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Patrick Rauland: Hello everyone. And welcome to the, Indie Board Game Designers Podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer, and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'm going to be talking with Andrew Kuplic, who designed, Magical Unicorn Quest, which was on Kickstarter in 2020. And right now he's working on an update for the game, which we're going to talk about. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew Kuplic: Hey, thanks for having me, Patrick. It's great to be here.

Introduction

Patrick Rauland: So I like to basically introduce you to the audience with a lightning round of questions. You ready?

Andrew Kuplic: Let's go. Yes.

Patrick Rauland: Okay. So, across all the different mythologies, what is the best unicorn ability or power?

Andrew Kuplic: Oh, probably the power of everlasting life. Being able to live forever.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. So okay, now I'm going to be nerdy here. Does the unicorn have everlasting life, or is it like Harry Potter, where if you drink their blood, you get everlasting life?

Andrew Kuplic: I like to think of the unicorn having everlasting life. The Harry Potter is why it gets a little dark.

Patrick Rauland: It does.

Andrew Kuplic: So we'll go off the unicorn having everlasting life.

Patrick Rauland: Right. Love it. Do you think we're going to have board game conventions in 2021?

Andrew Kuplic: I do think there will be board game conventions in 2021. I'm optimistic about the future. I'm seeing a lot of people wearing masks these days, not spreading the virus. And then we just got that Johnson & Johnson vaccine approved, and so I think that, with the three different vaccines out there, and they're all very good vaccines, that people will be able to get vaccinated relatively quickly, probably by summertime, and then by fall, we'll be seeing a decrease in Coronavirus cases, and conventions we'll be able to open back up, probably by fall or early winter. I do see October, I could see maybe they're running a Gen Con, or something like that, they just postpone the date to when they can do it in person. And I think that just be a lot of fun, to be able to go back in person and be able to meet and see everyone. Especially from my publisher standpoint, it's a lot easier to meet people in person than it is to try and do it online.

Patrick Rauland: Andrew, I hope you are right. Oh, my God. It would make me so happy. So I hope you're right. What is a game you play with someone every single time at a convention? So what is a game that you find irresistible?

Andrew Kuplic: So for me, I really love playing new games. I usually don't go back to the same game over and over again. Some of my favorite conventions, actually, are Protospiel Conventions, where it's just all the upcoming new games that everyone's working on, and they just have really great ideas, really great new mechanics to the game, and they're just trying to tweak one or two last things before they get it to the publication stage. And so, that's a lot of what I really like to enjoy. So, finding the same game over and over again, it's not my thing. It's more trying to find the new independent board game person that has a really great game.

Patrick Rauland: So, I love Protospiels. Do you have a favorite one? Have you gone to a bunch of them, or is it just your local one?

Andrew Kuplic: So it's a local one. Minnesota actually has a really good local one. Back in, well, I guess that was last year, January 2019 was the last time they had it, and there was, oh, they had a full place. They probably had four or 500 people at the Protospiel event, which is really good for a Protospiel event. And it's mixed between game designers and publishers. We actually got a decent amount of good publishers in Minnesota, between Asmodee's headquarters are here, and then we have Leder Game here, and so you got a lot of big names that will show up at that Protospiel event.

How Did You Get Into Board Games & Board Game Design?

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So, first real question is, how did you get into board games and board game design?

Andrew Kuplic: So board games, I've been playing for games my entire life. Ever since I was a little kid, my parents would play board games with me. I had an older brother, and we'd be playing chess, or Monopoly, or Risk. When I was four years old, he'd be showing me all the games and showing me all the moves, and everything like that. And so I've always just loved playing board games. Board game design, I have been designing games my entire life, I'd tweak rules to a game, or just make up a game on the spot. But getting into it as a profession where I'm trying to actually make a game and publish a game, that was probably about two years ago. And the first game that I tried publishing was, Magical Unicorn Quest, which we had a Kickstarter of about a year ago, and we're having another Kickstarter here on April 15th.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. Awesome. That's great. But what made you want to go., “I want to design games?”

Andrew Kuplic: Yes. So I guess, after graduating college, I worked for Wells Fargo and other Fortune 500 companies for about seven years, and I just never really enjoyed my day job. I would get the paycheck and then go find friends to play board games with that night, or just online games. And I just wanted to always make a game. I see all these cool games, I'm like, “I can do this. People are doing it. There's no reason why I can't do it.” So I was just like, “Well, I'm going to jump into it, go full force and try and make a game.”

Andrew Kuplic: And so that's what I'm doing more full-time right now, is just trying to design and make games, and make them as the best games for families. So a lot of what my focus is, is focusing on family games. So it's an emphasis of creating a game that both parents love to play, and kids love to play. There's a lot of games on the market where kids like to play at, but the parents get bored of it on the first time, and then there's a lot of games that the parents like to play, but the kids just can't grasp the concepts, or enjoy playing it. So we're trying to bridge that gap of creating really great family games, that the entire family is happy when they sit down and play the game.

Launching & Relaunching on Kickstarter

Patrick Rauland: Love it, love hearing all that. So I do want to get into your game, Magical Unicorn Quest, which you launched about a year ago, in 2020. So I have a couple of notes here. So I think you had roughly 112 backers, and you raised a little over $10,000. First of all, how did you, and I don't think I talk about this enough, how did you market and succeed in that first campaign? That's where I want to start.

Andrew Kuplic: Yeah. So, the first campaign, that was mostly friends and family. So a lot of it was Facebook friends, family, and those were a lot of my backers. I would say probably half my backers, or over half my backers were people that I knew prior to, Magical Unicorn Quest. So, high school friends, college friends, parents, relatives, things like that. I got a really good support from my family. And basically what that did was allow me to create the game, do a small manufacturing run of it, and then they were able to be play testers for the game, and really hammer any small nuances out, or ways to make the game, slightly improve it.

And I got a lot of great feedback. They loved the base game. It's a really fun base game to play. And at the exact same time, I was able to just make a couple changes to it, to make it an even better game, more refined, slightly updated rule book. We added some more mystical beings to the magical forest, that you can find. And the game is just working amazing, now. It is such a fun game to play.

Patrick Rauland: So, I think my immediate next question is, why are you relaunching a game within a year? And let me just set some context. There've been other people I've had on my show who, they've launched an expansion a year later, or they've launched… And some people have relaunched a game, but it's usually two, or three, or four years later. A year seems like a short time to relaunch a game. And before you even start answering, my follow-up question is, are you a little bit worried that now your friends and family can't contribute to this follow-up, this, would you call it a second edition?

Andrew Kuplic:

It's definitely a second edition. Yeah. So, the game has changed quite a bit from the first edition to the second edition. There's a lot of new cards that are being added to the game, so that creates more paths to victory, and the cards are slightly better balanced. So that way there is no one card that you're like, “Oh, I really have to draw this one.” Pretty much any card you draw can be good or helpful to you in achieving your path to victory.

Andrew Kuplic: And additionally, we have changed up the rules a little bit, too. So that way, in the game, instead of being a solo game where you're trying to win, and you're a solo winner, there are teams. So you'll be on a semi team where you're a teammate person to your right, and you have a teammate person to your left. And so it creates a, “Take that,” style element, where you might help out one of your teammates and not the other, and vice versa. So you're trying to work with people, to have them help you, and not help their other teammate. And so in the game, two people will win the game, and in a four person game, two would win, two would lose. And so it creates this really fun dynamic that's just great to play.

Andrew Kuplic: And so I would definitely say it's a revised version of the first game. So I'll still have friends and family that are willing to get it, because it is a different version. It is definitely a second edition, or an updated version. And so yeah, I do still see that support being there.

Should Other Game Designers Release 2nd Editions?

Patrick Rauland: Cool. Cool. Would you recommend that other game designers do something similar, basically run two smaller campaigns versus maybe one large, and maybe more fully planned-out campaign? Is that the route you'd recommend?

Andrew Kuplic: I would recommend that a route for a lot of smaller people. You got the big board game companies that don't need to do it that way, because they have their systems and checks and everything in place to make sure that when the game is launched the first time, it's already a really good copy, but I'll get a bunch of Kickstarter games that aren't fully fleshed out, that just aren't that fun, where they just didn't get it play tested enough. They didn't have enough people input into the rules, or there's just something missing, and you don't know what to do, and so we have to create an online forum to enhance the rule book.

Andrew Kuplic: And so, by running my first campaign, and making it mostly just friends and family, I'm able to get a lot of that feedback, I'm able to get a couple hundred copies out to people I know, people I trust, and they're able to play the game, provide me feedback. And then if I see a same question, one or two times, I can add that into the rule book and update it. Or if someone's like, “This card was confusing, or overpowered,” I can either make it underpowered, or clarify it better.

And so I do think a lot of indie board game designers, it is beneficial to run two campaigns to have… Or at least, up front, if you don't want to run two campaigns, at the very least, you should get a hundred demo copies of your game and just send them out to review, or send them out to play testers, because play testing your game is very important. You want an excellent game, because when people back it and they buy it, they don't just want to play it once, think all of this was a gimmick, and then put it on their shelf, sell it, or even worse yet, just throw it away, because they don't even want to go to the hassle of selling it, because they don't know how to, there isn't a big following for the game.

So you want people to like your game, and then what that does is, it gets people coming back. They ask questions like, “Hey, are you designing another game? I really liked your first game.” And so I took a lot of the knowledge I gained from that campaign to implement a really great game. And so, everyone that backs this April version, the Kickstarter, is just going to love the game. The artwork is really great. The rule book is sound, we've done a lot of revisions, and it's just a really great game.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. So one other thing is, as a backer, and boy, I went on a Kickstarter tear the last couple of years, I'm finally slowing down, but as someone who likes to back games on Kickstarter, it's nice when I can see that you have a completed campaign, and you have comments to say, right. If I can see, “Oh, you've already created a game,” and I look at the comments, and then it says, “I loved it. It received on time.” When I can see that, it gives me a lot more confidence, and maybe I'm willing to spend a little bit more money on, I don't know if you're going to have a deluxe version, or a bigger, fancy box or whatever, but I'm probably willing to spend a little bit more money, now that I've seen you've delivered at least one time.

Andrew Kuplic: Right. And I would say that's a huge thing too, because a lot of board game designers will design a game, they'll crate a Kickstarter page, and they'll have it out there, but they don't realize how much work there is after a game is designed, to fulfill it. They're just like, “I'll call a manufacturer, they'll make it, I'll call a fulfillment center. They'll ship it,” but it's not that easy. Designing a game is only half the challenge. Manufacturing, there's so many unknowns, so many different costs. Shipment, there's 50 different ways a package can be shipped, and if you're dealing with international backing, then you have to deal with customs, and regulations, and all sorts of, there's a lot to it. And so, by going through a small campaign, and doing a small amount of international shipping, and working with manufacturers all over the world, it really gave me a great insight, and the ability to know I can deliver the game within the timeframe that I set, because I've gone through the process, I know the process, and I can really just give what is needed.

What Did You Learn From Your First Campaign?

Patrick Rauland: Yeah, yeah. Well, has any of that changed? So, would you manufacturer, you've already done this once, would you manufacturer at a different place? Are you going to ship through a different company? Are you doing a different post-pledge or pledge manager survey? Maybe, what have you learned just from the Kickstarter campaign itself, and what has changed about that?

Andrew Kuplic: Yeah, so I plan to continue with my same manufacturer. Even though I did a small order run, they still treated me really nice, they still treated me as if I was one of their big contracts that they had, and so I respect that. A lot of times when you would go in and you just do a minimum order quantity, they look at you and be like, “We don't really want to deal with you. You're too much hassle,” but they didn't treat me that way. They gave me as much time as they would give one of their bigger customers. And so, I felt special, and I felt a reason to continue with them. And then they gave me really good quality. The game itself is a high quality of materials, high quality. And so I really liked everything that they did for me, so I plan to keep with the same manufacturer.

Andrew Kuplic: As far as things that I'll change, in my first campaign, I didn't do a backend pledge manager. I just did Kickstarter fulfillment, and I just charged the shipment through Kickstarter. So I'm definitely going to do a back end fulfillment center, to help with the fulfillment aspect of it. And so, that's definitely something I'm going to implement, and something that I learned was just a hassle, doing all the fulfillment myself, and using Kickstarter fulfillment, versus all the other third parties that are out there. With third parties, just talking with other backers are just so much helpful. They help you out a lot more than trying to figure it out yourself.

Patrick Rauland: Earlier in the pandemic, probably nine, 10 months ago, now, my company, the company I worked for at the time, they were great. And basically, a whole bunch of employees at my company wanted my game, and so my company bought them all. And so I had this, and I had to fulfill, I think it was about 80 games over a weekend. That was a whole… I watched a lot of TV, but packing 80 games, all the bubble wrap, all the boxes, all the stacks of games that I had to get out of the storage unit, that was a whole weekend activity. It took a lot of time to pack and ship 80 games.

Andrew Kuplic: Yes. You think it's like, “Oh, it'll only take a minute to pack, toss a label on,” but no, it's a process. So yeah, with mine, it is relatively easy for shipping, because I can use USPS first class, due to being under a pound in weight. And then I can just use either a small box, or just a hard container to keep it from getting dented. And so my fulfillment's a little bit easier than a big box game would be, but it's still very time consuming.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. Very cool. So one other thing here is, so I come from the software world, and in the software world, we can update stuff every night, right? Things are always changing. Board games are a little bit more, once it's printed, it's done. Maybe there's a version two. Have you thought about, in a year, is there going to be a version three? There's a 5% of my brain that goes, “Oh, I'll just wait, he'll have a version three a year from now.” Or do you think this is probably going to be this way for five to 10 years, let's say?

Andrew Kuplic: This'll be the final version of the game. I'm very happy with where it's at, so there's no need to wait for version three, version three won't be coming. The version two is going to be the final version of the game. It's coming along really nicely, it's where it should be, and I've already started working on designing another game. And so that will be what will be taking my time in the future, after this campaign is complete. Right now, it's pretty much all, Magical Unicorn Quest. And then, once this wraps up, I'm going to be working on a next game. So there won't be a version three coming out. The version two will be final, and it's a lot of fun to play, just a great game.

What Type of Games Do You Like to Design?

Patrick Rauland: That's awesome. So, speaking of next games, what type of games do you like to design? And, is your brand going to be about a specific type of game? A size, or a family, or a play style or, family games?

Andrew Kuplic: Yes. So, a lot of what I'm doing right now is self-publishing, and so I try to keep it to a smaller size box, smaller size container. It makes the manufacturing easier, it makes the fulfillment easier. And then I really try to focus on family games, games that kids can play, and games that adults can play. And so the next game that I'm working on is a deck-building game, and it's coming along really well. The idea of this deck-building game is that, a lot of deck-building games, that's where you try and get rid of your starting cards, you get the advanced cards and then you just have a deck of all advanced cards. So this one has a little bit of a twist to it, where the starting cards fuel the advanced cards. So in order to use your advanced cards, you have to have starting cards as well. And so it makes it so your deck, and your play area that you're building out, you have to go back and you have to buy the base units, because they're resources.

So, you're a potion master, is the idea of the game. And you are trying to create potions, but you need ingredients. So you have to go back and you have to keep getting base ingredients to make your potions. And the game's design is working really well. I've gone to a couple of Protospiel events with it, and people have really liked it, and starting to build a following for that game, too. I don't have a title for it, yet. It's still in its infancy period, but it's a lot. It's a good game. It's getting good feedback.

What Fun Ideas of Mechanisms are you Looking Into?

Awesome. That's very cool. Do you have any other fun ideas, or mechanisms, that you maybe want to put in a future game?

Andrew Kuplic: I really like, Press Your Luck, style games. I find that those work great for families. And so I'm actually adding a, Press Your Luck, style to that deck-building game that I'm making. I find that having that element in a game, where it's not a dice roll, I don't like dice roll randomness. I want it to be more of, you push, and you either get something, a big reward, or you fail bigger. And so that's getting added into the game. And so, within the game, you are trying to avoid the King. And the more potions you create, the more witchcraft that there is within the society. And if you create too many potions, then the King can come down and try to stop you, because he doesn't want witches or witchcraft in his kingdom.

Does Game Design Energize of Exhaust You?

Patrick Rauland: As Kings like. Yeah. Cool. Does game design energize or exhaust you?

Andrew Kuplic: It definitely energizes me. I definitely get energized while trying to make a good game and try to come up with game. What exhausts me is trying to find people to play the game after I've made tweaks to it. Because people are like, “Oh, I've already played that,” or they don't want to play a demo game, or they had done too much tabletop simulator. So trying to find people exhausts me, but designing games definitely energizes me.

What Resource Would You Recommend for an Aspiring Designer?

Patrick Rauland: Cool. Love that. This is great. So, what's a resource that you would recommend to another indie game designer?

Andrew Kuplic: Oh, boy. There's a lot of resources out there. If you're trying to do a Kickstarter ever, there's plenty of books on how to do a Kickstarter. I'd definitely recommend picking one of those up, and BoardGameGeek is probably a great tool. If you haven't used anything on BoardGameGeek, it's probably the database that has every game. So if you're trying to create a theme, you can look up what game is out there, and then you can read the reviews. You can usually find a PDF copy of their rule book to see, “Okay, what do they do? What did people think of that?” And so I'd say, just research your topic, figure out what someone's done. You have an idea, your idea is probably great. But with BoardGameGeek, there's a hundred thousand games out there right now on it, plus. And so, chances are someone's already made a game of your idea. So read it, see what they did, see how you can improve their game.

And I would say that's something that a lot of indie game people don't necessarily do, they just have their idea and try to stumble along through it. But chances are that idea's been executed and it might've been executed poorly, it might've been executed great, but find out, and see what they did. If they did it poorly, then make it better. And then you got to add some original artwork to it, tweak their mechanics, create your own, and it can be a great game.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. Do you have to live and breathe BGG, or is it a tool that you can go in and go out? Is it a tool that you can easily pull up and do your stuff, or? To me, I find it a little complex, and I feel like, if you want to invest 10 hours and really get into all the forums, there's gold there, but otherwise it is maybe a little hard to use. Is that your experience?

Andrew Kuplic: I would definitely agree with that. I usually stick to their search functions. And so when I was creating my, Magical Unicorn Quest, I just typed in, “Unicorn,” like, “How many games have, “Unicorn,” as the name in it?” And there wasn't that many, when I started to create the game.

Patrick Rauland: Really?

Andrew Kuplic: And so, yeah, I was completely shocked. I wanted to check out the total number, to tell people how many there is right now. But there wasn't a lot that had, “Unicorn,” in the title, in comparison to how popular unicorns are in society right now. And so I looked at a couple of games that were out there, and created, “Magical Unicorn Quest,” with unique mechanisms that weren't in the current unicorn game.

Patrick Rauland: Huh. That's great.

Andrew Kuplic: And, yeah.

Patrick Rauland: And I think I actually worry about accidentally just coming up with a game that has similar mechanisms accidentally. And especially if it's the same theme, then it's like, “Ugh.” So it's nice that if you're constantly checking out BGG, if you searched for all the unicorn games, then you know, “Oh, none of them are like this.” That's good to know.

Andrew Kuplic: Right. And so, like I'm making the potion game, so I haven't really done too much to it yet, but on BGG, just, “How many games have word, “Potion,” in the title?” Or I might look up other things that relate to potions, like magic or this or that, and deck-building, you can search by theme. So if I'm making a deck-building game, I'll probably just search, “Deck-building,” see if there's a deck-building potion game, and if there is, I'll pull it up, read it, see what they did and make sure I don't just copy it.

What's The Best Money You've Spent?

Patrick Rauland: Yep. Love it. What's the best money that you've spent, as a game designer?

Andrew Kuplic: Oh, definitely artwork. I think my artwork, I am not an artist. I don't have an artistic talent. And so the artwork for, Magical Unicorn Quest, is really great. Kip is the artist that I have, and he is well-known in the TV industry. He's worked on, Family Guy, and the new Star Trek, the CBS All Access and-

Patrick Rauland: That sounds [crosstalk 00:28:33].

Andrew Kuplic: Yeah. Yeah. And so, he did a really great job with the artwork, and I'm really glad of the way it turned out. And so I would say, hiring a good artist and a good graphics designer, if you got a lot of components on your cards, where you're trying to put in money, or price, or things like that, get in a graphics designer to really hammer it out and know where everything should be labeled, and how it should be labeled, and an artist to make great artwork. That is two things that are really good.

The other thing I would recommend people doing, if you're not great at writing rules, to hire a rules editor. So that way, you can ensure that people playing the game, because you've seen your rules a thousand times, you don't have to have the rule book, or reference the rule book. So, is your rule book actually complete, or is it missing something that you didn't realize? So those are probably the two most things I would say spend money on, is artwork and rules.

Patrick Rauland: Yes. Please review your rules. I hired a rule book editor for my game, and it's unbelievable how much tiny stuff he found. Just tiny little things. And if you miss a comma here, you miss a word here, people generally get it. But when there's hundreds of little things like that, eventually people read the rule wrong. Right? So it's just, and it was very affordable. So I strongly recommend people to follow you-

Andrew Kuplic: Right. It's not that expensive. These are professionals in their industry, and they're really good at it. And they'll take a day, maybe two, to go over a rule book. And it's not that expensive, a couple hundred dollars. But if you have every single person complaining about your role book, and then you have to create a, Watch a Play, and then everyone's complaining because they have to watch your video, or they just make up their own rules and you have 10 different versions of the game, that's not what you want.

What Does Success Look Like?

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. So what does success in the board game world look like to you?

Andrew Kuplic: Success would be growing the company, to be growing a community that loves, Magical Unicorn Quest, and is looking forward to the new games that I produce. So, constantly growing, constantly gaining name recognition, and creating games that people enjoy playing. So, if I make a lot of money on the way great, but I don't want to be someone that just makes a lot of money and has a bad game. I want great games out for people to play.

Patrick Rauland: And you do want this to be your full-time job, right? Or that was the idea?

Andrew Kuplic: Yeah. So that's what's going on right now. I have a 10-month-old at home, so my full-time job is taking care of the 10-month-old as my wife works. And then I do board game design, and publishing, and everything like that when I'm not watching him.

Overrated Underrated Game

Patrick Rauland: Awesome. So, I like to end my show with a game called, Overrated, Underrated. So if you haven't heard about it, I'm going to give you a word or phrase, like, “Sticky notes.” And you're going to say if they're overrated or underrated. With sticky notes, you might say underrated, because they're always there and they can stick to anything. Some silly rationale why. Does that make sense?

Andrew Kuplic: Yes.

Patrick Rauland: All right. So, first one. “Print on demand.” And I'm talking about board games, obviously, here. Print on demand services. Overrated, or underrated?

Andrew Kuplic: Overrated. They are great at creating prototypes of your game, but they are too expensive. A lot of times you do a print on demand, and even just for a simple card game, it'll cost you 150 bucks for one copy and a box. I would much more recommend just trying to find a small manufacturer out in China that will make you 500 copies, and you can get 500 copies shipped to you for the same price you can get 50 from a print on demand place.

Patrick Rauland: Good to know. Movie theaters. Overrated or underrated?

Andrew Kuplic: Underrated. I so miss going to the movie theaters, get the big box of popcorn, a huge soda, Coke, pop, whatever you call it, and enjoying a movie. I definitely miss going to the movie theaters. But maybe not so much right now, because I've just been binge-watching Netflix. So it'll be a transition from when they open, but once everything opens back up, and I'm not just binge-watching Netflix, I love going to see the new movies.

Patrick Rauland: Love it. There's a couple movie theaters here in Denver that have, I don't know if I should call them waiters, but they have people who, you write your food orders down, and you put it in a little thing in front of you. They run by pick it up, look at it, make sure it's all correct, and they run off, and 15 minutes later, your food comes out. It's magical to have high quality, relatively high quality food, come out to you in a movie theater. I love the popcorn, but if I can get a fresh, hot pizza while I'm watching my favorite movie, oh. Great.

Andrew Kuplic: Yeah. One of the theaters next to us is a 21-[plus theater, or they have a 21-plus section. And so it's only people that are 21 or older, and then you can get beer, and wine, or champagne.

Patrick Rauland: There we go.

Andrew Kuplic: Yeah. It's just great. And then you don't have to worry about a five-year-old screaming or crying. And it's just a great experience.

Patrick Rauland: Nice, nice. Third one here. Reselling games, overrated or underrated? And you know what's funny is, I wrote this a couple of days ago and I don't even know what I'm talking about here. So I'm going to specify this as, I think I'm going to say, if you buy a game and then you want to resell it on the secondary market, so you as a consumer are reselling games, not a store. Is that overrated or underrated?

Andrew Kuplic: I think, underrated. I went to a convention once where it was actually just a bunch of people that had a lot of excess board games and they just set up a table, and they sell their board games at a discounted price. It was a lot of fun, because you got to talk to a bunch of people that just love games, and you're able to pick up a game for 50% off. And once you open a game, and you toss it in your cupboard, and you dent the box, or bend the rule book, it's no different than buying someone else's. And so I think it's completely underrated. It's a way to get a lot of games for a cheaper price, and you can then just try out a game. If you don't like it, you don't feel like you spent $70 on something you don't like.

Patrick Rauland: Yep. Love it. And then, I have a job interview later today. So for the last one-

Andrew Kuplic: Oh, exciting.

Patrick Rauland: New job. And thank you. So the job interview process, just the whole interviewing people, overrated or underrated?

Andrew Kuplic: Oh, it's overrated. I feel, as candidate trying to find a job, it is so painful. It's like, can't we just have a more simplistic version of rooting the good out from the bad? But then on the flip side, if you are a hiree, you're probably saying it's completely underrated because you need to spend all the time, you need to get 20 candidates, in because you want the best candidates. And so I would say from the interviewee standpoint, it's overrated, and in the interviewer standpoint, it's underrated.

Wrap Up

Patrick Rauland: Love it. Andrew, thank you so much for being on the show.

Andrew Kuplic: Excellent. Thank you so much for having me.

Patrick Rauland: Where can people find you and your games online?

Andrew Kuplic: So you can find me at flamepointgames.com. That is our website, and we have the base game selling there, but we're getting low on inventory. So I would definitely recommend looking up our Kickstarter campaign. That's the best way to get the new version of the game, it's an enhanced version, a lot more fun to play.

And then, in addition to our websites, we have a Facebook page called, Magical Unicorn Quest, which is the name of our game. And we have an Instagram page called, Magical Unicorn Quest, which is the name of the game. So I would highly recommend looking us up on Instagram or Facebook, and you can currently go to our Kickstarter page and follow our Kickstarter page at, Magical Unicorn Quest, the Kickstarter will launch on April 15th.

Patrick Rauland: Awesome. I was just going to ask you when it was going to launch. So April 15th, and this episode should be coming up before then, but April 15th is when the new, version 2.0 of, Magical Unicorn Quest, is coming out. Awesome. So, thank you for that.

Patrick Rauland: Listeners, if you liked this podcast, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you hear this. If you leave a review, Andrew said he would help you catch a unicorn, if you can find one. You can visit the site, indieboardgamedesigners.com. You can follow me on Twitter and BoardGameGeek. I'm @BFTrick on both platforms, that's B as in, “Board game,” F as in, “Fun,” and, “Trick,” as in trick-taking games. Until next time, everyone, happy designing. Bye-bye.