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 both on Instagram at Meatball to Meatball.