by Skyway Library and PlaytestNW

You know what the Skyway Library and Playtest Northwest decided Mini Game Days needed? Themes! What flavors an event better than a deliciously well-chosen theme? Nothing you say? We agree! For our first theme, we decided to go with food! So come out this Saturday to try some of the most scrumptious games in Seattle! Saturday, February 24, 12-5pm!

PlaytestNW is an amazing regional network of game designers and community organizers trying to bring a love of tabletop games and game design to the masses! So having a regular PlaytestNW event at a local library just seemed like a perfect fit.

Skyway Library’s Mini Game Days will be an amazing chance to try out some local indie games, in all different levels of development. This is a great opportunity for the Southend community to talk to designers, get to know the DIY game design community here in Seattle, and maybe start to imagine the game you would design!

#SkywayGames is a monthly article the Skyway Library and PlaytestNW will be writing to get the Southend community pumped about our upcoming Mini Game Days. Also, a place to highlight the great games and designers who will be bringing their games to Skyway Library! Here’s what games you can play on February 24:

 

 

Game name:  Pie Fight!

Your name: Marcus Ward

Publisher name: Comaco LLC

What are the recommended ages for your game?  Ages 4+

How long does it take to play your game?  9-12 minutes

Describe your game:  Pie Fight! is a card game where 2 to 6 players try to make a pie. But, it’s a pie fight and the object is to have the fewest number of pies at the end of the game. But anything is possible when a reverse card is played or Pablo the pie-eating pug shows up. And don’t forget the cherries; play too many at once and you’ll start a pie fight!

What do you think makes your game special?  Pablo the pie-eating Pug. Who doesn’t love pugs? Or pie. Or cherries? Or a good old-fashioned pie fight?

What inspired you to make this game? And what inspired you to start making games in general? My two boys. We love playing board and card games and we got inspired by Exploding Kittens. I wanted to show my boys that it’s not enough to dream, you have to do the work. But when it’s so much fun, it doesn’t feel like work at all.

Have games changed since you were a kid? How so?  Games today feel so much more inclusive. Like you are being invited into a world in a way that you can forget where you are!

What do you love about table top games? Being face-to-face. I love that you are connecting and interacting in real-time with real people. Internet 0. Games 1.

Do you have any Seattle specific gaming anecdotes you can share? No, but I am working on a Seattle themed game called “What’s Your Space Needle Point?”

Is there something else you’d like to share with the South End community? We live in a connected world but we seem more disconnected than ever. From the simple to the complex, games are a crucial part of staying connected with each other. Events like this at the Skyway library are a great way to get started. As a parent, it nurtures young people in a way that electronics simply can’t.

Stay up to date on Pie Fight: follow them on Twitter and Instagram!

 

 

Game name:  Food Truck Champion by Nicole Jekich and Luke Turpeinen

Your name: Nicole Jekich

Publisher name: Daily Magic Games

What are the recommended ages for your game? Food Truck Champion is recommended for everyone ages 8+. The first time playing Food Truck Champion requires patience to learn the rules and flow of the game, but after that, players can quickly find the strategy.

How long does it take to play your game? Around 60 minutes.

Describe your game and what do you think makes your game special? :

In Food Truck Champion, you are the owner of a new food truck, out to make a name for yourself. You will hire staff, cook food, and please customers to earn awards and gain popularity. At the end of the day, the food truck with the most popularity wins!

Food Truck Champion was successfully funded on Kickstarter last year and was our first game that my partner and I made together after three years of hard work. The publisher, Daily Magic Games, really helped bring to life our vision of an accessible yet strategic game about food trucks.

Where should we link to? Where can folks find your game?

Food Truck Champion is available online and in stores this week! For those that want a copy of our game, I highly recommend visiting your local game stores and asking them to order you a copy. We want to support local businesses and the local gaming community.

Do you have a user review you could share?

We were lucky to have many reviewers and fans share their excitement and praise for Food Truck Champion on the Kickstarter campaign, social media and in-person. People you don’t even know who are halfway across the world have played and enjoyed our game.

I was thrilled that our game interested Geek Dad who went on to write: “The theme is accessible, the actions are mostly intuitive and the artwork is a lot of fun…I’ve had fun poaching recipes from other [trucks] and…not to mention, learn about new foods by Googling unfamiliar dishes. It’s definitely getting a positive Yelp review from me.”

I wanted Food Truck Champion to introduce people to new and exciting foods in the game while they play. I specifically wanted one of the food trucks to feature the Filipino food that I grew up with. There are lots of other dishes that everyone will recognize. I love food. It is my other passion besides games and I often bring these two passions together to share with others.

What inspired you to make this game?/What inspired you to start making games?

Luke and I originally started designing Food Truck Champion by re-theming a game we enjoyed at the time, Glory to Rome, that was unfortunately out-of-print. As we continued to build this re-themed version, we started making changes to the gameplay that we felt made it more accessible to new players and heavily featured a theme not usually explored in games.

I chose the food truck theme because I hadn’t seen a food truck board game before and food trucks they were becoming more popular in Seattle. I was even blogging about food trucks and the best mobile food dishes in Seattle so it felt relevant to create a game about them. After three years of changes, playtesting and feedback, Food Truck Champion is its own game with over a thousand copies shipped worldwide.

I hope Food Truck Champion is a game that inspires others to make their first game. And if you don’t know where to start, I encourage new game designers to join our playtestNW events and learn from designers like myself about how to create their first game.

For those looking to play a food game that is less than an hour, I will also be bringing a few of my favorite quick, food-themed board games to the Mini Game Day on Saturday including Go Nuts for Donuts, Just Desserts, and A la Carte.

Stay up to date with Across The Board Games! One their website, or on Twitter or Facebook!

We are so excited to play all these yummy games with you this Saturday, February 24 from 12-5pm! Come out, play some games with your neighbors, and get a fun sample of some of the most delicious indie games in the Pacific Northwest!

Please stay up to date on the amazing gaming events PlaytestNW does throughout the PNW on our website.

And to know what’s happening at Skyway Library please check out our events calendar.