Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication

GDU 095 - Exploding Kittens: Good Vs. Evil

In episode 95 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication we talk with Carol Mertz about multi-disciplinary designing. She starts with the concept before deciding on the form (tabletop, video game, robotic couch, etc.). The focus is on the experience then she builds the medium around it. In the case of Exploding Kittens: Good Vs. Evil she took the tension from the famous wine/poison scene in Princess Bride and injected it into the Exploding Kittens card game as well as taking pieces from the television show to make the gameplay more thematic. Learn the differences between a designer and a developer and how working at Exploding Kittens was a great game development exercise in this episode!

Featuring:
Carol Mertz - Guest
Danielle Reynolds - Host

GDU 094 - ContraBanter

In episode 94 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication we talk with Phil Gross about his design ContraBanter, a Word-Smuggling game where you'll work as a team to sneak secret words into a conversation! Phil talks about his design breakthroughs in the game like making the players work on teams versus fully competitive. And how there seems to be something in the Syracuse water as he’s worked to design around some impressive designers such as Alan Moon. 

 

Featuring: 

Phil Gross - Guest 

Danielle Reynolds - Host

GDU 093 - Emotional Intelligence

In episode 93 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication we talk with Julie Chen about her personality type social deduction game inspired by the Myers Briggs test and CLUE. We focus on how learning more about ourselves helped us both in life and in our designing process. She aimed to find a way to help players learn more about the assumptions we make in different situations like "would an introvert or extrovert be more likely to go to a coffee shop?" by building a social deduction game around these choices we’d make depending on the personality types we were given. Learn more about the different types of personalities by playing Emotional Intelligence!

 

Featuring: 

Julie Chen - Guest 

Danielle Reynolds - Host

GDU 092 - Mondrian: Color in Motion

In episode 92 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication we talk with Joseph Brower, one of the designers of Mondrian: Color in Motion. This Ion Award finalist design brought manufacturing challenges when they had to figure out what materials made the cards stop sliding during gameplay. Learn how they created an abstract game inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s art.

 

Featuring: 

Joseph Brower - Guest 

Danielle Reynolds - Host

GDU 091 - Buru

In episode 91 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication we talk with Alex Flagg about Crafty Games’ latest release Buru. Learn how a publisher was able to inject more of the theme into a midweight euro-style game using a TTRPG background and cultural consultants. 

 

Featuring: 

Alex Flagg - Guest 

Danielle Reynolds - Host

GDU 090 - Catthulhu

In episode 90 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication Danielle talks with Joel Sparks about his cat based RPG titled Catthulhu. Joel moved away from a D20 system to try and create a more accessible game for players who haven’t played many RPGs by leaning into the story telling more than the math. Players take on the roles of cats in this one shot RPG. Listen to him discuss designing/publishing a book for the first printing of the game then the struggles he went through when he added extra things like dice into the manufacturing of the game in future printings.

 

Featuring: 

Joel Sparks - Guest 

Danielle Reynolds - Host

GDU 089 - Conquest Princess: Fashion is Power

In episode 89 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication we talk with Seppy Yoon about his design Conquest Princess: Fashion is Power. This crisis management game was inspired by Sailor Moon and Star Trek. Seppy took his love for strong women like Wonder Woman and created a game that included characters that were trans, non-binary and female. As a queer/minority/vet owned company he found it very important to feature these playable characters but had to deal with hate groups during his Kickstarter campaign. Learn how he brought this game to life after 9 years of working on it and how he dealt with online trolls in this first episode of the fifth season!

 

Featuring: 

Seppy Yoon - Guest 

Danielle Reynolds - Host

GDU 088 - Season 4 Finale

In episode 88 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication Amanda Rivera takes over as the host as she helps recap the fourth season with Danielle. They talk about past guests and their games. Speaking about matching mechanics with IPs and how brands can be split between many different publishers. Danielle talks about her upcoming games Caution Signs and Secret Clue: Cuisines as well as her new job title of Project Director of Wacky Wizard Games and how she’s grown as a designer by starting to do inventor relations. Learning to kill off her designs faster by looking at them from that perspective has helped her grow over the past few months. Not to mention she was nominated for the Play Creators Rising Star Award this year! 

 

Featuring: 

Danielle Reynolds - Guest 

Amanda Rivera - Host

GDU 087 - Mind MGMT

In episode 87 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication we talk with Sen-Foong Lim on his comic book IP game Mind MGMT. A game that grows with the players in strategy as well as difficulty. One player controls Mind MGMT and must scour the city for new recruits. They move around on a secret map, trying to visit locations that match one of their three randomly drawn feature cards. They can also use their four Immortals to protect locations from being exposed. Listen to Sen compare working with a creator’s IP versus a company like Viacom or Warner Brothers. He unboxes how they worked with the comic creator to expand the Mind MGMT world versus slapping the IP on a pre-existing design.

 

Featuring: 

Sen-Foong Lim - Guest 

Danielle Reynolds - Host

GDU 086 - Gartenbau

In episode 86 of Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication we talk with David Abelson about his Mensa award winning game Gartenbau published by 25th Century Games. Initially the game started as a color theory tile placement game but grew into a three-layer tile stacking game of beautifully arranged flowers that gain prestige using a rondel drafting mechanism. Learn how this design grew in development!

 

Featuring: 

David Abelson - Guest 

Danielle Reynolds - Host