Think Like A Game Designer - Isaac Childres — Crafting the Gloomhaven Legacy, The Power of Audience, Daring Game Design Choices, and Ascending to BoardGameGeek’s #1 Spot (#18)

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

Isaac Childres is the creator of Gloomhaven and Frosthaven. Gloomhaven is the #1 rated game on BoardGameGeek for three years, and Frosthaven, the highest funded game on Kickstarter. We’ll dig into what motivated Isaac to create these legendary games, and what he’s learned along the way. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. In this podcast, I'll be having conversations with brilliant game designers from across the industry, with a goal of finding universal principles that anyone can apply in their creative life. You could find episodes and more at think like a game designer.com. Today, I speak with Isaac Childress, the creator of Gloomhaven. Gloomhaven is the number one rated game on board game geek. And Frosthaven, the recently released expansion on Kickstarter, became the highest funded game on Kickstarter ever.

Now, I recorded this podcast with Isaac before launching my own Kickstarter for Ascension Tactics, which, as of the recording of this intro, is currently live. You can check it out on Kickstarter. It's over 200% of its funding goal. It was funded in three hours. It's a huge success and very exciting, so please go check it out. But it is dwarfed by the success of what Isaac was able to accomplish. And I hadn't really had a chance to speak with Isaac before this interview, but it was, I couldn't believe what I learned from this. Whereas the process of creating a Kickstarter is an incredible amount

of work. The process of creating a game is an incredible amount of work. Process of creating a company, doing graphics, doing art, all the things that go into making a game is an incredible amount of work. And I spend most of my time when I'm teaching about design, explaining that you shouldn't really be trying to do all of that by yourself. Well, Isaac breaks all of those rules. He did, so much of this work by himself, even while he was going to grad school. He is an incredible lesson in perseverance, in hard work, in how you can break the mold, and in how even when you see these universal principles that are everywhere. And Isaac does use several universal principles that you can take directly, but he breaks so many of the rules. And so I was really

glad to be able to have him on here to be able to show how you can have these kinds of runaway successes, how you can go against the mold, how you can really make things to be a huge success. and I was able to apply several of those lessons to my own Kickstarter, which has obviously been working really well, and I've been able to apply those lessons to my own psyche. Anytime I think that I'm working too hard or I have too much on my plate, I think about what Isaac was able to accomplish, and it kind of meddles me out a little bit,

so I think I can kill, still do more. So it was a great conversation. I really enjoyed seeing the behind-the-scenes process of one of the most successful games in history, in the history of all tabletop games. So it's amazing. I learned a lot. I had a great time in this interview.

I'm sure you'll learn a lot. as well. So without further ado, here is Isaac Childress. Hello and welcome. I am here with Isaac Childress. Isaac, it's great to get to talk with you. Hello. Yeah, good to be here. Yeah, so, you know, I've been following you for a while. We haven't actually met or even had any conversations before now, which is, you know, actually pretty rare with a lot of my guests. So I'm going to be learning a lot about you along with our guests. And some of my team. I mean, most people know you, you know, as creator of Gloomhaven and Frosthaven and members of my team are just completely obsessed when I told them I was talking with you.

They were completely fanboying out. So, so I know they're super jealous right now. And I really, you know, I really want to kind of understand because it, from my perspective, you know, you kind of came very quickly into the, into the limelight and had a huge, huge success that has kind of dwarfed most of the things in the category and even sort of formed its own category. So I'd love to to hear, you know, just kind of start with the origin story. You know, what got you into games and kind of how did you get started on this road? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I've always been like an avid video gamer, right?

Mostly like RPGs and stuff like that, like very like board gamey type video games, right? Where they're turn-based, you don't have to like think on your feet too much. You can just sit back and make a plan and things like that. We're talking like Bards Tale and like, you know, Knights of the Old Republic. What's, what are some of your favorites? Yeah, yeah, Nice The Old Public was good. I mean, yeah, so I'm 38 years old, so I kind of grew up with a Nintendo and then a Genesis. So lots of like Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy.

Great. Fantasy Star, that sort of stuff. Awesome. Yeah, we're about the same age. So I've, same, same fun backgrounds. Nice. Yeah, I mean, I've, I've. played I played some board games as a kid, but mostly like monopoly and stuff like that,

where you're just rolling dice and moving around aboard. But I guess I got a little bit into, like, access and allies in high school, along with Dungeons and Dragons, I started playing in high school as well. But it wasn't really into college and particularly, like, my grad school, that I really started getting into like hobby board games. A roommate of mine discovered board game geek. And at the time, I think like Puerto Rico was number one on there. So we bought that.

We're like, oh, let's try this out. This looks cool. And then just proceeded to like play it over and over and over. And then buy like, you know, the rest of the top 10 on that list and just, you know, just kind of spiraled out of control from there. Yep. That's a familiar story. I think it's if I were going to count,

I think it's like somewhere near 100% of the game designers that I speak with have had either the Dungeons and Dragons or Magic the Gathering as their main like inspiration of like kind of getting deep dive into games and starting to think about about game design. But your story resonates a lot in that of course now you know the sort of fantasy roleplay element of Dungeons and Dragons and the crunchy Euro game aspect of the top of board game game. obviously you know those those inspirations obviously come through so all right so you've started you're in college now you're you're you're obsessed with the top euro games you've been a d and d player for a little bit what what happens next uh yeah so then um i what really kicked it off um after that

was i discovered like a weekly game group um that met like in the perdu union every wednesday um And those guys were like, you know, way deeper into the hobby than I was. And, you know, they had huge collections of games where, you know, I had like maybe five to ten or something, you know, whatever I had found on board game geek. And so, and up to that point, like, I was only able to get, maybe get people together to play games like once a month or something. So now I was like playing games every week and I was playing like a different game every week. week. And yeah, for whatever reason, that just kind of started, like, sparking this creativity within me. You know, like, previously I'd, you know, DMs of D&D campaigns and stuff like that. So, like, yeah, I've always had, like, this creativity to, you know, create stuff. And I don't know,

that's not a dumb. But anyway, anyway, so like, creativity to create stuff. Hey, I like. But yeah, so like playing all these different games started making me think about games more. And so then like my creativity turned towards creating games rather than like D&D campaigns, I guess. And so that's where I got started making games. So this is still in college that you're doing this. You have your weekly play group. You're trying out new games every week. Did you bring like a prototype to the table one week?

or were you just kind of working on stuff in your room or what? Yeah, I tried that. It didn't go so well. Yeah, so this was in grad school. So this was actually like maybe seven, eight years ago. And, yeah, I created like a prototype of my first game. I was really excited about it.

You know, like I'd spent like all week like making this prototype and, you know, designing this, all these systems. And I bring it to the board game group. I'm like, oh, yeah, these guys don't want to try it out. And, you know, just specifically remember, like, one guy, like, I'm like, hey, do you want to play this? And he's just like, you know, we come here to play finished games or something like that.

Yikes. And, like, yeah, no one was interested. And it was very disheartening. And so, but, you know, I mean, in some sense that was accurate. Like, you know, I was going to a game group to play games. And, you know, if I wanted to, like, do playtesting, that is, like, a separate thing that I needed to, like, organize myself. You know, I could use the same people in that group, but it needed to be, like, a separate thing, not necessarily, like, something that, something to do, like, when they were planning on, you know, playing something that was guaranteed to be good. Yeah, you need to prepare your playtest group is a lesson you learned.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So is that what you did next? You rally your group together to playtest? Yeah, I found a couple people just kind of like, you know, creating message or message threads like in that, in that community. It was on a meetup.com. So I like created some threads through meetup.com. Like, hey, you know, if people want to get together on a Saturday or something, yeah, I'd love some help playtesting. And the response wasn't great. But there were like one or two people who, you know, really. kind of got into it and really helped me out in a big way to like, you know, start playing those games and refining them more. Yeah. No, and I, and again, this is another thing I hear echoed a lot. And especially for people who are not, you know, don't have built in groups to start.

Places like Meetup are fantastic, you know, finding local, you know, local gaming groups, starting a local gaming group, being able to get that, that, that, you know, playtest group together because at the end of the day, you just don't know, you know, you can't design without a playtest group and getting feedback iteration loops in. So you sort of took the initiative and did it's while you're still in grad school. And then how did things go from there? They loved it. They loved your design right away, right?

No, actually, the game was like way too long. It was the main thing. But yeah, also there were other problems. Yeah, but you know, you just keep working at it. Yeah, you just keep iterating. And hopefully, you know, the people are good. enough friends with you to keep working on it with you or keep playing the game. There's really something interesting there to keep them coming back to see who has changed

and what's gotten better. Can I ask, you know, because this is the other thing, right? So the specific tactics of how to do this are not actually that complicated, right? You know, you want to try, you know, create something, get a playtest group, get feedback, cycle, make it better, learn from that, do it again. But the emotional part is always a big challenge, right? So you ran into this situation. You're still in grad school.

You have tons of other responsibilities. You're play, you create your prototype. It goes, the testing goes terribly the first time. And I was kind of joking before because it always goes terribly the first time. And then you're able. And so a lot of people, they hit that wall and they stop. And instead you said, okay, I'm going to take this as feedback and I'm going to iterate and I'm going to bring it back and try again. What do you think kind of gave you the strength to do that?

Or how do you advise people who hit that, you know, that wall? on how to kind of move to the next step. Yeah, I mean, I think it was two things. But yeah, I mean, you're definitely right. It's like there was definitely like that emotional wall where for me it was just like, you know, nobody is interested in this, you know, like nobody wants to play this with me. I mean, there were like a couple people, but it was like I thought there'd be more. I thought there'd be more interest in this.

And yeah, like it needs a lot of work. And, you know, it's not as easy as I thought it was going to be. But yeah, I mean, I think one thing. was just like, I feel like I had a good idea, you know, or I felt like I had a good idea. Like it was something that was worth pursuing, like even if it was too long and there were other things that needed to be, you know, fixed or changed.

Like I felt like the core idea was, was really interesting to me and I wanted to just, you know, see it keep going. And, you know, I'm very tenacious in that regard. Like, I love a good challenge, right? So if something is like difficult or more difficult than I expected to, like that never makes me stop. It just kind of makes me want to go more. Great. And then I did have one friend who was very encouraging who kind of like stuck it out with me and like came to like almost all my playtest.

And, you know, when I was feeling down about it, you know, he was always there to like, you know, encourage me. And I think that really helped as well. That's great. those are three like just super powerful principles just to underscore what you said right one is you know find something that's inspiring to you find something that you're excited about whether that's the story or a specific mechanic or something that you personally are passionate enough about to kind of push you through the tough times uh the second was sort of you know cultivating a a love of challenge and a love of difficulty right looking at it as a puzzle to solve and a yeah to overcome rather than a than a

you know, slap in the face or whatever when you, when you hit a wall. And the third thing, actually is maybe even more important than the other two, which is, you know, to find that support network, right? Having somebody that believes in you, even just one person that believes in you and is there and standing behind you can make all the difference, you know, if a ton of people all give you negative feedback, but you've got somebody that's there to help you, man, that makes life so much easier and a lot more fun, frankly. And so I think that's just a, that's not a message I think we hear often enough. So I'm really glad you mentioned that. Yeah, yeah. That was, yeah. All those things were definitely helpful.

Yeah. So, okay, so now you're iterating. You've got a play test group. It starts. It's too long. There's all these problems. You're slowly getting things better. This is all happening, again, still through the grad school period.

At what point do you, you know, you move forward to the, yeah, I think this is a thing. I think I want to make this. Yeah, I mean, I guess I was, I was in it from the long haul from the beginning. Like I was, you know, sort of made the decision that I was going to, like, make this game and actually like try and get it published. And again, I mean, that was just because I, because I love to challenge myself, right? So it's just like, well, I mean, if we're going to do this,

like let's do it, let's do it full force. So yeah, from the beginning, it was all about just iterating on this design. And until I felt like it was ready to go to Kickstarter, actually. Like, that was kind of my idea or my plan from the beginning as well was to like self-publish it. seemed like, I don't know, like the bigger challenge, I guess. Yeah.

See if I can do everything. 100%. Yeah. And that's something I absolutely want to be digging in, too, with you. Because I, you know, I'm sort of also a kind of CEO game designer. I know what it takes on all different sides. And I always advise new designers. Like, don't do this yet.

Start by publishing and working with other people, get hired by somebody. So, you know, learn from other people. and take less risk and take less work on so you can focus on your craft first. And you just went full on charge, let's go. And I find that sort of fascinating. And again, all of this is in parallel to getting your PhD as a physicist. Is that right? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that definitely took a toll on my graduate career. It probably took maybe a year or two longer to finish that PhD than I probably should have. Well, you did better than I. I was in law school when I started going down this road and I just quit law school to become a game designer. So at least you got the certificate. Yeah, yeah, I got the piece of paper. Look at you. I never used, but it's still nice to have.

Yeah, I have a friends, you know, tell me at one point, or, you know, just give me some advice. You know, he's just like, you know, just make sure you graduate. Like, you know, make sure you have a backup plan, essentially. Sure. Right. Like don't just quit everything to try and do this. Don't light the boats on fire. You can do it. All right. All right. Well, so, all right. So you're doing it all right. So at what point did you start investigating in the either or start moving down either the production side or the Kickstarter side or like, you know, I understand the process as you're working on the game. When do you start either other path? And how does that look? I would say that like another one of my personality traits that might not be so great, but I think is at least partially irresponsible for, you know, things like Gloomhaven,

is like my blind ambition, I guess you would call it, right? Where it's just not like ambition in the sense of like I want to take over the world, but just like I think that I can do more than I actually can. Right. And so it's like, yeah, I'll put that on Kickstarter. It'll be fine. You know, and then, you know, a year down the road, like, after you design the game and, you know, you start doing research on, like, what all this is going to take. And you just realize, like, oh, wow, this is like so much more work than I anticipated. But, you know, at that point, like, I made the decision. So it's like, okay, well, I've got to do the work. Yeah. This is, I just, I want to just pause because I think this is. another one of those messages where like ignorance is a strength in many ways. Because I had the same things. When I was like starting my company,

I really didn't know what it was going to take. When I started making miniatures games, I really didn't know what was going to take. I started making digital games. I didn't know what I had known at the beginning, what I knew at the end, I may never have started, frankly. Yeah.

I didn't know. I was taking step by step by step. And once I was in it, I wasn't going to quit. So I think you ended up, benefiting from that trait in a lot of ways. Yeah, so I just started doing a lot of research on the internet About what it what it takes to get something on Kickstarter

And that's when I found Jamie Stigmire's blog You know, which was very helpful Sort of, you know, enumerating everything All the steps that you need to take to be successful at this process And that's really when it started to like sink in like Oh, okay, yeah, this is like 10 times the work that I thought it would be but you know i basically just like went through his list did all the steps um and you know it took me you know maybe like six months longer um really launched the project like six months later than

i expected to but you know especially because like you know initially like i thought i could do all the graphic design myself you know i'm like i'm not a graphic designer at all i'm like how probably could it be. Right? I just, you know, throw some things together. It'll be fine.

I'm going to get my PhD as a physicist. I'm going to finish making this game. I'm going to get the marketing and get it lost at Kutzerr. And I'm going to learn how to do graphic design. No problem I got it. Yeah. I am impressed. But yeah,

that's one of his lessons. It's like you need a graphic designer. Like all caps, all bold. And that was, yeah, definitely the right way to go is finding a graphic designer. And then,

of course, once you get someone who's a professional, So to do it, you're like, oh, wow, yeah, that looks so much better. Okay, yeah, I definitely needed that. Yeah, okay, great. So you found a graphic designer. How did you find the graphic designer, by the way? He was actually, he worked with my wife.

So he was like the graphic designer for the like agriculture department at Purdue where my wife was working. So I just, yeah, connect with him through that. he was the first graphic designer I used and then actually like during that project he kind of wasn't able like during the Kickstarter project he wasn't really able to keep up with it and like keep up with like changes that I wanted to make and it became kind of evidence that like I needed additional help

and so someone else Josh McDowell who I still work with now just like contacted me out of the blue like during the Kickstarter I was like, hey, do you need help? I'm a graphic designer. I'd love to get into board games and do more of this. He actually lives in the city where I live too.

And so I ended up connecting with him. And then he has done the graphic design for all my games. That's awesome. And then I just sort of, again, to pull sort of universal principles out of this, right? The, you know, find people in your network that you can work with and, you know, whatever, ask around and friends of friends or family. Right.

And then once you start, you know, putting stuff out there, it's amazing the other resources and people that will start to become available. And as you grow, you can kind of get more, you know, more professional, more people involved. You know, I often tell the story for Ascension. You know, the art for Ascension was done by the guy who lived down the hall for me after I graduated college. Like, I loved his art. And 10 years later, I was like, hey, man, you want to, you want to make a game with me.

You know, because I didn't have the money to pay for a, normal artists and do all the things, but I was able to use art style as part of the inspiration. And that's what allowed me to be able to make the game and, you know, in a way that I couldn't otherwise. And then, of course, eventually we, you know, got more artists in studios to work with, et cetera. But I think people get overwhelmed a lot of times up front. Oh, I can't afford a graphic designer. I can't, I don't know any of these people, but, but you can kind of start, start small, start with who you know and then expand from there. And then there's plenty of ways to make it work. Yeah. So, so, so anyway, okay, so you've got a graphic designer. You've got a thing. So

this is just for people that don't know. So this is Forge War, right? This is your first Kickstarter project? Yes, yeah. Do you mind telling people a little bit? Because I know everybody knows you for Gloomhaven and Frost Haven now, but maybe you don't know Forge War as much. You want to give a brief, like, synopsis of what Forge Wars about?

Yeah, so Forge War is pretty much like a pure Euro game with a fantasy theme. Essentially, you're like an adventuring guild, and you're sort of responsible for, like, taking care of the quests that the king has. And so there's kind of like three parts to the game. There's one part where you sort of work in a mine to mine resources, which you then will then go to the market to buy like weapon designs, and then you'll use those weapon designs in combination with the materials that you've mined to make weapons. And then you'll give those weapons to your cadre of adventurers,

who will go on these quests and complete the quest to get resources. and sort of, you know, cycle through that loop of collecting resources and, yeah, turning them into blanks, essentially. Cool. And so, okay, so you've been, you said it took about six months longer than you expected. How long did it take from, let's start with kind of initial start working on the game to and then also from when you first started, like, you know, seriously working towards the Kickstarter. How long did it take to get to launch?

Yeah, that's hard to say. I don't remember exactly like when I started working. on the game. Ballpark's fine. Yeah. I mean, it was definitely probably somewhere in 2013. So it was probably like a year to like a year and a half, I want to say. From initial, from initial concept all the way to Kickstarter launch. Yeah, the Kickstarter launch.

Yeah. The Kickstarter launch was like in April of 2014, I think. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. So then what, so you, you know, basically you're doing everything that. that I tell people not to do. So I love to piece all this apart.

And it's great because I love these other stories and gives the routes there are lots of routes to success and even overwhelming levels of success. So how did you, you didn't have much of a community in the gaming world as I understand it. How did you plan to market it? How did you get tracked backers? What worked well for you to be able to pull this off?

Yeah. So I attribute the success of that first Kickstarter, almost like 100% to Richard Ham. Roder runs through the YouTube channel. I mean, at that time especially, he was like the the guy that you wanted to like get your game in front of if you wanted like success on Kickstarter. He was like, you know, he was the main force,

or the main media force in the Kickstarter community at the time. And so yeah, I mean, I just kind of, or no, what happened was I put my game on board game geek, you know, just created a page on board game geek, and, you know, started putting information in there, sort of in preparation for the Kickstarter. And he just like on his own, like he just goes through like all the new entries on board game geek and just like sees, you know, what's interesting to him.

And so he put it on like his list of like, oh, I want to try this game. And so I saw that he had done that. and so I just contacted him out of the blue on board game geek. I'm like, hey, do you want me to send you a review copy? And so he agreed, and I sent him a copy. And then, you know, next thing I know, like, it was like the night before the Kickstarter launched. And he sends me, like, his review video, you know, play through and review video for the Kickstarter. And he's just like raving like a madman about like how much he loves this game.

how it's like his favorite game of the year and everything about it is like so amazing and it just like, I distinctly remember that moments. It was like one of the best moments of my life. It's like, oh my God, like this thing that I work so hard on is going to succeed. Oh, that's amazing. And just based solely on him. So like, yeah, he, he, so, you know,

he launched Kickstarter. He posted his review and it was just like, it was just gangbusters after that. It was crazy. Yeah, that's great. So, okay, so as far as, you know, that's some of that's certainly fortunate he discovered you but you know you posted your stuff on board game geek you kind of put it out there as soon as you saw that he was interested you followed up to make sure and i think in general nowadays that influencer reviewer kind of model is not obviously it's not just rotto anymore there's there's dozens at the very least of very high end reviewers out there and that i think is something that's you know maybe we'll talk more about as we move to your

to your next project because i think that becomes a huge part of the the model for everybody now Yeah, like the takeaway of that for me, right, is like you need an audience, right? I mean, no matter how great your game is, like, no matter how great your Kickstarter pages, like you need people to actually go there and look at it. And so, like, you can build your own audience, which takes like a lot of time and, you know, just a lot of effort. Or you can essentially, like, steal somebody else's audience or just borrow somebody else's audience. Yeah, leverage.

It's a nice term. Leverage someone else's audience. Yeah. So if you get it in the hands of the right reviewer who, you know, is speaking to the audience that will appreciate what you're doing, then, yeah, then that's going to be. Yeah. And I think the way you can kind of set, I think the way you can kind of set the odds in your favor, right, is you want to be, one, paying attention to a lot of the reviewers that are out there, find the ones that are, you know, clearly learn what they like. Learn what the ones that are going to like the kind of game that you're making. Yeah.

Be where they are, right? be commenting, be engaging, be, you know, posting stuff on board game geek, if you're making a game for board game geek fans, if you're, you know, wherever those people are going to be, to give yourself the best chance of,

of getting in front of them and getting them something that they, you know, somebody that, where their audience is very likely to resonate with what you're providing and what you're creating. Yeah. All right. So,

so this Kickstarter does amazing. You do over $100,000 and it's now suddenly like, this is real. You know, now we're making more than we're, we're grad school money for sure. Sure. So now what happens? This is it? You finish, had you graduated from grad school yet at this point or still no? No, not yet. Yeah, so that was like my last year of grad school. Okay. You know, at the end of the day, you know, you got like $100,000 on Kickstarter. You know, I probably saw like $10,000 profit. And, you know, that was based on, you know, two, two and a half years of work, right?

So it's still, it's still not like grad school level money. But it gave me the confidence to, you know, think that, you know, maybe if I, if I continue doing this, continue, like, putting the effort into it, like, it could grow into something. And so basically, like, while I was fulfilling the project, is kind of when I graduated, I graduated like at the end of 2014. And then instead of going into the world of physics

and getting a job, you know, I'm sure a lucrative job that I could have found in the physics worlds, you know, I decided to basically just spend a year pursuing this board game thing and seeing what happens at the end of the year, like if it was going to be a viable career path or whether I would need to, you know,

go into physics. That's fantastic. Actually, that's exactly the same thing I did, starting my company. I had saved up enough money to kind of survive for a year. It wasn't 100% sure whether I could do it or not, but I figured a year was a good amount of time to see if that was possible and see what I could do. And then, you know, at least I would know one way or another.

Yeah. So that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, you're prepared for trying the thing out. And can I still always fall back on the thing that, you know, you got a degree for. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my wife, my wife was working. We didn't have any children.

So, yeah, we were able to live off her salary. So, yeah, I was lucky enough to be in a position to take that chance. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the things sort of as the entrepreneurial lesson. I try to reinforce for people because people see entrepreneurs as these huge risk takers. And I, you know, I see entrepreneurs as risk mitigators, right? You know, you want to take calculated risks to really try the things you want to try.

But don't, you know, don't set yourself up so that you're doomed if it doesn't work. Right, yeah. Okay. And so then that's when this is where the origins of Gloomhaven come from? Yeah, yeah. I pretty much graduated from grad school and then immediately started working on Gloomhaven. Yeah. I had been working on another design kind of before that.

That wasn't quite working out. And so, yeah, I was really kind of like right at that end of 2014 that was decided. You know, I kind of had the decision to like keep working on this project I was working on or or start something new. And I just, I got really excited about this, you know, this dungeon crawl idea that I had. And so I started working on that. And then just, yeah, just full time started working on that. And then by October, I launched the Kickstarter for that. So that's a 10-month window from the beginning of the year you started?

Or you started how long? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Wow, okay. So that's really bad. Nine, 10 months. Yeah. But something of the scale of Gloomhaven, that's an incredibly fast turnaround time.

Just working by yourself, did you have any, you know, just local playtest group or other people to help you? Yeah, I had playtesters. Yeah, I had like a group that met like every week or every other week to sort of run through the campaign that I was building sort of as we went. And then, yeah, working with Josh again for graphic design and, you know, I had artists, freelance artists that I was hiring as well. Also sculptors because we were going to do miniatures.

Yeah. And so, like, in hindsight, like, I probably launched the project too early. Like, it was kind of, you know, it was a little early, like, didn't have quite all the assets and stuff that I needed to have to launch that project. But yeah, like the truth of the matter was that I kind of had run out of money at that point and actually needed the Kickstarter to continue working on the project. I know that problem all too well. Yeah, when you're out of cash and you just got to launch or you're in trouble. So, okay, so you're maybe not quite ready, but you don't have much of a choice.

You and now how, what do you do differently in preparation for this long? from your lessons from the first time around? I don't know. I'm not, I mean, I was a little more well known in the community by that point. I mean, I wasn't, you know, necessarily like super famous or anything, but, yeah, I had contacts. So I was able to, like, get the game in front of more reviewers than I had the first time around, you know, get some, some advertisements for it. set up.

But I don't know, for the most part, I was, I just was, kind of did the same thing. It was like, I'll just launch this project and see how it goes. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I knew that Richard

Ham would like it. And so I was kind of, you know, depending on his glowing review again to keep it successful. All right. So the advice aspiring designers. Get Richard Ham to like your game. Yeah, it's super easy apparently. I don't know. He didn't like founders of Gloom Haven though, so it doesn't work all the time. Sure. All right. So, so yeah, so Gloom Haven. And again, I just, I want to, I want to dig in a little bit more into the design of Bloomhaven because I've, you know, I've listened to a lot of your other interviews and I, you know, I love the concept at a high level of like, you know, taking the story and adventure components of

Dungeons and Dragons and the sort of Euro-gamed, like, real, like, crunchy kind of mechanics and decision-making and strategy and puzzle-solving and kind of marrying those two. But I still am just blown away by the scale of the thing. Like, did you ever think, ah, you know, maybe maybe a dozen or two scenarios would be plenty or maybe, you know, we don't need all of these different components. Right? Like, what, what? And again, just because it really, from my experience and most designers I talk to it flies in the face of every piece of common advice that people give and take here, which is start small, build something that's easier to kind of produce,

something that would be maybe less than $100 at retail. You know, what kind of drove you here or what those decisions? Like, how did that all come about? Yeah, I think, again, I'd have to attribute it to my hubris in some sense. It's only hubris if you fail. Well, okay. But yeah, it's just, I had this, you know, this grand idea of like what I wanted to see, like my ideal dungeon crawl game.

And yeah, part of that was just about like giving people of like a branching story. Right. So, you know, so my main experience with other dungeon crawl games or like dissent or mice and mystics where, you know, there's like a nice campaign to it. And yeah, it's like 12 scenarios or 10 scenarios long or whatever. But also, like, I just didn't like how it was linear. You know, it's just like you do this scenario, then you do that scenario, and then you move along until it's over.

I guess there is like some branching to dissent, but it all kind of like always, that's very small branching that always ends up, like, leading to the same, like, chapter conclusions. Oh, yeah. I just, I wanted to create, like, a world that, like, felt like a world, felt like something that you could just, like, go into and explore and just, like, pursue kind of whatever plot thread that you thought was interesting. And that was, that was one of the, like, core concepts of the game was just making something

like that. And pretty much all the decisions after that and all, like, the crazy stuff, and the ballooning of the content that happened after that was kind of just all based on that core decision that I didn't want to change. And, you know, when I made that decision, I didn't realize, like, exactly, you know, how big it was going to have to be and what all was necessary to make that happen. But, you know, I was stubborn in that regard that I wanted to see that happen. and so that that's the game that I ended up building.

Great. Yeah. And so then obviously, you know, Gloom Haven, even more huge runaway success. And then you end up, you end up going back to Kickstarter to reprint it. What was the thinking behind that as opposed to just sort of printing,

you know, just reprinting and moving afterwards now that you've got the game. Why go back to Kickstarter again for the same game? That's pretty uncommon. Yeah, that was a tough decision. It was basically just like this freak situation, you know, we sent like 2,000 copies of the first printing, like, into retail. And, you know, like 40,000 people wanted it, right? Like the demand was like 20 times higher than what we had.

And it was a little intimidating. So it's like, okay, so do I print 40,000 copies? Like, I don't have enough money to print 40,000 copies. I could probably get the money together, you know, from loans or something, like, based on, you know, the clout of the game, essentially. Or I could just go to Kickstarter and, again, just, like, fund the printing through, Kickstarter. And yeah, I mean, they're just positives and negatives of both. I mean, I won't lie.

Like, you get a much larger profit margin through Kickstarter than you would through traditional distribution method. So that was certainly a deciding factor as well. But yeah, it just seemed like sort of like strike while the iron is hot sort of thing. Like everyone wants a copy right now. So let's allow them to buy a copyright. now. Yeah, that does make sense when you put it that way. And you're still, I mean, largely a one-man show at this point. Like you have your graphic designer and you have your

playtest groups and otherwise it's still just you as kind of running the company. Is that, is that right? Yeah, at that point of that second Kickstarter. That, so, you know, you're, you're, you're doing pretty well and you're, you're still wearing all the hats. That still still amazes me. I mean, I have a very small company still and I like that, but trying to do it all is, is a ton of work. So I'm just continually impressed by that. Yeah, it's like, when you talk about it like retrospectively, it's just, it's just so weird. And like, that person in the past is just like, is so stupid. It's like, what were you doing? Like, yeah, how are you able to do all this? It doesn't even make any sense. Yeah. I mean, the process, the process, the process.

of running a Kickstarter, it just takes, I mean, it takes so much time and attention. I mean, I'm, like, as we're having this conversation, I'm preparing for our Kickstarter we're doing for, for Ascension Tactics. And it's just like taking up just huge amounts of my time, just getting the Kickstarter stuff ready, let alone finishing the game and all the other projects and doing all the things that you have to do to run a company. I just, uh, it's, it's, it's still, uh, what, what advice do you have for whatever for people like me, right? How do you, how do you keep it all straight. I think moving.

It's a, it's a very, it's a very intimidating process as a one man show. I don't know. I mean, my solution was just, you know,

like work all the time. Which wasn't great, you know, for like my, my relationships. You know, it certainly took a strain on my marriage and,

you know, it's much happier now that I'm, I'm working less. Right. So, yeah, I mean, there's always a cost

to whatever you do. Yeah, well, And that's one of the things that is really, you know, that is, it's just a fundamental lesson, right? You want to succeed at a, you know, at a high level. You got to work your butt off. You know, you've just, it just takes a lot, especially if you want to be the entrepreneur and the designer and the, you know, marketer and the, you know, you want to do all of the things. It's, it's a lot of hours. And that's exactly the same experience that I've had, you know, and I love what I do and I'm passionate about the end product. But, but it takes a toll. You know, you got to be prepared for that. So I think, I, I think,

It's just another important lesson to underscore to people because I think for a lot of people, they just see the success, right? They just see the thing blowing up and they don't see all the work that goes on before that day one starts. Yeah. All right. So I want to talk also about board game geek because you, you know, you started your story in many ways with, hey, I started wanting to play your games. I went to board game geek.

I said, okay, well, what's the number one game on board game geek? I'm going to play that. That sounds awesome. And now you are the number one game. That's pretty cool. Yeah. How do you feel like that came about? I mean, obviously, you have a great product that resonated, and that's amazing.

But, you know, as you sort of talked about, it's more than just that, right? You know, you have to have the audience that fills it. What do you think contributed to that meteoric rise and sustainability? Yeah, I mean, that's the $100 question, right? It's a little more than that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I can definitely say, like, you know, when it hit that top spot, it was, you know, another one of those, you know, like, best moments of your life thing.

Because it had been such an important thing to me, like, getting started in the hobby. And, like, it seemed like such a, you know, so out of reach as, you know, like, it's just, you know, this reverential thing, like the number one thing on board Gamekeek. But, yeah, I mean, it's, it still does kind of, just boggle the mind to, to, like, try and figure out, like, how something like, Glu Maven, like, hit,

hit that spot. Um, because, like, I, I, I, I, I appreciate Glu Maven as, like, a really good game, right? I mean, there's a lot of great elements to it, um, that make it, like, you know,

highly playable and very interesting. Um, but, um, you know, in some respects, it's, it's, it's a huge undertaking, right? And it's, it's very intimidating. Yeah, 100%. This giant box, this huge price point,

all these components, you've got to punch out and sort. And so I never expected it to, like, hit, like, a large enough audience to, you know, to see that success on board game geek, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it's very tough. And, you know, it's where like,

I've played it. I played the game once, and I've dug into it and researched it a ton. And my team play it all the time. But it's just, it's, it is. It's too intimidating for me. You know, if I, games that take more than 60 to 90 minutes at a, you know, in total, I just, I,

I almost never am able to play anymore, even though I used to play them all the time and love them. It's a, it's hard. And so people just like that are willing to commit so much time and play it, you know, week after week and play through the whole campaign. And it's awesome. And I just, but to get over that barrier to even find out that it's awesome. That's the thing that interests me, right?

Once you play the game, I get it, right? There's tons of meat there. There's tons of cool. stuff. There's an adventure doing. There's tons to unlock. The game is good, obviously. But how do you get people to be willing to do the heavy lifting? And I mean, literally heavy lifting of like picking up the box and taking it

to the table and get that started. What do you think is contributing to that? Right. So it's, yeah, so like you said, like it's about getting people to actually like play it and see it. And I think like in some senses, it just like hit like at the perfect time for whatever reason, right? And I mean, obviously, you know, the quality of the game, like, certainly had a huge impact, right? So, like, it hits, it hits Kickstarter backers. They're finally able to play it. And I think, like, Kickstarter itself is some contributing factor as

well, right? I mean, it's this thing that, you know, you paid for like a year and a half ago, and you've been anticipating it coming for a year and a half. And so by the time it hits, your, it hits your, you know, doorstep, you're like primed. You're like ready, like, for it to be great. And there's almost like, you know, this positive bias, like towards it being great because you've been anticipating it so much. Yeah, there's a powerful psychological principle there, right? Of this cognitive dissonance, if I paid for this thing and I, you know, I, now I got it. Like, you're much more inclined to like it and want to tell other people how awesome it is because you got it and they don't. So you have like that combining with, you know, just this, this great,

gameplay that people were already invested in getting into, right? So, I mean, the box is already there. They're going to get into it. They're not going to just, like, put it on their shelves and forget about it. And so, you know, people are playing the game, and they're just deciding that they really love it. And, you know, it just starts just an overwhelming number of tens, you know, 10 ratings on board game geek.

And just like this, I don't know, this huge, like, swell of, like, buzz around the game that, oh, my God, this is so great. and that's what sort of leads to like everyone wanting a copy and then the second Kickstarter happening but just just with that first fulfillment of 10,000 copies yeah there was just like an overwhelming positive score right I mean you look on like

Steam for instance and you see like those games that have overwhelmingly positive reviews you know it's the same same thing I think where it's just like there was just kind of this buzz of positive feedback that just like reinforces itself right it gets more people interested in playing the game more people like anticipating it being great and and giving it high scores and then I think it's just like been this the snowball effect um ever since then of of of people like actively seeking out playing this game and and giving it positive reviews yeah yeah no that that that organic you know spread is has been amazing and then yeah

There's something, you know, a kind of lightning in a bottle element of it, but where that, you know, you've got that initial, you know, reaction. And then the fact that you couldn't restock, the fact that you couldn't keep things in stock, now you have the 10,000 people that have it become your evangelists and start spreading the word. And everybody else just has to be hungry for it. Yeah. And secondary market prices go up. And they people, now, now not only is it something that's like the, the alphas have gotten it

and are super reviewing it high, but then everybody else has to sit and wait and like is just wishes they could get it so that when you finally release the valve and now they all can, it just blows up even more. So that's really exciting. And then I think that now there's that, there's that transition right? From the beginning when you had, you know, well, you had almost no connections and in the industry, you made something that was good and you found somebody else's audience that you could leverage to kind of, you know, get it out there. You delivered something that was quality and thus built more of your own audience. Then you launched again with something that was a bigger scale and people followed.

The people who loved it really loved it and they became even more of your evangelists. And then it scaled from there. So this positive feedback loop of creating good quality products, being, you know, building your audience and then kind of scaling up is now with the most recent Frost Haven release hit the largest plateau of all time for board games. I just I want to hear some of the stories of what was going on in your head and while that was all that was all happening I can only admit you've had a lot we've already talked about a lot of greatest moments this has got to be another one of them yeah for sure um yeah at that point you know at the point of obvious like the the the frost haven launch

you know my my world had completely changed because of because of gloomhaven right where it's sort of like now I've had like three years to sort of settle with this fact that you know I have the highest rated board game on board game geek and um have this like super successful company um and there everyone loves this loves this game that I've made and yeah I mean it's just I'm not trying to like brag or anything but it's just like it's a lot to like get your head around but yeah yeah no exactly and I want I want to yeah I want to yeah I want to yeah to share in that understand it. Of course you should be celebrating. This is an amazing accomplishment. And so, yeah, now that's, at first it's like, I can't believe it. Now you're like, okay,

I do believe it. It's real. And then now let's do the next thing. And yeah, that's, go ahead. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, even from like, before Gloomhaven, like, even hit, um, the first wave of Kickstarter backers, like I had already started working on the next thing, I started working on Frost Haven. So I always knew that I wanted to bring something else after this. And it just took a long time to get there because there were a lot of growing pains. As like the success of the company kind of caught up with me and there was just a lot of business stuff to take care of that I was not prepared for. So I would like to dig into that stuff a little bit because again, this is the kind of things that a lot of people don't talk about.

you know, and what, you know, what, what, what are the new crises and are you starting to hire people to help with them or like, what is the, you know, the, the dark side of success, if you will, like what's coming that's now, the challenges you're facing that maybe you didn't think about or didn't have to face before? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to even, like thinking back now, it's all just kind of a blur. But yeah, I mean, just like the logistics of printing. all those games and just having people are kind of like constantly mad at you because they don't have the game yet. And you know, you need to print more copies. Why aren't you printing more copies right now?

And yeah, I just, I didn't have much experience with like the whole logistics side of things. And, you know, I've been using the same manufacturer and, you know, just like dealing with them and, you know, It ended up just, like, going a lot slower than I anticipated. And also, like, I wanted to make a bunch of changes in between the first and second printings. And then, you know, yeah, once it started being, like, successful, there was a lot of requests for, like, localizations. Right? So, like, now, you know, we want to get this game in German.

We want to get this game in Russian. and so that ended up taking a lot of my time trying to coordinate that as well like finding partners to you know to localize the game in other languages and you know I started going to more conventions

was also a big part of it you know I guess just you know with that sort of fame and success like came maybe it was just like a personal expectation to just like, you know, be out in the public more and go to more conventions and interact with fans more. There's just like a lot of little things

that just kind of like eat away your time and you don't really realize. Yeah, yeah. I'm interested to dig into that part in particular because the sort of interacting with fans and the expectations of fans and backers is something that is, I think a lot of people underestimate. And I'll just sort of share.

my kind of reflections on this and you can see, you know, it from the point that people are willing to sort of part with, you know, their money, especially when you're talking about thousands of people and, you know, hundreds of dollars to back your game and get the thing, you feel this incredible burden and obligation towards them, right? They've, they've, you know, they've gone out and supported you. You really want to be there for them and be communicative and be present. But often that, you know, the burden of tens of thousands of people trying to, you know, ask for your time or constantly get updates or seeing things behind the scenes can. be really overwhelming and challenging.

So how did you handle that? You're still writing all the updates yourself and posting things and trying to keep everybody there. Was there like a pattern that you had to it or processes or did you have anybody to help you? What was going on and even is going on? You're still in the midst of that process right now. How do you handle that then?

How do you handle it now? Yeah. I would say like Kickstarter, like one of the main, it's almost like one of the positives and one of the main negatives of Kickstarter is just like the backers.

And I don't mean that in like a bad way, but it's just because you're dealing directly with your customer, right? And you have like thousands or like tens of thousands of customers who expect that sort of

direct communication. Yeah, it can it can certainly just be a time-consuming aspect of the whole thing, especially when you're writing individual messages to people, because obviously they have the ability to send messages to you, and so you feel an obligation to write them back and answer their questions directly. And so, yeah, that could be a huge time sync, and I remember especially in that second Kickstarter,

just spending so much time just responding to Kickstarter messages. and that's when I brought on my first part-time employee because I just felt like doing that was going to be was going to take like most of my time especially like once we launched the Pledge Manager and started really need to like answering like people's like serious questions about you know this and that I just needed some more help like I was not going to be able to like physically do it given like the number of hours in a day. And so that's when I hired my first part-time employee who eventually like a year later

became my full-time employee to help with that. So that happened like during the second Kickstarter. Right. Yeah, I think that that's one of those key transitions, you know, when you sort of have to realize that taking on other people to handle things is not only, you know, critical for your own sanity, but the best thing for your fans and, you know, for yourself. because right the things that you're best at you're taken away from when you have to do more of you know direct replies and yeah and all these other things and so uh it becomes uh you know critical to

to doing your job well is to make sure other people can do the other jobs that you're not necessarily uh the best one to handle or don't have the capacity to handle yeah for for a long long time like yeah i was just under the stubborn mentality it was like i can do everything myself like i don't I don't need any help. I'm just going to do everything myself. And that's kind of like almost my story, right? It's just like the learning very, very slowly over time that like you need help and you should ask for help and you should pay for help.

And that's going to make your life better in the long run. Yeah. And this is another one of those cases where, you know, your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness, right? The fact that you were sort of convinced that you could do everything and willing and take on ambitious projects, if you weren't that kind of person, you probably would never be where you are today. But on the flip side, as you scale and as you get to these new plateaus, and if you want to continue to sort of do the best thing, then yeah, you absolutely, you need

other people to help you along the way. So it's finding that balance, I think, between those tendencies. Yeah. So of other things that I'm particularly interesting is, you know, I mean, the, you've talked about, you know, getting specifically Rotto, but, but in general, reviewers to pay attention to the game. And, and if they like it, then there's, there's, there's huge swing there. There's the organic growth of the community. There's some amount of your directly going out to the community and going to conventions and interacting with people online and in person that all help to kind of build in many ways organically this base and audience, which we know is critical to success. But I think for the scale that we're talking about,

my assumption is you're also going to be doing other kinds of marketing here. Are you doing paid marketing for these campaigns and either early on or later and what does that look like or is just all organic yeah so all my previous campaigns um there wasn't much paid marketing i think i i paid for one one video on forge war uh and i really feel like that ended up being a mistake in the long run, but, um, and I think, uh, I think during founders of Gloom Haven, I think, uh, at that point, I, I paid for, uh, John Gets games as play through. I think at that point he was, he was charging for Kickstarter playthrus. Um, and so it was, yeah, it was mostly up to that point, organic. Um, and then, but then, yeah, I mean, Fast Haven comes along and at that point, it's just,

I don't know, it's a completely different beast. And also like Kickstarter is kind of a different beasts at this point than it was, you know, three or four years ago. And so, so yeah, at that point, it was, I mean, we, you know, we had the community there, right? We knew it was going to be successful, as I said. And it was just about kind of like, let's see how big we can make this. Like, if we just throw a lot of money at this, like, you know, throw a lot of money on the fire, like, let's see how big we can get it. And that was sort of the mentality going into Frost, even. Sure.

Well, it clearly seemed to work. So when you make that decision, you hire some outside firm, you bring in a marketing director internally, you just start spending money yourself. I'm very curious, not for unselfish reasons, but I'm curious. Yeah. Yeah. So at that point, you know, it was me. My one employee price, and then we had just hired.

another employee to sort of help with community management. So, yeah, at this point, like, it's the three of us. But, yeah, between us, well, we still didn't have, like, a lot of experience, like, running, like, a sophisticated, like, PR campaign, or not a PR, but, you know, advertising campaign, you know, for a Kickstarter, you know, because, as I said, like, previously it had been to sort of, like, you know, organic grassroots type stuff. And so, yeah, we decided to bring on, or, you know, hire somebody to help run the Kickstarter campaign with us.

So we used other stuff. John Ritter is the owner of that company. And they just, I mean, they do what their name says, essentially, like, whatever you're running on your Kickstarter,

whatever you don't want to run, like they'll run it for you. And so we had him sort of get behinds, like advertising and that sort of stuff and ended up working out really well. So he was also like, very close with backer kits. Obviously, it has like their own ad department that's very sophisticated.

So we were kind of working with both of them to run, to run ad campaigns. Well, at the same time, like, you know, making sure like the, you know, we had like demo kits going out to all the reviewers who did, you know, Kickstarter videos just to tap into their audiences as well. Yeah. Okay, great. Well, I think it's clearly, I like, I really love the story because it, you know, it scales in this way that is, I think, really powerful. And as you said, some of the lessons had to be learned in very hard ways. You're like, I can do everything myself. And then, you know, I'll sort of learn what's harder as you go along and then, you know, sort of add on these different elements and support, you know, starting with a graphic designer and that community management and then marketing support and all of that stuff. So it's a great kind of organic growth story, which I know has a lot of a struggle and pain behind the that I like to kind of bring out even as people see the success and the joy and the awesome parts. Yeah. Well, yeah, thanks.

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I want to, you know, we've spent a lot of time talking about the journey. And it's super fascinating and, you know, kind of some of the business side of it because I think a lot of people that are, you know, designers, as I said, usually I advise them to stay the hell away from everything that you did. So I really wanted to sort of walk through in detail all those parts so people understand what's, what's there. But I also want to circle back and talk a little bit more crunchy design stuff. So, you know, one of the things that I love about Gloom Haven, and I think is one of the sort of more interesting and bolder choices,

is that no dice element to it, right? This, you know, every, you know, for you're saying, I'm going to take the history of lowrino role-playing games and then we're going to go on these dungeon crawl adventures. Every single one of those things has dice left, right, and center. And you broke apart from that. And that's something that we're doing also. with our Ascension Tactics

Kickstarter as a miniatures game having no dice. And so I'm curious, your design philosophy behind that, what motivated it. And then, you know, let's talk about the upsides

and downsides of the diceless world. Sure. Yeah. And again, I think that stems from sort of a soberness on my part. So I went through like a whole phase when I first started designing games.

I was like, you know, no dice. Like I hate dice. I'm never going to put a single die in my game ever. And, you know, I designed some, it was even more than that. Like, to start with, it was kind of just like a no randomness at all sort of approach,

which didn't really work out, especially in the dungeon crawl area. Like, I sort of designed this dungeon crawl game before I started working on Gloomhaven and sort of parts of it kind of filtered into the Gloomhaven design. But yeah, it was like a completely non-random-dun random dungeon crawl game. where instead of having some level of uncertainty to give it a level of excitement, it was just like a lot of math. It was just like you had pluses over here,

plus over there, minus over there, and it was essentially like a math game and it was not great. So I eventually decided that you needed some amount of randomness into it in a game, but there were still ways to do it that didn't create like these sort of feel bad moments right because like I remember you know

playing dissent and you know you've got like a six side of die and on one of those sides is just a miss right it's just like you did nothing so like one out every six times you attack like you're just going to be completely disappointed and I just hated that and you know so yeah so I don't know what I'm trying to say

Well, no, I think the key here is, right, there's a part of us as players and as designers that we want to remove the low, the emotional lows of randomness determining your outcome, right? Yeah, exactly. You're just like, all right, I planned everything perfectly. I set everything up and, oh, okay, I just rolled all ones. Like, great. Like, hooray, I'm having fun, right? Yeah. But you realize on the flip side that that's, you know, you lose something because the emotional highs of the.

the, oh man, my back's against the wall and I don't really know what to do and all right, I'm going to go for it and I rolled all sixes and I did it. There's this emotional high that comes from that as opposed to the, you know, the sort of flat calculations that come from, okay, well, I know I can do seven damage to that because I can add this plus one and this plus two so that'll kill it. So that's fine or no, it's hopeless because I'm for sure going to take 10 next turn and there's nothing to do. Yeah, it's like potential of like failure or great success.

that makes things more interesting. Yeah. And so, and I find that generally what you want to be able to do is find ways to create, give the player a variety of risk versus reward choices, right, where they can choose to take higher risks at the chance for higher rewards and more control over the randomness. And that's something that you do. So in, you know, obviously, Gloomhaven, you have that,

you have the sort of decks that can be manipulated that are getting flipped through, as well as the choices you make with. the cards that you play. It's something we're doing in Ascension Tactics because you're, the deck that you build is how you control your miniatures. And so you can choose to add more, you know, more movement bonuses or more tax bonuses or more whatever.

And you don't know what you're going to draw at any given time, but you're, you feel more ownership of that, of that randomness. And so I think that's a big part of what, what you kind of built in to help address that problem, which I think has been very effective. And then,

and then I think there's something else that goes on, which, you know, is, I found it's really important. not just about the tokens of randomness, right? The feeling of a dive versus the feeling of a card deck is different. But also when the readiness happens too, right? Is it front loaded?

Is it back loaded? Do I randomized and then make my decisions? Do I randomize after making my decisions? Is it somewhere in the middle? I don't know if you have thoughts on kind of the different ways that that plays out, whether it's in your game or others of how you think about trying to get that excitement and strategy balance that appeals to you and your audience? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I feel like front-letter randomness, right, where it's, yeah, sort of at the beginning of a round and you can react to it, or is generally the type that I prefer, if any.

Right, and you can see that in Gloom Haven, you know, where you're picking your cards and then you see what the monster's doing, and then you act out the round, so you can change your plans if you wanted to, to sort of react to what the monsters are doing. And then of course there is also the attack modifier cards that will provide some randomness to your actual attack. So that is sort of like a kind of a role to resolve mechanism, but I tried to also give players control over that. And also just, yeah, make it more customizable. I guess the same thing as giving people control, but also just increasing. No, sorry. like decreasing the variance, I guess, right? So it's not, there is like the one miss card out of 20 and the one crit card out of 20.

But even when you miss, like you're still able to apply in the additional effects, it's generally not like a complete waste of your turn. And then also like in between that, it's, you know, there's just like some pluses and minuses. And it's not, there's not like a huge amount of variance. Like if you're doing seven damage with an attack, like, it's like, okay, I'll do like five to nine. It's not it's not like, well, I might do two. I might do 20 sort of thing. Right.

Yeah. So it's so, you know, again, you built this sort of stage thing where it's like, all right, some decision making, then some randomness, then some decision making, then a little bit of randomness, which you have some, you know, some control over and that sort of evens out more over time. Yeah. And that kind of creates this sort of flow of like, you know, where the excitement and drama is and where the strategy and puzzle solving is and how you can kind of find that balance.

I think it's just a sort of interesting place that you landed to help get some of the best of both worlds. Yeah. And I think like one of the other advantages of randomness is that you can't math it out. Right. So like you're not going to like sit there for 10 minutes with AP like trying to figure out like whether you can do this or not. You know, it's just like at some point you're just like, well, let's see if I can do it. You know, that one of this kind of gives you that impetus to just, yeah, just go for it, as you were saying earlier. Yeah, yeah, giving you, relieving the cognitive load in some ways.

Like, it just becomes, it's just, you know, and in theory, you could calculate probabilities and do the math all the way. But, but for at a certain point, people just stop, right? If it's like, if I know I, if it's all on the board, then I got to plan out the whole chest moves. But if it's just, I know there's going to be some randomness there, then it's like, okay, I'll take a shot. I won't and that that is it relieves this this cognitive burden and lets you just kind of have fun and see what happens yeah I think I think that's really huge you know when you're when you're playing like a euro game right where you're managing a business or something like that makes more sense that you would want to like sit there and like plan out everything to to a perfect detail

but you know in a dungeon crawl game where you're trying to simulate the atmosphere of a bunch of you know mercenaries you know running through this dungeon and killing things like as quickly as possible before they die themselves. Like, yeah, some element of randomness feels, feels more appropriate. So make it more, give it like a more urgent feeling. Yeah, I think that's another really important point to kind of dig into, which is, you know, where Gloomhaven lives in this, in this merger of like, you know, the Euro game versus fantasy dungeon crawl, you know, Ameritrash kind of terminology,

where it's it's you know you want to sort of have this this Euro game very like sort of you know plan out strategic feel but the aesthetic of the game in some ways drives you to have to have some randomness it has to have some amount of like combat and monster killing just can't be pure you know pure math out and watch the production line move uh i find that pretty interesting yeah i still get people detracting and saying that it's not a dungeon crawler and that it's it's too it's too mathy and strategic but yeah well it's it's it's that it's sort of one of the things that i i i love about it is like you know when people try to make these games that appeal to everybody you know they you know that's a sort of failure from the beginning and and your your game you know you would think would be the

most niche of games that it's given its price point and time to play and everything else but the fact that you, you know, sort of delivered so well and the thing that you were doing, let it grow and end up having an audience that's, you know, sounds like even far greater than, than you could have expected and then almost anybody could have. And so that's where I think for people just, you know, being true to your own, you know, authentic kind of design instincts and desires and, and the sort of vision and just really taking the time to execute at a high level, you know, you'll be able to deliver if you

can get it in front of the right people, which was the other obviously. piece of the puzzle that we've already talked about, then, then, you know, you can, you can have a really successful business, especially as, you know, as a one person kind of operation or a small team, that gives you a lot more freedom. In many ways, it's, you know, the challenges we've already talked about, but it's also this freedom of like, you know, you don't need to sell, you know, 100,000 copies to survive. You can make a lot less and still be okay, especially when you're going to Kickstarter and you can keep more of the profits, right? You can keep, you know, you have that retail margin to work with. And so I know a lot of people that are, you know, they,

they don't even sell in the retail because they want to just be able to sort of work directly with their fans and be able to get them a better price point and be able to have, you know, have a smaller scale business where they can do the kinds of things that they want to do without necessarily being beholden. You know, Tim Fowers I had on my podcast and he's a really great example of that where he, you know, goes against the grain in a lot of ways,

but really is able to build a great niche for himself and, you know, delivers things his audience loves and has the freedom to design, he wants to design and I think it's a really great place to be. Yeah, I agree. Because I, you know, because again, I sort of, I still feel like I need to caution the audience because I think your story is incredibly hard to replicate and many of it in these lightning in the bottle of moments. But, but the steps that you took are replicatable and they absolutely can lead to a level of success that, that I think people can be happy with, even if they don't necessarily aren't going to expect, you know, millions of dollars from their next Kickstarter right

away. I think that there is a, there's a lot of value here for, for anybody that wants to, you know, follow this path and, and, and do the hard work, the years of hard work of trying to start a company and design games and build these epic things and all that. So, you know, again, I want to just sort of say kudos to you. And I love, I loved having a chance to hear the story. And I hope other people are able to take, you know, take the good out of it, even if some of it is, is really unbelievable on a lot of levels. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, where I tell people all the time, right, is, yeah, I'm really a great game, but at the same time, like, at so many steps along the way, I just got, like, incredibly lucky. Yeah. And that's kind of what it takes to succeed in any field, really, or any creative field especially, right, is you have to do the work and you have to have a great product, but, like, you also have to get lucky a lot of the time.

Like, you have to make sure both things, or you can't make sure you get lucky, but, like, I don't know what I'm trying to say. You know what I'm trying to say. Yeah, well, you can set yourself up for luck to work, you know, chance favors the Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you have to put yourself in a position to where if you do it lucky, then you can be successful. Yeah, yeah. And it's those, it's those fundamentals, right? The being where we started the story of like, hey, you know, I've got a vision and I'm willing to go through the hard work of, you know, finding a playtest group or building a playtest group, iterating, kind of keep, keep moving it forward. And then when whatever path you want to take to kind of bring it to life,

being willing to take it step by step. It's okay not to know what you're doing. You know, most of us don't. And in fact, in many ways, it's better not to because you don't realize how hard it is. And, you know, just kind of growing it that way and finding if you don't have either or doing the work to build your own audience, whether whatever, however you can do that by adding value to the world or connecting with somebody that has an audience to help spread the word, right?

Build a great product and have an audience that you can reach and serve are the two critical things. Work hard until you have those things in place. and then, you know, then yeah, you're rolling the dice, even though we don't like rolling dice. You're rolling the dice. I really do appreciate your time. Do you have any other, you know, messages out there for people or let them know maybe where they can find you and your stuff,

kind of some last parting words? Sure, yeah. I mean, cephaloffair.com as the website, I'm also active on Twitter at Cephalafer and Facebook. Same thing. You can pre-order Frost-Aven. through the Kickstarter or go to the Kickstarter page and you'll find the pre-order link. And then also we have the mass market version of Gloomhaven coming out here in about a week in Target.

So the Gloomhaven draws the line. You can check that out as well. Yep. So by the time this is live, that'll already be available. All right. That's awesome. And I really do appreciate your time. This has been amazing.

Thank you for sharing the story. I look forward to following more cool stuff and getting Frost Haven to the table when we get a chance. All right. Thanks. Yeah, and good luck with Ascension with Ascension Tactics. Yep, Ascension Tactics, which will also be live by the time this podcast air. So go check that out on Kickstarter while you're ordering Frost Haven. Go over and check out Ascension Tactics for me. It's like you're leveraging my audience. Oh, see, this is it. I'm a genius. I love it. Awesome,

man. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. If you want to support the podcast, please rate, comment, and share on your favorite podcast platform, such as iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever device you're listening on. Listener reviews and shares make a huge difference and help us grow this community and will allow me to bring more amazing guests and insights to you. I've taken the insights from these interviews along with my 20 years of experience in the game industry and compressed it all into a book with the same title as this podcast. Think like a game designer. In it, I give step-by-step instructions on how to apply the lessons from these great designers and bring your own games to life.

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