Things talked about this episode:
- 2:48 Clue
- 3:12 Stratego
- 5:54 Carcasonne
- 6:17 Dice Invasion
- 7:04 Game Designers of NC
- 7:37 Playthrough Convention
- 10:07 Tantrum Con
- 10:43 East Coast Games Conference
- 10:49 Triangle Interactive
- 10:59 GenCon
- 21:53 Second Life
- 23:03 VR Chat
- 25:00 Donkey Kong COuntry
- 30:32 PAX Unplugged
- 41:11 Rainbow Bunny Bop
- 41:57 Outrage
- 43:22 Chromacube
- 47:15 Sorry
Laura Rodriguez 0:05
Yeah, I’m Laura Rodriguez. And I am the mother of Adriana Bailey. And then not here is my husband Gains Bailey. And basically, my daughter has always been really creative. And I’ll let her speak to that. And so she basically kicked off the idea of Dice Invasion. And then we’ve always been a big gaming family very much in the, you know, 20 to 30 minute quick games, really family style stuff, and so nice. We conceived totally fit into the kind of stuff we like to doing. And then we’re like, Well, if we like this, I bet other people will like this. And so just start enrolling from there.
Adriana Bailey 0:51
I’m Adriana Bailey. And that’s innovation destination pretty much started with me, kind of being bored. So I took out a piece of cardboard, decided that I wanted to make a game. It was just a piece of cardboard. Eight by four, four. And I took a couple of days sick, went to my mom and asked if she could play with me. She asked what the rules were. And I said, I don’t know. So we started just deciding rules together until dice invasion was able to play test. And that was really awesome.
Introductory Guy 1:42
It’s time for an adventure in the worlds of user experience and game design. On season three of the design thinking games podcast, join old school UX years and aspiring game designers Michael Scofield, Tim Broadwater, and an array of quirky characters from pixelated heroes to mischievous NPCs in search of the ultimate player experience, design thinking is a process that is applied to different types of games in this podcast. If you’re wondering whether your favorite games have already come up, you can listen through the backlog at design thinking games.com Now rapid Frodo bought fire that design thinking laser
Tim Broadwater 2:27
I’m kind of wondering, I’m curious about when you said that your your gaming family like can you speak to like like one of the games you’re like to play together? Like what are the quick kind of startup games or play games you’re talking about?
Laura Rodriguez 2:41
Yeah, so it’s funny cuz we’re known as the family that makes you dress up if you play clue like I got costume perfect, buddy. So you don’t like accuses white you would choose Miss White sitting across this great. Make people select their pawns randomly. So a lot of times you had the biggest and the burliest men wearing the red gloves and the clip on earrings for Miss Scarlet. So amazing. You know, and then just any other kind of game Stratego was a big one Yahtzee.
Michael Schofield 3:17
I haven’t heard someone mentioned Stratego and I think like 20 years, this was my jam. Wow. So I just had like a nostalgic bomb.
Laura Rodriguez 3:28
I love that it’s actually like her favorite game. And um.
Michael Schofield 3:33
Great choice.
Laura Rodriguez 3:35
inform some of the some of the game mechanics of dice invasion, except it takes out. My least favorite parts of Stratego is where like, you don’t know who’s coming towards you to attack and I makes me very nervous. But with dice division, you know what’s coming, and you can prepare.
Tim Broadwater 3:52
Yeah, it’s super cool. I love and I commented last night because as we were kind of leading up to this show, and kind of researching, you know, to, to have this kind of podcast, your three to four minute, gamed pitch. You can tell this is someone who’s been to a gaming con and it’s like, had to like say it over and over enough that they’ve kind of worked because we’ve done the same thing before too.
Michael Schofield 4:19
It’s something we comment all the time as like, Oh, these are great games except nobody knows how to write instructions or or teach instructions because those are instructional design is a totally different Yes. And so like your the fact that Well, I guess it fits into a tick tock now that they can be like 10 minutes long or whatever, but it’s super short, really easy. And we’re totally like we’ve been watching her account and the spirit of like, we’re gonna rip Laura off.
Laura Rodriguez 4:49
Do it!
Tim Broadwater 4:52
So may I ask for both of you. You can’t say dice invasion sorry. But right now Just off the top of your head. What is like a game that you would say is probably your most enjoyable, most usable game favorite game or game even it can be from childhood or whatever. But apart from DICE evasion, what games? How are you liking right now?
Adriana Bailey 5:20
Every. So I’d say my favorite game would be clue when my mom really put a lot into making me like that game because we dress up and make it this whole thing. You don’t even focus on the board. You’re just looking at these other players that are literally right across the table from you. So I really like the strategy and different ideas of that game.
Laura Rodriguez 5:50
I think the fixture in our household hands down is Carcasonne I mean, you can. Wow, great. Except, since we don’t have a lot of players, it’s either just me and my husband and sometimes Adriana. We have next Do you know, the land roll? Were like, yeah, we took that out because my husband’s too cutthroat. So we had to, like, more friendly.
Tim Broadwater 6:15
You mentioned where Dice Invasion started. But where is it now? Because I think you’re starting to talk of the K word kick starting it sometime. And I don’t know if so, if you could give us maybe a little journey, that would be great.
Laura Rodriguez 6:30
I would love to. So you know, we started in January. And it was instantly something that, as you probably saw from my tic tock account, I just latched on to it was the hobby I didn’t know I needed. So I was like, Thank you, kid. This is now where my spare time is going. And we just kind of kept pushing on the rules and getting it more polished. And then we’re lucky enough to discover the game designers in North Carolina, which is a local group of some of the smartest and coolest people I’ve ever met. I’m like, where are you guys spend my whole life also. And they’re just giving all of this great advice and guidance. And I still haven’t come to terms with like how giving this community is how helpful and embracing. And so, you know, up fast forward to now, April, we’ve gone to three game conventions this year play testing at all of them. One of the conventions, I think it was called play through, it was usually a video game conference, they have a little bit of board game in there. And I tell you being that little bit of board game, we had so much play time. Everyone’s like something social instead of awesome computer. Yeah, it was epic. And within that play testing two days is the most monumental changes to the role where we felt like we finally nailed the rules of dice invasion, we found the balance the font, the amount of time it was happening. And so yeah, we’re at the point where I’m actually drawing up a kind of a document to take to a graphic designer to say she’s a friend of mine, but I’m like, will you make this look as awesome as I think it could? So what did you think about gaming convention?
Adriana Bailey 8:27
Um, well, at first, I thought I would be sitting around just watching my mom play test a bunch of people in games I wasn’t part of. But then I realized, I realized I literally had so many games that people wanted me to come up and play just, there was a bunch of video games, which I really enjoyed, and different things I could do. So there was a bunch of different people who had cool little mini figures. I literally got to paint them. That was nice.
Tim Broadwater 9:15
It’s a whole experience in your right, like the community is very nice. They’re very helpful. They’re glad to have any play testing. And they’re happy to help with play testing. And if and what we’ve kind of found with the podcast is that as we talk to game designers, or people in the gaming industry adjacent, like people who set up conventions, or people who create walkthroughs, and facts and instructional guides for other games, all that even the orbiting stuff around gaming is it’s a it’s a very friendly, powerful and supporting community. And so I’m glad that you’ve had a positive experience. Can I ask you like, I don’t want to get too personal but What were the three cons that you went to? Do you remember?
Laura Rodriguez 10:04
Yeah, so the first one was tantrum con in Charlotte. And it was so cool because I got to meet people from Tik Tok. And then I also had some people from the game designers, designers in North Carolina there, so I didn’t feel like an outsider. I already felt like I knew people and I was hanging out. And that was amazing. And then, during con, I’m sorry, play through was like, I think two weeks after that. And that was the one I described. It was just nonstop play. And again, I knew people there and I was like, how am I indoctrinated already? This is insane. And then the East Coast games conference was last week. And that’s the one that Michael from triangle interactive, found me on tick tock said, Will you come to our booth and play tests? And I was like, when in were like, absolutely. And then Gen Con, we’re signed up for in August. So that’s the whole goal for
Tim Broadwater 11:02
Oh, nice. Let’s see, ideally, it goes on Kickstarter. Everything’s great. It’s amazing. The game is successful. Is this a game studio? Like the family turns into a game studio? Do you have other game ideas come up?
Laura Rodriguez 11:16
Oh, no, it’s so great. Because, you know, keeping it a hobby is definitely just ensuring that our hobby is fun. And our family time is spent playing and creating. And so I think so when dice invasion is successful, gotta manifest the good future, right? We already have a second game that we are working on. And it’s a steam punk tile building kind of game. And we have like a Friday night with the three of us sitting around a table, drawing up tiles, and then play testing and thinking about game mechanics. And it’s just so crazy that our family hangouts get to be this kind of collaborative thing, I think it’s absolutely unreal, I think we were able to get everything off the ground and as mature as quickly as we could is because this sat in my pocket of expertise. And I think the number one thing that I was prepared for was just a growth mindset in general, I wanted to get criticized, I wanted it to be bad, because that’s the only way I can make it better. And I just loved hearing all the things that weren’t working, I was soaking it up like a sponge. And so I think it’s not gonna get any better if you come in defensively or trying to convince people. And so I was very open to hearing and I’ve learned so many things from everyone that’s giving me advice. Like, I didn’t know that my game gave the optics of an abstract strategy game when it’s not. And that can be confusing. And I’m like, let me go to Google and figure out what they’re
Michael Schofield 12:54
interesting. Yeah. What does that mean? What’s What’s the for instance there?
Laura Rodriguez 12:59
Yeah. So when you look at it, it’s dice on a grid. And it looks like you could project similar to chess like multiple moves ahead, to be strategic, and that there isn’t a lot of like luck involved. But that’s quite the opposite. Because you have these cards that let you take actions that completely change the course of the game. And then the the core game mechanic for attacking is 100% luck. And so it’s not at all like chess, it’s not an abstract strategy game. And if someone looks at it, and they like those kind of games, then they would be disappointed. And vice versa, if someone likes the quality of game that we have, but it doesn’t look like it’s not attracting the right audience.
Tim Broadwater 13:48
Yeah, so I’m, I’m kind of, I love the math, the balancing is amazing on your game. So I love the fact in combat that depending on where you are the lower number, the higher number, you know, mathematically, it just makes it like, well, it’s either difficult or easier. But if you’re so close to each other, then it’s really it’s a risk, right? And I love the battle structure, and that if you get dice, you get more turns. I mean, it’s just like really super cool. I’m imagining like, you and this is just a dice question. I guess. When you were designing it. Did you just have when you said that you were bored, and you were just wanting something to do? Did you just have a bucket of dice? And I’m just kind of wondering, and then how does that relate? Do you think people will have their own dice or will this game come with like a bunch of dice or just anything you can tell me?
Laura Rodriguez 14:42
Where do you get the dice from?
Adriana Bailey 14:44
Well, I actually got it from a different game, which was Sagrata? Yeah. So I took their dice and it’s just put them on my board.
Laura Rodriguez 14:57
And then when we get to the manufacturing stage So, this is where kind of alluding to the problem I was discussing earlier, we are giving the dice a unique color maybe even investigating would kind of make them feel more character and more Pong like that’s a way that we’re going to try to make it more score. Yeah.
Michael Schofield 15:23
Oftentimes, in like, talking to other indie game designers, I don’t really hear a ton about, like the tactile role the game plays and your ability to wrap your mind around it. And, and I find that kind of like, I find that really interesting is that the look and feel as like, as a little analyst, the literal feel of the board plays, plays that role and ability to play the game.
Laura Rodriguez 15:50
And that’s what we’re gonna overly analytical about cardstock right on the cards. Yeah, yeah.
Tim Broadwater 15:57
I’m very can very invested to see as soon as your Kickstarter launches, I’m on board. And now that you’ve actually got solid pre testing, you have solid user data, or player data, I guess, the player experience about, hey, this is fun, people enjoy it, and people get it. Now we can start to skin it and make it you know, start to really fidget with the design, how does it feel? Does it feel like it’s almost done? Or does it like does it feel like? Or is it stress that there’s, I guess, too much to do still?
Laura Rodriguez 16:33
it almost feels like the stuff I naturally gravitate to and are transferable skills from my day job, are almost done. And now I’m getting into all the stuff that come with the learning curve. To find the grip, like am I shelfing this, like so many people tend to do with game ideas? Or am I actually going to learn manufacturing and, you know, work through contract with the designer and I hearing things like if I want to do this for ages eight and up, I need to go through like, child, you know, what is it called where like, it has to go through safety testing for children. And there’s so many things that I don’t know. And I’m just excited to learn and grow. And it’s kind of scary at the same time. You were mentioning the core attack mechanic and how it’s interesting, because depending on the value of the dye, you’re either trying to roll the summer higher or the summer lower with the decision dice. That was the very first thing that we discussed when she came in front of me that one day with a piece of cardboard. And I was like, alright, let’s attack like this. And our scope of games is so limited, right? We only know what we know. And we were never part of this bigger board game community. So for us to get as much exposure as we had through tic toc and through these conventions, and for nobody to tell us that that exists anywhere. It’s like what how like, I’m still waiting. And so the fact that we really bring something like unique is what makes me so excited about bringing this to market because I don’t feel like I’m kind of redundant or similar to anything else. Like we actually have something interesting to share and that that makes me motivated about the time and money investment this will take.
Tim Broadwater 18:53
How did you get into UX? How did you even know you liked UX? Can you give us a little bit of your UX backstory? Your elevator pitch? Because I see you’ve been at IBM as a UXer for a while.
Laura Rodriguez 19:56
Yeah. Um, so if you had to go like true origin story that would be high school where they had a mandatory intro typing class you had to take, and I already know how to type. And so I was talking to my guidance counselor, and I was like, I really don’t want to take that class. She’s like, well, you could take this graphic design class, but you know, it usually requires this intro class, can she kind of lean forward, she’s like you sure you know how to type I was like I do. And so I got put in this graphic design class, I had no idea what it was. But we just got to like, play on the pretty Mac computers and do offset printing and screen printing and just the whole shebang. And so as when I got to the point that I graduated high school, and I had to think about college, that was literally the only class I liked. And so I ended up in undergrad in graphic design. And there were things about it that I liked, but I wasn’t like, I didn’t care or have passions about fonts, or color palettes. Comic Sans, I’m like, I don’t know, it’s not that bad. And so I found people around me who were so passionate and good about things that I was not passionate and good at. And so that was really confusing for me. And I ended up going back to graduate school at NC State for a master’s in design. And that whole program is just the most amazing, you know, graduate program, because it literally lets you introspect on who you are, and what design means to you, and then get good at that. So in our classes were like specializing in very different things. And the aha moment for me, do you remember second line? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. And so I was doing just like a design study of Second Life. Because, you know, for example, the buddy list when you log on, looks at just like the buddy list I had on American instant messenger when I was in middle school. And I was like, Why isn’t this better, they could be doing so much more. And I got into, like, design investigations for Second Life. And the more I got into it, I started to realize, you know, the whole premise of Second Life, it’s not a game, there’s no win. It’s just you live a version of yourself that you want in a virtual world. And there are people who have psychosocial disorders where they literally like their virtual life more than their physical life. And something about that made me so indebted that their experience is only as good as we make it as designers like we owe it to them their best life possible. And that was the click for me, in terms of like, feeling very passionate about user experience, and then the rest is history from there.
Tim Broadwater 22:54
Yeah, I think I think the new the hot newness, right, I live Second Life. But I think VR chat is probably the thing that’s now I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but you go in there. And it’s just all these people interacting and like, some look like people and some are parrots, and some are like different animal human hybrids. And they’re all some are cartoon, and some are realistic. It’s just so wild.
Laura Rodriguez 23:18
Yeah. And it’s interesting, because I was never comfortable in Second Life, like it was like, very abnormal for me to be moving in that way. And I wasn’t comfortable talking to strangers. And it was something like Chat Roulette, where people just like randomly get paired. Like, that’s not at all and I actually like over empathized with the demographic group that needed second life in a way that I couldn’t relate to. And so kind of shifted into being interested in Facebook and my thesis was around Facebook, because that was just easier for me emotionally to handle because I just, I’m too much of an empath, it would have been really, really hard for me to build a big focus there. And that related to IBM, and even getting into UX therapy, because we were doing social collaboration tooling.
Tim Broadwater 24:15
Like your history with gaming in general, as a kid, I mean, what kind of gamer would you describe yourself as or I guess, or like, you mentioned some board games and, and also some, like, Second Life, but just kind of wondering your backstory for gaming.
Laura Rodriguez 24:32
So I don’t know if funnily enough I was not huge on board games as a kid I don’t have like really deep memories associated with any particular game. And I think maybe it’s because I had an older sister and I probably always lost and it made me but Super Nintendo was my jam. Donkey Kong on Super Nintendo. To this day is like my number
Tim Broadwater 24:58
Donkey Kong Country I remember being obsessed with finding all the oh my god, what was it? barrels, you had to find these hidden barrels or something, I can’t remember what it was. It’s been so long, we did so, so more of a video game background as opposed to board gaming, then we’re tabletop gaming.
Laura Rodriguez 25:22
Yeah, definitely more of a video game background, and just generally being a really, you know, creative kid who was always very artsy and in her own world, and creating stories and poetry. And so I’ve always been, like, really tuned into the artsy side. But gaming in the kind of board game sense really came out of, you know, in marriage, and with my daughter and us, you know, I think with everyone, the pandemic, especially was an explosion and that kind of activity, we did really kooky things, like a lot of tea parties where we would dress up and then put on a kooky accent, and it’s like, this day feels different than yesterday.
Tim Broadwater 26:05
It’s everyone I feel like had to do their own thing to get through. Yeah. I know, people who they probably did more outdoors walking, like during COVID than they did their whole life. And so our podcast, you know, is very much about the player experience. And it was started with this experiment that like, hey, we think that UX is like games and gamers are you exercise and product designers and game are the same people. And we’re whether you for true and then by the time we get to season two, we’re like, Yep, it’s not only true, but there’s tons of people out there on both sides, whatever name you want to call it. And so I guess the question is, is can you speak to a little bit about how your career and experience and the skill sets for user experience. And the crossover, were things that you’ve found interesting, or just anything you can speak to really, with the intersection between like UX design and game design? Yeah, testing, user testing, you know, kind of.
Laura Rodriguez 27:09
So since I typically do product software design, game design was like a physical manifestation of everything I would do on the computer, where I would literally create a prototype, and I would get user feedback. And I would iterate. And so all of those things were so familiar, but in these different medium, and that made it really interesting. And that’s why I didn’t initially know there would be so much overlap. And so as soon as I started to get into the things that felt familiar, it was very exciting. I was like, Oh, I’m good at this, I’m going to be good at that. And I was able to bring so much to the table. And it’s why, you know, me being a, you know, new to game design, I was able to create a tic tock account where I’m giving advice on game design, like that’s cuckoo, but like, no, there’s so much here that I’m using, and I want you guys to know about it, you know, and such a big part of it is having the right mentality and approach to it and keeping a good head on your shoulders, because so much of it is getting feedback. And if you’re not approaching it correctly, you could be taking it personally, it could be ruining your day versus being invigorated by it and excited. The first game designers in North Carolina meet up that I went to, they just murdered my game when they were talking about it and tell me all these things that wouldn’t work. And I was drooling. I was like, yeah, and and it just could not have been, I was sitting there thinking like, Man, this is awesome. I was so excited about hearing how bad it was with some of the things that we haven’t figured out yet.
Tim Broadwater 28:55
When you start to see the user data or the player feedback start to roll in. You’re like, yes, yes. Now I have stuff to work with, um,
Laura Rodriguez 29:03
you create many mantras. So like, as I kind of go through and I’m creating a special action card, I’m thinking does this is this too cruel to the other person? Like if this comes in and it undos your move? is that person going to get demotivated? So I try to think about how motivational each of these cards could be. And then if I’m going to do something else, I’m thinking, Alright, I want gameplay to be 15 to 20 minutes. Is this going to extend gameplay unnecessarily? Or can we kind of keep it as an advantage of making the game move quicker? And so it’s been awesome to kind of pick up all of these mantras throughout. And that’s why the second game we’re working on, we’re having fun because we already have so much knowledge that we’ve learned from this that it’s instantly transferable to that other one.
Tim Broadwater 29:52
I’m also curious and anything super surprising or Super Game Changing or hilarious? So you encountered through your play testing, I think like on the UX side, I’m always impressed or like always shocked at like, what user data we get back when we do like user testing or something. And so it’s kind of the same with play testing when we went to the first time we went to was Pax unplugged, and Philly. I’m just wondering, anything crazy funny or just groundbreaking, you found through playtesting. I’m always curious what you find.
Laura Rodriguez 30:25
Oh, man, I wish I wish there was something particularly funny, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. The only thing that it makes me think of is, you know, in my mind, I think of the milestone, kind of, I’ll call it like a catalyst, like a moment where like, a huge change happened to the game. And that’s always like tied to a very specific gameplay interaction. And so I kind of have, in my head, these meaningful moments, when I think of the different game mechanics, I’m like, oh, yeah, I remember when so and so got really mad about that card, and we had to pull it out. And so I think it’s kind of fun to have a mental map of how this game evolved based on different moments in time. Adri, is there anything funny with you about play testing? Or how does this come together?
Tim Broadwater 31:15
What did you think about it? Yeah, I’m curious. Like, when you put your game out there, your game and other people are playing it? What did you what was that like? And what did you find?
Adriana Bailey 31:25
I remember that I was nervous at first, but then people were really like supporting. And like my mom said, they kind of wanted to hear more about the game, especially when smaller pieces they want to support you. I also surprisingly, found a lot of my friends at game conventions. Oh, cool. Eleanor and Jordan. So it was nice to see them.
Tim Broadwater 31:58
Did you know that they were into gaming before? Or were just kind of you saw each other out? And we’re like, Ah!
Adriana Bailey 32:06
Well, I was actually really surprised to see them there. I didn’t know they went to game conventions.
Laura Rodriguez 32:13
And she was really like con’s up dressed to the nines. And then the next day she was like, paint my face. I’m going dressed up.
Tim Broadwater 32:22
Oh she was a cosplayer? Yeah. Okay.
Laura Rodriguez 32:27
Part of what makes me kind of motivated to stay active on Tik Tok is that hope that when it comes to Aug, and Gen Con being as big as it is that that’ll end up being a, you know, I’m walking around just finding people and kind of connect with those
Michael Schofield 32:45
people is totally going to happen. Yeah.
Tim Broadwater 32:48
Are you playtesting? There? Are you can I ask? Is it a booth? Or what is it you’re doing at GenCon?
Laura Rodriguez 32:54
Um, yeah, I’ve actually made my husband set up all the reservations. So I don’t know what it’s called off the top of my head. But yeah, we’re getting a playtesting slot. I think it’s two or four, two hour slots or something like that. And literally, tomorrow, we have to be emailing them back with kind of the synopsis of our game and the times that we want. And it’s so amazing. They tell you, you know, what kind of demographics do you want playing your game, you could literally say 33 year old females and we will get it for you. And I’m like, Whoa. So right now we’re having to decide are we sticking to our guns at this is to player are we going to try to make for player work and for player right now kind of feels like just because you can doesn’t mean you should it doesn’t really bring value. So yeah.
Tim Broadwater 33:45
pletely understand that. Once you go to solo to player versus player, or cooperative, or three player four player, they’re different lenses of complexity that you’re adding, because now we’ve changed things and rules have to change and but how do we not change the core game.
Laura Rodriguez 34:03
Right and like, logically, it makes sense. But then when you’re experiencing it, you’re like, God, I’m still waiting for my turn. And like, you know, we want to kind of keep the game feeling quick, fast and fun. It doesn’t really come through players. Yeah, maybe.
Tim Broadwater 34:19
we funny enough. We are kind of we’ve only arguments also for players. We’re hoping Fingers crossed. But we’ve only done two players and two players speed feels great. But I kind of scared to start testing three players for four players, just because did we just make a four hour long game? I didn’t mean to do that, you know?
Laura Rodriguez 34:40
Yeah,
Michael Schofield 34:41
that was like the side effects would be terrifying because let’s say I’m at the one option is that your two player game feels great. But as soon as you go to four players, you realize like the mechanics have to change. So how much do you change to play your game because of that, you know, or or whatever. There’s so many variables that kind of wake me up.
Laura Rodriguez 34:59
It is It’s so true and the you know, with our game, you’re attacking dice and then capturing them. And so very quickly, you end up with this disparity where someone gets way behind. And then they’re just having this sense of like, why am I even here? You know, like, I don’t even have to winning. And so, you know, trying cooperative, and then, you know, like getting the dice confused, like, Wait, is that you? Is that mean? It’s like, I’m not looking for all of that. So I think we’re gonna do blind play testing, where it’s like, read the rules, Pretend I’m not here. Does this stand on its own? Like, we have to confidently do that before we put this up on Kickstarter. Oh, at the last place, we were play testing. I had played with an individual or kind of helped him learn the game with someone else. And he caught on to the strategy. So quick, like he got it. I was like, Oh, this guy is gonna kill. And he kind of later on, walked by the table while someone else was asking about the game. And they asked me a question. And he jumped in and started explaining the game and talking about a turn and I stood back. I was like, yes, that’s amazing.
Tim Broadwater 36:12
That was awesome. Another KPI. Well, it’s other people teaching your game. Yeah.
Laura Rodriguez 36:16
So I did to teach it and talk about it. And I was just like, Oh, my job here is done. This is amazing. I went home so happy that
Tim Broadwater 36:25
Well it must feel great for both of you to, to have kind of this kind of fun, positive feedback that people kind of enjoy the game because such a long way to come for just a couple were only so many months into 2023. So it’s very BIt seems like it’s been pretty fast paced for you all.
Laura Rodriguez 36:42
I am humbly integrating myself into this community and everyone else knows so much more than me. So if you want to reach out reach out with advice and guidance, please don’t hesitate to tell me something I could be doing that I don’t know. So like all advice is solicited. So there’s that we’re going to be on tick tock as long as tick tock exists because I cannot juggle more than one social media platform. And so to follow and see, whatever, you know, I come up with that day. And then obviously, any support for our Kickstarter in our game would be amazing because I can assure you that what we give you we will personally be invested in and think is a great thing. So yeah, we’re at Dice Invasion on TikTok, where diceinvasion@gmail.com, and then diceinvasiongame.com and that’s where we are getting kind of, you can send us your email address and we’ll let you know about updates and stuff like that could also get our print and play.
Laura Rodriguez Plays D12
Tim Broadwater 38:20
You’re gonna get 12 questions I want to ask do you have a D 12? at all like a 12 sided dice?
Laura Rodriguez 40:13
I don’t. Okay,
Tim Broadwater 40:15
it’s no problem. I’ve got this covered. Yeah. How this will work is we’re going to ask you a question. Think of it like Inside the Actor’s Studio. weird question out of left field. Question number one. What is your favorite design tool?
Laura Rodriguez 40:34
My favorite design tool is Figma.
Michael Schofield 40:39
Knew it
Tim Broadwater 40:40
I was gonna say that’s the correct
Michael Schofield 40:43
Of course.
Tim Broadwater 40:51
What is your favorite card game?
Laura Rodriguez 40:55
My favorite card game right now is? What’s it called? One second…
Tim Broadwater 41:05
I love it. There’s an off-camera game shelf.
Laura Rodriguez 41:10
Rainbow Bunny Bop.
Tim Broadwater 41:12
Oh, can you give us like a one sentence pitch.
Laura Rodriguez 41:18
So with Rainbow Bunny Bob, you have a deck of cards that are shuffled, and they represent all colors of the rainbow and you have to be uncovering them and putting them in rainbow order quicker than your opponents. Know awesome. It’s a very intense game that you can play with all ages. It’s really fun
Tim Broadwater 41:46
in your opinion, should everyone play at least once?
Laura Rodriguez 41:50
It’s called Outrage and it’s like getting the crown jewels and it’s your within the Tower of London. math game is really awesome. I think everyone should play that if they haven’t.
Michael Schofield 42:07
That’s sounds awesome.
Tim Broadwater 42:14
Next question. What is your color mode?
Michael Schofield 42:21
RGB and tone CMYK HSLA.
Laura Rodriguez 42:25
Oh, hex.
Tim Broadwater 42:27
Hexadecimal.
Laura Rodriguez 42:28
Yeah.
Tim Broadwater 42:35
Next one is in games, are you Paragon or Renegade? Do you usually take the good path? Are you taking Are you an evil character?
Laura Rodriguez 42:49
Oh, I’m, I’m evil, but I’ll make you think I’m good pass. So I’m going to be tricking you.
Tim Broadwater 42:58
Nice. I love that… next question, what game for you is a guilty pleasure?
Laura Rodriguez 43:14
You know, this is so dorky, but, um, we got this at play through. And it’s called Chromacube. And it’s literally this puzzle game where it gives you all of these tiles that you have to lay out on a grid, and it tells you clues of how to lay them out. I don’t know how to explain this better. But this is something that I’ll be in front of my family and I’m just ignoring them because I love this and trying to get it down and it is the most after you follow the hints you’ll see if you laid it out correctly. And this has been my guilty pleasure recently.
Tim Broadwater 43:55
Nice. Nice… that’s halfway through six more questions to go. If you can make up any UX title to give yourself any what would it be?
Laura Rodriguez 44:16
Um, user experience wizard is great
Tim Broadwater 44:29
Do you have a preferred genre? Alternate History fantasy cyberpunk. You know, horror, action adventure? What is your genre?
Laura Rodriguez 44:42
All of the fiction that’s like techno thrillers are my favorite where they kind of assume a future and not always being dystopian, but people just kind of conceiving what could be. I think it’s always really fun.
Tim Broadwater 44:57
Nice. These are good answers by the way, these are really good. Next question, describe your favorite dice.
Laura Rodriguez 45:13
My favorite dice are from this game called Dice Invasion and hand painted to match the color of repetitive pens I saw on the anthropology website. Like I like this color palette and I stole it.
Tim Broadwater 45:31
Nice
Michael Schofield 45:39
Silly answer.
Tim Broadwater 45:42
What is your reaction? Does your gut reaction visceral reaction when you hear UI UX?
Laura Rodriguez 45:52
Honestly, I feel like you can’t get hung up on the terms too much. Because all of these things are so blurry anyways. And so give yourself whatever title makes you sleep at night. That’s fine. But you know, I have so much of research and me and I see engineerings do so much design thinking and people who are visual designers are doing UX stuff. And so we can give ourselves whatever titles we want. But at the end of the day, we’re just trying to make products that are self evident and intuitive. And there are many terms for that.
Tim Broadwater 46:25
Nice
Michael Schofield 46:26
Far too rational answer.
Tim Broadwater 46:29
We were expecting for like cringe No, that’s great. Two questions left. Favorite. Any type of game favorite game villain?
Laura Rodriguez 46:54
Right now, isn’t it Bowser because Jack Black is amazing, and he’s like killing that role?
Tim Broadwater 46:59
God that’s a great answer. Final question. What is the most overrated game?
Laura Rodriguez 47:15
I think the game sorry is overrated. That game sucks. And whenever people like Sorry, I want to hit them in the nose. So
Tim Broadwater 47:26
Yeah, I’m thinking you’re literally just moving based on numbers right? I don’t think there’s any anything strategy or barely even randomness in it.
Michael Schofield 47:36
This is the Sorry hate podcast.
Laura Rodriguez 47:40
Thing is that if someone is on your space, and you come out of the home and then you send them back, it’s just yeah, yeah.
Tim Broadwater 47:49
It’s it seems grueling for no other reason except to be grueling. As the listeners may know, last year, you know, we were doing a Patreon and if you support us on Patreon, you got the episodes ad free and early, which was cool.
Michael Schofield 48:44
Anyone who’s been like listening with us from season one, and who will enjoy season three, know that we are iterating a lot and one of the big things we’re iterating on is like what we’re spending time on was probably like a whole interesting episode or like side thing about like why we chose to back off Patreon. But we backed off Patreon. We love it. If people would donate to us,
Tim Broadwater 49:07
Please head over there and support us and be like we’re going to put some content stuff there but it’s not going to be exclusive.
