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Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer every single week, 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'll be talking to Michael and Christina Pittre, who designed On The Rocks, which is a game about making drinks. It's on Kickstarter as we're recording and will likely be done when this episode is released. Michael, Christina, welcome to the show.

Christina Pittre: Hi, thank you for having us.

Michael Pittre: Thank you.

Introduction

Patrick: We emailed a little bit ahead of time, so I know a little bit about you, but the guests or the listeners don't. I'd like to start with a lightning round game. I got three quick questions for you. Ready? All right. What is your favorite drink?

Christina: I like mojitos. Raspberry.

Michael: Simple. I like a good rum and Coke, especially with Captain Morgan in it.

Patrick: I love it. Now, I'm always fascinated by the different types of glasses that alcohol comes in. Every drink seems to have a special glass. If you could only have one fancy alcohol beverage glass, which glass would you choose?

Christina: A hurricane so I can put an umbrella on everything that I drink.

Michael: Yeah?

Christina: It's just so fun.

Michael: I think I like a good martini glass. I think they're actually– I love the shape of them. I'd go with a martini.

Patrick: Awesome. One of my favorite lightning round questions is, “What is a game you'd play with someone every single time at a con?”

Christina: Ticket to Ride is my favorite. You can be nice, and you can be extra– I've never been so anxious playing game, but I've also had so much fun playing this game. So, definitely Ticket to Ride. Would not turn it down.

Michael: Yeah. I'm open to any game when I'm at a convention, and I don't have one that I consistently play every time at a convention. But I'm willing to sit down if there's a seat at the table I'm going to sit down and play with you. I'm open to anything.

Patrick: I love that. Now, is there any specific Ticket to Ride? Are you fan of the Europe one, or just the regular one?

Christina: The original, the regular one. Yeah, I like the original.

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

Patrick: Awesome. OK, first real question. How did you get into board games and board game design?

Christina: It basically happened when we were engaged. We were basically broke trying to save for a wedding and a house at the same time, and Michael had went to Target one day, and there was a sale on board games. He decided to purchase Pandemic, and it was our first co-op game that we'd ever played before. That was pretty cool. After that, we just bought more and more games. Ticket to Ride was technically another– It's probably my favorite. What was that other one called? Island–?

Michael: Forbidden Islands.

Christina: Forbidden Islands was also a third one that we played.

Michael: Then Ticket to Ride, as well.

Christina: I guess we were technically always gamers in the beginning, but not of this style.

Michael: Yeah, definitely. I feel that the games that we– We thought that it would have saved us money to get into gaming.

Christina: “Save us money.”

Michael: Now we're 200 games into our collection, so I don't know about saving money anymore at this point in my life.

Christina: About that.

Patrick: So you basically bought the games because they were on sale. If they weren't on sale, Michael, would you have bought or purchased those games?

Michael: To be honest with you, I don't think I would have at that time. I'm glad I did, because at that point that led me to watching the dice tower and see what type of games are out there. I couldn't believe how many amazing games that were out there. I was just like, “You could do this. You could do that.” It was just amazing.

Christina: A whole new world.

Michael: It was a whole new world, and that just opened our eyes. We both grew up playing like games like Chess, Parcheesi, Monopoly, the staple games that everybody had in their household as a kid.

Christina: Yeah, traditional.

Michael: Later on, we shied away– Or, I shied away from it to play more video games in life. Then finding the modern board game, it changed everything. There's just so many good games out there from racing games to strategic games to roll and writes. There's just so many different styles out there that many people don't even know about to this day.

Christina: It's pretty cool too because it helped us in with our relationship. Because you're newly getting engaged and getting married and communicating more. That's nice, and I liked that you didn't get into anything else entertainment-wise.

Michael: Especially with the co-op games, you don't have to argue with each other. You have to work together to make things work.

Christina: If you say so.

Patrick: It's weird to think about all the little life turns like if you weren't in Target that day or if Target started the sale the next day, you might not be into board games. It's so weird to think about those tiny unimportant details that sent you down one path or another.

Christina: That's so true. It was destiny.

Where Did Your Bartending Game Come From?

Patrick: OK, let's talk about your game On The Rocks. How–? Where did the idea for a bartending game come from?

Christina: It came from my friend. She was at the time going to school for bartending, and she kept saying how fun it was to mix these drinks. I was like, “You must get a little tipsy drinking all these drinks.” And she goes, “No. Actually, they're just mocktails. It's just colored water.” I was like, “That would be interesting.” So when I came home, I talked with Michael thinking, “How fun would it be to have a game about mixing drinks? How fun would that be?” We talked all night, the next morning, we had a concept, and we were pretty much set.

Michael: On the same night when I got home from work, she already had a mockup ready to go.

Christina: I was excited.

Michael: So we started playtesting immediately. She started cranking things out after she was done with work. She came home, started working on some cards– Just basic clip art. But she had, I swear, like 60 cards already done for drinks.

Christina: I was pretty excited about this game.

Patrick: That's cool.

Michael: From that point on, we always knew that it was going to be a recipe fulfillment type game. The whole design of it was based off of– We wanted to make the game look as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Using the marbles made the game stand out a little bit more, we wanted to make sure that we had those type of ingredients to give us some appeal to the table when somebody walked by.

Patrick: I'm always curious, what percent of your very first prototype is in the original? Like 50%? 90%? 5%? Where do you fall?

Christina: 90–? Probably 90% aesthetically, maybe?

Michael: The original concept was just a drafting game, that you originally would draft marbles out of it. We still kept that idea, but we decided to do it a little bit different. Because just the drafting part itself and just being a fulfillment game with drafting, it was boring. There was no interaction between other players, but we continued to keep that in the game. Now when you draft the ingredients, they get placed into these trigger bowls in the middle of the table, which has that Mancala effect. Mancala the game and you go around, and I didn't even know what Mancala was until somebody told me at one of the play tests. “This reminds me of this.” So I'm like, “I have to play this game.” We ended up buying it and adding it to our collection then at this point.

Christina: It did change a lot.

Michael: It went through different stages, but our original concept has always been there, though.

Patrick: Normally I talk to people who have to cut things out of their game, so it's pretty neat to hear you– It sounded like you basically had a boring drafting system and you deliberately made it a cool, fun, dynamic, interesting drafting system. I watched some video reviews earlier today, and it looked really fun. So, if you–

Christina: The one thing– I'm sorry.

Patrick: Go for it.

Christina: The one thing that did get changed was the spill option of the game because it kept changing. First, it was a menu of how you change, and then it was a dice of how you can spill, and then it was that certain bowl. You took it from the marble bag, so technically the effect was on you and not an optional when you put in the mix. So, that aspect definitely changed a lot throughout the whole year. If anything that was the one thing that definitely changed. The idea was technically there in the beginning but weren't sure how to implement it until play testing with people. That was definitely the moment when it changed a lot.

Michael: The play testing definitely fine-tuned the spilling part of the game with the spill marbles, because originally the effect of the spill marble was so devastating that some people didn't want to play the game anymore. Because originally it would wipe off your entire board. People were like, “OK.”

Christina: It was a little harsh.

Michael: So when you're trying to complete a recipe of eight ingredients, and you're one away, and then you've got seven wiped away from you, that's pretty much three entire turns you ended up losing. So with any game, everything– Every part of every phase of the game has to go through that fine-tuning stage until that's correct and then you move on to the next part of it. The spilling, the spill marbles did take a little while to get to where it is now.

How Did You Know You Found The Right Mechanism?

Patrick: I'm curious, how do you–? I'm working on a game right now and what's funny is I'm also a little bit bored of my drafting system, so I'm like, “Let me try this, let me try this, let me try this.” They're all just slightly different, and I'm just not super happy with any of them. My question for you is, how did you know when you were happy with the spilled mechanism? Did someone, did a play tester go, “Oh, my God. That was fun.” Or did someone say something obvious, or how did you know you finally found the right mechanism for spilled drinks?

Christina: First, we play-tested with each other. We kept going over all of the other options of what it can be, and when it was fun, we both had an “Aha” moment. Then I think we knew, “Yes. Now this is definitely where we want to be,” and then we play tested it and when other people thought it was also an “Aha” moment, that's when I think we knew “Yes. This is definitely the right path of where to go.” Our reaction, we first play tested it as a two-player game to see how that felt, and then brought it to the masses as a four-player game, to see how that felt too.

Michael: The great thing is being together that we always have somebody to play test and bounce ideas off of. We could wake up early in the morning and start working on the game together and say, “Let's try this and see how this works.” There was always that one person to go back and forth with.

Patrick: I am jealous.

Christina: We'll play with you any time. Just call us over the phone.

Patrick: That's great. Sorry, was there anything else you wanted to add there before I interrupted?

Christina: No.

Michael: No.

Where Did Your High End Graphic Design Come From?

Patrick: OK. So one of things I also noticed is one of the things I like that's different about your game is that it feels different. You almost have a neon lights feel to the game. It has a very premium feel, the graphic design, and the components. I know this sounds silly, but you have see-through dice, and somehow I feel like those would fit in a bar. Even something as silly as the dice color feels thematic. The last thing I like is you have these cool little lime wedges to help you track the rounds, because if you don't give people components, they're like, “What round is it?” “I don't know.” How did you– Where did this–? Because it does feel different than a lot of games. Where do the graphic designs come from?

Christina: I drew them. It took a long time to get to this look. We had different themes, first, it was a tiki theme, then it was a vintage Cuban Havana Nights theme, and then it was a beachy theme. Eventually, it just went to a hipster bar theme that I felt like “Everyone could enjoy this bar.” I didn't want it to be too time piece-y. I wanted everyone to be part of this bar. I'm much into color. I wanted it to be bright and fun so that anyone can enjoy this bar like I said as if you were to go to this bar, what it would look like to appeal to everybody. Yeah, sorry.

Michael: Christina has done all the design work, and she's been awesome with it. She's been going back and forth, just all the different designs, and if you see– You probably could go on Instagram and see a couple more of our original images for the design, and it's just different iterations of how the different look of this game was to where it is at now. It's a whole 180 than what it originally was.

Christina: I wanted to get the feeling of the game, I wanted you to be in the game. You are the bartender, and you want to feel like you are part of the bar.

Michael: With the artwork for her Photoshop skills, she is able to– If you look at the player board you could see the bubbles in the drink. She was able to add all these different type of effects to the cards, the cards and the player board itself, and to also have this type of glowing look. Which I feel like if we could get UV on the player board, that would look amazing with the player board itself. You'd see the glass like it's glistening, which I think would be such an amazing look.

Christina: A rooftop bar was an option, but it was too dark. Then I wanted it brighter, so that's what happened with the last look. That's why it's so bright.

Patrick: It's cool. I like that it just feels different. It's very glowy, and everything is very light. So, you did all the graphic design yourself then, Christina?

Christina: Thank you. I did. It took a long time. A lot of sleepless nights working on it, but I think it was worth it. Definitely, it's fun to be so open to do whatever you want to do. I don't know, and it was fun. It was, and I never get to do this. I technically consider myself more of a graphic designer, but this is more of an illustration, so it just brought a different part of me that I never really get to tap into, which was exciting for me to do.

What Are Your Hopes and Fears with Your Kickstarter?

Patrick: I love it. OK, so I want to talk about your Kickstarter campaign, because at this time you're at $21,000 or a little over that, and your goal is $30,000. We're recording with nine days left. I think this is a scary spot for a creator to be in because your game could fund or it might not. It's not obvious either way. What are your hopes and fears?

Michael: Of course we definitely want it to fund. Unfortunately, if it doesn't fund, then we do understand that we ran into a gauntlet of games in July. Running up against [inaudible]. We do see some of the mistakes we may have had from the beginning of our campaign, so if we don't fund we will sit back, reevaluate the campaign, see where we messed up and talk to our backers. See what things we could do to bring more interest to the game, and then relaunch. There's nothing wrong with failing, and everybody fails at life. You need to get back up and go at it again. We're not scared not to fund, because again, we'll relaunch again.

Christina: I am. It's been hard work for me. I stayed up a lot of nights working on this thing. I definitely want it to fund. I'm sorry, of course, I'm the only one nervous. But yeah, I'm excited too.

Michael: I personally feel one way or another the game will fund eventually. I feel that there are a lot of people out there, I do know there were some concerns with the price of the game but given the game, we're trying to create is pretty much a deluxe game and we want everybody to get that feel. That's the reason we came out with this game the way with the dual-layer board that looks like a menu, and you open it up, and you have all these glasses in front of you to start your drinks. Then you have these silicone cups, and you have the acrylic dice and all the marbles. So again, we wanted to have that deluxe feel that everybody would have. But if we need to come back and create more of a retail version and dumb it down a little bit to bring the price down, we'll gladly work on that and bring that to the table next time around.

Christina: Suggestions are always helpful too.

Patrick: I love that you are, number one, I'm going to say fearless. Because I think I would have– I don't know what I'd do if my campaign failed. That's a scary thing. I like that you're fearless, and I also like that you're willing to listen to your backers or people who might be backers and make some changes. One of the things I don't think is immediately obvious in the board game world is now that I've been doing this for a little bit of time, now I've seen a whole bunch of campaigns that have failed, and then they relaunch in three months, and they succeed. So, sometimes it is just bad timing.

Christina: I'm hoping that's the case.

Michael: It's true. There's been many games that I've done research on to see how they did the first time around, and if they relaunched, and there's a lot of big games out there that you would be surprised have struggled their very first game and then they relaunched and had a massive following the second time around. Nobody knows the correct way of how to run your campaign unless you– Especially for a first-time designer. You never know when your games are going to take off. If this was our second or third game and we had a following, we probably would have been funded already.

Christina: I don't know, we have a pretty good community. They are so nice, and they're like little cheerleaders along the way. It's just so sweet seeing all the comments, like “We can make it, we're back on the Kick track.” It's like, “Thank you, guys, for being part of our team.” It's so sweet.

Michael: I agree. I love our community. Everybody who– The comments that we get have been just so supportive, and everybody– We love them. They're just great people. They've been following us for almost a year already, pretty much even back to Unplugged. I think that was the first time we went out and play tested it out there, and ever since Unplugged, we started having followers. It's been amazing.

Christina: How cool would it be to now go in there and have a game of our own to show and play?

Michael: It's going to be amazing. What designer doesn't want that?

Patrick: I want to, maybe over the course of my lifetime, make so many games where I only have my own. That would be outrageous. Just have so many games that my game library is just my own.

Christina: That would be amazing.

Michael: Do you have enough wall space for that, though?

What Other Ideas Are You Playing With?

Patrick: Probably not. So, what other–? Are you working on any fun ideas, any other game ideas popping into your head? Anything you want to work– Let's say this funds, and how about this. Let's say this funds, and you get a million bajillion dollars, the game ships to your backers. What is the next project you're going to work on?

Christina: We have this thing called theming Tuesdays, and we basically sit down and talk about all our games that we can make. It's basically a five-page document spreadsheet on Google right now. It's insane. But we have a few in mind, a lot of good ones that we want to do. It just depends on the theme of it all.

Michael: Yeah, we definitely have concepts for a lot of games. We have a few that we started working on. I feel that if we do that well, we probably will try to go more to a larger scale game. If we just fund we most likely will start probably more of a card game the second time around, but there– Because we've been developing a card game for the past couple months and it's fun. But we would love– we have an idea for a word replacement game and a couple of different–

Christina: A race game, which I am [inaudible]–

Michael: A racing game that we were working on.

Christina: So many games.

Michael: We love theme first, so we think of a theme, and then we try to develop the mechanisms behind that theme that would work right. We try to find themes that have rarely been used, and that would bring people to the table with us.

Christina: Visually too.

Michael: Yeah, visually. Especially with On The Rocks. We want to give– It's a gateway game. It's easy to teach but has enough– Sorry. My headphone fell out. It's easy to teach, but it definitely has enough complexity for the everyday gamer. I'm losing my train of thought now for some reason, and I don't know why.

Christina: Because you were just [inaudible].

Michael: Yeah, I confused myself.

Patrick: We are recording this late, so.

Michael: We did just put a 3-year-old down not too long ago.

Christina: Yes, we did. We took a 15-minute nap, and it was awesome.

Patrick: Cool. So, how about–

Michael: But–

Patrick: Go ahead if you have more stuff.

Michael: I'm sorry. Yeah, but the games we have coming over here, we do have a word replacement game that we really would like to get out there eventually. But we'll see what happens next. Then a couple expansions for On The Rocks, and then a child version that a family could play with their kids that will have the same mechanisms in place.

Christina: Alcohol-free, obviously.

Michael: Alcohol-free, of course. But we will do it like a kid's version where everybody in the family could play because our mechanic for our game could tell it to other styles. Other themes. And we feel that we could definitely make one and get towards the family-oriented theme. But the main idea behind our game was to bring in and draw in individuals who want to play board games, but they may not have found the theme that they liked. Because with our family, they like games, but the theme is very important to them. They don't want to play a game that's too hard to learn, and they don't want to sit there for 45 minutes to hear instructions. We want to make sure that the games we design would be enjoyed by our family especially, so that's pretty much where we came to with our original concept for our game.

Have You Learned Anything You Could Apply to a Future Game?

Patrick: I know your Kickstarter campaign isn't over yet, but have you learned anything from this process that will affect future games that you make? Maybe components or theming or timing, or anything? Is there anything you would change for your next game, now that you've gone through most of the process?

Christina: Definitely timing. I did the Kickstarter page myself, drawing the elements on there, and I didn't realize what was needed for the page, which was a lot. I made the graphics, and I made the motion graphics, I made the images. This is my first year technically learning how to do motion graphics, so I think I probably should have given myself a little bit more time to make all these things for that page. Yeah, that was hard to do in that short period of time. Definitely, advertise a bit more. Try to find different areas–? I don't know. We feel like we were pretty involved in the community. Maybe not myself as much, it's hard for me to do both with the art as well as trying to get part of the community, but I tried. Especially with the female groups, which I love. Because they're so sweet. Timing. Timing and trying to communicate a little more on my part, but it's hard.

Michael: Pretty much what I tried to do over the past year was reach out to all the Facebook groups, deal with Instagram, try to deal with Twitter, and try to meet as many designers as possible. We did our best on the budget that we had, and we did our best to reach out as much as possible. But the community's been great, and they definitely have been helping us through this time even though we can't go out and spend the money for advertisement, our community has been blasting different Facebook pages and–

Christina: It's so helpful.

Michael: It's been very helpful and help promoting with us to try to get the word out for this game.

What's a Resource You'd Recommend to another Designer?

Patrick: That's great. It's really good to hear. I do want to shift towards the ending questions here, so I love asking– You've gone through basically the whole process. What is a resource like a book or a podcast, not this one, or whatever that you would recommend to another game designer?

Michael: Definitely, I would say use what's out there already. Facebook alone, reach out to other designers, and talk to them. You wouldn't believe how many designers I actually just messaged one day on Facebook and tell them how much I love their game, and I would love to talk to them about game design. They easily answer me back, and I've been chatting with different designers from pretty large games for the past couple of months, and they've been very supportive with us.

Christina: I actually as a designer, from a design standpoint, I like using tabletop design for graphic design. They were super helpful just seeing how to lay out a certain page or how to layout graphics, or give you different ideas or feedback which was helpful to get that in the graphic design tabletop community, which is different than Michael would experience. You didn't get that part, which was helpful for me.

Patrick: So, take advantage of Facebook and all the free groups out there? Love it.

Christina: Yes.

Michael: Definitely do it, but make sure you're involved in the community because those are going to be the first people that are going to back you.

Christina: They will help and give you advice.

What's the Best Money You've Spent?

Patrick: I'm a frugal person, so I try not to spend money when I don't have to. Or, however, that's phrased. What is something that you did purchase that was 100% worth every dollar you paid?

Christina: The game cards.

Michael: Getting our cards professionally made. We used the service called Print & Play, and the first cards we got had the linen finish, and their linen finish was amazing.

Christina: Yeah, I tried to make it myself, and I don't know why I thought I could make– Like, how many cards?

Michael: I think it was like 110.

Christina: Like, 100 cards by hand? What a goofball. I was like, “I can make this, no problem.” And then I was like “Oh, my God. Am I done yet?” I did it wrong, and I used the wrong paper, and it was warping, and it looked stupid and thick. I was like, “Never again.” Everything else I made myself, but the cards? Never again. So, definitely use a service like Print & Play, it looked professional. It was great, and it was beautiful. It came in perfect timing, and I would definitely use them again.

Michael: There is also The Game Crafter, but we used Print & Play this time for our cards, and we were just so impressed with the way the cards looked that we just stuck with them for getting the cards printed.

Patrick: It's nice to hear that the quality is so good. It's like, “Why bother changing?”

Christina: Exactly. The price was nice, and the price was really good too. That was definitely helpful as well.

Michael: It definitely was, but everything else we did by hand. Our player boards, we did. Christina built the boxes.

Christina: I built everything, minus the cards.

Michael: All the little tokens, everything. Everything else was built. We purchased the cups and the marbles.

Christina: Our friend did help us make these cute little 3D lemons, which were so adorable.

Michael: That was a 3D print that was a gift.

Christina: That was a gift for us, it was so nice. Thank you, Tim.

Michael: Thank you, Tim.

What Does Success Look Like?

Patrick: Very cool. I like to end with the same question for everyone, which is what does success look like to you?

Christina: Success? That's a tough question.

Michael: I know many people think success deals with money, but for us, we don't care about that. We want individuals to be happy playing our game. So honestly, if I see our game being played on the table, seen on Facebook and pictures of it in the future or Instagram–

Christina: That would be so cool.

Michael: That moment that we see people like, “We got our Kickstarter in. Here's our pictures.” We're looking forward to that day. We did a print and play and sent it out, and we had people who were in Norway and Germany who created it and put it on the table and told us how much they loved the game. It's just amazing to see that people are willing to build these games and then to see the game on somebody else's table and to see that they're enjoying the game as much as we do, because I can't tell you how many times we played our game over the past year. But to see that they are loving the game as much as we were hoping they would. It's just an amazing feeling. Go ahead, jump in.

Christina: Sorry, I thought you were done. I think it would be cool to see if someone were to reach out to us to get our advice, which would be cool. I would love to give advice. Yes, I'll give you all my knowledge of all the things I learned. That would definitely be a neat thing for success if someone thought that we were successful.

Patrick: I think giving advice is almost always like you saying, “I had pain here. Here what you do to avoid this pain. Build your Kickstarter page a month in advance. Now I know.” Right?

Christina: Yes, definitely. Let me help you learn from my mistakes.

Michael: Maybe even before that.

Overrated / Underrated

Patrick: Yes. Very cool. So, I like to end my show with a silly little game called Overrated/Underrated. Have you heard about it?

Michael: I have.

Patrick: Excellent. I will explain this to you then, Christina. Basically, I'm going to say or give you a word or phrase, and you're going to tell me if it is underrated by everyone else, or overrated. For example, if I said– What example do I want to go with today? If I said Mountain Dew Throwback, you're going to say “Clearly Patrick, that is underrated. Mountain Dew with all-natural sugar so I can run around like a crazy person all day on caffeine and sugar is essential, and everyone should drink it.” Something to that effect.

Christina: OK, gotcha. Cool.

Patrick: I think I want to have you answer these separately. So we're going to start with you first, Michael. Engine building games, overrated or underrated?

Michael: I love a good engine builder. I would say overrated at this moment because they are so popular, but God, I love them. Because there's just so many other great styles of games out there at the moment. Can I change that? I was going to say on the reading, keep playing and going out and playing. Engine builders are great. I do love the strategy behind them, that you find these different– The right cards that match up to get that great outcome in the end. Then just how competitive it is against other players, I do like a good competitive game. So, yeah. They're underrated. Let's go with that.

Patrick: And you, Christina?

Christina: I technically don't play that many engine building games, so I feel like I don't have a good answer for that. I'm sorry. Pass.

Patrick: I might go with maybe overrated–? If you haven't even been bothered to play them, maybe overrated?

Christina: It's not my style of game. It's definitely his, I'm sorry.

Patrick: That's OK. How about water parks, overrated or underrated? We're going to start with you, Christina.

Christina: I love Water Parks. We need more of these. How many roller coaster parks do we need? Yeah, give me more water. More water.

Michael: I love a good water park.

Christina: I love water parks. It's got five rides. Like you go to six flags, and it's like, five rides.

Michael: There's more than that.

Christina: Are there more than that? I don't know. I need more water parks. More water.

Patrick: OK, love it. How about ties in games? I'm going to start again with you, Christina. To clarify, “Tie” as in games that allow ties and don't have a thousand tiebreakers.

Christina: I guess it's underrated because it's necessary. Ties are good. It gives that tension in a game that you need. Maybe if you just did that one move differently, then you would of possibly won, so maybe underrated?

Michael: Do you mean “Ties” like the game is done, “We tied. That's it.” And walk away from it?

Patrick: Correct. There is a tie for first place. You're right, and it's like “Whoever has the most cows wins, but if you have the same number of cows we tie.” And that's what happens.

Michael: That's definitely overrated.

Christina: Is it?

Michael: I would never do that. I need to have a winner.

Christina: Do you?

Michael: Yes.

Patrick: That seems pretty common in the game world. I think I'm the weirdo in the game world because I'm OK with ties, but I think everyone else shares your opinion. Cool. OK, this one is not even out yet, but I still want to get your opinion on it. The new Disney streaming service, overrated or underrated?

Michael: I think he did his research on us.

Christina: I know, I love Disney. I love Disney, so I don't want to speak ill of my Disney. But let's see. Maybe– Is it over, is it under? Is it necessary, honestly?

Michael: Yes, it's necessary.

Christina: I guess it is, but why must you have your own. Why can't you stick with Netflix and be awesome with Netflix?

Michael: I love Netflix, but it's definitely underrated.

Christina: You think it is?

Michael: Yes. They're going to be able to– They're hooking up with ESPN and Hulu at the same time, so you're going to get all three of those at a bundle price, and then you have Marvel, Star Wars and all the Disney classics. It's a geek's dream come true.

Christina: You can get your sports. I don't even watch the sports, no more sports.

Michael: Did you see the Marvel shows that are going to be coming out on there?

Christina: Obviously.

Michael: Oh, my God. I'm looking forward to the Loki show.

Christina: Yeah. You cannot watch without me, or we are getting divorced.

Michael: And what is it, Wand Division?

Patrick: I love that answer. Great. So, definitely underrated. I love it cool. Michael and Christina, thank you so much for being on the show.

Christina: Thank you for having us.

Michael: Thank you.

Wrap Up

Patrick: Where can people find you and your game online?

Michael: Right now we're on Kickstarter. If you search On The Rocks, you'll find us there. But directly on PentreeGames.com.

Christina: Pentree Games.

Michael: Did I not say that?

Christina: I don't know. Like, “Pentree Games.”

Michael: OK.

Christina: Sorry, that's our new slogan.

Michael: You'll find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as well under @pentreegames.

Patrick: Awesome. Listeners, if you like this podcast, please leave us a review. If you leave a review, Michael and Christina said they would make a drink in your honor. You can visit the site, IndieBoardGameDesigners.com. You can follow me on Twitter, and my name is @BFTrick. That's all I got.

Michael: Thanks.

Christina: Bye, thank you.

Patrick: Have a good one and happy designing. Bye-bye.