What’s your favorite game that you did not create?

What game mechanics are you hoping to explore in the future?

And I guess what’s your favorite of your currently published library, and why?

I was raised on classic social deduction games like mafia, werewolves, The Resistance, etc, so I have always loved that genre! I also love some of the “new classics” like King of Tokyo, Ticket to Ride, Codenames, 7 Wonders, Pandemic. They each seem to do a great job of being simple to learn while providing interesting decisions and having solid themes/art.

I'd love to make a really fun cooperative game in the future! And on the flip side I'd like to get a really fast-paced elimination game figured out as well. One with kind of a "Survivor" feel that really gets players emotionally invested but still moves fast.

My favorite to play of our published library is probably Deadwood 1876 at the moment! Though Bristol 1350 might be edging it out. But it's like asking which of my kids is my favorite. I love them all for different reasons and love thinking back on how each one came to be.

Secret Hitler is a very fun mafia style game!

Yes, that's a great one! Mechanics are solid and the presentation/art is spot on. It's becoming a staple in the social deduction world.

Blood on the clocktower is also really great! I usually describe it as advanced werewolf where misinformation is abound!

I've heard that a few times today. I'll check it out!

What is it that drew you towards deception game mechanics?

Do you think you’ll test out other types of game play?

That's a great question! In my experience social deduction games have two things that I really love --- they are simple to learn and don't have a ton of rules, AND they really get people invested emotionally. There tends to be lots of screaming and excitement at the big backstab or the big reveal and I love that. I like that social deduction games really rely on WHO is playing and their personality rather than just the mechanics of the game.

We have started to dabble on other very quick party games, and have our second one of those coming out next year.

I'd also LOVE to make a simple RPG (like very basic D&D) to get people started down that road. I love the imagination and "open world" involved in role-playing games and I think there is a lot of opportunity there.

I thought about this a bit before as well. I think the answer lies in “personification” of some pre-determined classes so there are “tangibles” to the play through.

It puts the kid gloves on, yeah, but that opens the door to a much wider audience of ages, and you can make it a staple of the game to “mess up” or “beef up” your character.

• dry erase boards with pre-printed class costumes and stat boxes

• 6-sided cubes with one blank side to draw on with erasable crayons

• little plastic mini-mannequins with magnetic “clip on” class costumes, and maybe accessories for stats?

• maybe some assorted dungeon bosses / characters that rotate with each game (printed on cards, or 3D printed like the mannequins)

• 4 or 5-layer circle map that can rotate the story to different locations. Start from the center, play outwards.

I never had any intention of building this kind of “game” but I thought it would be a great way to introduce the concept of RPGs to more people. Maybe you could use those ideas for a practical concept since you seem to be much more keyed into game theory. Either way - congrats to you both for growing something so awesome together!

Some really great ideas here! I'll sift through these ideas when things settle down and let you know if I have any follow-up thoughts. Great stuff!

What was the first month sales like? And what made the sales took off?

Ours was a unique case because the first time anyone saw one of our games we launched it on Kickstarter. That campaign was for a month and we made about $100k in sales. We got lucky that it really took off that first launch, but we tried to make the game come in unique packaging and be a little different from what was already out there.

Hey! It's you! The game creator of Bristol! That is when I backed your project. I did skip Deadwood and Tortuga when they came out, but got the full line when I got Bristol. Is that your voice in the Kickstarter videos?

Hey! It's me! Thanks for backing us! Typically I hire voice actors from Fiverr.com for our videos :)

If nothing else I love the book box idea. Makes putting them away very easy. I assume (I hope) these games have replayability, or are they one and done?

Thanks! I think the book boxes make the games feel a little more "immersive" like you're diving into the pages of history, and perhaps get people to treat them a little better on a book shelf instead of a game closet haha.

And yes, these are replayable board games, not like a murder mystery where it is one and done.

Best thing about the book theme is I know exactly which games I own that are made by your company.

True :) We'd love to come up with some other "bookish" accessories like book ends or book sleeves or something as well.

What made you pick Kickstarter over trying to use a main Boardgaming company?

Good question! We are our own company, so when we make a game we have the option to publish it under our own name (Facade Games) or sell it to a bigger company for royalties. We choose to publish ourselves because of the control and profits and the community we have.

Kickstarter is great for raising capital to pay for large print runs (we usually don't have $200k sitting around in liquid form to make a big order like that). It is also invaluable for marketing (getting the word out about the game), generating feedback (so we can make changes before we actually publish), and for just having a great launch platform. There are companies WAY bigger than us that use Kickstarter for all their launches for the reasons listed above.

11h late to the party but in the off chance it’s seen I just want to say I absolutely love the design of your game boxes- making them look like a book. I keep wanting to find replacements for all of our old classics that look that way but have only found a few (monopoly, risk, one or two others I think). I wish more games came with that look.

Thank you very much!

I also wanted to say I've been backing you guys since Tortuga came out on Kickstarter and have to say my gaming group loves every single one of your games so far and I can't wait to get my hands on Hollywood 1947. You are one of only 2.board game Kickstarter developers that are an instaback for me.

Thank you so much, we have so much fun making these! Hope you guys love Hollywood!

What are your profits like? And can you break down the costs?

Around half of our revenue goes towards manufacturing the game, shipping the game (across the ocean in boats, and to individuals through the mail), and other overhead (like working with an accountant, managing our website, paying cuts to distributors and retailers). The other half goes towards our living expenses (since this is our full time job) and towards development of new games (paying for art, prototypes, etc). Margins also differ based on where we sell the games. For example, we keep the most money per sale from our website sales, then Amazon sales, then distribution sales since the more middlemen there are to the final customer, the more people are going to take a cut.

How are your returns on Amazon?

We use Amazon FBA, so basically we ship pallets at a time into Amazon and then they handle the shipments to individual customers. This is basically a must these days since people expect the prime 2-day shipping stuff. After their referral and fulfillment fees we keep about 60% of what we sell it for.

What percent use your website compared to amazon and do you charge more on amazon?

We charge the same price on each. I'd say comparing the two 90% of those online sales come through Amazon. People are just really in the habit of getting everything on Amazon these days.

I that sentiment is gradually changing. As someone who canceled Amazon long ago, I much prefer buying from the source. Amazon Prime is over-priced and two-day delivering is non-existent but I can only speak for myself on the last part.

I would agree with you there on the shift of Amazon attitudes. One of our goals this year is to do a better job at getting more people towards our website.

Is there a particular reason to sell at the same price? Would it not seriously profit you to incentivize direct purchases with a discount?

We could discount the prices on our website, but there are two main issues with that. One, at that point we'd make more from Amazon sales anyways once you factor in the shipping costs, and two, it's kind of a political thing with distributors and retailers who sell our games. If we're telling them that they need to sell a game in their store at $25 MSRP but we're selling on our website for $19 they don't love how that looks and are less inclined to work with us. Pricing is a tricky thing to nail down. I think the way forward on our website is to do more things like free shipping with x dollars in the cart and special sales/promos that keep the price at MSRP but give people a potential discount at checkout.

Have you looked at how Stonemaier does it with Stonemaier Champion? They offer an annual membership (at a reasonable fee) that gives a 20% discount on their webstore and advanced delivery on preorders. They also produce blog content, though I don’t know how much of a driver that is for the subscriptions. It sounds like that might be a way to thread the needle with leaving MSRP as is and incentivizing direct purchases.

Stonemaier is just a machine haha! They do things really well and pump out a lot of great content for the board game world. I'm not too familiar with Stonemaier Champion, but you have me intrigued and I'll investigate further. Since we just release one game a year I don't think it would quite work for us, but I'm sure there are things to be learned.

50% on manufacturing. Rip ever wholesaling your product!

Not 50% on manufacturing. 50% on "manufacturing the game, shipping the game (across the ocean in boats, and to individuals through the mail), and other overhead (like working with an accountant, managing our website, paying cuts to distributors and retailers)" and other marketing costs. We wholesale the product to distributors who have our games in hundreds of game stores + Barnes and Noble.

You've been tasked with creating a board game based on a Reddit AMA. What are the rules and win conditions?

Haha this is officially my favorite question so far and now I'm going to be thinking about this the rest of the day.

Win conditions has to be most upvotes is the winner, right? Could be an apples to apples type of deal where there are different questions asked and the best responses get upvotes. Trolls everywhere trying to throw in curveballs and twist the responses!

There was one famous AMA where the responder didn't reply to the questions in their threads, instead replied directly to the root post (basically imagine a pile of random answers without any context).

The redditors then started replying to each answer, coming up with what the question was, adding nex context to them, it was hilarious.

Could be made in some sort of cards against humanity - link shuffled comments/replies together for the funniest result.

I'll take cash or equity, either is fine, thanks

Haha YES very cool. Really though, Reddit the board game would be incredible.

Mod vs Users

Short game, like Love letter's duration. Think of it like the game Mastermind, but with a set of "sub rules" instead of colored pips.

• The Mod sets 3-5 hidden rules for the sub from a pool of 20 or so (could be random for faster round, or chosen for a more tailored Sub)
  • Boring examples off the top of my head:
    • No swearing
    • No NSFW
    • No Photos
    • No Amazon Links
    • No Witchhunting
    • No advertising
    • No Links in Comments
    • No Selfies
    • No Reposts
  • One Rule broken gets your post/comment deleted (users cannot look at this post/comment after it is deleted)
  • Three Rules broken in a round and you are banned
  • One rule each round is an instant ban rule.
• Users are dealt 2 title cards and 5 content cards (flair would be little tokens and no piece limited)
• The Users try to make a posts and comments without it getting deleted or banned from the sub by the Mod. (Posts are worth 3 points if they get past the mod, comments are worth 1)
  • Each User Makes a post by combining a title, comment and flair (this reaches into apples to apples a bit) Some more quick ideas
    • Post Title "Look at this thing I made!"
    • Post Title "Meme"
    • Post Title "Am I the Only one?
    • Post Content "Selfie"
    • Post Content "Dick/Clit Pic"
    • Post Content "GIANT WALL OF TEXT"
    • Post Content "...title"
    • Post Content "ITT Before..."
    • Flair NSFW
    • Flair Ad
  • The Mod checks the posts and deletes any that break the rules.
    • No reason is given.
    • Mod gets 3 points for each post removed.
    • 1 point for each comment
  • Users then can pick a post to comment on, make another post, or Flush (Fold) the toilet and go back to work
  • If a user uses all of their cards, they may draw back up to 2 titles and 3 comments.
  • The round ends when Users have Flushed or been banned
  • The Mod rule set rotates to the next user and a new round starts.

I think that was a good use of my last 20mins in the office!

Well done my friend!!

$3M in sales is… $300K net over 7 years? Do you both also work full time?

We both make games full time and have no other outside income. The net is about half the revenue after all the costs of manufacturing/shipping/advertising/distributing.

So $1.5 mil over 7 years or just over $200k/year. Not a bad household income for being able to make passion projects with your wife.

Also presumably as your catalogue grows that number will slowly tick up over time.

Well done.

Nice math :) Yes, that's about right. And you said it, it's the ability to make things we love together on an ongoing basis that is really what makes it great. And yes, the "passive income" of our existing games continues to grow as we release more. Thank you!

Do you have a weekly game night with friends to test concepts? :)

We do, yes! We try to have a regular night where a group of 4-8 come over and test out our latest games and eat cookies. Some of the early stage games are VERY bad as we work out the kinks, and we do everything we can to encourage the playtesters to be VERY critical. We essentially ask them to break the game as much as they can.

Hey man, just throwing this out there: I'm really Fucking good at eating cookies.

You're hired!

Have you watched the playthrough No Rolls Barred did of your new game? Hugely entertaining watch. It’s like you made the game for them specifically.

Oh my gosh yes! Those guys are hilarious. We've watched the Bristol 1350 playthrough and the Hollywood 1947 playthrough and just died each time. Love them!

Where do you get your games manufactured, and how did you first research that when making your first game?

I went to a local game convention and talked to game makers who were a few years ahead of me. The community is super helpful in pointing new creators in the right directions in terms of manufacturing, logistics, etc. I always tell people that the game community is so helpful because if someone buys my "competitor’s" game, they are actually then more likely to buy my game. Games turn people into "gamers" and then they buy more and more games :)

Ben Wyatt is that you?

If I had a dollar for every time someone compared me to Ben Wyatt, then I would have significantly more dollars. But honestly the comparison is fair. I think about how to make the next “Cones of Dunshire” on a daily basis, I married a girl from Indiana, and I even made one of our early Kickstarter videos using stop motion and compared it to Avatar.

How do you and your wife set boundaries / compartmentalize conflicts between work and life?

Anytime we're outside of work hours (usually after 4pm on weekdays) we have to ask each other permission to bring up anything board game related! Usually my wife says no haha :) We also each have offices in our house and try to keep all work discussion in those rooms.

Now I just imagine the following scenario:

7:00pm - During movie night, husband slowly gets up and goes into office

Husband: "Wife, can you come here real quick?"

Wife (confused, gets up and goes into office): "What's up?"

Husband: "Hey, now that you're here I have this idea..."

Haha yes! Sometimes I have to get creative about the traps I set to bring up a game idea!

Every AMA is just marketing, right?

I think most AMAs do line up with the launch of a book or a show or a game or a whatever. For sure! But I think the AMAs that do best are the ones that include honest and helpful responses regardless of the timing. For some reference, I've been typing answers pretty much non-stop for the last 3 hours and plan on doing so for the next several as well. It's a lot of work, and I hope it's interesting to the readers!

Hello! Are your family and friends the go to testers for when you guys come up with a new board game, or does it have to be secret before being released? Congrats on your success so far!

Hello, and thank you! We use all kinds of testers. Lots of friends, family, neighbors, and local board game groups. We also send print and plays to remote groups as well. We have never worried too much about secrecy when coming up with the rules and we've never had issues with it. The value of a game is not in the idea, but rather in the execution, and someone who would steal a game idea is going to have about zero chance of executing it successfully with the art, theme, fine-tuned tweaks, marketing, etc. We've been pretty trusting as a company and have assumed people to be good, and so far that has proved true!

Wow I would love to be able to test your games/your most recent Hollywood. My group has recorded beta tests for boardgames sent from Amazon and cards against humanity new releases. Looking forward to the release of Hollywood!

Cool! Yeah we can add you guys to our virtual list. Contact us through https://facadegames.com/pages/contact-us

Are you Bored yet?😉

Haha, not in the least :) Making games is basically like making a whole new world. There are so many creative and logistical challenges to overcome and it's just really exciting to me. If you told 10-year old me he would get to invent games his whole life he would have signed up immediately!

To add to the first question- have you noticed a marked dip in desire to play games you used to love before? (Now that this is your job more than just a hobby)

Definitely a dip! But it's not from desire to play them as much as it is TIME to play them. Any time we have groups over to play games we need to be testing out the games we're working on since so much testing is required to get them just right. Wish I had the chance to play more other cool games that come out! So many good ones right now.

Living the dream my friend! ✌️

Living the dream indeed! :)

How much time do you allocate daily? Weekly? Into your work and how do you balance your work life balance?

Good question! We've played with lots of different schedules, but it's ended up looking fairly "9-5" in the end. Usually one of us (me or my wife) works during that time while the other watches the kids and holds down the fort. We're able to "clock off" around 5 each day and weekends and get everything done that we need to for creating and publishing the games.

Since we work together we try not to let work bleed too much into life outside of work.

How did you start out? Like how did you manage to make the first 1000 sales? What was the most important lesson?

We made that first game mostly for fun. Basically we made a game that we wanted to play ourselves. My wife has a design-mind and we found an illustrator to draw the images and together we made it look good. We launched that first game on Kickstarter. It looks pretty rough now, haha, but here is that link of our first one: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/travishancock/salem-a-strategic-card-game-of-deception-for-4-12

Most important lesson is to just take a shot! Who knows what will work so always take the shot.

What a coincidence, i played this for the first time last night, never heard of it before. It was fun!

Wow small world! Glad you enjoyed it!

Congrats on your success! I have an idea for a product, but have no idea on where to start. Can you give some advice?

Thank you! I know it's not a perfect cross-over but here are some of the steps we take when publishing a board game: https://facadegames.com/blogs/news/how-to-publish-a-board-game

Perhaps you can read over that and identify where you are in the process. Early on I'd say testing is super important. Make a prototype and get it in front of people and then keep updating the prototype and narrowing in on what people are really loving and using.

What is your marketing strategy like? Since you use Kickstarter, how do you get people to be aware of your game that needs funding?

For advertising for our Kickstarter launches (and for ongoing advertising for our existing games) we do lots of things: email our past customers and our email list, run facebook ads, instagram ads, ads on boardgamegeek.com, social posts, make TikTok videos, reach out to YouTubers and bloggers to make content about our games, etc. However, most traffic and sales comes from word of mouth and people’s friends enjoying the games and then buying it themselves. Focus on making a great product and a lot of the marketing will take care of itself.

Also another note on the content creators. The board industry is really nice in that there are thousands of youtubers/bloggers/tiktokers who play games and then post pictures/reviews/videos all about them. So again going back to my last point - if you make something cool a lot of those creators will then do a lot of the marketing work for you.

How did you live while starting up? Certainly you couldn't have made enough money to uphold a house, kids, and basic living needs while being temporarily unemployed?

We didn't leave the jobs until the first game launched and raised $100k. This gave us a cushion to pursue it further and start work on the second.

I love your games and have them blending in on my bookshelf getting more love than the books around them. I backed Hollywood and added on Deadwood, since that's missing from my collection. The year is 2156 and your great-great-great-great grandchildren are running the business, what 20XX game are they making?

Awesome, glad to hear you're enjoying our games! Thank you!

And I really love that question. I mean something with Covid 2020 certainly seems like it would be covered at that point, and would probably be enough in the rear-view mirror of the 2156'ers. Climate change would also be a great cooperative game, depending on how it all shakes out and how the 2156'ers feel towards us at that point haha!

Just be careful since Forbidden Island already claimed the seas are rising and humanity is disappearing into the water!

True! I wonder how the internet and social media will be viewed at that point as well. Like maybe humanity will have moved on to something else and it will just be an interesting side note of history that someone would make a board game about.

HA! That's hilarious. I have a copy of Tortuga sitting on my shelf that has yet to be played since I got it in what... 2017?

It's time.

I am miserable in my life currently.

Can I come work for you as an artist? I will work hard.

We're always looking at artists and keeping tabs for the future! Do you have a portfolio or link you can send over showing your work?

You mentioned that you got lucky on your first Kickstarter, but I imagine it was a lot more than luck!

By that, do you mean that you got a lot of organic Kickstarter backers right from the start? Did you also bring a big audience to Kickstarter with you? And finally did you do some paid ads too?

By the luck thing, yes for that first one it seemed like we did get a lot of organic Kickstarter backers who saw the game in their feed and got our momentum going. For that first one we had ZERO email list besides some friends and family. That being said, it's better to go in with some emails and hype behind it.

For our campaigns now we do use a fair amount of FB/Insta/Tiktok ads to help keep it moving, and of course we reach out to all of our past backers and email list.

Here are some other Kickstarter ideas we wrote down: https://facadegames.com/blogs/news/our-advice-to-fellow-kickstarter-creators

How often do you reconsider your budget? I’m wondering how a business would strategize using income generated data and what strategies they’d implement for effectively utilizing materials.

We try to always have a good handle on what our margins are and know off-hand how much each unit is costing us to make and ship and sell. We don't really "budget" for the year necessarily, but try to always have a handle on what we're spending and bringing in.

Do you feel Kickstarter really has that in-built audience that it promises to have? Platforms are notorious for promising an in-built, easily accessible audience and then still requiring lots of self promo to actually gain an audience.

How much of that Kickstarter audience ended up following you elsewhere? (E.g. social media/newsletter)

Good question. Our current Kickstarter dashboard says that 56% pledged via Kickstarter and the rest from outside sources. It will depend on the project for sure, but I think more and more you have to bring your own audience to the platform.

Hey. As a dad, I'm sure you meant bored games. Right? Right? I mean that was a funny one you have to admit. Come on. Just say it.

That was good, I admit! #dadjokes

How did your work peers react when you quit and how was the period leading to this decision for you, emotionally?

They were very supportive and excited for the opportunity we had in front of us. I'm an eternal optimist so I honestly didn't pay too much attention to the risk involved. I saved that worrying for my wife, who is an eternal realist :) We balance each other out pretty well.

So what was your inspiration to make the cones of dunshire?

Leslie is my inspiration for everything.

What do you do for health insurance?

We work with an agent who grouped us with other small businesses in the local chamber of commerce. That helps us get group rates and access to lots of plan options. So perhaps reaching out to a local chamber would be a good place to start!

Do you identify yourself with Mickey Aldrin?

Mickey Aldrin

More of a Ben Wyatt kind of guy ;)

Whenever we do an AMA like this it's always Lily's Mom (How I Met Your Mother) or Ben Wyatt (Parks and Rec)! Haha!

How much of a niche is board games?

I haven’t played in forever

There has definitely been a resurgence in the last decade or so. People used to think of Monopoly or Clue or Life when they thought of board games, but that is really changing with the invention of games like Settlers of Catan and Dominion and Ticket to Ride and Pandemic. More and more these "new" board games are becoming mainstream.

Have you found that digital versions of your game existing (like Tabletop Simulator for example) negatively affect your bottom line?

I don't have great numbers or analysis on that, but my gut says that it actually helps our bottom line. It helps get the word out about our games and gives people a chance to try them out. If they really like one of our games they'll usually go out and buy the real thing. We also do make some money on the Tabletop Simulator sales of official versions of our games. So overall I'm fine with the trend!

Which game are you most proud of?

Do you want your games to become more complex and "bigger" in the future or do you feel most comfortable with games you're making now (haven't seen them yet so I don't know how complex they are now)

Great question! It's so hard to pick. I think I'm most proud of how Bristol 1350 came together with the theme, mechanics, art, and components. That being said, I think our new one, Hollywood 1947, may give it a run for its money. I think we really figured out how to keep it super simple but compelling. But really I love all of the games we've made! We put a lot of love and thought into each of them and are always so proud to send them out into the world.

You are correct that our current games are fairly simple and straightforward. We'll keep most of our games in this category since it fits our goals as game designers (keeping it accessible and easy to learn but full of interesting decisions). However, I'd love to release a BIG game in the future that has some role-playing aspects to it. Something really in depth with lots of ways to expand the world of it.

How much does the government take from you every year?

You'll have to ask my accountant, but on years with big game launches it ain't pretty!

Having been the recipient of two failed kickstarter projects, do you ever think of using a different medium? Why did you or do you still use them as financial support instead of a different format?

Kickstarter is great for raising capital to pay for large print runs (we usually don't have $200k sitting around in liquid form to make a big order like that). The larger print runs also bring the cost/unit way down which really helps margins. The Kickstarter campaign itself is also invaluable for marketing (getting the word out about the game), generating feedback (so we can make changes before we actually publish), and for just having a great launch platform that gets people excited for whatever reason. Even as we grow we'll probably keep launching with Kickstarter (or another crowdfunding platform that comes along) for those reasons.

Two questions:

How did Topic Name + Year become your naming convention for games and will you ever come out with a game called Airport 1975?

I am so bad at naming things, that this system has just really made my life easier :) Most of our games are part of The Dark Cities Series that each focus on a city and year.

Probably no on the Airport 1975 (I've never seen it) but never say never!

Do you guys have any formal background in game design or game theory or anything like that, or are you longtime gamers who have been able to sort of "reverse engineer" the games to determine what components you need to make your own games?

No formal background in game design or game theory (my degree was in business and film, and my wife's in elementary education). I played a LOT of games growing up and game into game design basically just trying to make the perfect game for me that fixed any flaws I saw in other ones. In terms of components, we've found that if you can think something up then there is probably a factory out there that can make it. So we've tried to get creative with what we include in the box and make sure it looks good and also has a strong functional purpose in each game.

Congratulations. Board games are an extremely tough business to succeed in.

I had a business partner who made his fame and fortune (and kind of lost it again) in board games. It’s a tough game.

I would say the smart and important thing is to diversify; I don’t think endless growth is sustainable, and board games are durable - they last forever. I am impressed by you getting six games out there. Perhaps online sales models and Kickstarter are the game changers. The big monolithic game companies can be brutal.

So, what are your plans for the future?

Thank you! Our games have mostly been part of the same series of games, which has helped give them a longer life selling each other.

We plan to continue building out our current series (The Dark Cities Series) to 12 games, build out our smaller party line of games to 7 games, and release one BIG role-playing type of game. Makes for an even 20!

Aside from your newest game, what are the names of your other ones?

Salem 1692

Tortuga 1667

Deadwood 1876

Bristol 1350

Hollywood 1947

Trophies

This seems like the golden age of board games in the U.S. When I go to Mega Gaming & Comics in Gainesville, Florida, there are hundreds of games on the shelves and new ones coming out constantly.

Do you have concerns that it's hard for a new game to stand out and sell for a long time when there's so much competition?

You are 100% right on that. There are really so many that come out each year, and the hobby is really huge right now. We were lucky to get a foothold in the door when we started and each game we release is part of a "series", so the old ones help to get eyes on the new ones.

But yes, for new games it is really hard to stand out among the crowd. You really have to get innovative in how you package the game and how the game plays. And it is now a must for the game to have REALLY good art and design or else people won't even give it a glance.

How do you make sure you dont accidently take someone's idea?

Good question! There are so many games out there that there tends to be a lot of overlap in ideas and game mechanics. However, how it all comes together with the nuances, the presentation, the nitty gritty rules and details, etc is where the value lies. If a game is too similar to an existing game it will usually get called out as such and often won't succeed, so in those ways it all sort of regulates itself.

Do you think that at some time there will be no new interesting inspirations on new games and mechanics? Are you afraid that at some point you will feel pressure to put out not innovative games? I am working in a creative sector as a side gig and lack of inspiration for new things is my biggest fear.

Good question! I think that games, a lot like songs, movies, and art, will not run out of new ideas. It's such an open-ended thing. You're essentially building a world with its own rules, backstory, look, etc that it could really go an infinite number of places. I think even old themes (such as pirates, cowboys, etc) can be given new spins or be put in new game formats to stay fresh.

Do you ever worry that people will stop buying board games cause of how much more video games and other forms of entertainment are preferred compared to the classic bored games?

Board games have actually carved out a pretty good chunk of die-hards that aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Based on what we've seen so far about where it's going, we aren't worried. Board games and video games can coexist pretty well :)

This is awesome! What recommendations/guidance can you give to a solo artist designing Tarot decks? I’d like to get them professionally manufactured/distributed but don’t know where to start.

Congrats, that's exciting! We lay out a bunch of tips for fellow publishers here: https://facadegames.com/blogs/news/how-to-publish-a-board-game

What were the steps you took to get retail distribution?

We did some research and went to game conventions to find a key distributor we wanted to work with. We emailed/called/met with them and they basically told us to make 2-3 successful games and then talk to them. So we worked hard on making our early games good, and that got us in the door with them. They now handle most of the logistics and sales involved in selling our games to the individual stores out there.

How do you come up with board game concepts? Are they all original ideas? Or are they more so new takes/spin on previous games?

Great question! We base a lot of our games around a "dark city" from history. We learn as much as we can about an event that took place and then try to figure out how to build a game around it. Other ideas start from certain game mechanics that we think would be interesting to try out, or pieces of other games that we thought worked really well. Really the seed for any game can start from anywhere - a book, a movie, a poem, an event, another game, an economics text book.

Do you need a graphic artist? My son just finished school and is interested in doing graphic work for board games. Here’s his FB profile

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088792815054

Thanks for sending along! We'll keep him in mind!

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There are many board game publishing communities on facebook. You could post your art in groups like that. You could also identify existing games that match your art style and reach out to the publishers of those games to see what they are currently working on and see if you could join up.

Can you spare a man a dime?

I'll spare you a dime quote!

"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore" - Yogi Berra

Travis,

Would you rather fight 100 duck sized Jason Weidmans, or 1 John Myers sized horse? Thanks, Ill hang up and listen to the answer.

I'd challenge each of the 100 duck sized Jason Weidmans to pickleball so that I could finally beat him in something, even if it had to be in duck form. Excellent question!