The Board Game Secret Show

Molly Johnson and Shawn Stankewich are two of the three founders of FLATOUT GAMES, the studio behind 🎲 CASCADIA and 🐱 CALICO. They tell the story of an AEG exec brushing off POINT SALAD, why a small publisher stays on Kickstarter, and what a store owner said about their next game. Check out Perennial: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flatoutgames/perennial-0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🥗 The AEG exec who said "thanks" and walked away from POINT SALAD 🐱 A two-hour debate over one tile bag, a "53 versus 3 thing" 🎨 Why there is no 100% black anywhere in Flatout's art direction 📦 The $20-plus it costs to ship a CASCADIA to a home in the US 🌿 A store owner's advice: "don't make another nature-themed roll-and-write" 🦁 Molly's role-play lion in a damp, horrible forest ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🎲 Flatout Games ▶ https://www.flatout.games/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 01:16 - Who are Molly and Shawn? 02:09 - Weather chat and Canadian prairie roots 03:47 - Gen Con week spent meeting partners 06:02 - Getting bit by game design in 2016 09:47 - The convention feedback that made it real 12:02 - AEG walks away, then an email lands 16:32 - The Cardboard Edison finals email arrives 18:47 - Propolis turns out to be a really old design 21:47 - Picking palettes with no pure black 27:47 - How the Flatout collab publishes games 33:02 - Two-hour debate over one tile bag 37:32 - Why small-box games stay at $25 39:47 - Why simple family games are a dying breed on Kickstarter 42:47 - Design is only 20 percent of the week 48:02 - No growth for growth's sake 54:47 - Why a small publisher stays on Kickstarter 1:06:47 - Calico's goal: sit on the shelf next to Azul 1:11:17 - Store owners say no more nature roll-and-writes 1:19:32 - Why the casual gamer crowd keeps growing 1:30:47 - Why Beth Sobel's art gets people excited 1:35:17 - Whisperstone, the puzzle-piece RPG, explained 1:48:47 - Three and a half years building an RPG 1:59:17 - How Perennial's polyomino tiles work 2:08:07 - What success looks like in five years #cardboard #bgss

Kylie Prymus took a dusty 1,000-square-foot shop doing $350,000 a year and turned it into a million-dollar store that sells no Magic, no Pokemon and no miniatures — on purpose. 🏪 GAMES UNLIMITED has been in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill since 1979, and the owner who bought it used to teach philosophy for a living. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🧪 The ALCHEMY talk behind the whole store: "a flower is just a weed with a marketing budget" 🎁 Dead stock wrapped in butcher paper sold out in a week — the clearance table never did 🟢 A counter above the demo bar with a big green button: the metric is games played, not dollars 🛏️ Six weeks of opening a coffee shop at 5:30am, napping in a sleeping bag out back, then working the store till 7 📠 "You're opening a business and you don't have a fax machine?" — "Because it's 2015." 📈 $350,000 in 2019 to over a million last year, out of 3,600 square feet with no event space at all 🎲 Why the heavyweight "greatest game ever" titles sell under a dozen copies a year while HOT STREAK sells 500 🚫 Why free demo copies are a trap: "you need skin in the game" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🏪 Games Unlimited — Pittsburgh ▶ https://gamesunl.com/ ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDWlkcNGxW4CFnRkpnuAPA ▶ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gamesunlimitedpgh/ ▶ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gamesunl ▶ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GamesUnl 🎙️ Unbox Some Funcast — Kylie's podcast ▶ https://rss.com/podcasts/unbox-some-funcast ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:48 - Who is Kylie Prymus? 02:19 - The first game store owner on the show 06:30 - Alchemy, and the flower that's just a weed with a marketing budget 09:08 - Wrapping the dead stock in butcher paper 20:49 - Creating new gamers instead of acquiring customers 22:57 - No Magic, no Pokemon, no miniatures - on purpose 32:38 - The green button above the demo bar 35:55 - No free demo copies, because you need skin in the game 38:10 - Philosophy professor, coffee shop, game store 39:54 - Bob gets sick nine months into the apprenticeship 40:27 - The sleeping bag in the back of the coffee shop 46:08 - What you actually buy when you buy a game store 48:11 - "You're opening a business and you don't have a fax machine?" 51:34 - The pandemic move to Forbes Avenue 58:29 - "Are you guys new?" after 35 years down the hill 1:02:32 - $350,000 to over a million 1:08:34 - Third space is not a room full of tables 1:20:54 - Bare shelves, a fixed budget, and what to buy first 1:27:18 - The prestige heavyweights sell a dozen; Hot Streak sells 500 1:34:21 - Nobody needs anything we sell 1:45:10 - The Q4 stock-up, and buying 200 copies of one game 1:49:53 - Ordering 300 copies of a game you don't like 2:05:24 - Salaries, structure, and the staff who said "duh" 2:11:36 - Who else should I talk to? #cardboard #bgss

Zero Strategy Games put a perfectly normal sheep on the cover of a horror game — and people did a double take all the way to a hit campaign. Jeremy Stark co-designed 🐑 THE SHEEP, 🗝️ SHUFFLE DUNGEONS and 🐉 UNHEIST. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🌪️ Surviving the Gen Con tornado in a 10×10 booth 🍻 A board game company founded over "one drink after another" 🏥 From project-managing Pennsylvania Medicaid to shipping board games 💸 Where THE SHEEP's campaign money went — "I didn't go home with half a million dollars" 🚫 Gamefound passed on UNHEIST: "not the type of game for us" 🏮 His claim to fame — the lantern economy, and why it split their community 🐉 UNHEIST — kobolds putting a sleeping dragon's stuff back before it wakes 🎲 A secret dragon dice-builder with minis on the way ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🐑 Zero Strategy Games ▶ https://zerostratgames.com/ 🐉 The Unheist of Hearthburn House: Mansion Decorating Madness — live on BackerKit through October 10 ▶ https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/zero-strategy-games/the-unheist-of-hearthburn-house-mansion-decorating-madness ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:43 - Who is Jeremy Stark? 01:46 - The sheep cover that stopped David at Origins 03:26 - Gen Con: surviving the tornado in a 10x10 booth 05:51 - Should conventions actually make money? 11:00 - From Pennsylvania Medicaid to board games 15:15 - Why editors can tell he's a Magic player 18:25 - Cutthroat Cove, 750 backers, and one drink after another 29:06 - What made Shuffle Dungeons break out 32:35 - One campaign away from cutting hours 35:43 - Where The Sheep's campaign money actually went 40:37 - Paid ads, AI noise, and falling returns 44:18 - Why Unheist left Kickstarter for BackerKit 45:47 - Gamefound: "not the type of game for us" 49:07 - Shuffle Dungeons: double-sided cards, one-hour crawl 54:57 - It was never supposed to be co-op 1:00:25 - Why there's no day-one expansion 1:04:00 - What the hell is The Sheep? (and a plushie run) 1:09:15 - The rule they rewrote 10 times 1:16:10 - Jeremy's claim to fame: the lantern economy 1:22:26 - Killer sheep, The Black Sheep, and internal controversy 1:35:25 - Unheist: returning a dragon's stuff before it wakes 1:42:29 - Why it's literally called "stuff" 1:46:04 - A three-player minimum and no solo mode, on purpose 1:55:18 - What he tells new players to buy first 1:56:11 - Dragon minis and what's next for Zero Strategy #cardboard #bgss #unheist #zerostrategygames

Tend began as a Stardew-flavored side project Toby Sarnelle built just for his friends — then IV Studio co-founder Zac Dixon helped turn it into one of the most-requested flip-and-writes out there. 🌱 TEND's designers open up the legacy version that almost shipped, and the two expansions coming next — 🐝 HIVE and 🍷 CELLAR. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🧪 The legacy "mega sheet" — a tech tree of colored stars they spun on for six months, then cut 🧱 Walls in the mines, doomed rondels, and IV's standing policy on Austin's ideas 🎮 What years designing TWO DOTS taught Toby about hooking a player fast 🐄 The one-cow problem Toby would patch in TEND tomorrow 🐝 HIVE: four apiaries, bee dice, and a true roll-and-write inside a flip-and-write 🍷 CELLAR: a three-game mini campaign where your first farm sets up your last 📦 "Bring me three expansions and a standalone" — and what comes after HIVE and CELLAR ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🌱 Tend by IV Studio ▶ https://shop.iv.studio/products/tend-board-game 🐝 Tend: Hive & Cellar Expansions on Gamefound ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/iv-studio/tend-expansions ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:42 - Who are Toby Sarnelle and Zac Dixon? 01:59 - How Toby ended up on the same box as Zac 02:58 - From Two Dots lead designer to board games 06:48 - "I didn't even know scratch-offs were possible" 09:14 - It was never supposed to be a Stardew game 12:42 - The legacy mega-sheet that almost happened 18:14 - Walls in the mines, and why they died 19:01 - IV's no-rondel policy 20:30 - A redesigned Monopoly was Toby's first prototype 21:59 - What board games can do that video games can't 34:55 - What Toby would patch in Tend today 37:16 - The one-cow problem 38:57 - The fishing feedback they get most 51:10 - Tend was a deck builder a week before prototype 54:59 - Hive and Cellar come out of the legacy version 56:50 - How Hive's apiaries work 1:08:39 - Awards, without the Kickstarter records 1:16:37 - Cellar: a three-game campaign 1:27:08 - "If you play an expansion, engage with it" 1:36:57 - "Bring me three expansions and a standalone" 1:38:56 - Why ship expansions as a set 1:43:35 - The big box 1:49:37 - A new direction for the scratcher 1:50:18 - Wrap #cardboard #bgss #tend

Jeff Kornberg has taught hundreds of thousands of people how to play board games, and not one of those rules has ever been true. 📺 THE DRAGON'S TOMB is eight years of completely straight-faced tutorials with entirely invented rules — and the man making them spent his day job building 🎬 CONDÉ NAST's biggest YouTube series, with over 800 million views on videos he personally produced. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🚌 A Greyhound bus review so uneventful it killed the opening question 🏙️ He gave away TINY TOWNS — all 375 pieces, one winner per piece, mailed in flat envelopes 🎲 ROCK PAPER SCISSORS DELUXE: Beth Sobel art, Chip Theory lore, and a real Rodney Smith how-to-play 🤖 The $2,000 AI sex doll review — 357,000 views, his biggest video in eight years 🪑 He reviewed a board game table nobody ever sent him. Then the "scam" table turned up. 📧 He invented a fake game, asked 300+ creators what they'd charge for a good review, and kept every answer 📱 "Hey, this is Mr B" — the text that flew him to Greenville ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 📺 The Dragon's Tomb ▶ https://www.youtube.com/@TheDragonsTomb 💜 The Dragon's Tomb on Patreon ▶ https://www.patreon.com/TheDragonsTomb ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:50 - Who is Jeff Kornberg? 02:35 - Gen Con: Whisperwood, and a suitcase that stayed small 06:58 - What Dragon's Tomb actually is — fake rules, played straight 08:48 - The Tiny Towns giveaway: 375 winners, one piece each 10:21 - 'You ran a Kickstarter' 12:38 - Rock Paper Scissors Deluxe — Beth Sobel art, Chip Theory lore 16:27 - Reverse pranking: the companies who never check the channel 18:18 - Do publishers mind? The PAX Unplugged fake-rules event 19:49 - Never breaking — the deadpan, and four takes a line 20:57 - The $2,000 AI sex doll 23:53 - Did YouTube demonetize it? 26:32 - The tutorial he refunded 31:51 - Kinson Key sweeps the Dice Tower Awards 34:56 - They want the footage — and they won't pay for it 42:03 - Reviewing a board game table that didn't exist 44:31 - The 'scam' table nobody else got sent 45:45 - The fake game, and 300 creators asked to sell out 51:34 - A $3 campaign for the experience of crowdfunding 56:49 - The day job: Condé Nast, and 800 million views 1:00:57 - Fuse, Google's $2M, and learning what makes people click 1:06:28 - The AI lemonade stand: ChatGPT vs Claude 1:08:14 - 'Hey, this is Mr B' — the text out of nowhere 1:11:12 - Greenville: D&D, Catan and poker night 1:16:29 - 'I could save you so much time and money.' He didn't care. 1:19:21 - The best celebrity he ever worked with: Weird Al 1:23:10 - The Pandasaurus wrestling match, and the pizza guy 1:25:03 - Filming Jackie Chan 1:27:23 - Thanks, and a PAX Unplugged plan #cardboard #bgss

Support my work and join my community: https://crdbrd.app/ Koltin Thompson took a sick day from teaching fourth grade to launch his Kickstarter. It did $300,000 in the first 24 hours. He went back to work the next morning anyway — state testing was coming — and his co-workers wanted to know what on earth he was doing there. That game was 🚀 GALACTIC CRUISE, and it just won Dice Tower Game of the Year. T.K. King, Dennis Northcott and Koltin of Kinson Key Games came on to tell the whole story. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🏆 Three Dice Tower awards in one night — and why Game of the Year was the one T.K. was watching for 😭 Turning in a resignation, tears in the school bathroom, and going full-time into board games 🤒 The sick day that launched a $300,000 Kickstarter — and the co-workers who asked why he came in 🚀 "I'm calling it Galactic Cruise for now" — the placeholder name that never went away 🧟 The Frankenstein prototype, and a first version that was wider and shallower than the game you know 📋 Who actually made that player aid — the one people call the best they've ever seen 🎨 Getting to Ian O'Toole: "you have to meet 20 people before you meet Ian" 🛸 EXCURSIONS — why it's a whole new game and not an expansion ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🛸 Excursions — a Galactic Cruise Game (launching soon on Kickstarter) ▶ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kinsonkeygames/excursions-a-galactic-cruise-game 🚀 Galactic Cruise ▶ https://kinsonkeygames.com/galactic-cruise 🎮 Kinson Key Games ▶ https://www.kinsonkeygames.com/ 💬 Kinson Key Games on Discord ▶ https://discord.gg/ZSCRGYJfUC 📺 Kinson Key Games on YouTube ▶ https://www.youtube.com/@kinsonkeygames3478 ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:43 - Who are Kinson Key Games? 04:39 - Three Dice Tower awards in one night 07:10 - How two friends started making games 14:32 - Dennis finds them at Proto ATL 22:30 - Going all in on the first day of 2023 27:22 - Doing the math on quitting a salary 28:51 - The resignation, and a $300,000 launch 32:42 - "I am calling it Galactic Cruise for now" 34:38 - The first version was wider and shallower 35:18 - The Frankenstein prototype 45:09 - Why T.K. loves worker placement 48:32 - Where Developments came from 56:37 - Building the Progress Track 58:25 - Teaching people how it scores 1:01:40 - Achievements and Advancements 1:08:59 - The top-ranked player in the world 1:14:25 - The player aid everyone remembers 1:22:43 - Landing the art on a debut game 1:34:10 - Pitching the Achievements expansion 1:40:18 - Excursions - and why it is not an expansion 1:56:45 - Publishing other designers 2:01:59 - Weight, box size and delivery dates #cardboard #bgss #galacticcruise

Does Cola Wars match your taste? :https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/682109fe-a66d-402c-a141-f4f9cf13c2d6 Matthew Meeple took his first game to Gen Con, put six people on it at once, and found out mid-demo that it literally could not be won. He raised $476,000 on it anyway. He's the founder of One More Turn Games — publisher of ⚔️ ASCENDANCY and the upcoming 🥤 COLA WARS — and he quit his job to do all of it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🎲 A working cardboard vending machine that rolls your dice — no batteries, just a wooden dowel 📦 The box fight: hundreds of backers arguing over a retro 1985 box nobody can fit in a Kallax 😰 The delay email he was "terrified" to send — and why the replies changed how he runs campaigns 🕹️ "We actually can't win the game" — the Gen Con demo that sent ASCENDANCY back to the drawing board 🥤 How he saw an 80s nostalgia game in Cameron Fleming's prototype from the title alone 🧠 Two battlefields — "mind share" in the consumer's head, "shelf share" in the aisles of Thirst City 💼 Hire executives, fire them for the salary savings, and send interns to file TPS reports ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🥤 Cola Wars on Gamefound ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/onemoreturngames/cola-wars 🎮 One More Turn Games ▶ https://onemoreturngames.com/pages/cola-wars 📺 One More Turn Games on YouTube ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMpadGN6IfX_gt5WhTFdytg ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:40 - Who is Matthew Meeple? 01:59 - He quit his job to go all-in on One More Turn Games 03:41 - ASCENDANCY funded fast - would he do it again? 07:15 - Why his FIRST game was a huge asymmetric 4X 08:33 - What the first campaign actually taught him 12:00 - Never missing an update - ethics or compulsion? 13:48 - The box fight: retro and unstorable, or shelf-friendly? 18:33 - Will COLA WARS go retail? 20:35 - The update he was terrified to send 22:51 - Is crowdfunding oversaturated? 31:35 - The crazy vending machine dice tower 34:23 - Publisher trust, and the CMON problem 39:15 - Why he switched from Kickstarter to Gamefound 41:09 - The Gen Con demo where nobody could win the game 50:42 - Cutting the scope to actually ship 1:00:23 - ASCENDANCY is going digital 1:01:33 - The crafting game he still wants to make 1:03:45 - Finding Cameron Fleming at Gen Con 1:07:33 - What 20 years in advertising brought to the mechanics 1:09:53 - Shelf space: fast food to fine dining 1:12:48 - How a cardboard vending machine rolls dice 1:14:30 - Market research: buying your way out of bad luck 1:20:59 - Why your mind share halves every year 1:23:20 - Vice presidents, and the Ari Gold problem 1:25:31 - Hiring executives - and interns who ruin everything 1:32:11 - What is in store for the campaign #cardboard #bgss #colawars

Chad DeShon ran a million-dollar Kickstarter, added another half million in add-ons, and made basically nothing — then turned that wreckage into one of the busiest publishers in board games. He's the founder of 🎲 ALLPLAY, formerly 🪑 BOARDGAMETABLES.COM, and he runs the whole thing out of a limestone mine. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🕳️ The Allplay warehouse is inside a decommissioned limestone mine — down the road from 750,000 square feet of federal documents 🪑 2014: he emails a stranger about a furniture order and ends up selling board game tables with zero woodworking experience 📦 THE DUCHESS lands at $499 against a $4,000 market and funds in minutes — then 25 containers arrive damaged 💸 "Everybody had to get their table, or the whole business just went away" 🎲 He played QE, emailed the designer to ask if he could publish it, and accidentally became a publisher 🏷️ Every review started "this is QE by BoardGameTables.com" — the naming problem that forced the ALLPLAY rebrand 🧲 His pitch advice for designers: whatever is unique about your game has to be in the first two sentences ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🎲 Allplay ▶ https://www.allplay.com/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:57 - Who is Chad DeShon? 01:04 - His office is inside a limestone mine 03:42 - The founder story starts with a furniture order 07:40 - The first table sells the day after the website goes live 09:59 - The Duchess: gamers touch the table and walk away 12:18 - Cold-emailing furniture factories in China 13:18 - $499 against a $4,000 market — funded in minutes 18:00 - 25 containers of tables arrive damaged 20:20 - A $1M campaign that made basically no money 24:37 - Redesigning the table around the UPS weight limit 27:24 - Dropping table parts in his basement to test the boxes 32:11 - What he learned watching Geek Chic go under 36:19 - Moving production out of China 42:37 - Why BoardGameTables.com became Allplay 46:38 - On Tour, then QE — how he became a publisher 50:27 - Rescuing Container and Through the Desert 56:01 - The nine-game Kickstarter, and what went wrong 1:00:14 - About 20 games a year, and why that number stops here 1:05:21 - Things in Rings, and still waiting on their Wingspan 1:12:27 - COVID, containers, and forecasting the impossible 1:18:59 - Why QE was never re-themed with animals 1:23:51 - Enchanted Ivy, their first solo game 1:30:58 - The convention booth as a marketing machine 1:34:59 - Jibber Jabble at Gen Con 1:42:04 - Mountain Goats Legacy and Sail Legacy 1:48:20 - Rapid fire: one table, one game forever #cardboard #bgss #allplay #cardboard #bgss #dicethrone #wroth

Manny Trembly had never designed a board game when he made 🎲 DICE THRONE — he was a comic artist who'd just been laid off. Ten years, 40+ heroes and a Marvel licence later, he still draws it, designs it, and now runs his own studio inside Chip Theory building ⚔️ WROTH. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 💼 Laid off ten years ago this week — a prototype in Nate's kitchen two days later ✏️ Comic artist first — an Eisner nod for PX, 3D models for MYST 🎲 "Too asymmetrical, too many dice" — everyone told him it wouldn't work ⚔️ Gavin Brown, Roxley, and the absurd EXCALIBUR box 🌈 WROTH — built in 24 hours with his kids 🔮 NEXUS and DICE THRONE DIGITAL are coming ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🎲 Dice Throne ▶ https://dicethrone.com/ ⚔️ Wroth & Neon Knight Games ▶ https://chiptheorygames.com/ ⚔️ Wreck ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/chip-theory-games/wroth-reprint--wreck-expansion ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:32 - Who is Manny Trembly? 01:27 - Fresh off Gen Con 10:20 - Why the small booths are where the magic is 11:53 - Winning a Dice Tower Award for Tanglewood 16:38 - A Jim Lee comic and the two-page spread that started it 21:32 - PX, the Eisner nomination, and dropping the E 23:00 - Myst, Cyan Worlds, and 'grandpa who fought in WWII' 26:05 - Meeting Nate — and getting laid off the same week 30:34 - 'What if we just translate this sucker into a board game?' 34:00 - Roxley, Gavin Brown, and the Excalibur box 40:25 - 'What you're doing is cool, but it's not going to work' 46:32 - The art: what Manny draws vs what Nick Malara draws 57:00 - Why dice make better stories 1:10:44 - Neon Reign — art that predates Dice Throne 1:15:40 - Joining Chip Theory and starting Neon Knight 1:28:13 - Wroth: fixing what keeps people off Root 1:47:20 - Wreck: boats, cannon dice, and the Exodus 2:04:30 - What WROTH actually stands for 2:26:11 - Manny's favourite hero of all time 2:30:40 - Nexus, Dice Throne Digital, and what's next #cardboard #bgss #dicethrone #wroth

Helaina Cappel turned down more games than she published — and that's why KTBG and Burnt Island look the way they do. Teacher, publisher, and the one who rescued ⚓ ENDEAVOR off Z-Man's shelf and steered it into 🌊 DEEP SEA. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🎓 Teacher to publisher — FOODFIGHTERS at the kitchen table ⚓ A year convincing Jarratt & Carl to hand her ENDEAVOR 🌊 Leaving the colonization theme behind for DEEP SEA 🌱 Zero plastic — "but it's flammable" 🗝️ LAIRS: $33, three print runs, all sold out 🔮 Ten more years of Endeavor ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🎲 Kids Table Board Gaming & Burnt Island Games ▶ https://www.kidstablebg.com/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:33 - Intro — who is Helaina Cappel 01:45 - Before we started rolling 02:24 - The teacher, Josh, and Foodfighters 08:53 - Funding on day 31 — Kickstarter in 2015 13:23 - "When did KTBG become a business?" 20:08 - Catan, Carcassonne, Caylus — becoming a gamer 22:53 - The KTBG DNA: fun, and scalable 26:13 - The "family weight" problem 32:23 - Cystic fibrosis — an unexpected connection 37:03 - Why Burnt Island exists 39:38 - Endeavor: from Z-Man's shelf to a year of convincing 44:43 - Decolonising Endeavor into Deep Sea 53:53 - Zero plastic: the bagasse insert fight 59:23 - Age of Sail is out of print for good 1:02:53 - Fall of the Mountain King — the one that should have hit 1:08:23 - Killing the print ads 1:13:23 - "New is better" — the treadmill 1:17:23 - Tariffs, Play the North, looking past the US 1:25:43 - Lairs — the $33 game she can't print fast enough 1:42:23 - How Lairs found her — an Eric Lang post 1:47:43 - Gen Con and Essen slate 1:49:33 - The future of Endeavor — ten games in ten years 1:56:48 - Advice: ask every single question #cardboard #bgss #endeavor #kidstableboardgaming #burntisland