Episode 4 - April Fools!

welcome to the board game spotlight podcast get ready for an entire hour of gaming goodness brought to you by our incredible sponsors iv studios fireside games van rider games renegade game studios mythic games this little bean of mine game toppers llc kick track arcane wonders aeg draw lab entertainment and of course our amazing patreon supporters this podcast would not be possible without you and now here are your hosts derek and lizzy funkhouser hey everyone and welcome back to the board game spotlight podcast i am lizzy i'm derek i'm stephanie and i'm jimmy and derek is recovering from a bit of a cold so he is not on his like 100 a game so i had to jump in and do that intro for us so that we could get it he was done good it took a couple tries all right it's okay we're back there has been i mean there's something going around like everywhere i think everyone across the whole like united states has been getting sick so many like friends and stuff so we hope that you are all doing well that you are not sick if you have been hope you recover quickly drink lots of fluids get lots of rest uh it's it's serious i've had two family members in the hospital the last couple weeks so it's not good it's been rough yeah they're all out they're all like fine it's good but it's i know it's been really bad for a lot of people it has and i'm i'm recovering it's uh today was much better than the last like five but it's uh it's good um and everything is going going all right so we are going to open up the podcast with our grab what are we calling the second why don't what did we call this last time jimmy welcome to grab bag a brand new segment where you never know what questions derek is gonna pull out of the bag so the question from the bag is what board game world or board game right so just board game would you like to see turned into a tv show or movie um and steph why don't you start us so um i had a funny one just because i was like oh this would be fun lizard wizard a show about a wizard is a lizard and i was like i was just joking with that one but i was like oh okay maybe that could actually be good uh so cute it would be a cute show it would be so cute no i was thinking more like like a phineas and ferb style show like like disney channel you know like how do you enjoy yes sorry i don't need to steal your stephanie tell us no no that was good the other one i was gonna say because i really liked um lost in space is unsettled because there's so many different worlds and like every time i watch lost in space and they go to a new world i'm so excited because i'm like what animals what creatures which what environments and so like when the whole unsettled kickstarter was coming out i was really involved with helping them make their world and like giving my opinion so if i saw that in an actual movie or a show that'd be like the best that would be a cool tv show like my goodness and you would have to just follow a new crew because at the end of that they just need to die like it's like what's the coolest way we can die or like save only one person right so tom a little depressed and mark i'm gonna need you to work on this okay i don't know anybody but we can figure it out all right just start emailing you know so oh my goodness we're already getting off on a rabbit trail so okay um this is gonna be fun so coming soon to our patreon is a new artist spotlight initiative that i started last week okay or was it monday i kind of lost track of time i think i started it monday it's all been a few brand new coming to you so coming to you everyone at the 10 pledge level is going to receive an exclusive one-of-a-kind one-time print run sticker or postcard okay and we will be creating a pledge for 15 and you can get both and these are going to be drawn from board games hottest artists get out of here wow so today i got a random well i can't say a random email i sent a bunch of emails out into the you know the internet ether and ether whatever you sir into the into the definitely record the ethernet into the interwebs and uh i heard back from a few people uh some people that if you're listening to this you absolutely will have heard of like derek called me like i was not expecting to get a response from this individual but when they replied and were extremely enthusiastic about joining yeah i was really excited uh and that was vincent detroit no no no yes vincent dutrette uh replied back to my email is is in i'm going to work with him on uh you know figuring out the best solution for this he already has a piece of art that he wants to use i'm super pumped it's going to be awesome so uh we're going to start this in a few months we're going to get lizzy and i well i should say lizzy's going to get organized i'm not sure that we can deliver month by month and we're going to do this it's going to be a monthly thing you're going to get your choice again postcard or sticker uh and if you want both of them then you can you know join that pledge level wow that's kind of my random very you know idea fairy like idea this week i was like oh this sounds cool like why not just start this yeah and then i have like 20 emails in my inbox because he sees sydney and everything and he's like all these artists and i'm like oh yeah this is like i did i lit listen if you don't ask the answer is always no that's right so like i'm like if they don't reply okay whatever the ambition to go out and start all this and i have the organization to actually see it through so we're like the perfect team here we've got some really cool stuff yeah we've got some cool stuff that it's gonna be coming i'm excited to unveil um as we get closer to it but sorry i didn't mean to interrupt but like the whole like i thought you were going to go into your what what board game you wanted you were like literal rabbit trail like not even close to the top would you like to like bring it back or do you even have an idea uh no i'm gonna stop talking and let you and jimmy go and then i will so what's one of you two go lizzy uh um and i love like it's based on all the historical people in the region of kiev and ukraine and i just think that would be really cool basis for a show and there's been a lot of really cool like historical like loosely based like it wouldn't have to be like super strict but like um hulu did like the great and that was a lot of fun and a little kooky um so i feel like they could take that and you know do some really fun stuff with it there's some really great stories from that era i don't know her name but there was like a woman who her husband was like murdered by like a rival king or something and then like he came he's like hey i want to marry you and she's like uh not likely and she like decimated his whole kingdom and like took over she's like do you know what i'm talking about jimmy uh-huh yes that's amazing i don't know her name or anything and i'm terrible i'll have to look it up but i was just like yes this would be like a great story this should be told more people about her that sounds brutal it was it was amazing she was like you killed my one true love she's like i'm gonna destroy you and did it right you did it very effectively i love it jimmy how about you oh uh i've got two okay uh one is probably an obvious one that would just be so easy like it's already there and that's title blades right i mean it's just so like they're the kickstarter that they just did uh david and lena did all this animation for it and it's like it's right there it's just so easy such a gorgeous world looks amazing and so you just gotta say that one that one's just on there uh the second one that i thought of was a century golem i want i thought with that style with those golems and that cool artwork that they did like a whole show based around that like give me some of that and i would i would binge that in a second oh golem edition is the best edition i don't care it reminds me of a disney movie when i was a kid with a big giant but he was actually a robot uh-huh yeah i'm talking about yeah yeah yeah i don't know why i have this feeling that they go i don't know if it was disney or not you'd have to google that it was animated it could have been early disney it was animated yeah the iron giant is fantastic though it's fantastic oh my gosh i finally got you to watch uh what was the one um treasure planet no it stopped at like three quarters of the way through and then we just never finished it okay then i have failed as a husband treasure planet's amazing yes it is i mean like i liked it it was good but i think like the internet cut out and we were just like uh oh brad bird directed iron giant he's done a ton of amazing vin no way harry connick jr that's a lot of that's the voice guest leachman who did it though it was it disney no no it wasn't disney no okay um i am going to i was warner brothers okay uh this one's tough for me it was your question i know like okay tidal blades for sure like that's fantastic i i absolutely agree with that um i i 100 agree with everything's been said especially unsettled i would love that i'm gonna i'm gonna cheat a little bit okay of course no now listen listen it is a board game but it is a board game that is based off a video game so it does not have a tv show or movie yet and that is fallout the board game yeah i want a fallout tv show on hbo or show time or whatever like i want a brutal gruesome gritty fallout tv show um adaption of the video game set in post-apocalyptic america tv show when is it coming i don't know so is this already thing she's on imdb it says it says amazon prime so that's awesome so see look i am already a genius because somebody else thought of this well if you're gonna go off video games the last of us should also get its own oh i would love that absolutely steph the last of us is incredible so if you know if that doesn't count then um i would love you know what i would love this is this it was announced in january like this year oh i had no idea literally i had no idea um so and even if i knew i would have forgotten because you know that's how my brain works oh my gosh hold on a second can i can i talk about my second game really quick my second game would be food chain magnet i would watch a tv show of competing restaurants trying to yeah oh my gosh make it a reality game fans of that game would hate that food chain magnate the reality show where four rival restaurants are competing in challenges and like trying to gain the most fans and they have to be dressed in like 1950s yes exactly what were you gonna say well i do my memories on facebook and this one was you saying that you've never seen a red romeo and juliet and i said we watched the movie together and you're like well i never read it like you literally it has romeo or it has um leonardo dicaprio in it of course you've seen it it's true it's your favorite actor leo's my man crush yes i don't know but yeah we literally watched that movie together he made me watch it and he forgot that he made me watch it so this is par for the course does anyone else have a game that they want to to mention before we move into the next segment um nope nope that's good for me looking really good i see that up there that would be a lot of fun how would you imagine that like in a like like dressmakers could that could be a reality tv show no not like that like a sweeping kind of like a bridgerton s but this is france this is the rococo style and you know the dressmakers get all the buzz they you know everyone comes to them with their crazy ideas they want to be the best dress and they get all the gossip and so they know what's going on behind the scenes at court that could be there you go yeah there you go very obsession style theme too yes i like it i would throw in i think dwellings of eldervale would be really cool with all the monsters in the fantasy land i mean i don't really understand like i mean i don't know how that would work i just know like maybe you're trying to live in this land and like all these monsters you die and you come back so like no one's ever actually gone yeah i just remember when we we went to uk ge and peter was showing it to everyone and he told everyone you know when you die you come back piston with like swords or whatever and then we found out that in uk pissed means drunk not like [Laughter] it was martin martin was like well no because we said something and he was like oh no he had been drinking or something and he's like oh no i'm not pissed i'm like what he's like no i'm not like drunker and i was like is that what that means is that what that means yeah and peter's like i've been telling people they've been pissed and he's like [Laughter] oh how the english language i mean we both speak in english just very different versions yeah i love it i love it i love it when the queen dies will it no longer be the queen's english um that's a question that that's a deep question i don't have an answer to that's that's a yeah not [Laughter] if anybody's listening out there you can you answer that question i can i could do some google food but i don't know if that would even work well i really want to know well google it because like once she dies they have to stop printing money because it's all printed in like her name and they'll have in her picture yeah yeah like they'll completely stop and they'll have to recall everything and put it all out with like charles who will then be king like it's crazy she's not almost ruling queen in like england's history it's insane like when she dies it will be world-changing event oh of course absolutely it will even change the language [Laughter] oh my goodness oh i think we're all a little like slap happy well that was a lot of fun i look forward to seeing a question for the next episode because you never know what's going to come out of the grab bag there you go you never know where derek's going to take it on the rabbit trail it's true you better buckle up on the topper toppers brought to you by game toppers llc game toppers are a portable gaming top that converts your existing table into a high quality yet affordable gaming solution all right everyone we're gonna move into our on the topper segment where we get to talk about the things we love which is board games let's go all right what have we been playing recently um who's going for you start us out ooh uh i have been playing uh maul peak which is the new pencil first game uh designed by keith mateka and uh it's a follow-up to skulk hollow i don't know if you played that one it's a two-player game i guess there's a four-player version maybe but amazing basically two-player game where you're playing as in the original version you were these cool little fox fox clan or fox people and then uh you jump they had these amazing monsters that you would jump up so i had this little board i don't know if you you know but you play down on this board with these cool meeples and then at some point you would jump up on the monsters and then you would move to this other board and so uh super cool concept and love it i guess a is it like a video game concept or something or yeah it reminded me mostly of a game from the playstation 2 called shadows of the colossus where you would climb up on top of the monsters and um yeah yeah yeah so it very much reminiscent of that and and skull call it was one of our favorite two-player games fantastic i love playing as the fox and derek would always play as the creature monster yeah whatever the the guardian i think they're called guardians yeah because it's the boxing versus the guardians but that actually reminds me i need to go back the new one yeah you do i want it so like the new one is great it's got like now this time instead of foxes it's bears and so basically there was these bears that went up on this mountain and they built their homes and then all of a sudden the guardians awakened and so it's kind of cool like what you said like misunderstood like the guardians think that these bears have taken over their land so they think they've got a noble task and then the bears are like trying to save everybody so it's cool but uh the new one the monsters are there's this like uh i don't even know what you call it but like the snow guy it's all kind of like a winter theme in this one and so because they're up on top of the mountain so there's like this i don't know if it's like a big bear or whatever this thing is but like it swallows uh the bears and it goes into its stomach and then there's a this crazy wicked like uh a winter spider and then like a three-headed dog anyways there's all kinds of cool new monsters and then they even have included in it a way to play both of them together and so it's the battle of born or something like that and so anyway so you could actually play all uh skull kalo and mall peak together really super cool fun design i didn't know that yeah yeah it's great yeah i just backed it i was going to you just reminded me so you just pushed me in the right direction good decision sir so that's what i've been playing what you've been playing stephanie i've been playing quite a few things but mainly legacy games so i can't really talk about those ones too much so we have one group that's doing a betrayal legacy yeah that's so good it's really good and then i'm also doing clank legacy now we just started that one um that one's like my first legacy game the iphone so like it's pretty cool i'm not destroying anything because that hurts me yes oh yeah so i have it separate they keep trying to like destroy things on the side and i have to put them in a separate area because i'm like that's not happening not in my house give that to me yeah that's mine thank you i'll take care no i'm gonna destroy things yeah no i don't and that doesn't happen no no no it just stresses me out i don't like maybe maybe at the end when i'm like when it's finished maybe i'll do that like a big destroying party but until then we'll wait um but another one we just recently played was radlands a two-player game uh so yes so that one we played my boyfriend and i played and i really enjoyed it it's just a card game but you're putting out uh people to defend kind of your city area while you're trying to attack your opponents people and mainly their cities so that they can go um be destroyed and so you can win the game but really clever mechanics with the use of water tokens that they use to activate your cards to play them and to activate them and i like how every city has a different action so everyone gets three cities or towns sorry if i'm saying the words wrong if i'm not saying them correctly but everyone gets three and those have different actions as well that you can use on there but you can like destroy them to hurt yourself and your opponents but it's very back and forth and really we thought it was going to be a five-minute game which turned into 30 minutes 45 minutes where we just kept going back and forth so i was like this is actually pretty surprising i really enjoyed it the artwork on that is just so cool i just love everything about the artwork on that i love the box because when you open the box it's got a magnetic lid and like the head comes off so it looks like there's there's blood squirting or something but it's uh but it's all pink so it's just pink but it looks really cool i love that that theme yeah it's kind of like a post-apocalyptic punk yeah cyberpunk kinda yeah yeah that's epic i love it a lot but yeah that's what i've been playing oh you know oh go ahead jimmy no i was just gonna say i still have clank legacy on the shelf i've opened it up and i'm just so scared to start it i just i'm so scared i'm not a finisher i can't complete things so like i know we're gonna play like two games and ruin something and then never go back to it so i'm just afraid to start it's it's really good so far i like deck building so i just i will say like once you start playing it you're going to be like i want to play another one because it's good it gives you that feeling of i want to keep going because i just want to keep the story going and keep growing my deck okay well we'll see yeah sounds so happy about it oh yeah okay jimmy's like you know you're not i don't know i know me and this is not gonna work you need to bring it to like a weekend retreat and just like you're stuck in the house with those people and be like we're just gonna play this all day this is yeah there you go that could be like a weekend getaway game too you know like just play through the entire thing over a week i'm holding you guys hostage until this is done nobody leaves i'm just kidding so here's a new segment for everyone who's listening uh not really a news segment but while we're we're podcasting you can try to guess how many games derek just backed oh so how many games did derek just back on kickstarter now if you're following us on kickstarter then you're cheating because you're gonna get all the notifications but they don't know when it was but for those of you who are that's true for those of you who are keeping track at home tonight i've just backed five new games two are you gonna tell us one called throw octopus which is a tile laying game about throwing octopi okay octopus uh age of rome yeah uh an asymmetric two-player game the maglev metro volume one maps which are finally on there sorry about that i apologize uh i also backed a game called toasty which is a video game about a marshmallow knight of course yes i mean why not uh let's see and then a game called fujiyama and ajasai they are japanese made board games and i love to buy these on kickstarter because it's really expensive to get them imported so um they are one of them is about creating colorful hydrangeas and mountains um and then something else about critters i don't know they look cute derek does not speak japanese so he can't tell you everything but the art got him listen listen art got me and it happens a lot so we're so we're up to five so far well i don't think there'll be any more i'm gonna put the phone down oh okay all right switching back to the segment at hand yeah we played what have you played quite a bit um so we know last time royale talked about tim penny park and he had played it so of course we had to break out our well actually our copy came in like the next day it did yeah so we got it to the table really quick learn a really great fun game we love you really so this is from thunder works i love it yep it's a thunder works game with art by vincent detroit um very pretty straightforward worker placement with uh polyamino polyamino placement you're building a theme park uh work replacement and i just really enjoyed it playing like 25 30 minutes yeah i think for two players teach and everything was like 35 50 35 40 minutes like from teach to like oh wow done with the game a lot of really good decisions i felt like it was i would definitely put it in the entry you know entry level yeah i mean it's definitely easier but it was like a very enjoyable game uh things on kickstarter we've played recently um we played title blades 2.

um we played that and then we did terraforming mars aries expedition the discovery expansion for that with the milestones and awards which are great um upgraded um oh upgraded action cards yeah those are cool i like that a lot and um disney sorcerer's arena yeah so it's not oh yeah that's a pre-order but that's coming soon this summer yeah yeah so we played i was sully and gaston and ariel was my team that was sorcerer mickey and demona and aladdin yes so all right all right yeah it is such a fantastic game i really really like it and if you've got kids it's going to be a massive hit mm-hmm so is it like a battle battle style like i don't know it's an arena [Music] so it's got battler the hexes on the board and you're moving towards each other and then in the middle there's like three kind of like king of the hill where if you're on it you get a point at the beginning of your turn for being on it so you're trying to fight over that space um and then you know each of them have powers that are very specific to the characters um really fun invented like each character has 10 cards and you take those and you shuffle them together to make a 30 card deck and but if you run out of cards like you don't want to be like trying to run through your deck to find something specific you want to use the cards that you have on hand um we were able to stream it and i i love it like i've played it i was like the fourth fourth or fifth time because i played it online and then we played through the entire like the the rule book does like what it did with harry potter um hogwarts battle where it like builds upon itself and it like teaches you the game as you play through the different chapters which is great yeah and they're coming out with um like a character experience yeah you know it's disney they have like all kinds of characters moana and davey jones and of course the water like and they somehow decided stitch was a water creature and i was like excuse me the movie very clearly explains that his molecular density is too great and he would not survive in water um so i don't know where you get off saying that he is a water-based creature yeah in hawaii and island land earth yeah because he can't he couldn't leave the island that's why they put him they're like he's so fresh i am excited that stitch is there regardless of the expansion that he that he's in i'm excited too he's amazing it's actually funny when i got a chance to play the tabletopia version with uh fletch the designer um he was asking he was like hey you know what do you think about uh some expansions where we might do whatever and i was just throwing stuff against the wall and he didn't he didn't confirm or deny anything he was just interested in like what i would like to see as a character and the first person i named was stitch that was the first character that i wanted to see baymax that would be a great character he would be so much fun he would be slow but he would be so helpful it would be so cute like the other side of the board like his walking speed is terrible but like every now and then he'll just like fly to the other side of the board oh my gosh i'm obsessed could you like run into him and bounce off of him his attack is like bounce off his belly and jump back through his faces oh my gosh can you imagine i would like to see baymax 100 percent yeah what's up that's an underrated movie too it is oh it should get more love it really should like i i love that movie anytime it's on i want to watch it and the soundtrack is so good i love it and the story is good fantastic so good have you all seen ron's gone wrong or yeah yeah ron's gone wrong right i laughed so much at that movie me and my boys we just loved it so that's another one i think is underrated animated movie that i think was great so definitely one of the new ones yeah i've watched that here he liked it a lot and i liked it too um i'd say probably my favorite animated movie of the most recent years is uh mitchell's versus machines though oh that was so good that was good i knew nothing about that movie and then i watched it and i was like why is this so good like why am i laughing so much and okay so we watch everything with the subtitles on so that whole like fight in the mall with the furbys it's translated with the captions so like you know what they're saying and it's hilarious that like if you don't watch it with the subtitles you don't it's just like furby gibberish they actually have like dialogue and it's amazing you need to open the subtitles now i gotta watch it just yeah watch it with subtitles or just go to that scene and watch it with subtitles for furby it will change that entire scene it's so good the scene actually gets a lot darker now that you know what the first one you know i mean as if they weren't creepy enough one of my favorite this is like super old school like way throw it back the thief and the cobbler has anyone ever seen that never i haven't even heard it ever this is not a reason is that even a movie or anything it's like matthew broderick and it's got like a ton of big names um no way i think it's tony colette it's like hang on she goes to imdb it's my favorite thing okay so we'll be watching thief in the cobbler we'll be watching tv or a movie and lizzie will be 1993.

lizzy will be scrolling on imdb reading all of the random trivia facts for the tv show or movie yeah matthew broderick was in it every time uh jennifer beals was in it it's got like a lot of is it a disney movie no oh okay no yeah tony that's why you'll know it one of those old ones that i haven't seen in a long time that i can never find anywhere is quest for camelot yes oh my goodness so good i love that movie we have like the sing-along version on vhs that's not a movie oh my goodness it's amazing it's been just so long there's like the two-headed dragon and they like fight and they're like at each other's throats and then at the end there's like this big wave of magic and they get separated and then they're like no and so they hug each other and they like pop back together because they realize they're better together it's yeah it's a arthurian story they've got two arms two legs and then two heads so like they share mm-hmm i'm gonna have to watch it i've never watched i've never seen it never watched that one either so yeah yeah now i know what happens like yeah that's obviously the whole story check it out that's nice [Laughter] fade to black my goodness it's carrie hughes oh really i love it i had no idea well you wouldn't have known that as a kid oh gary oldman is in it and eric idol and don rickles and james seymour celine dion pierce brosnan here's brosnan i know him oh my god jaleel white which is the question yeah okay now we're turning this into food oh man oh my goodness we're going to try and find that somewhere and see if we can watch it oh we will says you can watch on prime video front or buy for 2.99 well maybe we can run it and we'll have a little date night still cheaper than the uh movies and there's the swan princess this one i was gonna say as well princess and the frog that one is underrated as well i like the princess and the frog a lot but this one princess has prince derrick obviously because i'm awesome and it has the classic line where he like is like we should get married and she's like okay he's like you're pretty and she's like what else what else is there you should write a book how to offend women in three words or less or whatever it is it's literally iconic so good all right well i'll have to watch that one too we should get back to board games the animated movie loophole but it's okay because if you're listening to this i'm sure that you can you know what animated movie did you watch when you were a child that you're like not sure if it was a fever dream or if other people have actually seen it as well let us know because yeah there's some crazy ones out there and people are like no one's ever seen it i'm the literal only one or they feel like they're the only one yet neither i remember i don't hear anybody ever talk about watching atlantis right yeah and i and milo that is amazing our next segment is brought to you by kick track kicktrack is a crowdfunding analytics and discovery platform hey everyone welcome back to the kick track spotlight today we are looking at birds of a feather western north america and this game is back on kickstarter there was a previous version of birds of a feather release back in 2015 they are back with a new version of the game and uh in this one they're going to go fully carbon neutral 100 percent compostable game they are going for quality and sustainability they are not going to use any plastic no polymers and that is something to me that stands out when i look at games and i look at publishers who are trying to fund and and get their game out that's something to me that i i find attractive um it certainly can raise prices uh but in in most scenarios it's something that is worthwhile and um and that's no no exception here now birds of a feather western north america is a set collecting game where it's by rounds not by turns and every round each player takes a card and they simultaneously reveal it and based on the number of birds and certain habitats you're going to be able to mark off the birds or habitats on your scoresheet in order to score points at the end of the game it is really fun it looks really pretty the the artwork is fantastic it is not only a very entry level like it's inviting but there is enough strategy to keep players coming back and if you're looking for a small box game those are the types of things that i certainly look for in my small box games are easy to teach but deceptively strategic right and birds of a feather is going to check all of those boxes so if this sounds like a game that's interesting to you go take a look at their crowdfunding campaign they have not funded yet they are really close at just over 80 percent so um go take a look this interview is sponsored by this little bean of mine bringing you fresh unique coffee within two weeks of roasting so here we are i'm with rob from cyanide and happiness thanks so much for joining us today absolutely happy to be here oh so cool to talk with you so great to uh kind of interact online and stuff so i met you at gen con a couple years ago at the uh skybound booth and stuff like that and so it's great to talk to you again so uh hope things are going good for you hope you've survived all of the pandemic kind of craziness that we've been through it's been a wild couple of years and it doesn't seem to be letting up but we're we're doing okay we're still making games still having fun uh yeah 100 so uh for people uh i guess give us some background tell us what you do what you've created and kind of what you got going on right now yeah so me and my buddies um a decade and a half ago made this thing called cyanide and happiness a daily comic soon became an animation series than a card game and uh just trying to conquer the the darker corners of the internet basically and it's been a ride we've been we've been doing it for a long time haven't gotten tired of it um it's going great yeah that's amazing so i i know that there's going to be a lot of people that know about it and love it so it's great to be able to bring you on this podcast and talk board games and and comics and everything else so uh so i know that you have made some uh board games and card games and stuff so tell us about some of those that you made and maybe what you got going on right now yeah so our first card game happened almost entirely by accident we uh we made we start like i said we started doing daily comics and in 2014 we decided like wouldn't it be cool if we made a little program that generates random comics we'll just make like 200 panels for panel one panel two panel three and that'll be something like 30 trillion combinations who knows let's just make a big orange button and then you press it and it makes a new comic every time so we did that and it was so much fun we almost didn't release it because we were so like caught up testing it and laughing our asses off and then like within a matter of like 30 days i had the idea of like you know if it's fun to like push a button and watch it on a screen what if we printed these out put them on a table and see if any any game mechanics emerge from that and we started messing around we went down lots of paths that didn't work we tested it we learned we learned how to test the game because none of us have made a game before yeah and we ended up with joking hazard which came out on kickstarter in 2016.

uh that was our first game yeah that's amazing and it's on it's on the shelf at target i see it every time i go in there so that's pretty cool that that's done i assume that's done pretty well for you yeah it's surreal every time i go to target as well i like to see see my own little characters on the shelf yeah that's got to be amazing and then uh another one came along right not too long ago when i was at gen con 2019 maybe i guess uh with a trial trolley and uh talk about that and that whole experience coming up with that one yes so that was a very different origin um uh ben kepner and james hudson over from skybound games we became friends with them from doing the convention circuit with joking hazard and we were at one of these shows i i it was it was pax east i think or maybe pax unplugged they all blend together but um yeah james hudson comes up and says hey we've got this party game idea and as soon as i heard it i thought cynonet and happiness is written all over this so he gave the pitch i said oh my god how has this never been made before like like a card game version of the trolley problem like that that's brilliant like we could have so much fun with this and that not just like the game content but the marketing um as well which we did end up having a lot of fun with we made an interactive series animations um but yeah that was an idea that came from from skybound and it became this really amazing partnership where they brought all of their experience in balancing and testing and design and execution and then we brought you know all of our butt jokes all of our edgy humor and we kind of met halfway and made this really really funny dynamic game that involves a lot of arguing which is my favorite kind of game yeah we i shot some video of people playing in every group that sat down at the table it was just a riot every single one of them and they thought it was a great combination of the comic along with the mechanisms so that's a that's great so uh congrats on that and i and again that's another one i see on the shelf at uh target too so that's pretty amazing yeah all right so uh tell me i i think that there's a third one right there's something else that you have going on oh who told you yeah so our third game has been in development almost as long as was well almost since joking hazard came out it was like less than a year later that my one of one of the co-founders uh dave mickel fatrick um he had this spontaneous idea like we've made a game where you can watch cyanide and happiness characters make jokes and do things which is joking hazard but what if we made a game where you could become a sign and happiness character and create some kind of like crazy combination of a head and a body and then the game mechanics like could be anything you know in the very beginning it was a it was a courtroom drama so it was called bad judgment and you had weird there was a crime being accused and you had to defend yourself and explain why it couldn't be you while hurling accusations of each other um and then like that was a little bit too open-ended it was more of like a role-playing experience in the game so we kind of reeled it in we played with different things and then like a couple years later like we just we resurfaced it and said hey what about dating like what if it was a dating game like it's funny like a lot of the characters in by the way it's called masturbator i should probably mention that a new game is called master masturbator and it's on game fan and yeah like a lot of the characters that were in that judgement in the courtroom drama were carried over into the dating version so now you have these really creepy met like cryptids like like really dark characters in this dating game which makes it even funnier but it's been a lot of fun to develop it's it's so much fun to play yeah that's amazing so and the artwork is just great and so i i love the combination of the head and the body that's such a cool thing and then tell us that but there is still there's a game here it's not just making the combination but it's also you're trying to get cards and and how does that work yeah there is a game and it's deceptively simple in terms of rules you're uh you're creating a head and a body from you have three heads and three bodies in your hand and you're creating a character to pander to three specific dating preferences interests and the interests are very like they're either very specific or very very weird uh that they're pretty far out there and what we've found is that it creates this like it's a really dynamic type of gameplay because i i should also mention you're not trying to just get you know 10 points to win like joking hazard or cards against humanity you have to get five points and we have three different types of interests so you're not all competing for the same stuff you have to really get specific and bend over backwards and it creates the most i would describe it as like trial by trolley like kind of on steroids because you're not just making a am i going to kill this person or kill that person arguing you're making a specific case for yourself why you're the perfect absolute perfect suitor for these three interests and it creates these like insane mental gymnastics when you're playing with the right people like it's it's it's this game that makes strangers like stop and like stare and wonder why did i just really hear them say that um of course right yeah it's it's a game where like where rpg like fanatics and like and d guys will have an edge because when you get into a character you're really going to be like reaching sometimes to explain your case it's a lot of fun yeah that's awesome so uh tell me about the the move to game found so kickstarter's been a big thing and i know that uh the last two have been over there and then now you've switched over to game found so what's that whole i guess business side kind of like we're switching uh platforms yeah it's been a great experience overall game found is just amazing it was made by people who made millions of dollars on kickstarter awakened realms and like they knew where the pain points were with platform they knew what to fix they knew what people were asking for and they kind of just put it all in there it's very creator-centric and also very backer center it's got built-in pledge manager the move happens because like as a lot of people know late last year kickstarter announced um we are pivoting to the blockchain to blockchain technology and then kind of full stop no further explanation and they haven't really given a real explanation since they've been a lot of like oh we're going to put a committee together and talk about this we're going to take our time but they've never said we're not moving into blockchain and crypto and like for people like us like we're artists we're environmentalists we we're not a fan of nfts blockchain tech crypto it's it's it's it's kind of a non-starter and not not to mention like the rampant ip theft and art theft that happens including to us like we're lucky that we're a pretty solid like company and we have we have a lawyer who can go out and do takedowns but like about once every two weeks like sign unhappiness shows up on openc or some other one of these other like decentralized aka if someone steals like two bad platforms and like and we're lucky enough that we can do something about it like a lot of my friends who are artists and cartoonists like they just have to deal with it and yeah we're not a fan of the environmental impacts and like it's all been said before i'm kind of i'm beating a dead horse no i don't know it's it's something that really put us off and put off a lot of people and the lack of clarity afterwards it was something we felt we couldn't really support so we looked around and we found game found in that search and we looked into it and like we talked to them and we're like yeah this is actually this is really good this is a good place to crouch fund yeah that's awesome yeah and i thought that it was interesting not to get too far down the rabbit hole with the the crypto and kickstarter but i didn't find it interesting that there was a lot of talk about it and then kickstarter just was like hey yeah this is what we're doing here's an faq you know and then it was just right oh so yeah so but congrats that one's going well and i guess it did it just launched not not too long ago and it launched uh what day is it we're we're getting a fan you know how it gets like i'm falling into a black hole um it launched three on the fifth uh three days ago so we're three days in right yeah so that's awesome so then that this one's gonna run it's got 27 days left and so they can jump on there uh can you tell us anything about the campaign like what are they going to get if they backed it all of that any kind of special stuff y'all are doing so like start things off we're knocking five bucks off the main game for people who back it because we figure that helps with the shipping costs associated with crowdfunding as everyone's familiar with and also because everyone who helps us make this thing happen like we want to give them a little a little discount and then the main thing is we have um a reward level called the big love edition which is an oversized box which will fit future expansions other rewards and we are um we're going to stuff it full of stuff like we've got a few things unlocked already we've got an expansion pack a couple of extra joking hazard cards we're about to unlock stickers and then we're pulling out the big guns towards the second half if we hit our goals so lots of cool rewards we're also um anyone who's who was familiar with trial by trolley will remember we did an interactive animation series where we where the audience helped uh charlie tom pick left or right and who to kill and who to save and this time we're doing something a little bit more ambitious we're doing an entire creepy dating show on an island we're doing an animated uh a game show where people can um give us suggestions on who to eliminate we're trying to find the perfect date for a contestant so we launched that first episode yesterday um super fun a lot like lots of people are getting into it it's been a blast and we got seven more episodes to go so we like to we like to put a lot into these things apparently yeah some people just run a kickstarter campaign and then you add it on top of that with the whole series and everything else and that's hey it's all about that mid campaign we've got to keep that dip like from going too low and i think doing an insane animated series is one way to do it yeah yeah that is one way oh that's amazing so well congrats on that i mean um anything else that you guys have coming up i mean i know probably with everything going on in your head you probably got a few other ideas back there anything you could tell us about or yeah we got a couple nothing i can really talk about because we like to announce our games all at once after working on them in secret i think it's the best way to do it um like it's like who's getting hyped for a board game two years early like it's maybe some games but uh yeah we have we have a couple of more a couple more card games and developments in different phases we have a video game coming out which is i'm pretty excited about chapter two actually of a game chapter one came out uh last year where we're getting close to announcing the date for chapter two so that's been like a whole other thing that we're buzzing about internally on top of master dater but apart from that yeah our biggest thing right now is this new campaign the the series which i think is like an event in itself 100 yeah and then uh yeah more animations more comics so that's our that's our bed and butter yeah 100 yeah that's amazing so yeah it sounds like you guys got a lot cooking and uh i hope that people can check it out so if if people want to follow you follow the campaign what's the best place for them to maybe get info news all that kind of stuff i mean the easiest way is just google and master data it'll be the first result so don't dispel it but you'll find yeah you'll find our game found page you can also go to any of our socials where we're incessantly talking about it for the next 26 days if you follow us anywhere you're either already a backer or you're sick of us you can't miss it if you follow us you can go to our website even um there's a lot of ways to find it yeah that's amazing so i mean what else can you tell us i don't know is there anything else going on with you that you want to highlight we've got we got board gamers uh rbg players all that kind of stuff i don't know i'm just i'm i'm searching for a question here so you tell me is there anything yeah like i mean it's funny you mentioned like yeah rpgs and and tabletop gamers like a lot of more serious gamers who talk i've talked to about art games like either never won't touch them because they're like it's not a party game it's another cards against humanity whatever but like the majority of them um will tell i've told us like oh yeah we like joking hazards like it's our warm-up game it's our icebreaker we play it for 30 minutes and then we put it away and then we get into dnd and i love that like i love that we have a casual game that like can also fit into that icebreaker warm-up category where you play it for 20 minutes you go that was fun let's put it away until next time or a year from now until thanksgiving you know and like i i love having a game that can do both uh-huh 100 there's a place for it on the shelf then right absolutely yeah that's awesome well way cool well i genuinely appreciate talking with you and thanks for clearing your schedule to be able to be with us today and i hope that people jump on the campaign and check out what you guys got going on yeah i really appreciate it thanks for having me on and now for industry insider where we pull back the curtain to talk about what it takes to make the board games that we love all right everyone welcome back we are going to talk about our industry insider segment and this one we're gonna get a little meta we're gonna get a little uh a little into april fool's day so recently i mean if you're online if you're on social media twitter the facebook that type of thing yeah the facebook page facebook your age is showing you my i know i know it's the gray hair uh you might have seen publishers game companies putting out these uh seemingly fake games or are they fake or real is what we're going to call this segment [Laughter] so stonemeyer games yeah they recently released two options okay for uh april fool's day faker reel did they release disc golf sets like literal literal disc golf like drivers and frisbees like oh like frisbees oh okay so right right purchase these uh with designers names on them it was like wingspan right yeah or yeah the game names on them and you had drivers and putters and and it was very cool uh so is that real or is a fake mini compass not compass but like a a magnifying glass reel so which of those two was real i'm going with the i bet jamie's like into disc golf or something right so he is like a pet project and he had to do it is that's my guess i don't know uh i think the disc golf thing too because that just sounds sounds real oh i know yeah you do know the disc golf uh sets were real and you could purchase them on april fool's day april 1st from stonemaier but wait a minute it was actually a trick question because they were both real he also put up a pre-order for a stone meyer magnifying glass what is the what's the kiss called the magnifying glass oh no just you know i really like magnifying glasses too you know what maybe we're going to make them here tell us a little bit about it it says we created two silly and very real products for april fool's a magnifying glass for small text and games oh okay so a chocolate colored candy egg tray wingspan's plastic eggs for oh that's funny that's awesome chocolate colored chocolate colored chocolate colored yeah and then they also have these added the disc golf so like that wasn't even like april fools i was just like hey it's real so i wonder i love jamie i i love i love what jamie's doing um i wonder if the magnifying glass was kind of like his funny way of admitting that the text on like um yeah between two castles of mad king ludwig the text on those tiles was a little tiny that's funny that is amazing it's got a case and everything that's amazing right right i love it i love it so also another thing that was unveiled on april 1st i believe was when i saw it uh it was definitely shared on april 1st so i don't know if it was meant to be an april fool's day joke or not fake or real legendary special edition ultra deluxified sorrow what do you think with like super extravagant uh miniatures to move on the board i'm gonna say real because i thought it was yeah i just i still don't know if it's not then if it's not they got me too yeah it is real it is a real product yup uh a deluxe like a legendary version of sorrow is coming thank you that's amazing yup i just i saw they're doing uh did you see the castles of burgundy that they announced yeah they did i do yes i hope that's real because that would have been real they announced that today that that definitely is real yeah what else was released oh okay fake or real sugrazi a new a brand new evolution of sagrada and yahtzee well i know the answer to this one because i well i won't say but you won't say it's tough what do you think why is it me um i'm gonna say fake yeah it's fake oh grazie so while you could have downloaded a pdf for segrassi and and jimmy's got it right there i printed that puppy out man i saw it i clicked the download oh that's so funny here it is to talk about talk about perfect timing oh my goodness so sugrazi was uh obviously their april fool's joke um but it was a real thing you could download and play so you can tell us about it next week when we record what have you been playing a little grazie just can't get enough of sagrats it's gonna be my top 10 20 22.

oh my goodness what if it was though like one horrible mention legitimately a good game i mean i don't mind yahtzee and sakrad is great so who knows it could be a dark horse sleeper pick yep i love it speaking of that my my march madness bracket was absolutely demolished i was doing really well with duke and villanova in the final four and then both of them lost and yeah i think lizzie's mom beat our pool i think she was the winner of the pool yeah oh so we do it with my family so i've been doing it since like before i could like write my mom would read off the names to me and i would pick them so uh when i was really little before i could write my mom did mine for me and i picked gonzaga and everyone in front of me and like that's my team since then um but like i won that year yeah yeah i don't know three four or five-year-old or something well except yeah they were all making fun of me and when i was little it was whoever won got to pick where we went for lunch on sunday and so i won and i got to pick and everyone was like oh my gosh like it was it was insane it was like the biggest upset the biggest upset yeah this year said pick the peacocks and we're like and they went to the the the elite eight and were like what is happening i mean i was cheering for him because obviously oh yeah the cinderella story get out you kept being like no no like yeah that was like let him pick whatever he wants it's fine i mean i was not gonna like tell him what he can and cannot pick listen i was no no no 15 is the worst and i was like if he says i was just letting him know that he he knows bigger numbers and he said no thank you he did i was like listen bro do you know that smaller numbers in basketball are better than bigger numbers and he looked at me he said 15.

and i said no all right duly dad i know more than you [Laughter] next year i'm calling him third yeah you should last year too he picked a couple of likes he had some big ups well naturally i mean it's gonna happen when you pick some bigger numbers but yeah yeah but he's done really well it's been fun and we've been doing the battlebots tournament it ended tonight so we can watch it tomorrow yeah tomorrow we're gonna see who wins we we fill out the bracket for battlebots discovery plus very poorly this year super fun if you've not watched battlebots used to watch as a kid and it's back and it's awesome is it really that's cool i haven't seen it very fun yeah you can find i think they do some stuff on youtube too like they have like special um fights that they like just released for there so we have been following it seb has his favorites he like knows all of them and he's oh he can tell me about that when he's a he's a drum spinner and this one's a flipper i love the flippers so he he's very into all of them yeah he is very fun very fun to watch him uh i that's all i have for april fool's i think oh no no there's one more there's one more so chip theory games chip theory games april fools fake or real plushies coasters coffee and a coffee mug and don't forget the stickers and puzzles and puzzles puzzles yeah totally real or fake somebody's doing this too much yeah somebody's totally doing this in the pop-up book from a few that was the automation of shale i think that was steph you were talking about that one yes that one looks amazing i actually saw it on a tick-tock um danny was playing it and i was like this looks amazing or reading it technically it's a pop-up book so she's like you can move things on here and i'm like that looks amazing and something i don't need but i kind of want exactly yeah and that's that's absolutely right i mean it's it's super cool what i just remembered the game that we played on april 1st what did we play the office guess who oh yeah yeah we live streamed office guess who for april fools it was super fun yeah that was a lot of fun and someone in our group saw it and was inspired and they made a shit's creek version oh david one more time oh sorry jimmy if you've not seen shit's creek you probably don't get those jokes very funny canadian tv show um with moira rose it's the best i was just watching it today again yeah we're gonna re-watch it soon i'm sure oh that's that's actually literally how i announced my pregnancy that's right it's not even her second her first video even her first oh yes they're throwing like a baby shower for like a lady in town and he's like it's not even a first baby the guy's like oh so it's a sprinkle what's the apple it's like just a sprinkle and he's like and he's like doing everything wrong he wants to serve like sushi like raw fish and like cheeses and and he's like you can't serve that pregnant woman can't have that and he's like oh like we're making a plan a party for one person he's like it's her baby shower that's kind of the point but yeah that's i'm pregnant if you didn't know surprise congratulations that's awesome thanks yeah and we're going to find out in a few weeks yeah yeah we're going to find out what the baby is hopefully a baby cooperates that's true you hear that baby cooperate unless ultrasound it was very active so i think it'll be fine yeah we're excited well that is all i have for april fool's day uh it was it was pretty active april fool's day you know there was a there were some people don't like paper full stuff some people do you missed a lot of things there was a lot more like jokey little announcement things too i'll tell you what i find from april fool's day post from board game uh publishers i feel like it's testing the market with just an absolutely absurd idea and they're like is there traction great western trail gollum yeah no they did great western training they did they jokingly but you know that they were testing the market on how many people would buy great western trail all the comments were um this should be real i want it i would buy it yeah exactly uh yeah i would purchase that in literally like a nano second derek already passed his credit card out he's like tapping the screen yeah yeah right here i mean we all know not working no self-control i just chucked my phone at the at the screen and just hoped it worked anyways thank you so much for joining us on this episode we had a lot of fun of course we like to just have a good time and we get on some really crazy rabbit trails and some some divergent paths and we just have a good time talking always so thank you for joining us hope you have a good week of gaming uh sound off in the comments about your favorite forgotten childhood uh movie that was one of the big things we talked about and also tell us about your favorite april fool's joke that you saw or thing that should be real yeah and tell us about a game world you'd love to see as a tv show where you're giving them like homework yeah here's your homework okay listen step 17 okay here's your rule book pick one of those things if it's too much we don't want to overwhelm you but we we truly appreciate you listening to this episode and we will catch you next time bye everybody hi and that's it for this week's podcast thanks again to our amazing sponsors and our wonderful patreon supporters we'll see you next time on the board game spotlight podcast [Music]