Now Then Readers,
We’re back again with another talking the boards section, this time we were lucky enough to talk to Andy from Knapsack Games about their most recent kickstarter project, as well as their development processes.
“Hello Andy, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us today. Can you please introduce yourself to our readers and let us know what Knapsack Games is all about, and a little about your current project ‘Masters of Mutanite’“
Thanks for having me! I am a game designer with 12 years of experience in video games and board games, and founder of Knapsack Games. We create card and board games for everyone! Masters of Mutanite is our latest board game, now live on Kickstarter! It uses an innovative new mechanic called Spatial Deckbuilding — players run around the city picking up superpowers and combining them for explosive effects!
“The spatial deckbuilding mechanic sounds like a very fun addition, having looked at your campaign for Masters of Mutanite I noticed it contained a number of mechanics, including: ‘Deckbuilding’, ‘Area Control’ and ‘Combat’ Mechanics”. But, what is your favorite board game mechanic and why? “
I am a sucker for tableau-building — adding cards to a revealed, personal display that interact depending on when they’re laid down or activated. For me, it started with Magic: The Gathering in grade school (I never thought of Magic as a tableau-building game until right now). Later, I found Innovation, which is still one of my favorite games. Tableau-building is elegant, exciting, deep with replayability, and has a great mix of tactics and strategy. Masters of Mutanite combines tableau-building with deck-building and board play for a fresh new blend.
“Masters of Mutanite clearly takes inspiration from the intros of the late 80’s & early 90’s Saturday morning cartoons, this is beautifully shown in the advertising campaign, We all agree the theme song, and art style, are amazing, in fact, I’m still humming it! What creative genius came up with that?“
Haha thank you, I’m quite happy with how it came out too! When we came up with the name Masters of Mutanite, there was something so sing-songy about it that I knew it had to have a theme song in the vein of 90s cartoons. I came up with a vocal melody, and then years later wrote the full theme song. However, while I enjoy songwriting, I don’t have any experience in music production or creating animation. So, I contacted Smallpools (indie rock band) and Quillsilver Studio to bring it all together and make it happen. I created a storyboard for the video (a rough fly through using my phone camera and the prototype components), and Quillsilver and I hashed it out while working in parallel with Smallpools. It was a little bit chicken-and-egg, making sure that the video was timed to the song and that the song had the right timing to tell all the beats we wanted to, but in the end I think it came out great.
“As you have successfully launched a number of boardgame titles, what would you say is the key to a good product launch, other than a kickass themesong of course!?”
Preparedness, professionalism, marketing and, as I’m discovering with Masters of Mutanite, timing.- Preparedness – Having all your ducks in a row for a Kickstarter launch is key to showing backers why they should care about this game – page assets, reviews, video, press kit, etc. – Professionalism – Your product has to look high quality! As much as us gamers pride ourselves on loving gameplay, the aesthetics really matter!- Marketing – You might be prepared, but people need to know about it! This takes months of lead-up at conventions and online, and often still isn’t enough.- Timing – Are you launching at a time when people will care about this, or are they distracted by other things going on in their lives? While I was prepared with Masters of Mutanite, the marketing and timing definitely took a hit from the state of US politics, and possibly by being so close to the Christmas season. If I could do it again I would relaunch after the US presidential inauguration, but the campaign is live now, and I am doing my best to recover it! We have gained momentum after the Capitol news on the second day of our campaign, so just trying to keep chugging along.
“You can’t change the cards you’re dealt, just how you play the hand.” -Randy Pausch
“Looking at your back-catalog, we can see that you have created a number of games over a wide variety of themes, does this mean that your next game will be different again? and if so what can we expect to see next from Knapsack Games?”
Good observation 🙂 I try to let my passion guide me, which happens to mean I’m pulled into different themes. I’ve considered revisiting my previous games, so that’s a possibility. I’ve also been working on a solo dungeon crawler that is very satisfying and I imagine the aesthetic would be dark and mysterious. But that’s a while away from now as it’s just a few months into development.
“Sam, our Yellow Meeple, is a massive Dungeon and Dragons and Dungeon Crawler fan, is there any chance you could tell us a little more about the over arching idea of this budding new dungeon crawler game?“
Sure! I’m a big fan of the Diablo series, as well as the mobile game Hoplite (a turn based roguelike). This new game smashes those two together in card game form, with a heavy focus on the positional tactics from Apotheca and Mutanite. The player traverses a series of dungeon rooms, gaining new gear in each one, and each room adds a new monster type that switches up gameplay. It’s puzzly and thinky and has awesome replayability.
“Oh dear, I can hear Sam’s wallet crying already! Speaking of crying wallets, what is your opinion on Miniatures in Boardgames, are they overrated given that there are more cost-effective alternatives out there?“
Minis are cool, my friends and I loved Heroscape when we were in high school (it had prepainted minis). I’m not obsessed with them, but I understand the appeal! Mutanite uses standees instead of minis to both keep price down AND to have that beautiful color-popping parallax, reminiscent of comics and cartoons. But I get it when people ask for minis 😉
“And finally, what do you wish someone had told you before you got into designing boardgames?“
Don’t make physical prototypes often. Rely on digital for rapid prototyping. Oh, and game design is HARD. Just hang in there.
That unfortunatley brings our interview to a close, but it has been a pleasure talking to you today Andy! If you are interested in the ‘Masters of Mutanite‘ Kickstarter, then its not too late to check it out as its still live for another 15 days!
But we accept no responsibility if the theme song gets stuck in your head! That’s on Knapsack Games & Smallpools!
The Northern Meeples 