Episode #56: How To Be A Game Inventor With Eric Slauson Creator of Tattoo Stories
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Have you ever thought about inventing or designing a game? There are two markets you can create games for. The mass market and the hobby market. And on today’s podcast episode, we have Eric Slauson, an accomplished game designer who specializes in designing social and party games. Eric shares with us the process he uses to develop his game concepts, and this process is proven and works!
As the creator of two popular games, Tattoo Stories, and MonsDRAWsity, Eric jumps into a valuable conversation around the different tiers of trade shows for new game inventors and what value you can take from each. What’s especially interesting about this conversation is the conversion of mass from The Toy Coach and hobby from Eric. Get ready to learn from both sides, and pick up insights along the way.
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Interested In Playing Games Eric Designed? Check out the links below:
Check out MonsDRAWsity and grab your copy here.
Check out Nerd Words, the Science Word Game here.
Check out Eric’s Feature on BoardGameGeek for Black History Month!
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Azhelle
You're listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, Episode Number 56.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
To Making It in The Toy Industry, a podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you, and now your host Azhelle Wade.
Azhelle
Well, hey there toy people Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It in The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. Today, my guest on the show is Eric Slauson, inventor of Tattoo Stories, and monstrosity, to fun party games that are bound to have you laughing, smiling and creating lasting memories with your loved ones when you play them. Eric's specialty is social and party games. And he's coming on the show today to share his knowledge, insight and inspiration as to what it takes to be a game inventor, aka a game designer. Those two titles are one in the same. And we will get into explaining all of that, and more in this interview, toy people. Let's get started. Eric, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you here to talk all about being a game inventor.
Eric
Thanks for having me. I'm really excited
Azhelle
To get started. Can you just tell everybody that might not know you a little bit about your background?
Eric
You're? Yes. I'm Eric Slauson. I am mostly a game designer of party games and social games. I am in my my day job is a technology specialist for high school. So I kind of help teachers integrate technology into their lessons. Before that I was a middle school English teacher for nine years. So you know, my career is in education. And then I kind of fell into this the side hustles that were of board game design.
Azhelle
That's amazing. How did you get started as a game inventor coming from being a teacher?
Eric
Yeah. So I think my trajectory is similar to a lot of game designers in that I grew up playing, you know, the classics, the, you know, the scrambles, and Uno's. And those sorts of things, and, and then in college started, you know, discovering the hobby side of the industry, you know, titles like a tan and pandemic, and those sorts of things. And somewhere in there, I started doing what's called, like house ruling, where you kind of changed one rule at a time or tweak something you're like, well, I don't think that rule is really fair, what if it works like this? Or, you know, I don't really like the system where you lose a turn. So what if you just have to spend $2 instead of losing it, you know, and that's a really great entry into game design. A lot of game design classes have that as an exercise, you know, take a game and just tweak one thing. So I started doing that trying to fix games that were already published. So that I thought they were more fun. And then I, you know, I said, Okay, well, that's easy to do. Let's try to do it from scratch. And so I started making my own games and inflicting them upon my my pain group. They had to test some of my early things. But one of the first ones that I that I tested with them, ended up being that two stories, which was one of my first published games. So yeah, it was really just a background and playing those family games and then getting a wider look into this whole other, you know, ecosystem of hobby gaming and enthusiast gaming and then starting to realize what I liked about games and what I didn't like about games and kind of figuring out what my my design niche was, by by doing some house rolling and design stuff.
Azhelle
You know, it's so funny because hobby gaming, that whole side of the industry, I had someone on the podcast, who specialized in that, but I never described the difference between the two, between kind of like the mass game toy market, and then hobby game, how would you describe the two? How are they different?
Eric
Oh, that's interesting, I guess. mass market is, you know, the, the easiest explanation is, you know, something that you would find in target. Although, as of the past two years, even that's gotten muddier because target specifically has just been killing it. And they're the way that they've stocked their game section has bled more into hobby. They have a lot of games that would have traditionally been I guess, heavier, or we use the term like crunchy or games, more complex games, but they're really trying to kind of bridge that divide. But traditionally, you know, a mass market game would be something you know, like a monopoly or something like that very, very accessible theme that aren't necessarily super dorky. Not a lot of fantasy or cyberpunk kind of things going on there. And hobby, they're not always but usually there's like a slight complexity jump. As far as the rules, as far as the game systems and the game mechanics that are that are at play, and then where they're sold, you know, they're traditionally things that would you would find on a Kickstarter, or on specifically a board game website or a local game store, you know, it's not something that you would find at a big box retailer. So there's some overlap, you know, there's, there's getting to be more and more of an overlap, especially as some of these these big retailers get more complex games in their inventory. But yeah, it's partially an availability thing, partially a complexity thing. But I happen to get exposed to the to the hobby side first, and then you know, you kind of have to be you don't have to, but it's, it's somewhat easier to break into the hobby side than it is to break into, you know, Mattel or something like that. You know, a lot of these these hobby companies that are putting out games are run by three people or five people or something. It's not this, you know, multinational corporation that, you know, that kind of approach. So there's also a size difference.
Azhelle
And in the hobby side, don't you guys typically call what what I would refer to as the manufacturers who choose to license your game ideas, it's typically called the publishers that choose to arrive. Yeah. So that so just as we start talking, if that word comes up to a people, as you're listening knows the publishers equals manufacturers, it's one in the same, just different terminologies for it that you might hear bouncing back and forth, depending on the panel that you're at, or who you're talking to, and what their focus is. So I would love to know, because I actually met you at a fair, I think we were at Gen Con. Was a Gen Con?
Eric
It might have been either Gen Con or Toy Fair.
Azhelle
It was not I was not in New York. So then I wouldn't say Yeah, definitely. Gen Con. I was, you know, I was like, work vacationing. And Christian and I met you and we saw your awesome game Tattoo Stories, I had a lot of fun playing it. And so one of the main questions I wanted to ask you today, you've been doing this for a while. So which events and fairs do you really think are valuable to aspiring game inventors to either attend to learn from or maybe to sell their ideas at?
Eric
I think there are kind of three tiers of conventions, both in size and specific purpose. For a designer, I should also mention, we're talking about terms earlier, in the army side, we we tend to say designer instead of inventor, or developer, which is a slightly different thing. So if I'm gonna, I know, I'm gonna keep saying design or developer.
Azhelle
That's a great point. Yes. Okay. So if you're hearing the word designer, inventors, that equals inventor, so designer equals inventor, publisher equals manufacturer one in the same,
Eric
Excellent, so if you are a game inventor, here, try to look for a, a convention, I think the great place to start is prototyping conventions. And what those are, are basically, a bunch of designers get together, you know, at a convention center, and there's not really published games there. Sometimes there are words that they're just trying, a publisher is trying to work out the kinks of a design. But mostly, it's just, you know, normal everyday people who are trying to make a game and you just play each other's works in progress. So you know, there's everybody has their games written on post it notes, or their, you know, their printed from their own computer or something like that. And you just kind of circulate around the tables, you play each other's games, you try to break them, you try to fix them. And it's a great networking opportunity for not only meeting other designers, but like I said, publishers are also there trying to not only find the games of tomorrow, you know, they can sometimes spot even if something is in a rough state at the beginning, they can see the bones are there. And so they might say, Hey, give me your card. If you can figure out this specific aspect of it, send me an email. So the two that I would recommend there's a series of them called protospield, P-R-O-T-O-S-P-I-E-L, and they're all around the country in America. And there's different sizes. Sometimes it could be in just, you know, a Ramada Inn, you know, and there's like 60 people there. Some can have a few 100 people, but like I said, it's just a place for you to meet other designers and to get your game tested.
Azhelle
I have a question for you. There. You said that sometimes publishers will see a game even if it's not fully developed, but still be able to recognize there might be some great bones there. Do you find that that is is more likely to happen in the hobby side of games rather than the mass? Because mass? I feel like they're like, I don't see it next.
Eric
Yes, yes, there's a big mass provider who's either started pitching more to mass market companies. Yeah, there's a big job. And in hobbyist publisher, publisher, some publishers expect you to have, you know, a 90% done game. Some people are more comfortable hearing pitches of, you know, even just like concepts, you know, what, what if there was a game like this, and you don't really didn't really have anything super solid figured out? And, and they're like, okay, sure, maybe, you know, figure it out, and then send me an email, you know, that, you know, you're not gonna, like, sign anything necessarily that way, but it's a good way to start a relationship, they can get an idea of your creativity. So I have been more able to talk with hobby publishers, where, you know, my game is, you know, it's, I have it on an index cards and stuff. And, you know, the pieces aren't, you know, they're, I didn't 3d print my pieces, I'm just using, like, chess pawns or something like that. And but they can get the core gameplay loop is fun. You know, I'm using placeholder art. And you know, I can kind of explain, here's what I think the art would look like, if we if we went forward. Here's my vision for it. But yeah, it doesn't necessarily in the hobby side have to be 100% done, you have to have a completely finished working pre production copy of your of your game. That's, that's a good point to know. Okay, sorry. To get you off track, you were talking about the three tiers of convention.
Azhelle
Yeah. So, Protospiel and then Unplugged is the other. The other prototype convention that works similarly, there's a couple of pubs around the country, smaller ones, but there's a big one in Baltimore every year. That is actually where I signed tattoo stories, bicycle happened to be there, and they saw me testing it with people. And I didn't go necessarily to pitch it, you know, I didn't know what publishers were going to be there or not. But just the pester reaction, the people were laughing so loudly, and, you know, there was like a line of people waiting to play it near the table, it got, you know, some publisher attention just from the organic play experience. So both of those are great. So the next tier up from that is the actual convention conventions, where there are booths, like vendor booths, and publisher booths. And there's several of these of varying sizes. my two favorites as far as like business, our origins, Game Fair, and Gen Con, which you mentioned earlier, those are the ones with you know, 60,000 90,000 you know, people in attendance hundreds of publishers are there you get to see the you know, the the hotness, you can kind of walk around the booths and and analyze trends and games, you can see what people are playing in the free to play area. What are people checking out from the library, what you know, what's happening on social media around with those conventions? So those are great, not only as a game fan, you know, I always end up spending a lot of money I get, I go there to get a game side to like make money and then I buy a bunch of games. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Those those fairs are so much fun.
Eric
We mentioned, like workstations, those are kind of that great middle ground of they're, they're a great spectacle for just people watching and being a part of the bond of the of the hobby and of the career. But as far as connecting with publishers, there are a ton at both of those conventions. Yeah. And then the higher tier is where you get into places where there are both hobby and toy people. Things like New York Toy Fair, which I mentioned earlier, and or Shai tag, Chicago toy and Game Fair. Both of those are not only a little bit harder to get into because you kind of have to have some industry credentials to get in usually, but they're not targeted, necessarily just that hobby. There's also you know, when you're talking to publishers, like you mentioned earlier, there's like professionalism jumps seems like a weird way to put it. But yeah, you definitely. It's closer to the big leagues of you know, being prepared having your ducks in a row. Being professional in a meeting and stuff. I've definitely had a lot of board game meetings at bars and karaoke. And that's not necessarily what happens at Toy Fair or
Azhelle
It does. I mean, for me, there are always those nights but that's not where deals are getting made that look like we're trying to relax because today was horrible and drink.
Eric
Yeah, yeah.
Azhelle
Oh, man. Okay, great. No, that was super helpful. That's a great assessment of the different kinds of tears of buttons that are great for inventor slash designers just getting started in hobby game and maybe even mass I feel like maybe more inventors developing games for mass might benefit from going to maybe some of these low tier conventions if they don't have, you know, when they reopen if they don't have someone to practice their their games with. Oh, I did want to mention something as you were talking about low tier prototyping conventions. It made me think about board games simulator. Is that like, the new way people are testing games? virtually?
Eric
Oh, yeah. So there's a program called tabletop simulator.
Azhelle
Oh, tabletop simulator, right?
Eric
on Steam. And yeah, so it's basically a guess a virtual environment where you can upload your board game, all the pieces and all the cards and all the rules and and then people can play it, you can play multiplayer with with people. So it's just like a virtual board game space. That's what a lot of the prototyping has moved to. Some other companies are even leaning into it, and basically offering like samples or demos of the game. So before the game has come out, you can play it on tabletop simulator. Wow. Yeah, there's another one called table topia, I'm not as familiar with, I think it does the same thing. As far as playing and learning on those, there's definitely a learning curve, because you're trying to do things with a mouse and keyboard that are, you know, normally I just pick up this piece and move it over here. In tabletop simulator, it's like, Okay, well, now I have to hold T and press this over here. And you know, it's a whole, it's a whole thing. But once you get kind of into it, there's a really a big community behind it. And it's been just a lifesaver for keeping community engagement or getting your game tested during these weird, endemic time.
Azhelle
The weird thing is, for me is in the mass market anyway, people are very protective of their ideas. So the thought of uploading your entire game, all the rules, all that maybe even all the art, like in order to play test and simulate it, I guess, I just wonder what are the terms of that site for all that information that you're uploading? That's, that's why I'm hesitant about it
Eric
Totally, totally understandable. I think that's a, that's a big difference, too, between, you know, mass or retail and hobby. The hobby side is that not to say that there aren't publishers, and there aren't games that people keep secret, because they are, you know, incredibly unique. And they want to make a splash with, you know, some something that's going on. But for the most part, everybody's, like, really open with, oh, you're working on this game, as long as it's not, you know, like, based on an intellectual property or something, and there's some NDA going on. But you know, a lot of the designers you know, know each other, and we're constantly sharing our ideas with each other, ask each other advice, you know, which normally we would get paid for, if there's a aspect of game design, it's called developing, which is basically, you know, you're given a game that is mostly working, but there's some things that aren't until you analyze it, you kind of reverse engineer and fix what's broken, or kind of develop it into something that's a little bit more marketable or more efficient, or something like that. And that's like a whole thing that you didn't get paid for. But a lot of times, a designer is just like, we just, you know, play each other's prototypes. And we're like, Well, why don't you do it this way? Or why don't you know, we just fix our game?
Azhelle
I know, it's so hard to keep it in, isn't it? Like, yeah, you use you enjoy the process, like, people give me their ideas all the time. And I'm like, and I can't help myself. I can't it's like, you know, you can't help but you just want to give your, your your thoughts because you enjoy the creative development yourself. So it's,
Eric
Yeah, but I think in general, you know, I think there were some some publishers at the beginning of the of the pandemic, that were really hesitant about tabletop simulator and putting their games out there. And, you know, if people can play it online, why would they buy the board game or, you know, whatever. But not only is there is that, yes, you can play it in multiplayer with people, you know, around the world, or whatever. But there is that barrier of tactile barrier for things, it's a slightly cumbersome to do basic things in these virtual environments. So people are really just, you know, it's it's almost like an elevated demo at these board game conventions, they usually have demos out where you can play a single round, you can play a couple rounds with the publisher or the designer to get a feel for if the game is for you. So it's basically that just you know, the whole game. You can really
Azhelle
At your access.
Eric
Yeah. So it has been interesting. And I don't know if there's enough data to really analyze what impact it has had on sales or engagement or whatever. But um, yeah, I think just at baseline, people are a little bit more chill on the hobby side with sharing, they're sharing their games and stuff
Azhelle
A lot more chill. Going back to when I met you, it was 2019 Gen Con, what stage were you at with Tattoo stories then like how long? You said you you licensed the game to bicycle? Mm hmm. How long had it been since you'd licensed it? I'm wondering like, what was that whole process? Like, like what happened? From the time that you went to? Would you say origins
Eric
On pub was at
Azhelle
On pub to when I met you, I'm curious to know what that journey was like,
Eric
I've been doing this for for like six years at this point. And there were probably three years where nothing happened, you know? No, you know, I was going to all the conventions, the practice fields, the and pubs the the Gen Cons, other things, trying to get meetings, getting meetings, no, you know, some nibbles a very close Heartbreaker, you know, like, Oh, you know, kind of handshake deals that, you know, turned into, whoops, we, you know, we shuffle things around, we can't actually sign the game, you know, it was, it was a rough period.
Azhelle
With this same game?
Eric
Well, they're multiple games, I, you know, had tattoo stories, I have to go back into my Google Docs and save when the original thing was, but I think that one was 2016 when I designed it, and if I'm not mistaken, I signed it in 2018. So yeah, I, I had entered it into, you know, design contest, I had, you know, had gone to these different things, and demoed it. And, you know, I've told this at other podcasts, but this unplugged almost was a kind of a make or break thing like events, like I wasn't necessarily, like I said, going to get the game signed, but I knew that they were going to be you know, hundreds of people there who were just there to play games, on pubs specifically sells tickets to the public. So it's not just game designers, people can just walk off the street and play these, like paper games. These not like published games. Yeah. So I was really going for a little bit of indication, like, is this game good? Like, yeah, I feel like it is, you know, like, but I'm playing it with a lot of game designers. I'm playing it with my friends and family. And, you know, I'm sending it to these contests. But I need to really just get it out there and, and stress, test it with hundreds of people who don't know me, you know, right. And so I kind of made this this mental deal with myself, like, I'm to go to a pub, and if nothing happens, and if I'm struggling through that, then maybe this is not for me, you know,
Azhelle
I okay.
Eric
So I went and just like I said, I had a four hour block of time, where I had this table reserved, and you can do whatever you want with the table, you know, test as many games as you want. And my plan was, I had four games, and I was going to play each one for an hour. And I brought Tattoo Stories out first. And just the first game went really well. And there was a group of people next to the table, and they're like, Hey, can we try? And that happened for four hours.
Azhelle
Oh, okay
Eric
yeah. People just kept asking to play and and, you know, people were giving me their business cards and all kinds of stuff. So yeah, that's that's kind of where it happened.
Azhelle
So then what happened? Like, how did what happened? When bicycle? Did they come play? Is that what happened?
Eric
Yeah, so it's kind of a blur. I was so like, excited. And you know, in a, you know, just like getting this this, oh, my gosh, people are sorry, people are liking it. People are, you know, taking pictures of their tattoos and all this kind of stuff out, several publishers came through, and like demoed it, and I basically, there's not a huge difference between like pitching a game and teaching a game to strangers, you know, like, I'm, I'm explaining why it's fine. I'm explaining how it works. And so basically, like, over the course of the day, I accidentally pitched it to a bunch of publishers. Like, I sometimes didn't know that I was talking to the head of a company or to some, some retailer until they gave me their business card, you know, wow, everybody has name tags on but sometimes they get flipped around, or they, you know, fall off or whatever. And you're,
Azhelle
you're not mine doesn't bear you're just trying to,
Eric
yeah, I'm just trying to make sure people have, you know, have fun with this game. So there were multiple people who later that I realized, you know, were these massive people that probably should have taken a better you know, definitely giving them my business card or something. Or, you know, giving them more attention during the during the demo. But yeah, bicycle was one of those people and they they reached out immediately after, and they were like, well, we just had an amazing time with your game and can you send us a prototype and at this point, I saw I had just sent out a press release, saying that they were going to start making table top games, they were going to start making board games. And there was like some chatter kind of in the game community, like, Is this real? And is it you know, is this? What are their plans? How are they going to do this? You know, it makes sense because they make cards but right, you know,
Azhelle
They have the paper manufacturer, they can do.
Eric
The logistics are there. So it makes sense, but they hadn't made games before. So there was also a little bit of like, I guess, trepidation or hesitation on my side, like because you're giving your baby over pining over this, this idea and they have it for three years or two years or whatever your contract says, before you get the rights back whether they make the game or not. Right. So it's it's stressful at baseline, but you know, them it being one of the kind of inaugural games for the this new initiative was, was kind of a you know, playing playing for the fences to say like, let's let's see what happens. And then so yeah, tattoo stories is one of the first three games that came out, and that Gen Con was its first convention, I think it like premiered at Gen Con, and just did really well. I had all this probably more comfortable on the outside than I was on the inside. like screaming and crying and like so like nervous and scared and proud and stuff. But I at that point had done a lot of like work in booth. It's a it's a great way to get into conventions as a designer is to work for publishers, so I had taught hundreds and hundreds of games to strangers, you know, like I knew how to sell a game to people. So really, it was just doing that but with my game
Azhelle
and tell me I don't know. Did you design the cover of that game?
Eric
Oh, man, I wish I wish I could take credit for that. Yeah, they just man What a beautiful It's so beautiful. It's incredible the cover of the pave is so good. And the the foil the spot foil that shines. It's It's amazing.
Azhelle
Like I have to say like that is what caught my eye. So the reason I asked that question is because I'm trying to imagine when you were pitching it before you had it signed, What did it look like? What were you showing people?
Eric
Yeah, so I had done my own, like graphic design. I had made my own cover for it. Yeah, this is by the way, something that there's a big like debate over in the in the game designer sphere. Yeah, like how good your prototype should look. Yeah, because on one side it's kind of a waste of time because the publisher is going to do their own art you know, the theme might completely change from you know, dinosaurs to dogs to zombies to whatever so like obviously don't pay for your own art Don't you know like all that kind of stuff. But like for me doing thinking about how to make a really pretty prototype helps me in the design process because it helps me think of my game as a product like okay, this this art might not be what it ends up being but here's why I think something close to this would make it more marketable. Thinking about I can write the rules down on you know, these index cards or whatever but if I start thinking about Okay, do I need icons what icons do I need? Where should the icons be on the card like the deeper you go down that rabbit hole of graphic design the more that you understand how important some of that stuff is even if you're not the one making that final decision so yeah, like I said there's a big debate well how how pretty it should be my prototypes I tend to make way prettier than they need to be so what I had like made my own like box for the game from Britain play Studios which you can like make your own game so I had like this whole like box art that I had done and I had like graphic design my own card backs and all that stuff so yeah a way overboard but yeah, it was a complete look completely different the card backs are different the you know the font on the card was slightly different the rules were in a completely different place as far as like their complexity but yeah so but the core actually I mentioned the bones earlier the core gameplay that that had people you know switching seats and and and forming a line outside of the the unplugged table was was there and that's what what bicycle grabbed and the box was a surprise to even me. Like I they checked in with me about some design things and the the prompts and the game. The game is basically you're trying to combine these different elements into one tattoo design. So somebody has come into a tattoo parlor and they're like, I like popsicles and dogs and chainsaws and surfaces and claws. Put all that into one tattoo, right? And so you have to like mush all that into one drawing. And so the prompts they checked in with me to kind of finalize that list, there were some gameplay tweaks that I had ideas for that we tested back and forth. And but it was all like, mechanics and the rules. And then but I had no idea about like, how the graphic design was going or you know, even the name was kind of in fought for and I didn't know like how the the name was going to get changed. And then at toy fair, one of those years 2019 or something, they happen to have the one copy and that they got from, you know, the production copy or whatever. Yeah, they had it, you know, like, and this will be more familiar to you from the toy industry. They had it like, in a bag like wrapped up in a safe, you know, it's like, you know, chains wrapped around it. It's like, you know, they were like, okay, we're gonna show you this or you know, it's like, you can't take pictures of it. Yeah, coming to this back room. You can't take pictures of it.
Azhelle
Take me cheese of your own.
Eric
Yeah, so and I just was like shaking like when I saw this, this cover because I look this is amazing.
Azhelle
It looks so good.
Eric
Yeah, so they absolutely nailed it.
Azhelle
Definitely. I'm gonna put a link and a picture in the show notes. That's cool. Oh, yeah, sure. Cuz it's awesome. And then speaking of speaking of tattoo stories, the mon monstrosity, yeah, just as awesome. Also his bicycle.
Eric
That is with deepwater games.
Azhelle
Oh, my gosh, they're all killing your games, though.
Eric
Yeah, the covers are doing doing work.
Azhelle
Wow. So yeah, tell everybody about monstrosity. That's your Is it your newest game?
Eric
That is my Yes. That's my most recent game. That one came out December of last year. So just a few weeks ago.
Azhelle
Tell us about it! Pitch it!
Eric
Yeah. So monstrosity is essentially you are a police sketch artist. But instead of normal people, it's monsters and aliens and creatures and all kinds of weird stuff that people have basically had like a minimum black or X Files encounter with this thing. And they've come to the FBI or whatever to like, get to describe it. And you have to like draw it. Based on their description.
Azhelle
I really wouldn't play this one I like I cuz I like drawing like faces and characters and weird things. So I am excited about this one.
Eric
Yeah, it's really fun. It works really great. Over zoom, satistatchy stories. And people. It's been a great game for that people have, we've gotten so many emails and messages from people like, not only I love playing it with my kids, but we've gotten to play it with me, you know, we played it for Mother's Day, my mom lives across the country. And we got all got on the zoom and played it like 12 of us and all that kind of stuff. So it's been really cool. But it's really fun. It's really silly. The the person who is describing the monster only gets to look at the monster for 20 seconds. And then they
Azhelle
didn't realize that part.
Eric
Yeah, you probably get to look at it for 20 seconds. And then you put it facedown. Describe it from memory. So good. So your your memory is deteriorating. People are like yelling questions at you that you should remember, because you were just looking at it. But you know, your memory is fading. And you're you know, you're you're sweating, because, you know, I don't he didn't have feet. I'm sure it did. But I don't remember what the feet look. So
Azhelle
how did it come up with the idea for this game? It's one of those like, ah, such like, why didn't I think of that? Like, that's a great idea. Do you remember how it came to you?
Eric
My fiance is an incredible artist. And she asked me, you know, Hey, can you make a game where you get to draw or like, you know, I can do some art. And so immediately the problem is how do you make a game where she doesn't win every time that incredible artists, you know, like we can't play. You know Pictionary, because she just drove it perfectly. You know, her team just wins. Yeah. So I, you know, started thinking about Okay, well, what is hard about drawing what what are like kind of roadblocks I can put in front of her. And so I started playing like pulling different levers of like, as an artist, what don't you have control over? You know, if you're drawing something from memory, it's harder than when you're, you know, necessarily looking at a, you know, a portrait or a model or something like that. Yeah. So as part of working from memory, and then I started thinking, well, it would be even harder if somebody was describing something to draw. And then I the next level up was like, well, it's even harder to describe something to draw something someone else is describing that they're trying to remember and I just kind of kept piling these like silly things on top of each other. And this kind of all happened over the course of one like road trip. We were driving back from one of these conventions and I started thinking about You're police tech artists and I pulled up you know, my on my phone, I started reading all these articles about how it actually works and how they train and and a lot of that research like actually made its way into the mechanics and into the silliness of the game it actually has a lot of bones that are from, you know, actual forensic work and detective work and, and memory studies and psychology, there's a lot of like stuff in there under the hood of
Azhelle
I love that I'm always telling my students to combine things from outside of the toy industry. And that is, that's so good. But you that's like what you did. That's so cool. And I feel I'm wondering now, as a teacher, because most of your career as a teacher, does the game design process creep into how you teach or does how you teach your methods of teaching ever creep into how you design games,
Eric
there's definitely a lot of overlap us, aside from being able to explain something, you know, writing rules, I have a lot of practice written that for writing directions for activities or something for clarity, as a teacher, we do a lot of what's called like differentiation, which is essentially, you know, noticing that not everybody has like kind of a different learning style, or a different preference for the way they like to learn. There's also students who have, you know, learning differences or you know, different disabilities or you know, that you have to account for and making sure that everyone learns, and everyone understands your content. And so the same way that you kind of market a game so that and, you know, appeals to various audiences, or you try to come up with a concept that is, you know, appeals to a bunch of a wide range of people, that's kind of what you do as a teacher, when you're coming up with a lesson or coming up with a way to explain things, you have to think about, you know, okay, well, the kids who are just like overachievers, they're gonna be listening to me with rapt attention, you know, they want to get that a, and they want to make their parents proud, or whatever, like, I got them, then there's the kids who are struggling to understand what I'm saying. And so let me work in this little analogy, or let me work in this pop culture reference that might help them understand that a little bit more, let me let me gamify this lesson a little bit, so that they can like earn some rewards from the toy chest at the end of the quarter, you know, character, whatever, like, right, you know, your your lessons are kind of a product in a way, like going to school is compulsory, you know, you'd have to go, it's like the law. But nobody, like, has to listen, you know, like you have, you have to kind of make the kids want to be there and understand the value of, of what you're trying to teach them understand why something is important, you know, make it a little bit more palatable. So there's a lot of kind of appealing to the customer, I guess, in teaching and that kind of helped a lot with with my game design. Also, as I taught Middle School. So there's a lot of like, you know, silliness and working with kids. And that, you know, helps me and party game design, like, you know, what's funny, what is silly? What is, you know, what breaks the social taboo and a fun way he you know, that is, you know, it's still family friendly. You know, like, I can't get fired for making this joke. Right. So, so how am I gonna make this kind of like, you know, funny joke that's, that's funny to eighth graders or whatever, but it's not raunchy. Not gonna get me in trouble. Exactly. So yeah, there's, there's a lot of kind of interpersonal skills and teaching that definitely bleed over into giving people the ability to have these fun interpersonal moments in a game. Yeah, I don't know about as a designer, if that bled over into my teaching, I think, you know, I definitely played a lot of my prototypes with my students, because they're helpful. It is very helpful. He has a lot of play testing that, you know, they'll be honest, yeah, they're like, this is dumb. This is not fine. Like, okay, all right. Okay. Yeah, my pride is like a single tear. But, uh, yeah, so definitely some things didn't make it past. Past the brutal sixth grade market. My party games have a lot of high player interactivity. There's a lot there's a social component, there's communication component to a lot of them. Even though tattoo stories and monstrosity are both drawing base. It's only like partially they're really communication games. monstrosity is more about listening and being able to describe well, and memory in and tattoo stories is more about pitching your concept and synthesizing different ideas into one hole. So all of those skills are really useful in an English classroom. So I was able to have my students play these games or kind of approximations of the games and see if the core experience was fun, you know, even if we weren't playing actually monstrosity, you know, if my kids were like, Oh, can we play that alien game again, like where we, you know, we describe the monsters and you know, in the classroom, we're working on adjectives and descriptive language and stuff. But the reason they like it as the game, you know, so
Azhelle
So interesting Oh, that's smart.
Eric
That was a useful kind of overlap there.
Azhelle
Now, since the pandemic, you're probably not seeing your students right now. Is school open? Is it close? What's going on for you?
Eric
Yeah, so we are totally distance where I am. So you know, all the students have laptops, and they're, you know, we're all on Google meets all day and kind of doing doing that whole thing. So it's a little bit different. And my position now, since I left the actual classroom, I work directly with the teachers themselves, and helping them design their lesson. So that has been why I've been busy now, because I'm, you know, like, helping them redesigned for the digital space, and how to teach the same lesson when you can't walk around the room and check on what the kids are doing? Or you can't, you know, yeah, how do you navigate that digital space, kind of going back to table topia, and tabletop simulator.
Azhelle
And speaking of the digital space, you were a speaker at none pub. And that was just the online version of one pub since everything, you know, the world went crazy. And everything went online. And you talked about the four S's a party game mechanics, would you mind sharing that with everyone listening today?
Eric
Oh, yeah, sure. So these are kind of the pillars of a party game design that I use when I'm trying to figure out if a concept is, first of all fun. And once I kind of have the hook tried to develop something that is actually fun for people, when I'm not there, you know, as a, as a, somebody who makes 30 games, I can really make something funnier, when I'm teaching it, you know, I know how to make these prompts funny or whatever. But that's not going to help when I send it out into the world. So I need to figure out how to make it fun in a vacuum. Anybody can play it. So there's kind of four answers that I that I go to the first one is a skill. So the question is, what skill are the players using in this game? And this applies a lot of these apply also to just general game design or game inventing with the skills a lot of times we use the term mechanics, you know, is this a, you know, a take that game where you're attacking each other? Is this a deck builder? Or is it a pressure luck game? You know, those sorts of things? But the skills are more like what physical or mental skills are players using? Are you asking them to be creative? Are you asking them to be analytical? Are you asking them to lie and bluff really kind of think about what people need to do even in something like Google or you know, Lupin Louis, or something, those are, like more dexterity games. And so you're asking people to have quick reaction, you're asking people to press something at a specific time. So really think about what skill you're asking people to use. And that will help you figure out how comfortable people naturally are with that skill, and how much you might need to massage that, that out of people because not everybody is naturally creative. Not everybody is you know, has great hand eye coordination, you have to kind of figure out a way to make it a little bit more approachable. And that's where the second s comes in. With is scaffolding. This is something that I did get from from education. scaffolding is basically kind of I use, like the training we'll analogy so you don't just like jump up on a bike and start going you first you have like a little tricycle as a kid and then you get a bike with the training wheels on it. And then you take those off. And you know, your parents told you while you're, you know, pedaling and then eventually they let you go. There's like a steady process of support. Like I said, I can do that in the classroom over several weeks. You know, if I'm trying to teach my kids how to write an essay, I can know what's just do a sentence together. Let's do a paragraph. Let's do a page. You know, let's figure out our thesis. Like I can do a piece at a time. But with a game you don't have that luxury. It's a one time experience, you know, and a lot of times you're you're being based on that first play. So scaffolding that skill is really important. You lifted something that What do you mean does really well they have games that take creativity and humor, your your party games, you're making these jokes and stuff, but they're scaffolded really well. With the building blocks of Joe, you have the punch lines, you have the setups and it's you're trying to arrange those together in a creative way. So you know, you're you're making each other laugh the way that a stand up comedian would or a, you know, comedy writer or something, but you're not necessarily doing it all by yourself. So it's a lot more approachable in a game like social deduction game, which is these games where you, you know, everybody's a sociopath, and you're all lying to each other all night, like one night ultimate werewolf or Battlestar Galactica or mafia people, some people might be familiar with, like, there are some games where there's like, not as much scaffolding, it's just like, lie, just whatever you have to do just lie. But then a lot of these you have a role, you know, like, you need to lie on this specific way, or, you know, you have this ability, you know, that lets you kind of massage the truth a little bit. So that's how they scaffold that experience. So yeah, how are you helping people along with that skill, the next thing I go to is scoring, and that supports the scaffolding. Because the way that you score a game, is not only obviously that is like, what makes it you know, the, you win, or you lose, but it also tells people how you want the game to be played, what is more impressive or less impressive to do during the game. There's some funny, you know, parallels and sports, we think about, like, you know, basketball, for example, like the two point shot versus the three point shot, right, you know, when it was designed, nobody was like slam, dunking this peach basket, you know, and so, like, you know, like, okay, it's really easy to throw this pgn from this close, that's two points, throw your further away, that's three points or whatever, we nobody knew that we were gonna have, like, posters of people slam dunking, and we were gonna have slam dunk contest. You know, like, there's definitely not like style points in basketball, like, if we were, if we were designing the, the board game, we would probably have some style points and, you know, the how it How well did you dunk or whatever. But in a party game, the scoring is, personally, it's kind of secondary to the the, the experience that the people are having a lot of party games, people play until they win, but then they just keep playing anyway. Or they, they after the first time they play, they're like, we're not going to keep score, we're just going to play it, you know, like, you know, I think in your cards gets humanity, it's like, technically, it's whoever gets three cards. First, it might be five cards, I'm not sure. But most of the time, people are just like playing it, you know, and then until you get done playing until you're, you're bored with it, or whatever. So, but the the way that you award points tells people how they should interact with each other. So in the What do you mean, for example, like when people are presenting their ideas, or their they're submitting their things, their their concepts, their, you know, putting forth this, this punch line, and then the judge picks, everybody knows who the judge is. So you can kind of choose the card based on their personality. So there's like a little bit of a social intelligence aspect. They're like, Oh, I know that Eric loves, right, you know, for fart jokes, or whatever. So I'm definitely picking up picking this joke, right. And so that's one way that you can do it. And what I've tried to do in tattoo stories and monstrosity is play with some of the mechanics, the judge picks mechanics, because in both of them, they have that judge picking aspect. But in tattoo stories, the way the scoring works, I mentioned earlier, you have five things that you're trying to incorporate into the tattoo, everybody draws their own picture. And then the customer who is the judge, they have those five individual cards to give out to whoever they want. So it's not one person wins all like one person can win two cards, one person can win one, one person can win nothing, that you can kind of spread out the points, you can try to really go for different things. So in monstrosity, like I said, there's like a memory component. And the judge picks, what they after they've seen all of the drawings that people drew from their description, they pick the one they think is closest based on their memory, that person gets the point, then the artists see the actual card, they have a secondary vote on which one is actually closest, that person gets a point. And then the witness gets a point if those two match if their memory was actually accurate. So there's still some like the judge picking but it's not really you're not pitching it, it's just playing with the memory. So the scoring is baked into those make people talk to each other to actually look at each other to hand If each other components can point at each other's drawings, I really wanted people interacting.
Azhelle
I love it. I think you did a great job with it that game.
Eric
Yeah, those are those are the ones that I'm most proud of because of the way that I put that scoring system. So what skill are you using? How are you scaffolding that for people who don't naturally have that skill? How are you scoring? And then the last one is smiles. So we talked about how brutal sixth graders are when you're, you know, showing them these game ideas. But when I'm testing a game party game, specifically, if people are not, like, laughing, I that's not good. I need to go back. I need to go something's wrong. You know, like, I don't want I don't want just like, Oh, that's cute, or, oh, that's funny. Like, I don't want people to say That's funny. I want people to be crying I want people to you know, as to keep playing I want people to you know, I want there to be inside jokes that come out of it I want you know that happen. So I'm really looking for the the smile factor that that organic reaction, whether it's a smile or a laugh, or you know, their their eyebrows raising when they see this weird monster card with the artwork on it, I want some sort of physical reaction from players. So if I have all of those, then then I'm at least on the right track, but
Azhelle
I love it. That's great. Thank you for SS of game mechanics. Alright, to wrap up, just the last question I had for you is I noticed that you have been all over YouTube, since the pandemic, like everywhere, I see you promoting your game. And I'm just curious if that's a part of your new marketing plan, because all of the conventions and trade shows have been closed.
Eric
Yeah, I mean, it has been not only a professional struggle, you know, like you sell a ton of units at these conventions and stuff just from foot traffic and people walking by, but also a creative struggle. Because like I mentioned earlier, I get so much like I don't know, vindication or so much joy. So much like inspiration from strangers playing these games, and somebody who doesn't know me at all just watching them interact with the game and being like, we have to we have to buy this you know, right? Like, it's huge to me, like I can look at the sales reports of tattoo stories. And I'm like, awesome. Like, that's cool. But like almost if I you know, seeing one person play it at a booth like playing it with you and Christian at the booth. Yeah, it gives me like so much more joy. I
Azhelle
he loved it so much.
Eric
Yeah. So, um, yeah, I have kind of moved into some some live streams. playing it, there's been we got to play it with Wil Wheaton with bicycle that was really, really cool is the bicycle brand ambassador. So I get to play it with with him and and some other industry people. So you get to do this live this live play of it. There's another YouTube channel called Smosh. And they recently played it on their twitch channel and then uploaded the video to YouTube. And that's gotten like 1.5 million views, which is mind blowing. And so that was really cool. You know, that, like my art helped them make art that other people you know, it's like this cool chain. So with monstrosity, we've been doing live streams, I've been doing interviews with with people these like, video interviews for, you know, twitch or discord or whatever. And luckily, since my games work well, digitally, I can play them as part of the interview like I can play with the interviewers. And you know, the viewers really like that and people in the chat can like vote on what their favorite tattoo is.
Azhelle
Sounds like so much fun.
Eric
It's been really cool. It's been it's been a very fortunate fortunately very easy switch over into the the digital space for these games, but
Azhelle
that's amazing. I want to like play your games with my people. It's a great idea. I'm doing a virtual game night but I'm doing a different game. Maybe I'll have to do another one with mon strat monstrosity. I love that one. I mean, okay, I haven't played it. To be fair. I just watched videos of people playing it but it looks like a lot of fun and I can't wait to get one. Thank you so much for being on the show today. You dropped a lot of knowledge and a lot of insight I really appreciate it. This is gonna be a great episode. Is there anything else you want to share? Before you go anything you're working on or that's coming up that you want to share?
Eric
Whoo hoo many things. So monstrosity, the this is the thing that I'm spending a lot of my, my background time on. We are has done pretty well. But people are really responding to it and even markets that we didn't necessarily you know, intend to it's gotten a lot of traction in the family market. Really young kids love it, like people are playing it with their four year olds and five year olds and stuff. Wow. So we have started working on expansions and sequels that will be coming out this year, into next year. So we're gonna have like a robots version and a dinosaur version and a horror version and all kinds of stuff. So we're in the process of finding artists and, and coming up with some new like different little rules tweaks that you can play and combine the cards and do different things with those that I'm really excited about. I did want to give a shout out also, we talked about the online things I've been doing. There's a Twitter, Danny plays games with a Z. And he has been doing these things called monstrosity Mondays where he, he does a one minute round, he looks at the card and then describes it for one minute. And then over the week, and people can draw based on that little one minute clip. And then they take a picture of it and then tag it with monstrosity.
Azhelle
Oh that's such a great idea,
Eric
Yeah, we can kind of compare them. And then on the Fridays, he reveals what the actual card looks like. And he does a rundown of all the ones that were sent to him and kind of reviews them which ones are closer, which ones are further away. And so it's been a really cool kind of community builder and a neat little difficult thing to do with the the people who like the game. And so yeah, Danny, Danny watch, from Danny Plays Gamez. That was his kind of idea. And he's been doing really well. And I think this is the third week. It's been it's been going and I look forward to it like every every week just to see what people draw. So yeah, check that out. Draw everybody you can draw, it's fine. You can make art like nobody is judging you like, you know, do draw these monsters. Take a picture, upload it with monstrosity Mondays, and then on Friday, you can see how close you were. Yeah, so yeah, those are the main things that are kind of inspiring me right now. Working on these these expansions for monstrosity doing these these podcasts. Thank you again, by the way for having me on.
Azhelle
It was a pleasure to have you.
Eric
Yeah, and doing these these things on Twitter. So
Azhelle
We will definitely be seeing you around for I will put all of the links so that you can connect with Eric in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming again. Eric. It was a pleasure having you here. Well, there you have it to a people. I hope you loved this interview as much as I did. Eric gave some valuable tips as to what shows are best for budding game inventors how you should think through your gameplay as you're designing it and so much more. Eric is actually working with me on a special limited time bonus for Toy Creators Academy. So if you want in on that bonus, I want you to head over to toycreatorsacademy.com right away. To learn more about Eric and most importantly, grab the links to all of his awesome games like tattoos, stories, and monstrosity, head over to thetoycoach.com forward slash 56 As always, thank you so much for joining me here today toy people. I know there are many podcasts out there so it means the world to me that you tuned into this one. Until next week. I'll see you later toy people.
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