40: Finding your game's hook FAST with Renato Simões

Brazilian designer and publisher Renato Simões (FlipToons, Piratas, OZOB: A Cyberpunk Board Game) joins me to talk about the importance of finding the hook in game design. We discuss his journey from King of Tokyo fan to publishing Brazil’s best-selling card game, how FlipToons went from idea to contract in just a month, and why OZOB became a $1,000,000+ crowdfunding success. Renato also shares insights into collaboration, the Brazilian market, and why networking is just as vital as design. 

Transcript

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00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:29
Speaker 1
So this game is good. It's okay, you have fun playing, but what is the special about it? And if you don't have that, sometimes you're going to pursue that after the game is done. And that's not good enough. Not, not nowadays, like ten, ten years ago maybe. But now we have a very competitive TV market and several board game designers creating good stuff.

00:00:24:29 - 00:00:37:17
Speaker 1
But if you start from the book, the hook, you go ahead because this game is probably going to be one of your best games ever because if you find a hook, you already found the fun from the beginning.

00:00:48:18 - 00:00:56:14
Speaker 1
we are always trying to find to start a new game. We are always start, we are always trying to find the hook for the game.

00:00:56:21 - 00:01:24:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. What is good? What is the special about that game? If we are convinced that a game has a hook, we keep going on its own. It's designed. Otherwise we usually leave it aside and let it rest a bit so we can find the hook either another time or even abandon the project forever. It's a thing that especially journeys kind of like that.

00:01:24:01 - 00:01:53:26
Speaker 1
I'm not like that and not as much like that as Jordy is because I am a publisher as well as since the beginning of my my days working with board games. I'm also a publisher, so publishers can't be that way because we don't we don't get to wait to a game. We have a unique single hook comes come to us, so we need to find a good game every now and then.

00:01:53:26 - 00:02:23:01
Speaker 1
So we need to publish that game. So I'm not as much waiting for the the great hook as Jordy is, but as we are working together, we do that more and more constantly than when I was working alone by myself. Yeah, we just went with So sorry. I wanted to let you know that I've started recording because I feel like we're we're already deep into it.

00:02:23:05 - 00:02:54:19
Speaker 1
It's just so you know. Yeah. No, it's okay. But above flip cell sell shit. The thing is, we were aiming to show people what was special about the game because it is not a trivial game to find. What is to understand what is special about it. Like challengers before it you you've seen lots of people. They were not getting what was good in the game.

00:02:54:19 - 00:03:18:26
Speaker 1
There were like, this is not a game. Yes, it is a game. You have the choices here. Of course, it is an auto battler from one point to the end of the the single face to face match. But it is a game. You have several choices you have to make. You have to play wisely. So you beat other players.

00:03:18:28 - 00:03:51:24
Speaker 1
There is a strategy. There is a you have to see the synergies in synergies in your deck working well. And that's the point in in challengers as well as that's the point in Flip. Once you still rely on the way cards are laid out in your great but you have several choices you have to make or that the order that will order won't get in your way more consistently more often than not.

00:03:51:27 - 00:04:20:10
Speaker 1
So you're trying to make it less constant. The factor it won't get in your way that much. So what you're doing with your deck, you're trying to keep it lean, to keep it very focused on what you're pursuing. So you want that. It's not a like a regular deck building. That one card is good for me, is not so good, is not in my build, but it can be good for me.

00:04:20:14 - 00:04:48:06
Speaker 1
It's not there. Come on to do it for that to inflict ills that is not that common because one card in your deck gets in the way of another card coming into play. So even though a card is good, but if it is not specially good for what you have built, it is not enough. It has to be very synergetic with what you already have in your deck.

00:04:48:06 - 00:05:11:08
Speaker 1
So that was the thing we were trying to do. Show it to publishers. This is the special thing. You have to be very concise, I think is the word when you're viewed, when you're building your deck, you have to know what you're aiming for and you have to pursue that kind of synergy and stuff. And that's the special thing about the game.

00:05:11:08 - 00:05:18:29
Speaker 1
You have. And we were trying to show that we were pretty satisfied with the results of sending the sell sheet.

00:05:18:29 - 00:05:36:07
Speaker 1
We have sent you 2 to 3 publishers, maybe, and we have received a return from two of them. One of them was Blake Bunk from Antoine Bowser is the the publisher. They're the editor.

00:05:36:14 - 00:05:40:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. They're the one who did the captain Flip. Yeah.

00:05:40:05 - 00:06:04:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. We are very into Captain Sleep. It is. And we were like it had they did, we were like they are doing great stuff. And in the same, difficulty, like the same, complexity level as flip twos. And we were thinking, maybe they like this. And they actually liked the game. They returned it to us.

00:06:04:22 - 00:06:37:09
Speaker 1
It's a little bit smaller than we think we need right now, but it's free involved, Bosa said. It's really solid. Congratulations on the game And the other one was done the works and they wanted to close the deal as soon as possible. I was actually traveling because last year I was I went to San Diego Comic-Con and then Trojan Con and those are two like in two secret sick when sequenced weeks and two.

00:06:37:11 - 00:06:38:07
Speaker 2
Consecutive weeks.

00:06:38:08 - 00:07:01:23
Speaker 1
Or. Yeah, consecutive weeks. And I was like going from San Diego to Indianapolis. And I actually signed the deal there at the during the the time I was traveling from San Diego to Indianapolis because then the works were very fast. I was very fast on signing this and signing the game. They really enjoyed it.

00:07:01:26 - 00:07:12:28
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's fantastic. And it's awesome that you didn't you it sounds like you knew which publishers to send it to and like who would it would be a good fit for.

00:07:13:22 - 00:07:47:21
Speaker 1
yeah, I think it's more like we really wanted to send it to play punk and we already know found the words from like previously because Jordy cartographers, cartographers and, and stands by an architect. So he has a sorry going back with further with that in the works and I know Keith from done the works since I think to 2018 or 2017.

00:07:47:24 - 00:08:14:24
Speaker 1
We've met in during school in Germany, so we've known them for a long time. So I think it's more like we wanted to send it to play punk and we also wanted to send it to found the works. So I think it's more like that. And we were lucky enough that then the works actually did the game. We I don't think it was like a thing.

00:08:14:26 - 00:08:34:05
Speaker 1
We actually thought about it. We, we just wanted to send that sheet for to those I think we, we have sent to one more company, but I don't remember which and I don't remember if we actually send it to that other publisher. I don't remember.

00:08:34:08 - 00:08:44:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. Could you tell me we'll come back to Flip Tunes for sure, but could you tell me a little bit about how you got into making bird games and then publishing bird games?

00:08:44:03 - 00:09:18:26
Speaker 1
Yeah, I've always played war games in my life in Brazil. The modern board games, they became a real thing and more widely known doing after Zombies Side Love Side was a massive hit here in Brazil. So 2012. But previous to that, we we had like several people playing board games, playing European board games, but they were like importing stuff from Germany at the time.

00:09:18:27 - 00:09:57:23
Speaker 1
They were bringing stuff from Germany at the time and playing, but it was a very small group of people like they usually organized group buys from the offensive in Germany email email list. So they were like sending emails to each other. So previous to WhatsApp and stuff like that, they were buying stuff. But I had one friend and this friend we usually played Reskin several regular deck of cards, regular cards, games.

00:09:57:24 - 00:10:34:29
Speaker 1
We usually played that and he actually introduced me to a to K10, I think in two 2229, maybe end 2010 or 2011, we started playing Seven Wonders and I was like very into playing the game those games, but I actually was also playing Pokémon TCG, not professionally, but I was traveling all around to play the game. I went to several places in Brazil, like Sao Paulo, Rio and Brasilia.

00:10:34:29 - 00:10:58:26
Speaker 1
That is the capital of Brazil and I've been all around and during one of those those trips to play Pokémon, I've been to a friend of mine, a friend of mine's a friend, a house, a friend of mine, and he actually showed me King of Tokyo. King of Tokyo was a game that converted me into a board game collector.

00:10:58:29 - 00:11:29:27
Speaker 1
Not only a player from now and then I was playing games, but I was also collecting games at the time and I answered the Yahoo! Email list and said to the guy, I want, I want King of Tokyo and both expansions. And I was like, buying stuff. And then Osmo did nowadays is awesome. What the at the time it wasn't it was just gallop it was Jarvis They was they were starting here in Brazil.

00:11:29:29 - 00:12:05:18
Speaker 1
They were like in the beginning of their, their company and they were publishing Horse Fever and some of the wars. And at the time, like two years later, they started to publish Ticket to Ride It and stuff like that. So the market began to grow and people were playing more. And we had, we have had several boom times, like several moments that the market went growing very fast during the pandemics as well.

00:12:05:26 - 00:12:28:11
Speaker 1
So the market is now very big in Brazil compared to what it was when I started playing. But as I was into collecting board games, I was like playing all the time. And I I've been very fascinated for King of Talking for a long time, and I started creating games out of nowhere. I don't know why, I don't remember why.

00:12:28:11 - 00:13:04:08
Speaker 1
And when I actually started creating games, but the first two games I've sort of created were two. Those were two games that were never published, and I never I think I'll never publish any of those, neither mechanically there were not good at met thematically. I'm not into those things anymore. First, it was an European style war game. I've never done any European style board game up to last year, so I started creating that game in 2014.

00:13:04:11 - 00:13:37:20
Speaker 1
So 11 years ago and only last year I actually designed a new European Board game after that. And it was about the the prohibition time in the US. So you were trying to create and make alcoholic beverages and stuff like that and you were trying to distribute those beverages, those drinks without being caught. And it was something like that.

00:13:37:20 - 00:14:09:08
Speaker 1
But it was terrible, terrible, terrible, awful game. And after that I was creating a game about, leprechauns racing for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So it was like that You were racing like a mario Kart thing. And it was. This one was kind of fun, but not especially fun and didn't have anything to make.

00:14:09:08 - 00:14:32:26
Speaker 1
Stand out, make it stand out. So I, I didn't proceed to creating those games, but at the time I thought it was those games were fun. And I thought to myself, so how can I publish those? And I didn't know about other countries, publishers, I didn't know about other markets, I only knew about Brazilian market at the time.

00:14:32:26 - 00:15:12:24
Speaker 1
We had some figures like being highlighted here, some some game designers, Brazilian game designers highlighted during the the growth of the of the market, such as Sergio Halabi, Halliburton he's the the designer of sheriff of Nottingham is the most yeah no gained from him and also failed bottles was starting to create some crowdfunding campaigns here in Brazil. He's nowadays he's known for some zombie side boxes and narcos and some other games he he has worked on.

00:15:12:26 - 00:15:38:13
Speaker 1
And I was looking at that and I said I cannot make a crowdfunding funding campaign. Nobody knows about me. Nobody knows who am I and stuff like that. And I was also not convinced I could send my ideas to publisher and they wouldn't publish because they didn't have the incentive to do so because they don't own me as well.

00:15:38:14 - 00:16:07:15
Speaker 1
They didn't know me at the time. They they didn't have any special motive to any special reason to publish a game of mine. So what I did, I had some, some money I could invest in publishing a game, but I couldn't, I didn't have enough to to publish a bigger game. So I called a friend of mine to play Pokémon TCG with me, and we created a game, a card game.

00:16:08:15 - 00:16:46:22
Speaker 1
our limitation was it has to be under 100 cards. And we started creating the game. Very soon it was ready. that that's one thing I've always had in my design process. It was very, it was always very fast to find the core of a game. So it is unless it is fast, I won't keep doing it because it's the, the most boring part of the process is to find the core game a good core game.

00:16:46:24 - 00:17:13:26
Speaker 1
And I don't think that we actually can find a good core game if you start very far from a fun, a special core game. So sometimes it's easier, easier and even wiser to only let it go, you know? So at the time this game was called Pirates and it is like pirates in Portuguese and it is up to now our best.

00:17:13:26 - 00:17:28:15
Speaker 1
So sell game, our best sell sold game here in Brazil all time. So no, no game after that. we're more was better sold, I think.

00:17:28:20 - 00:17:30:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was better. So I guess.

00:17:30:13 - 00:18:03:28
Speaker 1
Yeah I and it up to now it is the, the best seller game I've published here in Brazil and from 2015 when it was first released. So it is actually turning ten years old now. It has been from three different editions and several different prints and we are now getting it's special edition. Like an implementation is not a new edition in the Dexter's laboratory theme.

00:18:03:28 - 00:18:31:11
Speaker 1
So that first game, Pirata, is still being published in Brazil nowadays, not from with my company that is called Geeks and Orcs. We are not the ones publishing the game. The game is published by Galapagos Dragons or Osmo in Brazil because 2022 we've started a partnership where they bought all the licenses from my company and geeks and Orcs.

00:18:31:11 - 00:19:01:02
Speaker 1
That is my company. We stopped publishing new games in Brazil. We are going to start once again to publish new games in Brazil, starting with laptops this year. But we we were like three years for four, three years. We weren't publishing any new games here in Brazil. So our games from the time since 2015 to 2024, 25, they are all being published by Asemota Brazil.

00:19:01:04 - 00:19:08:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So now you're doing the localization of Flip Tunes in Portuguese for Brazil.

00:19:08:20 - 00:19:11:00
Speaker 1
yeah. Sorry.

00:19:11:04 - 00:19:38:29
Speaker 2
Well, tell me, what's the Brazilian market like? Because I imagine in like here, for instance, in Bulgaria, we've got a very small board game market. And typically I think more like Euro games are very niche. You know, if you want to actually publish a game and and see a return on it just locally, you know, it needs to be kind of a more mass market type of game.

00:19:39:01 - 00:20:11:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think Brazil is kind of unique because it is third world country. It is a poor country, but we are a very big country as well. So even though Brazil is a poor country, when you look at the the whole thing, when you actually dig into the market, you see that we have several people buying board games, although one board game could be, even more expensive.

00:20:11:15 - 00:20:36:08
Speaker 1
It could cost more than the minimum wage. So sometimes board games are pretty pretty expensive here in Brazil. But the thing is, we are a very big country, so we have more than 200 million people here in Brazil. So although I don't know one if 1% of the people in Brazil are buying board games, I don't think that's a precise number right now.

00:20:36:10 - 00:21:15:09
Speaker 1
But it would be more than 2 million people. So 2 million people is like one sixth of the population of Portugal, for example. So it's a lot of people already in Brazil. We have, a lot of people. And that's the the thing about here about this market here, we if we sell well, yes, we, we are going to be able to live off those games that we sell well, But normally it's not a good market for game designers because you won't be able to live on board games as a board game designer unless you have a very massive hit.

00:21:15:12 - 00:21:23:04
Speaker 1
Just like I think in Brazil, games that sell really well are double doubles. I don't know how.

00:21:23:04 - 00:21:24:05
Speaker 2
You double they.

00:21:24:05 - 00:21:30:08
Speaker 1
Signal. Yeah, double. Yeah. And also coop the the.

00:21:30:10 - 00:21:31:01
Speaker 2
Resistance.

00:21:31:06 - 00:21:40:18
Speaker 1
Those are. Yeah. And also taco go cheese. Yep. Yeah. Okay that could go either.

00:21:40:22 - 00:21:41:01
Speaker 2
It.

00:21:41:05 - 00:21:42:24
Speaker 1
If that.

00:21:42:26 - 00:21:58:00
Speaker 2
Typically that one is different in all languages at least the translation here is pretty different than here. It's doing they're doing cat goats. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's those yeah.

00:21:58:07 - 00:22:07:26
Speaker 1
Here here in Brazil it's similar but because it starts with Taco as well. But from the cat on it is we.

00:22:07:26 - 00:22:11:08
Speaker 2
Don't have Taco.

00:22:11:10 - 00:22:35:03
Speaker 1
Here. We have a lot You have like dinner kabobs. Yeah. That's, Yeah, that's why you translated to it. Yeah. In Brazil, we don't have a lot of generic kabob and we have a lot of tacos here. Is stronger. The taco thing? Yeah, Especially other than Sao Paulo. Some volume. They have a lot of them done. Our kabob. It's pretty good.

00:22:35:08 - 00:22:52:24
Speaker 1
The cuisine in Sao Paulo is amazing. If you ever come to Brazil, try going to Sao Paulo. You have international food there, and also Brazilian food. And the best in the country would you can find there in Sao Paulo? Really, really good.

00:22:52:26 - 00:23:23:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. Amazing. well, I hope to someday to try and go before I started recruiting, actually, I mentioned about how I was really impressed by your soul sheet and that it was very simple. It was just black, black and white. So she. But you had two things that I had. Well, one thing that I really hadn't seen many associates, which is you actually just listed the fun interactions in the game, which seems like it was so simple, but I just haven't seen it.

00:23:23:27 - 00:23:46:08
Speaker 2
You typically I see like mechanics, I see overview, I see components. well, that was really nice to see. And, and I really like your method of working, you know, starting with a hook and getting to the hook early because I've had a lot of projects where you're looking for the hook for a very long time, and it just feels really bad.

00:23:46:11 - 00:24:05:08
Speaker 2
It's, it's like because you don't have like the trust that it's going to get there. Well, if you find a hook early, then I think it makes everything else so much easier because you can balance, right? You can you can figure out the things around the fun, but if you have a fun interaction, then that's great.

00:24:05:08 - 00:24:35:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that's the main thing. You have to know what is fun about your game and you have to work with it to turn it even funnier or even more fun to those playing those guys playing the game because it's hard to find a game that the it's already fun since the ideation. So finding the hook is especially important in those kind of kinds of games where you're like looking for the hook.

00:24:35:18 - 00:25:01:07
Speaker 1
So this game is good. It's okay, you have fun playing, but what is the special about it? And if you don't have that, sometimes you're going to pursue that after the game is done. And that's not good enough. Not, not nowadays, like ten, ten years ago maybe. But now we have a very competitive TV market and several board game designers creating good stuff.

00:25:01:10 - 00:25:38:13
Speaker 1
Even great stuff are being published every year. We have several great games being published, like during Gen Con, we have we have we have had do a for video, for example, tag team and several games that were like very they were a hit in Gen Con and they're really good games so why would your game stand out. That's the thing the hook helps you to to see because once you have the hook, you know how you're going to show the game to the publishers.

00:25:38:19 - 00:26:05:21
Speaker 1
How are you going to advertise a game to the broader public that will actually play your game? And I think that's the the best way to go. But if you are a professional board game designer, if you leave on creating games, that's not enough sometimes. So you have to work your way to find hooks on games. You already you you have already created.

00:26:05:28 - 00:26:27:07
Speaker 1
But if you start from the book, the hook, you go ahead because this game is probably going to be one of your best games ever because if you find a hook, you already found the fun from the beginning. And actually there's a book called Find the Fun. It's pretty good, too. And they say, That's kind of fun. That's the important stuff.

00:26:27:15 - 00:26:51:11
Speaker 1
All the rest can be arranged and you can find the balance and you can actually do stuff to make it work. But if you find the fun, you found it. You work on that and keep an eye not to mess with that. You don't want to spoil the fun. If you have fun the fun, keep it as it is or even enhance it.

00:26:51:14 - 00:27:01:05
Speaker 1
But never, never put things on your design to in your design that can actually spoil the fun or even make it less fun in some way.

00:27:01:11 - 00:27:03:18
Speaker 2
Yeah, keep the focus on it.

00:27:03:20 - 00:27:04:14
Speaker 1
Yes.

00:27:04:16 - 00:27:06:25
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:27:06:27 - 00:27:22:27
Speaker 2
You've you've collaborated on a lot of games. Can you tell me about how you're collaborative process works? And you know what? What are the good sides, bad sides of collaborating, how you do it, what your method is sort of like?

00:27:23:06 - 00:27:53:08
Speaker 1
yes. I think doing a game and creating a game by yourself, it's pretty hard sometimes because you don't have the incentive or the incentives to actually prototype. Prototyping is pretty boring. It's awful. Is the worst part of the the job is to prototype mainly the first time because the first time you're having you have to create the cards from scratch and you have to create everything from scratch.

00:27:53:10 - 00:28:42:23
Speaker 1
And it is pretty, pretty hard to actually start doing that, especially if you have other stuff to to do. So you are actually you cannot focus on doing that sometimes. And when you're working together, you're like, here in Discord, making a call, a voice call, and you're like working. We usually share screen, so we are working with Illustrator and some Adobe softwares and what we're doing there, we are like sometimes even blade testing, nano nano, not physically, not on tabletop simulator, but we are only like simulating the game in Illustrator, so it is pretty fast.

00:28:43:00 - 00:29:18:25
Speaker 1
And once you're doing that in a duel, it is easier because you have two minds thinking and you are thinking differently. Normally not even though you work well together, you think different in several ways and that's actually good for the design because you're actually getting those two points of views and taking the best of both sides and the other person can bring like insights you didn't have and you can bring insights.

00:29:19:03 - 00:29:53:06
Speaker 1
The other person didn't have. So it's really good to work with other game designers. I think with Jordi, the other designer for Fullerton's, our work is pretty different in terms of matter method because we don't have one. And I think that's that's the that's the strange part because we work very well together. We have been working together for two years now, two years and a half now, and we have created several games.

00:29:53:06 - 00:30:28:10
Speaker 1
Some of those were already published and some are not published yet or it won't even be published ever. But the thing is, we are very good at finding, what we find fun in the game. We are very good to focus on that and work with that in very short time. So for example, Flip Tunes, we have done the whole process from starting from scratch to actually sending the final version to then the words games.

00:30:28:12 - 00:31:06:21
Speaker 1
It was like one month working on the game and we actually have some of some files in our computers that that show us how many iterations we had and input tools to end the core game to. We have had only ten night duration, so it was pretty fast to go from scratch to the products not finished because the game went through a developing development process that was pretty important for the game, not only for balance or purpose, but the final flip.

00:31:06:21 - 00:31:33:02
Speaker 1
And so it does it it came to be during the development process. It wasn't like that. It was only a race for to reach 30 fame and I think that's the special thing about our work together. We are very not methodical at all at all, and we can adapt to each other's way of working. Jordi is a very creative guy, very, very creative guy.

00:31:33:06 - 00:32:09:09
Speaker 1
Never seen something like that, especially in the matter. And sometimes I have to understand that if I say something, he will actually pretend he listened to me. But when I when I said one thing, it also triggered something in his mind and he was like very far away from from the conversation. And he was thinking a lot of other stuff that sometimes we have a new game or we have the insights we needed for the game because of his like mind that is all over the place.

00:32:09:09 - 00:32:38:22
Speaker 1
He he actually thinks all over the place and he's very creative guy. I'm a more focused guy and what we have to pursue and what we have to deliver and I think that that kind of stuff, it's what makes it good because you have a very creative mind. He is also not only creative because sometimes when you say someone is creative, you only think about the the crazy, crazy guy creating stuff like it's not like that.

00:32:38:22 - 00:33:18:21
Speaker 1
He's very into the board game market, so he knows the trends, he knows what's coming up and he use he uses his creative creativity to actually create games. They are very aligned to what the board game market is actually looking for at the time. And also I'm more focused. So I keep as in the tracks, so we're not actually going all over the place to create a game and sometimes you need that focus to actually end projects and start sending sell sheets and stuff like that.

00:33:18:21 - 00:33:49:24
Speaker 1
So sometimes I have to pull the breaks and say, Jordi, it's okay, it's good enough. Let's send associates for publishers, Let's take this game to speed with us or anything like that. And I think that's the reach part of the process for us because we have different, positive characteristics and we complete each other's work. Sometimes I think that's the, the main part.

00:33:49:24 - 00:34:13:16
Speaker 1
But working in a duel, I have worked with other, with other game designers, I think it's best any time. I don't like to work alone in a game ever because it's pretty hard to actually get to test the first time. So when you're playing testing, when you're creating a game in two or more game designers, you you'll have it.

00:34:13:18 - 00:34:33:16
Speaker 1
You already have your crew to play, test a game of yourself, Duel or Trio three or never. I've never worked. actually, I've worked in some games with more people, but Duel, I think is the the perfect outcome for for you to create. At least for me, it is the perfect out yeah yeah. To game designers.

00:34:33:18 - 00:34:56:28
Speaker 2
And you can tell by how many games are meant by duels and for me as well, like 90% of my work is in a team of two. I even joke about it that we're like the Jedi, you know, there's always a monster in the photo and there's always two. Yeah, it sounds like you're a great team. And did Keith do the development?

00:34:57:00 - 00:35:36:21
Speaker 1
Yes. Keith And then their works crew, they have more developers there. But Keith was the the main the main developer of the game. And yes, he came he came with the thing feeling like you have to reach 30, but you still have a final flip. That was the thing that I, I never thought about before. And nowadays I can't imagine the game without it, because it would be a little bit frustrating sometimes it would be more aligned to the people that say, you need to to get that.

00:35:36:24 - 00:36:12:01
Speaker 1
You would have to be more constantly good at reaching higher frame counts. But I think the less the less flip makes everyone think they still have a chance of winning and they will still pursue a good market face. They'll still try to make the deck even better for the next turn. And it brings more fun. It brings more fun and thrills to the game because you're you're very you have thrilling moments during flip downs.

00:36:12:01 - 00:36:27:06
Speaker 1
And in that final flip that is very, very implicitly amplified. Yes, you have more incentive to to care about every single flip you're actually doing in your grades.

00:36:27:09 - 00:36:28:25
Speaker 2
Yeah, there's more attention to it.

00:36:28:29 - 00:36:30:23
Speaker 1
And yes.

00:36:30:25 - 00:36:35:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Do you work on a lot of projects at the same time?

00:36:35:25 - 00:37:10:05
Speaker 1
Yes, we work on a lot of projects at the same time, and I am a lot. It's really, really a lot project at the same time. And that's one of our weak spots as a duo, we are not very focused. Sometimes we actually lose focus completely. So when I'm not actually bringing us to the down to earth again, we sometimes like go crazy and we have like six, seven, eight new games in like one month.

00:37:10:05 - 00:37:44:04
Speaker 1
We have started seven new games, especially Jordi, because I prefer to work in duels, but he is very fast working by himself as well. So he I was traveling to Cancun and when I came back he said, I have four new games, one week, one week for new games. So he sometimes go a little bit crazy and it's not I think it's good sometimes you you actually find a gem, a hidden gem when you're doing like that.

00:37:44:07 - 00:38:14:24
Speaker 1
But you have to know what you abandon because if you don't abandon anything, you will end up not working through stuff. So they actually reached their ending, their finish line. So what you have to do, you have to choose to cherry pick your projects so you get to finish them. It's very important to finish. If you're designing things, get to the finish line.

00:38:14:25 - 00:38:20:05
Speaker 1
That's the important part because you start to looking for publishers and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah.

00:38:20:05 - 00:38:55:07
Speaker 2
It's not totally I my, my job is I do development for a lot of games and I work with a lot of, a lot of first time publishers or like who are publishing their own game through crowdfunding often and often I'll have, you know, new clients who reach out to me and they're like, I've been working on this game for 20 years, and then it's like, Well, it's also very outdated in terms of mechanics and you're you're publishing something that doesn't have that much marketability because, you know, in 20 years there's been so much that has changed.

00:38:55:09 - 00:39:18:27
Speaker 2
And and I feel like I feel like though it's it's something where sometimes like there's a perfectionism, too, to us, which we kind of need to get over. And a lot of game designers have even more of that because because you know, with Euro games especially, we were targeting people who like to optimize, right? Who want to make things really, really good.

00:39:18:27 - 00:39:37:05
Speaker 2
And the best thing they can be. But you can get stuck in that and then you're never going to reach that 100% or if you do, often, it'll be through you not knowing how to reach it and reaching out to a publisher and and finding another project. And then so much.

00:39:37:07 - 00:40:07:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that's, that's it. If you take too much time, the game will be out in mechanics in terms of mechanics because everything is changing so, so fast in the board game industry. We have several trends coming every year and the games are starting to be more. You're a very fast, very fast paced right now. Fast pace is the thing you're looking for right now independently of the style of the game.

00:40:07:22 - 00:40:16:23
Speaker 1
You cannot have long turns. You cannot have, what's the term, the downtime?

00:40:16:29 - 00:40:17:22
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:40:17:24 - 00:40:54:19
Speaker 1
The downtime cannot be great and very large. You have to keep people into the the gameplay all the time. So you have some, some things that are not up to, up to date right now. You have several mechanics that are not being used the same way as they were being used ten years ago or five years ago. And European style games, they're suffering more, I think, because you have to bring that, modernity to the games.

00:40:54:19 - 00:41:46:13
Speaker 1
So they are suffering. You don't see many of those like becoming instant hits in the market. You've seen one one here, one there, but they are not in the prime time for European games nowadays. We are not in that the moment at the time, but I think they will they will come back even stronger because when they find it, when game designers find what will make the next step for European Board games, I think we'll have it as a new trend once again, because once you create the same up optimization stuff, with a more modern face, with a more modern base, it will be even bigger than it was before.

00:41:46:15 - 00:42:26:23
Speaker 1
I'm a more European type of player. Yeah, but I also like lot of those small engine and that buildings. Yeah, they're always optimizing stuff. But the euro, the core euro games like board games, like soaking or Concordia, I really love concordance. I really miss those kinds of games and I think we'll get to that. The point those kinds of games actually get not only reprinted or redone as we see them, like a Greek or a Puerto Rico or Castles of Burgundy.

00:42:26:25 - 00:42:41:29
Speaker 1
We will see more of new European Board games in the foreseeable future. I think they will return stronger because of that aspect of the actually making them more fast paced.

00:42:42:01 - 00:43:08:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And I think I feel like it's going towards like a mixing of American style and European style and but there is like nowadays players have an expectation of things like fairness and things like pacing. And that's just, I don't know if a game you know, like, say, Cosmic Encounter or Catan, I don't know how that would do if it was now coming out, you know?

00:43:09:08 - 00:43:39:05
Speaker 1
yeah, I don't think they would do great, but without those games, we wouldn't be here. So I think there will be classics forever. Like Catan. I don't think a ten will ever stop selling. Yeah. Or because it's at least in my lifetime, I don't think I will. See, Captain being like four. I won't forget about Captain. And neither any of those players playing captain.

00:43:39:06 - 00:43:43:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, You always like Captain. And without it, we wouldn't be here.

00:43:43:10 - 00:43:44:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.

00:43:44:06 - 00:44:02:08
Speaker 1
It's. Yeah. And so we needed those steps. But nowadays, I think publishers are not looking for new content. Yeah, only in such as matter, you know, only in sales matter, but not in mechanics. Yeah. Not mechanic mechanics wise.

00:44:02:14 - 00:44:26:18
Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely. I mean, the reason it was successful is because I don't think then people were looking for it either. You know, it became a kind of game that's before and after captain, you know, and same with like Dominion and Deck building and like those types of games do change that. The like the trajectory of the market and then they inspire other people to, you know, go towards that type of trend.

00:44:26:18 - 00:44:36:15
Speaker 2
Other other designers. Yeah. could you tell me a little bit about your other game? Also, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

00:44:36:18 - 00:45:07:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, Yeah. It's also up been Portuguese at least. I think in English it would be Ozawa or something like that. And also is a Brazilian character based on Bozo the Clown, because we have Bozo the Clown very strong here in Brazil. During the eighties, we had our versions of Bozo here. They were actually licensed by the same people that own Bozo Bozo trademark there in the U.S. So here was a huge thing.

00:45:07:06 - 00:45:38:15
Speaker 1
And Bozo here has the the history of being a very wild actor. He was wild, wild on like there was one bozo that actually became a pop culture reference because he was crazy, like a rock star in the seventies, you know, always doing the worst thing you can imagine. And it was a clown for the children to watch during television time.

00:45:38:18 - 00:46:10:16
Speaker 1
So it is very pop culture, a very well-known pop culture references in Brazil and one podcast called I. It would be Young Nerd, the translation, but jobbing that they actually did an RPG campaign role playing game campaign in the broadcasts about a cyberpunk scenario and those are was the main character. And since then, like to 2013 they started with the RPG.

00:46:10:19 - 00:46:42:28
Speaker 1
It became a hit here in Brazil and they have several fans here and they actually wrote a novel about it and do it. In 2022. They reached Jordie and said, we want to create a dungeon crawler about Ozark, and would you be interested in doing that? And Jordie was interested and he thought he wouldn't be able to create a game by himself, and he invited me to work with him in the project.

00:46:43:05 - 00:47:12:17
Speaker 1
So we are we have been working with in a sub for two and a half years right now. But actually we delivered the the game, the board game design and stuff like that. Mechanically, we have delivered it on February 20, 24. So like more than one year, one year and a half ago. And in those op you were, you have a dungeon crawler.

00:47:12:19 - 00:47:41:27
Speaker 1
It is a scenario based game. So you have ten different scenarios and you can play the game both in one shot camp missions, but you can also plays more campaigns because you have the sets of three scenarios. The game has ten different scenarios, you have three different mini campaigns, short campaigns. You can play, and two of those are composed of three scenarios, and the last one is composed by four scenarios.

00:47:41:29 - 00:48:13:06
Speaker 1
And you can play the game like you want, how you want. But the thing is, the special thing about Ozark, it is not a come on dungeon crawler because what you're doing first in your turn, your reasoning cards are somewhat like leaving forests or quads of Gatlinburg and you're trying to push your luck to see how many stats like how many traits you have.

00:48:13:09 - 00:48:41:28
Speaker 1
You're going to have for your next turn. So every turn is different. You have a deck, a bass deck for your character that is pretty different. You have four basic steps. They are strength, intelligence, charisma and agility, and you're trying to build those attributes for your next turn. But if you push too hard, you actually stumble in. Your character, loses health points.

00:48:42:00 - 00:49:07:00
Speaker 1
That's a thing in the game, and that's one of the special things. The other thing is the health track for your character. The health track has both your health points in your adrenalin points. So you have 18 spaces, a health track. Some of those, they have hearts. Those hearts are your health points. But every space you have a lightning bolt.

00:49:07:03 - 00:49:32:19
Speaker 1
And that lightning bolt means adrenaline. Adrenaline you can spend to regrow things. Reroll dies during your tests in the game or even when you're getting hit by your opponent. So it's a cooperative game. So you're playing against the game itself. And the thing about the game is you're you are always pushing your luck. You have that health track system and push push your luck.

00:49:32:21 - 00:50:08:20
Speaker 1
It's in the cards and it's everything very entangled because everything works together and you're trying to make the best, the best turn want. Sometimes you want to be with a lower life because once you lowering your life in your health bar, you actually gain some bonuses like more dice for your tests or even some special characters. They get special tokens they can spend to add dice or to add automatically successes.

00:50:08:28 - 00:50:44:28
Speaker 1
And you have several stuff like that. You have several characters to play with. The game was crowdfunded through game found for the the general public and also it was confronted here in Brazil in game found we've made I think close to $200,000 and in Brazil we have made $1 million in Brazil only. So it is a very well succeeded campaign but mainly for Brazilian, for the Brazilian crowdfunding campaign.

00:50:44:28 - 00:51:24:17
Speaker 1
So we had that that question before. Some people will, how are you going to produce that game with only $200,000? That's not the reality, because in Brazil we have sold more than 4000 units, I think in years 4000, 20 to 200 units here in Brazil alone and more than $1 million sold the game. It's actually being created in not only it because it has several miniatures but printed and injection molded right now as we were speaking, it is being produced so it will be delivered next year on March, I think.

00:51:24:19 - 00:51:46:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So so much good stuff for one, immediately when you pitched the game pushed push your luck and horror. Seems like such a good fit immediately. Yeah. So it's it sounds like a really good thematic fit and.

00:51:46:04 - 00:52:16:05
Speaker 1
I think that's that's the thing we, we aim for because it's cyberpunk and it has that thrilling thing. You're like very thrilled that I think that's the best word too. You're always in the in the brink of something and that push your luck aspect in your life, your life, your health track going down, you're close to dying. And if any, will any of the players die.

00:52:16:12 - 00:52:54:27
Speaker 1
The game ends and you lose. So you're on it. You're always on the brink of losing the game and you need to be close to dying to be well succeeded sometimes. So this is a very special game in that matter because you're trying to push your luck, to push your way through tests and stuff like that. And it's very fast paced for that kind of game because you have missions that are completed in one hour, one one hour and 20 minutes and something like that once you already know how to play the game because the first time it's not that easy.

00:52:54:27 - 00:52:59:10
Speaker 1
Sometimes because you have some special iconography and stuff like that.

00:52:59:12 - 00:53:31:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. For for me, I've always found it really difficult to do design cooperative, just having objectives, keeping the suspense high, making sure that that the game stays interesting seems really difficult to me. But also it's a it's, I'm assuming it took more time than Flip tunes and it's a very different type of game. You know the scenario based and there's just more in it.

00:53:31:17 - 00:53:38:08
Speaker 2
Could you tell me what that process is like and like,

00:53:38:10 - 00:54:13:03
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. People have actually reached out to us. They already knew they were trying to, they were aiming to create a dungeon crawler, so we didn't have much saying on that and it wouldn't be the mechanics we would go to as freelance designers, you know, because it is way harder and it takes much longer to create the game other than the games we are usually creating.

00:54:13:05 - 00:54:39:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, both me and Jordy, we usually create smaller stuff that we can finish sooner and start reaching out for publishers soon. And with those up was very different. We actually got we worked in the game like one year and a half, maybe the game and the two expansions and the process is very different because the thing is, as you were hired to do something, you have to find the core mechanics.

00:54:39:18 - 00:55:24:04
Speaker 1
But if you're not, if you don't settle for the the average stuff, you have more difficult to to find the core of the game because you have to find the hook. And if you find the hook in a game, you have to stay like you have to stay in the briefing, you know? And it wasn't that hard for this game because Jordy already had an idea and the idea was to use the push your luck mechanism mechanics from living for us in a dungeon crawler game and, well, everything else came to be from that point on.

00:55:24:04 - 00:56:06:28
Speaker 1
So we started to create to develop the the core mechanics from that spark sparkle. Yeah. And since then we started creating content and once we were very, we were happy with the core mechanics in the game. Creating content is the good part and the easy part to do because you're like, Bring me every reference you have from other games, everything you like from other games, order like you're creating characters, everything you liked, playing other games, playing other characters and special abilities from unique powers in other games you're trying to bring to your game and translate your system.

00:56:07:05 - 00:56:27:06
Speaker 1
And that's the thing that is pretty cool to do and and it keeps you very into the project because you're always doing different stuff because once you you've made one character, you're going to the other one and then to the other one and then to the other scenario and then to the other boss and others as mortal enemies.

00:56:27:08 - 00:56:52:24
Speaker 1
And you're that part is pretty good. But to get to the core mechanics, that's the hard stuff to do. The hard thing to do here because you when you're hired to do that, it not it is not a thing. You've come you've come up with the idea. No, it's not like that. So you have to find a the best idea for that briefing you have.

00:56:52:24 - 00:57:26:10
Speaker 1
It's, it's pretty different and it takes a lot of time because one one single game of optics nowadays for me and Jordy maybe 40 minutes on tabletop simulator and 40 minutes to play only one game it's very different from flip tones Yeah or other games way we design in which we're playing games in 10 to 15 minutes. It takes a lot longer to play those up and we had to play it from the beginning to the end of each game.

00:57:26:11 - 00:57:54:12
Speaker 1
Every time taking notes. Sometimes we would stop previously because it didn't work like that. So we stop in the beginning, let's change it. And we started doing that and that was a good game for us because it made me especially more organized because I was writing down things and that we changed. It is not that methodical. Yeah, and I actually got to know that several game designers, they are not.

00:57:54:14 - 00:58:31:28
Speaker 1
You're like very on the fly are they? Go as the thing goes, they go with it. And I was writing down stuff and it was good for us to see, how sometimes an idea that didn't work so well as we keep we kept returning to it. We had to make a way for it to work in the system because it was the good idea, as we were several times returning to the first idea, we had to change something in order to make anything more interesting.

00:58:32:01 - 00:59:24:16
Speaker 1
That that it's a good stuff in the process is pretty clunkier. It's it's it's a heavier process than any other game we have worked on before. This was my first dungeon crawler as a designer. I've worked in Simmons Zombie Side, Army of the Dead, but I've played a minor, minor role then. And also I've been it was pretty special to work with it and that we are pretty sure the game is different enough and special enough so people will like to to play it because it's it's interesting that the pusher look aspect is very different and, and it's another, another thing that I've said previously about three times we had to use the these two

00:59:24:20 - 00:59:51:15
Speaker 1
to call attention for the game. It has some special things in the game that you only get to understand once you play or you see it being played. Once you see people thinking about if they should or shouldn't keep revealing cards from their deck. That's the special stuff from the start of each player staring and you see everybody's focus on that player.

00:59:51:15 - 01:00:22:05
Speaker 1
Stern And that's pretty cool for a cooperative game. That's one of the hardest thing. Two things to do is to keep people paying attention to other players turn, and that's hard to do and I think goes does the is very well we have several good feedback during Genco last year 24 and we we are very anxious for the game to be out there so people can try it out and see what they think about it.

01:00:22:07 - 01:00:49:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Amazing. I would love to to try it as well. My final question, I ask this to all designers, but you also as a publisher, I think it's very useful because a lot of a lot of the people who listen to the podcast are are either first time designers or they want to publish their own games. So what would be your main piece of advice to somebody who wants to start this.

01:00:49:24 - 01:01:24:08
Speaker 1
Other than to find a hook? That's the main one. If you'll find a hook, you have the the selling point very highlighted and it will be good for you to find the hook first. But other than that, is that I don't all that mean you have to build your network in the DC industry. It's not a thing you can you can be a game designer that only sells, only sends sell sheets.

01:01:24:09 - 01:01:57:15
Speaker 1
You publish any you can be successful doing that. It's not a problem, but I think it is easier if you build bridges. If you are, you have your network and you can contact people, the right people to do so. And if you have contacts in the industry, like if you're aiming to publish in Germany, you have to have contacts in German, in Germany, you have to know people from the places you're trying to publish things because it becomes easier.

01:01:57:21 - 01:02:25:11
Speaker 1
That's it's easier for you to reach out to people and to call their attention. Sometimes it is hard for publishers to give attention to everything. We have several board game designers nowadays. Nowadays they are sending sell sheets and ideas for games and videos like short videos, video pitch for games every now and then, and mainly the small companies, the small publishers.

01:02:25:17 - 01:02:51:09
Speaker 1
They have one person to the only that. So they are they have more difficulty too to do so. And the bigger companies, they they are very, very aimed. So people aim a lot on them and they are always going through a lot of stuff, a lot of projects. So if you're aiming for small companies, it is easier for you to get noticed.

01:02:51:17 - 01:03:06:00
Speaker 1
If you have already viewed your contacts, your if you're close to them in some way, I don't know how you're going to do that. But I think building your network is pretty important.