Summer '17 Update!

Landed has finally arrived! Copies are now shipping and are available from our store and from Amazon. If you order your copy through Amazon, you can even get free shipping with your Amazon Prime membership!

Shut Up, Cat! is entering the final stages of graphic design and prototypes will be shipping to reviewers soon. More info on the fall Kickstarter launch coming soon, but I am really excited about this game. It's so simple and yet there's just the right amount of depth in the strategy and deduction that makes me want to play it over and over again.

Group Up is still getting new art and I can't wait to show off more of it. We've been working on this one for a long, long time (those of you who played it at Gen Con in 2015 know what I mean)!

Speaking of Gen Con, we're not going to be in the First Exposure Playtest Hall this year as we have been for the last few years. We're working hard on getting Shut Up, Cat! and Group Up ready to go and need to focus on getting them finalized. We will be at the show wandering the halls, however, and look forward to playing many new games and meeting you there!

 

Getting Ready for Gen Con 2016!

We've got our Gen Con schedule finalized! Come join us throughout the weekend and be the first to play two upcoming games: Shut Up, Cat! and LFG.

Shut Up, Cat! 2-4 players, 20-25 minutes


Shut Up, Cat! is a dice allocation/deduction game where players are just trying to get a full night's sleep in spite of the cat (based on a true story). Players roll three dice and then pick two of them to use on their turn. The player uses these to chose which tiles to reveal on the board with each tile being a precious wink of sleep (a Z tile) or a disruption from the cat (a MEOW tile). The player then secretly replaces all revealed tiles in whatever order they choose, so you'll need to pay close attention while you try to deduce where the MEOWs are.


LFG - Looking For Group (working title), 4 players, 75-90 minutes

LFG is a co-operative deck building adventure game. Players take on the roles of a party of adventurers in a light fantasy dungeon crawl. Play as a tank, healer, or damage dealer and watch your health and threat as you fight monsters. Use your experience to gain new spells and abilities as you go on your quests but if you over-exert yourself you may find your deck full of fatigue. Successfully complete three quests and the party is triumphant, but if you lose 3 quests the party fails.


Our complete Gen Con demo schedule:

  • Thursday 4PM-5PM: Booth 2563 for a demo of Shut Up, Cat!

  • Friday 10AM-12PM: First Exposure Playtest Hall - Shut Up, Cat! and LFG demos

  • Friday 6PM-8PM: First Exposure Playtest Hall - Shut Up, Cat! and LFG demos

  • Saturday 12PM-2PM: First Exposure Playtest Hall - Shut Up, Cat! and LFG demos

  • Saturday 6PM-8PM: First Exposure Playtest Hall - Shut Up, Cat! and LFG demos

Stop by and say hi!

A new game for the new year!

2016 has arrived and we have been in full swing. January had us attending Indie Conquest in and Protospiel Minnesota in January to check out some amazing new prototypes from many indie designers. And February? February is all about LANDED. On Kickstarter from February 2nd through March 3rd, LANDED has two to four players in control of powerful terraforming companies on a newly reached planet. Play tiles to shape the land and fulfill contracts from your wealthy investors.

LANDED was designed by Marcin Zarycki and I first played it at Protospiel Milwaukee last year. I instantly fell in love with it's simple mechanics yet deep game play. The strategy and choices give depth and I love the push-your-luck element when deciding whether to fulfill a contract with a smaller patch of land for less points or wait another turn and hope someone doesn't swoop in from under me to grab it before I get a chance.

I love LANDED and I'm sure you will, too! Back us today on Kickstarter and be sure to leave a comment on the project page!

November Events

Here's a look at things we've got going on in the month of November:

November 7th: Gamehole Con in Madison, Wisconsin.
I'll be taking a day trip to meet with some other indie game designers and publishers at Crafter Con, a small designer-oriented sub-convention within Gamehole Con. We'll be playing Landed, Guild Quest, and an unannounced project in between panels on Kickstarting games, marketing games, and others.

November 13th: Game Night and Foodtown Throwdown Launch in Chicago, IL
Join us at Beermiscuous craft beer cafe in Chicago along with the folks from Bonus Round Cafe for game night and to pick up the very first copies of Foodtown Throwdown for our official release! We'll have Foodtown and Landed playable and Bonus Round will have lots of other games to try.

November 21st: International Games Day in Chicago, IL
We'll be at the Harold Washington Library in downtown Chicago showing off Foodtown, Landed, and maybe an as-of-yet unannounced project as part of the library's International Games Day event. You'll also be able to meet and play games with Calliope Games and Foxtrot Games.

Hope to see you at any of these events!
 

Protospiel

I love Protospiel events. They are a great way to get new game designs in front of play testers, designers, and publishers and really get some great feedback. They're the perfect place to find out not only what needs to be improved, but how to improve it. It was after Protospiel Michigan this year that we had an epiphany about Guild Quest and began turning into the great co-op game that it is now.

Protospiel Milwaukee this year introduced me to Marcin Zarycki and his area control game Landed. I knew right away that it was something that was going to press all the right buttons for me. I'm really excited to be able to publish Landed early next year and everyone I have introduced the game to has fallen in love with it.

This month we'll be taking a few things to Protospiel Madison looking for feedback on where they need to go to be publish-ready. I'm excited to be taking two new games from indie designers as well as copies of Guild Quest and Landed to get some eyes on those projects. Meeting new designers, making new connections, and getting valuable feedback make these Protospiel events priceless experiences.

Foodtown production update and new game announcement

We're back from Gen Con and things are trucking right along with Foodtown! There's been a short delay since we've upgraded all the expansion packaging from a simple foil wrap to an actual tuck box, but we're still on schedule for delivery. Very exciting stuff!

While we were at Gen Con we were showing off a new game - Guild Quest. Guild Quest is a co-operative deck building adventure card game where players work together to complete 3 randomly drawn quests in order to win the game. The game plays out over a series of boss fights with players taking on the roles of tank, healer, or damage dealer in a fantasy setting. Playing your cards right earns you experience which is used to gain new spells and abilities for your deck or new loot for the monster to drop. We had a great time running demos at Gen Con and the game received an overwhelmingly positive reception. We'll be commissioning art soon, so keep your eyes peeled on social media for teasers as we get them.

And speaking of social media, we're now on instagram!

We made it!

Foodtown was successfully funded on Kickstarter! 250 amazing backers supported the project to reach its funding goal and now work begins on getting the full game into production. It'll be about two more weeks before the funds from Kickstarter come in and I can write the check to the printer and get production underway. In the mean time the files are being prepared, the barcodes are being setup, the skus are being registered, and the collector's-edition extra content is being produced.

Running the campaign has been a great experience and I am thankful for all the support shown along the way. I am really excited to get this project moving! Stay tuned for updates on the production and shipping process.

Progress on the Foodtown Campaign

I am so excited! Foodtown has relaunched on Kickstarter with a great start. After two and a half days we are already at the 40% mark and the project has been chosen as a Kickstarter Staff Pick! I want to personally thank everyone who has checked out the project and become a backer. This is a pretty big step and a pretty big deal for us.

Jeff King from All Us Geeks had great things to say about the prototype copy he received and his video impressions are embedded on the campaign page. We've heard from 1 or 2 more trucks who are interested in appearing in the game, so that's really exciting as well. I hope to get them in soon so I can start showing off the new cards with their names and logos.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this campaign. We've got a long way to go, but we are on the right track to get there!

The road to relaunch

We're getting ready to relaunch Foodtown on Kickstarter on May 12th and I thought I would go over some of the changes from the previous campaign. First, we've lowered the production goal to a small run of only 500 units. This allows us to lower the initial funding goal to $5,800. Thanks to a new manufacturing partner which offers more transparency in their initial quotes, I can feel confident that this cost will include shipping, freight, customs fees, etc with no surprises at the end (which is why it's so close to our original goal for a 1500 unit run - that was full of surprise fees).

We've also changed the reward structure to focus on simply producing the game. We like special editions, really, but for this project we want to just get the game into your hands without having to worry about producing a lot of extra content. We might do another edition with some promotional goodies - bottle openers or magnets, that sort of thing - at a couple dollars extra for those generous backers who want to support us further, but the game will remain the same.

We're also adding more to the page itself. In the works now is a quick how-to-play video, and already completed is a mod for the PC game Tabletop Simulator which includes the full card game. The print-and-play version will be brought back online so potential backers can try the game out on their computers or with their own physical version. Two more independent third-party reviews are in the works, and all the media - the podcasts and interviews - that came out in the middle of the last campaign are up at the start of this one.

We've got more confidence, a better business sense, and a great little quirky game to share with everything. See you on the 12th!