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Patrick Rauland: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of 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 with Ryan Langewisch, who designed Tasty Humans, which is a game about eating humans and trying to fit them in your belly. It should be on Kickstarter when the episode is released. Ryan, welcome to the show.
Ryan Langewisch: Thanks for having me.
Introduction
Patrick: I want to talk about your game, because it sounds like a silly game that I would totally play. Before I do, I want to have the audience get to know you a little bit. I have a lightning round at the beginning. Ready?
Ryan: Yeah, I'm ready to go.
Patrick: All right. What is a game you play with someone every single time at a con?
Ryan: I wouldn't turn down any heavy strategy game. We'll say, Agricola.
Patrick: Agricola, love it. For me personally, Caverna has replaced Agricola. How do you feel about Caverna?
Ryan: I haven't played it, but from everything, I can tell I think I would probably still prefer Agricola. Just because of the tight relentlessness of it, as well as the variety in the cards which is one of my favorite things with it.
Patrick: Love it. What is your favorite snack?
Ryan: Maybe flavored almonds? That's been a go-to lately.
Patrick: If you had to be one of the monsters in your game, which one would you be?
Ryan: Let's say the twin-headed dragon. I think the two-headed thing could come in handy in a lot of different situations.
Patrick: Totally. Although I worry, would that be like split personality? You know what I mean?
Ryan: That's a good question.
Patrick: Because there's two brains, right?
Ryan: Yeah, that's true. You'd have to have a pretty strong relationship in that dynamic for it to work.
How Did You Get Into Board Games and Board Game Design?
Patrick: First real question is, how did you get into board games and board game design?
Ryan: Board games, it was probably about 12 years ago that I more seriously got into– Found modern board games. Everybody has their story of how they found one game and went down the rabbit hole. My siblings and I always enjoyed video games a lot, but we played a game called Killer Bunnies, which in retrospect is not a game I would want to play anymore, but it was the game that got us into the hobby.
Ryan: It led to some of the early ones we picked up were Small World and Dominion. From there, the rest is history. I can't get enough of all the modern board games that are coming out. As far as the board game design piece of it, before we got into board games, I'd always been interested in designing my own little projects and puzzles and things. My brother and I got to wanting to do video game design, so we learned how to program video games, and that led us both to what are now our careers in software development.
Ryan: We did a lot of that, and along the way, I always knew I wanted to do board game design because I played so many board games. It was always easier, making a computer game. If I want to share it with the world, I post it online, and there it is, and everybody can play it. But board games have a little bit more of a process to get it out to the public. I think that always made it a little more daunting– Or maybe daunting isn't the right word, but I never had quite the push to want to pursue it seriously until more recently. That's how I got into it. I'm glad that some of the opportunities, specifically with the Game Jam that I entered Tasty Humans in, that it's opened some doors that I'm excited about for pursuing it further.
What is a Game Jam & Why Participate?
Patrick: Yes, I wanted to talk to you about that. It seems like very few people in the board game world participate in Game Jams. There's a couple clusters where they happen. Not many people know about them, but it seems like you entered Tasty Humans in a Game Jam. For the people who haven't heard about them, could you tell us what a Game Jam is? Then how did you come up with the game for this Game Jam?
Ryan: Game Jams, I was coming from a perspective of I had done several Game Jams with computer games, and so I was very familiar with that concept and hadn't seen a lot in the board game realm. When I saw this one pop up, I was like “Cool. That would be a great way to get my feet wet and practice some of these skills that I've been wanting to do.”
Ryan: Game Jam is basically a contest of sorts, with usually a pretty limited amount of time. Ranging anywhere from maybe 24 hours up to maybe a week, I've seen. Typically there's some criteria, whether it's a prompt or a theme, or some restriction. Your goal is to design something entirely within that limited time period that follows those constraints and that you're able to submit.
Ryan: In this particular case, the one I entered, it was a 48-hour design contest. The theme that they gave and they announced right at the beginning of the 48 hours, so you don't know the theme until you're ready to go, was “They tasted quite delicious.” You can see where I decided to go with that. Basically, by the end of the 48 hours, you have to have a rule book as well as a print and play component to submit, so that they're able to then judge based on the rulebooks and ultimately printing and playing some of the top submissions. That was my first time doing a board game design Jam, but I have I've done lots of other video game design Jams over the years, and I think it's fun and I think it's good practice.
Patrick: Definitely. Let me start with what happened with the Game Jam? Did you win a million dollars, or how did that end?
Ryan: Yes, I did win this particular Jam and the prize, which most Jams I've entered over the years don't have prizes. It's more of this community thing and a personal challenge, I've never really felt like I need a prize at the end of it to motivate me to do it, necessarily. In this particular case, I won a copy of Terraforming Mars, which was awesome because I didn't have it. It was one of the top ones on my, and it's grown to be one of my favorite games. That worked out pretty well, but I would have probably entered either way.
Patrick: I dig the idea of a Game Jam, I want to hear more about them. I did a Roll and Write one last year, which I'll link to in the show notes. It was really enjoyable. I think it forces you to get ideas onto paper fast, which is nice.
Ryan: Yeah, totally. One of my favorite things about it and one of the reasons I think people should consider participating, is it forces you to do the entire design process in a concentrated amount of time. When I'm not working under a time restriction, most designers, you spend most of your time in the early stages of the whole design cycle. It's easy to get stuck there and spend all your time in that realm. I think Game Jams, and you don't have time to stay there, you have– If you're going to have something to submit at the end of this, you have to get past that and get into playtesting and getting into actually writing up rules and all these things. Forcing yourself to do that in a concentrated amount of time can be very helpful. Then go back to some of these projects that you're working on and apply some of that.
What Happened After the Game Jam?
Patrick: After the Game Jam, did a publisher approach you? Did you decide you wanted to sell published? What made you continue working on this project?
Ryan: Going into it I was treating it just like any other Game Jam I've ever participated in, which is basically “I'm going to block off a weekend to do this. When it's done, I'm going to forget about it and move on to other things.” In this particular case, Pangea Games was the publisher that was sponsoring the Game Jam. They as well as the group of judges that partnered with them to judge the contest reached out to me after they announced the winner. Basically said, “What are your plans with the design? Are you thinking of doing anything with it?” I'm thinking, “I didn't have any plans with it.”
Ryan: In my mind, it was a good opportunity to practice board game design, play around with some tools I'd been wanting to, but it worked out well. I got talking with them, and they saw some potential in it. That's the group that I ended up going forward with working on, over the last year, to develop it further. Ultimately, Pangea Games is the one that will be publishing it. It all worked out well from my perspective. I wasn't going into the Jam thinking it was this opportunity to get a game that would get picked up by a publisher, but sometimes that works out that way when you put yourself in positions to do things.
What Do You Like Designing?
Patrick: Let's take a step back. What games do you like designing? What type of things do you like working on?
Ryan: Like most people, I like designing games that I like to play. Everybody has their own preferences. I definitely think something that shows up in my preferences, specifically is variability. Whether it's a variable setup, variable player powers, things that– Again, going back to what I mentioned about Agricola being one of my favorite games. That's one of the reasons I love that game.
Ryan: At the beginning of the game, you're given a hand of 14 cards out of this giant stack that you have to look at and think “This is completely different than any other game I've played. How can I use these to build a strategy and approach this game in the best way possible?” I have my notebook of all these game ideas. I find with any game idea, and I start thinking about further– I immediately start thinking about all the ways that I could throw in a variable setup and things like that. That's definitely something I'm drawn towards. I would love to design a heavier Euro game, like the types that I enjoy playing. Tasty Humans is medium-light, I would say. Those are definitely a little more daunting to design, but I would love to try some time.
How Important is Variability?
Patrick: I'd like to go back to variability. Is that something that you design in right away, in the first version of the game? Do you have variable setup or do you build the thing and you're like “Cool, I'll figure out variable setup later. I'll figure out variable player powers later.” Or is it something you design from basically the first prototype?
Ryan: Yeah, that's a good question. I think I have it in mind right away, but depending on the design, I don't necessarily need to nail it down for the first prototypes. I leave these little inputs, or I design it in such a way that I can point to places in the design and be like “OK, I know that thing will work to add some variability.” In most cases, it is easier to delay the putting in concrete, variable powers until later. Sometimes, if it's very central to the design, you almost need it upfront to have the playtests show you what you need to about the game. Otherwise, you may be missing that just because you haven't put it in yet.
Patrick: Totally. I've had an experience recently where basically adding in the variable player powers saved me time. Even though I have this belief that you should add the complexity later, under certain circumstances, it depends on how mission-critical those variations are to the game– You do need them in your early prototype. It's something I'm trying to figure out.
Ryan: Yeah, it's a super hard problem. You're designing some simple game that has a deck of 60 cards. For that first prototype, you need to figure out “What mock deck of cards could I make that I can start playing around with?” A lot of times, the first tendency is to use the most generic distribution of cards that you can think of. Which isn't necessarily a bad approach from the start, but oftentimes when you go to play with the idea, you're playing with such a generic set that you might miss finding the fun in the design simply because you set yourself up for it not to be fun, because of how just bland you're test prototypes are.
What's Something You Haven't Cracked Yet?
Patrick: I think that makes a lot of sense. It sounds like you've come up with a lot of designs. Is there something you've tried to figure out, like a white whale of game design, that you just haven't quite cracked yet?
Ryan: That's a good question. I have my digital notebook full of just the land of ideas. It's like “I might come back to these,” or I spent some time with this and it wasn't going anywhere. I mentioned that I would love to design a heavier complex Euro game. I think that's something that the few times that I've ventured down that path a little bit, I haven't been able to get to where I needed to with it.
Ryan: Lately, I've been thinking a lot about– I think there's a tendency to think about gateway games or these lighter games as being easier to design, because of the relative complexity. I think even those bring a whole new challenge of “You have so few rules to work with in a simple family-style, elegant game.” You don't have much to hide behind with your design. Either that small subset of rules produces a fun experience, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you don't have a whole lot of wiggle room to mess with a bunch of rules without completely changing it. That's another interesting space to play in is “How do you find that Ticket to Ride style design that is so simple, but does provide that kind of experience?”
Patrick: That's challenging. There's this great quote that I'm totally going to butcher. Please feel free, listeners, feel free to look this up afterwards because I'm going to butcher it, but it's like “I wish I could have written more, but I didn't have the time.” I think one of my friends uses that as an email signature. Sorry, “I wish I could've written less.” I said the exact opposite. “I wish could've written less, but I didn't have the time.”
“If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter”
Blaise Pascal
Patrick: When you make something small, it has to be concise, compact, and I almost want to say perfect. It needs to be fantastic. Whereas when you make something bigger, if you have one little mini-system that's slightly inefficient, or slightly weird, or not quite as fun as the rest of the game, it doesn't matter if there's so many other big components and big pieces and big mechanisms that work. When you make a tiny game, the game has to be great.
Ryan: I totally agree, and it is interesting to hear stories of designers that have designed those types of games. In a lot of instances, the game they ended up with is nothing close to what they were setting out to design. A lot of times they're designing some bigger game, and they find out, “This little part was fun. Maybe this could be its own thing.” I know that's how a Patchwork came about.
Patrick: Really?
Ryan: Yeah, Uwe Rosenberg was designing A Feast for Odin, which is this huge, sprawling game. That has the little Tetris-piece element. While he was designing that game, he's like “You know what? This little Tetris game I'm making, a really small piece of this huge game, would probably be a fun little light game on its own.” So he spun off and made Patchwork, and that led him down a road of designing three other games in that vein. There's the opposite side of the spectrum, where there's designers who say “The initial idea I had was pretty much what I ended up with. I saw this idea, and it worked.” I think one example I heard of that was Codenames. Vlaada Chvatil basically said, “There were very few changes to what was the initial idea of what that game was going to be.”
Patrick: Isn't that funny for Codenames, which has got to be a super ultra mega-seller? One of the best party games of all time, probably. Idea was perfect, and execution was perfect. I think we sometimes think, “If I put in 100 hours, then it'll make this thing better.” But sometimes if your initial idea is good, you don't need to put in 10,000 hours.
Ryan: Yeah, it is interesting. I laugh about it with Vlaada, because he's designed so many big– I mean, he's got Through the Ages, Mage Knight, and Galaxy Trucker. All these big designs in a lot of different areas, and then what's the game that makes him rich? His little Codenames idea that he came up with, but I guess that's how it works sometimes.
What Have You Learned Publishing Your First Game?
Patrick: You're publishing your first game, it's on Kickstarter right now. What have you learned? What have you learned about making a game, now that you've gone through the process?
Ryan: I've mostly gained a lot of insight into the publishing process. Through this process, I've connected with a lot more board game devs on Twitter and things. Starting to get more into that world has demystified that process of “If I want to make a board game, how could that board game ever become something that could be published?” That was the piece that was keeping me from putting a lot of time into board game design before. Now that that barrier has been removed a little bit, I think that's why I'm a lot more excited now about working more seriously on some of these ideas. Because I can see that path of how it could feasibly get to that point. Which is cool. It makes it more exciting to sit down and work on it when you know there's always that potential.
What Are You Going to Do With Future Game Jams?
Patrick: Let's say you enter another game design challenge– Not challenge, a Game Jam. Maybe you don't get first place, but you get second, third– Something up there so you know it's still a good idea. Would you pitch that to publishers? Would you try to self-publish? Would you do something like that, or are you going to– I don't want to say “Go back to your old ways,” but go “OK, cool” and move on to the next thing?
Ryan: I guess, in this instance, I got literally the easiest path I could have gotten. Which was getting picked up straight out of me being done with the Game Jam. For me, in the future, it would likely be working on designs– Outside of Game Jams, specifically making sure that I'm working on designs and putting time in. If I got to the point where I felt like I had something, that would likely be trying to pitch to publishers.
Ryan: The self-publishing route is interesting, I know there's a lot of people that go that route with Kickstarter and everything, and that's changed that dynamic in the industry. I think for me, my interest lies pretty much solely in the design realm. That's what I'm interested in. That's what I want to be good at. I think that my idea would be trying to stay in that role as much as possible and working with people who are good at the other parts of the publication process. That said, who knows. Figure it out as it comes.
Patrick: I love that you know what you like, though. I think there's a lot of people who think they'll like the logistics and the planning and the marketing of the game. It seems like you're like “Nope, I like the design. That's what I want to focus on.” I think a lot of people become unhappy when they realize all the extra work they have to do. I think in your case, you're like “Don't want to do that, but maybe I'll partner with someone.”
Ryan: Yeah, totally. I think, in a lot of ways, Kickstarter– Because it's so easy for anybody to start a Kickstarter, it tends to for a lot of people I think it hides how much work it is to fulfill a Kickstarter and publish a game. There are a lot of people that go that route and do it super well and are successful with it. I think all those people would be the first to tell you how much work it is to be successful going that route. You have to want to not just be a designer, but want to be a publication company at that point. Making sure you know what you want to do, and for me, I don't think that's where I want to spend my time. So I'll stick to design, I think. At least, that's where I'm at right now.
What's One Resource You'd Recommend to Aspiring Game Designers?
Patrick: I have a question I'm going to break into two parts. Number one, one of my favorite questions is always “What one resource would you recommend to another indie game designer?” But I'm going to break into two parts for you. Number one, what one resource would you recommend? And what Game Jam would you recommend to a listener?
Ryan: As far as a resource, this might be cheating a little bit. I would say, if I had to pick one thing that I would recommend to an aspiring designer, I would say, “Play a lot of modern board games.” I think a lot of people don't think that necessarily as a board game design resource, but I think that's one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself. Because essentially what you're doing is you are building up in your head what makes a good game and what makes a not good game.
Ryan: When you talk about the design process, and you're iterating on a design, in each one of those iterations your decisions about what you're going to do to the design are pretty much dependent on your ability to look at where it currently is and say “These parts are good and these aren't. This is evoking the player experience that I'm looking for, and this isn't.”
Ryan: I think you get a lot better at that piece by playing a lot of games and monitoring your own experience as you're playing these games. I think that's a huge thing, and I know so many good board games come out every year now. It's way too much to expect anybody to be on top of playing all the new games. Not to mention, that I think there's a lot of value in going for depth, at least, in some games. I'm not just playing a lot of different games, but playing the same game over and over and seeing “How does my experience with this game change over time as I explore it more?”
Ryan: Another good way to fill in those gaps of not being able to play all the games is to watch board game reviews. I don't play most of the new games that come out every year, but I usually keep on top of watching reviews of games that are coming out. Even if I never get to play it, I at least have an idea of like “That's cool what they did with that design,” or “I can see why people are saying that this game is fun or different.” That's filling in some of that same– Adding to the same skill set that it would if I played the game myself. That would be my one resource. That was half your question.
Patrick: Let me jump in there super quick. I just came back from Origins, and a friend of mine brought Great Western Trail. I'm looking at it right now on BGG, and it's a 3.7 on the weight index on BGG. It's definitely more complicated than a game I would make, but they're still really cool things I got just from playing the game. I don't even own the game. I'm very happy to have played it once. “I like this, I like this, I like this, but I didn't like these things.” It's still so helpful, so I totally agree.
Patrick: I think the more games you– Play games and then discuss them. I think you have to do that. You have to either write down your own thoughts or discuss with other people to almost practice the language because you can't just play a game and go “That was fun” and move on to the next game. You have to think about it to internalize what was good and what was bad. The last thing I'll add here, The Great Western Trail says it's 75 to 150 minutes. That is a lie. We played for just under 3 hours, so I just had to point that out that that is a lie. It was a lot of fun, but the time on BGG is not correct. Anyways, what would you think about a Game Jam?
Would You Recommend Any Game Jams?
Ryan: Yeah, so Game Jams. It's one of those things, especially when you're talking about Game Jams that don't necessarily have prizes, there's nothing that stops some arbitrary person saying “I'm making a Game Jam and anybody want to enter my Game Jam?” It happens a lot, and I see it all the time with video games. There's never not a Game Jam going on, but it feels like it's getting a little more popular in the board game realm as well.
Ryan: If you poke around a little bit, chances are you can probably find some ones that are happening or coming up. For me, the biggest benefit you're getting out of doing a Game Jam is simply the hard deadline of doing that full design process before that deadline and having something. Whatever it ends up being. That technically doesn't require any outside source to provide you with that opportunity, and there's nothing that's stopping you from saying “In two weekends I'm going to do my own Game Jam. I'm going to have somebody give me a theme, and I'm going to have something by the end of the weekend.”
Ryan: You would get pretty much most of the benefit that you would out of doing some organized thing. I guess my advice there is to not let it– Just because you don't find something that looks like exactly you want to do, that doesn't have to stop you from doing it. There's definitely– I don't know if you've ever heard of Ludum Dare, or however it's pronounced, but that's a very popular primarily video game one. I think there are three times a year that they do it, and that's a 48 hour one. There's no reason you couldn't submit a board game design to that. Again, that would be three times a year so you wouldn't have to wait too long for one of those to come up. The opportunities are pretty abundant if you have decided that you want to do it.
Would You Recommend a Longer Contest or a Shorter Jam?
Patrick: Cool. Let me make the question a little bit more broad. I just finished up a couple game contests which were three months long. Would you recommend these intense two day, 48 hour, or seven-day Game Jams? Or would you recommend more like a 3-month contest?
Ryan: I don't think you can go wrong with any of it. They're going to work different. They're going to work your design process in a different way. I've done a lot of the 48-hour ones over the years, and I like– I don't know, it probably super stresses some people out to do that. Which is understandable. It's pedal to the metal for two days, but I think it does develop your design muscles in a different way than you're going to get from something that's longer.
Ryan: The other thing to emphasize with it is it's not like it's some high stakes thing. If you go into do it, and you try to make something at the end, and you have nothing, or you're not happy with where it ended up. That's not a failure in the Game Jam, you still did that design process and worked those muscles and you may have even found some flaws in your design process or things that you identified that's like “That's what kept me from getting it to where it needed to be,” which is totally valuable to go on from that point. When you're talking about longer ones like three months or things like that, I think that starts to get into setting deadlines for yourself. Whether it's “I'm going to get this done so that I can submit it to something.” I don't think there's anybody that doesn't get more done by a date if there's a deadline than if they were working arbitrarily.
Patrick: I think you're right.
Ryan: It's one of those things. If you're serious about game design and you want to get to that point, setting deadlines is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Especially committing to a deadline that's a public deadline like a Game Jam or a contest, it can give you that extra accountability of actually getting it done.
What's The Best Money You've Spent?
Patrick: Awesome. One of my other favorite questions is, “What is the best money you've spent as a game designer?” It could be anything you spent money on.
Ryan: One thing that's great about board game design is you don't have to buy anything to get going. You can mess around without needing to buy anything. I would probably say, for me, it's probably Tabletop Simulator. The majority of the design and development work we did– I should clarify. The design and development past the Game Jam, so when we continued developing it, the majority of that was done in Tabletop Simulator.
Ryan: I playtested it 80+ times in Tabletop Simulator, and I think that's a super valuable tool for a couple of reasons. One, if you learn it and figure out your process, it can help you iterate quicker. When I wanted to sit down for a playtest, I open it up in there, and it's already on the table, and I play it. You can duplicate components and throw things in, or if I needed to make changes, it's usually pretty easy to get that loaded in. The other huge advantage is that it lets you potentially play test remotely. I had several playtest– Playtesting with people online that also had Tabletop Simulator. For those two reasons, at least for me going forward, that's my plan with my designs. Once I get past that initial– Once the dust has settled a little bit from the volatile early design process, getting something into Tabletop Simulator and starting it to test that way. I got it on sale for like $8 or something, so there you go. Best $8 I ever spent for game design.
What Does Success Look Like?
Patrick: You've had some level of success. What does success in the board game world look like to you, moving forward?
Ryan: For me, I want to work on designs with the intention of getting them published. I think the success piece isn't necessarily dependent on that publication piece. That's the ideal. I think for me, it's more about that pursuit of that goal. I think by setting the goal of “I want to make games that can be published,” that's going to force me to make better games than if that wasn't my goal. I'm now comparing it to other published games. It's like “OK, and this game has to be at this level.” That's going to push me.
Ryan: Pursuing that relentlessly and hopefully, that turns into some more published games. I don't think I would say “If I put all this time into it and develop these skills and games aren't necessarily getting published, I don't think I'm going to look at that and say ‘I failed.'” It's one of those things. I am passionate about it, and that's how it always was with the video game design too. I spent thousands of hours with no monetary gain to show for it, but you couldn't stop me from making games. It's what I'm passionate about doing. I think striving for that publication piece, at least, puts me on the path that I want to be on.
Overrated / Underrated Game
Patrick: I love it. I like to end with a game called Overrated/Underrated. Have you heard about it?
Ryan: I think I have. I'm ready, I think.
Patrick: Awesome, I'm going to give you a word or phrase, and you need to tell me if you think it is overrated or underrated. So if I said– What's on my mind today? If I said “Thunderstorms” you'd be like “Underrated. Super cool, except for when they scare your dog.” Something like that. Got it?
Ryan: OK, yeah.
Patrick: Sweet. Number one, fancy first player markers. Overrated or underrated?
Ryan: I'm going to say overrated, but with the caveat that I'm such a mechanics first person that I'd play a game with terrible components and could still enjoy it. So for me, they're overrated.
Patrick: July 4th, Independence Day here in the US. Overrated or underrated?
Ryan: That's tough. I'm not sure if I have a good feel of the general public rating of Independence Day. I'm going to say underrated, only because I have such positive memories with lots of hanging out with family and playing games and stuff. So, it's a good time.
Patrick: Are you one of those people that eats a hamburger, a hot dog, and ribs?
Ryan: I mean, if it's available, I'm not going to say no.
Patrick: I love it. Let's go with abstract games. Overrated or underrated?
Ryan: That's tough. I think in a lot of ways, judging from the average board game consumer, they're probably underrated. I think there's a lot of emphasis on theme. I do love the direction that some newer abstract games have gone. Thinking of things like Santorini or Dragon Castle, where it's an abstract game, but they add in some of this variability that makes each game different. I could see there being a little bit of a resurgence, but I think people are quick to not try out a game simply because they see it as being too abstract.
Patrick: Love it. Last one, I wanted to give you one that was very divisive. So that half the people can like you, and half the people can never want to talk to you again. Apple Computers, overrated or underrated?
Ryan: I'm going to try to bridge this. I'm going to say overrated, with the caveat that I work exclusively from my MacBook Pro. For me, I think that Apple computers cost more than what you can potentially get from another brand. You're paying for a specific experience. I went through a nightmare of a laptop buying experience the last time. I don't want to talk about it, OK. I landed on a MacBook, and that was the first time I had it. In my experience so far, which it's been a few years, it's been the best tool for me pursuing the things I want to do. That said, I don't have an iPhone. I think overall, in the general public, Apple Computers are probably overrated. Despite me choosing it as the best tool for myself.
Wrap Up
Patrick: Great. Ryan, when people want to send you hate mail, where's the best place for them to find you online? Twitter, your website, or something like that?
Ryan: Twitter's a good place. My handles @rlangewi. I also have a blog at LudoLodge where I do some game reviews, game design related topics, and just other things that are on my mind. I always like meeting new designers on Twitter and connecting with people and seeing what people are up to. So, don't hesitate to–
Patrick: Thank you for being on the show. Super appreciate it.
Ryan: Yeah. Thank you. It's been fun to talk about this stuff.
Patrick: Listeners, if you like his podcast, please leave us a review on iTunes. If you do, Ryan said that he would tell you how to maximize the amount of food you can cram into your belly. If you like July 4th and you want to eat every single meat, he will help you optimize the food in your belly. The last thing I want to say is I did just come back from Origins, and we're recording this, and I'm probably going to have it come out in a week or two, but I will have an episode on Origins and my experience there with publisher speed dating and stuff like that. So, check that out. It should be coming out around the same time. You can visit the site at indieboardgamedesigners.com, and you can follow me on Twitter, I am @BFTrick. Until next time everyone, happy designing. Bye-bye.