Help Rate Game Prototypes? Ooh-ooh-ooh! Me! Me!

or "And a Very Crappy Birthday to Us All!"

No, it's not my birthday. But any chance to help behind the scenes with a board game's production is as good as any birthday. It turns out the game makers over at North Star Games are in the process of creating a humorous new party game called Crappy Birthday. If you take a looky-loo over at BGG, you'll find out that Crappy Birthday is an Apples-to-Apples-type game where players submit "gift" cards to the birthday judge. This judge picks the crappiest gift, and the giver receives a point. Now, contrary to my general snobbery and elitist attitudes about thinking games, I actually really do enjoy a good party game sometimes. As you've read here on this blog, I'm an Apples to Apples fan, and I thoroughly enjoy games like Taboo, Pictionary, and Balderdash. When I first heard about Crappy Birthday, I could instantly see the tables full of friends, I could smell the green apple tartinis, I could taste the M&Ms, and I could hear the slurred speech of rowdy gamers. This game has some serious potential. But will it work?

Well, that's what North Star Games is working on right now. They just advertised on BGG that they were in need of gamers to help rate the various "gift cards" according to how desirable (or crappy) each gift is, and whether or not it's likely to get people talking and debating. Specifically, they needed women (Hey! That's me!) to provide a balanced perspective.

One reply email later, and I'm now spending my evening scrolling through PDFs of card mock-ups and giving them a snarky rating...and a bit of proofreading advice. Hey, I can't help it. And for my [cough] work, my reward is a mention in the game's credits and maaaybe even a free copy of the game (breath not held). Man, I love projects like this. Now whenever I see that game on store shelves, I'll smile because I was a small cog in helping the game to launch. For us game nerds, it doesn't get much better.

So how are the cards?

Sorry, mum's the word. You'll just have to wait for the game's release in August to see. But if you find any misspellings, don't come crying to me. I was a total bitch about it. Promise.

Interview: W. David MacKenzie from Clever Mojo Games

If you've never heard of Clever Mojo games, then please let me be the first to introduce you, for you will surely hear a whole lot more about them in coming months and years. Most notably for fans of this blog, Clever Mojo is the game publisher that brings us Alien Frontiers (among other titles). The retro-stylized, dice-thick space adventure game was recently reviewed here on this blog, and I'm not bashful about saying that I've quickly become a huge fan and champion of the game. Over at BGG, I was greedily excited to post my review, not realizing that the actual game designers may be digesting my words. But to my delight, W. David MacKenzie--owner and head designer over at Clever Mojo Games--left a note of thanks on the review post. Pretty exciting, right? Well, I just had to seize on the opportunity and take advantage of his graciousness by asking to pick his brain about what's coming up in the Clever Mojo world. And wouldn't you know, he was kind enough to reply right back to me and answer a slew of questions that I now have here to share with you.

First, just a little background on Clever Mojo Games: The gaming publisher primarily consists of three game designers, Mr. MacKenzie, Tory Niemann (designer of Alien Frontiers), and Fred MacKenzie. Alien Frontiers is the third game generated by the outfit, which is based out of Edmonds, Washington. For more info about the publisher and their other games, you can visit their website at: www.clevermojogames.com.

Okay, enough background. Let's get on with the interesting answers, teasers, and insight! Below is the email interview from W. David MacKenzie, in its entirety. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

   When will the second print run of Alien Frontiers be available?

We signed off on the proofs for the second printing a few days before Christmas so they're busily churning out Alien Frontiers components right now and we're aiming at having the games in people's hands by the end of March, 2011. That sounds like a long time but it takes nearly a month to get the games out of China over to America on a container ship, and checked in through US Customs. Also, we're up against a little bit of a brick wall in that we're trying to get our order onto the boat before the Lunar New Year on February 3rd. China basically closes down for a full week, all the factory workers go home for the week-long holiday, and many of them never come back to the cities and the factories. Often the factories will take two or three weeks longer to hire and train new workers before they can get back into production. So, we're racing the clock a little to make it to the boat on time.

   ...and how large will the second print run be?

We've ordered 3,000 copies for the second printing.

Editor's note: It looks like pre-order sales are now open on the Clever Mojo website. I wouldn't suggest waiting on this one.

   Do you plan on using Kickstarter.com for the Alien Frontiers expansion, "Outer Belt"? Or for any future projects?

Kickstarter was a great adventure for us and, if possible, we would love to bring more projects to life via Kickstarter's crowd-sourced funding system. Still a little too early yet to say which projects will get the Kickstarter treatment, though.

   Speaking of the Alien Frontiers expansion, "Outer Belt", when do you expect its release?

The latest rules build for Outer Belt was just turned in to me this week. Randall Bart, one of our chief play testers, has been working on it for several months now and we'll be bringing Outer Belt to the play tester in WA and AZ later in January. If it plays well and if we can get Mark Maxwell started on the art, we should be able to release it late in 2011.

Editor's note: Maybe in time for a certain  fan's 31st birthday in September?...Hmmm?

   How would you summarize your overall experience with Kickstarter.com?

A bit humbling, actually. We were all stunned and how eager people were to get in on the ground-floor of our game project. In truth, we would have found a way to publish Alien Frontiers regardless, but the platform that Kickstarter gave us to gather and build our backers and fan made it all so much easier. I watch and support a fair number of projects on Kickstarter and while many make it to their funding goals, some really great ideas seem to languish. I really worked hard to put out a huge number of updates, send out art samples to our backers, involve the backers in the design process, and even enlisted them in the proofreading tasks.  Some people suggested that I was going way overboard on the almost daily updates, but I think that nearly all of our backers really enjoyed the flood of info and felt like they were integral parts of the project...and they were!  We love our Kickstarter backers.

   Will Clever Mojo Games be represented at major game conventions this summer? Particularly at Origins?

As a matter of fact, I am nearly certain that I will be at Origins 2011, though whether I'll be working a Clever Mojo Games vendor booth or just running Alien Frontiers demo games in the board room is still up in the air. I'm a real convention noob and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a little bit scared of an event the size of Origins. I'm kind of hoping I can find another small-press game publisher and we can share a booth and help each other out. I need someone with some experience to guide me though my first big convention. But yes, in one capacity or another, I'm going to be there to fly the Alien Frontiers flag.

Editor's note: Exxcellent. I had to specifically ask about Origins since The Greatest Husband in the World and I are already squirreling away our nickels to fund a trip down to Ohio for the con in June. Can't wait to see more from Clever Mojo!

   What can you tell us about some exciting upcoming Clever Mojo Games projects?

We've got several games percolating through our design and play testing processes. My brother is designing a highly interactive deck building game called Dragon Frenzy, I'm working with a New Zealand game designer on the early stages of a Steampunk-themed adventure board game called Arkopolis Engines, and Tory's got an interesting mobster-themed game called Caporegime that blends deck building and board gaming in some pretty interesting ways. I don't know if any of these will see production in 2011 or not, though. Everyone involved with all of these projects have day jobs and Tory and his wife Melissa just welcomed the arrival of their first child, Penelope, on Jan 2nd. We're a busy busy crew and there's a lot of work to do before any project is ready for publication.

Editor's note: Congrats, Tory and Melissa! And welcome to the world, Penelope! I hope your mommy and daddy have gotten you some giant fuzzy dice to start rolling.

   What are some of your favorite board games of all-time?

Of all-time? I grew up on Risk and Scrabble. I went through high school and college with Dungeons & Dragons. I spent family gatherings playing Scattergories, Pictionary, and Mexican Train Dominoes. I was reborn into strategy gaming via Settlers of Catan. My current favorites are Tobago, Snow Tails, and Alien Frontiers.

Well, there you have it, folks! Lots of exciting things revealed here. Clever Mojo's presence at the game cons will be a blast, and I know a lot of people who will be psyched that Alien Frontiers could be in their hands as early as March. (By the way, who knew so much chaos and international cultural dealings went into getting games into Americans' hands? Fascinating to a noob like me.) Oh, and to the Misters MacKenzie, you both had me at "dragon frenzy" and "steampunk". Purrr. Caporagime has me drooling a little, too. Now I have to arch my hands together and tap my fingertips expectantly for the rest of the year until we hear more.

I would like to thank W. David MacKenzie for his time, his thoughtful answers, and his willingness to humor a slightly off-center blog like this one. We look forward to hearing much more about him and his games in the future!