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Barn Boy Games Turns Family Play Into A Business · Operation Game Night

0:15
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: We are back and better than ever.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Travis Smith, joining me as always, co-captain of the ship, Clayton Gable.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: Clay, how are you doing?
0:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing great this morning, Travis.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited because we have some of my neighbors on the podcast today, right up the street in Lancaster, PA.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: Got connected with these guys.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: We got Carrie and Ryan here from Barn Boy Games.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: They're launching.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Is this your first game, guys?
0:44
SPEAKER_01: This is, yeah.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: They're launching their first game on Kickstarter here soon.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: So we're bringing them on the podcast.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do the show with them.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about the games we've been playing this week, and then we're gonna talk about their company and their upcoming Kickstarter, and maybe we'll go over the fence too.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
1:00
SPEAKER_01: So, Ryan, Carrie, how are you guys doing?
1:02
SPEAKER_04: So good.
1:03
SPEAKER_04: Thank you for having us.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, doing well.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: So you guys know Dan.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: I do.
1:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:13
SPEAKER_04: I went to um Millersville for my undergrad uh or for my graduate program, I guess, um, for my master's um with Dan.
1:20
SPEAKER_04: So we spent two years together, and he heard about our game, and he's like, Oh my gosh, my buddy does the podcast, you gotta meet him, and here we are.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a no-brainer.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: I was like, holy cow, he sent me your guys' website.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Well, let's make this thing happen.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: So thanks for joining us today.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Travis, you want to take us uh into our debrief section?
1:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're gonna debrief the games that we played this week, and I'm gonna start.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: I want to start this week.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: I played some more Enchanted Ivy, and I'm still really enjoying that game.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: Um I finished the first scenario book, and man, that game just keeps getting weirder with the different guests that come on and uh the different guests that you have to slot in.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: It's still kind of like an easy puzzle that you can work out.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, guys, you weren't here for my debrief of Enchanted Ivy last week or two weeks ago when this airs, but um basically you are building out a grid of ivy into a enchanted inn that you are building in the woods or like you inherited in the woods, and you're trying to slot in guests that you draw out of a bag to meet their needs to score points, and it's all kind of card-based and token-based, and you're just it's just a solo-only puzzle where you're trying to build out this ivy and fulfill requests.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: And I really enjoy that game because it's it's doesn't take long to set up, it doesn't take long to play.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: I've decided that the correct way to play games like that is you come home, you eat your dinner or whatever, you turn on the nightly news, and then you can play that game to distract yourself from the horrors of the world that are on the TV, and you escape to your enchanted inn and you placed your cutie little guests into the different balconies, and that is the correct way to play those games.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: So uh, if you're looking for a distraction from the horrors of reality, uh, I would check out Enchanted Ivy by All Play.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm gonna keep it at that for now.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we we got the the guests on, I'm gonna give them their time to debrief their games.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, real quick on Enchanted Ivy.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: I was today, if all things go according to plan, I was gonna try and play the first scenario of that game.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: So I am excited about it.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about Enchanted Ivy.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Carrie, what have you played this week?
3:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a couple games.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: So are you familiar with the Tales series, which is just like a little box of cards?
3:43
SPEAKER_00: I've got a teenager, and it's interesting what happens when you get the teen edition out and start asking some of those questions.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, it's a 15-year-old girl that I have here, so you gotta find the right moment.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: But that has really helped us uh it kind of explore her thoughts, her feelings, uh, and helped tone as we're starting.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: She's a junior, we're starting the college planning process and figuring out you know what she's all about.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to open the kids up.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's one.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: I do want to share one more really quick.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and hopefully it's not too rudimentary, but like Catan has come back.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you guys have followed like what the influencers are doing with Catan, where you start with all the pieces upside down.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: No, and so you kind of build you you build out the Catan board, but you don't know which resources are under what numbers.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: So you place you know all your cities and roads to start, and then you flip over the resources and see what you got.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And it's really, really fun.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: That's a unique way to do it.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: We actually did an episode, not that well, maybe a few months ago, uh, with a guy kind of like uh in defense of Catan, Catan, Catan, however you say it, because it is like you know, some some hobby board gamers get a little snooty about um Catan and think, you know, uh, oh, there's better games.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: But this guy that we talked to, like he's played a ton of games and he still thinks Catan is one of the best games out there.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: So we had him on the show to kind of you know give that perspective.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I I really do need to go back to that game.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: It's been it's been too long since I've played the old the old classic.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: It's funny because we've got all the expansions.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: We started playing the you know, you got Cities and Nights and you got Seafarers, which is a lot of fun, and the Dragons one, and and we have the best time just playing the original 10 points and just doing variations on that.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I felt the same way.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, boy, is there enough strategy?
5:40
SPEAKER_00: It's like uh you struggle, right?
5:42
SPEAKER_00: You kind of grow up like uh we played a lot in college because that's all there was, and now there's so many options.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it was it's fun to put a new twist on it and bring it back out.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: I'll have to check that out.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hadn't heard of that that uh version of playing it.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:00
SPEAKER_02: Ryan, what games have you been playing?
6:03
SPEAKER_04: Um, well, we have definitely been playing a lot of hype fight, which uh nobody other than Carrie and I know.
6:08
SPEAKER_04: Um we've been play testing that for a year and a half, but we uh other also selfishly, we our next game that we are looking to drop is called Sweeps, and we've been play testing that a lot this week as well.
6:20
SPEAKER_04: Um, but the one game that I definitely wanted to talk about uh that my boys and I absolutely love is called Seven Wonders.
6:26
SPEAKER_04: Um I don't know if you've ever played Seven Wonders Architects, that's the uh the kids' version.
6:31
SPEAKER_04: Um our boys love that.
6:33
SPEAKER_04: I got three boys, four, six, and eight, and the six and eight-year-old are like that's the game we go to every single time.
6:40
SPEAKER_04: Um, it's a game night that we're not gonna play one of the barn boy games.
6:43
SPEAKER_04: It's definitely a seven wonders architect.
6:45
SPEAKER_04: So it's a great game.
6:47
SPEAKER_04: You know, you you build the seven wonders, there's different variety in points and how to get points.
6:53
SPEAKER_04: And um, I like that aspect of it.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Um Yeah, that's that that's awesome.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: Have you played the the the big brother Seven Wonders?
7:02
SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, yeah.
7:03
SPEAKER_04: That's it's yeah, I have all of them.
7:06
SPEAKER_04: Oh, nice.
7:07
SPEAKER_04: The architect one is like yeah, architect's one is like the easiest when it comes to um um I guess for my boys.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: My my kids love that one too.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: The production's awesome.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: I love those little trays that just come with all your all your pieces that you need to like physically build that architect.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: It's great.
7:27
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I like the fact that there's so many different ways to get the points in the game.
7:31
SPEAKER_04: It um it allows for different, you know.
7:35
SPEAKER_04: I don't know, I describe it to my boys like you have different baskets and you don't want to have all your eggs in one basket.
7:39
SPEAKER_04: So it allows them to diversify and um be able to pick and choose, kind of.
7:45
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, it's it's it's great.
7:47
SPEAKER_04: I love that game.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: That's kind of a slept-on game in terms of like onboarding new gamers because it's a game that basically plays itself.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: You feel like you have agency, but really the cards are gonna dwindle regardless of where you pull from, and the the monuments are gonna get built, and you feel like you have some sway.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: Like there's definitely like bumpers, like there's bumpers on the lanes as you go down the tracks of that game, which is great for kids, right?
8:13
SPEAKER_04: It doesn't get you, they don't have to choose too much, but they have choice, right?
8:18
SPEAKER_04: So, yeah.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like to undiversify.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: I just like to lean in and just go all blue.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: If there's a blue card, I'm taking it.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't even need to build this daggone wonder, I'm just taking the points.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: That's I'm all red, all red all the time.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: The warlord, army.
8:38
SPEAKER_04: I was gonna say you're just the army guy.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: All right, you got any other games you guys want to talk about?
8:44
SPEAKER_02: Or should we talk about your game?
8:46
SPEAKER_02: I would love to talk about high fight.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: Hey, let's let's let's oh clay.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I was gonna say, wow.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you've got 27 games that you played this week.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: I do, but I'm not gonna do that to everybody.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm gonna talk about we've been talking a lot about Wingspan Pocket because that's the that's the new new uh of the Wingspan series, and quite frankly, been loving it.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh took things the other direction, went with kind of the the crunchiest of the wingspan series and played worm span this week, which is the dragon version of Wingspan.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh, my cousin and her husband, he really likes dragons, so he he's had this game for years sitting on a shelf and just never got around to learning the rules.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: I was like, come on, man, let's come over, I'll get you through it.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: And we played Wormspan, and you know, it took a while.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: A four-player game of Worm Span, we were like two and a half hours, and honestly, I haven't played a single game that went over two hours.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the last time.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: So this was kind of like a test of the endurance for me.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it was good, it went well.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so in Worm Span, you have like in addition to playing your tableau of dragon cards into your different caves, you also have this excavating the cave before you can play dragons.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: So it adds a cool another feature, but that's just what makes it just a little bit crunchier than Wingspan, as you have to first excavate the cave, then you have to play the dragon there.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Then you have your whole you know turns where you get to really reap the engine, you get to walk your little explorer through the cave and activate all the abilities of all your dragons as you go through.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's a fun game.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: I I definitely am glad to still have it.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: And again, it was nice to just kind of um oscillate off of the little baby wingspan pocket and go to something a little heavier and kind of test my metal there.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, worm spans great.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Have you guys played any of the wingspans, spin spans, worm spans?
10:48
SPEAKER_01: I I have not.
10:49
SPEAKER_04: No.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:54
SPEAKER_04: Like terraforming Mars is like the longest game we play.
10:57
SPEAKER_04: And Carrie and I play that all the time.
10:59
SPEAKER_04: And it's like two, three, four hours.
11:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: But that's always somehow it's always like after 10 p.m.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: they're like, hey, we should play terraforming.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, wow.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm not starting to be here in the morning.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: No, Wingspan's definitely on the short list of the next titles we're looking at, though.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think I think when Wingspan came out, I think a lot of people did draw parallels to Terraforming Mars in terms of building that card tableau.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, Terraforming Mars is another one that just won't go away.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Like it is always gonna be um getting played, and people are still gonna be loving it for many years to come.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: Do you know that you can play the game with the entire mat flipped over and then you play something out?
11:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, but the the the wingspan, um the span, the span averse has uh multiple entry points depending on your comfort level.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: So, like wingspan's kind of right down the middle, and then you've got worm span, as Clay mentioned, which is more of a crunchier version of that, and there's some more rules involved, and then you've got the you know to the left of the scale, which is uh fin span, which is about fish, and that one's kind of an easier point of entry, and then of course you have wingspan pocket, which is probably even easier than fin span, uh rule-wise.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: So I there's plenty of options for uh getting into the spaniverse, but those are pretty, those are classics for a reason.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: You'll see over time that we are big fans of iterative games where you can have, you know, and and as we develop and design games, yeah, we're thinking about that.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: We're thinking like what age groups can play this, right?
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Because again, I've got a teenager, he's got young boys, we've got friends with kids all ages, and we're like, how do we how do we find a way for these games to be played with everybody?
12:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's why we created Operation Game Night, so we can talk about stuff like that and figure out what games can be played at any group with any group or at any age level.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: So uh Clay, I'm sorry that I skipped over you.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: I yeah, it's fine.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: We typically have three people and I'm used to this cadence, and we have a fourth now, and it's I had to I had to go up to the top corner.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: I'll forgive you.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: Did you have any other games you want to talk about, Clay?
13:23
SPEAKER_01: No, I want to get I want to I want to talk about Barn Boy.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: I want to know about Barn Boy what these guys have been up to.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Tell us your story, guys.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: What made you two decide to start publishing board games of all things?
13:38
SPEAKER_04: Um, that's a great question.
13:39
SPEAKER_04: So um it kind of goes back a little bit.
13:42
SPEAKER_04: Um basically uh I was a math teacher for five years, and then um we uh my we had our first child, and my wife's like, What did you what do you think about being a stay-at-home dad?
13:54
SPEAKER_04: And so I have been home now for the last nine years.
13:58
SPEAKER_04: I was playing games uh like Candyland and shoots and ladders with my boys, which is all luck, no skill.
14:04
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Oh my goodness, they would have a meltdown if they lost.
14:07
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, you didn't lose, so you just you know, you picked the wrong part.
14:11
SPEAKER_04: Like, there's no there's no skill there.
14:13
SPEAKER_04: So I started physically cutting these games apart and putting them together so we can create strategy for them.
14:19
SPEAKER_04: And Carrie, he's my neighbor, and he would come over all the time and he's like, dude, you got to start selling these games.
14:25
SPEAKER_04: These are a lot of fun, even for adults.
14:27
SPEAKER_04: And I said, I don't have any interest in selling these games.
14:30
SPEAKER_04: Uh, I'm creative, I don't want to do the business aspect.
14:33
SPEAKER_04: And he's like, I'll do the business, you do the creative, let's go in 50-50.
14:38
SPEAKER_04: And it's been over a year and a half.
14:40
SPEAKER_04: We have 11 games that we're currently physically uh, you know, prototyped out and play testing.
14:46
SPEAKER_04: Um, we have 28, 29 ideas that are on storyboards that we're working through to get them into prototype mode.
14:54
SPEAKER_04: Um, but Hype Fight is our first game.
14:58
SPEAKER_04: Uh, it's a party game for all the whole family, all ages, and um, it's extremely approachable, super easy to learn.
15:05
SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's kind of why we decided to drop Hype Fight first, just because it would reach more people um and hopefully get us a bit of a brand following so that we can drop the other games afterwards.
15:17
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, I'm sure Carrie would want to add some things, but that's kind of the uh the Spark Notes version.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to hear more about your uh Seminole, your your flagship game that is coming out.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about Hype Fight and where you came up with that idea and tell us a little bit more about like the rules and and where people can find it.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it's interesting where it started.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: We we had a neighbor who would come over and we were talking about uh celebrities at the onset, right?
15:48
SPEAKER_00: And he'd be like, I know how tall every celebrity is.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And this guy's like an engineer, he's very good at estimating things, right?
15:54
SPEAKER_00: But also just solid memory and be like, oh, Bradley Cooper, oh, he's 6'1, and you know, whoever else, and be like, oh my god, that's and we would just play this game with him and with our friends to see like who can guess heights.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, oh, let's see if we can't make this something, right?
16:07
SPEAKER_00: And then you find out that people have a very narrow range of heights, but like Ryan was looking around, like, how tall's a toaster, how tall's a blender, right?
16:15
SPEAKER_00: And we were like, yeah, everyday objects, there's a lot more variety there, right?
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And so you look at anything from, like I said, a toaster to like the K2, and that's what this deck is comprised of.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Like it's the initial deck will come out with like 229 objects of all sizes, from you know, six inches or what one inch, I think is the smallest card, up to like Mount Everest.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: And it with that many cards, and to place them in order, and that's really what the game is.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: You've got two teams competing, they've got stacks of cards in front of them, and they're trying to place their card into a shared height line.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: So you've got a few cards out on the on the table in the height line, you place where you think your object goes in that line relative to the other objects.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: The other team can agree, the other team can challenge, and so there's there's some fun there.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the first point of fun I think is in the team that is placing, right?
17:09
SPEAKER_00: You've got you could have a 10-year-old and a couple of adults and a grandparent maybe arguing about, well, how tall is the stop sign?
17:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, and you got people looking out windows and stuff, and and so that's that's the first really fun point is you got the three or four people there kind of collaborating, a little bit of argument about, well, no, I know that the capivera is this small.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: We saw it at the zoo last week, and then the other team has the opportunity to say that's right, that's wrong, they challenge higher, lower.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: So oh yeah, there's the site.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it looks good.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what you guys, I mean, from a production standpoint, you have prototypes of this thing made already.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: I do, yeah, yeah.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: And so this is like the Barn Boy site.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: So this is kind of about Ryan and I, and the background.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's Ryan's got the prototype.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: And then if you hop over to heightfight.com, that'll give you all the animation on the height fight game specifically.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: So I think right there, if you click that explore, there you go.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: This is pretty cool.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we were talking about this before we started recording, but I mean, you guys, I mean, from a design and creative perspective, look like you're really hitting the mark for uh a first project with just the two of you.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what's it been like working through like how this thing's gonna look and how you think you're gonna be able to sell it?
18:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really lucky there.
18:29
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, we we from the very beginning, from the very first thing, I said Carrie and I both agreed that one of our pillars is gonna be high quality, um, awesome product, right?
18:42
SPEAKER_04: And um, we I think hit the nail on the head when it came to that because uh the box is strong, durable, uh the cards are super high quality.
18:52
SPEAKER_04: You're not gonna um, you know, shuffle them once or twice and it's not gonna bend.
18:57
SPEAKER_04: Um, like we had somebody uh spill coffee all over one of our decks and they are perfectly clean and not sticky.
19:03
SPEAKER_04: And it was it was a good testament to like the our one pillar of just being like, we need this to be high quality, high standard, like we have high standards.
19:12
SPEAKER_04: Uh, we want people to feel like they uh purchased our game and got way more than what they purchased.
19:17
SPEAKER_04: Um so yeah, and the team that is backing us when it comes to like our marketing team and our artists, like also like the highest quality people and team that you could possibly I mean, Thread, who is downtown Lancaster, um, did all of our um our website, our Kickstarter video, which our Kickstarter video is insane.
19:39
SPEAKER_04: It's incredible.
19:40
SPEAKER_04: Um, and uh doing our marketing.
19:43
SPEAKER_04: And then we threw this Hail Mary to this guy, um, this artist who did all the art.
19:48
SPEAKER_04: His name's Don Clark.
19:49
SPEAKER_04: Um, he's the uh owner of uh Invisible Creature.
19:53
SPEAKER_04: Um he's a world famous artist.
19:55
SPEAKER_04: Uh, you have seen Don's work.
19:57
SPEAKER_04: Uh, you probably just don't know that it's Don.
19:59
SPEAKER_04: Um he has five Grammy nominations for album art cover.
20:05
SPEAKER_04: He is uh did Golden Books uh art for Golden Little Golden Books.
20:09
SPEAKER_04: He's done work for Disney, Lego.
20:12
SPEAKER_04: Um he's he's done it all.
20:15
SPEAKER_04: So uh when we pitched this project to him, he was like, Yep, I want to do this.
20:19
SPEAKER_04: And um, which was fortunate for us, but unfortunate a little bit because it has taken just slightly over a year for the art to be get done, which is why we are dropping it now instead of months and months ago.
20:32
SPEAKER_04: But um, all good things take time, and it ended up turning out just way better than we could have possibly imagined.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: I don't know why more startup board game publishers don't just like get all the talent and do it right the first time.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: Why don't people do that?
20:47
SPEAKER_02: Just do it perfectly the first time, and then you won't have to worry about it.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: That sounds awesome.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: You guys have some serious juice behind this.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, we we did.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: I feel like we got really lucky when we're looking at you know creative firms and who's gonna do this, and you know, us being very novice to creating games, to manufacturing, to all aspects that uh you know, that you need here.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: We got very lucky to have come across Thread and uh Chris and the team there who have just steered us right, and they're the ones who actually introduced us to Don, and Don wanted the project, and we we couldn't say no, right?
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And and at that point it was a pivot, right?
21:26
SPEAKER_00: It went from hey, this is gonna be a cool thing to like this is gonna be incredible with the illustrator behind it, and and we had to lean into that really hard.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: I I want to circle back to something you said, Carrie, about like the different points of fun within the play cycle.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: And in uh we've talked about party games forever.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: We love party games here at OGN, and I always advocate that like the real the party games that stick around, that have real impact, that have some legs to it, are the ones that incorporate a discussion after the round is over, right?
21:59
SPEAKER_02: Like You put all the cards down, maybe the other team challenges it, and then you flip them all over and you see if you were correct.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: And then that discussion afterwards as to like, why the heck did you think that Mount Everest was taller, was shorter than the spaced needle or something, right?
22:15
SPEAKER_02: Like, and I'm pulling I'm pulling from the examples that you've shown already, but like that discussion afterwards that like you are questioning your team, the other team is questioning you.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: You get into this kind of like mini argument about like, well, have you seen this toaster?
22:29
SPEAKER_02: My toaster is huge.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: How tall is your toaster?
22:31
SPEAKER_02: And like you get into these discussions that are kind of above the table, and that is where the the real party game success lives.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: And I think that this has it in space.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm looking forward to trying it.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: I think it's gonna be awesome.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for saying that.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the mechanics are are one component, right?
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, how how does it work?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And you place one card and then you debate it, and then the other team debates, and you're right on the reveal.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: When you reveal that card, like, well, of course, you know, and so somebody's always like, Well, of course that was shorter.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: I said that, right?
23:02
SPEAKER_00: And you're right, that is that is where the entertainment comes in.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And it it is so much fun watching, like you said, an eight-year-old, a six-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a grandparent who can play this together, right?
23:11
SPEAKER_00: And we've got a lot of footage of that from game nights that we've hosted, where you really see the camaraderie and people really get invested in these cards.
23:21
SPEAKER_04: One of our big goals is to get like all generations around a table.
23:26
SPEAKER_04: And oftentimes when you're at a party, when you're, you know, at a game night, you have the parents are sitting around a table playing a game and the kids are in the other room watching something.
23:35
SPEAKER_04: And you know, Timmy comes walking over and it's like, hey mom, hey dad, what are you guys playing?
23:39
SPEAKER_04: And a lot of times it's like, oh, this is an adult game.
23:42
SPEAKER_04: You, you know, go back to with your friends.
23:44
SPEAKER_04: And our game is very much the opposite.
23:46
SPEAKER_04: Ours is like, well, come here, come here.
23:48
SPEAKER_04: What do you think?
23:48
SPEAKER_04: Like, do you think a golf flag stick is taller than a porter potty?
23:51
SPEAKER_04: And you know, and it's like there's discussions, you're adding your children to your table, you're you're including them, and they feel um, they feel a part of the whole group, right?
24:02
SPEAKER_04: And and that's that's the whole point.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I love that.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: And what let's talk about your Kickstarter.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: When does it launch?
24:09
SPEAKER_02: When does it close?
24:10
SPEAKER_02: When are you hoping to ship?
24:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, do you have timelines for that type of stuff?
24:14
SPEAKER_00: We do, yeah.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: So Kickstarter goes live October 1st.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: So depending on when this uh publishes, I'm gonna say Thursday because it's Thursday for us today, but yeah, October 1st through October 31st.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: So the whole month of October.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: So it ends right on Halloween.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at uh, and it says in a lot of places, but like the game is baked, it's done, the artwork's done, we've got final cards, we've got boxes, we got everything, we're ready to hit the print button, we've got manufacturing all lined up.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And so we're looking at from the time we hit go, like the Kickstarter will give us a really good indication of how many units should we buy, right?
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Are we ordering 10,000?
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Are we ordering 5,000?
24:50
SPEAKER_00: We're ordering 30,000, we don't know yet.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so at this point, the Kickstarter will give us that direction, and then we'll we'll hit the print button, and it'll take about three and a half months to get here.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: So we're we're expecting delivery March 2027.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, so that's a pretty quick turnaround as far as Kickstarters go.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the thing.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: And and as we look at Kickstarter, right?
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Like I back uh a lot of albums and stuff, like I'm into vinyl, and it it takes time, right?
25:19
SPEAKER_00: Because then they gotta go re saving the money to record, then they gotta record, then they gotta get a press, then they get a ship.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it could be four to six months on a lot of stuff and a lot of games too.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the fact that this is like baked and just ready to go, and we're just trying to find you know, two things through the Kickstarter.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I think the level of interest, like how many do we order and also you know, how do we pay for it?
25:40
SPEAKER_00: So get a little money to help with the uh financing.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely a lot of Kickstarters go to go to Kickstarter with not a fully baked product, and they kind of um flush it out throughout the course of the Kickstarter, and I think that leads to some of those you know, years long waits and a couple years, like because they're back to the drawing board after the Kickstarter uh to try and make this thing happen.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: But I mean this thing, I like you, I mean, like you said, you got a prototype there, it looks great.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: Like I don't imagine there would be much much left to do um other than do you know uh the price point you guys are looking to sell this at, like in retail?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's gonna be right around$30 for the game.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: We have an expansion pack as well that's gonna be right around 20.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: So the the original the game comes with uh 245 cards, so it's 229 objects and 16 challenge cards.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: And the 16 challenge cards gives you the opportunity to play with up to four teams.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of times we play this with two teams, you just play across the table.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: But what we found too is like, you know, I had this at a family gathering and they played with three teams, and it was so much fun to play with three teams because there's a little more who challenges first, right?
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's like in that scenario, it's the fastest one that can get the challenge card down, gets the challenge.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh so yeah, you can play it up to four teams, and that's why like it's really hard to say.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Like you can you can play single player, you can play with just two players, uh, but you can also have like 20 people around the table playing in four different teams.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: Scalable.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: I like it.
27:14
SPEAKER_04: Very much scalable, yeah.
27:15
SPEAKER_04: And the expansion pack comes with 125 more cards, which is uh we we're saying more more heights for more fights.
27:23
SPEAKER_04: Um, it just allows uh you to see more art.
27:27
SPEAKER_04: Um, the cool thing about this game is it takes about 20 cards um to play the game, and uh maybe a little more depending on if you get them right or wrong.
27:36
SPEAKER_04: Um, but you'll never, ever, ever play the same game twice.
27:40
SPEAKER_04: It's actually virtually impossible.
27:41
SPEAKER_04: There's more combinations uh of ways to play this game than there are grains of sand on our earth.
27:48
SPEAKER_04: Um so you will never like if you if you memorize, let's just say you had, you know, porta potty in the one game, and 15 games later porta potty comes up again, you're not going to be comparing that object to the same objects you were in the past games.
28:04
SPEAKER_04: So it creates this, oh my gosh, I knew this card already.
28:08
SPEAKER_04: Like I knew this card, but I don't know where it lies now in the height line compared to other objects.
28:13
SPEAKER_04: Because it's not a, it's not a um, it's it's a very much a math game without it being a math game.
28:19
SPEAKER_04: You don't need to know how tall things are.
28:22
SPEAKER_04: You don't need to know how tall a stop sign is.
28:24
SPEAKER_04: You just need to know if it's taller or shorter than an emu.
28:27
SPEAKER_04: And so like that's the fun of the game because even though there's a lot of math and critical thinking behind that, it's not um it's not like a punch in the face where it's like, oh my gosh, I have I'm sitting here doing math because you're not.
28:40
SPEAKER_04: Um, you're just comparing things.
28:42
SPEAKER_04: And then when you flip the card over, that's where the math shows.
28:45
SPEAKER_04: That's where you know if you're right or wrong in the line itself.
28:48
SPEAKER_04: And to Carrie's point earlier, when you first start the game, it's very easy.
28:52
SPEAKER_04: We all know that a bowling pin is shorter than the Eiffel Tower.
28:56
SPEAKER_04: But as the cards get laid out in the height line, those ranges get tighter and tighter, which creates the discussion.
29:02
SPEAKER_04: Um, so if you have young kids, you know, you're playing with young kids, you just pull the cards out that they would recognize.
29:08
SPEAKER_04: Um, but it also allows you to have a conversation when, you know, your child's like, well, what's the Eiffel Tower?
29:14
SPEAKER_04: Now, to your point, um, Travis, you know, you created those conversations after the game where you're like, hey, let's look up the Eiffel Tower.
29:22
SPEAKER_04: It's in Paris, and you have this, you know, this learning um that's happening after the game, which is which is really cool as well, especially for younger kids that might not know what K2 Mountain is or or something like that.
29:34
SPEAKER_02: So and you can trust that analysis because he used to be a math teacher.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: I think at home, we don't want people to feel the math.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: We don't want people to feel the analysis, but there's been a tremendous amount of analysis behind the scenes on the distribution of heights and which cards go in and and how does how does the math work, right?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: So, like when Ryan throws out that analogy about the grains of sand and the combinations, like because it is a relativity game and it's relative heights, like, yeah, that that absolutely holds true.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: But also you're not going to get, and there are a few cards in there that are the same height very intentionally, right?
30:10
SPEAKER_00: But we looked at those sorts of mechanics, like how many things can be exactly eight feet or ten feet that we want in here.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And you pull and you add, and we've shifted and shuffled cards around to make it very playable.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And so you don't have those kind of pinch points, if you will, of everything's 10 feet, right?
30:26
SPEAKER_00: There's a good distribution, and we we've charted it and we've looked at that stuff.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: So shifting more to like business side, Barn Boy is standing up, they're launching Hype Fight, you're getting it into the hands of people in let's say March, April, May of 27.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: How quickly do you think you're gonna follow with one of those 11 other prototyped games so that people can stick around and see what's next for Barn Boy?
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great question.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: We have we have the next three lined up already.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: We know what they're gonna be, and we kind of have time frames already.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: We've got creative firms working on them, like the the next game, the sweeps series that Ryan referenced.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're actually hoping to launch that in spring of next year.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: And so we would love to launch a couple games a year, right?
31:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'll give you a little sneak behind.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: So we've got this, and then these are all working titles, but the sweeps game, uh, we're looking at spring next year.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: We've got one that's uh more of a board and plastic pieces that'll come out fall next year.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And then we've got kind of our flagship game that we expect to come out early 2028.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And part of this has been a learning for us, right?
31:31
SPEAKER_00: The reason height fight is first is because it's it reaches a lot of audiences, but also it's just a box and cards.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: We're like, ah, that should be pretty easy to figure out how to manufacture.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna do this game as box and cards the fall next year is when we get into plastics and boards and stuff like that.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's kind of a building for us.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: And then the flagship game will have a board, it'll have cards, it'll have multiple plastic pieces and tokens and stuff like that.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Ambitious.
32:00
unknown: Yeah.
32:01
SPEAKER_04: Well, we're trying to to to yeah, to Carrie's point, we're trying to learn along the way.
32:05
SPEAKER_04: Like we we we were thinking of, I don't know, um, with this hype fight game, it was like, oh, it's only cards, instructions in a box.
32:13
SPEAKER_04: Okay, we're gonna learn how to go through the manufacturing process with just cards, instructions in a box.
32:17
SPEAKER_04: And then we very quickly realized that because every single one of these cards is its own art piece, it was going to take forever.
32:24
SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's I mean, that is also what I mean makes this game so special because every single one of these cards took hours to make.
32:31
SPEAKER_04: Um, and then our next game is cards, instructions, box, maybe a pencil and a little pad, notepad.
32:38
SPEAKER_04: And the next one is plastics and a board.
32:40
SPEAKER_04: So like we're trying to learn as we go, like what like Carrie said, in order for us to um make uh the best product, right?
32:48
SPEAKER_04: We don't want anything to be cheap.
32:49
SPEAKER_04: We want it to be superior, high quality product um that people feel very happy when they when they have.
32:56
SPEAKER_04: And and uh one of our you know, things is like also like would you sit this out, you know, on a table or like you know, some people use games as like their art pieces, like that's that's not necessarily a huge goal of ours, but we want people to feel proud about having our product in their home.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we're trying to learn.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: I like the form factor that you have designed for Hype Fight, like that kind of slip sleeve box that kind of pulls up.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: I think it yeah, I love that.
33:23
SPEAKER_02: I think if you could like you got a new another all play thing on your hand where you if you could just replicate that form factor for a couple of your designs, I think that would be kind of cool to like have them all kind of stacked up on a calyx or wherever you store your board games.
33:38
SPEAKER_04: I cannot wait to show you the boxes for the other ones.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I'm so excited! Yeah, yeah, I'll have to have you guys back on when you have some prototypes in hand.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: It it was a big learning too, right?
33:48
SPEAKER_00: And we're like so uh thankful for Don and the team at Invisible Creature to have done and spent the time on this art, right?
33:54
SPEAKER_00: And we're we're glad that it took as long as it did because it's it's solid.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: The next game we're looking at has 12 pieces of art instead of 350, right?
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Like way different.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: So that that one should go a little quicker.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, awesome.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: Hey, real real quick, I wanna uh this might be backtreading a little bit, but uh just out of curiosity, because you know, I mean, the the the elevator pitch of this game is so simple.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: How did you?
34:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there were certain iterations of this game as you went through playtesting where you introduced rules that you're like, well, now it's kind of clunky.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: I like what how how did you guys land on the sweet spot of like making it feel like a game, but not being too much for like the standard audience you guys are shooting for?
34:42
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, that's uh a year over a year and a half uh of just uh listening, adjusting.
34:49
SPEAKER_04: Um I think the big thing that Carrie and I um not to pat ourselves on the back, but like we I you know, I had this idea, and Carrie and I are very good at listening.
34:59
SPEAKER_04: And we're very good at listening to others, listening to their feedback, taking some of it, you know, and taking others and be like, no, we're not gonna do that.
35:08
SPEAKER_04: But this game has adjusted from literally just heights of celebrities.
35:13
SPEAKER_04: There is not a single celebrity in this deck, right?
35:17
SPEAKER_04: And so um there's, you know, I think uh Abraham Lincoln's in it.
35:21
SPEAKER_04: But like, you know, there's the um there's no celebrities in the deck because it has morphed so much.
35:27
SPEAKER_04: It went from celebrities to um, I was like, well, what if we did like the game was actually called like 76 pencils or something?
35:34
SPEAKER_04: Because I was like, oh, how tall is 76 pencils?
35:37
SPEAKER_04: But that very much turned into a math game of people like sitting there, like, okay, how tall is a pencil?
35:42
SPEAKER_04: Okay, multiply by 76.
35:44
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, no, like that's not fun at all, um, except for us math nerds out there.
35:50
SPEAKER_04: And so the game has changed significantly since the you know, the birth of it a year and a half ago.
35:55
SPEAKER_04: And then the mechanics, like you said, Clay, that um that has morphed even almost even more from okay, people playing the game, people using their challenge cards too quickly, to not using the challenge cards.
36:08
SPEAKER_04: And so um, the game mechanics, uh, my brother, um, he's a big gamer.
36:13
SPEAKER_04: Um, he comes home, he lives in Philadelphia.
36:15
SPEAKER_04: And we were up until two, three o'clock in the morning, one morning play testing different like iterations of stacks of cards and trying to get the mechanics to be as smooth as possible.
36:25
SPEAKER_04: So um it has come a very, very long way.
36:29
SPEAKER_04: And I I wish people could see the roller coaster that it took, but um, it's also, you know, it's been over a year and a half.
36:35
SPEAKER_04: This isn't an idea we had, you know, three months ago, and we hope it works.
36:39
SPEAKER_04: Like this is a game that we have play tested hundreds and hundreds of times, um, which then goes back to the point of like people saying, Well, I'm just gonna memorize the card heights.
36:49
SPEAKER_04: And I have played this game hundreds and hundreds of times, and I I lose a lot to my eight-year-old.
36:55
SPEAKER_04: Um, and I I still, I mean, there's maybe 20 of these cards that I've memorized, but like that's a slight advantage.
37:02
SPEAKER_04: But the other cards, I'm like, oh my gosh, I know it's tall, but I don't, I can't, because you're always comparing to different objects.
37:08
SPEAKER_04: So it makes it very much replayable um and a lot of fun.
37:12
SPEAKER_04: Um, so yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to you guys playing it and hearing your thoughts.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: Heck yeah, can't wait.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm pumped.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, that no, that's the thing.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: I think people often think these party games, like because they sound so simple that it's easy to make, but to do it right, you have to go through that process.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you know, you can have party games that just they don't they don't land because you added one too many mechanism that just makes it not fun.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes people, some party games, you just ignore the rules.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Like you I have plenty of them where you're just like there's like some scoring mechanism that nobody actually pays attention to because that's not the fun of the game.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: So no, I was just curious to hear you guys' process for that.
37:57
SPEAKER_04: To Clay, to that point though, like all of our games take about 30 to 45 seconds to learn.
38:03
SPEAKER_04: Um, and exactly to your point, what you just said is like people like, you know, when you go to learn a new game, there's a lot of like, oh, okay, here we go, you know.
38:13
SPEAKER_04: And like for our games, especially when we play test them out at uh local places, you know, people are walking by and I'm like, you want to play?
38:21
SPEAKER_04: And they're like, I don't know how to play the game.
38:22
SPEAKER_04: I said, Well, what's just taller?
38:24
SPEAKER_04: This one or this one?
38:24
SPEAKER_04: And they're like, Well, this one's taller.
38:26
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, okay, well, you know how to play the game.
38:28
SPEAKER_04: I'm playing.
38:29
SPEAKER_04: And and that's it.
38:30
SPEAKER_04: And then they sit there for, you know, 20, 30 minutes and they play the game with us because it's that easy to learn.
38:36
SPEAKER_04: And that's part of one of our pillars as well, is and you hit the point on the head and the nail on the head there.
38:41
SPEAKER_04: It's like, we don't want to overcompicate.
38:43
SPEAKER_04: We want to keep it simple.
38:45
SPEAKER_04: And um, we we we don't want to overcompicate with silly rules, like keeping it simple.
38:50
SPEAKER_04: Our sweeps games that we're launching next is is the same way.
38:53
SPEAKER_04: Takes 30 to 45 seconds to learn, 15 minutes to play, and it's super replayable.
38:58
SPEAKER_04: You're like, okay, you finish the game, you're like, again, again, let's go again, you know, and and that's kind of our goal because kids, especially, you know, the younger kids, they have short attention spans.
39:08
SPEAKER_04: So you can't have a game that's 40, 50, 60 minutes long.
39:12
SPEAKER_04: They're gonna they're gonna lose interest.
39:13
SPEAKER_04: So having these 15-minute games, especially for parents who want to play games with their kids, is so critical to be able to like get in, play the game, and then oh, let's play again.
39:24
SPEAKER_04: Cool.
39:24
SPEAKER_04: Like it's it's that um, you know, the speed of it is is is helpful with that those ages.
39:31
SPEAKER_02: So that's a great sales pitch for this game.
39:34
SPEAKER_02: Like you can learn in literally two seconds how to play this game, which is taller.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: The end.
39:40
unknown: Okay.
39:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh I hate to interrupt.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have to bounce.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: You're in capable hands with Clay.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: Clay, go ahead and brief my over over the fence, just make something up.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: Make something up that's really interesting.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: I'll say you were doing something so cool.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you usually do cool stuff.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: Sky diving.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: All right, happy, happy birthday to Gwen.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: Nice to meet you guys.
39:59
SPEAKER_02: Travis, thank you so much for having us.
40:00
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for coming.
40:01
SPEAKER_02: Bye.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: All right, guys.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: So is there anything else you want to touch on about your story or height fight before we head over the fence?
40:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll just say Ryan and I can hear you.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: We can hear you, Ryan.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one of our pillars is to have fun, right?
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And the two of us making this game, we're having a good time.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: We're just having a great time doing it.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: And in the iterative games, and and I think that's gonna come across, right?
40:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, this is absolutely a business that we're running.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: We both have other daytime responsibilities, so this is a bit of an extracurricular for us, but we're having a great time doing it.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: And we look at each other and sad.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: And it's actually on every agenda that we have, like, hey, we got this to do this week and this to do this week, and this to do this week, and like have fun is on there.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: And as long as we're still having fun, we're gonna keep going.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's awesome.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: I I so much admire what you guys are doing.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: I like to create something is so admirable.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, I I wish, you know, everybody has ideas.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: I've had ideas for games, and I just don't you it takes a certain level of commitment and putting yourself out there to actually go do that thing and make that thing.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: So I am just um so excited that we got connected with you guys and that you know, you're right up the road.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, we can get together for a game night or something uh at some point.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, big barn boy fan.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, we're we're uh we're happy to finally be at the point where we can share it with the world, right?
41:37
SPEAKER_00: And like Kickstarter is such a huge day for us because even a lot of our closest friends have played prototypes and iteration to this game, right?
41:44
SPEAKER_00: And we had uh, you know, one of our family members created our prototype, our first prototype art, which my daughter still prefers, um to the to the like the finished product.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's just like it it it holds a place because that was like the first thing, right?
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And and the way they did it.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: Um but all of our friends were like, we've heard about this game forever.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is it?
42:06
SPEAKER_00: When do we see it?
42:07
SPEAKER_00: When can we buy it?
42:08
SPEAKER_00: And so to be able to like October 1st for them to be able to see the Kickstarter assets and the video and like really jump in, and for us now to have been able to bring this to to different like uh events with our friends.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of our friends have now touched it and and seen it and played it, and it's it feels really good.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: Do you have anything lined up like with local retailers or anything um post-Kickstarter, or is that all stuff you're gonna work out after the Kickstarter?
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of it like we we have our thoughts about some of the mom and pop shops around town and and distribution and how we're gonna handle that.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that we'll see like how does the Kickstarter go, right?
42:48
SPEAKER_00: We've got our Shopify store set up, so we go D to C.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're ready there.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: We're ready for distribution, we've got you know our pick and pack and all that set up.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but in terms of like local shops, we've been in shops, we've met people, we've talked to store owners, but until we know, like I think until the stuff is actually on the way, we don't want to start committing to local stores, like, oh yeah, you're gonna get five games, until we know that like when they're gonna get those five games.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: Nice, nice.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: It it is really important to us, and especially here, like you know, you're you're in the area, so you've got a couple board game shops around town where it's like you pay 10 bucks for your seat and you go play games.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: We want to make sure that we get it in there.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: You've got a couple of board game stores that are doing pretty well and some pretty big ones, but there's a lot of small ones too.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: And like being a small business like we are, we really want to make sure that some of the smaller shops have access to this, right?
43:46
SPEAKER_00: That this isn't just like going to the big box store, but I I want to support the shops that sell a couple of games and some of the local, like, you know, the the coffee stand type places that also sell games.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what uh what stores have you uh been talking to locally?
44:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I just moved back to the area a year ago, so you know I'm trying to find the game stores around town.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: I got one I really like in Hanover.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: Um and that's you know, there's a couple in York that are all right.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: Comic store west is one that I like, but um where you guys go?
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so like Owl Central is just a little uh west of here, right?
44:24
SPEAKER_00: And it's a smaller shop, but they host game nights.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a place downtown called Mayhem's right right in Lancaster.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you've been there, it's down uh kind of across from the Fulton Theater, but they it's that's more of the coffee shop coming to play board games, right?
44:38
SPEAKER_00: So we want to make sure there's a few copies in there.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: Um Farboco and like they have the midnight oil.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: We've gone to their uh break your game nights.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: We do a lot of break your game nights around, a couple shops in Harrisburg, so some of that.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: And then like if you go to downtown Lidditz, there's all sorts of little you know, boutique shops that we'd you know love to approach and say, hey, you want to have one or two here of a local made product?
45:03
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome, Ryan.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: You're you're are you back?
45:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm back.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, but you're back and no, but Carrie's just gotta, yeah, we're good.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Carrie's got to mute himself.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: You guys have a that type of relationship is we do.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: It's it's back and forth.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, did you have any final um points on Barn Boy or Hyte Fight before we go over the fence to talk about things outside of board gaming?
45:28
SPEAKER_04: Um, well, I guess the um some people ask us where our name came from, and not that it really matters too much, but um Carrie and I uh used to be neighbors.
45:38
SPEAKER_04: I just moved like two months ago just down the street.
45:41
SPEAKER_04: But um the the Carrie and I, and then another one of our neighbors, his name is also Ryan.
45:46
SPEAKER_04: Um, he is currently making the the barn on his property into his home.
45:52
SPEAKER_04: He's an engineer, he's the one we talked about earlier about he's so good at naming uh celebrity heights.
45:57
SPEAKER_04: Um so the three of us uh often get together uh almost every single night to work on his barn because we're making it into his home.
46:06
SPEAKER_04: And so we call ourselves the barn boys.
46:08
SPEAKER_04: And so when Carrie approached me about creating this company um and you know going in, you know, as partners, um we very I very was like, very quickly was like, Well, we're the barn boys.
46:20
SPEAKER_04: That's what our game company is gonna be called because that's who we are.
46:23
SPEAKER_04: And we asked the other Ryan if he wanted to be involved, and he was like, I'm gonna be involved, but I can't be involved like day in and day out because I am trying to build this barn into my home.
46:34
SPEAKER_04: So he is very much still a barn boy, and we are all barn boys.
46:37
SPEAKER_04: But uh, that's the short end of why we call ourselves barn boy games, because of us just working at 2 a.m.
46:44
SPEAKER_04: two in the morning, you know, lifting up boards and setting a foundation for this barn to become his uh his house.
46:51
SPEAKER_04: So anyway, fun little backstory of why we call ourselves that.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for sharing that.
46:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't, yeah, I I can't believe I botched that on this.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can tell you didn't botch it on my my journalistic uh integrity here.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: I didn't even ask where your name came from, but thanks for sharing anyway.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, you guys ready to go over the fence and share something outside of board gaming?
47:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's do it.
47:17
SPEAKER_01: All right, I'll go first.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: I'll go first since you you guys are new.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh this is this is a little are you so anyway?
47:24
SPEAKER_01: Travis and I were both in well, Travis is still in the military.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: I got out of the military.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: That's why Operation Game Night, and you know, we do the debrief, we kind of lean into the military theme.
47:34
SPEAKER_01: So over the fence is like, okay, we're done with the board games, let's talk about something else.
47:39
SPEAKER_01: What's on my mind this week is I'm still jamming on season four of Ted Lasso, which I that show never ceases to amaze me.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: I keep thinking it's gonna get old, like the relentless optimism and positivity that Ted shows.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know, eventually this is gonna just like be too much and I'm gonna get sick of it.
48:03
SPEAKER_01: But nope, every season it delivers.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: And this season, I think I'm on episode seven, and especially following the girls team has been super cool because my dad, my dad was a high school wrestling coach for boys for like 30 years, and he recently got really excited about girls' wrestling and girls' wrestling taking off.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: So he like pretty much started the girls' program at the high school, left the boys in the dust, and he's been he's been like really spearheading that.
48:31
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, seeing it kind of through his lens of like, man, it's really tough to like see a girls' sport and kind and kind of get you know, as like a lower tier um from a boys' sport and trying to fight that narrative, and that's kind of what's happening in season four of Ted Lasso.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: Ted's going and he's taking over the girls AFC Richmond team and kind of see the inequities there.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, people you know view them as less than, and oh man, it's just so good.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: And then Ted's always just on point, and he's got a coach that, you know, they don't necessarily coach the same way, but man, Ted Lasso's great.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: Have you guys watched Ted Lasso?
49:11
SPEAKER_00: Love it.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: Not the last season, though, not this season four.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm kind of saving it in the back pocket.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: The the original show had ended so beautifully, right?
49:21
SPEAKER_00: It was so elegant, and yeah, you know, I'm appreciative for for that and those the lessons that have we've all taken out of that personally.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: And it was just such a such a great show.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm struggling to say, like, I'm re I'm not sure I'm ready for for more.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of like in that back pocket for like, oh boy, I need I need something that's really gonna power me through.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like when I'm ready for it, yeah, I'm excited about that.
49:46
SPEAKER_04: Be curious, not judgmental is a uh quote that I live by now.
49:51
SPEAKER_04: And every time I get frustrated about something, I say I stop myself and I'm like, you know what?
49:56
SPEAKER_04: I'm not being curious, I'm being judgmental, and it completely shifts my my my brain, you know, my mindset.
50:02
SPEAKER_04: So I love I love Ted Lasso so much.
50:06
SPEAKER_04: I just started it uh two nights ago, the the season you're talking about.
50:09
SPEAKER_04: So I'm excited to get through it.
50:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it stay it stays good, it stays good.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh Carrie, what have you been doing outside of all the other things you do in your life?
50:20
SPEAKER_00: It's funny.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: So, and this is actually from like Thread and from Don Clark, like they had worked with uh Will Gadera on the unreasonable hospitality and the website and and the illustration there.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, there's something here.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if you're familiar with that book, Unreasonable Hospitality, that he wrote.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: It's it's about it kind of transformed the the his transformation through the restaurant industry, right?
50:42
SPEAKER_00: And and it talks a lot about 11 Madison Park, which was like the the subject of of the book and how they transformed like fine dining and and took like what fine dining was of the past to today's crowd, and you know, redefined it and redefined this unreasonable hospitality.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: And it was very uh interesting as we're creating this company, right?
51:04
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of parallels about what they do, you know, in the and the thought is yeah, you want hospitality, but usually the unreasonable part was on the food, right?
51:15
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, we're gonna go with the gastro gastronomics or whatever it is in the kitchen.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, our focus is on the hospitality, it's on making people feel welcome, and we're we're doing things like if you watch the bear, right?
51:28
SPEAKER_00: And they actually I think uh Richie and the Bear was reading this book too.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: And it it's how how does the front of the house really make the experience, not just the back of the house?
51:38
SPEAKER_00: And again, drawing parallels in what we're doing, like when Ryan talked about the quality of the games and the experience, like the word experience has been spent even from designing the box, and so reading that book and trying to draw parallels from it has been really uh enriching for me.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: No, that sounds great.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: I I definitely think I'd like that book.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: I I I feel that way at my core.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: Like I do love that like customer service mindset.
52:05
SPEAKER_01: Like, how are you going above and beyond?
52:07
SPEAKER_01: And it really does change your perspective on something when you know you've gotten a high quality of service somewhere.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: I go to the same restaurant every week.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: It might, it's not the best restaurant in town, but the waitress there, she's always nice to me.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: They know, they know who I am, and you know, they make sure my drinks are filled, and I'm like, you know, this is my place.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna keep going back because you know, they just make it a good experience for me.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I could get better wings somewhere else, probably, but I don't need to.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: In my day job, I work with clients and we pride ourselves on bringing, you know, exceptional service to clients.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: And the client experience has been something that's kind of been in my blood for, you know, 20 plus years of my corporate life.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: And now to be able to do that, and yeah, it's just fun thinking about the experience from the client side and how do you, or in our case, you know, customer player, or a gamer or whatever, right?
52:58
SPEAKER_00: Like bringing that experience to people.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, it's a good read, book full of kind of anecdotes and history, and I'm really enjoying it.
53:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's awesome.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing, Carrie.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: Ryan, what's your over-the-fense topic?
53:11
SPEAKER_04: Well, we I mentioned this a little earlier.
53:13
SPEAKER_04: We moved about two and a half months ago, and we moved, and then the um there was a big storm on July 4th, and so we lost about 25 trees came down on our property.
53:24
SPEAKER_04: So I have recently been cleaning up trees and uh uh trying to get grass to grow.
53:30
SPEAKER_04: So that's that's my life right now.
53:31
SPEAKER_04: That's my over the fence.
53:33
SPEAKER_04: I'm trying to get grass to grow in my yard, which is right now it's been kind of perfect because it's you know 65 degrees and raining every single day here.
53:41
SPEAKER_04: Um, but yeah, just moving in, trying to get those last two or three boxes unpacked, which is like we unpacked within like 24 hours of moving in, and these three boxes are still sitting here.
53:53
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, oh, I gotta get these um you know unboxed.
53:56
SPEAKER_04: But we're uh we're settling in and just trying to, you know, come to our new normal, which is which has been really great.
54:04
SPEAKER_04: So yeah.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, good for you for the move.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: I asked Carrie before you hopped on at the beginning, are you originally from the area?
54:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, born and raised in Lancaster.
54:14
SPEAKER_04: I graduated from um Hempfield High School and uh went to Elizabethtown College.
54:19
SPEAKER_04: So it's just right down the road.
54:20
SPEAKER_04: Um never never left.
54:24
SPEAKER_01: Nice, nice.
54:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I I it's I left, you know, went to the military, went to the Air Force Academy, and you know, did all that stuff.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: And so it's been 13 years since I you know lived back here.
54:37
SPEAKER_01: And so it's been cool getting like reintegrated into York County, and I work in Lancaster County, so you know, there's a lot to be said for this area.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I kind of turned my nose up at it for many years, thinking, uh, you know, York's whatever.
54:53
SPEAKER_01: But you know, you're close to New York City.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: You can get to the beach, you can go to DC, like, and there's some pretty, you know, it's green.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: Colorado wasn't green.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful place in the world.
55:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, more love for more love for Pennsylvania.
55:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
55:09
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
55:10
SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you for your service.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, of course.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for saying that.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: It was it was a lot of fun.
55:17
SPEAKER_01: But now I get to serve wrestling coaches.
55:20
SPEAKER_01: I work for the National Wrestling Coaches Association, which has been uh a new development, which is why I'm at in Mannheim now.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I'm serious about it.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: Like if you guys ever want to do a game night or something, just hit me up and I'll I'll pop over after work.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm just right there.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: We would love that.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: We would love to show you our next games too.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, play system.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: I would love to.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: I'd put my name on the box.
55:46
SPEAKER_00: So we'll make uh we'll make Bomb Boys a recurring segment for you.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: All right, I love it.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: I I feel like this could be a thing.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: You guys are definitely organized, mobilized, and making it happen.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: So I'm impressed.
56:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm really impressed.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what to think.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, Dan's like, oh man, I got the I got this guy, he's making a board game.
56:07
SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, uh, hey, let's let's see what's up.
56:10
SPEAKER_01: And then I saw your website.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, these guys might be the real deal.
56:14
SPEAKER_01: They might be really doing it.
56:15
SPEAKER_04: Have all of your listeners go to hypefight.com.
56:18
SPEAKER_04: That's that way they can see the game, they can see uh what we're working on, you know, visually.
56:23
SPEAKER_04: And yeah, we're super excited.
56:25
SPEAKER_04: We are so excited.
56:26
SPEAKER_04: October 1st cannot come soon enough.
56:28
SPEAKER_04: It's only a few days away.
56:30
SPEAKER_04: We are very excited to see how this goes on uh Kickstarter.
56:34
SPEAKER_04: So we'll fingers crossed.
56:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll definitely put the links to hypefight.com, we'll put links to the Kickstarter um in the show notes.
56:43
SPEAKER_01: And listen, I don't, you know, our podcast listens can be pretty hit or miss.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: Like we get a ton sometimes, we get a few sometimes, but we do have a pretty good Instagram following.
56:54
SPEAKER_01: So we'll definitely clip this up and promote it when you guys are on Kickstarter and hopefully uh get the word out to our budding audience here at Operation Game Night.
57:05
SPEAKER_01: But we do appreciate you guys coming on.
57:07
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sounds great.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: And you know, we can grow together.
57:12
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh Travis usually says he's he's you know he's the real host, so he usually at the end he says, Did we do it?
57:20
SPEAKER_01: And then I usually say yep, and then we end it.
57:24
SPEAKER_01: So that's what I'm doing now.
57:26
SPEAKER_00: All right, Clay, did we do it?
57:28
SPEAKER_01: Yep, we did it.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: All right, signing off.
57:31
SPEAKER_01: I've been Clay, he's been Carrie, he's been Ryan.
57:34
SPEAKER_01: They're from Barn Boy.
57:36
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: We're out of here.