#49 - Would Allplay Publish This?

[Music] Hello and welcome to Fun Problems, the Problems of Fun! I'm P.D.C. Hayward. I'm Adria Branton. And we have with us today a special guest, who I will not allow to talk. We are doing the first of our publisher series. This is a series we've been wanting to for a while, where we get on the coolest, hottest publishers in the whole industry. And basically ask what they are looking for. And we play the game that we talked about on the episode where this is how I get a little game signed. I ask publishers what they're looking for and really like narrow it down with a series of questions in a game. Our first ever publisher guest is Joe Wiggins of All Play. How's it going Joe? It's going great. I'm really excited for this. I think 10 minutes before this podcast, yes, maybe. I was like, are there any notes? And they're like, yeah, but we're not going to show them to you. So I have nothing in front of me. I'm just sitting here waiting to be asked questions and hopefully not say anything that will get my company to go under. We wanted to start with Joe for two big reasons. One is that you have a publisher I collaborate with. By far the best, you have, you have, you have, we're about to hit double digits, I think, in terms of game signs. We're at nine games. That's right. Dick, I mean, we do publish like 20 games a year. So like nine games over the entire catalog isn't that much, but still it's like, that is a lot of Peter. That is dead. That's a lot, I think, for any publisher and designer. And it shows we're pulled together. The second reason we wanted to get you on is because you actually host your own podcast, which I really enjoy. And I thoroughly recommend anyone who listens to this podcast also go listen to it. Joe, what's the cold away people find it? It's called the bits with Joe and Nick. And Nick is the owner of BiteWing Games. And we work together a lot and we often will have conversations where we just talk about nerdy publishing stuff. And we just were like, what if we just like recorded these conversations? And maybe it would help like small aspiring publishers or like people that wanted to self publish a board game to like understand the ins and outs of actually publishing a board game. And so that's what we did. We put microphones in front of our mouth and basically have those same conversations with like 10% more structure. I really think of it as like the sister podcast of this one. Not that you've approved that or anything like that. But like I think if you like this podcast, you will definitely like the bits with Joe and Nick. I really, really strongly recommend it. Has a similar vibe, has a similar conversational thing. And is also one of the big focuses of this show is just like packers much information in without all of the, you know, the, what was the first board game you played Joe? So we're not going to ask you that. The last thing I'll say before we jump into it is that there is construction happening at the apartment below mine. So I'm going to be muted for a lot of this and AJ is going to take the lead. So I'm sorry Joe. I know you came on to talk to me because you don't get enough of me in your life. But I'm going to throw over to AJ as we begin. It's a lot less biased because I think AJ, have you ever picked, AJ, have you pitched me games before? I have once. Yeah. Okay. And I didn't sign it. So I think this is a far less biased interview coming from AJ, then coming from Peter who at this point is probably relying on me for a very lion share of his annual income. There's actually one question that's kind of ruined because you work so much in Peter. We'll get there. I'm sorry, just to be clear, am I going to be getting paid for the old play games? I was not aware of that. I thought this was like just a charity thing. I'm going to go and meet and AJ is going to launch into our questions. Sounds good. So the first question is what game in your catalog are you the most proud of? Oh boy. I really I have to, this is such an annoying thing. And again, I was not preface with these questions at all. So now I think that there's something going on. We did not write these questions full of Jerry. These are our old publisher questions. It just happens that. And Joe, we'll give you a free pass here. What is your favorite or the most proud game that isn't Peter's? But that's not fair. That's not fair because then I won't be able to talk about that. My favorite all-play game is Things in Rings. When Peter showed me that game and it was such a weird, I'm sure Peter has probably told the story of that pitch meeting like on this show. I'm not sure. But like he was pitching me another game than another publisher signed and he was like, this is an all-play game. And I was like, this is the furthest thing from an all-play game. And like the pitch meeting ended like five minutes in. It was just like, no. And Peter was like, okay, well can I show you just something else I'm messing around with? And I'm like, sure. And he showed it to me and I just went, I will take this. Right? This is mine now. Thank you very much. And it was because I saw the game and I was very enamored with the ideas of it. And that was at the time called Vendo. And Peter gave me that game and I thought it was such a fascinating idea. We collaborated. We came up with the name of the game. It took a long time with the artist, but we hired an artist who was willing to iterate on multiple different drawings until we finally landed on this like kitschy Dr. Suce like artwork style that just was so good. I can't tell you how many dozens of different materials I sampled to get rings that were the right size went into the box compactly. But then we're also not going to like fold and like like they they form a circle very easily when you put them on the table, right? And everything that we did across the entire packaging and everything, even writing a Dr. Suce limbic for the back of the box to explain it to people. I think overall things and rings is a, in my opinion, near perfect product. And the thing that I am most proud of that we've put out to this day. That's awesome. We accidentally skipped the opening, which is just just give us a brief of view of all play what what you do, what you're about, what you what you have vision statement is a like kind of thing. Okay. Hi, I'm Joe. I own all play games. I guess they'll edit this. And but this is the beginning. Me and my partner Chad own all play. It used to be called boardgametables.com. We have sensory branded to all play. And I think most people now know all play the brand very well. We make boxes. We make games that fit in very specific box sizes with very specific price points while not actually formatting to any specific genre or type of games. We do lean a little bit heavily. We love our trick takers. We love games like that. But overall like we are not pigeonholing ourselves into a type of game. That being said, all of our games generally are going to play under an hour. Have a very easy to learn rulebook with a quick setup time. Our brand when it comes to game is accessible. Accessible strategy is what we're looking for. And what we're trying to do is make games that do one thing very well. And I think overall you can kind of conceptualize what all play does as we want to make games that people actually play. And I know that there's a lot of gamers that play all kinds of games. But like I have so many giant campaign Kickstarter games that like I back and I never get to the table and it's four years and they're still sitting on my shelf. Unplayed. And I like to make games that people are actually going to take to people's houses and play with them or when they have people over they go, oh, let me show you this this game. And so that's really where all play tries to be. Our entire mission statement is we want to be a company that makes game night happen for you because we make the tables. We make the bags that you carry your games to game night in. We make the type of games that you're going to put down on the table in front of your friends. And so as a company that's kind of what the mission statement and what we try to do is is make you know accessible strategy games that look good play well, have good components. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, none of that's particularly like all play branded, right? At the risk of going off topic, I have to ask what went into the thought behind the rebrand? Because I will say as a as a retailer, I had so many people come in and say, what a stupid name. And you know which publisher name they remembered yours every single time. You would always be the one besides maybe Stone Myer and maybe one company that they would always know the name of. And so I thought that was, you know, maybe a little on the nose, but I thought it worked great. It did, I mean, at the beginning, we only made tables. And so boardgametabers.com was an SEO play, right? When your company is called boardgametabers.com and people type in board game tables into Google, like it's nice to be the first person that they see, right? But as the company has grown, when I came on board about three and a half years ago at this point, one of my earliest things that I needed to do was figure out what this company was because that was one of the confusing things is we made tables and we were also making these shelves. But we sold these bags like crazy and these play mats that people love. And also we are publishing like all these games. There were seven games in the catalog when I came on board as well. And we're like, we would go to conventions and people would come and demo and look at tables and stuff like that. But it felt very like, what is this company? Like what is this company? How do you conceptualize it, right? And so one of the things that we, I wanted to do the moment I came on board was we need to do a rebrand. And so we worked with a branding agency to figure out what we're going to do. Our original idea was like, let's just go to BGT studios or BGT, right? Like there's so many, the same letter and acronym. Yeah. Yeah. CGE, AEG, right? There's so many, like just three letter companies that were like, I'm Yeah, we'll just do that. But then we're like, no, let's try to do something. And so we worked with a branding agency. And honestly, we came with this idea, like one of the things that I conceptualized was like, how does all this tie together? And like I said earlier, we're a company that wants you to have game night, and we want to facilitate that. You have a nice table to play your games on. You have a great bag to carry your games to game night. You have the games that you're going to put on the table. Like, from start to finish, we are the company that can make you have an amazing game night experience, right? And so going into that, we were working with our branding agency, and they pitched us at the beginning. They came to us and I'm like, all right, here's our pitches, right? Because branding agencies do all this like mood board. What color do you like more? What does this symbol say to you? Type of stuff, right? And they came to us with like the actual pitches. And their first pitch was so bad that we thought that they actually wanted the second pitch to be the one that they picked. They showed us something so bad. Because they were like, you're going to be threefold gaming, right? And they like unveiled this logo and this thing and they're like, because you have furniture and accessories and games. Well, and I remember, I still to this day, I'll never forget this. My partner Chad, who started the company, leans over and goes, we can't have a triangle as a logo when everything we sell is a square. Which I thought was just such a great like thing to say. And we also just hated threefold in general. We're like, so we legit, we're just like, what else you got? And have we wasted money here? Yeah. And they actually showed us all play next and the logo was purple and so we made some adjustments to like some small things. But they showed us all play and we really like the branding. But like anything like when you're looking at something for the first time like that, you're like, I don't know. Like within 24 hours, we're like, no, this feels like a brand that can grow. And there's no stopping it because the number one thing we didn't want to be is we did not want to be what we called nerdy word games, right? Where companies will just pick a nerdy word and just put games at the end like, over cave games or fairy ring games, right? That's just like how most publishers just named their game companies are just like a nerdy thing games. I just didn't want to do that. I had a Facebook post go viral maybe five years ago because I was just like, hey guys, I'm starting you get company. It's called adjective animal games. And so the comments just full of every single game company that is adjective animal games, adjective animal games. I love all clay. I think it's a great title. So I love your games, obviously, and I love your shelves behind me and every episode of the old play shelves that I just, I just keep on adding more and more into my apartment. There's more over there. There's more in the main room. They just, I love them. You obviously mentioned things and rings, which are very flattering, but I wondered if you mentioned River Valley gloss works because I feel like that is also very sort of emblemic of all play while being very different to things and rings. Do you want to speak on that a little bit? Yeah. So as far as like River Valley as a product, River Valley was a very special thing. And in fact, I definitely poured more blood, sweat, and tears into River Valley than I did into things and rings because once we figured out things and rings, it just moved, right? And wound it up and just let it go. Yeah. Whereas like with River Valley, like I did things like because it has the tiles that you pick up and move and this like really smooth like movement of the river, where because like the original, as we developed the prototype, it was all on paper. And so like taking the things off and like sliding the paper and then sliding the paper forward was like such a frustrating thing in the development process when it was a prototype. But then when like we had this tile system where we're like, we're going to pick up a tile, move it to the back and they're all notched so that you push it forward and the whole thing collapses just like one smooth motion and just and it's such a satisfying thing to do where I actually googled like what is the average width of a woman's hand so that I could make those tiles the right size. So there was it like, oh, I don't want my big meaty hands to be like my, my hand is not the hand that might be handling these all the time. Right. I didn't want somebody that had smaller hands than me to be like, oh, it's so awkward to pick this up. I was like, I want these tiles to work for as many people as possible. And if a tile smaller, it's easy, it's just as easy for me to pick it up. But if a tile is too big, there are people that have smaller hands. So I was like, I don't know like I had so many people pick up the tiles and do the move and go, was that satisfying? How did it feel? What do you think? So like there were ergonomics that I was testing when it came to River Valley Glassworks, you know, shape differentiation. I think when people first saw the game, they're like, I will 100% be able to like tell what pieces are in the bag. I'm like, no, you can't. No, you can't. And so I've actually with people been like, I want you to pull 10 pieces out of the bag and take as much time as you want to feel them and tell me what pieces that you're pulling out of the bag. And nobody has ever been able to do that. So like, like there were so many things that we tested when it came to River Valley to make sure that the game like worked well and was the type of game that we wanted it to be, which is a quick, puzzly abstract type of game. And I think that it succeeds quite well. Things and rings comes into this size box and then River Valley Glassworks is right behind joy. The is in a box. Is it about twice the height? Is it a little over? See, like this is the thing. You're like, oh, that would be a quick interview, but there's so much like like heater, like there, like you're going to learn so much of interesting facts here. I don't know any of this. The size of this box is perfectly formatted to fit in a UPS medium shipping box so that when we ship it out, the packaging is free because that just gives those boxes to you. So at the beginning of the company, when we were just selling our games online through our web store, anybody that ordered one of these games, we don't have to pay for boxes to ship them out because UPS just gives us the UPS mediums. The small ones are the same thing, but those fit in a UPS bubble miller. Oh, gotcha. Amazing. So all play has the smaller box, has the larger box, and just recently it started doing the tiny box, which you can, again, see behind you if you're watching the video, Panda Panda. So things and rings and River Valley Glassworks are sort of, I'm going to say your flagship sort of product is not quite, but in that sort of realm. Has your scope changed much since then? Are you guys looking for different stuff now than you were 18 months ago? When people always ask me, they're like, what kind of games are you looking for? I always tell them, I was like, show me something unique and show me something good, right? Because I don't know what I'm looking for at all play. I think if you play the entire range of all play games, you're not going to find a super consistent through line other than the fact that we don't publish Euros. We just don't do Euros. We have sort of Euro-E and G-Z games, but we have never published what I would call a traditional Euro, right? And we don't convince the games, which is sort of Euro-E. Euro-E, but the ones that we do are not even Euro-E. Through the deserts and abstract and money is a card game, we're going to be putting out high society soon. That's a card game. So overall, we're not really, I would not consider any of the tendency of games that we've done to be a Euro game, right? The most Euro-E game I think that we've done is like Habitats, which is just a tie-line game. But, yeah, so we don't do Euros and we don't do long games and we don't do heavy games. But what we're looking for is something that excites us, something that we think is going to be exciting as a publisher to put out, something that we can see in the market succeeding, right? I think that one of the things that we did very early on is we signed Kabuto Sumo. And I think Kabuto Sumo is very emblematic of like a type of product that could have just been a throwaway dexerity game with a publisher, but with the right care and attention and production, it can turn into a very successful product even though it is not a wide scoping type of project. Like, the Xerity games in and of themselves are niche games, right? But I think Kabuto Sumo sells itself very well with the toy factor that we added, with the componentry that we added and everything else while still fitting into a nice, compact, affordable package. Okay, one more question we'll move on to the game. And by the way, I mentioned your podcast earlier, you also discussed this game. I think in your first or second episode, the game where I asked what games would you or would you not have published? So this was the first time I'd ever done it with you since then I've done it with a dozen publishers. I think that was the first time I'd even done that with you. And so that meeting was pivotal in my career. I've clearly had an impact on you as well. So one thing that I've noticed when pitching to all play is that bits are very important to you. I mean, your podcast is called the bits. Is it a requirement for a game that you're looking at signing that you can do something cool with the components? Or is that just an added bonus? I mean, I spent six years in manufacturing, right? So my background is I spent six years working at Panda Games manufacturing. So like, I can just look at a game and know how much it costs. And I can also, one of the things that if you, you'd probably go to Kickstarter page and see it, but Peter, you actually know this. One of the things that is like so cool to me is like how to do something very cheaply. That is really cool. So for a game that we have coming out very soon called Waddle, there was this horrible ergonomic issue with the game where this score track of like moving these pieces constantly in order to know whose turn it is and who has passed. And it just becomes this really like frustrating thing to do in the game. And like we just sat on this problem for a while of like how do we fix this? How do we fix this? How do we fix this? And I was going to do a River Valley thing where I kind of had penguins that were notched that you could pull. push them and kind of make like a little train of them. And that was like my idea and I was like, ah, and then all of a sudden I was like, what if there was like a track that was tilted with marbles? And the way that we accomplished that was like two tiny pieces of cardboard to make a little stand so that the cardboard piece that the marble sit in is slanted and then marbles cost like two cents. So like for the total cost of like 15 cents, I made this amazingly component centric turn order track that basically does the turn order for you. When you take your turn, you lift your marble and all the marble slide down on this little track and then you either put it at the back or you put it onto the other thing. And I thought that that was such like being able to come up with such a clever idea, but knowing that it's not going to cost because there were other ideas that were pitched that were like, yeah, but that's going to cost like $1.50 and our total cost for this game has to be $2.50. So I can't eat up literally 75% of the cost of the game in a turn order track. So being able to like do stuff like that. Now, is it a requirement? That's where a lot of designers would be like thinking that that would be it, but like that's the thing is like, that's my job. Like that's my job, right? Bites is another one that we often look at. Right, but it's pretty. That game could have just been little colored discs. In fact, it was the original game was called Big Points. It was not widely released. It was a very old game. It was called Big Points and it was just a pawn that moved across colored discs and there were no powers or anything like that. And so Big Points was the game that we were like looking at. And the idea of these three dimensional food components that like honestly to this day, I'm surprised more publishers have not tried to copy what we did with those punch board tokens because they are so tactically fun and unique in a game and did not add that much cost to the total of the game while still making these components so much of a standout part of the game that people are like fascinated by the component tree. And so when it comes to that, we like to make games that have a really, I guess I'll give you my rule. My rule when it comes to games and people will generally say like, "Man, all play has really nice productions." They'll also say our stuff doesn't fit in the box and I just tell them that they're not trying hard enough. (laughing) But people will often be like, "Oh man, like your games are so nice." But honestly, what we try to do is we try to pick one thing in the game and make that special. And I think that this resonates a lot is, I'm not trying to rag on a game. Don't make me like, don't take this as me like attacking another publisher's game because I'm good friends with these guys. But I just unboxed a deluxe edition of unconscious mind like a month ago. And everything in that game is like deluxeified to the max, like every single component that by the time I was done, I was like, it all just felt the same to me, right? There was no like standout thing. - It was a wash, yeah. - Where what I feel like when you kind of open an all-play game, we try to pick one thing and make that the really cool deluxe bit. So like with River Valley in the retail edition of it, the really beautiful colorful bag filled with the beautiful acrylic pieces, that's the thing that people are like, whoa, look at this is amazing, right? Because they could have just been color discs, right? But instead, they're these special unique things. And so we always try to pick one thing about a game and make that the star so that when people play the game they go, man, I really like this thing in this game, right? With Mountain Goats, it's how big and chunky the goat meeples are, right? And how big and tactile they are. And people like go to that game and they go, I love these little goat meeples, right? And when you pick one thing about a game and make that the standout thing, I think overall you do the game of service because it feels almost more deluxe than a game where everything is deluxeified. - And just to be clear, do you know what the publisher coming, sorry, the designer coming to you with that? Are you happy if they're like, hey, look, and you could make this pretty? Or you just like, hey, this is my joke. Just let me do my magic. (laughs) I mean, I don't mind it. Like I don't mind it, but at the end of the day, like I feel like that's where the publisher is best suited to make those types of decisions for the game anyway. I think that there's a lot of publishers that, or a lot of designers that are like precious about things that are like the theme of the game or the components of the game, or the idea of, you know, this one particular mechanism in the game or whatever. And one thing that I always try to tell designers is I try to involve our designers a lot in the processes of our games. - I try to find that is the case. (laughs) - And I tell designers, or when they sign with us, I was like, you can, I tell a lot of designers when they sign with us, I was like, you can be as involved or as uninvolved as you want. Like just let me know. Like, 'cause I, I made a game with John D. Claire, and I think I bothered him, 'cause I was like, what do you think about this artist? What do you think about this? And I think he finally sent me a text back and he was like, just do whatever is gonna sell the most games. And I was like, oh, okay, you don't care. Okay, message received, John. Home, that's not a detriment, but like he just didn't wanna be that involved in the process, right? Where I've signed games with like first time designers who are like, oh, what about this? What about this? What about this? And I tell them, I was like, I am, like I want you to be involved and I will take all of your feedback seriously, but I am gonna be the ultimate one that makes a decision. And anytime me and a designer get into a situation where we are at odds and disagree with each other, I always like to remind them, I want to sell more copies of this game than you want me to. So trust me that I'm going to make the right decision to sell more games. Okay, let's get into it. I'm gonna give you a nice gimmick, John. Would you have signed if someone had come to fish this? Obviously, this is a world where this isn't already a published game and someone's just bringing you a prototype and it doesn't have the final bits and you don't know that it's gonna be a hit. Here's a gimmick for you. Would you have signed MicroMacro City? Yeah, I think I said that's the one that we mentioned in my podcast, like I'm enamored with that game and I would literally give one of Peter's kidneys to have that in the old play catalog. You can only offer that twice, Joe. That's the limited supply. Okay, so this is one that I asked you for real three and a half years ago, whenever it was, almost exactly three years ago, a Zool is not an old play game in GoMind. Oh yeah, definitely could have been. Like absolutely, River Valley Glossierx is very much like trying to do a very similar thing to a Zool and if a Zool had not ever come along, like I still think River Valley Glossierx would be at a game that we were excited about and signed. Now a Zool coming first, like absolutely, like that's a really clever design. I enjoy a Zool quite a bit, but as far as like that game in and of itself, if it had come to me, I think I would have saw even if it was again, everyone knows what that game looked like when it was a prototype, it was just colored discs, right? And you just did the same mechanics, but it was just colored discs, right? And it's like, oh, this abstract game, but I think when you play a game like that, you can feel like, oh, this feels really good when I play it. Like this feels good. And that was the vibe I got from River Valley. I was like, man, this feels clever. This feels good. And I think a Zool would have felt good as a prototype, which is what I'm generally gonna be looking for in a game like that. Yeah, I would have signed Zool. Here's the first real one, 'cause I do not know the answer to this, and this would be very interesting for me to learn. Would all play have signed Camelop? I'm assuming you're familiar with Camelop, 'cause it's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm very familiar with Camelop. So I will say number one, all play has been looking, and I know there's a lot of designers that probably listened to this. All play has been looking for a racing game for a really long time, but we hate most of the ones that people show us. But Camelop is a fun kind of racing game. It has a betting aspect to it that's also fun, 'cause we love a little economic in our games. I think I would have, I think I'm gonna say yes. I think I would have signed Camelop. Okay, so again, the point of this game from the design of perspectives, just to try to work out where the bounds are. Now all plays weird, because your bounds are much wider than mispublishers. But there is still somewhere else. I feel like we're also very strict, too. Yeah, that's very interesting. Some ways were very strict, and then some, because there's publishers out there that do, like, oh, you published some games, or you were working with AEG sometimes, Peter, they've done love letter and edgy darkness, right? So when you talk about a publisher that doesn't have any bounds, I'm like, I look at what we do, and I'm like, I feel like we're way more finite than they are. His one that AJ put on the list, and I wasn't sure if, so it would be helpful, is Final Girl. Now this is interesting, because as of time of recording, you guys have not actually released any solo games. You've released games that can be played solo, but no like dedicated solo games. So the answer is, can I take a little bit longer with this one? Yeah, sure. Okay, okay. The answer is your time. It would not, the floor is yours. (laughs) The answer is no, I would not have signed Final Girl. For a couple of reasons. I think the game is quite intense, and quite long for what it is, which people love it. I'm not dragging on Final Girl. I'm just saying, for what it is, I find for the all play catalog, like it's a little too invested. I also would say that the theme is not something that we would have considered. And I will also preface that by saying, I only follow one type of movie. I used to be a big movie buff. I don't have time for movies anymore, But I still. watch most horror movies that release every year. I love horror movies. It is my absolute favorite genre of movie ever. I love all types of horror movies. I can talk horror movies all day long with as many people as want to. So I love horror as a genre, but I, for the all-play aesthetic, I, we've pushed the boundaries and we've kind of widened our elbows from this like extremely family-friendly brand that we generally have. And like, we're, but like, it's so dark that I don't think that we would have like crossed that barrier. Now, I guess I'll give you like a sneak peek or whatever, but we actually have signed our first solo exclude like it is there's going to be a two-player mode, but it's very different than what the core of the game is, which is a solo game, right? We've signed our first solo game and it's going to be coming out next year in 2026. And I am in love with this game. I think it's phenomenal. I think it is really clever. And I think it is like, if you say Final Girl is over here when it comes to like dark intense like, this game is the, this game is the antithesis of Final Girl, right? It is cozy. It is puzzly. It is serene. And the artwork has, oh my god, I'm working with the most amazing artist. I'm working with this artist who is creating this like Miyazaki-esque world for like these, like people because the game, Final Spoilit, right? The game is called Enchanted Ivy. And you are the proprietor of a magical bed and breakfast in this like studio, ghibli-style world. And you are building an inn and you are drawing like people that are singing your inn out of a bag. And you have to build the inn out of these tiles while grouping the ivy that's on them and then putting all of the people in the balconies of the room and each of these people scores differently. So you might need this person to be all isolated by themselves, but this person is a painter. So he wants to see people in the foreground and the background to score the maximum amount of points. So it says very like puzzly tile link type of game where you kind of drawing these things and looking at them. Oh, okay, let me do this. Let me do this. And it's literally like we've signed this solo game, but it is the exact opposite of Final Girl. So in today, it sounds very role play. Yeah. Okay, now in a very different direction here, how about brass? The number one rated game on BGG. No, absolutely not. No, absolutely no. And so, and the clear five based off what you've been saying, that's due to complexity as much as it is to the fact that it's just so many components and so many like you're the thing I always tell people is I was like, I can make any game of $40 game, right? Like because our maximum price point is like a $40 game, which like we've broken that rule a few times and sale legacies coming out soon and that's not going to be a $40 game, right? So like we've broken that rule a few times, but in general, like if we did brass, it would need to fit our constraints of what a game is, but like it's not just that like there's always a way to make a game of $40 game, right? That's so the components don't have that much to do with it. But in general, I think brass is way too much overhead for what our brand of accessible strategy is. And then I also think that brass is way too long for what we're trying to do. So I think the complexity level of what brass represents as a game and really as a genre is just too far outside the scope of what all play would ever consider as a viable thing. And a deal that isn't signed yet, but we actually do have like a game that people that like brass love this game. And we're trying to get a deal signed to actually make that game because it's been out of print for a really long time. And I can't say anything about it because the deal isn't done. And I don't know if it's actually going to go through, but like people are going to be like, that is an all-play game. And I'm going to think about it. Think about it. And they're like, you know what, that is an all-play game. Good job. I've got one. I'm going to explain the reason for this one specifically after the question. And honestly, I might have asked you this three years ago. Skull. I am not. I don't think I'm the biggest fan of school or the type of games that school is. Yeah. I think I appreciate school. But I think if school was shown to me as a prototype, I would not have seen it as an all-play game because I get it. And I think the production that's been done on school is fabulous and fantastic. But I don't think school is a game that we would have done because I don't know if it would have come to me as a product that I would have had the love to look into the what the vision could be. Right? It's such a pub style silly game. And like I said, that also isn't accessible strategy. So the reason I asked specifically that one is because I have a wave splitting up game mechanics into above the table and on the table. Above the table is when like, you know, you're looking someone as eyes and be like, are you lying to me? You resistance, mafia, coup, that kind of thing. I feel and I'd be happy if you'd disagree with me that all-play games are typically on the table. And you know, things and rings has elements of like, oh, would Peter put this here, but as a rule, skull is almost entirely above the table. And I would say that all-play games are almost entirely on the table. I would say that that would be an accurate statement. I would say that there are some edge cases where it like pushes a little bit, but I would say overall that that would be an accurate assessment of that. Like social deduction is like a tough one. Like I don't know, I'm not saying we would never sign a social deduction game, but I'm just saying like, I don't know that social deduction is something that we're like actively excited to publish games in that genre. Right? I feel like every time you drill that line, someone brings you a game where you're like, you've done it. Like, I don't think you would have said, we'll definitely sign a solo game. Well, we'll even sign a party game two years ago. And now you'll like a lot of fun games. We used to say, that one, yes. We used to say we don't do party games. Like I used to tell people we don't do party games because most of the party games that people show me are, oh, we each pick a thing and then we argue over whose thing is better. Like, oh, is a pumpkin pie. Yeah, is a pumpkin pie better than a ghost. Right? Oh, well, let me make my case for pumpkin pie and then somebody is better than a ghost. Yeah. Yeah, but Halloween is better than Thanksgiving. So, I think modern party games that like the the thinky party games are current now. I would say party games is my favorite genre now. And if you'd asked me 10 years ago, I would say I do not like party games. Faults. So I often tell people with party games. I'm like, there's there's two levels of party games. There's social and then there's strategy. And I think party games are somewhat social, somewhat strategic, right? But it really depends on where that line falls. Like things and rings people call it a party game. And I think it is a party game. But it falls very heavily in the strategy side. Like it's not that's it's social, but not that social. It's much more strategy based, right? Whereas I feel like even fiction, people would call a party game. And I also have like a couple of really fun definitions of what I consider a party game. But fiction, I would also call a party game. But it is fully strategic. It's not that social at all. It is a strategic game. You're working as a team. Like I long so let's do some quick file ones. Based on what you just went about wavelength. I like Edo better and I would have published Edo. So I think I have to say yes. Like Edo is wavelength the card game if you've never played Edo. But like so like because I'm like, oh man, I love Edo and I would 100% publish Edo. I guess I also kind of have to say I would publish wavelength. Kill. Hey Jay, what you got? Sky team. It seems like it would be a good all-play one. So I'm curious if it's not. Yeah, yeah. Like absolutely. Like we actually did sail the same year. And that was a weird year for us because the year we came out with an amazing two-player cooperative game was the year the biggest two-player cooperative game of all time came out. So my entire year was going to every award show to for the nomination to clap for Sky team as it stole my award. Yeah. Decrypto. Well, we're talking 100%. 100%. 100%. 100%. Love decrypto over here at all-play. In fact, I've taken so many pitches from the designer of decrypto. I haven't found one that's like like actually landed for us yet. But like I am 1000% like a decrypto like fan and I love. In fact, the reason I did a message from the stars is because it was so similar to the vibes I got from decrypto while being like I was like, you know, so I don't care if it's going long. I'm gonna just keep doing all of that. As long as you are not- we don't take a hard go time that we have to. We know we did your website. We won't do that today, but we're rushing on the other half. No, don't speed on my behalf. In fact, let me just like really quickly just take a quick second and look- yeah, I don't have anything till 3 p.m. So I've got an hour and 15 minutes. Like I'm just gonna- I'm enjoying myself. So that's fine. I'm rocking. Okay. So a message from the stars, I- when I first signed it, I was like, so you know how like code names came out, right? Yeah. And then decrypto came out and it was like, what if we like removed a lot of the fun of code names and added more of the thinking of code names, right? Right? Like that's how- If I had to sell- that's kind of what decrypto is, right? Like it's like, oh, it's like code names, but like less fun, more thinking, right? A message from the stars was like, what if there was no fun and all thinking? Which is a terrible pitch for a message from the stars, with the same time. Man, that is like a game that I would sign. And honestly, what we did with it was really phenomenal. And it's been super successful because I think there are a lot of people that are like, yeah, Yeah, code names is fine. but then they played the crypto and they're like, "Oh, I really like getting into the puzzle of this." And I'm like, "What if it was only the puzzle?" This is published under your sub-brand no play. (laughing) No fun, no play, all all think. - Yes. - Hey, Jay, what you got there? - Seven wonders duel. - Ooh, this is a good one. - No. - Really? - Oh, I thought it was something that. - Yeah, I would've thought so as well. - No, no. - What's the thing in this? - Two years duel. - Yeah, a bit. And in fact, you wanna know something wild? I would've published seven wonders. I would not have published seven wonders duel. - That is wild. - That's mean. - Because on paper, I would've put that as an old play game. It's thinking it's smart, it's too player-in-leaf, but I don't think that's a limiting factor for you. - No, it's not a limiting factor for me. - Yeah. - I think it's just, it feels to combative in a way, right? Like when I play seven wonders duel, it feels like extremely combative, right? There's very much like a zero-sum game that you're playing in seven wonders duel and a lot of denying that happens in seven wonders duel. And I think a lot of people can appreciate that, but I don't think that the vibes that it brings to the table are what I associate with all play in general. And so, I also prefer the mechanism of sharing in seven wonders rather than the denying in seven wonders duel, 'cause there is some denying in seven wonders, but you're really more focused on your tableau while thinking a little bit about what you're passing to the other person, right? Like once per game in seven wonders, you're like, I cannot let my neighbor have this thing. So I have to take this thing. But in seven wonders duel, half the game is, I can't let them have that. - So it's the, I gotta be saying. It's interesting, 'cause in terms of like combative two play games, abstracts way up there for me. And you originally approached me because of that time you killed me, because it's an abstract, but it has like, constructions out against what I'm gonna meet. It has, it has, you know, story and it has weird time trouble, et cetera, et cetera. So why would that one, well, would you have signed that type? I don't a thousand percent know that, like that time you killed me, but like approaching you because of that time you killed me is different from going, that's a game that I want to sign, right? I think like, like, again, that's also the game that more or less puts your name on the map, right? As somebody that, you know, is putting out games. And I also thought Panasaurus did a really good job with like the way it was formatted and presented and everything like that. So like, like that time you killed me had a lot to say for a product that wasn't just, is this a good all-play game? But for a game that has innovative mechanics or unique approaches to design ideas was more the catalyst for, oh, this person might have some stuff for all play in the future come to find out. This person is literally just like trying to like slowly take over my company. I often joke around with people that Peter was so bad, and I know that Peter has said this so like I don't mind saying it, but Peter was so bad at publishing games that he basically sought me out as a shell corporation to start publishing his games through. Yeah, so that based on what you just said, this seems like an easy answer to Bradlands, the Rossi game. Zero. Zero. It's a hit. Mm, and so this is so weird. We have a head-to-head two-player game coming out, but it's done with nine card decks, which is really cool, right? So like, it's like, I've been saying that like, this game is coming out, it's called For the Emperor, is Battle Line meets Love Letter, which is man, like such a fun little, like little pitch for a game, right? It's great. What if Love Letter and Battle Line had a baby, right? And so I've signed this game, it's in our tiny box line, but Bradlands is such a bigger robust thing, right? And it is a two-player dueling head-to-head game where your drawing cards have a deck, and it's like, while you might look at For the Emperor as like a distilled version of what a game like that could be, it gives a immensely different vibes when the game that I think of For the Emperor is, is how do I use these nine cards cleverly, as opposed to Bradlands where it's like, can I outplay my strategy against you? I've got a two-fifth of-fool you, Shutt and Totten, Battle Line, and Hannah McCogy. So it's funny because like, yes and yes, because Hannah McCogy is actually probably the most similar game to what I've been talking about for For the Emperor. Like For the Emperor that I was just talking about, it was very much based on the DNA of Hannah McCogy, and Battle Line is an all-time favorite. So that's interesting because Hannah McCogy is, like the whole game is denying your opponent the thing that they want, right? Which was what you said you didn't like about someone who's still if I'm correct. Yes, but I also think it approaches it in a very different way. So it's less about presenting choices rather than denying choices. Gotcha. Just to get metaphor second, this is why this exercise is so valuable. We first talked about this on an episode I called Unhelpful Advice, because I was like, just have this conversation with a bunch of publishers, which most people can't do. It's very unhelpful advice. But like, even though, obviously, we're working with all-played nine times now, but even just doing this again, I'm like, oh, this is make me think about like your company in different ways. We're gonna do two more. Let's go with it, and I think this was also in an interesting way. And I would also say this, like, I'm not interested in signing like two-player conflict-driven games. But that two-player conflict-driven game was special. So I could say it's about threading that needle. It's about like, you're not interested in this, but there is a hole in the defenses that-- Yeah. And I'm not interested in solo games, but the solo game that I'm doing, I was like, I will do this solo game. Absolutely. Does that mean I'm going to do a million solo games in the future? Absolutely not. I might not ever find a solo game that does for me what that game did, but I am excited for just like-- Like, all-play has a never-say-never. Now, granted, we're never gonna do a four-hour civilization you ever, right? But we have a thing where it's like never-say-never because we will find a game that kind of like, like, oh, we don't do this and we don't do that. So we try not to pigeonhole ourselves, but at the same time, like, I'm also like aware of, like, I've taken 50 pitches for this type of game, we're not gonna-- And I've taken none of that, right? That's what led me to say. That's a very specific design aesthetic that you're interested in, and genre is almost irrelevant to that design aesthetic. And that, as you know, I love working with you guys. It was-- it's what makes I will play one of the most interesting because I think you and I, and we've discussed this many times, have very similar brains. Like, we both get tickled by the exact same kind of puzzle. And so when I'm like, I like this puzzle and I present to you, like, I also like this puzzle, let me put it on a shelf. - I got it. - So me, there's kind of a funny saying. Are you guys familiar with Dan Thuritt, who runs the website-- - My favorite space. - Yeah, spacebiff. So me and Chad, the other owner of All Play, have a very funny saying in the office that we go, the only people in the world that actually know what an All Play game is, is me, Chad, and Dan Thuritt. Because it is-- 'cause it isn't an anomaly, right? Like, 'cause we're like, well, what about this? But you just said the opposite. Like, 'cause it's like, what is an All Play game? It's a vibe, right? Like an All Play game is a vibe, right? Like, I can play something and go, this is an All Play game. Like, we're about to do a game that ended up being a 16-page rulebook in merchants of Indromeda, right? It was just on Kickstarter. It's like, like, you hear All Play in 16-page rulebook, you go, that's ridiculous, right? Now, granted, the rules are very simple and I can teach them in, like, less than 10 minutes, right? It's not that heavy of a game, but there's so many examples that needed to be given for how things score in our structure that we had to keep-- Which is also a typical for you guys. Like, that is unusual. But the rest of the game, there's a screenwriting podcast that I listen to called "Sick on Geeks" and one of the hosts said something that stuck with me forever. He said, "The reason people give you "for denying a game is not necessarily the reason. "The reason, honestly, is just wasn't good enough and good is obviously a semi-negative." But like, if we give you the most All Play game in the world, the rest of the stuff almost doesn't matter because it's the most All Play game in the world. (laughs) The, you know, that's so funny that you say that because I've gotten to the point now with designers where I try to be like, not brutally honest about how bad their game is if I don't like it, but brutally honest about like, I'm not interested in this game. 'Cause the one thing when designers show you games is if, like, when I first started looking at games where I'll play, I used to do a thing where I'd be like, like, I was very nice and I was like, and I'm not mean now, but I used to be very nice. And I'd be like, "Oh, you know, this is really cool." And, you know, I think it needs work here and here and here. So, like, definitely blah, blah, blah. Like, and to that designer, he's leaving that meeting go, "Oh, cool, if I change this and this and this "and show it to him in two months, he's gonna sign it." So now I have to be like, "Hey, thanks for showing me this. "This is not a good game for All Play." That being said, I can give you constructive criticism about what I think about the game, but just know this is not an All Play game, right? And I try to do that more because I don't want that, I don't want to waste that designer's time or my time giving them any kind of false hope that, like, show this to me again, and I'm gonna sign it, right? But, at the same time, I'm like, like, a lot of times the feedback that publishers give should just be like, "Sorry, I don't like your game." Like I appear. Peter actually showed me a game, Peter showed me a game at TantrumCon just a few weeks ago. And literally, Peter designed it to a brief that we were talking about. He kind of was like, oh, you want this and this and this and this and this and I played it. I was like, I just don't like this. I'm not, this is fun, this isn't enjoyable. And I can understand that if Peter was frustrated at that point to go, but you said you wanted a game that did this and I designed a game for you that does this. And I'm like, yeah, but I don't like it. Like I probably told you this quote in the meeting, which is it's another screenwriting thing. The executive says, I asked you for a brown suit and you brought me a brown suit and it's a great brown suit. And the moment I saw it, I realized I wanted a blue suit all along. No one's in fault there. It's just how the creative process works. Yeah. And also it's nine games of the year. So you can only be so mad at him, right? I do this. I have no ego attached to me. I want to be a screenwriter. So all of this is just bonus to me. So I think this was in the meeting three years ago. Cascadia. No, I would not have published Cascadia. Really? No. I like the flat out team and I like Randy a lot. And I don't think Cascadia is a bad game. But we publish habitats. And sometimes people are like, oh, is habitats any good? I'm like, it's the better Cascadia. But Cascadia's puzzle doesn't scratch any type of itch that I have. I'm not saying it's bad. It's wildly successful. It's wildly more successful than any game I've ever published. I want to spill the jars. How many people have done that? Like 30 or something, right? So it's great. It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. It's very successful. But the puzzle that it presents is not a puzzle. I've had Cascadia on my shelf ever since it came out. I have not pulled it off since the first time I played it. It's very new. It's not a puzzle. It's a puzzle. It's very new. I have no desire to. I mentioned it earlier. Sorry, the construction started. Hey, Jay, you asked the next one. Will I be? Okay, sounds good. Other type of tests more or less well. We have a game coming out very soon called Oddland. It was on a Kickstarter last October. And I actually found it on the second best game on the Kickstarter. Okay. This game was also fixed. For a long time, we've been calling that game Cascadia because it's basically the same puzzle as Cascadia, but it's all on a shared board, right, with like, but like it's seven terms, right? So you're not spending an entire, you know, it's seven turns. You play a tile. You play an animal and you're all on the same thing. And so it is like. The slow. It's, yeah, it's like everything that you might want from that puzzle of Cascadia, but in this like very intense, visceral package. And so I'm really excited for Oddland to come out and see how people react to it because I'm also in love with the art that we put on the game too. It's such a fun, quirky game. I mentioned earlier that Joe and I have the same brain. I love the flat out guys. I love their team. I love what they're doing. None of the games connect with me. And I wish they did because on paper, 100% of the games should connect to the 100% of the time. And yet I just, I just bounce off them. I can't even explain why they just like they're missing like spice or something for me. And I love the aesthetic of them. I just can't play them. Speaking of like games that flat out has done that I have signed a game that's very similar, is like, chomp is like point salad, but you actually do something instead of just put the vegetables in front of you, right? It's like goals on one side, but on the other side are like these dinosaurs that you're forming and heard. And they're like my favorite thing about chomp is far as like games that do something well, right? It does that point salad thing where you are drafting cards that have goals on one side, but then something else on the other side that you're scoring points off of those goals with. And that's point salad to a tee. But in this one, you're forming this like dinosaur land where you're grouping these herds of dinosaurs together. But my favorite thing about that game is you make all your decisions. And then at the end of the game, there's this cascade that happens where it's like, all right, it's like an order of operations thing. And I love it where it's like, all right, tar pits kill dinosaurs. Cardivores eat food. If there is no food, they eat the herbivores, any herbivores that are living eat food. If they don't have food, they die. And so like the whole order of operations is like, all right, this dies and this dies and this dies and this dies and this dies and this dies and you go, I didn't do that very well. Did I? So like far away has that same little like, oh, man, actually, what you got? Race for the galaxy. Yes. Really? Oh, man. This is blown my mind. That one, I guess, I guess the icons, but you've told me in the past and I think I can share this. You don't like text on cards and that feels like a text on cards game. Yeah, but I think it can be done a lot better. I think race for the galaxy suffers from terrible graphic design that no one has ever put the effort into making better. Yes. And honestly, race for the galaxy, a good play raid and better graphic design, a great graphic designer and a great play raid would make that game so much more playable. Yep. Have you guys ever done a deck build or are you interested in deck builders? Or is that like, we've looked at potentially doing deck builders. Okay. I would have signed a minion. I have, I mean, Dominions, the masterpiece. I would have been like, Shane Hedger not signed a minion. Yeah. Like, like, Dominion is a game that we would have signed. Like 100%. Like, not even being like today, would you sign it? Yeah. 100%. And I think Dominion coming out today would still be as big as Dominion. Oh, wow. Like, that's my hot take. Like, I still think Dominion, like, I think if there had never been a Dominion and let's say Marvel legendary was the first deck builder I ever came. Right. Right. And then, you know, all of these other deck builders came out came out. Essentially. I think somebody could put out Dominion. If you would be like, what a fascinating stream line because one of the things that I love about Dominion is that you go, all right, we played this game of Dominion. Now, I'm going to take these two decks or cards out and put these other two cards in whole different game. Yeah. And that's the unique and I think a lot of other deck builders don't do. Thunderstone again, fine game. But I'm still just going into a cave and fighting monsters, right? Now I'm using a lightning axe instead of a flame sword, right? Because I changed out the weapon or whatever. And like, it does that, right? But like Dominion, the whole game changes when you're like, oh, we're going to take out these two types of cards and put these two types of cards in my game. All full engine just changed, right? Yeah. And I don't think other deck builders do that, right? You play Marvel Legendary and you're like, okay, we're not fighting Magneto this time. Now we're fighting Green Goblin and we changed out Rogue and Spider-Man and put in, you know, Cyclops and whatever, Daredevil. You're still playing Marvel Legendary, right? It's like, okay, well, the power sequences are a little bit different. And now I can like draw a couple extra cards because of this ability from this card. We're like, like, you're still playing the same game, but Dominion doesn't do that. And that's why I think Dominion could still be as big a hit as Dominion if Dominion had never. That's so interesting. So many of my games, that's the goal. Vegas Stripped from All Play. There's X Casinos based on PlayCapped 5, 5 or 6. And the different Casinos you play in different combinations, they really mix it up. The game that you were being pitched when you said, this is not for me at all and it said sign things it rings. I don't know if you know this. It was a code design with AJ. Battle bugs is sort of the working title. Signed with AEG. And that one is the whole premise is like you switch it up, but that one was very head-to-head and it was very wanted expansions. And you were like, none of it, none of this is for me. I think that's a big thing that hasn't come up so far in the conversation, but you don't really have series of games. You don't really like release a game and they keep releasing more and more content for it. So far, right? I do not like hungry franchises. I would say the most that we've done is like Kabuto Sumo. We have done two core boxes of Kabuto Sumo, three expansions and like seven promo wrestlers, right? So Kabuto Sumo is the hungry franchise that we have and honestly it's not that hungry. Like there isn't like people that are like more Kabuto Sumo. More, I mean, there are, but dozens of them. You didn't build it for those people. You didn't build it to like, inside that reaction, which is what Battlebox is very much meant to do. Yeah. And that's the thing is like, I don't like a hungry franchise. I assume this is a yes, but just to just to tack on to race with the car, actually Reza Kana, same designer, kind of similar aesthetic, I think a better game. What? Jury, top of my mind. Top three, three of this difference. I, this is a genuine reaction. I've played it. This is not a bit for the podcast. I don't understand. I played it once. It didn't stick. Oh, Reza Kana is top five game for me. I would strongly recommend playing it again. It's so good. I love it. It does a lot of stuff we talked about. You only have eight cards for the whole game and the eight cards that you get make each game different. So does that tightness that you're talking about with the Emperor game? It's it. Who published Reza Kana? Was that Grey Fox? Oh, it's an excellent question that I don't know the answer to. Reza Kana. I think it was like the first gen or something, wasn't it? I don't think so. San Castle games. Oh, you're right. Yeah. That's all they've done. Wow. I did not know that. I love Reza Kana. So Joe, our wrap up questions. Are you taking submissions? Very, very sweet. Always sweet. We do 20 games a year. Like I, like I don't like hungry franchises, but I'm a hungry publisher. I hate like you also. I mean, I'm a group of hungry children. Yeah. I have. I mean, if I don't get the games I need, I'll just, you know, see what Peter's doing. You know, like, you just like keep a slaughter to aside for me. It was very flattering. Yeah. How can people submit? I love taking submissions. I love being pitched at conventions. At most of the major conventions that I go to most of the major conventions. And I set aside specific time for people to be able to pitch to me, right? I do require that I'm sent a cell sheet in advance. That being said, I need to see if we've actually set up an email for like where to send submissions. Just help it all play.com. I'm sorry. [email protected] is where you can send games submissions and those will get forwarded to the right place. But we should set up like a submissions or like games at allplay.com just to have a collection of where we go. That being said, I always take like before I set up an in-person meeting. I require a cell sheet, right? Because I can very easily tell if your game is just not for us off of a cell sheet pretty easily. And I can't tell 100% if it's like yes or no. But I can tell like if it's an absolute no, right? Like I can look at your cell sheet and I can go two hours no. Like no, no, like I'm just not interested in your track. You know, you got tracks on your board and all kinds of like Euro e things and it's a two hour play time. Like no, like let's not waste each other's time, right? So I can often like look at a cell sheet and just know if I'm interested or not interested as a publisher. Yeah, don't also I'm not interested in your tile lane game about building a park because I saw 50 of those last year and I didn't like any of them and yours isn't better. So I'm sorry, that's more my joke with other publishers of like how many like when we when we take when we go to like pitches, we're like, oh how many tile lane games about building a park. Did you look at yeah, sorry, if you're making a tile lane about building a park, I'm sure it's the best best best tiling about building a park that's ever been made so and keep working on some deals. Okay, so other than cell sheet, any must have or must not have either for the game itself with submission process. I mean, you said not two hours, not about building a park, must have a cell sheet anything that like it's so in my for example has a strict it must go two to five ideally one and they'll they'll do the solid mode anything like that. I guess the simple fact that has to fit inside you biggest box box. The components can be condensed from what people were imaginary originally. Yeah, but that's not their job. That's my job. If I like a game and up, I'll figure that out. Got you. Like I said, any game can be a $40 game like any game could be, it just takes creativity. And then anything that you want to say to the design is who interested in publishing and pitching to you or to anyone listening. I would say that if you're designing a game that is inspired by other games, that's not a bad thing to do. I often one of the things I'll often ask in a pitch is like, Oh, what games inspired this, right? I also hate the answer of like nothing, this is completely unique. Really? Okay, buddy. But also like like be aware of what your inspirations are. And that's really good, right? It's good to be inspired by designs into iterate on what other designers have done. But be very aware of that, right? Because it is very much like let's publishers know where the game that you're working on sits in the market. Now that being said, push the boundaries, right? Like like make something that you don't know that somebody would publish, right? Make something, sorry, make something that you're inspired by. One of the games that has come out recently that I'm like, like frustrated, right? Frustrated because I'm like, I've looked at 50 tile lane games about building a park. I've looked at 17 trick taking games where you're collecting resources and filling contracts. It's all like, like I can't tell you how many people are designing the same stuff out there, right? But you know what I played last year? And I just sat there just fuming mad is I played Drupalter by Oink games. And I go, why did no one come to me with a game where you're holding these objects in your hand and like trying to like knock them out in like this like like like like like no one has ever pitched me a game that is that interesting. No one, right? No one has ever come in front of me and put out this like big map of like this wears Waldo art and go, okay, so we're solving crimes because if they had ever done that, I would have gone side right now. Like here's your contract, right? And I do find interesting games. I think all play has done a lot of really clever interesting games, but I am looking for designers that are pushing the boundaries of games, right? And that's not to say make it longer, make it bigger, make it have like I'm saying like push the boundaries of games micro macro Drupalter. I guarantee you the like so many designers or okay, another one, the gang. I think the gang that came to my number one game of last year, the gang. I think that most designers have literally had the thought of designing the game in their mind. They're like, oh, what if there was a game that did this and they immediately throw it on go that wouldn't be good, right? Like if you're a designer and you play that game, you have to be mad by going, why didn't I think of this? This is so good, right? But people aren't showing me those types of designs. People are showing me another polyamano game, another Tableau building game, another this type of game, right? Like do something that is just out of the box, right? Like somebody had to design these things for the first time and most of those games have gone on to be massive hits in the industry because they're pushing the boundaries. And so that would be like my advice is like if you want a publisher to sign your game, you might have to find the publisher that understands what they're going to do with the product. And I think a lot of publishers don't know what they're doing with products. So, you know, that's its own challenge. But like if you find a publisher that understands what to do with the product and you show them something that is innovative and novel and you need, they will make it a success. I think that I think like things and rings is like a story of that type of success, right? Peter was literally like, I don't know if this is a thing. Like I don't know if this is a game or not. But he showed it to me and I said, I literally like in that meeting went, I'm taking this, right? Because I not only saw what it was, but I saw the vision of what it could be. And things and rings is a very, very, very successful product. And so I would just say like push the boundaries. Like if you have an idea that's like maybe like follow through with it because it might be one of the great games that comes out next year. I love that. I love that so much. That's genuinely like listening to that. I'm like, oh man, I'll go to a big pile of game ideas that I was like, ah, that's maybe too hard or too weird. Now I'm like, I'm going to pull this out. Thank you, Joe, so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thanks for kicking off our new publisher series. And I'm going to one small recommend that you check out Joe's podcast and obviously he's enormous collection of games that he publishes, but probably more relevant to the podcast listeners is the podcast, the bits with Joe and Nick on YouTube. Yeah, we'll put a link to that in the show notes and we'll put a the email that he gave us to first submissions in there as well. Yes. And if that changes Joe, you're saying maybe you'd add like a submission portal. If Joe lets us know we'll edit that in the show notes as well. Yeah. Cool. Thanks, Jerry. I really appreciate your time. And I will see you in like four days time. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Thank you. Bye everyone. Thanks for joining us. You can find us at our incredible discord community in the show notes or reach out to us privately at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed the podcast, please tell a friend.