E48. A Gen Con story: the designer community

Welcome to Meeple to Meeple uniting players from around the world, a 30 minute exploration of PJ and Galas ball game experiences from across both sides of the Atlantic. Each episode they share their thoughts and opinions on the world of board games, including their favorite themes, games, hot topics and much much more. Are you guys ready for more? We are back for our Gen. Con story Part 2.

The Game Designers community as always on PJ, I'm Gareth and we're gonna continue to talk about Gen. Con. Gareth, how are you man? I'm good. I loved last week's episode so I'm. I haven't listened to all these clips fully. So I'm looking forward to hearing from more of your amazing acquisition of audio sound clips from members of this time of the designer community. So I think the description you hear about Jen about Gencon from the community overall is it is how vast Gencon is.

It's it's so big, not just the vendor hall, the whole event taking up hotels and the Lucas Oil Stadium and it's just so big and hard to describe. So we, it's so vast that we had to do 3 episodes, right? And we're only on Part 2. There's a lot of consent. Otherwise it would be here for three hours at a time. Oh yeah, we've got to keep these short and sweet. We're supposed to be 30 minute episodes and last week. And we always do a special with the cons. So we do.

So shall we? So, yeah, so. So these guys are these people you've met. Okay. Yes. So last week was members of the Instagram community. So this week these are either game publishers or game designers or they were exhibitors at the hall. I met them all in one capacity or another. Some of the some of those people you're going to hear from today. We met in the first exposure play test hall where my wife and

I were play testing. And so we actually got to play test their game and I was like hey, would you be willing to do a sound bite so we could talk about your game on our show. And they were kind enough to respond. So yeah there's some really good games. So I hope you got your your pen ran a pen. Good. My I have my iPad ready to Google some of these games to see whether I add them to my wish list. Some of these games are prototypes. So coming to crowdfunding. Yes. And I will.

I'll let you know that we came through the course of the episode. Some of the some of the games are already out and you can purchase them and I'll try to make that distinction from segment to segment. So, OK. Yeah. Well, I think so First one up I have Caleb.

Yes. Hey, this is Caleb from Barreledge Games. We are excited to have now Stool Pigeon which is a pigeon mafia family where you take over the head of a pigeon mafia family in which you are trying to eliminate or lower the number of witnesses in your crime scene. In order to do that, you have some of your pigeon pals that are there to help, maybe peek at other people's cards or even switch cards with each other. Tons of fun. There's even a rat in there. Sneaky rat.

You do not want him. And then a meatball. Only one in the deck, but it's worth 0 points. So the goal is you want to have the lowest score before anyone at the table knocks on the table inviting in the foul feds and then whoever has the lowest score wins. Game plays out super fast. Each game takes only about 7 minutes. That's the game that you play over and over and over. We absolutely love it and we've had a ton of fun getting it ready.

It is for presale on our website nowbarrelagegames.com and you can even shortly it'll be on Amazon but stool pigeon be on the lookout for it and some of the other games we have coming out soon. Thank you so much. So do you get to play that game? I did. I and we bought a copy. So Barrel Aged Games, for those of you who know who don't know, they were the publishers of Moonshine Empire and last year Fortify the Water Balloon

throwing game. So they're pushing Stool Pigeon this year and they had some advanced copies to sell at Gencon. And as you heard in the clip, they'll be on Amazon. It's available for preorder now. It is incredible. It is just so you get the four cards in front of you if you look at the two closest to you. So you know those numbers and then you draw a card and you replace it and you just it's a lot of fun. It requires a little bit of memory, right?

Because you're going to remember what you have and you don't know all the cards that are in front of you, and so you want the sum of those cards at the end to be lower than everyone else's. Lower. And the way to end the game, the way to trigger the final round, is just to knock on the table.

That's it easy. When when a player thinks that their sum is lower than everyone else's, you knock on the table to call the feds and then you go one round and we flip all the cards and who's ever got the smallest sum in terms of witnesses wins a game. That's it. How many players does it play to two to six? Have you played in two player? We played it at two. We played it. Yeah, it's really good. We played it at 3:00, which was entertaining. We played it at 4:00, which was really good.

Then we played it at 5:00 and 6:00. So it's it's scales beautifully because. Yeah. OK. It's it's worthy. So pay attention to stool. Yes. Also the the designer is Nate Miller. I did not meet Nate at Gencon but after Gencon I started sharing posts about this game. He reached out to me on Instagram and he's like dude thanks for the you know thanks for the the product you know I'm like cool. Yeah that's that's kind of cool. Sounds like a lot of fun. Sounds like a lot of fun.

So, pigeon up next, we've got Samuel.

Samuel Yeah. I'm Sam Barmettler with Around the Stump Games, LLC, the publisher behind Outrun the Bear. Outrun the Bear is a survival racing game for two to six players where the goal is to not be eaten by this giant, hungry bear that's chasing you down the board. You can do that in one of two

ways. Make the safety of your car in the parking lot or the bear happens to have an appetite only for all of your friends and family, so if you're the last one standing, it's satisfied and lets you go. The game's designed with an easy to get into hand management system that allows for new players and kids to be very comfortable with it. But still with the way the cards all play out and the changing of the board state leaves a nice crunchy experience for more experienced gamers.

My favorite experience during all of Gen. Con was seeing a couple young brothers desperately trying to get each other eaten by the bear while all the adults at the table were doing everything in their power to try to save them. I've never outrun the bear. Neither have I I haven't. Yeah. I felt better. No. No. Yeah. So this is an interesting game because you and I both have played it. Not together, but we've played this game. So we play tested this game last year, I'm gonna be saying.

Yeah. And that's how we got our name in the rule book as play testers. So Sam was one of the first people that was on our list to go see. We went to see him and say hi, got him to autograph my rule book. I was the first autograph he's ever given. So thank you, Sam. He didn't know what he was doing. He had a pen for it. He's like, I guess I'm going to do this. And I I think I message him later.

By the end of Gencon is like, I bet you signed so many that you probably wish you could redo mine. We're going to try to get Sam on because this game just recently was fulfilled through Kickstarter in the summer. He was supposed to be one of our guests and our schedules were gonna work there. We're gonna go work out. So Samuel be on look to talk about our on the bear. This is fun. So what are your thoughts of the game How'd you like it? Yeah, we've played it a couple

of times. The first group I think everyone. I don't think anyone survived. I think we're trying to get head around the mechanics of the card, card discarding and whether because it's quite mean in, I mean quite mean across the whole game. So I don't know whether we're trying to work as a team or whether we're trying to work just to survive. But it seemed to be just people ganging up in each other. And then we played it again with the work group who enjoyed it a

lot more. So I think, I think I think it depends. Yeah. Do you play it aggressively or do you play it to try and get somebody to survive? So I played it both ways. The first time I played it was like, OK, we all need to survive, right? And if somebody gets eaten, well, we can't do anything about it. But let's try to get everyone to survive. And I've also played it mean. So whatever it takes, whatever it takes, it doesn't work. I never outrun the bear.

What what I do really like is the way that the the play board is a long, straight boards and then the bear just fits neatly over the board, just slides along. There's always this menacing presence of this angry bear that is the game pieces. The game pieces are acrylic, so they're really, it's really nice. It's a really nice game. OK, And that's that was available. So I picked up at UK Games Expo because I think it has just been fulfilled.

So we got it from the Kickstarter fulfillment team for whoever they used and we backed it. We backed it on Kickstarter when we got home from Gen. Con last year because we play tested and we're like, this is really fun, let's do it. So, so we did. So we're gonna see a Kickstarter come through and deliver as well. So we've got Liam Kenny up next.

Hi everyone, we're Party Tales, Abli and I'm Kenny. Our new game, Time Lancers is a time travel themed set collection game. Players will move around the city of the future collecting resources and then go back in time to revise historical events that complete their factions objectives. It'll be on Kickstarter later this year, and you can find out more and sign up for our e-mail

list at time lancers.com. Our favorite moments from this year's Gen. Con were being able to demo games for the designers, especially David Smith, who showed us around Junk Drawer, and Andy Kim, who helped us clean up some animals with his game The Spill. We'd have to say that's one of our favorite things about Gen. Con every year. It's making those connections with all the amazing people in the board gaming community

wonderful. Tell me more like I. So first of all, I love these guys because they shared with us. They played somebody else's game. Like you know that's that's great that when I asked them to talk about their game and their favorite moment was about playing someone else's game. So that was really cool. So my wife play tested again. We're back in the first Exposure play test.

All she play tested time Lancers last year and it went to Kickstarter and we backed it because she enjoyed it and I think they had some problems and they didn't hit, they didn't hit their goals or it was something to do with the European market. I don't, I don't remember the whole story but it was something like that so so they pulled it down. They decided to play tested some more so they came back this year. So both Katie and I play tested it this year and it's interesting.

It's really chunky because of this time travel, because you're time traveling and you're altering history. So you could do something. And then if I do, if I go and change an event, say in 1503, every event after 1503 changes, including ones that you've already changed, say 1655. So it's already on your player. Matt. You have to flip it over because of what I've done, because you've altered and you're treated. Yeah, it sounds it's it was really challenging for me to

wrap my brain around. I did not perform well because time travel is a little wonky for me, but my wife loves the game. So like, you heard it's going to come to Kickstarter. We got a date for that. I want, I think he said September. But I'm going to have to double check that. But anyway, go to timelancers.com or check out Party Tales on Instagram and they'll keep you up to date. It's a pretty cool game, definitely an interesting mechanic. A little different from other

time traveling games I've seen. So yeah, if you go and pull Game Geek into the general forums, there's a link to the pre launch page. Loads of contents gone live as well in terms of videos. And there's a tabletop simulator if you want to check it out. Yes, check it out. Sounds really good, right? Next up we have Heather.

Hello, my name is Heather Dixon and I'm the designer of Apistocracy. In Aristocracy, it's 1851 London and you're new to town. At the behest of your titled host, That host uses their influence to launch you into the events of the season so that you may gain the most Victoria points and become the season's favorite. One of the unusual things about it is it is a worker placement game, but it ends with a trick taking game based on Wist.

So during the course of the season, you're going to be curating ahead of cards that you use to open the various doors, and you'll use that same hand in the end for the final Wist game. I really love Gen. Con. This was my second Gen. Con and it was my second time and 1st Exposure played us all. One of my favorite things is seeing familiar faces, so I was really happy to see PJ and Katie

and a number of others. It's also really special when people come back a second year to play Test by Game. It's super valuable when they see it after so many iterations and can give me their feedback and it's always just good to see them as well. I am so looking forward to Jen Con again next year. I just looked it up on Instagram. Yes, love the artwork. I'm loving the theme. Yes, you are. Did you Did you play? So Katie didn't. But I play tested it at First Exposure last year.

Oh, and then I reached out to see who was going to be a geek way and Heather was there and she brought Apistocracy and Katie and I got to play test it at Geek Way and I. So I got to see she'd made a lot of changes subsequently. We gave her a lot of input and then we didn't play test it this year, but she was back again. So she's working it out. This game is it is getting fine-tuned When she launches on Kickstarter or hits retail, whatever that happens. Look out for this game Apistocracy.

It is so good. It is so good. Yeah. I don't know what else to say because she described it beautifully. I mean, I think she explained it well, but it was great to see her and Heather's so cool. She's just so welcoming and inviting and just open the input and to really see this game grow and change as she fine tunes it has. It has a bit of obsession. Yes, vibes to it in terms of the so the rule books up on the website. So go and check out the website or Heather Dixon's Instagram

account. And the beauty is we've we've squeezed obsession into this episode. How you like that? Yeah, it's been a few weeks as well. Yeah. So we're obsession is we're running a house in Derbyshire, in Apistocracy. You're trying. You're not, you're not landed, right, You're you're trying to make a name for yourself and find a spouse during the season. So yeah, it's cool. Check it out. I am That one is going to be saved. Right up next is Nate. Hi, my name is Nate Linhart.

I'm the designer of Tenpenny Parks published by Thunder Works Games. Tenpenny Parks is about building your own epic amusement park and trying to bring in the most visiting people by games, and it is a worker placement tile placement game. Players are going to start with their own property board that you're building up, and you're going to finish building your own unique theme park from

everyone else by games and. As I said, it's work replacements and at the heart of the game is building rides and each of the attractions are denoted by different polyaminal shaped tiles you have to fit. And the twist of this game is the tile, place and rolls tiles actually can't touch in this game. They could touch corner to corner but they can't touch adjacently. You need room for people to be able to move around and walk

around your park. So what it does is it creates a very unique strategic tile placement experience that most are going to be used to. It's got amazing artwork by Vincent de Trait and it's got amazing production value by Thunderworks games such as a 3D carousel. You actually spin throughout the game to manipulate the market prices of rides. This was my sixth Gen. Con. It was another great year. It's so fun. One of my favorite parts is meeting so many new people, such as PJ.

Everyone is so kind and so welcoming. And then one of my other favorite moments of this year specifically was trying Pinball Alley. I've actually never played pinball really before and I had a lot of fun doing so and I think I have pinball fever now. I have made a side note, Pinball Alley. That sounds amazing, but 10 penny bucks? I have played this game I've had the pleasure of. Nick from Ball Game Review UK told me this, and I had a lot of fun. If you assumed you played

Jencon, I did. That's how I'd met Nate. So this was an actual you've heard me talk about events at Gencon. This was a ticketed event that we signed up for. It was an opportunity to play Tenpenny Parks with the designer Nate Lynnhart. And we're like, we really can't can't pass it up. Katie was really interested in the game. Our good friend Nick had been talking about it since he picked it up about a year ago. And I was like, we need to check it out and I get to meet Nate is really cool.

Did learn. I don't know if this is unique or not but apparently when you play tenpenny park with the designer and you go to spin the carousel you have to hum a song while you spin the carousel to to make new role we should add it in and and that is from Nate the designer. So if Nick is listening or when you see him let him know you got a hum a song when you turn the carousel. That game was awesome. I do like the whole polynomially try and make them fit. You got the trees that are in

the way. Yes. I don't think I did very well, if I remember rightly, because there's quite a few moving parts. Yeah, that I didn't remember. It's pretty tight because the market adjust stuff. Yes. But you had a great time. There's a really good game. And then trying to keep your trees because you get penalties for cutting them down or something. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You want to keep them in the park if you can. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 10 penny parks. Yeah.

Thunder work games. That's going to be. There's no no sign of an expansion or anything. He didn't mention anything. I think he's moving on to another project that he couldn't talk about. So I was like, cool. But at least he was kind enough to share his thoughts on his experience. Yeah, and then I need to look out. Pimba Valley. I'm gonna do that now while we listen to the next clip. Yep. Which is from Tatay Wu. Tatay Wu? Yes. Here we go.

Hello, this is Tatay Wu, designer of In the Stars. In the Stars is a role and draw game for one to six players. In the game, players will connect stars to create consolations on one board. They will also draw an animal icon around complete the consolation, which is one of my favorite parts of the game, seeing people draw and share their creativity. No matter how strange your drawing is, a space cat is always adorable. Thank you for coming to In the Stars events at Jincon.

See you out there. How was so? Is that A to be released? Yes, yeah, if I recall correctly, Tate said. November of this year at crowdfunding or yes, yeah, OK, so you've got this board and you have these neon colored chalk markers. Yeah. Pink, blue-green, yellow, purple. And you have a card in front of you that has requirements that you have to meet when you draw your constellation. And once you complete those three requirements and you've done it, you then have to

physically draw. You have to physically draw the constellation. And I think I had a Scorpion, so I was doing Scorpio. So I drew my first one and he's like, now you have to draw it. I'm like. You don't wanna see my drawing. And so I draw and I'm trying to draw around my stars and make it look like a constellation. And he's like, oh, you did good. I'm like, no, I didn't know. And is it. So look in the pictures. It's a it's a collective. Everyone's using the same board.

Everyone's using the same board in front of you. And you're scoring separately. Yeah. I've never seen anything like this before because as soon as you said in the stars, so we picked up a game called Look at the Stars. And if I, which had single boards each player. But again it was, was chalk. Yeah, chalk pens where we had to draw constellations. But it was more flipping right. But they are very different games with very similar names that rhymes.

Yeah, it looks it definitely looks like my cup of tea. It's it's really cool. I think we got to play test it, play test it at the first exposure. Play test songs like Tatay. Come on, man, you got to, you got to, you got to give me a sound bite for this. And he was like, yeah, let's, let's do it. I will dig you a side note while right before we play Tested, guy walks up to Tatay, he's getting a preview copy of something. Whatever they're talking, he looks at me and he goes, do I

know you? And I'm like you do, but I'm not going to tell you where you know me from. It was Jeff, the mad board gamer. Between Origins and Gencon I have met the entire cast of the Game Casters Podcast. So little plug for them. So yeah I love. I love to win Jeff. Yeah so it was great to see them so but Tata's game is amazing so look for it in the Stars by Tata Wu. You will not regret it. It's so I have just subscribed from up to that 1. So it's really good.

OK, now we've got Adam. My name is Adam Nikovich.

I'm the operations manager and one of the designers at Tunnel Monster Collective in Pittsburgh, PA My game is Chef's Table. It's a cooperative dice game about working in a fine dining kitchen. Favorite moment of Gencon was the play test room. It was one of the best play test rooms I've ever participated in. Well, run. I got to meet a lot of really cool people. I got to chat about game design. Can't ask for a better experience than that at a

convention. Yeah, at Adam was really cool and Okay, So we sit down at Chef's Table, that's the name of the game, and we're waiting for the other players. And so he's talking about how the version we were about to play Test was actually bigger, like he envisioned a larger Lacerta style. You're Okay, where you're running an entire restaurant well. That got too much. They pared it down.

So it's a cooperative game where we're chefs in the kitchen and you roll dice and you're trying to plate food. There's three courses, so three course meal, and you're trying to plate the food. And each card, which is the plate, requires a red, 6A, blue, 3, whatever, right? And so you roll that, You have to go to a station in the kitchen, roll the dice. But the beauty is this. If you're playing blue, I'm purple. You go to the Sioux station and you roll dice, and then I go

there to do it as well. I'm next to you, so I get to increase the value of any blue dye I roll because you're there. So it's like if I come up to you to help work the station, it's like you're going, you're kind of helping me and you're like saying, Oh no, do this or stir this or. You know, add this spice and so for blue dice or whatever color you're playing, in this case, you would obviously be playing blue. I would get a + 1 pip to that die roll. So it's very cool.

And there's stations. We actually go to plate the food. There's a prep station, a Sioux station, a grilling station. There's another. Yeah, it's it looks awesome. Hopefully, Adam said. He's going to try and get us a preview copy so that we can play it and then we can have him on so. Adam, if you're listening, don't forget us. Me. But to me, but we're ready to play. I do, I do. It sounds like those kind of phone games. We are trying to complete orders.

It's a little bit manic. I do do enjoy. Good. Gather these bits, do that. Yep. I guess pick up and deliver kind of start a game a little bit. And this one really just shines through. I've worked on a line line as a line cook on a kitchen in like in like in college. Yeah. And I really felt that like we were working as a team, but we had to do it just right. Yeah. Yeah. It's also asymmetrical. Each, each role that you're given, you know, I think it's like 8 roles.

And so you have some sort of an ability, right? Like if you're a sous chef, you get a bonus when you go to that station. Or if you're the expediter, you can expedite a second extra die or whatever. Right. But it's very cool. Chef's table. Chef's table, yeah. I think I've now worked out that I think Pinball Alley wasn't a game. I think Pinball Alley is. Is it a place at Gencon? Yes. There's no such ball game for pinballs. I was thinking that would be quite a good game.

I don't know how it would work. It's a it's a place of pinball games, but that would be good if I went Gencon. But yeah, there is no game, right? So we have one more to do. We have Liz up next.

Hi, I'm Liz. With Folded Space, we make board game inserts. They're really lightweight. They're made out of an Eva foam material with a laminated card on the other side, so they don't add much weight at all to your game boxes. They're sturdy, they're easy to put together with a little bit of PVA glue, and best of all, they're pretty inexpensive. So they make a really good option for organizing your games.

This is our first year at Gen. Con, so we really enjoyed getting to know people that we'd only interacted with online. Meeting people who had tried our products but we'd never gotten to meet before introducing them to new fans. And most of all, we love getting to show people our new color inserts. This is something that we've really been pushing for for the last year or so.

We work with the publishers to license the art of the game, which we print directly on the insert, so that makes the insert really beautiful. It also makes it really practical. Often the trays will go directly onto the game board and you can see where all the different components go. People seem to really enjoy those, so it was a really good experience for us.

We know big fans folded space. Yes, Anyone who's listened to us knows that Gareth and I love folded space, love their product, and the people are amazing. I was surprised, at least in the US, because I did get to talk to Richard. Yeah, so Richard is the second person on this planet who has met. Both of us now. Wow, these lucky individuals, right? I know, You know. So if you are ever in England and you're in Midwest US, you can meet Gareth and I and be one of those lucky.

We need to look a little badge, right? Yeah. See, maybe it's half the badge is me pool and the other half is another me pool and they. They oh sounds just made some merch. But before we get distracted by that idea so it was great to talk to Richard. Their booth was very successful. They were there. They were busy the whole time. Was surprised how many people it was. Their first time purchasing A folded space insert was a Gencon. He had come in a lot of people,

so it was great. It gave them more exposure to an American market. I guess, I guess, I mean Frost Haven is their big products. I think anyone who did well the back it would have, Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yes. But their color line of inserts has really grown. They're they're doing more and more. I'm trying to think of the most recent one that surprised me. Oh, Lost Ruins of Arnac. Oh yeah, I haven't seen that one yet. I've seen that and I'm like.

I have the Gray one, so I'm not going to buy the color one. But now I'm like I told Richard I was like, how could you do that to me? I think I think if people go back, we have our interview with Richard, an episode maybe 15 or so ago. Yeah, he was our very first guest on here and he talked to me at the UK Games Expo about printing. And actually I think from a brightly it was, it's cheaper to print the color inserts that it was. The Gray, yeah, how about that.

But you need the right machinery. So yeah, it's great that that that that put line is I guess rapidly evolving. I'm sure it never stops. But at UK GE they'd sold out by the Sunday, is that similar? They he did not sell out when I saw him at the end of the day on Sunday, they still had product love. OK that's good. So yeah, very popular. Yeah, big fan. Definitely need to get a few more of those into a number of recent acquisitions I have. OK, so that is the end of our designer episode.

Yeah. Our next episode, we're going to hear your personal experience. I'll just melodical for 30 minutes or less and tell you about my thoughts and my experience of Gen. Con with all the people I met. Pj's road trip. Yeah, OK, so with with that, I look forward to hearing more about your road trip to Gen. Con and your post game experiences. Thank you everyone for listening and we'll be back next week. Thanks everyone for listening. Please subscribe.

And as always, we 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 meepletomeeple.