Podcast Guy 0:01
Welcome to Design Thinking Games the podcast where game design meets player experience and every game is a chance to support the community. Celebrate this fifth season of the design thinking games podcast by not just talking about how games play, but diving into how they’re made, how they’re tested, and how communities keep them alive. All types of games are on the table, from tabletop to digital, solo journaling to massive multiplayer. Come explore all forms of gaming and the design thinking behind them with your host, Tim Broadwater. Find every episode, including this one, wherever you get your podcasts or jump in at DesignThinkingGames.com now roll up your sleeves, open the play test notes and celebrate the power of play.
Tim Broadwater 0:56
Eventually, I walked to the very center of the exhibit hall in Origins and walked all the way back through the very center row to the indie games at the very end, the very end of the street of origins to the left is this booth with chickens everywhere. I had to know more.
Matt Mundy 1:21
Yeah, we’re a new game studio, Sea Cow Games, and this is our our first title, Flock Together, along with our brand new expansion, the Birds of Feather expansion. Dad jokes all along,
Tim Broadwater 1:33
I asked about the game studio and the games that they had designed, and he started to tell you, tell about this one game and last year
Matt Mundy 1:40
We this was first published in 2024 and we sold out almost immediately. This is our first reprint and expansion. The boats are coming in right now.
Tim Broadwater 1:49
As we started to talk about the game, I wondered if this was the first time he had never been to origins.
Matt Mundy 1:58
Yeah, we were at ventures last year, and we sold out last year at PAX.
Tim Broadwater 2:04
Oh, nice.
Matt Mundy 2:05
So this is Flock Together, a co-op ‘coop’ game, if you will, for one to five players, where everyone takes the role of a different chicken and works together to find out the invading predators by the end of the third season. So say this is you. You’re playing a Wyatt Chirp. You can level up your character, get stronger and gain your ability. Just so I turn the pace and you can keep leveling up until you are, as I say, ‘fully yoked’. Now, the bad guys work the same way. Say you’re up against Hens Gruber, if you don’t defeat Hens Gruber, in the first season, he levels up. Die Hard, yeah, yeah, man of culture, right now, if you don’t defeat him, he’s gonna keep leveling up until you finally take him out and do what every good boss should give you that loot drop, there’s 11 different characters you can play as all asymmetric you might be playing as Eggatha, Christie, General Tso Attila the Hen, Annie Yokely, Shellock Holmes, Beowing, Wingston Coophill, Madam Tchaikovsky, Cluckleberry Finn, and more… facing bad guys like Cleopoltra, Sher Korn, Professor Multiardi, Sal Monella, Eggsmerela, Al Capone and more, and all this comes your box.
Tim Broadwater 3:09
I knew that Flock Together was one through five players, and it was cooperative, but I wanted to learn about the mechanics, in the words of the designer,
Matt Mundy 3:17
Yeah, action points, engine building, boss battler… plays about 20 minutes per person, nice.
Tim Broadwater 3:18
And then what is the expansion?
Matt Mundy 3:24
So it’s no new mechanism. It’s just more content, more what you already know and love. We’re adding characters like Cluck Norris, Bruce Lee, J R, R, Yolkin, Erakorn heir of Condor, Princess, Lair, Chickra, and bad guys like Weezerman Klong, the Sheriff of Rottingham, Chewbocka, Leonardo, and more.
Tim Broadwater 3:43
Flock Together has so much going on with it. It seems a great game to follow, and I’m gonna keep my eyes on it. I asked how I could keep doing that.
Matt Mundy 3:53
Yeah, we’re on https://www.seacowboardgames.com/ and you can find our game on All Plays website, and you know, it’s 89 bucks, and there’s only one addition. The best one, all the delicifications are included in every game. It hit, it hit dirt, like a week ago.
Tim Broadwater 4:09
Oh, wow, yeah,
Matt Mundy 4:10
I want to show you this chicken dice. It’s my favorite component in the game. So this is the face. That’s the six. You have the wings on both sides, two for the feet, one of the back of the dice… anatomically correct chicken dice. That is amazing. That is cool. Are you? Takes with you? Yeah.
Tim Broadwater 4:32
Before the con was over, I ended up going back and buying the game and the expansion. It’s so fun.
X Seekers of Fortune 4:42
The desert’s heat never rest, but neither do your rivals. Push forward. At last, you followed the leads and found what you’re after, half buried within the crumbling runes the green eyed totem stares me. I get you. It’s emerald eyes glinting by the light of your torch. But you’re not alone. You’ve been followed, and you should have been more careful. Rookie mistake, your rival has you in their sights. What are they plotting? Sabotage, a blaze edge bargain, or perhaps a bit of strategic arson. No matter the case, one thing is certain, if your glory is imminent, they will try to thwart you with everything they’ve got. How do you know? Because you would do the same. This is no time to waver. It’s time to dig deep and break through to claim your glory. Stay sharp, play smart, and you might just find fortune is in your favor. In X Seekers of Fortune, an ever expanding, action packed adventure card game. Pre order now at https://www.xseekersoffortune.com/ and seek your fortune today.
Tim Broadwater 6:15
Weaving through different rows and columns of origins Game Fair in front of me, I see a booth filled with several tables with different games. However, one of them draws my attention, as it appears to be a Winnie the Pooh Bear, but also Cthulhu kind of figure. So I want to know more.
Absurd Adventure Games 6:39
So we are this table, this is Absurd Adventure Games. This is the Call of Pooh-Thulhu. So the Cthulhu has come to the 100 Acre Woods, poor little Christopher Robin here got into his father’s library. He found a funny looking book. It had little pictures. He traced them on the floor, and the next morning, suddenly he woke up and his eyes were all dark. So he has been infected by some of the old ones, and he has started spreading that to his friends in the 100 Acre Woods. So you, of course, you know you need to protect the world. So some of our favorite friends, you know, Kanga, Eeyore, Kuber himself, you can take on the roles of those characters to try to defeat your corrupted friends, such as Piglet, Tigger, and ultimately, you need to defeat and kill Christopher Robbins to stem the truck the tide of this evil. But you have to be careful as you go through combat, if you take too much damage and lose all of your stuffing, then you will flip over to the corrupted version of yourself and join the ranks of the enemy.
Tim Broadwater 7:48
What he’s describing is so interesting, and I know that Winnie the Pooh became open rights shortly, not that many years ago, and so I kind of want to know more and how the game is played.
Absurd Adventure Games 8:01
It is a cooperative game. So in the base game, you can play from one to four. You could choose whichever your our stuffed friends you want to be, and then any one that you’re not playing as may join the game as their corrupted version. And then we have an expansion called Shadow Over the 100 Acre Woods, which will expand it to six players. Christopher Robin. In this in the base version, he is the ultimate villain. Once you defeat him, he flips over to his final form, as you must, and you must defeat him again. In the expansion, Christopher Robin can actually be a playable character. So he’ll be can become one of your friends,
Tim Broadwater 8:42
This game looks very cool. It has a lot of really neat, illustrative and narrative appeal, and definitely hits that horror kind of checkbox. And so I kind of wondered, you know, is this new, or had it been out for a while?
Absurd Adventure Games 8:58
Did the preview we actually kick started in October, in Halloween, and our product is on a boat, so we are here, spreading the news, continuing our pre orders today, you could be the second person to get it, because our Kickstarter backers will be first, and then we should start shipping in like August or September, as soon as it clears custom. So we are offering a bundle to people here at the convention. You can walk away with the playmat, and then we will ship you the game as soon as we get it,
Speaker 1 9:31
The appeal of this has to be through the roof. And so I see a lot of people very interested in this. So I want to know more about that, and I ask how people find out more about the game and the design studio.
Absurd Adventure Games 9:45
We are a small, you know, game company. We are, we have a lot of experience. We’re trying to spin off something a little bit more absurd, and so we are putting that under this new company’s umbrella, and we hope to you know, check us out. Yes, it is. A lot of people think they love the concept of just taking their childhood memory and kind of torquing it to the evil side a little bit. So we are we? Our website, again, is https://www.absurdadventuregames.com/ multiple games. So Absurd Adventure Games.com, there’s a couple other games listed on the website, which we will be coming out with. One of which I just got the prototype cards for, is Nero needs NomNoms. So again, a little absurd. You know, Nero the crazies, or he got the munchies, and it is your job to try to feed him before he just decides to execute the entire kitchen staff.
Tim Broadwater 10:44
As I leave absurd adventure games, their logo reminds me of the podcast logo to some degree, and I’m bookmarking the Call of Pooh-Thulu..
Michael Schofield 11:04
Thirst is a two to four player vampire versus vampire game of Dominion, in which players become powerful, monstrous and bloodthirsty. Vampires rise from the graveyard, hungry to find that you are not the only creature of darkness in town. Fight other vampires for dominion over neighborhoods and for influence. Hunt, but hunt wisely.The first vampire to accrue an influence score of 10 wins and can finally slake their thirst. Thirst is on Kickstarter. Sign up to get notified of its launch at https://ThirstBoardGame.com Find thirst and other things we’re working on at https://www.DesignThinkingGames.com/.
Tim Broadwater 12:01
As I’m walking along, my attention is immediately drawn to a booth that has an entire collection of little white plushy serial killers holding knives with red glowing eyes surrounded In black rings. I walk up to the booth immediately and kind of wonder, what is this game?
Jordan McLaughlin 12:26
So my name is Jordan McLaughlin, and I run Rookie Mage Games. So over the years, I’ve made a total of seven different games. Don’t Get Stabbed is my most popular one, but I also have kids games, social deduction games, I’ve made some like conversation inappropriate conversation starters, trying to make a little bit of variety of stuff for everyone.
Tim Broadwater 12:46
This booth looks like it would be very popular. So I kind of wanted to know more about the studio and the games.
Jordan McLaughlin 12:53
It is just me. I design, and sometimes do the art, if I’m good enough for what the vision is, and my husband does the taxes so I don’t mess that up. So I first went to Kickstarter with don’t get stabbed in 2019 so this is actually the second edition. I actually went back once I so the first game that I made, I put it up for an artist. So after work, I would go to the library and watch YouTube videos and taught myself how to do illustrations, but eventually I got better at it. So then I was like, I want to go back to don’t get stabbed. Do the art again as I use my new skill. So this is actually the second edition, and like we did better on the second Kickstarter. You know, it’s this game is really like, because of don’t get stabbed. This is now my full time job. Oh, wow, guys. Congratulations.
Tim Broadwater 13:41
This is a very cool story, so I wanted to know where the game studio was located and what was going on, or any special promotions that were going on at origins.
Jordan McLaughlin 13:53
I am literally in Columbus. I am in town, so it is great. I get to come here all day, and then I get to go back to my own bed at night. It’s amazing. So for the convention we have, don’t get stabbed, and also our stabby plushie, they’re both $20 but if you get both, you get $5 off. So it’s 35 to get both.
Tim Broadwater 14:13
Now I’m very curious, and I want to know more about don’t get stabbed, how the gameplay works. What does it feel like? What’s it based on?
Jordan McLaughlin 14:23
So it’s just like a slasher movie from like, 80s. So you have one person is the killer. Everyone knows who it is. It’s not a secret identity, and everyone else plays as a victim. So everyone takes turns drawing cards, and in there there’s stab cards. You’re a victim. You get stabbed three times. You’re dead, and you’re out of the game. So you want to avoid getting stabbed. So you’re going to use these things called Action cards. So they got different things on them, like first aid, using kung fu to block the stab. And as you’re going through you’re trying to match up what we call combo cards to have horror movie tropes, because we get two of them that match. You trade them in for what’s called a car card. And if the victims are able to spell out the word or ‘car’. Four and either are still alive, escaping, they won the game. But if you’re playing as the killer, the killer gets to use the other side of the action cards, so they get to do things like put victims, trap, steal cards from them, make it harder for them to survive. And then when the killer gets stabbed cards, they get to put it back in the deck where they want. So you can target someone to try to get them stabbed and out of the game. Killer wins if they manage kill everybody. It’s a really simple pilot, concert game, party game, it’s all the stuff I do. I try to stay pretty lightweight.
Jordan McLaughlin 15:27
The game sounds very interesting and totally up my alley. And so I kind of wanted to know if there was a particular card that people you know hated to get, or what was the most famous card in the game, or infamous card.
Jordan McLaughlin 15:41
I always like the human shield, because that’s if you want to see people get vicious and get mad. That’s the card that does it. But it is also 18 plus because of two cards. So the game is 18 plus because, like, There’s horror movie tropes. So things that people do in horror movies that get themselves killed is have sex and getting drunk. So those cards are in there.
Tim Broadwater 16:06
Before origin Game Fair was over, I ended up buying a copy of don’t get stabbed. I also got a plushie to go with it. So I did get the discount. I want to keep my eyes on this game studio
Jordan McLaughlin 16:20
https://www.rookiemage.com/ that’s got all my stuff on it. I also do a lot of Tiktok. Just search for Rookie Mage Games there, and that’s kind of it yea.
Danielle Reynolds 16:28
Yeah, join me. Danielle Reynolds for Game Design Unboxed a podcast where I interview game designers about the games they’ve made from inspiration to publication, we will unbox the story of where the initial game idea came from, and the following journey to getting the game made and into the player’s hands every other Tuesday. But not only that, I’m taking the best parts of my podcast and turning it into bite sized videos on Instagram and Tiktok. So follow along at Game Design Unboxed to learn more tips and tricks from other industry professionals.
Tim Broadwater 17:10
As I walk through the convention, I see a man dressed as a gladiator, and he seems to be working one of the gaming booths. I go up to him and ask him who he is.
Matthew Ryan 17:23
Hey, my name is Matthew Ryan. I’m the owner and operator of Envy Born Games. We specialize in making tiny box games that are travel friendly, envy. Born games, I started it, I think, in like 2016 but I didn’t actually publish a game till 2018 and then I didn’t do anything until 2023 seriously, so it was more of like very much just a hobby kind of thing when I first started it. But, yeah, I’ve been doing it full time since basically the end of 2022
Tim Broadwater 17:53
There seems to be a lot of games here on the shelves of this booth. So I’m wondering, you know, how old is the studio, and how many games there are,
Matthew Ryan 18:01
We have probably about nine. Like three of them are kind of getting discontinued because they’ve just, kind of sales have kind of dropped off a little bit. But we have actively, like five in development, and then we have five that are selling very well at the moment, so.
Tim Broadwater 18:22
I now see, and it’s starting to make sense why he’s dressed up as a gladiator.
Matthew Ryan 18:27
The newest one is Hercules and the 12 Labors that actually had a very successful backer kick campaign with 1,600 backers. Thank you. So Hercules and the 12 labors is a solo boss battler, where you are taking on the role of Hercules, and you have to work your way through the 12 different labors. Each labor comes with a lore card, so you get to feel the immersive experience of taking on the role of Hercules. It’s backed. It’s actually going in production this week, so it’ll probably be available for fulfillment September or October ish,
Tim Broadwater 19:01
Is there? Do you have any specific Origins promo or something going on? If people come here specifically?
Matthew Ryan 19:07
Yeah. So in the coupon book, we actually have a promo deck for our game Confusing Lands, which is our best selling game. It’s actually up for a Origins Award. It’s a finalist in the light strategy category, yeah, thank you. Yeah, we’ll see it.
Tim Broadwater 19:24
Actually have a recorded you playing it for teaching us.
Matthew Ryan 19:27
Yeah, I love that game.
Tim Broadwater 19:30
If you ever see red, yellow, blue or green fanny packs at a gaming convention, it’s probably a good bet they are from Envy Boarn Games,
Matthew Ryan 19:40
Our games fit in fanny packs, so we have fanny packs in booth. If you get three or more, you get a free fanny pack.
Tim Broadwater 19:46
This guy exudes positive energy, so I wanted to wish him a good origins, and had on my way.
Matthew Ryan 19:54
Thanks for stopping by. It’s good to see you and keep an eye on Envy Born for all the fun games we have coming out. If you go to https://envyborngames.com/ you’ll find us. We’re on TikTok actively, Facebook, Instagram. We do have a Discord channel as well, but I need to get better about being on my Discord.
Podcast Guy 20:16
Thank you for listening to Design Thinking Games. Your time is valuable, and it means a lot that you spend it here in season five. Stay connected on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. DMs are always open, and don’t forget to visit https://www.designthinkinggames.com/ to request topics, ask questions or see what else is going on. If indie vampire board games sound like your thing, check out Thirst, where vampires and minions fight for influence in a dark city. Head to https://thirstboardgame.com/ to follow the journey and get updates when it launches on Kickstarter, October 1st. Until next time game on!