
the beekeeper honey. That's kind of the transaction
that you have and the beekeeper will slide some more wood in so
that you can wax more out and and hold more stuff.
What is it to your mind that makes your game APIs Mellifera
stand out from other worker placement games?
Obviously seasoned gamers are going to be like, do I really
need another worker placement? Obviously the short answer is
yes. What What makes your game stand
out from other worker placements?
First, I think the vibe of it, a lot of worker placements there,
they have their own unique vibe that they bring to the table.
And I, I haven't seen a worker placement that brings that
natural, the natural feeling, that nature feeling almost like
an educational vibe in a way that's just not as common in
worker placements. So I think that's the first
part. I think the second part is it's
going to be a worker placement that you can also play with
friends that might not have played worker placements before.
And I think that's huge, right? Like we all have gaming groups
that we play and certain people like certain games and maybe you
have a a group of friends that likes to play those real casual
games and you really want to get them into the better, harder
core games. You know, you want to sit there
for four hours and really grind it.
Terraforming Mars or something. Well, I think this game is a
great, you know, turn my boys use the gateway game.
So those games that are that level to really introduce them
to a new level of game. And then you, you know, before
they know it now, they're suddenly they're sitting playing
Feast for Odin for 2 1/2 hours with you, you know?
Right. So is it safe to say that you,
you, it is your intention, your hope that your game would be the
perfect gateway worker placement game?
Yeah, absolutely. I I think that is a great thing
to say, a gateway worker placement game that is still
challenging enough for experienced players that you're
going to enjoy. Let's take that a step further,
right? New gamers, they play APIs, they
they love it and they're ready to move to the next thing.
Is there a second game that already exists, that's already
in your mind that you're like, man, you know, people love this
and they're going to love. That's a great question.
I think viticulture is a the theming of viticulture will
appeal to people that are newer to worker placement.
So if you've played APIs, then moving to viticulture because
it's making wine and that's always fun too.
I think you could also go into the more classics of Agricula or
if he's throwed in or architects of the West Kingdoms and other
worker placement. I love.
I think those are all relatively easy.
That would be the next step. But if I had to pick one and be
viticulture, I think be the next step.
So go from making honey to making wine.
Exactly. I see what you're doing there.
So will there be either in the Kickstarter as a stretch goal or
as an add on or a future project?
Will there be an expansion where you can make Mead from the
honey? Because I don't remember that
being a component of the game. That's a great question.
And if that was to happen, that would be an expansion of some
sort because right now you play as a hive.
So that would be more of focused if you're playing as the
beekeeper, what you do with the honey afterwards.
So yeah, we're not working on that now, but we we want to see
where we go with this project before we commit to other
things. So we have a lot of ideas,
including something like that. Was there and and since Drew's
not here, if you know this answer, I'll ask this of Drew as
well. But for the both of you, was
there a game or a series of games that you drew your
inspiration from when designing this one?
For sure, I can say for the vibe that we wanted players to feel
just by looking at it, something like Wingspan.
Like we love nature games, we love nature.
And I would say Wingspan is a really good gateway game too,
one that is easy to teach new people.
It's visually appealing. So a lot of non traditional
board gamers will want to play it, but also the people that are
hardcore gamers still enjoy playing Wingspan.
I haven't met somebody that doesn't enjoy Wingspan yet.
They might be out there, but I haven't met them.
Right. And so the vibe of Wingspan and
then we wanted the mental challenge of any worker
placement that we enjoy. You know, the games that we like
with Feast Rd. in inspired us, especially with the how you feel
in your frame versus how you feel in your player board and
Feast Rd. in various things like that.
I I think those are the kind of things that inspired us.
Yeah, so we established that Drew is a professional
beekeeper. What about his experience in
gaming? So Drew is an experienced gamer.
He showed me a few games, some of those worker placements early
on, many years ago. So Drew and I, we met actually
in Afghanistan. We're both in the Army and we
met him. We were showed up and was like
when we talked about things we're interested in and video
games, board games or that. And then we moved to Georgia
after we finished our, our tour and we played a lot of games
there. So the early games that we play,
we played all the different versions of Risk.
We, I showed him games like Twilight Imperium, you know,
Katan, we played a lot of and we really got into work
replacements at that time. So did he, I'm assuming you guys
talked about it. Was there a specific game that
inspired him, or was this game inspired by his life outside of
gaming? Yeah, so I, I think his life
outside of gaming, really what inspired him was beekeeping.
He wanted, don't get me wrong, playing the games and loving
games inspired him to want to make one, but the idea of making
a bee themed game I think was really inspired by by his
passion for for nature and for beasts.
I think that you both managed to do something.
I, I preach this all the time. It's, it's all about the, the
sacrament of marriage between theme and mechanics.
And when it's done well, it is done really well.
And I think you guys have managed to execute that
brilliantly. Thank you.
You really get the impression that, I mean, yes, it's a worker
placement for seasoned gamers. We know how worker placements
go, Yes, of course. But it's like the theme really,
and especially the science behind it really informs how the
mechanics work in the game so that you can do the things that
would be done. And it's all adhering to the
real world applications of that theme.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, I mean, so first, I think, and Drew would agree with me on
this, that seems are what make a game.
I I know you have to have the base, you have to have a game
that actually works well, right. You can have a cool theme and if
the game doesn't work well, it's not fun.
But in order to make a game fun, functional, to enjoyable, you
need a good scene. And I played a lot of games that
is some are very popular with with gamers.
And I'm like, I just the scene doesn't appeal to me.
And so, yeah. And when it came to making this,
there were sometimes where we had Drew kind of brought that
thematic, the science, the expertise to it.
And I kind of brought because while Drew plays games, I play a
lot, I play a lot of games. And so I kind of brought that
practical, you know, player based thought of mechanics into
it. And there were times we had to
butt heads on things and compromise to make sure that the
game is still enjoyable, but tried to be, as you know, true
to the theme as we possibly could.
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it was executed
brilliantly. I again, I talk about this all
the time. My absolute favorite game of all
time, which I haven't mentioned in probably 2 episodes.
So let's talk about it is Obsession, which marries the
theme and the mechanics so well. And if you strip them away, then
they're just kind of BLOB, put them together and it's just
gold. I really enjoyed the experience
of playing APIs. That was just was really
incredible and I thank you for that.
Well, thank you for playing it. We're we're very appreciative.
Honestly, that's probably the most fun thing is when some
people play our game and they tell us that they enjoyed it
like because it's a passion project of ours.
And so every time someone says that we enjoyed it as well, it's
like, that's awesome. That's what we want is we want
we've made this thing that we think is really fun, enjoyable,
We really love. And if other people love it too,
that it's very rewarding. So I want to ask you about the
actual process, the behind the scenes of making a board game.
What was your favorite aspect of the entire project working on
this? Well, I, I will say one small
thing I love, we love the different peoples that we've
used in the past. So the little pieces, the very
first ones we used were these little tiny circle bees.
I'll see if I got some photos of them to send it to you.
But like these little tiny like scrapbooking bees that, you
know, we bought. So we love them.
And even our the early play testers that were doing the real
rough version of friends and family were like, oh, these are
so adorable. And so that kind of stuck with
us if like we need to make sure we like the bee pieces and
there's some other bee games out there that, you know, they're
enjoyable bee and we we love bees, right?
So we love playing games with bees, but their pieces aren't
they didn't feel right in our mind.
And so we're trying to make people.
And so honestly, that's part of it.
The peoples in the prototype were made by this really nice
couple who have a wood making business out of California.
So we bought those custom for that.
We'll I'll have to make sure that we keep in the main game
the that design into the actual manufacturing of it.
So I would say making the beefles was probably my favorite
part of it. Just the every time we use them,
it's just, it's great. Well now comes the follow up
question of what was the absolute worst part of this
experience? That you are just you never want
to repeat this again. Like it was just terrible and
you hated it. Were we talking just making the
game, or everything that involves A Kickstarter at the
game? The whole thing from the moment
Drew approaches you until, well, today, since Kickstarter hasn't
happened yet. But yeah, was it one thing that
just really you? It really pained you.
Social media and meta ads like, Oh my gosh, OK, so neither one
of us are very big social media people, but you kind of have to
be in order to market a game. And then so unfortunately in the
division of work, that kind of fell on me because Drew didn't
even have certain social medias and I did, you know, and I don't
know that is a unfun experience. I I do appreciate and I love
watching content creators, but I don't know, I, I'm not really, I
don't want to be out there in media very often, admittedly, to
then turn that into like, OK, now I have to not only, you
know, post occasion on social media, now I have to figure out
how to make ads that will show other people the game so they'll
be interested in it. It's just non enjoyable
experience. And in particular, Meta's
advertising tool is not user friendly to people that never
done it before. OK, well, there you have it.
I, I love that. Thank.
Thank you for your honesty. I appreciate that.
So if, if you had a friend or a colleague, anyone as approaching
you, they've got an idea for a game just much like Drew did,
and they're thinking about designing a game.
What advice do you have for a first time game design?
The best advice, and we've received this from other game
designers, is really figure out what is your goal for this game.
If your goal is just to make a game that you and your friends
and family can enjoy, you know, that's kind of very different
than if hey, I want to make a game and release it and get a
lot of people out there. And knowing what your goal is
will also help you understand really the full task that you're
taking on. Because if you're just making a
game for you and your friends and family, you know, you only
need one copy of it. Your own copy get printed play
or one of those small board game makers just to make an
individual copy and that's it. I mean, you know, you made it an
art passion project and you can enjoy it with your friends and
family. But if you're, if you're really
like, hey, I have this idea for this game, I want to share it
with the world. Want to get it out there?
Well then know that there's a lot of things that go on with
it, like marketing and meta ads and a Kickstarter process and
getting manufacturers and fulfilment and all those
different things behind the scenes that admittedly we
weren't as prepared for when we started this project.
Yeah, so talk to me about the community of board game
designers, right? I mean, obviously your cousin
designed game, they're working on their expansion.
Then I know they got some other projects going on, but how well
were you received your idea received when you were reaching
out to other designers just to be like help?
Yeah, the game designers are really, at least our experience
are really supportive of each other.
First of all, one of the conventions I mentioned is
called Proto ATL. Basically the whole thing is
just a whole bunch of game designers where you play test
each other's games and you get honest feedback from that.
And that's great because a lot of times your friends and
family, you know, they love you. So they're not going to tell you
all the mean things. You know, maybe they'll be like,
well, this much, I didn't enjoy it this much.
Whatever. Another public, another game
maker will sit there and be like, yeah, this really was not
good. I did not enjoy this.
But and you know, at that time, it's like a punch to the gut,
but it's very appreciative because it comes out of a place
of like, hey, they want to help you succeed.
And so they see that's what they view as a flaw and they want to
address it with you. And additionally, you know, and
I want to, I'll throw out a few shout outs.
There's, you know, my cousin has been extremely helpful, but he's
family, right? So you might think, well, he has
to be. But there's another game
designer. He made a game called Ultra
Massive. It's a black hole themed board
game. He did his Kickstarter last
year. My name's Alex, super great,
helpful. He would log on the calls with
us, be like, yeah, this is what I did.
This is how we did it. These are the challenges that we
had. Give us feedback on things like
the graphic design of stuff because that's kind of what he
does by his day job. Another shout out to James from
Pocket Parks, a game that just recently got funded on
Kickstarter. James took the time to do
Discord calls with us and kind of walk us through some of the
challenges that we had. So like overall, the game design
community is very supportive of each other and I think that is
great. And we try to pay that back too,
whenever people have questions from us.
That's fantastic. I'm, I'm really pleased to hear
that because yeah, I feel like sometimes as content creators,
we kind of get, we get lost in the, you know, there's multiple
sub communities, there's the content creator community, then
there's this, the gamers, right? And then there's the designers
and there's the publishers. And I'm really trying to
incorporate all of them on the show, which is why you're on
that. And I got the prototype of your
game and play it, which I love play testing.
So I want to talk about really quickly, how easy was it for you
and or drew for that matter, to open yourselves up and allow
yourselves to be vulnerable to constructive criticism?
Like how difficult was that for you?
So it can be, you know, a little bit of a anxiety inducing to
start, I will say. But once you do it the first
time, then it gets a lot easier and you take that feedback and
you improve your game. And pretty soon people don't
have a lot of negative feedback. They're small things might be
like, oh, well, you know, the production of this.
And and then in your mind, you're like, OK, well, it's a
prototype. You know what I mean?
This isn't the final product, right?
I only got so much money to spend to make a new version
every 5-5 weeks, right? But I think, yeah, it's exactly
it's it could be like you could build it up in your head.
But the moment you do it, I think it makes it a lot easier.
Like, you get out of the way that first game with a bunch of
strangers, they give you bad feedback, you know?
You go to the hotel bar, grab a drink real quick, come back out,
and then you're back out there playing more games and you feel
good, you know? So it sounds like, and this is
not surprising, it sounds like it's it's up to the individual
how well they receive the feedback, whether good or bad.
Yes, absolutely. And I always want to emphasize
and we always say this when anytime we play test anybody's
game, it's like, hey, like we it's this is going to be set out
of constructive criticism for your benefit.
So we, it's not that we have anything against it and we're
here to try to help you make your game better.
And so when you approach that mindset of like, hey, they're
only trying to help you, it's a lot easier.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
So when is when's the game coming to Kickstarter?
So we're hoping to launch in the spring.
We're keeping that, you know, a little bit flexible whether it
be the end of March or or early April based on where we are with
our numbers. And part of that marketing is
your, you have certain numbers that you want to try to beat
before you launch to make sure that you'll get backed on time.
So in the spring though is springtime.
For you, do you have a page that folks can follow on Kickstarter
now or have have you? We do have a Kickstarter pre
launch page and we have a we have a pre launch page and then
we have an e-mail sign up that people can sign up.
If they want to do our e-mail list.
They can also do it the one of the $1.00 reservations that
they'll get a custom bead that seemed die that'll go with their
game when they back in on Kickstarter.
OK, so here comes your favorite part.
OK, because you've already said it's not your favorite.
So tell everyone where they can find you on all the social
platforms and where they can find and back APIs mellifera
when it launches. Absolutely.
So we on Instagram, we are APIs Gaming LLC on our Kickstarter.
If you just simply search for APIs Melifera the B game or just
APIs Melifera, it's probably going to pop up.
But APIs Melifera the B game, you'll find our pre launch page.
And then on our web, our website isapislaunch.apisgameapisboardgaming.com.
And I'll, I'll make sure I, I send you the links too, because
they're a little bit longer and that way people can just look at
them instead of trying to listen to what I'm saying.
Yeah, we will definitely have all that in the in the links
below. Well, Henry, thank you so much
for this was really cool. Thanks for letting me be a part
of the play testing experience. This game is really interesting
guys. Take a look at it, go to the pre
launch page, see what you think. There's some great pictures on
Instagram. I've got it up on my phone right
now taking a look at it. Give them a like and a follow as
well if you can. And please send us comments.
Be sure to like and subscribe the channel.
And here's the question for you. What is your favorite worker
placement game? Send that to us in the comments
after you listen to this. Once again, be kind to one
another and let's play more games.
Absolutely. Thanks, PJ.