This time around, Daryl and Sen focus their line of questioning on a very specific game component – cards – and they bring in two titans of the industry (see what I did there?) in Paul Peterson and Eric Lang. Both gentlemen have extensive design credits dealing with card games (ouch, more puns!) and shed a lot of light into why they feel cards are an excellent tool in gaming and how to use them effectively.
Stemming from a Twitter discussion that Jessey and Sen were having with Yves Tourigny about players telling a story as a game’s mechanics vs. story evolving out of the game itself, Sara Quinn sent us a copy of The Doom King – a Protocol RPG by Jim Pinto (designer of a multitude of games, boardgames and RPGs). Based on that interaction, we decided to not only have Jessey and Sara (a writer for Savage Worlds RPG) on the show, but Jim as well. And we focused on bridging the gap between storytelling games – can you have RPGs that have boardgame elements or boardgames that have RPG elements? Should the two subgenres of tabletop games never mix? Find out what our panelists and guest host Stephanie Straw had to say on these issues and more.
Hey all! Thanks to the generous support of our viewers, we were able to go to GenCon and capture a bunch of footage from the Exhibition floor and other places. First up, though, we must say that while Periscope did the trick at Origins when coupled with our recorded interviews, there was no space at GenCon to do a quiet interview and the vast number of people made the audio quality of the Persicopes not as great as we would have liked it to be. That aside, there’s some interesting stuff here, so please give the videos a watch!
Probably the MOST relevant video is this one, which explains the opportunity a designer might get if they sign up for the First Exposure Playtest Hall:
While GenCon was a great experience and we personally plan on going back again, Meeple Syrup (as a show) will try to get to more design-specific conventions such as Metatopia, UnPub, Protospiel, and others in Season 2 so we can focus on what our core demographic craves – information to help them design better games and get their games into the hands of publishers and beyond!
Every so often, we here at the Meeple Syrup Show like to bring in a bunch of publishers to pick their brains if for no other reason than to find out what type of games they’re looking for in order so that all our viewers can pitch to them more accordingly! This time around, we had Ben Harkins (Floodgate), Fabio Del Rio (CSE) and even our co-host, Jon Gilmour, pulled double duty under the Infectious Play banner. If you’ve got games that need a good home, watch this episode plus the aftershow and see what makes each of these companies tick. Some great advice on what to do and not do while pitching as well!
Suz joined us once more, taking over for our globetrotting co-host, Dylan, as he brings his beard to even MORE French-ified locales. This time around, we drag in a bunch of designers to discuss varied and sundry boardgame mechanics (or mechanism, if you prefer). Jon Gilmour (Dead of Winter, Vault Wars), Brian Lewis (Captains of Industry), and Stephen Sauer (Walled City, Caffeine Rush) step up to the mic to debate the good, bad, and the ugly from a mechanical perspective. We also trot out JR Honeycutt and Doug Levandowski’s Unpub The Game to spark the creative fires – good times had by all!
Justin Farr (www.meepleshirts.com) takes over from Stephen in the aftershow.
In our latest episode, it’s solely Daryl and Sen. What can only 2 dudes do? Well, we filled up a bunch of time, talking about how to pitch to publishers at GenCon. It’s a lot of good information, including how to make your sales sheets, how to set appointments and map out your travels at the convention, and how to get publishers hands on with your game ASAP during a pitch. Later one, Ace from the NerdNighters drops in to save our Canadian bacon as we run out of steam. Still in recovery mode from GenCon, there’s no aftershow this week! We’ll be ready to rock next week!
Daryl and Sen go LIVE from their hotel room in GenCon with guests:
Crazy times in room 1212!
This time, we’re joined by Lea Culliton from HABA USA (Rhino Hero, Animal Upon Animal), Tanya Thompson (ex-ThinkFun, now with MasterMind Toys) and Helaina Cappel (Kids Table Board Gaming – Foodfighters) to discuss gaming with children, gaming in education, and mass market penetration of kids games. What makes a game successful in mass market? What makes a game successful with kids?
The effervescent Stephanie Straw sits down to talk shop with us as we’re joined by Geoff Engelstein (Space Cadets, Space Cadets: Dice Duel) and Graeme Jahns (Alba Longa) to discuss real time game design. What makes them different than other games? What are some things designers should consider when making a real time game? Do we emulate video games, or do we incorporate physical aspects that only physical games can have? All these questions and more are answered in the videos below!
In this episode, not only do we make a pun out of a publisher’s name plus a Canadianism, but we have a very rare video appearance from that self-same publisher! James Mathe from Minion Games talks Protospiel and, later on, Andy Van Zandt (TMG) jumps in to chat about development. Both of these industry insiders chat about how they evaluate and sign games and how things work from the designer side of the table. Also, Andy is sitting on a plyoball, hence the bouncing.
Josh Cappel joins us as the co-host, doing “Dylan Duty” as our resident diplomat is no longer a resident of our fine country! Dylan has shipped of to France for work. We’ll be relying on Dylan for some international talks and some one-on-one interviews in the future, so don’t fear, Meeps! The Bearded One has not left forever!
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