Interview with Brotherwise Games

In my early ventures into table top gaming last year I was introduced to Boss Monster; a dungeon-building card game that oozes references to 8-bit video games and other pop culture gems. Boss Monster was created by Brotherwise Games; an independent game publishers that was founded and brought to life by two brothers in the US, Chris and Johnny O'Neal. It was their mutual love of games that spurred them to their company and Boss Monster, perfecting it over time and then releasing it to be kickstarted back in 2013. I was fortunate enough to get my first interview for Tabletop Stop with the lovely guys at Brotherwise Games, and here it is! 

What were some of your first favourite board games?

We have very varied tastes, but we both got our start in gaming with D&D and some of the more fantasy-focused board games. Most of Chris's formative years were spent playing strategy games like Risk and Axis and Allies. Johnny was a big fan of HeroQuest and started playing Magic when he was in middle school.

What are some of your favourite games now?
 
Now we're quite partial to games like Seven Wonders, War of the Rings, Smallworld, and Ascension. But really we'll play just about anything. A friend recently introduced us to micro-games like Deep Sea Adventure. Loved 'em!


Your love of board games and video games led you both to creating Boss Monster. What things inspired you the most to create it?

Boss Monster evolved out of a very different game idea than what it currently looks like, so it had a LOT of influences. Originally a bidding game focused on popularity, it merged with another idea that used cards to build classic D&D-looking dungeon maps - thus the fantasy theme. After lots of play testing, and numerous failed attempts, Johnny finally hit on the bidding mechanic that currently drives the game: the construction of a dungeon with rooms that lure in particular heroes. As that game took form, Chris noticed the visual similarity to the old side-scrolling video games that we had loved so much as kids. After some more failed attempts at nailing the theme, Boss Monster morphed into its final form, a mix of retro gaming nostalgia and popular nerd culture. We could write a book listing all the nods and easter eggs in the game, but really it's more fun for our fans to find them on their own.

What did you find most challenging when setting up Brotherwise Games?

Setting up a gaming company is pretty easy, you just file with the Secretary of State and off you go. Getting a gaming company up and running is tough. The hardest thing was probably getting those first distributors to agree to carry Boss Monster and sell it to their retail customers. There was a lot of mistrust of Kickstarted games, and we had to offer a lot of reassurances and data suggesting that we were a good bet. After those first distributors got on board, the rest followed very quickly as stores began asking for Boss Monster.

The Kickstarter campaign for Boss Monster was a massive success, did you anticipate that it would be so popular?

Nope! We were very hopeful we'd make enough to produce a tiny print run of the game and be able to cross that particular goal off our bucket lists. We knew the game was fun and compelling, but we had no idea how big it would be, either on Kickstarter or in stores. We're so happy it was, however!


How important is Kickstarter in your business?

It's very possible that Boss Monster expansions going forward won't be launched on Kickstarter, but we absolutely have Kickstarter to thank for where we currently are as a business. Boss Monster NEVER would have happened without Kickstarter, and the same goes for Brotherwise Games. As family men who both had full-time jobs, we had put as much development money into Boss Monster as were able. We needed those Kickstarter backers to make our idea a reality. But the value of Kickstarter goes beyond those original starter funds. We also see the publicity boost that Kickstarter gives as a real boon to any game trying to get noticed on the market. For the new, non-Boss Monster titles that Brotherwise launches, Kickstarter (or some form of crowdfunding) is likely to be important tool in our toolkit.

Do you guys have a favourite Boss character in the game?

Chris is pretty partial to Cerebellus. Johnny loves the "cover" Bosses, King Croak and Porkus.

Brotherwise Games gives off the family unity vibe, do you believe that board games help bring families and friends together?

Without a doubt. In fact, we have to think that the huge growth that tabletop games have seen of the last five years reflects an overall tightness and comfort with the family unit. Families are playing together more than ever before. Different generations are hanging out more than they have in the last 20 years. Tabletop games offer a social experience like none other, certainly it's a far cry from the more anonymous virtual networks that video games create (not that that's bad, mind you). We LOVE hearing that families, partners, and friends are coming together over a night of Boss Monster.

Brotherwise Games

Torrance, CA

Thanks, guys! You can check out Brotherwise Games by clicking here

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

A Trip to Draughts

This week I ventured up to London to visit the board games cafe, Draughts, to see how many games I could rip through from opening to closing. The cafe is situated in Hackey, a short walk from Haggerston station, so locating it was fairly easy. On weekdays it opens at 5pm, so we made sure we were there early, loitering around outside - even though I had a table booked in advance, because I am silly like that.

Draughts is a really unique place, it was a very fun experience and reasonably priced at £5 each to play as many games as you can handle. The food and drink were quite affordable too for a London venue, and amid the mass rounds of pear juice and Jalapeno pretzels we got quite a few games in. At the back of the cafe there is a library of games to browse through, over 500 games of all genres under one roof like a treasure trove. The staff were friendly and keen to recommend games, then demonstrate how to play them. We started off with something light to warm up; Elk Fest. This is a simple little dexterity game where you and your opponent flick counters from either end of the table. The counters act as stepping stones for the wooden elks who balance upon them, and you must move them across to the other side without the elks falling off.

After settling in with the elks, we moved onto Machi Koro, which I have wanted to play for a while now and was happy to finally crack open the box. It is a city building and dice rolling game, and it is very addictive. You build up your city by collecting various cards through dice rolls and coin counters. Some cards give you extra benefits and hinder your opponents, I had a cheese factory stolen by my opponent! As soon as it was over I was ready to go again, but other games were calling so I relented and moved on to Imperial Settlers.   

       

Imperial Settlers is a civilisation building game, where you are playing as early settlers from major continents, collecting resources to build and trade with. The concepts and mechanics of this game were not ones I was too familiar with so I found the first round rather daunting but I soon adapted and was racking in the apples and meeples. This game is fantastic, and I ended up going home and ordering it for next day delivery.

The next game up was Agricolam as it was highly recommended by the staff at the cafe. This echoed some of the themes in Imperial Settlers, but is more of a worker placement game. You collect resources to build upon your farm and land. and take a number of actions depending on how many people live in your farm. I was so focused upon growing obscene amounts of carrots that I forgot to reproduce, so I had less people in my farm and less actions to take!

We managed to squeeze in three versions of Timeline towards the end. Timeline is an educational card game where players must use their knowledge (or guess, as I do a lot) to pinpoint when certain events occurred throughout history, and place their cards in chronological order in a row. As the hours flew by, it was so tempting to stay until closing at 11pm but the thought of missing the last train and having to wait for the night bus was too traumatic, so leaving at 10,30pm was preferable. But I must admit, on the way home we played a few games on the I-Phone...and perhaps more games upon arriving home. We have problems!  

Thanks for reading :) 

Please feel free to recommend games to me or just talk about games to me at

kookycherry@hotmail.co.uk

Marisa xx 

   

Cartagena

Who doesn't like a pirate themed game? I would choose pirates over zombies, any day. Cartagena is a game about groups of pirates racing each other through an underground passage, to escape the fortress prison they were held in and to reach the port where a sloop is waiting for them. This will transport the lucky pirates away to a land of rum and, probably, booty.

According to the rules sheet, the game Cartagena is themed on a pirate jailbreak in 1672. I did a little research into it and could not find any information on this jailbreak. It seems others also looked into it and found no actual record of this, but there is an imposing fortress in Cartagena that was built in the 16th Century to ward off pirates so perhaps there is some kind of legend surrounding it after all. Also, I am sure the internet does not know every single detail of history.

I love this game. I have played it on numerous occasions and taken a vicious beating, only tasting victory one sweet time. It is very strategic, planning ahead to get your pirates through the underground passage, but also hindering your opponents. You are navigating a path for your pirates, and making sure you do not run out of cards.

This game is for two - five players and there are two different versions of the game; the Jamaica version and the Tortuga version. In the Jamaica version the cards in your hand are concealed and the rest of the deck is placed face down, where all players pick new cards from. In the Tortuga version the players lay their hand face up for all to see, and twelve cards from the deck are dealt and placed face up in a row. The row is re-stocked once it has run out. I tend to favour the Jamaica version as I like the secrecy!

The board is in six segments, you can assemble them together in many different ways, as long as the passages connect either end. Each player is allocated six cards in their hand. The player who looks the most like a pirate may take the first turn. This has only been me once, after I had a particularly manic hair day. 

The cards have a piratical theme, with six different symbols. There is the skull and crossbones, the Captain's hat, a key, a dagger, a pistol and a glass bottle. You play a card to move one of your pirates to the nearest symbol that matches your card on the board. The aim is to get all six of your pirates across the passage but using a strategy that hinders your opponents. When you need more cards you must move one of your pirates backwards, to the nearest pirate behind you, regardless if it is your own or your opponents. If you move to a space with one pirate resting there, then you pick up one card. If you go back to a space with two pirates there then you may pick up two cards. There can only be a maximum of three pirates on one space, so this makes life rather difficult when you are running low on cards, but you can use it to your advantage when trying to stop your opponent from picking up new cards. 

The player who gets all six of their pirates across the passage and onto the sloop is the winner. When I first played this game I hastily sent all my pirates out on my first six turns, it seemed like a good idea but I had so many stragglers and did not want to leave any pirates behind! I became rather obsessed with this game a few months ago, trying to crack the secret to winning and not running out of cards so severely. It takes a lot of plotting, going backwards whenever you see a space occupied by two pirates within your reach, and holding fort by keeping three pirates on a space behind your opponent rather than advancing at times. I am still working on the formula. It is a rather brutal game, but great fun. I hunger for more victories, but I enjoy a challenge so I keep swashbuckling away.            

The rain won't ruin my summer this year!

Every summer I have dreaded the rain coming, as it meant that I would not be able to skate outside or my pic-nic would be ruined. I was always desperate for glorious sunshine or I would become undone and sulk until the weather cleared up. But this summer I have finally found indoor activities to keep myself from despair. It is pouring down with rain today but I am not sad one little bit, as I have just joined a gym to release some energy and at home I am surrounded by fantastic games. My skates are sitting upstairs looking glum, but I will find a roller disco to give them a good roll. As for now, I have a very busy afternoon ahead of me...

I have set up a little conveyor of games to play. First up is the tile placing strategy game, Blokus, which was one of the first games I was introduced to last year that started me getting hooked. Then a spot of Famiglia, which is a deck building Mafia game I picked up at the UK Games Expo in May. after that we have M80, which is a great and tense card game I got on Kickstarter this year, I will be going into more detail on this game and others by the same games designer later next week. Last but by no means least, we have Coup on the table. This is another one of my favourite bluffing games, I hope I can claim victory in this round!

Wish me luck! :)

Marisa xx