Welcome to Meeple to Meeple, uniting players around the
world. A 30 minute exploration of TJ
and Gareth's four-game experiences from across both
sides of the Atlantic. Each episode they share their
thoughts and opinions on the world of four games, including
their favorite themes, games, hot topics, and much, much more.
Hey gang, and welcome to episode 99.
We're one episode away from the big 100, if you can believe it.
Today we're going to raise the realm.
That's right, you heard me right.
We're going to raise the realm. We're going to talk about a
game. It's called a state Raise the
realm. If you followed us on Instagram,
you've seen some of my posts. If you've heard Gareth and I
talk about it, this is going to be a great episode.
And as always, I remain PJ. And I am still Gareth.
One week I'm going to change and just be somebody else, surprise
or I just got on holiday again and then it'd be somebody else
in my place. That's how it works I.
Expected you to be someone else when you got back from holiday
and you didn't. But so that was.
Still me, fortunately. So there we are.
That's OK. So we are fortunate enough to
have with us Catherine Hawn from Grodd Games, one of the
designers, Co designers of the game Estate Rays the Realm.
Catherine, how are you? I'm doing fantastic getting
ready for our big launch day coming up in just over two
weeks. So hanging in there, but super
excited to be on and to talk to you both.
And yeah, tell folks about the game.
The game's really come a long way.
So how I first was introduced to a state was just this past
summer at Origins. You and Devin were there.
We were talking just before the recording is that I have not met
you. I have.
I met Devin at Origins and I let him know, hey, we got this
podcast, we're really interested.
My wife was with me and we were really impressed by the game.
You sent us a prototype copy. You were gracious enough to stay
in constant communication and field questions as we went
along, which was pretty great. And here we are, we've finally
made it. You're 2 weeks out from the
launch, right? Yep, big day is October 15th and
yeah, I'm sad to have missed you Origins, but Origins was super
busy. I was our first big con and we
were very excited to talk to so many people about the game and
have everyone so interested. And so it's 15th of October on
Kickstarter. How long ago did the design
process start? Just over four years ago.
Okay, so it was a little pandemic project.
Is that how it started? We found ourselves at home like
many people and had gone through our collection of games and
started ideating on like, what do we love about certain games?
And you know, Devin had always had this idea of creating a game
himself. And I got on the bandwagon and
the first version of a state looked very, very different, had
a plethora of mechanics that aren't in the game today, some
territory control kind of stuff that, you know, we love.
We love games like Scythe, but we kind of pulled that back a
bit because our vision was to really make a game that had an
immersive back story and and players can really get immersed
in, but was kind of an intro game or gateway game for Euro
style games for players. So it has those core mechanics
like resource management, worker placement, and kind of like the
strategy and tableau building of like how do you optimize your
build? But we tried to make it lighter
so that, you know, some folks who maybe have never done a Euro
game or have friends who love your games but don't want to
spend the three to four hours playing it can can really get it
on the table and have a good time.
But it's kind of short and sweet.
So it's about 20 to 25 minutes per player.
Yeah, I certainly found that for the prototype you sent us, which
was it is quick to table, quick to set up and quick to play.
So so for those listening, what is the style a game, What's the
theme and how does it play? Yeah.
So thematically, a state raised the realm is a worker placement
tableau building game. And thematically, in the world
of a state, a Great War has just ended and you're taking on the
role of one of our noble leaders who's been given an estate to
rebuild from the ground up. You start off with a couple
cards in play already per leader.
Those are all unique as well as four workers that you use
throughout the game to take different worker actions.
Playing cards in your state is that engine of growth aspect.
So as you play more cards, your worker actions are going to
become more powerful. And then the game ends at the
end of Era 5. So it's it's kind of a time
boxed game. You're really trying to maximize
out of state build and each character you play with is is
unique. So each one has a different
tableau track that you're building out.
Each one has a special ability that you get to use once per
era, and we really felt like that was kind of one of those
unique aspects to build into the game of creating it.
So it's it's unique every time you play it.
There's a couple other replayability factors that we
can get into later on in the conversation.
But yeah, like we, we felt like we wanted to have it be kind of
like every time you play it is is kind of a new adventure in
the world of a state. I certainly found the the
character, the character cards and how what character borders
they are being unique enough that it did feel different every
game I played it. So that was really good.
PJ, what do you think? Yeah, I really enjoy the
asymmetrical aspect of the different states that you're
playing. And for the record, so we played
it multiple times at two players, my wife and I, we
played it once at 4:00 and then we played it once at 5:00.
And that's when the resources get really tight and you're
like, I don't have any wood. Well, you know, So yeah, it was
really interesting. I thought it was.
What I found interesting was some of the characters managing
the states, the leaders. They're a little sinister in
their back story, right, 'cause it's like this war is over, but
it's not all, you know, roses and feathers there's.
Tell us, tell us a little bit about the different estate
leaders because it's the back story.
As you said, it's like after a war.
Yeah, So thematically, again, the war has ended and you're all
trying to rebuild and each leader has a little bit of a
like a tailored way of rebuilding.
So if you take on the Agrarian Lord, for instance, you're going
to start with a form and a quarry in your estate.
And that's definitely an estate where you're trying to build out
your production track and really get that engine going of playing
a bunch of cards that when you take production action, you get
to do a bunch of things with one worker action.
Another estate, you know, way you can play is with the Trade
Queen. So the Trade Queen is still also
a production track, but they have a card called the Merchant
and that Merchant actually lets you copy someone else's
production. So that's going to be a little
bit more tailored towards those bigger player games, like four
or five player. And that gets you access to all
the other estates essentially. So you're kind of trading with
these other estates in a way. We have another leader that is
the Pious 1, and they are a little bit more of an advanced
player card where you start off with a card called the Place of
Worship and that lets you draw another card, a couple other
cards, and then you play one of those cards immediately.
So that's going to give you a unique start every game you play
with the Pious 1. And that one is a little bit
more of a, you get to draw a bunch of cards because there's
special ability lets you draw more cards.
And we have over 50 unique cards in the deck.
So there's quite a lot of variety.
And that's part of the game is you want to try to get the rate
cards for your player. And so the Pious 1's going to be
1 where you know, you're going to be able to see a lot more
cards than other players and be able to maybe play some of those
more powerful, higher VP value cards.
The asymmetry. You had mentioned Scythe
earlier, which is known for its asymmetrical play style, but is
the concept of asymmetry, is that a or was that a key tenant
of your game design overall? Or can you tell us a little bit
more about the design? Yeah, that definitely was a key
tenant for us. We love playing games again and
again, like some of our favorites are Agricola,
Everdell, Wingspan, etcetera. But I think what scratches that
edge with Scythe is that like it does have that asymmetric aspect
of, you know, you have a lot of variety.
Like every time you play, like sure, in Evendale, like based on
the cards you get drawn, like it changes a little bit, but you
kind of like know like the track you want to try to do
potentially there. We wanted to build a game that
had a lot of that replayability factor.
So like with six different leaders and we might have some
more depending on how well, how well the stretch goes, stretch
goals. But with those different leaders
you can play with, that's going to be the different game every
time you play it. Plus there's things called era
events in the game, which an era is around in a state, and each
era we reveal a different event. There's positive and negative
ones and they all sort of introduce an objective which
gets you VP if you win those. And there's 10 right now.
And those are all variable in terms of the game setup.
So again, like you might be a leader that does a great
production track, but if you get the error event that decreases
production for everyone like that might really mess you up
and you might have to try to take a different route with with
your game that time. I certainly enjoyed the errors
in terms of those because I think it's three good and two
bad. That's the right mix.
I think it's those first two rounds, if they come out in the
wrong order, it can all he gets really tough.
So yes, he's never quite sure you know whether you're going to
be screwed over or not. So there they worked really
well. The other thing I really enjoyed
was on the cards you've got your production icon and moving,
moving your marker across the tracks, trying to make sure I
guess you build up the optimal player board, I guess.
So that worked really well as well.
Yeah, for those, each estate has a different or yeah, we have
three different tracks in each estate.
So production draw cards or the noble track and then the
progress track, which gets you access to extra, more powerful
spots on that center game board. And yeah, my favorite, one of my
favorite mechanics is like when you play a card, you add a cube
to those tracks and just seeing the tracks get bigger and bigger
is is just like a fun tactical thing as a player that I like.
Was that an early design feature?
Which bits have been in the game the longest?
The cards themselves, I would say in the characters, OK, those
were something that we kind of had a really big design session
in winter 2022. My partner and I, Devin, we
actually got on a road trip that year and spent like the month in
Maine and thought we'd do all these outdoor activities, but it
was. Really cool.
Stayed inside, yeah. So we stayed inside, we just
hashed out all the different cards.
And so yeah, I think the cards themselves, obviously we've been
tweaking them, you know, making sure that they're not too
powerful and really balanced. But I think that the mechanic of
the player mats is one of the more like unique newer pieces of
the game. So we were actually at a
convention in Long Island called Long Island Tabletop, really
great, like smaller convention in that area.
And they have an kind of unpublished room or like, you
know, play testing area. And we had brought a copy of the
game. And at that point the player
mats had actually been a little bit more like the wingspan size.
So like bigger boards where you could like sure, a spot for each
card to put out, right? The tables in the playtest room
were super small. So we had to quickly pivot and
decide how are we going to actually like get the game on
the table. And that's actually, you know, I
find, like, the best innovations come from constraints.
And that's when we decided, oh, OK, like maybe we actually have
a track or an indicator for how many cards you've played for
each category instead of the cards themselves.
And that's kind of what led to the current version of OK, you
know, you play a card and you add a cube to a section to
indicate it. That is much better you've
that's a good. Change.
How you mentioned design testing, how much, how many
processes has it been through in terms of play testing?
Is it local groups or have you tested it everywhere?
We definitely have done it like locally with friends, family and
then a big Ave. we've taken advantage of and utilized is the
unpub rooms at conventions. So big shout out to that group.
That's fantastic opportunity to have just a plethora of players
available willing to play test your game.
You know, the best feedback comes from people like, you
know, live humans and people. And so we've been in the Unpub
room at PAX Unplugged, which is our kind of local convention
dev. And I grew up in the New Jersey
area. So we've been there for many,
many years. It's been there for like 4 or
five years in Unpub room. And then this year we've kind of
expanded our convention network going to Unpub Prime actually
has like a, or Unpub has a specific convention for
unpublished games called Unpub Prime.
Lots of great feedback this past spring from them there.
And then we were at Origins with the booth and lots of feedback
still from players. That's actually where we got
some of the questions about player count.
So before Origins we had been a two to four player game and one
of the number one questions we kept getting was like, hey, does
it play up to five or could it play up to five?
And also, is there a solo mode? Because a lot of players like
that solar mode. So we did work on expanding the
game and the solo mode rules will be published pretty soon.
We've been working hard on that. And then Origins was great to
have a couple groups play five players and we've been doing a
bunch of five players since then and it's been working really
well so. You and I had some conversations
around that when I first got a copy of your prototype sent to
me. And you had recommended that we
use just 1/5 colored cubes that we had lying around.
So my wife, she grabbed we had an extra cubes and markers from
Dinosaur Island or Dinosaur World.
So her workers were not meatballs, but they were in fact
dinosaurs. So yeah, so that was that was
pretty fantastic. And she enjoyed that.
One of the things that stood out was the art.
The art really is amazing. My wife really commented about
how just it was so rich. Can you tell us a little bit
about who the artist was, what your inspiration behind the art
was, and talk about that? Yeah.
So I, I, the art itself in the current prototype actually that
you got PJ and Gareth is still our prototype art, which we did
use an AI art generator on. We totally use it as a tool.
And I actually listened to your recent podcasts with, I forget
who that guest was, but that really resonated with kind of
how we thought about it. We're a first time publisher.
We didn't, we don't have a lot of funds to put into the
prototyping process. And so we did spend, I was the
one who did all prompt engineering on that.
So did spend a lot to try to get like the vibe of how we want the
game to look. But then this past June, we
actually found an artist. His name is James Owen and we've
just recently published some of the art on our Instagram.
And our Kickstarter story will have all of like the final art
from him as well for like the a portion of the art that we were
able to do with him. And then part of the funds from
the game, like from Kickstarter will be used to fund like, you
know, having him finalize the art.
But he's been fantastic. And you know, some of the stuff
with the AI is, you know, you can get some vibes and
everything of like how you want it to look.
But some of those details, like if you look at some like, you
notice some of this looks kind of weird.
And James has been great about helping us also pull in some
more historical context of like we have a plague card and he
helped us pull in like, like, just like aspects of how do they
actually wrap the dead bodies in the play in the cart?
So I he's been great to work with.
And I do want to kind of call that out that like the current
prototype, we did use AI. We'll have a disclaimer in our
Kickstarter, but you know, it was a tool in our toolkit as
first time publishers to help us get a game that excites people
and and want to be interested in it.
I mean, that really compliments the conversation we had.
Was it last week? No, two weeks, 2 weeks ago.
Two episodes ago, because now you say it there, there was
something about the colours I hadn't couldn't quite work out.
But it's the AI element. We were saying that before, that
it's that look and feel, but I hadn't, I hadn't clicked.
So yeah, it's really good. Do you want to call out our
designer? Her name is Maria and her firm
merit has been awesome as well. It's their first time doing a
game, but they're fantastic and she's the one who helped us with
the whole like card template itself and like the player mats
and the branding for the game. So big kudos and shout out to
her and her team. Is anything else to do?
I mean, is it finished? Are you happy with where it's
got, or is any tweaking that anyone's going to do?
We're very happy with where it's at, OK?
It's never done right. No, it's never done.
Yeah. Yeah.
I would say if I had to put a percent on it, we're like 90%
there. I think that we're still kind of
playing with some of those expansion stretch goal items.
So we have an interactive deck that'll be coming out as a
stretch goal, which is extra cards to add in and then helps
players interact more with each other.
So things like you produce on a card and it triggers someone
elses production card. So just things like that, that
like some people love games that have more of that player
interactivity, right. And then like, I think really
the the, the player mats or like the leaders and like the core
cards, those are, are very, very done.
Like we're still working on some wording on some, but you know,
the mechanics of how they operate and everything is pretty
locked in. What about the castle?
Yeah. Talk about the castle and where
are you in that? Is that finalized as well?
Because that's an impressive piece of the game that we
haven't even talked about yet. Yeah.
So to let folks know what that is, the castle's a 3D castle
tower that we have with the game.
If everyone's played Eberdell, it's it's very similar to that
kind of element of giving it a little bit more table presents.
And what the purpose of the castle is, it's really to store
your extra workers. So everyone starts off with
four, but you can expand your estate to five to six workers.
So those extra ones hang out there on the top of the castle.
And then it also stores the deck underneath.
And so the prototype copy that you both played with was we we
actually, that was the first time like we had printed to like
a real castle. Like we'd had some like
cardboard ones we'd made. But a couple of things that we
learned is that it needs to be a little bit bigger underneath the
arch because I'm you guys probably had this with the deck
barely fits. Yeah, yeah.
And we also want to make sure that, you know, if people sleep
their cards, it can fit underneath there too.
So we'll be making that a little bit, you know, bigger of an arch
thing. And then we're thinking about
adding maybe like an estate brand on the top of the castle
just to kind of give it some more thematic game, you know,
branding. Very cool, very cool.
And that will be in both copies, both base and deluxe.
That's one of those things where we didn't want to like just gate
it, you know, So it will be in the standard game as well, just.
To say. What's the difference between
standard and deluxe? Yeah.
So again, we really felt strongly that the game should be
very similar, like it shouldn't be that like the deluxe has all
these extra pells and whistles. So like all the cards will
really be the same. The player mats and leaders will
be the same. The biggest differences are
going to be upgraded components. So you're going to have wooden
resources instead of like the cardboard ones, metal coins,
which are my favorite games. And then our meeples are going
to actually be a unique shape per liter.
So they're going to be like a little bit more custom shape.
We're going to have a screen print on the first player token.
And then there will be 1 exclusive component which is.
It's called the Ancient Ruin Deck, and so that is a unique
worker action spot for a state. It'll be a card, and you as a
player can choose to unruin it to gain access to that worker
spot in the. Future cool and.
That will. Be exclusive to Deluxe so you
won't be able to get it any other way.
OK. I like that.
One of the things that we were wondering about is would one of
the leaders of the factions have access to an additional worker?
You said that you start with four, you can hire two more for
six. But is there a possibility that
a faction that you've already created or you're thinking about
creating would give you an access to say a 7th or just a
temporary one that you know what I'm saying, to give you an extra
worker? Not that we've thought through
on that side. Like part of what to keep the
game tight is we wanted to kind of keep the number of actions
you can do constrained as well as, you know, the game ends at
the end of era 5. But I, you know, players have
always been like, oh, I wish there was one more So, but
that's. What you want though, isn't it?
You want to. Oh.
There's one more leaf. Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, we've talked about maybe there could be like
a variant where you play a six there, you know, if you want to
have a longer game or something like that.
But, you know, keeping it constrained to the workers was
part of our game design. And what?
What's been have all of the all the process from designing it
through to I guess you're launching, what's been your
favorite part of the process? My favorite part has been just
playing with with different people and seeing how everyone's
brains work differently. So you know, like I'm obviously
in the weeds with everything on like what the cards do, but
someone you know, might have an idea for making like a slight
tweak to make things better. And like, it's just the
collaborative process. Like, yes, I'm one of the core
designers, but everyone who's play tested the game is, has
been a part of the design process.
And I just think that like that piece has been really cool.
It's, it's just hearing people's feedback and, and you know, ways
to improve the game to make it better and better.
Has there been any memorable like Eureka moments or that's
such a good idea that stood out from a design change?
I would say someone, and we haven't incorporated this into
design just yet, but it will be in the final copy is on the air
events making the positive and negative stand out more.
So we're going to change the banners on those cards to be
like red for negative and you know, like a more positive color
just because it's like if when you're around the table and
you're looking, when you flip it over, like that immediate
reaction of knowing, oh, this is a positive positive one or oh,
this is a -1 that's a great. One and is there any thoughts on
expansions or is that too far away?
Is there enough content you've already created that in the
distant future or did near distant future?
Yeah. So we actually maybe have a
more, I don't know if it's unique, but like our opinion
about expansion games is we like them, but we kind of like having
set games. And so as a publishing company,
what we're, our vision is, is that we're going to build a
trilogy of games in this universe.
So. Unique standalone games, but
still within the universe of a state.
So really the game that we're bringing into market right now
is going to be Game 1. And so that'll be this worker
placement engine building game. And I kind of has those vibes of
Everdale, Riccola, Wingspan. Game 2, if we make it that far,
is going to be a little bit more akin to if you guys played Seven
Wonders where like everyone's going at the same time.
So still kind of like that you're playing as one of our
core leaders, but everyone gets to play their action at the same
time. And instead of you choosing one
of those four worker actions, there's going to be the game is
like telling you. So it's like, OK, everyone gets
to produce this round and like you do that action.
And that's still very much in game designer infancy, but
that's Game 2. And then Game 3 is going to be
like like a building an adventure on the game board.
It's kind of like house on how to tell arbitrary on where like
tiles get flipped over. And that one is Game 3 for a
reason because it's going to be a little bit more complex.
But we think that like, still it would fit nicely in the
narrative of like the universe of a state and the characters we
felt. And then Devin does have an eye,
like he wants to kind of write a book about that back story of a
state of like everything there. So he's been working on that on
the side. And yeah, more to come on that.
One. Yeah, Amazing.
I'm really interested in the war that's that like the story of
the war that leads us to a state, right?
Like that's really interesting. So you've mentioned a lot of
different game titles that share some mechanics similar to A
State. I was wondering though, in to
your mind, what sets A State apart from all of these other
titles that we've previously mentioned?
Yeah, I think the the speed of play is a little bit unique to
us. As I mentioned at the top, it's
it's about 20 minutes per player.
And if you get a group that already knows the game and the
cards like we've knocked out games in about 15 minutes per
player. And I think the fact that you
are you have all these cards and like you have a lot of variety
and like it's it's a resource plenty game.
Like I know you mentioned the five player, you get a little
tight, but yeah, we tried to design it like I don't know if
you've ever played Agricola where like you have these plans
and you're going to build your house and expand it and someone
takes the read, you're totally messed up.
Until the next time. And you got to get to read,
right? So like that is just very
antagonistic between players. We wanted to build a game that
still had a lot of that strategy and like, OK, you get all these
cards and you have like the end game you're going for, but you
always have a way to get to do what you want to do.
So like there's a way to dump cards to get resources and
that's open. Anyone can take it.
You know, once you build up your engine in your state, you're
really going to be able to get resources in different ways.
And so, yeah, I think that maybe is what I would consider to be a
unique piece for our game is like the speed of gameplay.
And then the fact that like you're really trying to, it's a
Maximus game, you're trying to build the biggest, best estate
and there's not going to be too many constraints outside of like
cards maybe that you haven't drawn yet.
I mean, there's plenty of variability in the cards and I
would agree the speed is is key. I think that that does make it
very accessible to the table in terms of getting a quick game in
that doesn't, you know, take all night, but still gives you that
worker placement card tableau building experience.
Yeah. I also thought it was
interesting. So you've got the the you've got
to have 21 cards in front of you, 7 of each.
I can't remember what you call that, but if you have, if you
play an extra card, you have to replace with one that's there.
So it's not like your tableau is finite.
You can, you can keep building. And I think if I'm not mistaken,
there's rewards if you exceed 7 cards on each of the three
tracks. Is that, is that correct
Catherine? Is it?
Am I remembering that right? Yep.
So there's out of the, there's like three types of cards and if
you maximize one of those tracks up to 7, you get 7 extra points.
So it's trying to give players a reward for getting to that kind
of fully built engine for each of those rows.
Most players will get to 1. You know, some, some players get
to two. We've yet to see a player get
all the way OK including us. Challenge accepted.
Yeah. Is it possible?
It can it be done, but it's. I think you have to get, yeah,
like the perfect amount of like cards that chain off to, because
ultimately you have a set number of worker actions and like you,
yeah, you have to use one worker to play one card.
And like if you play another card, like some cards let you
play other cards. And I think you'd have to do
that like play a necromancer to play a sorcerer to draw more
cards and play one of those to maybe play it.
Well, you know, I've gotten some of those where you chain 3 cards
through with one worker action. But I think you'd have to really
have the perfect build there. I don't think we've talked about
the four actions, have we? Could you cover the four?
There's four actions on your player board, which you can do.
Do you want to talk through those unique actions?
Yeah. So there's four basic actions
you can take. You can play a card from your
hand and you do that just by paying those resource costs.
And you when you do that, you add a cube to your track, you
can draw new cards. So there's a market that's face
up that you can draw from or you can obviously draw from the top
of the deck. There's a center game board.
So you can one action is like taken action from the center
game board. So that's kind of like a one to
many action spot. But those are like, you know,
getting resources. You know, sometimes there's like
a, you know, progress extra special spot that's like, oh,
like you can play a card from the market with two less
resources, those kind of things. And then the last action is to
produce on cards. So not every card in your estate
is a production card, but the ones that are like when you take
that production action, you could then activate those cards.
And production cards can be simple, like a farm just gets
you the grain. They can also be a little more
complex, like an assassin let's your dungeon or tuck another
card from your hand and that's an extra victory point.
And then there's sometimes extra, you know, era event
objectives that are like number of tucked cards, those kind of
things. So there's a lot of variety in
the production, like worker action, spot on what you can do.
So in the progress, progress spaces, the way that they open
up as you progress along the other track, that was a nice
feature that, you know, you're trying to trying to get across
that track to get get access to those, I guess slightly more
powerful spaces. So yeah, there's always a need
for one. See more in terms of those
worker action spaces. Yeah, those were actually some
of the the action spots that we've been tweaking the most
leading up to the to the became finalizing.
Because what we found was actually like originally we
didn't make those spots good enough.
So like people wouldn't go for that progress track.
Now I think we found that sweet spot where like the, I think the
4th worker action is typically either you get to dump resources
for gold, which is victory points, like that's huge, or you
get to take two worker actions when you take that spot, which
is also nice. But yeah, originally, like we
just know like that's one of those things where when you like
play with other people who are neutered to the game, you notice
what they're doing and you're like, oh, like, why aren't you
taking these? And they're like, oh, I felt
like my other spots were actually more beneficial.
So we we've been tweaking them. And that is why we play test,
Gary. Yeah.
PJ's a big play test, so I'm a less, I'm less, so you'll spend
a lot. So did you play test this PJ
Origins or was it you met Catherine at a stand?
I got so Devin showed me a demo of the game, Yeah.
And immediately I was like, thematically I was like,
Gareth's going to love this game.
And what were you saying about a straight on the episode after
Origins? I did, yeah.
And so then I reached out to both Devin and Catherine, and
Catherine was the primary contact.
And I was like, I need to get a copy and play this, this, and
sure enough, got me a copy. And yeah, what's.
So what's really funny is that when I was done and you asked me
to ship it on, we shipped it to our good friend Adam.
Guarantee to you OK? Yeah.
So he handed up and he got to play it, so it was just
exciting. So there's a shout out to Adam a
little bit, too. Yeah.
Cool. Pretty.
Yeah. So it's a great game.
Great game. Looking forward to it to hit
Kickstarter. So what's the expected once
you've gone through Kickstarter? When is it?
About a year? How rough?
I know it's hard to predict about a year.
It's going to be, our timeline right now is about a year and
that's we've done a lot as first time publishers.
It's all new to us, right. But we've done a lot of talking
to other folks and interviewing. And actually I think that was
one of our biggest takeaways from origins too, of like just
being able to meet other people in the fulfilment and and
distribution space. So we've got some good partners
that we've talked to and inform relationships with and
everything that they've said is, you know, you have to budget,
you know, two months to get the freight from from China to the
US And we've got a good understanding of the
manufacturing process with Panda, who's our manufacturing
partner. So really expect it to be about
one year because we after the campaign do need to spend some
time working with James to finalize that game art and get
all the assets done. The Essen Likelihood, 2025.
That would be a dream, but it. Sounds tight in terms.
Of yeah, it's probably a little tight, but we will be at Origins
and I think that's actually going to be when our final like
pledge manager will close. So people will still be able to
potentially buy a copy then. And then we're also going to be
at Gamma for the first time this year with a, with a small booth.
So excited to be part of that organization and yeah, like
meet, meet a lot of folks there. How many, how many copies
prototypes do you have out right now?
I know you've, I know you've got at least one in the US because
it was at my table. I know you have one in England
because it was on Gareths table. How many of you have floating
out? How much reach have you had in
your play testing so far? Yeah, we printed 10 copies with
Panda back in. I think it was May or sorry
April that we got those. And then we've kept about 3
copies with us just because we're doing local stuff here in
the Orlando area, going to cons and stuff.
And then the rest are out in the wild as I like to say with with
folks. And so we have a copy in Canada,
copy in the UK. We actually just sent a copy to
Europe to to Germany and had some issues with customs there,
but I think it got got there and then and a couple copies in the
US. Cool.
OK. So you've got you've, you've
established quite a bit of reach so far just before launching on
Kickstarter. So that's pretty exciting.
Yeah, we're still again, like new to the process, but a lot of
folks that we talked to back in in the early 2024 where they
were like, hey, like try to get your game in the hands of folks
because, you know, that's part of the just collaboration with
everyone is like getting, getting people's opinions.
And and, you know, you can only talk to so many people at a
convention. And so getting the chance to
have it, you know, being out in the mail and, and in the wild
is, is nice. And so Kickstarter is Tuesday,
October the 15th. Yep.
What? What time is it?
I haven't picked the launch time.
Oh, OK. But open his suggestions again.
Like we're, we're kind of still learning everything.
But we do know Tuesdays are very popular.
Tuesday. That's what I spent on.
Yeah, yeah. On Tuesday and did take the day
off from my day job to kind of like be manning the Kickstarter
page and and yeah, all hands on deck.
And how much work goes into preparing the Kickstarter page?
How much is that finished or you still got?
Is there still work to do? We got two weeks, 2 weeks to go.
Yeah, it's all, it's a good amount of work and a huge shout
out to, to Maria and Merit and her team because they really
helped put the Polish on it, right of, of what it's going to
look like on there. And I actually just spent a
couple hours before we hopped on putting in like the design
assets. And so we will be sharing a
floating link of that like preview of the story campaign
with some folks. So I, I'm happy to share it with
you guys after to let to see if you guys have any feedback for
us. But yeah, it's it's pretty
close, about 90% there. Amazing.
Is there anything else PJ you want to cover?
I wanted to, I just wanted to ask about the Kickstarter
launch. So when you set up the time for
the launch, and I apologize if you've already answered this
because I don't know, can you set it for your local time or
can you set it for a different time?
It seems like it would be best to drop, say in the morning in
Europe and then let the time kind of cascade.
Do you have that option? I don't think you do, but that
would be a really cool feature because part of what everything
I've learned and also observed as you know, someone who backs
games is right that momentum right when you launch is really
important. And so we're we're likely going
to do a time that's like East Coast friendly US.
Yes, we are based in the East Coast, but that's an interesting
topic or like thought. So like think about, you know,
folks in the EU and Europe time frame like that'll be midday for
you guys. So like will you be focused on
it or would it be better? I mean, maybe you can answer
that, Gary. Like what time?
I think it's usually 4:00 or 5:00.
Is it? 11 till 5I seem to think is the
most common and that must be because of the of the US side
yeah it's very it's very rare it's our morning it's usually
mid afternoon OK usually when my if I'm if I'm following a
Kickstarter a ping and then I'm at work and I'll just I know I'm
tracking it so I'll deal with it once I finish work yeah because
I. Feel, I feel like you could, you
could bake in like a first and 2nd wave, right?
If it's in the morning in Europe, in the UK, there's that
first wave and then once it gets to the morning in the US,
there's your second wave. I feel like you could carry
momentum further right, make the time zones work for you.
That's a great suggestion for Kickstarter.
I feel like they've been doing a lot of improvements to the
platform like something that recently that came out was like
the preview page got a lot more detailed.
So like, is it Yeah, when we yeah, when we first put our pre
launch page up in the spring, all you could do is like, you
know, you're 250 character blurb about what the game was in the
picture. Now you can essentially like add
anything you want, like videos and add links and all that.
So that's been huge for us as a, you know, publisher being able
to educate people on what the game is and not have them have
to like find our website and the Kickstarter page.
Like everything's on the Kickstarter now.
Because on game found that's been pretty standard.
It has, you've pretty much got the launch page and you're just
waiting for it to go live. So that's yeah, that's a good
add on. I have to have a look at that
when when you send a link saver. We've asked this question, or
rather, I've asked this question of previous designers that have
been on the show. Why did you choose Kickstarter
over other crowdfunding platforms that exist?
What was it about Kickstarter that stood out for you?
Yeah, we did some research into this and from everything we
found, like Kickstarter is the go to platform, especially for
first time publishers. They have a lot of organic
audience of you know, people who like to back games, they go to
Kickstarter and it's a common name like even like and I talked
to my broader family members and friends and who aren't getting
born for game people. Like they know what Kickstarter
is, they've heard of it. I think that game found and like
backer Kit, like they are more like true core board game back,
you know, like crowdfunding like that like and like if I've also
heard like tabletop role-playing games are like a little bit more
common on maybe game found. So I think it's your audience
and we pick Kickstarter just because again, it's seems like
it'll be the most broad for us and be able to help bring some
organic traffic as well. Cool, cool.
OK. Anything else Catherine you'd
like to share apart from the dates 15th October?
Um, I think just a shout out to everyone who's helped us along
the way. Like I think, you know,
obviously talking to folks like you is really huge and helpful
for us to help spread the word. And a lot of the other creators
we've talked to and I'm Pub Network and yeah, it's just a
very collaborative industry. So we're excited to hopefully
start our own foothold of a publishing company here in the
coming weeks. And yeah, we also are trying to
give back and we have a small blog, it's not yet that big on
our website, but just trying to help document like everything
we've learned and try to give back to the community.
So if anyone's listening to this and trying to launch a game,
like I'm all all ears. Maybe a little bit busy the next
month, but. Feel free to reach out if you
have any questions. There's also been a really
fantastic Instagram group we've been a part of that it's just
like a whole bunch of other creators in the same boat as
everyone else trying to launch. That is the thing, isn't it?
About about about, I think a lot of games, even right back to
when Jamie first started with, you know, Stigma Games.
Stigma Games was all of the the collaboration, the amount people
just share and want to help each other out, whether it's content
creators like us or with designers or artists, they're
just, it's just a great community.
So it's great to see. Well, yeah, we wish you the best
of luck in two weeks time and hope to see Game 3 materialize
in the distant future. OK, well, thank you.
Catherine said we'll wish you best luck on the 15th of
October. And thank you, PJ.
Yeah, thanks again, Catherine, for helping Gareth and I carry
us to the last of the 101st 100 episodes.
It was a it was a lot of. Pressure.
It was a lot of pressure. So should we give a little bit
of a preview of what we've got in store for?
Episode 100. Episode 100, Gareth Yeah, Why
don't you tell our listeners a little bit so they know what to
expect? We have going to have a super
special guest and anyone who's been listening to the 199
episodes so far will might have a guess of who that might be
based on the common theme. We will be moving to video, so
we have been practicing video for the last three episodes, so
we've got that down to a tee. We've got two other special
guests, one to help us talk about podcasts and what we've
learned on our journey, and another guest who's going to
help us look forward to episode 199 and maybe what another 100
episodes of Meeple to Meeple looks like.
So it's a kind of retrospective forward-looking episode and
video. And you can find us on YouTube
already, but there's it's the empty channel.
But please do go subscribe, like check me out, subscribe and like
to our YouTube channel, which is Meeple to Meeple.
Pretty excited about this one. Yeah.
Episode 100, who would have thought?
OK, right. Thank you all for listening.
You'll be viewing next time I talk to you as well as
listening. And thank you, Catherine, again
for your time today. He's been brilliant.
Awesome. Thanks for having me everyone.
Thanks everyone for listening, please subscribe and as always,
we'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas, so make sure to leave
those in the comments and don't forget you can also chat with us
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