About Design Thinking Games
An indie board game studio and a podcast about game design, playtesting and the culture of play. Design Thinking is a process for understanding people and creating innovative solutions, and we bring it to every game we make.
What started as a pandemic-era podcast became a studio: years of interviewing designers, players and testers led to our first board game, Thirst, funded on Kickstarter by 176 backers in October 2025.
Day to day
Design Thinking Games is led by Tim Broadwater, who hosts the podcast and designs our games. Thirst is out in the world, and more games are on the way: Your Move Hero is coming to Kickstarter; Nightmare of the Golden Horseshoe and Actual Play are in playtesting; Common Mobbers, Ready, Set, Fight! and Propagayda (Tim’s old game, getting a new look) are in development. Follow each game’s development diary on its page.
Tim Broadwater
Content Creator / Designer / Strategist / Researcher
Tim is a physical game designer and a lover of all kinds of games: board games, tabletop RPGs, video games and live-action play. He designed Thirst, hosts the podcast, and wrote the book UX FMK. He’s still learning something new at every playtest.
Favorite board game: King of Tokyo · Favorite tabletop RPG: Starfinder · Has beaten all 20 Zelda games.
More at timbroadwater.com
Our story
Six seasons of the podcast and the road to our first board game, newest first. Click an entry to open it.
2026 — todayThirst US Edition and Season 6
The Thirst US Edition arrived and Kickstarter fulfillment is shipping to backers, and the game is now in our shop. Season 6 of the podcast is underway, and six more games are in playtesting and development.
2025Season 5 and the Thirst Kickstarter
Michael stepped back from Design Thinking Games, and Tim took the lead on everything: the podcast, finishing the game design and crowdfunding Thirst. Season 5 of the podcast launched in August with 055: Amtgard and ran through 059: Hastilude, Rainbow Quest, and Extra Life. Bryan Roces, JC Wollslager, Jim Breeze and Zeeshan Mahmood joined the effort, and on October 1 Thirst launched on Kickstarter. It reached 100% on October 30, closing with 176 backers pledging $7,383.
Season 5 sponsors: Game Design Unboxed, Dark Heists, X: Seekers of Fortune
2024Ready for Kickstarter
Michael reduced his involvement with Design Thinking Games, focusing mostly on podcasting, while Tim drove the game design. Both committed fully to launching Thirst on Kickstarter.
In May the Thirst Kickstarter page opened for pre-launch sign-ups, so fans could follow the project and be notified at launch. Through the year Tim demoed the game at Origins Game Fair and CharCon, shared how-to-play videos and the first prototype box, and invited reviewers, playtesters and content creators to try it. PAX Unplugged 2024 confirmed Thirst was finally ready, setting up the October 2025 launch.
Follow every step in the Thirst development diary.
May – July 2024Season 4 of the podcast
Eleven episodes. A season with indie designers and creators on crowdfunding and building community, from 045: Marketing for a Successful Kickstarter with the Co-creator of Trash Cult to Sabrina Culyba of Ludoliminal. It closed with 054: The Designers of Thirst.
Sponsors: Your Horror Show
2023 – 2024Thirst gets its name and its look
Our second time at PAX Unplugged, in 2023, was a breakthrough: players loved the idea of a new vampire game, and playtester Zach Lubow suggested the name “Thirst,” which stuck. Until then the game was called CorpVamp, short for Corporate Vampire, and it first hit the table in the Unpub room at PAX Unplugged 2022. Illustrator Aidan Detwiler joined, bringing the film-noir comic-horror style that gives Thirst its iconic look.
June – August 2023Season 3 of the podcast
Ten episodes. “We’re back!” Guests included Nick Finck on Dungeons & Dragons, Dan Scalise on games that give back, and Tim’s mentor in 040: Designing Tabletop Games with Connor Wake. The season also produced 042: Design Thinking LARPing :: The Audiodrama.
Sponsors: The Thief Audiodrama, UX FMK Audiobook, Ghost Wax: Far and Tall Tales, Critically Stupid
2021 – 2023From podcast to prototype
Game design officially started in 2021. Tim entered the Unpub Tabletop Mentorship Program and worked closely with mentor Connor Wake, finally putting a lifelong interest in game design into practice. Playtesting ran online through Tabletopia and at Unpub sections at Origins, PAX Unplugged, PAX East and Unpub Festival itself. Tim built the creative assets and rules, ran demos and playtests; Michael shaped the flavor, writing and thematic voice of the game.
The spark was a shared love of vampires and gothic storytelling, and frustration at how few board games capture the genre’s elegance: inspirations ranged from Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Legacy of Kain, Ravenloft and World of Darkness to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Blade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, Twilight and Interview with the Vampire. Hear the whole story on episode 054, The Designers of Thirst.
February – October 2022Season 2 of the podcast
Sixteen episodes. Covering 023: Indie Games at PAX East, designing games with Breeze Grigas, the LPGWV Collective, and a season finale with Sophia Prater.
Sponsors: Dice Tower Theatre, Playtest Kit
March – November 2021The podcast begins: season 1
In the shadows of the pandemic, Tim Broadwater and Michael Schofield launched the Design Thinking Games podcast to explore game design, playtesting and the culture of play: two UX professionals asking whether other UX people really like gaming… no, love gaming. The first episode, 000: Introducing Design Thinking Games, went out on March 8, 2021. Season 1 ran to 18 episodes, including 008: Gaymer Pride, 015: Usable Games with Michael Fienen and Aaron Hill and 017: N7 – The Holy Day of Mass Effect.
Michael Schofield (left) and Tim Broadwater (right)