Welcome to Meeple to Meeple, uniting players around the
world. A 30 minute exploration of TJ
and Gareth 4 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.
Gareth on vacation, he decided to go to Greece with his family
and leave me all by myself again.
And so I have complete and total control.
So I've asked one of our good friends, Kristen Mott, to join
me this week in interviewing our guest.
Kristen, thank you for doing this.
How are you? I indeed and you are so welcome.
This is my first time Co hosting anything so I apologize there.
No. Any mistakes in advance, but I'm
happy to be here. This is.
Great there are there are only mistakes, only opportunities.
The Gareth and I talk about wanting to generate more Co
hosts. We want the podcast to grow in
such a way where it's not just Gareth and I anymore and there's
always two content creators who are interviewing designers and
artists and you know, want to try to like the tagline says,
unite the world, right, Unite players around the world.
So, so thanks for doing this. Sure.
And you're also a game designer in your own right, Which?
Makes you. A perfect candidate for this
interview with our special guest.
We have game designer Danielle Reynolds of the recent hit and
Gen. Con Trending 2024 award that was
given to you on Sunday. Danielle Reynolds.
Danielle, how are you? I'm doing good and my voice is
mostly back from Gen. Con surprisingly pretty quick.
You do sound good after four days, 5 days and Gen.
Con. Oh, I was there.
No, I was there for six days working.
Yeah, last. Tuesday and I left on Monday.
Yeah, they got us there extra long.
That is crazy multiple. Events before the show even
starts. Well, you're kind of a machine
in this industry like you are. You're just pumping out and
play, testing so many games and designing so many.
Obviously, her story everyone knows about love the game, but
your most recent hit, caution signs.
I want to start with the award from Gen.
Con real quick. So what was that like when they
made the announcement? I saw you posted pictures,
right? Like how cool was that?
No, I was super cool. It was funny because Scott was
worried. He's like, I mean, in his view,
he has Hughes and cues, he has boop like two massive successes.
His next one is caution signs. And like, yeah, I was doing
good. It just got released.
And I kept telling him I was like, dude, you're not seeing
like everywhere. I take it people are playing it
everywhere. And then we get this award and I
sent him a text message because I had it in my hand and I was
like, where are you? Come to the booth right now.
We're taking pictures and stuff. And then he he like zooms his
way over and I was like, because I've never had a best of
anything before. Oh, that's awesome.
Congratulations. Thanks.
I didn't actually know the award existed, which made it kind of
that much better because it's not something I could like not
to say, force someone into or be like nudge, nudge, you know, I
don't know. I've noticed now since working
in the industry that there are a lot of awards that you have to
like pay to be nominated for or like it's popularity vote.
And it's just like when it's a situation not like that, it
means so much more to me. Absolutely.
Yeah. It's it's well, well deserved.
So I want to ask you, since you brought up Scott, I wanted to
ask about your partnership with Scott.
How did, how did that come about?
How did the two of you, your projects started?
And can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, so I met him 2 packs and plugs ago and it was actually
when Boop released, he was at the Smirk and Dagger.
Boop and I had like known Kurt 'cause he was one of the
publishers I would pitch to when, you know, I was starting
out and I was like, oh, cute cat game and stuff.
And so I was like, tell me about it.
And then the guy is just like, well, I actually designed it and
it was Scott and stuff. And he like explains it to me
and I'm like, all right, sold. Like I'll buy it and stuff.
And so I have him sign it 'cause I could tell he wanted to, well,
he had a marker and stuff and we said absolutely.
And I like give him my card because I have a podcast called
Game Design on Box. And I tell him I want him on it
because I find out he did Q's and Q's.
And I used to work for Fujifilm Graphic Systems like doing like
printing and stuff. So it's like I was very familiar
with printing and he also had a printer background.
So we kind of like nerded out in that brief period of time
because I had an exhibitor badge.
So this is like before the hall opened.
So I had time to bring a conversation with him.
So exchange information, our business cards, I followed up,
he went on my show and just like before and after recording, we
like got to know each other more and stuff and we just hit it off
and we both ended up being special guests at Tantrum Con.
He has known Monica for quite some time because his wife is
very close to Monica, who runs Tantrum Con.
And Darrell Andrews had recommended me as a special
guest. And so Monica's like, oh, I
gotta interview this girl and see what she's about.
And then what was supposed to be like a 15 minute conversation
turned into like a three hour conversation with Monica.
And now we are friends. I've stayed at her house and
I've gone to Tantrum Con and we are like, great.
So it's like find these like weird things of just meeting
people, really enjoying each other's company and just kind of
becoming like friends organically.
But when I was at Tantrum Con, Scott saw one of my two player
abstract games, which he actually really loves.
And he like every time he gets a chance to like try to find
someone to sign it, he's like can like check out this game.
Like he actually took the prototype and had me sign it.
So the first game I ever signed was not actually a real
published game that I gave to him.
It's my prototype of. This.
That's awesome. Yeah, great.
Out in the same way with like party games and abstracts.
And so he'd reached out to me and he's like, I want to make a
game with you, like a party game.
And I was like, OK. And so we're like kind of
messaging each other. We're both like on vacation.
And I tend to be most inspired on vacation.
And I'm in Hawaii and. OK.
All right. Well, 'cause I met a different
person at a convention who invited me to Hawaii, so.
I of course said yes. This is kind of how my life
goes. I just like I meet cool people
they they are dumb enough to invite me and then I show.
Them so. Yeah, but I'm like in Hawaii and
we're like walking around national or the Okino National
Park. And I'm with like, Tanya, who is
from Hasbro, Like, she's inventor relations.
We've become friends and she just happens to be there on her
anniversary with her husband. And then I'm with my friend
Annie. And we're like walking around
and I'm just like, noticing all these caution signs of just dumb
things that people did to make them necessary as signs like
stepping in lava or don't put your arm in a guy.
I'm just like, what do? You.
Why or like these like gecko things, I don't even know.
So I'm like noticing these signs on the island, but like a lot at
that part. And we're talking party games
with Tanya and I just immediately like I messaged
Scott is like, what do you think about a game about caution
signs? Like we're drawing these
pictures warning. I get these crazy things that
you never even expect and stuff. And he's like, yeah, I like
that. I like that.
So he's in Alaska and he's also seeing weird signs like don't
pet a moose. And so he's like, I'm so on
board with this. We both get back from our
vacations. We hop on a call.
We get up like a Google spreadsheet, plugging in like
words, decide to split up the cards in half.
I come up with, I like quickly put together a play test, like a
prototype, bring it over to Maine with my friends.
We played the crap out of it. My friend stole my prototype.
She still has my original prototype.
And then, yeah, just like 2:00-ish weeks later, we pitched
it at Gen. Con and he made the, like, fancy
version that had the split cards.
And that was the first time I ever saw that look.
And just like the product of how it looked as a little caution
sign forming, we showed it and we got two offers at the show.
And that's never happened to me before.
And I was just like, oh, my God. And there's a bunch of other
people interested. But like the two offers we got,
one of them said, hey, you got to let us know in two weeks.
We're not doing this, like, back and forth thing.
And so we're like, e-mail everybody, hey, tell us in this
amount of time. And the other person that wanted
it was my own company, which at the time made no sense to me
because hero rooms and star rooms, you don't really think
the party game that you draw. But what I didn't know is my
company had been thinking about doing an imprint for years of
just like kind of kids family party games.
And so they were like this, this is what we want to use to launch
this. Like, what do you think?
Sign your game with your own company.
And I'm like, it's got So what, What do you think?
So we had a conversation and we did decide to like sign it with
Wise Wizard. And I got to launch Wacky Wizard
as the project director. So I kind of like upgraded my
title from project manager of Wise Wizard to project director
of Wacky Wizard and the imprint. So it was a pretty crazy story.
That's awesome. Yeah, that is incredible.
Your story about Scott, kind of that organic relationship is so
similar to Gareth and I's friendship where and our
listeners have heard this so many times.
But I showed up on his Maple Monday during the pandemic and
what was supposed to be a 30 minute conversation was a four
hour Instagram Live of just him and I talking.
And we've been friends ever since.
So it was interesting because you had like 30-40 people
watching and then it went down to like 2.
Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
But then, but then it got to be 5:00 in the afternoon in the
United States because it was 8:00 at night in England to
start. And so people started getting
off work and checking their Instagram.
Then the numbers went up again. We're like, Yep, yeah, that's,
that's cool. That's interesting.
I like that. So, So tell me, tell me more
about play testing because I've watched you post.
Gosh, it feels like it feels like forever, but it was
probably like a flash in a pan. You were constantly taking
photos, posting them on Instagram and other social media
platforms, basically taking caution signs everywhere you
went. And I'm with your family with
anyone and anyone I imagine, right, playing caution sites.
Is it so, is that how is that how you approach that or did you
do like what are all the play testing avenues that you used
for caution sites? Oh, are we talking just like how
I found my play testers? Yeah.
Yeah, so honestly, you're not wrong.
I just, I brought my prototype freaking everywhere.
Like I had the most interesting meet ups with people.
Like I was in New York City at a bar and there was a bunch of
Brazilian women celebrating hitting 40 years old.
And it was just like a bunch of cousins and I had them play and
it was really cool because it made me like that's how I
stripped out a few words that were like really difficult for
non local like language speakers.
But also at the back of the rule book now we have like little
rules for like kids or for people who don't speak English
or whatever current language the game is in because hopefully
someday it'll be in other languages.
But just like those are some little play tests that I did or
like I went to schools for like during the summer, like their
summer programs, they invited me in to like teach the kids about
game design and to like play tests.
And I like went around and judged different kids.
Like it almost looked like science fair projects, but it's
their game designs and stuff. So I went to like schools.
I went to like after school programs, I went to friends
houses, family reunions, my gym, my like rock climbing gym, just
like anywhere, everywhere. Tons of conventions and tons of
like kind of play test conventions like Unpub.
I went to like basically every unpubbed room at all the major
conventions bringing it around. And it's weird because like
caution signs, the main design was has stayed the same like
from that initial two weeks or whatever it was me figuring out
the 20 seconds, Scott coming up with the scoring system.
And just like that was good. It was the word list that was
the thing that we had to constantly keep tweaking,
throwing things away, adding things back and trying to find
the perfect balance of kind of like similar verbs and similar
like nouns. I mean, pretty early on we kind
of realized with the nouns especially that we needed to
stick to either like animals and like humanist things because
originally we have things like you could draw a desk or a
chair, but it's like how to show emotions using like inanimate
objects just didn't work well. And also it was more fun with
the 20 seconds that things could get misconstrued and messed up.
So it's like a werewolf could become a wolf or like a werewolf
could become a dog or like a cat could be a whatever.
So just like in a short amount of time, like a horse and a cat
could maybe actually look similar or a wolf or whatever it
was. And so just like trying to
figure out the perfect mix between all those, but then also
having them be words that people knew.
But even now that the game is like out and I've been playing
with a lot more people from other countries, like there's
certain words that people are just like are unfamiliar with.
So like disco, we totally know what disco is, but disco means
to other things and other places.
And like a Roadrunner, that's a bird native to like I'm from
Arizona, so I wanted to put a Roadrunner in there.
It's not a native bird to most people.
Like it's only just in the United States.
And then like Mexico, Canada, like they kind of know what it
is. But like in Europe, everyone
like draws a dude running on a Rd.
And so it's like, it's cool because like you don't have that
same perspective. Because I always wondered when
I've been like asked to be, they have like language consultants
to like help switch things over. They do do English to English,
but it's like like you could have like in Montreal, like
French. English is very different from
like in the UK English or like US English in the United States
because we all like interchange words so much or.
I don't like. Australia, like different words
mean different things, like trousers and pants, but pants
could also mean underwear. And it's just like, weird.
So yeah. So it's like you learn a lot
through making these kind of word games.
But it's super fun to test. And just like anywhere I went,
if I was playing at a bar, just like random people be like,
wait, can I, can I play this too?
And I was like, heck yeah, you can sit on down.
Like, I let anyone who talks to me play this game, no matter the
age, including kids that super could not read well.
Yeah. But it was fun.
It was a good time. And it kind of just showed me,
like, the magic of the game, that it's just like, you don't
have to be good at drawing. You don't even really need to be
that good at guessing. Most people don't even keep
track of score. They just play for fun and they
laugh their butts off. That's accurate.
Yeah, I am. I'm learning so much.
Just listening. You talk about like your where
you get play testers and how how you do.
Like I feel like I overuse my play testers a little bit.
So like going back into the same people over and over again.
I also don't have a game design group anymore because if you'd
asked me this when I lived in Chicago, I used to have four
different game design groups and I would just like do one.
I know it was great. I'm at Chicago.
I was a machine in a different way there.
But like, because I live essentially alone on an island
with no game designers nearby or like, not really close by, I
have to drop like an hour and a half to Boston or whatever.
I had to learn to find new people, which is really good for
me as a designer. But also most of the people near
me are not gamers. They're all just like the person
who would walk into a target and go, oh, that's a pretty box.
I'm gonna read that. So it's like I design in that
space and those are my audience. So it's like my audience are the
best people to be my play tossers.
And thankfully, because I'm stuck alone with no game
designers, my only interaction with game designers is play
tossers or at conventions right now or if I do it online.
But party games, they just don't test online, especially caution
signs that would never have worked online.
Sure. Yeah.
And so is that what you're focusing on at the moment is are
you focusing more on party type games, things that you can test
with people in your area more easily?
I will say that I definitely, I call them social games.
So it's like, yeah, party games, deduction games, but also some
light strategy and some other ones too.
But I have definitely started focusing more on that because of
the people in my area. But also just those are the
games I found that I'm the best at making and also the quickest
at play testing. Yeah.
Yeah, I like, I can work on 15 different games at one time and
it's not overwhelming for me. I know.
Oh wow, Anyone wasn't able to see her?
She had a fanatic. Face is so funny. 15 at a time.
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
And I'll. Have like I'll play seven games
in one night because all the games don't take that long to
play. They take like 1530 minutes or
whatever it is and we just like we bust them out.
They're so simple. Like I can go through my 15 game
pitch deck and I can do that in like 10 minutes, 1020 minutes,
like I'm a beast. I just like I can tell you what
it is with just a picture and just a minute or less
description. And that's the kind of games
that are currently doing well right now and are going into
like mass market, whether it's a hobby game or a mass market
game. It's just people's attention
span are shrinking. And so the faster I can explain
what the game is and does, the better it's worked out for me at
least. And I think that's a main reason
why I've had so many games in such a short time come out.
Yeah, OK, that's, that's awesome.
And you're you'd say, oh, I can get through all, I can explain
all 15 to you in 10 minutes. Like absolutely blows my mind.
That's that's great. Yeah.
I know someday I should probably record myself doing it and like
show people what it looks like to do that.
Maybe it would be helpful to people I don't know.
I'd love to see it 'cause sometimes I feel like I don't.
I mean, I don't design party games for the most part, but
like, I tend to get stuck and like trip over myself when I'm
trying to even give the elevator pitch.
The short explanation. This is what it does because I
tend to give too many unnecessary details and you
know. It's just knowing when it's like
a an elevator pitch versus a how to play.
Even. My how to plays are less than 5
minutes for everything and that includes my heavier like I've
made heavier games too and explain them in less than 5
minutes. Good for you.
That's great. The two of you have just
confirmed to me there's a quote from Lord Cheston in 16th
century and he wrote a letter. He goes, I'm sorry, I wrote you
a 20 page letter. I didn't have time to write you
a one page letter. And it's expressing how hard it
is to write concisely. And I feel like that's true for
speaking. I think any mode of
communication to be concise and quick is so challenging and we
get tripped up like that. But that's what was going
through my head while listening to you just now.
I'm like, that's, that's awesome.
So I have a question about pitches recently in my one day,
and I wanted to remind my listeners, don't do Gen.
Con in a single day. I don't recommend it.
That was the that was the thesis of last week's episode where I
talked about my experience. You shouldn't do it.
And I made all my cases, but somebody's going to do it
anyway. Gen.
Con sells Sunday badges, so there you are.
But I recently learned about pitches and there's two types of
pitches. There's like there's the 32nd
and I'm guessing that's what you're calling the elevator
pitch. And then there's like the three
minute, the three minute description to the publisher.
I, I heard of several designers while I was a Gen.
Con talk about that and you're making a face.
So I. Am making a face.
Yeah. So that means that that your
experience is different. I would say so.
So I would definitely say an elevator pitch would have been
the three minutes, not the 30 minutes, OK.
No, I'm sorry, 30, the 32nd and the three minute.
If I said. 30 minutes, I apologize.
The 32nd and the three minute and I'm just trying to
contextualize what I heard versus what I just heard you
describe. So interesting.
So I guess in my experience, typically pitching has been
either like a preset 30 minute meeting where you could either
run through. Like in my case, I have a pitch
deck. So what I'll do is I'll bring my
prototypes, but I will have my pitch deck out, which is just
like a slideshow and of sell sheets, just all in the same
look and we'll go through each one.
And then at the end, so it's like I take 10 minutes to go
through that. And at the end, if there's a
game that interests them, I have it in my bag.
So we could play around or two where I can show them the
components to touch. And then at that point we would
do a follow up meeting or they would take a prototype home or
they'd ask for like how to play video or whatever it is that
they do. So that's like one thing.
Or you could be doing like the speed pitching events, kind of
like speed dating essentially where you have a set amount of
time and you get to pitch. Sometimes you have it where
you've like applied with the specific game, so you're only
showing that one game. Sometimes you just have a
specific amount of time. So maybe it's like 1020 minutes
or five minutes and you can do whatever you want with that
time. And so doing your research
because in those cases, you always know which publishers
you're meeting with. So you can do that research to
know which games you should be kind of targeting for each
publisher or what things you should kind of like lean into or
lean out of. Because sometimes in speed
pitching, you have publishers that you know are not a good fit
for your game, but it's still time for you to network and show
off who you are. So they maybe we'll talk to you
later when you do have a game that fits or just talk to them
about the games that they're looking for if, you know you
don't have something for them right now.
But yeah, so I think like, that's more of what I think of
when I think of pitching. I don't do cold calls at Gen.
Con because that just does not work.
I've been asked at Gen. Con now because people know me
if I have time to do one and then maybe I'll do it like
before the opening of the show. But that's just because I'm
doing them a favor. More than like me because I just
don't have time because of how much I'm working at Wise Lizard
right now. But.
Yeah, definitely don't approach someone asking for a pitch
without a meeting at Gen. Con.
You'll you're probably going to get a no, and it's not going to
be because it's you, it's just because everyone has their
schedules booked out like two weeks at least in advance.
That. That sounds right.
In fact, in last week's episode talking about my experience, I
made the comment about the content creators that I was
hanging out with, you know, small group of us that are close
friends and they're all have meetings.
You know, that still boggles my mind.
I I have not yet scheduled a meeting with anyone yet, but you
know, maybe I'll change that. That's.
Crazy. That's that is just insane.
So I want to ask you about something that you posted today
or the time of recording. It was about your two cents for
two player games and Sky Team winning the spiel the yard
having my. Cat break my award and smash my
no but OK I. Saw that too.
I'm so sorry I wasn't. Gonna bring that up.
Rising star award is now in half so but we still love our.
Cats we still love. Yes, but you said?
2. Player Yeah, it was so.
It was about, it was about Sky Team winning this field of yard
this year and it was interesting.
I thought. So I was thinking about I read
the whole article and I was like, of course this makes sense
because there's so many two player games.
I mean, Katie and I own I think 25 two player games, which is
great because it's the two of us.
But your comments I found just interesting, right?
There's not a critique. I just thought it was really
surprising that you brought a different reading the whole
article. And I encourage our listeners to
go and find that article and read it.
Your perspective was a little bit different and it was about
how difficult pitching the two player game in your experience
has been and you're kind of cautioned against that a little.
And I was just wondering if you could was there, can you say a
little bit more about that? Yeah, I know.
I. Totally can, and I tend to be
the weird one, so that's fine. Well, for one, I would say Sky
Team. I actually don't necessarily
think it was because it's a two player game that it did so well.
I think it was the Co-op nature of it.
Like cooperative games have been on the rise for a while.
That's why I've been designing a lot of like cooperative party
games and like social games. But as far as two player games
go, kind of like I mentioned, Scott was super into my two
player abstract. Like he tried for years to get
boot signed, but it was just like it didn't have the cute cat
theme. Like that was Kurt and Spark and
Dagger kind of put that on there.
And as we've seen, it's doing really well.
The cute little name and the cute little cat and the
different like holiday themes. Like it does really well.
But the problem is 2 player abstracts are super difficult to
sell. Two player games in general,
when you are a designer pitching to a publisher, very difficult
to sell. It has been shut down almost
every time. Like they hear two player and
they don't even listen to my pitch.
Wow. And so that's why I was like,
you know, for a newer designer, if you only have so much energy
and time, I would advise not focusing on that.
Now, if you have a passionate project, like you're just, this
is the game you want to work on, I would never advise don't do
it. But if you're like going through
all the different mechanics, 'cause I know a lot of designers
when they first start out, they're like, I'm gonna make a
game with every mechanic and I'm gonna try this and then and
this. I would say like put two player
lower on that list just because I do think there is definitely a
market for two player games. Like if you go to board game
cafes and board game cafes are appearing everywhere nowadays,
like date night games or two player games.
I mean even Exploding Kittens just released a game that's a
party game, but it has a date night mode for two players.
And so it's like people are recognizing that two player
games are important and like having games that can play well
at two is super important, especially multiplayer.
I said that in the Article 2 that a lot of players would
hate. Like when there's a two player
variant, they're almost would prefer it say three to four
players with two player variants on the box.
Yes. Yeah.
See. Because like it is a strong
feeling we have, but publishers, they need to be able to market
games. And if it's like a super
expensive game, it's just really hard to justify 2 player because
it's kind of a risk they're taking.
And I get it, I don't like believe in all of it, but I just
say like, yeah, it wouldn't be one of the things I would
recommend shooting for right now 'cause most publishers, like
they do solo modes are now huge because of COVID.
They weren't huge before. But now it's like publishers
would ideally love like at least a one to five player game.
Like I keep hearing one to five or one to six or two to six.
Like it needs to play with more people.
But. At least like two to four is the
bare minimum typically. So it's just not something I
tell people they should focus on.
And two player abstract games is even harder because especially
if it doesn't have like some cute thematic angle to it as a
product, it's just really, really difficult to get place.
Which thanks, because like, the only game I've ever thought
about maybe self-publishing is my two player abstract because I
love it so much. And I'm so close, so many.
Times and I'm just getting annoyed at this point.
I'm like this needs to come out. I even did the artwork on it,
like someone could just sign it and have my art and it would be
done. Someone.
Needs to sign this because as a avid fan of two player games, I
want. A copy and.
I want to play it. It's really interesting because
when Katie and I go to cons and, you know, you're walking the
hall and someone's like, hey, you want to play our game, You
want to demo our game. And it's like as soon as we see
the three to three to whatever number.
Yeah, yeah. We're.
We're we're totally checked out or I'll be talking to a guy and
he's clearly trying to, you know, they trying to sell it to
the guy. I I really hate.
That's The thing is whenever to the.
Girl, I don't know what you're. Doing but but.
But vendors do that. If they ignore my wife, I
usually tune out. Right, But but sometimes they'll
be taught teaching us a game, The guy, the guy or the girl,
the person who's pitching the game to us to sell it.
And they're treating us with respect and it's great.
My wife immediately. How does this play A2 player?
That is her first question. Yeah, No, it's an.
Important question I get asked all the time and sometimes like
even because I do development, it's like if it doesn't play go
to two players, sometimes it's worth cutting.
I mean, we have a kids game coming for wacky.
There's a two player variant. It is super fun at two players,
but it is a variant. So it's like it is very clearly
marked inside the rule book. That is a two player variant,
but it's also the mechanic in it could be used at three or four
or even five players. So we even have a little note
that says if you like this, add it to the rest of the player
counts because it's just like fun because you're adding in
like a little dummy player that we call a lot, a lot because a
little Penguin. Oh gosh, that sounds that's
great. And and kudos for being included
in that article. Like, oh.
God, no. It was so nice.
They reached out and was like, oh God, it's Gen.
Con week. I guess I'll like quickly type
something up like on my phone at the airport.
Wow. I'm glad I made sense because I
didn't think I would well. And I thought not only because I
have a relationship with you and know you personally, your answer
stood out from the rest. And I was thrilled reading it
today, knowing that I was going to do this recording tonight.
I was like, I want to ask you about this because I thought it
was really interesting and it was really compelling.
And I was like, so. So thanks for taking the time.
Field field that question. Yeah, I know.
Mojo does some really cool articles.
I got asked to do this like extrovert introvert article.
And I also talked very different from everyone else about like,
I'm an extrovert but no one ever talks about the bad part of
being an extrovert. Like the crashes we get after
conventions and how like depression can hit us and things
like that. And I actually wrote about it in
mine where everyone else is like, oh damn.
Oh, I also experienced that. But we never talk about it.
And it was like, I don't know why we don't talk about it.
It's important. Mental health is a huge thing.
Yep. Nope, I understand that as an
extrovert myself. People just assume that I talk
to anyone at all times and it's like.
I don't. Want to though?
I wouldn't, but I'd rather with my friends or cuddle with my
cats and they're not breaking things.
Yes. When they're not.
Breaking your awards? Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely. So I I am all out of questions.
Kristen, do you have anything for Danielle?
I mean, I would really like to hear more about just and you got
into it a little bit, but more about your just process as a
designer. You talked about having seeing
the caution signs in that part and like that was an instant
inspiration. So what do you do after that?
Do you write things down? Do you immediately just make the
bare my own prototype that you can and then how does it develop
them there? Sure.
So when it's a situation like caution signs where it's just
inspiration in life, I immediately, if I don't have my
notebook nearby, I'll jot it down to my notes on my phone.
But then I transfer it into, I have a game design notebook and
I go through them very quickly and I love them because they're
kind of like grid paper, but it's like with dots.
So you can like write or draw pretty easily.
So that's like kind of my go to. And I I.
Put stickers all over it, which makes me happy.
Yeah, 'cause that's important for game design purposes.
But yeah, so like I, I'll just like, draw out kind of like a
doodle of what I think it would look like.
And then I'll like write out examples and I'll write out what
I think the rules would look like.
And then once I've like done that, I do actually jump pretty
much that day or the next day if it's something that I really
like into creating a prototype. And so depending on the game, it
might be like a Google sheet with a bunch of words of what
the cards are going to be or maybe it's more like an
illustrated game. So it's like I'm quickly going
to like do some graphic design and put something together or I
like steal some images off the Internet that I can use as the
prototype. But I definitely build the
prototype very quickly because you might forget, you might lose
like that spark. And so I find that that's just
an easier thing to do. And also when I worked at
Underdog, they did this crazy thing when I got laid off.
They gave me more time to finish up my projects, but also because
I was going to be there longer, they wanted to just see like,
how many things could we come up with?
And so they challenged me to design essentially almost a game
a day. So like every day.
Something I. Prototyped it, we play tested
it, they tore it apart. I would come up with a second
version of it the next day we would play, I would change it,
prototype, play, test and then toss it and then repeat for like
2 months. I became a crazy ass machine
where I was just like, like just pumping them out and I still
have that. Like my brain, the muscle has
been created to do that. And so.
I am able to kind of not cut corners but make things faster
for myself, OK? And.
I thankfully have a lot of, like, friends that are very
willing to be like play tossers and be my, like little dummies
to just be like, hey, we're gonna do this, OK?
Actually, this room, we're gonna change this, OK?
This room, we're gonna do this. And they're like very excited to
be a part of that process because they like having the
ability to say when they like something or when they don't
like something. Like I have a few of them that
are very opinionated about games and they're not even.
Gamers. But they're just like, oh,
Monopoly, if they had changed this and I was like, well, then
like, in this game, what would you be like this game?
Yeah. But yeah, So like really just
like getting it out as fast as possible out of my head and like
onto the table to see if it's something worth investing in.
Because like I'm OK to just throw away a prototype at this
point. Now that I've done the other
side where it's like inventor relations, if I'm going to
reject my like if I would reject it, I'm not going to put time
into it. And so I've got a lot better at
like kind of killing off my darlings or like rebooting
previous things that I maybe liked a lot before.
Or if I get stuck on something, I'll add a Co designer who has
like a skill set that I didn't have.
And it's kind of cool to be able to do that.
But it's also my process for like inspiration, inspired
designs is very different from my process.
If someone reaches out to me asking for me to design
something within like a spec that they have, like that's
super different too. Because like in that case,
they're telling me like, hey, this game is gonna cost this
much money. It needs to be this theme.
We want this kind of play pattern and we need this and
that and this. And here's your timeline like
that is a very different challenge where in the case like
that, I actually sometimes will pull out like a dry erase board
and just or I also dry erase cards which are super fun for
prototyping and. Then I'll whip them out.
Versus my kind of game, I would just already do the spreadsheet.
I print them out. I'd use my cutter and I'd have
cards. Also, I don't sleeve things.
That is not a thing I print on thicker paper and I just cut
them so then it feels like a card.
It saves me so much time. Yeah, see, I am learning so
much. Happy to help.
Yeah. No, I I like being as efficient
as possible because I pack way too much into my life at one
time, so it's like. How can I cut?
Some corners and make this faster for myself.
OK. So I do have a follow up
question. When you talk about somebody, a
publisher coming to you saying I need this within these
stipulations, how do you like, how do you deal with that in
your mind? Like, how do you find
inspiration within this sort of music, I guess, of what has to
be done? Right.
Like, do I have to do it this way?
I'm not just inspired by something that I saw or did.
Like how is that different from you in your mind?
So it's. Different because what I'll be
doing is once I know what they're looking for, I create
kind of like a presentation that I'll give to them, which will
depending on like how in depth I go, it might just be like a
paragraph of this is the gameplay and like this is kind
of your overview. Sometimes I include like an
image of like what it looks like for setup or like what a hand or
a card or whatever, like kind of like some mocked up rules.
But typically it's just like a few different concept
paragraphs. On average I do like 5 and then
we kind of talk through like what are the ideas or what are
the pieces they like of those things.
But really what I'm pulling from is kind of like a toolbox of
games I played before that kind of fit that theme.
And so like, for example, I'll give 2 examples.
So one was this game called Clockle that I worked on when I
was at GPII was with Big G Creative.
Basically at a Chinese warehouse, they have this rubber
chicken that could shoot something out of its butt.
And so they're like, we would like the spelling kids game,
this piece. And I'm like, let's go.
All right. So I was like.
What can come out of a chicken's butt?
Let's make it a die so it's like AD 20 and so you have it.
Yeah. And when you're rolling it, the
number on it is just telling you how long the word needs to be.
And the tiles are little eggs that you flip over and it's got
letters. And so you're just trying to
speed build words and stuff. So it's like really cute.
So you use the you use the chicken.
Oops, you. Erase.
You build this word and then you grab the chicken by the neck
when you build it before something else.
So it's just, it's very cute, very simple.
So that was like, OK, well, I have this, this thing, this
chicken, that she was something of his butt.
And they want it to be a spelling game.
I'm very bad at spelling. I like designing games for
things I'm bad at. So like it's just I do, I don't
know, or things that I don't like, I like to try to make a
version of it. I do like like I don't like
trick taking games. So I designed a game where you
pick in the numbers for a trick taking game.
So, yeah, so that was kind of fun.
I was just like, here, let's try this.
And I just like, just start prototyping that I stole.
Like, what is the banana spelling game?
Oh, Bananagrams. Bananagrams.
Yeah, I, I stole a Bananagram. And then I just like, was
playing with those tiles and stuff and trying to figure out
like what felt right. And I had this like chicken.
So that's kind of how that came about.
And then there's a different game that we got asked to do
also it was with like Big G, they were like, hey, Target
wants a music party game like to put in kind of like their
section where like Cards Against Humanity and things like that.
So we need to be like a play pattern that fits that section
wanted to be music themed. What can you do?
And I had already had a prototype called What's the Vibe
based off a girl I was dating 'cause she was like a musician
and she'd always be my like copilot when I was driving and
like DJ and stuff. And I'd always ask her what's
the vibe like for what we're gonna play?
And so my original design, the idea was just like what songs
would populate at the top of the Spotify list?
Cuz like if the Spotify list, I don't know if you've ever done
this, but I'll type random things into Spotify like like a
dragon playlist and just see what comes up for that.
So like I'll just do that or like on the toilet or like in
the shower. Just like, yeah.
So it's like. I'd already built a game like
that, but I was like, OK, so we don't have the license to
Spotify, but what's something else that more people would
relate to? And it's like, well, memories,
like every, like a lot of songs, when you hear it, a memory pops
up. So or like in movies, when like
a memory or just like a piece of it happens.
Like there's specific songs. They're just so perfect for it.
Yeah. But also song titles make
excellent answers. And so I was like, OK, so that
time I got crop dusted in the elevator.
Push it. Don't stand too close to me.
Like Toxic. Like all of these songs work so
well. As answers.
And I was like. Done, we're doing that.
And because I was coming up with the product, I was like, all
right, how do we make this a judge voting game?
But everyone gets to be the judge.
So it's like everyone gets a guitar pick.
We all choose at the same time. So we're all judging whoever has
the most points points essentially.
And so that was kind of like the idea behind that one.
So I kind of like repurposed an idea I already had for a product
they were looking for. Or another time we both like me
and my Co worker both pitched our two separate games and they
were like could you combine these?
And so it ended up just. Becoming a.
Conversation game that was kind of like left, right, center and
it's called no filter. And that was my first game ever
out. And it was just like here's two
questions. Roll 2 dice, play it to the left
or the right or all of us or just you are gonna answer and
it's either the top or bottom depending on what the dice says.
So it's like it's just question asking gamified but there's no
winner. And so it was like, OK, so
there's different ways to do it where they'll be like, here's
the assignment, can you do it? And it's cool 'cause if you ever
designed games for like IPS or like intellectual properties,
that's basically what you're doing.
Like the eBay game that I like pitched to eBay, I was like,
what do you think about making a game?
And then they're like, yes, give us some concepts.
And the concept they picked was how to actually gamify how to
use eBay. And it was just like, OK, well,
how do you use eBay? And let's figure out what
mechanics work for that. It's like hitting works, sack
collection works and selling and buying and just like things like
that. So it's like kind of this cool
thing of like, how do you fit mechanics with feelings?
How do you figure out like with an IP, what makes sense?
Cuz like, I don't know if you're doing like an Avatar the Last
Airbender game, probably not gonna do like a bidding game.
Cuz like, how often did you see them touch money or like sell
things? So it's just like.
Trying to find in the back of your brain this like toolbox of
mechanics and games you played before that you can kind of take
inspiration from. So it's kind of different in
that way where when you're inspired randomly to make a
game, maybe it's from playing a different game, maybe it's from
seeing random signs on your vacation.
I don't know. It's it comes differently every
time. So I feel like there's different
types of ways to create sure and.
That's that's so insightful. Like that's that's great.
Like I said before, I'm learning so much this interview.
So thank you these questions they're.
So fun for because I wish someone had told me these things
so I didn't myself. Yeah, I.
Really enjoy, I really enjoy caution signs where you have the
the board to double sided. So it's like the American yellow
and black are the European red and white.
That was something that Gareth and I had talked about.
It's like, so no matter where you are, you can recognize that
that was a brilliant design. Where can our listeners who
don't already have a copy, where can they get a copy of caution
signs? I would probably say just go to
thewisewizardgames.com like page and then click on wacky wizard
and then click caution signs. Or I think it might be slash
caution signs, but that's probably the best place because
there it'll link to either Amazon if Amazon has it, but
apparently they had to reorder and then yeah, I'm not mad about
that. I'm no talking about this, yeah,
or like through our website, but we also are going to be at some
conventions. So we'll be at Essen, we will be
at Paxson Plug this year and then next year we're at PAX
East, Origins, Gen. Con, UK Games Expo.
And I think that's everything. Yes, maybe that is.
Great, but it's quite a few. Different places.
That's awesome. That is fantastic.
So where can anyone who doesn't already follow you, where can
they follow you on your social platforms?
So. I'm under token gamer and that's
T OK EN and then gamer like GAY and ER and that's gonna be for
Instagram, Twitter or X blue sky and then I have a website
itsdmarcreativegroup.com. But like honestly, I should
probably update that again 'cause I do have some more games
coming and I have not updated it yet so oops my bad.
I'll definitely say the. Media is probably.
Better. Excellent SO.
There it is guys. Caution signs, you can pick it
up everywhere. So they're gonna be at Essen and
all the conventions of next year.
To our British listeners, they'll be at UKGE next year.
We're toying with the idea of going.
We've got all the we've got the friends now we just need to get
there, right. So there's a new feature in the
podcast that recently we've started where I would read the
intro from a random board game rule book and do kind of voice
over, but I wouldn't tell you what it is.
Our guest would, you know, message us and try and give us
see if they can figure it out. Obviously in honor of you and
your game, we're going to, I'm going to do a voice over on the,
I guess you can call it the blurb on the back of the box
'cause you don't have one in your rule book.
I was disappointed I did this. I did this for Amy and Dusty 2
weeks ago from Duck Somnium when we talked about botany.
I read from their rule book and so Yep.
Also, for those of you who listened to last week's episode,
the name of the game that I read from was House of Cats, which
was a game that I picked up at Gen.
Con. Of cards House of.
Cats. Yeah, of course.
House of Cats. That one was really interesting
because Gareth had no idea what I was talking about.
So you'll have to wait to listen to this episode to find out the
answer to that one. But so here we go with the voice
over caution signs. This is a fast-paced party game
about warning your friends of hazards they didn't know
existed. Whether you encounter a stylish
rhino, gassy monkeys, or melting babies, you have only 20 seconds
to sketch a Caution sign to signal others to be on the
lookout. 10,000 possible card combinations guarantee that no
two games will be remotely alike.
Caution Signs includes everything you need for your
next game night with 200 game cards, 8 sketching boards, 8
markers, a scoreboard and rules and two additional cards If you
were a Gen. on this year, which I was.
So that is the voice over for Caution Signs.
I am free to anyone who wants me to do voice overs for their
advertising for future projects. Danielle, if you need some help,
I'm here. Thank you once again started
making me do. All our like cool things.
It's on video. Now doing how to play so be
well. If you need to outsource, I'm
available. Good to know.
And I'm free until I can be good enough to, you know, charge.
But right now it's all about, you know, creating
opportunities. I'm happy to help.
But Danielle, thank you for joining.
Kristen, thank you for helping me filling in for Gareth.
Thank you both so much. This has been a great
conversation. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, thanks for. Having me as well, it's been
great. 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 both on Instagram at Meeple the
Meeple.