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Hockey Hardware with Billy Morrison
41 Plays10 months ago
A hockey game created by a Canadian publisher and being printed in Canada? What are the odds?
Hockey Hardware is a game inspired not only by the sport of ice hockey, it's heavily influenced by fantasy hockey scoring and stat-keeping. Are you ready to get the hardware and claim the Champions Cup? Learn more about the game from creator Billy Morrison.
Visit the Hockey Hardware website.
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Transcript
Introduction to Crowdfunding and Kickstarter
00:00:01
Speaker
Crowdfunding services like Kickstarter and Game Fund have been around for a while now, at least several years. They're more of a mainstream way for independent publishers to get their products out to their audiences and their potential customers. Today's guest is no exception.
Interview with Billy Morrison about Hockey Hardware
00:00:16
Speaker
Billy Morrison from Faceoff Games is currently going through his Kickstarter campaign for his hockey themed game, Hockey Hardware.
00:00:26
Speaker
Kickstarting a project, it takes a lot of work, but it also is incredibly rewarding if you can bring it to completion. And one of the things I had hoped to do with this podcast was to cast a spotlight onto games like hockey hardware and get the word out, or at least help get the word out through the power of podcasting medium like this.
00:00:48
Speaker
I'm excited on so many levels to bring in publishers who are in the middle of their campaigns as we move forward with the podcast. Billy happens to be our first guest in that regard. And I really hope that you enjoy. And if the game interests you, if you can send a backing pledge his way, that's the whole reason that we're here. So kick back, relax, and hear more about hockey hardware.
00:01:20
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. This is Corey once again with Should I Play It? And OK, I'm not going to lie. I'm going to fanboy a little bit about this. And I don't do this that often. But it's very rare that I get an opportunity to interview somebody about a hockey-based four-game card game. So I have Billy Morrison, the creator of hockey hardware, which is currently on Kickstarter as we're recording this. And we're going to chat a little bit about his game. Billy, how are you doing?
00:01:50
Speaker
Hey, Corinne Wall, thanks so much for having me on the show here. Absolutely. And like I said, I have been a hockey player my entire life. I will say, ashamedly, that I don't own any games, board games or card games that are hockey related. That changed. I dropped my pledge yesterday on this game. So full disclosure, I am a backer of hockey hardware. And I'm excited to actually talk to Billy a little bit more about the game.
00:02:15
Speaker
and hear why others should grab it.
Launching Hockey Hardware on Kickstarter
00:02:19
Speaker
So Billy, before we get started, talk a little bit about yourself, how you came to this spot. I know you have a company that's backing this or that you created to produce this. So introduce yourself and talk a little bit more about the company.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, thank you, Corey. Well, first of all, thanks so much for your pledge. That means everything. Being on Kickstarter as game creator, that's the whole goal. We've set an ambitious funding goal of $125,000 Canadian to raise by 7 p.m. Eastern on February 18, 2024.
00:02:52
Speaker
hockey hardware and that covers the entire campaign funding from game manufacturing to the shipping fulfillment and packaging to the storage to the rewards and add-ons the fees and some contingency as well but we both have that love for hockey and that passion for hockey in common here
00:03:12
Speaker
I'm also a longtime hockey player and I consume fantasy hockey for many hours of every day.
Inspiration and Development Process
00:03:21
Speaker
My brother has managed a league on Yahoo for about over 10 years now. We've got 14 guys who play in that league and manage their teams.
00:03:30
Speaker
And one night back in 2018, I was just getting ready for bed and scrolling through my team, making sure, you know, everybody's performing to their expectations. And it just kind of, the idea kind of came to me. I thought why, you know, it's awesome that we can play this over an app, but why can't we play this in person? Why can't we have our buddies over and play a game like fantasy hockey at a table at somebody's house? And
00:03:58
Speaker
I thought, how's that going to work? So kind of think like what the objective be, how how the mechanics are going to work. And I started the ideas just started flowing to my mind and I had to grab a pen and paper at my desk and just sit down and start writing them. It became an all nighter. And by the morning, I had a really good concept of how the game's going to work. And I also knew I really wanted to call the game hockey hardware.
00:04:21
Speaker
And at that point, I did a quick search and the.com was available. The.ca was available. The social handles were available. I was shocked. It was all there. I was shocked. And, uh, shortly after one of the early steps, because I was very confident in the game concept and the name and how, how it fits so well with the game. Um,
00:04:50
Speaker
I actually went to a trademark lawyer and started the process of getting the trademark registered both in Canada and the US. And just this past spring, very pleased to say that it was officially registered in both countries. So that was a good, really important step in my view to get before launching the Kickstarter. And it's been five years of creating the game in the meantime. And it all started back in our apartment in Ottawa.
00:05:19
Speaker
That's where my wife Catherine and I live and work right now. We've got two little pups named Tuka and Bella. And yeah, going back to 2018, it was cutting cards. There were three layers and it was all handmade, homemade.
Challenges and Learning During Development
00:05:39
Speaker
And I used the home printer, scissors and some extra strong glue. I got over about 500 prototype cards probably at home.
00:05:48
Speaker
And each one was a cut, so it was a lot of cutting. You had bruised hands doing it. But you just work through the process and you play test with your family and friends. And they were very good at giving honest, constructive advice. I know a lot of advisors in the game industry advise against going to family and friends for play testing because they might not give you what you need to hear.
00:06:13
Speaker
But I know my family friends that I can trust they're going to guide me well. They won't let me stray off if something's not right, or if there's a flaw to the game, they're going to identify it. So we did a lot of play testing with that version of the early prototype, and then the pandemic hit.
00:06:32
Speaker
and that was not helpful one bit for play testing because no one could see each other but i spent that time actually learning learning how to do graphic design and the graphic design for this game was pretty much all in-house done youtube was my best teacher for it and there's some really slick programs out there to
00:06:56
Speaker
to learn from and use. And once I found a prototype manufacturer, these guys are the game crafter.
00:07:06
Speaker
And they're located in Madison, Wisconsin. They are excellent. And they provide the graphic templates. You just have to fill them. So we started using the game crafter and the prototype evolved even further. And yeah, that takes us to pretty much our current day where we've got a ready-made prototype. We're very confident in the game. The core elements haven't changed a long time.
00:07:28
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And we've launched it on Kickstarter back on January 17th. So we're a weekend, if anybody wants to know, it's January 23rd. And so it's about a weekend for the Kickstarter. And you know what the funny thing is?
00:07:43
Speaker
Everything you just said mirrors kind of our experience when it came to building a game, handcrafting the cards, printing them on an inkjet printer. Mike, our president, was the one that did all of that handwork himself. And he just wanted to understand how it worked. And he actually went so far as to buy a Cricut machine.
00:08:00
Speaker
and a laminator and was using those to create the cards. So our first prototype, same thing, were handmade. And a lot of the templates were done through Gamecrafter. So a lot of the similar journey together. So we talked about the how. Now let's talk about the, what is the game? How do you actually play the game? What was a standard game session look like with it?
Gameplay Mechanics and Appeal
00:08:23
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Totally. So yeah, hockey hardware, it's a game made for hockey fans and fantasy hockey GMs and game enthusiasts.
00:08:30
Speaker
But we've made it so that anybody can pick it up and play it. You don't need to have hockey experience or knowledge. It's just like any other game. You can pick it up, read the rules, and go along with it. So with hockey hardware, a key inspiration was fantasy hockey. So how we've built this game is the objective is to win the Champions Cup. And the Champions Cup is awarded to the player with the most trophy cards by the end of the third period.
00:08:58
Speaker
And players play 15 rounds through the game, divided into three periods, and those are separated by two intermissions. And you collect trophy cards by rolling stat dice and avoiding adversity and playing game cards.
00:09:15
Speaker
So it's a luck and strategy based game and the stat dice includes stats like goals, assists, shots, hits, blocks and plus rating. And there's also an adversity face on there. And as you know, all hockey players face adversity through the season. Absolutely. So those are the cards that.
00:09:35
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create trouble in the game for you and you want to avoid that as much as possible and the dice are obviously luck-based so the adversity include cards such as getting benched, road fatigue, they include a conference trade, a position switch and then the severe cards include getting suspended and getting bought out facing a buyout and
00:10:02
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all those diversity cards have different actions on on how you do as a player. Some are more severe, some are less severe, but they're all adversity and they could really either derail your season at the worst case scenario or just be a little bump in the road and you have to adjust your strategy. The game cards are the strategic element to the game and those cards are different hockey actions that emulate hockey actions you see on the ice. So there's
00:10:25
Speaker
a takeaway card, a giveaway card, a stick lift, a poke check, and a number of other cards. And those cards, as I mentioned, emulate the hockey action. So a takeaway, for example, if you played a takeaway against me, you would be able to take one of my stats that I rolled and add it to your hand and mark that tally down in your score sheet for a stat in that category. If that's the offensive card, if I had a defensive card like a turnover,
00:10:55
Speaker
I could play the turnover against you to turn over your takeaway and get that stat back. And then there's another dynamic with the turnover. If you were holding a turnover card, you could turn over my turnover and bring it back to you. And vice versa until it runs out.
00:11:09
Speaker
A little UNO reverse element going on there, right? That's right. Yeah, that's right. And that's ultimately the objective of hockey hardware. And the game's built to be really repetitive. Usually players on their first time playing it, it takes a little longer. But once you play through the game and you play through a few rounds, you pick it up pretty quickly. And it's just on repeat that way.
00:11:35
Speaker
Every intermission is an opportunity to replenish game cards. It's an opportunity to hand out the hockey hardware. So it acts as a bit of a leaderboard to see who's ahead and who's not, who's a threat, who's a non-threat. And players can adjust their strategies accordingly to that in their pursuit for the most hockey hardware. So there's 11 trophies players can compete for. 12 when you include the Champions Cup that everyone's
00:12:05
Speaker
going for to win the game. And yeah, I think I'm not missing anything there in summary, but I think that's the summary of it.
00:12:16
Speaker
Uh, no, it sounds, it sounds really cool. It sounds like, you know, mix of, like you said, luck and strategy, you know, there's a lot of games that are very heavily luck based and you really have no agency, no control. A lot of games that are very strategy based and there's no randomness to them. The mix of them, I find those are the games that are, you know, the most, most compelling and the most, the ones that you can play them over and over again. So.
00:12:37
Speaker
that might have actually spilled this one. So this is the important question. You know, I've got money burning a hole in my pocket and I'm looking, well, for you, it's looking at a Kickstarter right now. It's not looking at a product in the stores, but, you know, why should I, what makes it stand apart and why should I pay for the game and why should I play it? Absolutely. Well, if you're a hockey fan,
00:12:58
Speaker
This is the game for you. It's based off of fantasy hockey. It's inspired by hockey and the passion for hockey. It's very novel and authentic. There's not another game out there like it.
00:13:12
Speaker
It's going to be a great game to play on a Saturday night if you're watching hockey in the background. It's going to be a great game to have up at the cottage on a rainy day and you've got your family and friends around looking to kill some time and let the rain pass. And it's going to be a great game for all the hockey moms and dads out there and the kids who play on teams going off on a road trip to a tournament and spending some time in a hotel between games.
00:13:38
Speaker
The kids are going to love it. And the game's a lot of fun. It's highly interactive with the players who can play it. So it plays up to four players, between two and four players. It takes anywhere between 45 minutes and about two hours, depending on the familiarity of the players playing with the game and the pace of play on it and the number of players.
00:14:03
Speaker
It's a ton of fun. We've had great reviews from the game players who've tried this out. And yeah, hockey hardware is all about bringing home the hardware. You know, it's funny you said that about the tournaments and how the parents and the kids are going to love it. I think the hotel staff is going to love it if the kids are playing.
00:14:20
Speaker
a dice and card game versus playing knee hockey in the hallways or terrorizing the guests in the pool, uh, down in the, uh, down in the lobby. So, and trust me on, I'm sure, you know, on those tournaments, we've, we've done exactly those things. Oh, many sticks. Those always join us. Yeah, absolutely. They always, they, they travel very well. Um, so th this is awesome. Uh, Billy, I, I really appreciate you coming on and obviously we've kind of hinted at this.
00:14:47
Speaker
the
Focus on Campaign Goals and Support
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah, our focus right now is solely on the Kickstarter. It's a very ambitious goal. We've just broke a great milestone today to get over 10% funded, but we really got to push that. And once we achieve that funding goal, we'll look forward to the next steps. But right now it's the target and the crosshairs are right on that funding goal.
00:15:07
Speaker
game.
00:15:20
Speaker
Excellent. Hello, anything, any last words to share before we sign off for this episode? Well, thank you so much, Corey, for having me. This has been a fantastic opportunity to join your podcast and just a pleasure. And for the viewers and the listeners out there, please go to Kickstarter, search hockey hardware,
00:15:41
Speaker
and check out our reward tiers. We've got 12 different reward tiers to choose from and even more add-on items that can help bring you closer to the game if you're a really big hockey hardware fan and also help boost our funding levels to reach our goal. And as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, the campaign deadline is 7pm Eastern on Sunday, February 18th. So pledge early, tell your friends and family and teammates and ask them to pledge as well and together we can get there.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah. And I back it. This is an awesome, authentic, great product from looking through it, from reading through everything. I can't wait to play it myself as a hockey fan, but just as also a gamer as well. So hopefully the Kickstarter goes well. I know it's a tense and trying time when it's actually live and you're watching those numbers creep up. But Billy, best of luck to you. And I'm looking forward to seeing it conclude in the black for you.
00:16:41
Speaker
Just like a party. Thanks, Corey. Let's bring home the hardware. There we go. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Why Should I Play It? My name is Corey Tomlinson, editor-in-chief at Grim Steel Games, and we'll catch you on the next episode. Take care.