0:00

What's up, my friends, and welcome to the board

0:02

game design lab. Today, we're talking about

0:04

how to make a living in the board game

0:06

space in the industry, how to go pro,

0:09

but how to do it by doing more than just game

0:11

design. I feel like in the world we live

0:14

in at the moment, if you're only going to design

0:16

games and then pitch those to publishers, it's going to be very,

0:19

very difficult, very challenging to

0:21

make a full time living, especially

0:23

if you have kids and a spouse and hobbies

0:26

and a mortgage and things like that. And so what does it

0:28

look like to diversify your opportunities

0:31

to do some game design, maybe do some publishing,

0:34

maybe do some consulting and development work?

0:36

Like what are the different angles you can come

0:38

at it? Maybe maybe other creative things, writing

0:40

books, courses, different things like that. And

0:43

so I'm talking to Joe Slack, and

0:45

he's a guy that's been doing a lot of those things. He and I both

0:48

have been doing our best to

0:50

diversify our income

0:52

through different board game means,

0:54

whether it's writing or creating other

0:56

things that aren't just games or getting into publishing, crowdfunding,

0:59

things like that. And so we just chat about all the different

1:02

angles, the different pros and cons of the things

1:04

that he's done and I've done, things that have worked, things

1:06

that didn't and just different angles,

1:08

different, different ideas that hopefully you can take

1:10

if you want to do this full time. If you want to go pro

1:14

in doing this. And if you're also realizing

1:16

that you're going to have to design like five or six games

1:18

that are hits every year, if you're going to make any

1:20

kind of real full time income off this,

1:22

then how else can you do it? And so

1:25

hopefully this will provide you some ideas.

1:27

In other news, this episode is sponsored by

1:29

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1:31

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1:55

other news, this episode is sponsored by crowdfunding

1:57

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1:59

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2:02

projects and helped raise nearly $15 million. But

2:06

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2:23

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and fill out a contact form today. And

2:35

now, please help me welcome Joe Slank.

2:48

So Joe, really excited to have you on the show. You

2:50

and I have kind of a very similar path in

2:52

a lot of ways throughout this whole game

2:54

design, game industry journey

2:57

in that I think we both realized early on

3:00

that the best way to make a living doing

3:02

this was to not just design

3:04

games, but was to diversify

3:07

our portfolio of skills, so to speak,

3:09

of diving into different things. I know you've taught

3:12

at university, you've taught game design, you've done

3:15

conferences and events, you've done

3:17

development work, you've done coaching and consulting, you've got

3:19

courses. Like you've done a lot of different things

3:21

and I'm in the same boat, man. So

3:24

I was like, okay, how do we have like 12

3:26

different streams of income to

3:28

then cobble together a living, a full-time

3:31

living where I can pay all my bills and have food

3:33

on the table and my kids can get to go

3:35

on vacation every now and then? And so, first

3:37

of all, before we get into kind of like the specifics,

3:40

the what have you done and I done and pros

3:42

and cons, tell me why. Like

3:44

from the beginning, what was kind of the bigger picture vision

3:47

to take on this almost hybrid approach

3:50

of these different methods, these different

3:52

kind of categories of things still

3:54

in the gaming hobby. Kind of tell me your mental

3:57

thought process and then we'll dive into kind of

3:59

the nuts

3:59

Sure, yeah. So I've been working in the healthcare

4:02

world for about 17 years, and I really

4:04

needed a change. And I've been

4:06

working on designing board games on

4:09

my spare time, and was really, really loving

4:12

it and making some traction there getting really close to

4:14

starting to get some games signed and, you know, talking

4:16

to my wife about, you know, what about making this transition?

4:19

And could this be a possibility? And

4:21

we, you know, took all the steps we needed to

4:24

get ourselves financially secure and everything. So we

4:26

do that because we knew going in, you know,

4:29

games, they take a while to pay off. Even

4:31

if you do get one signed, it can be years before

4:34

it actually comes out, and then even longer

4:36

before you get paid for it. So I knew

4:38

as well that there would have to be other

4:41

approaches, other things to do. And I've always kind

4:43

of taken the approach of whatever I learn,

4:45

I want to share with other people, I want to be able to help

4:47

other people in doing that as well. So

4:50

in learning game design, I also

4:52

wanted to show other people how they could design

4:54

games and get ahead much faster than I did. Like it took

4:56

me years, you know, to get, you know, my

4:58

first game out there and to

5:01

make something of it. So that's why I wrote my

5:03

first book, The Board Game Designer's Guide. And

5:06

I did that before I quit and gone full time.

5:08

And that kind of gave me the idea

5:10

that I can not only design

5:13

games, but also help others as well. And there's probably

5:15

a lot of different ways to do that through writing

5:17

books, like I had started, through

5:20

teaching a course, through consulting

5:22

through, you know, through so many different

5:24

methods, some that I hadn't even discovered yet. But

5:27

I thought that, you know, it'd be good idea to really

5:29

dive into that and see what other options were out

5:32

there besides just designing games, because it was

5:34

I knew it wasn't going to be completely

5:36

reliable as a source of income. Yeah,

5:39

absolutely. And it also it taps into something I've talked about

5:41

on the show in the past, I think you're, you're

5:43

right in line with this as well. It's I

5:45

don't do this to make money. I make money

5:47

so that I can do this, right? I'm not

5:50

doing all these podcasts and all this

5:52

information and resources and putting all this about into

5:54

the world. Because you know, I'm trying

5:56

to drive a Lamborghini or like anything

5:58

like that. It's it's Deeper than that

6:01

just trying to help people like you're saying trying to help people

6:03

get the lessons without the scars Right.

6:05

So if I can help someone not fall into the same holes

6:08

and traps that I fell into then then

6:10

that's definitely success That's definitely win, but

6:13

but also realizing you still have to pay bills, right?

6:15

And what does that look like

6:17

for you and your own personal situation?

6:21

We know for me I was living in Honduras where

6:23

the cost of living is very very Very

6:25

much lower than it is in the United States or Canada

6:28

and other parts of the world. So that was kind of helpful Also,

6:31

I had another job. I had actually two

6:33

full-time jobs that were seasonal,

6:36

right? So one was during the summer full-time the other one's during

6:38

the school year full-time And so the

6:40

whole gaming game design gaming industry

6:42

stuff I could do Part-time

6:45

ish, although it really just became another full-time

6:47

job. It was just kind of how it goes

6:50

But what are people willing to sacrifice?

6:52

So talk to me about that You had it you had a job in

6:54

the health care field which a lot of jobs

6:56

pay fairly well They you know,

6:58

they're not

6:59

minimal wage or anything So tell me some of the things

7:01

you had to think through talk about

7:03

with your wife sacrifice kind

7:05

of figure out especially early on and Just

7:09

any kind of anything you learned from that that other people

7:11

can take away Absolutely, and you really hit the nail

7:13

on the head there We're really doing this because of our passion because

7:15

we love working on board games not to make money I

7:17

mean, I don't think anybody jumps into

7:20

it thinking they're gonna make a ton of money You don't see a lot of

7:22

people coming into their NBA program saying I'm gonna

7:24

be a board game designer or a run a publishing Company

7:26

because that's a easy way to lose a lot of money very

7:28

quickly if you don't know what you're doing So

7:30

when I was working in the health care world, I was working in Analytics

7:34

and business intelligence. I'm a numbers I'm

7:36

a math guy and I worked my way up to

7:38

becoming a manager there and I was making

7:41

six-figure salary But I wasn't happy with

7:43

what I was doing and I really you know

7:45

It's at that point in my life where I was like I need to change

7:48

it Happiness to me is more important than

7:50

making a ton of money I need to have enough to get buy-on

7:53

But I don't need to necessarily earn

7:55

as much as I'm earning now to still have

7:57

a very happy and content life So

8:00

that was one of the biggest sacrifices was going down

8:02

from a six figure salary to you

8:05

know, zero, essentially at the start.

8:07

And then, you know, working my way back up through getting

8:10

some games signed, selling books

8:12

and, and starting my courses

8:14

and things like that. But it was quite

8:17

a transition. And I was very fortunate because

8:19

I put in my notice and they gave them lots of notice that

8:21

I wanted a lot of time to transition. And

8:24

at that same time, a friend

8:26

of mine reached out and said, Hey, Laurier

8:28

University is looking for somebody to

8:30

run their first year course for game

8:33

design and development. And I had heard about the program

8:35

and I knew Scott Nicholson, who was running it

8:37

and heard a lot of great things about it. And I said, Oh,

8:39

is this is this for me? Is this something that I could actually

8:41

do? I looked at the application and sure

8:44

enough, like I felt like I was very

8:46

well qualified and I was already interested

8:48

in teaching other people about game design. So I

8:50

applied and I got the position. It

8:52

was only a like a four

8:55

month maternity

8:57

leave coverage type of thing. But it was it was a great

8:59

opportunity to kind of get in there, get my

9:02

feet wet. I saw a little bit of income coming

9:04

in from there and do game design on the side.

9:06

So I was kind of like doing almost like half and half

9:09

teaching and doing that. So I already

9:11

started kind of with a bit of a hybrid approach before

9:13

I went kind of more full time in with

9:16

with the games and design games. But

9:18

yeah, definitely there was a lot of sacrifices, as

9:21

I'm sure you've experienced as well. I'm earning

9:23

less money, you know,

9:25

not having as much stability, not knowing exactly

9:28

how much is coming in on that next paycheck and

9:31

and that type of thing. So you need to really, before

9:33

you make a transition like that, have, you

9:36

know, money in the bank and have a plan

9:39

so that, you know, if you do have a couple of lean months

9:41

or whatnot, you're going to be OK. But that's

9:43

where you have to really start thinking about, you know, what are those

9:45

other things that I could do? What am I good

9:48

at? Where can I use my skills to

9:50

to help other people or to find my place in

9:52

the industry? So yeah, there's a lot of sacrifice. But

9:54

at the same time, there are a bunch of huge benefits

9:57

and, you know, maybe they're not quite as measurable

9:59

and tangible. but I am so much happier, you know,

10:02

in the last, you know, five years that I've been doing this

10:04

than I was in the previous, you know, 17 years

10:06

in my previous career. I mean, early on, I really

10:08

enjoyed when I was working in the healthcare industry, but the

10:10

last few years, it was like, just really time for a change.

10:13

So I think just that change that,

10:16

that happiness that I found was, was more

10:18

important than anything else. I love getting up every day

10:20

and working on games and working with other

10:22

game designers and helping other game designers.

10:25

I wake up and I feel energized. And at

10:27

the end of the day, I don't feel like I've

10:29

even been working necessarily. I mean, some

10:31

days are a bit more work than others. But

10:33

a lot of the time, it is just a really

10:36

enjoyable experience. And I love what I'm doing. Yeah.

10:38

What's the old saying, do what you love and you'll never work a day in

10:40

your life, something like that. So all

10:42

right, that makes a lot of sense, especially if you are unhappy

10:45

in a position, you know, money can only

10:47

take you so far, you know, and they've done studies about

10:50

how much money a person needs to make before

10:53

it really doesn't make a difference in their life as

10:55

far as like happiness and deeper kind

10:57

of inner joy and feelings like that. And it's not that much.

10:59

It's like 80 grand or something like it's not

11:01

a ton of money you think be like a millions

11:03

of dollars, but it's not it's really like

11:06

not even quite six figures that it takes for a

11:08

regular average person to just be

11:10

content with how much money they have and being able to pay their

11:12

bills and things like that. So I think that's something to take

11:15

into account. Another thing is so did

11:18

was your spouse working or does she work as well to also

11:20

bring in an

11:21

income? Yeah, my wife's a teacher,

11:23

and she's been teaching for a

11:25

number of years. And luckily, they pay her teachers

11:28

very reasonably here. So we

11:30

were able to get by. So if it was a case where, you

11:32

know, it was lean for a little bit, you know, we'd

11:34

be okay, we had some money in the bank as well.

11:37

So our situation was was pretty

11:39

good, we wouldn't necessarily be going on as many vacations

11:41

and doing as many, you know, fun things

11:44

and going out as much. But you

11:46

know, the happiness was more found in what

11:48

we were doing every day. And then,

11:50

you know, hopefully that would grow. And you know, there's

11:52

always, you know, that plan B, if things

11:54

really don't work out after a few years, you know, I could

11:57

go back to the health care industry. But you know,

11:59

there's also that pressure that I didn't want to,

12:02

I wanted to continue to make games and

12:04

work in this industry more. So that's what really

12:07

pressed me to say, Yeah, I've got to I've got

12:09

to make this work and and you know, try

12:11

a few different approaches. And as long as when you're making

12:13

those choices and trying different things, you're

12:15

not banking on something where

12:17

it's like, if this doesn't work out, everything's gonna

12:20

fall apart. Like I'm putting down everything

12:22

I have into this. It's like, no, you try something,

12:24

it doesn't work out, you move on to the next thing. I think that's

12:27

the best approach to try with this that you're not gonna

12:29

break the bank or have

12:32

to give up your dream because of one

12:34

bad choice. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you do

12:36

have a spouse that's bringing in, you know,

12:38

a decent income, and especially if they have insurance

12:40

that you can you can be covered under. That's another thing that

12:43

really helps. I've got several friends in the industry, and

12:45

their spouses or doctors or lawyers

12:48

or teachers and they have really good

12:50

pay really good benefits. And that allows you a little more flexibility.

12:53

And so I guess what I'm saying is, to anybody listening, Mary

12:55

well, Mary, a great

12:58

person that can help you and support your

13:00

dreams and you support them and you know, not that

13:02

you marry somebody for their money. But you

13:04

know, in the context of this conversation might not be

13:07

the worst thing in the world. But um, no, I'm joking.

13:09

Get back to happiness. But I think one

13:11

thing I want to pull

13:14

out what you just said, you knew

13:16

you could go back. Now I think that's it's nice to

13:18

have that backup plan, whether it's a degree or a

13:20

skill set or some kind of job

13:22

experience where you know, worse

13:24

comes to worse, I can go get a job in the same industry

13:27

or do something similar. That's nice.

13:29

But

13:30

to have that degree of understanding,

13:33

it's almost like knowing what hell looks like, if that

13:35

makes sense. So one thing I did, I used to do this

13:37

with my students, with

13:39

my seniors in high school, it was helping them

13:41

develop a plan for their lives going into college going

13:44

out into the world. And we would go through this series

13:46

of just questions, right? But they were just kind of write things

13:48

down, write responses down. And

13:51

part of that was trying to figure out, okay, what does quote

13:53

unquote heaven look like for you? Like in an ideal

13:56

world, perfect world situation? What

13:58

does that look like for you and your health

14:00

and your relationships and your job opportunities

14:02

and education and with your pair like all the different

14:05

things What does heaven like

14:07

a perfect world look like and then on the opposite

14:09

side? What does hell look like what does

14:11

like the most broken messed up ugliest

14:14

route you could possibly take in life? That's still reasonable,

14:17

right? It's still a plausible

14:19

thing and I would have them write that down too

14:22

And so now we have something to aim at and we

14:24

have something to run from which something

14:26

to run from is very motivational It's

14:28

very very powerful and it actually

14:31

led to some very kind of interesting

14:33

deep sad Conversations sometimes

14:36

like there's one student I had and you know,

14:38

we were chatting about it and he said hell, huh? Okay.

14:40

Well, I really don't want to end up like my dad.

14:42

I was like, oh shoot. Okay. Well, listen. All right

14:45

Let's talk about that And he

14:47

said yeah, you know my dad, you know He cheated on

14:49

my mom and he's gone to working all

14:51

the time and like he just started laying out kind of the all

14:53

the different broken Aspects of

14:55

his father and his father's relationship with him and different

14:57

things And then we started unwinding

15:00

that and saying okay. Well, let's back up because

15:02

your dad didn't wake up one day Working

15:04

a hundred hours a week. He didn't wake up one day and just decide

15:07

I'm gonna see her in your mom Like that doesn't happen. We're humans

15:09

like we it's a slow fate So

15:12

let's walk that back into these baby

15:14

steps of how he ended up there That

15:16

way when you start making any of those baby

15:19

steps, you can recognize it and

15:21

go wait a minute I know where this leads and

15:23

you can turn around and go the other direction So

15:25

in the context of this conversation joe what

15:28

I want people to I want people to do this

15:30

write down

15:32

hell

15:33

So that you know exactly what that looks like Like

15:36

for you, it might look like baby steps of

15:38

you know, i've got to make a certain amount of money Each

15:42

month or over the course of three or six months something

15:44

like that Otherwise i'm going to start taking those steps back

15:46

towards a job that I need to have for

15:48

the money But that I don't want to have for my own Well-being

15:51

and mental health and happiness Right.

15:53

So that way you don't wake up one day six months later and

15:56

they're like, oh shoot I gotta I gotta go back and get this job.

15:58

It's like well, you could have recognized that Every

16:00

baby step along the way right and so I think that's something

16:02

that people can take away from this if you have a dream

16:05

Game design related or whatever doesn't matter

16:08

Really start thinking through what is an ideal

16:10

situation look like? What

16:12

does a what is the most unideal situation

16:15

look like write those things down have something

16:17

to aim at and something to run from? Am

16:19

I making sense joe? Is this how i'm feeling? I'm getting a little

16:21

too existential, but but talk to me.

16:23

Absolutely Yeah, I mean, I think I

16:26

I definitely felt that I felt the the the

16:28

push and the pull There was the push from

16:30

where I was currently working and there was the pull

16:33

of what I really wanted to do And

16:35

of course, you know where I was working was, you know

16:37

paying a lot better had all the benefits and everything But

16:39

like like your situation having

16:42

having a uh a partner who was Working

16:45

had all those benefits and everything there there was

16:47

a little bit more of a cushion Which is really great and

16:49

and you said this before and I'll say the same thing again

16:52

Marrying the right person is is so important. I

16:54

married an amazing woman lisa and

16:57

she's you know made my life wonderful and

17:00

uh, and she's super supportive

17:02

and has allowed me to You know take

17:04

these opportunities to try these different things to

17:07

you know, leave my career for something

17:09

that was uncertain Um, just saying yeah,

17:11

I I trust you. I believe in you um,

17:14

so having that type of person uh behind you

17:16

is really important and then having That

17:18

push and pull of what you want to go towards

17:20

and what you don't want to fall back towards again

17:22

at the same time Is going to be really motivating

17:25

to say? Yeah, I need to make this happen.

17:27

How can I make this happen and and

17:29

taking those steps to get there?

17:31

Yeah, for sure. There's an old story. I think I've told on

17:33

the show before i'll tell it again There was there was

17:35

a guy and his wife this millionaire and his wife and they're

17:37

on a road trip And they stop at a gas station

17:39

to get some gas and the wife goes in You know

17:41

get the snack use the bathroom whatever and then she but

17:43

she's gone for a little while So the husband he finishes

17:46

up, you know gets the gas Pay for it at the pump

17:48

whatever and goes inside and he sees his wife there

17:51

at the counter chatting With the

17:53

uh with the attendant the guy behind the counter and

17:55

it's kind of flirty. It's almost like hey, whoa Hey, hey,

17:57

what are you doing? And so anyway

18:00

He's like, okay, you know says goodbye they

18:02

get back in the car and as they're driving

18:04

the husband's like who is that? and

18:06

the wife says oh that was a that was my boyfriend

18:08

from high school and In

18:11

the millionaire the guy had the husband he says oh, I

18:13

bet you bet you feel good You know bet you're glad

18:15

you married me and not some gas station attendant and

18:18

she said No, I was just sitting there

18:20

thinking if I had married him he'd have become a millionaire Like

18:27

metaphor, I mean but Marrying the right

18:29

person. I don't think I can oversell it I

18:31

mean it just or I just have the right relationships

18:33

Even you're not getting married like just having the right people in your life

18:36

to be supportive to be helpful to be intentional

18:39

to call you Out on your garbage, which is what spouses

18:41

are really good at right had a conversation with my

18:43

wife last night That was it was not fun where

18:46

she looked at me and she's like hey You're

18:48

doing this thing and I'm like no, I'm not yes you are

18:50

I had to step back and go ah crap I am doing this thing.

18:53

I gotta fix this, you know, it wasn't

18:55

nothing. It wasn't anything like life-changing It was just

18:57

some little thing that I was Annoying

19:00

and being you know, I had to be right about it and

19:03

she called me out on it I was like, thank you so much for loving

19:05

me enough to have this conversation. This is not fun and

19:07

I gotta go Wrestle and

19:09

unpack some things but that is the

19:12

beauty of having people in your life that can do that And if you're chasing

19:14

a dream You're gonna have to have that you're

19:16

gonna have to have people that will will help you along the

19:18

way even if they're just cheerleaders even if they're just kind

19:20

of helping you get back up every time you fall down or

19:23

whatever it is, but At

19:25

the same time what's interesting about so

19:27

my story is a little bit different of getting

19:29

into gaming I I had a job at

19:32

two jobs that I really enjoyed I had jobs that

19:34

I loved that was very happy with I Love

19:36

waking up on Monday morning and going to work for

19:38

those jobs But I also loved game

19:41

design and publishing and the board game design lab and all these things

19:43

too And so I was I ran into

19:45

a separate but

19:47

maybe just a challenging conundrum

19:49

of I Need

19:52

I need to pivot but I

19:54

don't want to not because of money But

19:56

because I just enjoy doing the things I'm doing and so I think

19:58

sometimes you run into that as well You just have to make

20:01

a decision but I

20:03

could always go back like the world is there's

20:05

no shortage Oh, there's no there's no

20:07

surplus of missionaries There's no surplus of people

20:09

working with the homeless on the streets and stuff like that Like that's

20:12

the factory that's probably not gonna close And so I can always

20:14

go back to that if I needed to and I can supplement that in different

20:16

ways voluntarily But it's nothing to think about

20:19

it. It's not just of uh, I

20:21

gotta get out of this thing like it could be I Just

20:23

want to do this because it's Different

20:26

right? It's a it's a dream. I want to chase

20:28

it's something I want to try a challenge I want to take

20:30

on start me about that would have been some of the biggest challenges

20:34

We already talked about the money but other challenges you faced

20:36

as you've gotten into Game design

20:38

and teaching and course building and event

20:41

planning all these different things that you're now doing talk

20:43

to me about Challenges you've run into whether

20:45

you're perceived or or you just like oh

20:48

didn't realize I've got to deal with that

20:50

For sure, yeah, I think

20:53

I thought that I would be spending, you know, most of my day

20:55

designing games and Yeah,

20:58

even though, you know, I titled myself as a game designer You

21:01

know, I also decided I was going to start, you

21:03

know publishing games and you know I'm running

21:05

my courses and writing my books and everything else and only

21:08

a very small fraction of my time is actually

21:10

spent on Game design and play testing everything.

21:13

So I thought it would be much more I

21:15

mean, I'm definitely doing more of

21:17

it than I was maybe when I had a full-time

21:20

job But you know, you know

21:22

in like a 40 hour work week or however many hours

21:24

I'm working It's only a small

21:26

number of hours that I'm actually sitting down and

21:28

working on games And and also I didn't

21:30

expect I would be spending so much time in front of a computer

21:33

You'd think that you know as a game designer

21:35

a board game designer in the tabletop space You're

21:38

gonna be sitting at a table playing games over but there's

21:40

so many things with like digital implementations

21:42

of games testing them out online Making

21:45

new files doing all the publishing

21:47

stuff. I'll let you know Kickstarter stuff like so much of

21:49

that stuff's in front of a computer. So those

21:52

were things that I didn't necessarily expect and

21:56

Yeah, I mean and trying different things as well,

21:58

you know early early on I thought,

22:00

oh, what about setting up

22:02

something where it was, like I'd have all these game

22:04

designers come in and they'd have their

22:07

games on print and play. And I could have

22:09

like a membership kind of thing and everybody would join

22:11

in and they'd get like a game every month kind of thing.

22:13

And I kind of threw this idea out to people

22:15

and I had like, you know, two or three people interested.

22:17

And I was like, well, maybe this isn't, you know, big

22:20

enough to really go with. And it would also be a lot of work

22:22

trying to get everybody's games in and evaluate

22:24

them and make sure that they're good. So I said, you know what,

22:27

maybe I'll put that idea on hold and we'll see. And,

22:30

you know, there's been other people who have done something kind

22:32

of similar to that and that have been

22:34

successful. Like you think about Jason

22:36

Tagmeyer from Button Shy Games and he has his, you

22:38

know, games coming out every month and they're available, you know,

22:41

print and play and otherwise and he has, you

22:43

know, members come in and they're getting a

22:45

game every single month. You know, he's made that work, but,

22:47

you know, it's taken him some time. I'm sure he

22:50

didn't start off with, you know, thousands of people joining

22:52

in right off the bat. But sometimes it's

22:54

just a matter of, you know, trying something,

22:56

seeing what works and what doesn't. I've written,

22:59

you know, four books in game design, five of you include

23:01

the second edition of my first book. And, you

23:03

know, my first book has completely outsold

23:07

the last three books by a fair margin.

23:09

So I didn't know, I thought, you know, maybe if I'm writing more

23:11

books, I'm getting more in

23:14

detail on specific topics. Maybe people would be

23:16

interested in that. But, you know, there's interest,

23:18

but not nearly as much as more of a broad

23:20

book about designing games and getting started.

23:22

So, you know, you don't know these things until

23:25

you try. You don't know which games are gonna be the most

23:27

successful. You don't know which books are gonna be the

23:29

most successful, which clients are gonna

23:31

wind up working with the most. Like it's just

23:33

a lot of trial and error, trying

23:36

different things, seeing what works, and then

23:38

just, you know, dialing right in on the

23:40

things that are working, that are being

23:42

beneficial for other people and that you

23:43

enjoy. And then putting aside those other ideas

23:46

and saying, you know, maybe I'll come back to it, or, you know, maybe

23:48

that's not right for me. Yeah, absolutely. It reminds

23:50

me, I had a really good conversation with a group of students

23:53

the other day. They contacted me, part

23:55

of this high school robotics team, they're

23:57

designing board games to understand. robots

24:00

and everything. It's really kind of cool what they're working

24:02

on. And they invited me to come just chat with their kids for

24:04

like an hour and they were asking questions. These, I

24:06

think, seven, eight, nine grade kids. And

24:08

one of the questions they asked was, how do you know which

24:11

games you wanna work on? Cause I talked about how

24:13

games are, you're always full of ideas, but

24:15

it's actually the implementation that really matters.

24:18

They say, well, how do you know which games to work on? And I chuckled

24:20

and I was like, whichever ones I think are gonna actually

24:22

make some money. Right, cause this is a

24:24

business. As much as it's art

24:26

and it's creativity and it's fun, it

24:29

has to sell a certain number of copies

24:31

to make sense. Right, it has to

24:33

be worth all the time and effort and energy

24:36

that goes into it. It has to be worth the investment.

24:38

Right, this is not just a labor

24:41

of love or passion

24:43

project, maybe to a certain degree, but it's also

24:45

an investment that I need a return on that's

24:47

going to justify everything that goes into it. And

24:50

so I think that's something you just have to think about. If

24:52

you're gonna get into this professionally, where

24:55

you wanna do this as full time or part time,

24:58

the decision filter has to change. It

25:00

can't just be, oh, I'm excited about this new idea.

25:03

It has to turn into who's gonna buy this

25:06

and do I have access to that market? And

25:08

am I able to deliver a product for

25:10

this certain group of customers in this demographic

25:13

that is going to make sense financially? And

25:16

sometimes that conversation in your head sucks because

25:19

you have a really cool idea and you're like, this is gonna be

25:21

so much fun and you're really excited about it, but you just,

25:23

you can't make the math

25:24

work. Like it just financially doesn't make sense. And maybe

25:26

you can come back to it later. Yeah, it really does come down

25:28

to the game is gonna be a product. People are

25:30

gonna be buying it like anything else on the store

25:32

shelves or Kickstarter or whatnot.

25:35

So it has to be something that's going to appeal

25:38

to people. It's gotta be something that people

25:40

are actually gonna buy. And some

25:42

games you come up with and the mechanics are great,

25:44

the themes great and everything, but maybe

25:47

that audience is just very, very narrow.

25:49

And you can put it up there and sell

25:51

a couple hundred copies, but maybe your time

25:54

is better spent on this other game that's gonna have

25:56

a much wider audience that

25:58

could have the potential to become something much better. bigger

26:00

and in its heart as a game designer to put

26:02

a game aside especially one you're really really interested

26:05

in or this brand new idea but

26:07

sometimes you just have to say no I mean

26:09

there's there's just not that much of a market for

26:11

this or I can't sell this as

26:13

a product it's just too abstract

26:16

or just not appealing or I like there's

26:18

just no art that's really gonna stand out but

26:20

this other game you know maybe maybe you're

26:22

thinking it's not quite

26:24

as good of a game solid like solidly as

26:27

mechanically but maybe there's

26:29

something about it that you know you're gonna put it there and it has just amazing

26:31

table presence and everybody's asking about it

26:33

and wants wants to try it and maybe you should

26:35

focus on making that the best game they should be yeah

26:38

so much of this comes down to marketing

26:40

how does it look on a table what does

26:42

your look like what what are the margins

26:45

you know if you're designing a $70 family game I don't know that's

26:49

a hard sell right if you're designing

26:51

a $50 really robust miniatures

26:54

game and people are used to paying a hundred like

26:56

oh that's it okay that might be a bit of a hook

26:59

I've seen several companies now doing like the acrylic

27:01

standees which I don't know if those are cheaper

27:03

or more expensive or not but anyway the perception is

27:06

that the game should be cheaper and so they're trying new

27:08

things I think it's nothing is always being willing to

27:10

try something new and to pivot and to put

27:13

something out there into the world knowing

27:15

that there's a really good chance it's going to fail right

27:18

and knowing that it could

27:20

fail just because you didn't do a good job

27:22

like it might even be a good idea that

27:24

somebody else could take it out there and have

27:27

success with but maybe the way you did it was just

27:29

wrong or maybe you didn't have the skill set

27:31

yet or you didn't put enough money into the marketing

27:33

of it like there's so many different factors that

27:36

contribute to failing and succeeding and

27:38

to just be okay with that right and to not

27:41

get your head too big when you do succeed

27:43

and to not get too down you know in the in the

27:46

dumps when you when you fail and just kind of keep

27:48

going and figuring things out because eventually Jason

27:50

Tagmar you know button shy started

27:52

off as a button-making company it's called

27:54

button shy because he made buttons not because he made games

27:56

right and so you know he tried some things

27:59

and got into this whole You know 18 card wallet

28:01

game thing game of the month kind of thing eventually

28:03

and it took off and now that's what he

28:05

does So I think that's nothing is just always being open

28:08

to things failing. But then when things

28:10

do succeed Leaning into it and figure

28:12

it out. Okay, how do I? Maximize

28:14

my ability to to do this. Well, so for

28:17

you you talked about teaching and I

28:19

think it's nothing is Finding ways to

28:22

share your knowledge, right? If you've been designing

28:24

games for two weeks That means you're

28:26

two weeks ahead of someone who just started right?

28:28

So even if you haven't been doing this forever You

28:31

still kind of turn that around and help other people now

28:33

whether or not you can monetize that is a little bit different But tell

28:36

me about other ways that you've kind of found

28:39

as far as revenue streams Tell

28:41

me about your courses. Tell me about any anything

28:43

else as far as like a teaching

28:46

Standpoint that maybe other people could learn from

28:48

I'm not saying everybody listening to this needs to go make an online course Everything

28:51

like that, but there's still ways that you can

28:53

teach game design Locally even

28:55

with you know, go to your local library or different things

28:57

but tell me about that side Absolutely. Yeah, and I've heard

29:00

from a lot of people who are you know, just either reach

29:02

out to me to ask some questions or

29:04

say Oh, I was I was doing this with this with

29:07

this group so a lot of people have been maybe

29:09

invited into a classroom setting

29:11

or a camp or Or

29:14

something else especially around like kids and

29:16

trying to get them interested in game design So if

29:19

you know you are known in your group of friends

29:22

as a game designer and then something

29:24

comes up You know, maybe one of them's a teacher or camp

29:26

counselor or something and they're like, oh, you know What I

29:28

wanted to do like a session on designing

29:30

games with my kids Would you be willing to come in because

29:33

they know you know more than they do about game

29:35

design? So even just you know putting

29:38

it out there and and you know playing your games with friends

29:40

and letting them know this is what you're doing will

29:42

open up those kinds of opportunities and

29:44

then you know, if you really want to get deeper into

29:46

it and you You know did been

29:48

designing games for for a little while then

29:51

you can look into other ways to to teach

29:53

or consult And there's there's various

29:56

ways to do that because you know, there's people that

29:58

are trying to get in starting game

30:00

design and people that are a little more advanced and they're

30:02

trying to, you know, find out how to find

30:05

a publisher. And then there's like Kickstarter and crowdfunding

30:07

and like retail and everything else. So maybe

30:10

it's just you have a specialty or

30:12

skill in one of those areas. Maybe

30:15

you really know how to sell things on Amazon. Then

30:17

maybe you could teach other people about how to get their games

30:19

on Amazon and sell their games or how to sell their games

30:22

in retail. Maybe you know somebody about distribution.

30:25

So it really comes down to kind of what skills you have

30:27

or what you've learned and what you can share. And maybe

30:29

where those gaps are because, you know, at

30:31

the at the time I was teaching at Laurier

30:33

and then I finished up my stint there and I was

30:35

thinking I was even before I'd started at Laurier.

30:38

I was thinking I'd love to be able to teach more people more

30:40

broadly. And one of the things

30:42

I did was I looked to see what else was out

30:44

there and I found a couple of courses on like Udemy

30:46

and elsewhere. But I felt they were really lacking.

30:48

They were just talking about like here's an idea

30:51

for a game and you just go out and do it. But

30:53

it really didn't allow people to take

30:55

their own idea and develop that further and then

30:57

have somewhere to ask questions. And that's something that I really

30:59

implemented in my course and I really wanted to make sure

31:02

was an opportunity for people to ask

31:04

questions about their specific game, the

31:06

struggles that they're having because I didn't really see

31:08

an opportunity to do that. So even if you

31:11

can just be there for other people, even

31:13

in the board game design lab forum on

31:15

Facebook, answering questions, helping

31:17

people out about things that maybe you know that

31:20

other people don't. And you'll get advice

31:22

on on things that you don't know that other people

31:24

may know as well. So I think a lot of it's just getting

31:27

really engaged with the other people that are really interested

31:29

in it, looking for those opportunities

31:31

and helping people out. And I think there's other people that

31:33

have went up going

31:36

on working for publishing companies or doing other things

31:38

in the industry just because they showed that they were really

31:40

helpful. Like I know a few people who have just gone into

31:42

a couple of groups and given some like marketing

31:44

advice and then suddenly everybody's asking them questions

31:47

about this. And then

31:49

they can get so much consulting out of this because

31:52

they've shown that they know what they're doing and

31:54

they're also in the board game space. So if you can kind

31:56

of combine some of those things, then you can be

31:58

seen as an expert.

31:59

or somebody at least that's knowledgeable in these fields

32:02

and then people will actually come to you. Yeah, absolutely.

32:05

I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone go in with

32:07

mentality of serve first and

32:10

then that turns into paying gigs

32:12

down the road. I'm not saying you go in and you just, if

32:14

someone, I guess it's another thing

32:17

as far as like, let's make sure we frame this correctly.

32:19

If someone reaches out to you to consult,

32:23

to do art, graphic design, to share

32:25

your expertise and they want

32:27

you to do it for free, no. If

32:30

you're reaching out to me because you think I have knowledge or

32:32

skill set that you could benefit from, there

32:36

needs to be a transaction of monetary value in

32:38

some way. But if you notice

32:41

online someone needs something and

32:43

you have that expertise, reaching out to

32:45

them and saying, hey, I saw

32:47

you're having this issue. Let me tell you how I

32:49

solved it and point to an example.

32:52

You can't just come in there with theory or something you read in a book, just

32:54

say, hey, this is how I ran my Kickstarter campaign.

32:56

This is what worked really well for me. This

32:59

is what didn't work. This is what I would have done differently. I just want

33:01

to give that information to you and good

33:03

luck on your campaign. Who do you think that

33:05

person's more likely to reach out

33:07

to in the future when they need something? Hey,

33:10

that was a really good example you

33:12

gave. I really appreciate that advice. I'd

33:14

love to bring you on for this new campaign

33:16

that I'm doing. What would you charge

33:18

for consulting or coaching? But serving

33:21

first turns into jobs later.

33:23

If you serve well, if you give really good

33:25

advice and feedback, things like that. I think doing

33:28

that in Facebook is perfect.

33:30

I mean, Board Games is not a lab community. 16,000 people,

33:32

which blows my mind. It continues. It will never not

33:35

blow my mind how big that group is getting. It's crazy. But

33:37

so many opportunities on a daily basis to go in

33:39

there and help people. One, because helping people is

33:42

good anyway and serves your soul. But

33:44

also, if you want to get into things

33:46

from a business standpoint, what a great way

33:48

to do it. It's very just kind

33:50

of non-confrontational. It's not

33:52

like anybody feels weird or

33:54

anything. As long as you're not like, I'll

33:57

give you some advice if you give me money. Don't turn it into spam

33:59

or something like that.

33:59

If you handle it well, I think things

34:02

can work out. Yeah, I think you really have to go

34:04

in with that genuine spirit

34:06

of wanting to help people, wanting

34:10

to give them some kind of benefit and not expecting anything

34:13

in return. Just like

34:15

you said, here's what I learned. This might help

34:17

you to go off and run

34:19

with it. Here's some examples. Maybe

34:23

this will help you down the road. You

34:25

never know where those opportunities will lead to, but you have to go

34:28

in genuinely wanting to help people

34:30

because you're passionate about it. You want them to succeed.

34:32

That's one of the great things about the board game industry

34:35

is it's really not super

34:37

competitive. It's all

34:39

about helping each other out, making the best board games

34:41

out there and getting them out to the world and bringing more

34:43

people into our world. You

34:46

really don't have to worry about that competition and people

34:48

are trying to run all over each other, but we're

34:50

just trying to help each other out to make better games. Yeah, for

34:52

sure. We're not in an industry

34:54

that has to compete, really. It's not like we're selling

34:56

cars. If I run a Ford dealership and you run

34:58

a Honda dealership, we're competing

35:01

over one customer because they're not going to buy both. They're

35:03

going to buy one or the other. In

35:06

gaming, I've never met anyone who bought just one

35:08

board game. It's like eating one

35:10

Pringle. It just doesn't happen. They buy

35:12

one. They have fun with it. They go buy 25 more

35:14

and eventually they have 17 calyxes at their house all

35:17

filled up and then they got to bounce out. Then

35:19

they sell those games to new people coming into the hobby and

35:21

it's all just like, it's a flywheel. One

35:24

thing I want to go back to that you were talking about with your course

35:26

and things like that was that you were looking at gaps

35:29

in the market. You were trying to figure out, okay, here's

35:31

what I'm good at. Here's my skill set, my experience

35:33

level. How can I apply that in

35:35

a way that isn't being applied or

35:37

maybe isn't being applied a lot? Right?

35:40

And so I think that's nothing. Just kind of think outside the box. This podcast

35:43

is an example. I looked around for a podcast

35:45

that I wanted to listen to and couldn't

35:48

really find it. And so I made it myself.

35:51

Never anticipating that it would go 300 and something

35:53

episodes like that. It's crazy. I

35:57

found I couldn't find what I wanted. So I

35:59

did it. So anyone listening to

36:01

this you're trying to get into the industry

36:03

in some way how can you come at it from

36:05

a different angle you know especially if you're coming from a different

36:08

industry that maybe does things in a different way.

36:11

Now maybe there's a reason we don't but maybe maybe

36:13

not maybe there's another. Idea

36:16

for someone to come into it you know with this board

36:18

game design pro project i've been working

36:20

on for a while i didn't want to make a course because

36:22

it already courses. Your course is jay

36:25

corne as course is other courses out there is somebody wants a

36:27

course they can find a course. So i want to do

36:29

something different and so mine's not a

36:31

course it's it's skill sessions and

36:33

different things like that to help people with certain skills

36:35

that are involved in game design and game

36:37

publishing may be publishing maybe the business side.

36:41

But that's not really on the market for

36:43

it's a different thing even though it's kind of similar

36:45

it's still different to them trying to hit a different group of

36:48

people and i think there's plenty of room. For

36:50

everybody because we have so many different angles

36:52

we can come into because really the gaming

36:54

space is not that big i mean if you compare it to

36:56

other mediums specially look at video

36:58

games movie tv

37:01

we're tiny.

37:03

And so i don't know there's still lots of room

37:06

to grow and to do different things tell

37:08

me what else what else i know you've done coaching you've done

37:10

development talk to me about that a little bit

37:13

how did you get those gigs is it somewhere

37:15

you reach out to other people they reach out to you a little bit

37:17

both. Yes so i see a little

37:19

bit of both in some cases with like

37:21

the development for example i might have like

37:23

a student in the course and they say

37:25

you know i need help getting my game over this last

37:28

turtle or taking the course but i still

37:30

you know i still struggle with this one aspect and

37:32

i just need some assistance so i've been

37:35

able to do some development work through there. Also

37:38

peter c hayward who you've had on on your show

37:40

he was looking for somebody to help with some development

37:42

for a card game and i offered

37:45

and i took that on and development

37:48

work there. Another people just kind

37:50

of reaching out who you know know me through

37:53

my post my course and things like that have kind

37:55

of reach out to me for either development

37:57

work or some consultation so.

38:00

People have been looking for consultation

38:03

for kick-starting their game or

38:05

for developing their game further and they just had

38:08

questions and that type of thing and wanted somebody with

38:10

a bit more experience to step in to help

38:12

them out. So in a lot of cases,

38:14

just people being out there and

38:17

showing that you're helpful and getting your

38:19

name out there, people will know what

38:21

you know and they'll want to come and work

38:24

with you. They'll see what you've done, especially

38:26

if you've had some success. You can show what

38:28

success you've had. You can show how you've helped other

38:30

people. People are very willing to

38:32

jump in there and help you out. So

38:35

I think it is a matter of finding

38:37

out what you do well, how

38:39

you help other people. And for other people,

38:41

maybe that's bringing, like you said, some of your own

38:43

skills from your other industries in. Project

38:46

management, I think, is a huge gap.

38:48

I think there's a lot of publishers that would really benefit

38:51

from help with project management. So

38:53

if you have those kind of skills, maybe you can get in with

38:55

one of the larger publishers there. Project

38:58

design, which can be like freelance or a bigger

39:01

company, a bigger publisher, maybe you can get some

39:04

more steady work there. Arts,

39:06

of course. Marketing.

39:10

A lot of that can be done like freelance, but

39:12

if you get enough companies interested in you and

39:16

you're going into all the different groups and showing

39:18

what you've learned through maybe Facebook ads,

39:21

through different social media posts, there's

39:23

kind of two different types

39:25

of people that are going to be watching what you're doing. Some

39:28

are going to be the do-it-yourselfers, and they're going to see

39:30

what you post and they're going to be like, oh, cool, I want

39:32

to go try this. And they'll go out and run at, they'll

39:34

go run their ads, their social media, and

39:37

try the same kind of things you said. And then there's going to

39:39

be other people that are like, oh, that sounds like a lot of

39:41

work. I'd rather, can I

39:43

just hire you to do that? Like you sound like you know

39:45

what you're doing. So I think in

39:47

either way, you're going to be helpful to people in

39:49

one way or the other if you're showing what you've learned.

39:52

And it's just being genuine and sharing

39:54

what you've learned. And I don't go out with the intention

39:57

of like trying to bring people in and

39:59

get them to like sign up with me or anything. I've

40:02

just had people reach out to me who've said, you

40:04

know, Oh, I saw what you posted about this and

40:07

you seem to know what you're doing. Can we talk

40:09

about you know, working together and you helping me, you know,

40:11

bring my game further forward or help with my

40:13

Kickstarter project or something like that. So it all

40:15

just comes back down back down to being

40:17

helpful to start with one angle I've seen

40:19

work really well. And I think crowdfunding nerds

40:22

is doing this. I've seen other companies do it, especially when it

40:24

comes to like marketing and like the business like professional

40:28

side of things. Give away the

40:30

information for free. Sell

40:33

the implementation. So when

40:35

it comes to best practices for setting up a Facebook ad,

40:37

okay, here's a video. Here's a five minute video how to

40:39

set up the dashboard to get your Facebook

40:42

ads up and running. If you want me to do this

40:44

for you, send me an email. Right.

40:47

And so you're giving in 90% 90 plus percent of people are going

40:49

to watch the video and go, Okay, cool. Most

40:52

of them won't do it anyway, just because that's the nature of

40:54

us as people. Right. Some

40:56

of them will do it. And a very small fraction

40:59

of people will send you an email and say, Hey,

41:01

I want to work with you. But you can build

41:03

a business pretty robust company off

41:06

of that tiny fraction of people, as long as the

41:08

product is good, as long as the information you're giving away is

41:10

good. There's no substitute for

41:13

a good product. The best marketing in the world is

41:15

a really good product, because then other people talk

41:17

about it. They refer you to their

41:19

friends. They want other people to experience this

41:21

thing. If they have a good experience

41:24

with you, then they're probably going to refer

41:26

you out to the people, especially if you reach out to them for testimonials

41:28

and things like that. But you can give away information,

41:31

sell implementation. I think that works really well,

41:33

depending on which kind of doesn't work for everything.

41:35

You know, I've seen some people try to start

41:37

up licensing like agencies,

41:39

like they're going to, you know, you send me your game,

41:41

and then I'll go pitch it to a bunch of publishers. Those

41:43

don't work very well, because the percentages are already so

41:46

DAG on low, that, you

41:48

know, half a nothing is still nothing. You know, so

41:50

that doesn't necessarily work. So you have to really think

41:53

through the financial side of things. But

41:55

anyway, just again, encouraging people to take

41:57

it,

41:58

take things from a different

41:59

angle. Nothing I want to ask you about. You've

42:02

designed a lot of several games at this point, a lot

42:04

of puzzle games. And I actually

42:07

reached out to you recently and said, Hey Joe,

42:09

I've got this project I'm working on. I really want a puzzle

42:12

game to be part of this series

42:14

of games that I'm doing. You've done some

42:16

really good puzzle games. Would you be willing to design

42:18

a puzzle game for this new project? You know,

42:20

basically I am, instead of you pitching me a game,

42:23

I'm pitching you and saying, here are things

42:25

and would you want to be part of this? And you know, so it's

42:27

almost like a reverse. That's nothing. If you

42:30

create great games,

42:31

publishers will reach out to you and say, Hey, I really like what you did

42:33

there. Can you do something for me over here

42:35

with this new thing? So I think that's another thing to think about.

42:37

Have you had other companies reach out to you? Well,

42:40

I did kind of earlier on have

42:42

a designer slash publisher

42:44

reach out to me and say, I like

42:47

the games you've been making that type of thing. Would you be

42:49

interested in jumping on this project? I'm going

42:51

to wind up publishing it, but I need some help with the

42:54

development of it and play testing and it

42:56

wound up becoming the game kingdoms candy

42:58

monsters. Which I published with the

43:01

Zameleo entertainment. So yeah, that,

43:03

that has happened before.

43:05

And I think what you're saying is, it's absolutely

43:07

true. You hear about people like, um, Senfume

43:09

Lem and Daryl Andrews and others

43:12

who are just really, really well known in the

43:14

industry. And, you know, maybe somebody has

43:16

an IP for a game and they're

43:18

like, we need, we want to get this made and we only have

43:20

a short window. Okay. Let's call up

43:22

somebody that we know that can make a game. That's

43:24

great. So if you get known for making games, especially

43:27

if you have a certain kind of brand or

43:29

niche, then, um, people are

43:31

going to come to you when they're looking for that type of thing.

43:33

So that's, that's another great thing to do is, is

43:36

to try to kind of find your brand, if there's,

43:38

there's a specific type of game that you make or a

43:40

specific thing in the industry that you can do really, really

43:42

well, and you get known for.

43:44

People will come to you for that. Yeah, absolutely.

43:46

I actually had a meeting, this is a few weeks ago

43:49

where a marketing company, this giant

43:53

multi-zillion dollar company that works with

43:55

brands that are like sold in Walmart, not

43:58

gaming stuff, but like just in general.

44:01

In the snack industry in the soda

44:03

industry different things they reached out to me because they're trying to Basically

44:06

figure out how can they implement some board game? ideas

44:10

into Some snack products and some

44:12

drink products and some things and and these

44:14

are people in New York City in this big marketing firm They

44:17

have no idea about anything board game related. They're like, we're

44:19

not gonna you know, do we make candy land? You

44:21

know, but Mountain Dew themed or do we do? And

44:24

so they reached out to me because of the board game design

44:26

lab, right? If you google

44:28

board game design the board game design lab is

44:31

one of the first things it pops up And so my SEO is nothing

44:33

thing about this anyway They

44:35

reached out to me and we had this really excellent meeting.

44:38

They paid for my time, which is wonderful And then

44:40

towards the end I was telling them I

44:42

was like, you know Here here's a list

44:44

of game designers that I feel like you should reach out

44:46

to this is not in my wheelhouse as a game

44:49

designer Like this is not the kind of stuff that I'm particularly

44:51

good at But let me give you a list of names of

44:53

people that are good at it that I really think would do

44:56

well With these types of projects if

44:58

you decide to go forward in what

45:00

we're talking about so nothing because

45:03

those designers have done a good job on

45:05

those kinds of games and Because they're

45:07

known and because they come on this show

45:09

and I've been able to talk to them and like become friendly with

45:11

them We you know, we're not Going

45:14

hanging out and going vacationing with each other famous or anything But

45:16

like we're friendly and because of all those things,

45:18

you know I was able to pass on that

45:20

list of names and maybe they get reached

45:23

out to but again It all comes

45:25

into The industry the hobby

45:27

the relationships that you build how

45:29

you treat people online Because I I've

45:32

seen a lot of people in the industry that really treat

45:34

people poorly online. They say

45:36

terrible things they believe other people they Throw,

45:39

you know all sorts of insults and things because of somebody else's

45:42

political beliefs or religious beliefs or whatever

45:44

it is And I'm not referring them Sorry,

45:47

I'm not putting my name on you But

45:49

if you treat people well and you try

45:51

to lift other people lift other people

45:53

up and encouraged and all that

45:55

Okay,

45:55

if I hear of something that I think you'd be a good

45:58

fit for I'm gonna put your name down. I'll I'll

46:00

copy you in on an email chain. So I think

46:02

it's nothing is just being a decent

46:04

person Realizing that everything

46:06

you do online Is as

46:09

if you're doing it in reality, right?

46:11

A lot of times we have that weird divide. It's

46:13

almost like I can't tell you how many people

46:15

i've met in real life who are lovely people but

46:18

online Or trolls right

46:20

just awful online. It's like

46:23

You're losing work. You're losing opportunities and

46:26

it just is what it is. So I think it's nothing just always

46:28

be aware that Even people

46:30

that don't comment right people that lurk they

46:33

still see it. They they you're losing

46:35

opportunities because of it But what

46:37

else what are some other things you would

46:39

talk you want to talk about as far as things you've done

46:41

you've tried That maybe worked

46:43

or didn't work anything else

46:45

Yeah, sure. I think one of the things i'd love

46:47

to talk about a bit more is um kind

46:50

of taking the hybrid approach in terms of publishing

46:52

games as well because Um i've

46:54

taken the approach where i've worked

46:57

with publishers and they've licensed some of my games

46:59

and in other cases I've taken my game and

47:01

you know launched it on kickstarter, for example

47:04

and become a self-publisher so um

47:07

I think there's a lot of value in

47:09

that if you have You know the time and the

47:11

effort to do so, um in my case i'm

47:13

doing this full time And I have

47:16

way more game ideas than I could ever publish myself

47:19

But also I realized that being

47:21

on brand which is what we talked about. Uh previously

47:24

is really important as well So I might

47:26

come up with you know, really wacky

47:28

party game and i've got this other euro

47:30

game and i've got this other puzzley game Well,

47:32

I have to think about when i'm making these games who's

47:35

going to be the best person to publish those things

47:37

as well so in my case, uh

47:40

Crazy like a box, which is my publishing company. I

47:42

like to put out puzzle games that make you feel clever So

47:45

if I make a game that fits that mold Maybe

47:48

that game is going to be something that I feel comfortable

47:50

publishing myself, but maybe that party game

47:52

i'm thinking Oh, there's you know this handful of other

47:54

publishers out here. There will be a much better match and they've

47:56

got a better audience for it I don't have to find that audience

47:59

and maybe that, you know, dryer euro game is

48:02

better fit for this other publisher over here.

48:05

So I think it's really interesting

48:08

to think about your games that you're making,

48:10

who they will fit with, and if

48:13

they're going to be something that you want to publish yourself or

48:15

do the

48:17

other way around and pitch to other people. And I think

48:19

it's, it's fine to take the approach of trying

48:22

different things. You know, I've tried

48:24

publishing, you know, my first game that I tried publishing was

48:26

a party game, it did not succeed, but I learned a lot

48:28

from it. And then I decided

48:30

that I really want to take a different approach. I evolved

48:33

as a game designer, it was making more puzzle games,

48:35

more thinking games, and thought that, you

48:37

know, I want to try it again, but with a different

48:39

type of game.

48:40

And I

48:41

think it's great for somebody to come along and say, I don't

48:43

know what I want to try, I kind of want to try the

48:46

public self publishing thing, but it seems

48:48

like a lot of work, but I want to see how it goes, and

48:50

see if that's what I want to do. Or maybe I want to pitch

48:52

to a publisher and see how that experiences and

48:55

don't be afraid to say, okay, that

48:57

experience wasn't what I wanted. Maybe it was way too much

48:59

work, or maybe I couldn't find a publisher for it. And I'll

49:01

do it myself. And to try different things

49:03

to say, yeah, the first game, maybe I'm pitching

49:06

and the next game, maybe I'm going to try on my

49:08

own, and then see which approach you like,

49:10

and then decide, you know, am I going to go one

49:13

road, the other road, or just

49:15

keep it a hybrid approach, and try to

49:17

match things up to the best brand to the best audience

49:19

to get my game out to the most people

49:21

possible. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big fan of the hybrid

49:24

approach. I have several games that don't fit my

49:26

company at all. Right, but I've got friends

49:28

in the industry that I think, okay, this might fit

49:31

their company, it might be able to make them money, and then I

49:33

get to make a piece of that as well. And so I think

49:36

that's a really good way to do it. Also, it's

49:38

hard to do a bunch of projects in

49:40

a year, right? Especially if you're really gonna

49:43

lean into all the marketing and all the

49:45

time and effort. So if you're designing

49:48

and publishing, and that's the thing is, once

49:50

you get into publishing, you can start licensing other designers

49:52

games, right? And I think that's really the only

49:55

way to do

49:57

anything long term. Otherwise, you're always

49:59

going to be back by the fact some of you said

50:01

right off the bat at this cover in this conversation you

50:04

end up not being able to spend enough time on game

50:06

design so if you're trying to design and

50:08

publish several games a year

50:11

I just don't know that you're gonna

50:13

have the time you know assuming you

50:15

also have a life maybe if you don't have a life you can you

50:17

can do that right but if you have anything going

50:19

on outside of that it's very difficult because

50:22

publishing takes up so much time

50:24

and just mental space right and

50:26

being able to switch gears to go from

50:28

customer service and talking to the manufacturer

50:31

and talking to people helping with marketing and all stuff and

50:33

then I got to switch gears and now I've got to think through this

50:36

game design challenge I'm working

50:39

on it's hard man and you just scheduling

50:42

is a big thing tell me about that tell me about your schedule

50:45

during the week to make sure that

50:47

all these different things you have going on are

50:49

getting the time that they need you have any kind of

50:51

tips for making it happen on a weekly

50:53

basis

50:54

yeah I have always been a big

50:56

planner I like to plan out my week so

50:59

usually the week before I kind of have an idea

51:01

of what I need to get done so I plan

51:03

out all things I need to get done and

51:05

kind of slot them in my day as best as I

51:07

can and that adjusted just in changes

51:10

as needed but

51:12

I try to say okay what are the what are the things that absolutely

51:15

need to get done so maybe if I'm running a Kickstarter

51:17

campaign I need to finish off the campaign

51:19

page I got to get the rules finished you

51:21

know whatever tasks those are that are the highest priority

51:24

and try to get them done but I also have these

51:26

other priorities of you know posting a blog every

51:28

week making sure that's you know written

51:30

and posted and everything so I think part

51:32

of it is is getting ahead on things like

51:34

if you do something that's on a regular basis

51:37

like posting a blog or a podcast

51:39

or something to have a backlog of them really

51:42

really helps so that you're not you know

51:44

waking up Monday morning say oh shoot I got to get something

51:46

together and throw and you know throw something up there

51:48

because it's not going to be the best quality and you're gonna be really stressed

51:51

out so I think having a backlog

51:53

of those things and working

51:55

ahead on your schedule and

51:58

you know using like a Gantt chart or

52:01

any kind of other project management tool

52:04

for specific projects can be really, really

52:06

helpful. I like to break things

52:08

out though into 12-week chunks.

52:11

It was a book I read years ago

52:13

called The 12-Week Year and

52:16

they basically break it out into three

52:18

12-week segments with a week of vacation

52:21

or break in between. The premise

52:23

was that if you have

52:25

a day job, usually you're setting these goals and

52:28

okay, this is what my goal is for the year.

52:30

Quite often you'll get into month 9 or 10

52:32

before you really start thinking about it. You're like, oh yeah, I

52:34

really got to get that thing done, but you've wasted those previous

52:37

months not working on these things because you've had such

52:40

a long window and then you wind up cramming

52:42

so much into the end. If you put it down

52:44

into a 12-week segment,

52:47

you can really pack a lot of stuff in there and say,

52:49

okay, this is what I need to get done and you're going to be really super

52:51

focused and you can have one project

52:53

every quarter. Maybe you're getting everything ready for

52:57

promoting your game and then the next quarter is launching

52:59

your game and getting a pledge manager

53:01

and everything and then development, whatever it

53:04

is. I try to break it out so I know

53:06

what my big goals are for quite a quarter

53:09

of the year and then give myself that break

53:11

afterwards or sometimes it's somewhere in between

53:14

depending on when the timing works out.

53:16

I think planning those things out into

53:19

those 12-week chunks has really helped me and

53:21

then every week just breaking down, okay, what

53:23

are the things I need to do to get there? It's

53:25

all just doing steps and working backwards.

53:27

If I'm going to launch or do something on a certain

53:29

date, what are all the things I need to get done and

53:32

then putting in a buffer because things always take longer

53:34

than expected, especially if it's your first time doing something.

53:38

Giving yourself that buffer,

53:39

planning it out and knowing all the steps

53:41

that are going to come in between. Yeah, I love that. The

53:44

whole 12-week idea. We as humans,

53:46

we overestimate what we can do in a day. We

53:48

underestimate what we can do in a year. We

53:51

just don't have the psychological capacity

53:53

to really comprehend those two different

53:55

things short-term and long-term. Breaking it

53:57

down into 12-week chunks. makes

54:00

a lot of sense. And you can also kind of give yourself

54:03

the motivation to hit

54:05

those goals because it is a limited timeframe.

54:08

It's not 12 months, which

54:10

is a long time. Really, if

54:12

you think about it, like from any

54:15

creative perspective, like a year is a pretty long time.

54:17

But if you turn that into 12 weeks, all of a sudden things

54:20

get done quicker too. It's nothing, whenever I

54:22

only have, like let's say I've got an

54:25

event tonight, right? And I've

54:28

got three hours between now and when

54:30

I have to leave to go this big important event.

54:33

So and I've got all this big, you know, I've got this long

54:35

list of to do list items. It's

54:38

amazing how I can get more done and get

54:41

more crossed off of my to do list in that

54:43

three hour chunk than

54:45

if I had an entire eight hour day. It's

54:48

just weird how our brains work. And

54:50

so how can you limit your scope

54:53

as far as the amount of time you have? Because

54:55

it's interesting. All of a sudden you focus

54:57

more on the most important things. You

55:00

have a tendency to get less distracted, right?

55:02

Because you have to be focused because you have such a limited amount of

55:04

time and you don't, you don't have

55:06

this like weird background

55:09

feeling of, I've got like six

55:11

or seven hours. I'll just scroll Instagram.

55:13

I'll just, you know, wander around YouTube and travel

55:16

down some rabbit holes for a while.

55:18

When you don't have that luxury, you get

55:20

a lot more done. And so breaking your year

55:22

into these 12 week chunks, I

55:25

feel like helps, helps make those

55:27

things happen. As far as you're limiting the scope

55:29

and get more done. That's a really cool thing. I'm looking into

55:31

that man. I'm going to see how I could maybe implement

55:33

that into my own life. Cause that's the one thing I've really kind of been struggling

55:36

with is just getting things done

55:38

ahead of time versus

55:40

waiting until last, until the last minute. But part of this is

55:42

because I have too much time. There's too much time in between. And

55:45

so I can afford to wait right? Because it just

55:47

how our brains work. But nothing I've

55:49

been thinking about is how can I prepare

55:52

during the calm to be ready

55:55

for the storms? Right? So when you have

55:57

a low, low period, To

56:00

record more podcasts or write more blog posts or

56:03

work on more stuff that way when life gets

56:05

crazy and busy either planned or

56:07

unplanned. I like you're saying i have this backlog

56:10

of material and creative work that i've already done

56:12

that way i'm not overly stressed. You

56:14

know and so instead of recording one podcast

56:17

episode week that then goes

56:19

out the next week is what i used to do now

56:21

i do my best to record at

56:23

least two episodes a week sometimes

56:25

three that way. When

56:27

life does get kind of crazy and i have to cancel or reschedule

56:30

or someone else has to cancel reschedule i'm not in

56:32

a hole like oh no what am i gonna do another

56:34

is all this extra stress and i was like no i've got five in

56:36

the tank. All good don't worry about

56:38

it you know so it's nothing just to think about as

56:40

a

56:41

creative person anything else you want to say

56:43

anything any other avenues or.

56:46

Method you've kind of leaned into or

56:48

tried or anything as far as just kind of diversifying

56:51

your time in the industry yeah i think one

56:53

of the things is accountability which is great so

56:56

i run a mastermind group with a number

56:58

of other entrepreneurs in my area and they're all in

57:01

totally different fields. Which is another great

57:03

thing to do because you can go in there and kind

57:05

of bounce ideas off of each other and nobody

57:07

feels like oh somebody's gonna steal my idea

57:10

like you know it's one thing in the board game industry

57:12

where you know we're all very friendly

57:14

generally. But another industries maybe

57:16

you know people might be a little more careful

57:19

with their ideas and sharing them so having

57:22

that out there and having other entrepreneurs

57:24

and people you can talk to her going through some of

57:26

the same struggles but in different ways and can see things

57:28

from different perspectives. Can be super

57:30

helpful and then the accountability aspect

57:33

i've in our group every

57:35

monday we say okay what are what are we working on this

57:38

week what's our like number one goal there might be a whole

57:40

bunch of things working on but what's the one thing you need to get

57:42

done this week. And then a friday we report back

57:44

did you get that thing done and that just holds

57:47

you such high account. That

57:49

even if you told one other person you're going

57:51

to get something done there's such a high chance

57:54

you're going to get that done compared to just being like oh

57:56

yeah i'll get to that when i when i want to. So

57:58

having that accountability is great. And I think also

58:01

with the 12 week work week, what

58:03

I try to do is try to focus on

58:05

one, sometimes two, but one main

58:08

thing I want to get done. So it almost breaks my

58:10

year into quarters and say, okay, this quarter,

58:12

I want to get this book released. The next quarter,

58:15

I want to run a Kickstarter campaign. The next quarter,

58:17

I want to run a virtual summit. The next quarter,

58:19

I want to do something else. So I know I have the focus

58:21

on one thing. So you can have like four

58:24

big projects that you want to do in a year. And

58:26

that's a great way to space them out too, and then also

58:28

not overwhelm your audience by having like one

58:30

thing after another after another. They're

58:33

spaced out, you have time to plan

58:35

and work on them. And

58:37

there's something interesting to keep you going. Because

58:39

I think as a game designer, one of the things we like is

58:41

the variety and what we're doing, either the variety

58:43

of the games that we're making, or if we're,

58:46

you know, doing some publishing here, doing some

58:48

writing over here, doing some game design over here,

58:50

that variety is wonderful to have. So

58:52

if you have these different projects you're working on at different

58:55

times, they could keep you focused on that one thing,

58:57

but then you don't get burnt out working on one

58:59

specific type of thing. Yeah, I love that. It's

59:02

a really good way, way to look at it. And it also reminded me other

59:04

ways that people I've met have

59:06

gotten into the industry

59:07

and doing full time work is

59:09

so John Brieger, who runs a play testing

59:12

company, like that's what he focuses on, he still does some

59:14

game design, development, things like that. But like his main thing is

59:16

play testing other people's games and working

59:18

for companies and things like that. Andrew Schwartz.

59:22

He is a full time, I think he's full time,

59:24

rule book writer. So that's another different

59:27

angle and you can still design games. You can still do stuff

59:29

on the side, but then taking a skill set, in

59:31

his case, technical writing and turning that

59:33

into a profession, right? And

59:35

working in the gaming industry, you know, I know people who are

59:38

accountants, I know people who are some of project

59:40

managers, like there's so many different other skill sets

59:42

that people have that then they can just apply it to

59:45

games. So it's not just design, right? It's

59:47

not just development. It's not just publishing. There

59:49

are so many different other things you can do that

59:52

you can still make a living. Right now,

59:54

are you going to get rich and famous? Probably not. But again,

59:57

like we said, that's not really why we're in this

59:59

anyway.

59:59

But um, but it's been excellent, man. I know

1:00:02

you got a game getting ready to come another one of your

1:00:04

puzzle II games Tell me about that. Tell

1:00:06

me when to kickstart launch where people can find

1:00:08

it all that So yeah, so it's my incurs

1:00:10

and it's launching on Kickstarter on October 24th And

1:00:14

it's a game where you're kind

1:00:16

of like Indiana Jones type of a character Running

1:00:19

into an area trying

1:00:21

to gain knowledge of this ancient city in the

1:00:23

distance and you have to cross

1:00:25

all these puzzle II paths and You

1:00:28

have to slide slabs and

1:00:30

go across the matching symbols to try to get

1:00:32

as far as you can and gain as much knowledge While

1:00:34

all these other explorers are trying to do the same thing but

1:00:37

at some point you're going to trigger some boulders that are going to

1:00:39

be rolling back towards the entrance and at

1:00:41

that point you have to start making that

1:00:43

decision do I want to keep going and Be

1:00:46

a little greedy and try to get a little too much or

1:00:48

am I going to try to escape and and get out while

1:00:50

I still Can and if you don't get out before all the boulders

1:00:52

get there you're closed off and you can't even win

1:00:55

the game So it's it's a bit of a race

1:00:57

some press your luck and a lot of a lot

1:00:59

of puzzle

1:00:59

in this as well Very cool. It's called my

1:01:02

incurs. That's right. Awesome. Well,

1:01:04

Joe, I hope it does really