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Gamestormers with Jon Spike
23 Plays1 year ago
What do you get when a career educator decides to design a board game? The answer is Gamestormers, at least in this case! GamestormEDU's Jon Spike joined us for our first published episode of the podcast to talk about the game, which released earlier in 2023.
For more information about the game, visit gamestormedu.com.
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Transcript
Introduction by Corey Tomlinson
00:00:00
Speaker
What's up, everybody? Welcome to Should I Play It? Before we get started with our guest for the show, I wanted to take the opportunity to give you a little background about the podcast. For starters, my name is Corey Tomlinson. I'm the editor-in-chief and co-founder at Grimstiel Games. We're a tabletop game publishing company working on our first game, a pro wrestling board game that we'll talk about more in the future episodes of the show.
00:00:23
Speaker
Working on the game with my partners and longtime friends, Mike and John, we've listened to a lot of podcasts, watched videos, and read countless articles to help guide our own game development. One thing that stood out for me doing all the research and talking to other publishers is a feeling of community in the industry. Everyone in my experience so far is very willing to offer opinions and answer questions, helping us out along the way.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's by far the least cutthroat business I've ever been involved with.
Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:50
Speaker
That's particularly why I got inspired to start this podcast. The opportunities for game publishers to promote their games are often tied to production, how the game is developed, where it's being published, and so on. I wanted to create a show that let publishers answer the one question customers looking at a new game inevitably ask themselves, should I play this game?
00:01:10
Speaker
That's what we're here to help answer. Should I play it? Give some game publishers, designers, creators the chance to share their excitement about their games and talk about what makes them unique and fun to play. I hope the show helps listeners discover new games they may have missed and contributes in some small way to our guest success along the way. That's what this podcast is all about. That's enough of an introduction for now. Let's get started with our first episode.
Introduction of John Spike and His Background
00:01:39
Speaker
Hey everybody, joining me today on Should I Play It is John Spike, creator of the game design and surprisingly educational game Game Stormers. John, how's it going today? It's going fantastic. Thanks for having me, Corey. I'm excited to talk games with you. Before I get into anything, I do want to acknowledge one thing.
00:01:55
Speaker
John and and grims steel has actually done some nice consulting pro bono give us some advice at grims steel as we develop our game so we work with the same graphic design firm i will go so i'd be remiss in not mentioning.
00:02:13
Speaker
But John is a friend of the game. Hopefully we're a friend of his game as well. And I just want to acknowledge that upfront that we've actually worked together a little bit before. Mostly by email is the first time we've actually gotten to sit down and talk together. So John, just to start, can you talk about your background, yourself, and your company?
00:02:29
Speaker
Absolutely. So yeah, my name is John Spike. We were just talking, you know, Corey and I were just saying we both came from the origins of high school English teacher and I did that for a few years and then now I coordinate instructional technology at a university in Wisconsin and basically help future teachers get ready to use technology in their classroom and
00:02:49
Speaker
So during my day job, I, you know, help kind of introduce our faculty and students to that new tech that they can use. And then I teach some courses, usually like one a semester. And one is actually kind of relevant to the board
GameStorm EDU and Game Stormers
00:03:03
Speaker
game industry. It's called video games and learning. So kind of adjacent, we talk about
00:03:06
Speaker
you know, what we can learn from how video games teach us to, you know, work into our own teaching and then also what games are really effective in kind of classroom settings for skill building. But then a few years ago I started GameStorm EDU and it was specifically to try to create board and card games that would be really good for building skills in the classroom. And then also we just share out how teachers and students can make their own games for
00:03:33
Speaker
for learning too. So demonstrating kind of their learning through games. So we have kind of an arm of here's just all the resources you need to get up and running to making games and doing it connected to what you already do in the classroom. And then we want to make games to kind of model that. So Game Stormers was our first release earlier this year in 2023. We kind of officially had it out kind of in people's hands March.
00:03:56
Speaker
of twenty twenty three so i think that's getting us all caught up thus far in my background and we've got a i should i would be remiss if i didn't mention we're working on our next game called doom scroll which are open maybe twenty end of twenty twenty four twenty twenty five.
00:04:11
Speaker
Nice. Well, we'll have to bring you back to talk about that when it's when it's closer to lunch. So talk about game starters. Tell us a little bit about the game itself. What's the what's the play style? And I've actually looked at it. I've had it in my hand. I've seen it. It's a it's a gorgeously designed game, Victoria. And yeah, tell us a little bit about the game.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, so Game Stormers is kind of an interesting, it's kind of a mix a little bit of a party strategy game. It's pretty lightweight, I would say, like maybe a little medium if people are first-time gamers. But your goal ultimately is to create the best five-card game idea. So you actually in the game are kind of role-playing as a game designer, you're an up-and-comer, and you're trying to impress the elder Game Stormer.
00:04:52
Speaker
And so to do that, you kind of acquire cards that will go into your ultimate game. You'll have a storyline. You'll have items, which are kind of those people, places, and things in your game. And you'll acquire some game mechanics, so things maybe you could do in your game, things that get your way.
00:05:08
Speaker
actions you can take to overcome those obstacles you run into. And so at the end of the fifth turn, everybody will have kind of acquired cards, played cards, faced off in little mini games. And then finally, at the end of that turn, you'll pitch your game ideas. And you can either win by being voted up the best game by your fellow game designers, or
00:05:28
Speaker
you can combo your cards and strategically play and win little mini battles to get the most points and be kind of honored with kind of the ultimate game designer. So there's a little bit of that strategic points path and there's that kind of party win condition path too. So we kind of try to straddle two genres and that's something I'll probably allude to a little bit later with a question I know that's coming.
Game Stormers Gameplay and Comparisons
00:05:52
Speaker
Uh, you know, actually, as you were saying that and explaining it, the way that you explained it sounds like a, uh, without the vulgarity and without the comedy, well, I'm sure there's some comedy, but without the overt comedy, it sounds like Cards Against Humanity with some strategy involved in it.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we definitely I think this game part of it the the play was born out of feeling sometimes limited by party games like cards against humanity and apples to apples like there's a little bit of I've made something clever by connecting two dots. But what we actually ask you to do in this game is kind of thread.
00:06:23
Speaker
together five different unique dots that really fit in kind of game genres. So we actually tap into and I know you're a fellow game designer, I'm sure we've got a lot of game players, you know, listening to this podcast, we try to tap into those big kind of topics. So we have
00:06:40
Speaker
Civilizations theme cards, fantasy theme cards, high-seize cards, horror cards, and then sci-fi cards. So we tap into those five kind of multiverses in those different types of cards that you can draft and use to help kind of get players started. They're not starting with abstract things like you do in Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity. You're tapping into these exciting game topics, and we're kind of feeding you some cards that'll help you do some interesting
00:07:10
Speaker
kind of comboing and mixing and matching of these worlds. So how long does that? Well, OK, how many players, first of all, that's that. Yeah, yeah, we we typically do three to six players. A lot of people when we were doing our crowdfunding campaign were saying, oh, can there be a two player mode? And truly, you know, I could have designed a kind of a half hearted one. But the core of the game is really that pitch. A lot of people say they actually are just so proud of like the fact that they made a coherent pitch in a game that really
00:07:38
Speaker
together when they didn't think it would you know that they don't even care how the kind of the point scoring and the and the judging comes out they just really are proud of what they make.
00:07:46
Speaker
So we do require a minimum of three because you do have to have that dynamic of who is going to be voted up and who's going to score the most points. And then, yeah, it does play up to six. And, you know, you could probably, you know, team up. I've seen people pair up and we've seen people push the play count to 10, you know, and more just by pairing up and having kind of a design team. So that's a nice little hack if you do want to play with more people because it does play nice party.
00:08:12
Speaker
And there's enough privacy that you can not have your scoring spoiled at the end of it. All right, so party gamers pay attention to this. You can play with up to, sounds like up to 12 people or more. You can have multi-person. How long does a normal game take of game stormers?
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah, another kind of interesting cell to the game. And I know I'm kind of spoiling, you know, the why, why you should play the game. But another cell is that we actually designed a couple of game modes. You got to keep mind I'm an educator at heart and also a game designer. And so one reason for that is we do believe this is just a great game for family and friends on a Saturday night or
00:08:49
Speaker
a great game on a Tuesday afternoon in a classroom. But we designed the core game to be 45 to 60 minutes, depending on play count, to play that full game where you're drafting cards, where you're making decisions where you could square off and many, you know, kind of design pitches and everything. But then we also do have what we call the elder game stormer variant, and that's a party version. So getting at that kind of
00:09:12
Speaker
apples to apples, cards against humanity, you do have a judge instead of a full vote. And so the judge for the rounds gets to decide after hearing kind of the cards dealt out, you narrow down your game, you pitch that quick pitch game idea, they've, you know, decide who they thought had the best pitch. One thing I like about that is, you know, I love good playing to the judges. So if I know it's my wife, I might take a certain tact in my pitch versus if it's my brother, I might do a totally different approach. Or if it's my
00:09:40
Speaker
my nephew, you know, who's younger, I know what he likes. I'm going to try to be a little bit more funny and a little bit more out there with my game idea. So you can kind of play the judges. Actually, one stretch goal we didn't quite make, which was probably a blessing because it kept our costs down, is I was going to have extra Elder Game Stormer cards where you could, the judge for the round could pull one and it had a constraint for your pitch. So maybe your pitch had to have a love story in it. Maybe your pitch had to
00:10:07
Speaker
you know, work in dinosaurs or whatever, you know, just there was some angle to your pitch or your, your pitch had to have a surprise twist at the end. So, um, it was something where the judges could choose to pull an extra one, but you can play that without, right? You know, the judge for the round could announce, Hey, um, uh, just an FYI, I am going to prioritize, you know, pitches that catch me off guard or something. So, um, yeah, that's another mode. And we, we love that mode because if we've got younger kiddos playing,
00:10:33
Speaker
or you don't have enough time to play, that round could be played in 10-15 minutes and easily taught. So, yeah, there's more than you ever wanted to know about the playtime. So, okay, moving on to the biggest question.
Game Stormers Appeal and Player Experience
00:10:46
Speaker
I've got this game in my shopping cart or I'm at a store and I've got it in my hand and I've got another game in my hand. Why am I picking your game? What makes it unique? Why should I play it?
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think I've touched on a few different reasons, but my favorite part of the game, and I think what I see when a lot of people play this game is that it satisfies so many hungers of so many different types of gamers. First and foremost, I think a lot of people win or lose, whether they they get kind of the game designer award, which is most victory points for assembling a game that combos well, whether they get voted up for best game or not. I see a lot of people if they if they are old enough to have a phone, you know, they'll whip out their phone and actually take a picture.
00:11:26
Speaker
of their game board, you know, you kind of got all your cards kind of splayed out on your your player notebook that kind of organizes your game. And they actually are like, I can't believe I pulled this off. They take a picture of it and they end up telling somebody about it or posting it or or what have you. And so there's a really good kind of conversation happening afterwards about like,
00:11:45
Speaker
That was so wild, you know, in your game where you suddenly made a narwhal relevant, you know, in this game about, you know, zombies or whatever, you know, the zombie narwhal didn't see that coming. Um, so I think one thing that's unique about the game is, um, you know, a big pushback we got is like, Oh, there's two winners. You can win with the vote and the thing, uh, with the, you know, with the vote and the points, uh, you know, but.
00:12:07
Speaker
we realize people after playing realize like the winning actually doesn't matter like the somehow like turn three or like I have no story and suddenly turn five like the light bulb hits people realize that's kind of the the magic of the game so I think we fit really well with those gamers who aren't competitive and just love a good story kind of those socializer gamers having said that we've got you've got the other gamers who are more about like the achievements they want the
00:12:32
Speaker
the points they're trying to combo their cards perfectly we feed that that insatiable desire to maximize your point output and you know whether it's a friend or whether it's a classmate you all know you got those competitive people who are going to try to you know break the game to get the highest score and then we've also got those people who do love more of a party game and they could care less about how many points are on the cards what
00:12:54
Speaker
combos they're using with their mechanics, and they are more about this story is going to be seamless, it's going to be perfect, and I'm going to make it work. And then too, we just have the people who just want to know what's around every corner. So we have a lot of cards that let you kind of cycle and search around and kind of get to know the deck. And so we have a lot of players who are just like, gosh, I want to play again, because I want to see what else is in here that I can discover.
00:13:17
Speaker
Mainly because like we talked about, OwlGhost and Vika and her team put together gorgeous cards for us, but also they're just curious, what is the whole horror genre? What does that look like? What could I have used if I didn't use this mummy? What else was in that deck? Oh, what else did they made the cut for sci-fi? A lot of kids we find just love shuffling through the deck and just seeing what kind of secrets are in there too.
00:13:41
Speaker
I talk about gamer types all the time with students, and I think we really hit on those explorers, those achievers, those socializers. And then also last but not least, I should mention this is the least common gamer, but we call them the killers. They just want to see chaos, right? They want to be able to target people.
00:14:01
Speaker
and do things they're out there just to watch the world burn and we do have modes for that we do have mechanics for them we have where you could just pull a card from the market you know somebody else wants to pull off a perfect combo or one that would fit somebody else's game you can hop into the arena and show down with somebody to assert your dominance so we give the killers that that desire to emerge victorious and stand on the the bones of their enemies too right that we all get into I'm sure I'm kind of
00:14:27
Speaker
you know a little bit of the fun of grim steel too there i'm teasing a little bit is uh vanquishing your foe in the in the arena well it's funny actually i'll have to hook you up with our my teammate john who uh just the other night decided in our our bi-weekly well semi-bi-weekly role-playing game to to go ahead and shoot a blow dart at the the guy that they were supposed to be parlaying with and set off a whole series of events so he's he's definitely in the killer class sometimes when it comes to uh let's
00:14:53
Speaker
Let's see what I can do to the DM or let's see what I can do to this game to screw you over. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you should get a plug in for kind of doing games with the DM. When describing Game Stormers, somebody else said it really well. I described it to them. They said, oh, it's kind of like Dungeons and Dragons, but everybody's the DM.
00:15:12
Speaker
And I go, Oh, my gosh, I am stealing that. As the creator, I didn't contextualize it that way. But really, yeah, everybody is kind of building a miniature world out of five cards. And I think it's really one of the goals I had for the game is it's really intimidating to start a game idea to just from nothing, have something. And so the game is really an exercise in what we call creative constraint. It's really hard to go from blank document on a computer into a written piece.
00:15:39
Speaker
It's really hard to go from blank slide deck or blank game board, as I'm sure you can relate into playable prototype. But what if we give you some feeder ideas? What if you find some on your cards that kind of get you into, OK, I could start comboing these together to create a world.
00:15:55
Speaker
And good DMs start with some inspiration when they're designing their dungeons and their experiences. So we wanted to tap into that too for Game Stormers. So yeah, I appreciate you mentioning your biweekly game. It reminded me of somebody describing my game much better than I ever have.
00:16:13
Speaker
Nice. All right. So let's say now, OK, I made the choice. Where can I find GameStormers? How can I buy it?
Availability and Future Plans
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's right now primarily on our website, GameStormEdu.com. So you can go to GameStormEdu.com. We've got a shop. You can go to the GameStormers page and learn more about it. Watch kind of an overview kind of primer video for it. Check out kind of how to play and everything.
00:16:36
Speaker
And then, yeah, pull it right from our website. We're also going to push some copies to Amazon and also go that route to pretty quick. We wanted to make it on Amazon, but also, as I'm sure you can relate, Corey, if you've looked into that avenue, Amazon takes a bite. And so you got to really make sure that's going to be worth your while and that your copies are going to go as quickly as you hope, because if they sit there, then Amazon keeps taking bites. They don't like things sitting in their warehouse, if you can believe it. You know, they're not big on that.
00:17:04
Speaker
No. And despite having seen some of their warehouses locally, yeah, there is still finite space when they sell a lot of stuff. So, John,
Conclusion and Future Excitement
00:17:12
Speaker
thank you so much. And for anybody who's listening, if you didn't catch that, we'll toss all of the links for Game Stormers into the show notes in the show description on our website, on our socials as well. John, this is awesome. I really appreciate you. First of all, I appreciate all the help that you've given us being so responsive. You didn't have to do that.
00:17:30
Speaker
you've made a beautiful game so we want to basically make sure that you know that and thank you for being one of our first guests on this podcast and hopefully it's something that we do for a long time and hopefully we have you back on with your future endeavors too.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's been my pleasure and I'm beyond excited for Grim Steel. I don't know if I'll be first backer, but I'll try to be one of the first backers. And yeah, I think the best thing that you can do in this industry is tell your story. So it's an honor to be able to tell my story and then hear about your story via this podcast. So yeah, I'm looking forward to episode one and then episode 1,000 too.
00:18:07
Speaker
Great. Well, everybody, that's John Spike Game Stormers. Check it out. And I know that we've already played and we'll be continuing to play it on our on our weekly game night. So with that, I will sign off. Thank you all for listening and we'll catch you on the next episode. Take care.