Nate Kadlac: [00:00:00] So you've written a book called Think Like a Game Designer, and one of your frameworks in that is, the core design loop, which is six steps and inspiring, framing, brainstorming, prototyping, testing, and iterating. What part of that framework is most Enhanced by AI?
Justin Gary: Yes, it absolutely can help you with every single step.
Inspiration is, step one is
Nate Kadlac: Welcome to the Hey! Good Game podcast, where we chat with the creators of your favorite games that you secretly play in the cracks of your day. Welcome to the Hey! Good Game
Joseph Rueter: podcast. I'm Joseph Ruder. I'm here with my co host, Nate Cadillac. And today we're excited to speak with Justin Gary, the CEO of Stoneblade Entertainment, former professional and champion.
In Magic the Gathering, player and creator of critically acclaimed Ascension deck building game series, he has decades [00:01:00] of experience in the game industry as a competitive player, as an award winning designer, and successful entrepreneur, culminating in his book and podcast, both titled Think Like a Game Designer, which I hope we can do more of as a result of this.
Stoneblade, formerly known as Gary Games, also released other titles such as Soulforge, now remade Soulforge Fusion, Shards of Infinity, Ascension Tactics, and most recently it's standalone sequel, Ascension Tactics Inferno. I understand that there's decades of experience here and, Justin, we're thrilled that you are here with us.
Justin Gary: Yeah. Excited to be here. Always love talking about games and, helping to, share, the paths to other people who want to make them.
Joseph Rueter: That's fantastic. What is that under that, like talking about games? What do games do for you?
Justin Gary: That's a deep question, right? I think there are some core traits that we all have, like what it is that, like, why not just I play games, but we as a species play games, right?
It's a weird thing that we do. We take [00:02:00] on these, bizarre, unnecessary obstacles and create challenges for ourselves that don't actually accomplish anything in the real world. And somehow that becomes a fulfilling thing that we do that many of us have devoted our lives to. And I think that there's a few different traits that come to it.
one is like games are this place where we can learn and experiment with who we are and who we want to be and how we face challenges in a safe, in a place that's safe, right? I can lose a game of chess or I can go bankrupt in Monopoly, but I still have my home, right? And so there's a piece of that learning and growing that I've always been very connected to.
And then I think there's a. piece of how we build connections, right? You mentioned I started as a professional player, playing match the gathering and I would play in tournaments for 30, 000 and travel around the world. And that was really cool. And I enjoyed the game magic. And I enjoyed, obviously being able to make a living doing that instead of, I quit my job as a bus boy at the local deli, but like I was able to.
The reason I stayed with that game is not because of the money and not even because of the game, but it was because of actually the friendships and the connections that I had built. [00:03:00] Many of those friendships now I have 25, 30 years later, that are some of the people who work with me and my company and other people who I just literally, met up with and traveled.
dinner with a friend in London last weekend, who I've known for 30 years, it's actually that connection and that bonding and games provide that for us a way for us to connect around something that we love. And that is something that has always how we stayed with us. And so those are two of the major pillars in my mind.
and then as a creator, I think we are. We're just called to create generally, like being able to be creative and put things out into the world is not just about the thing you create. It's about that ability to express yourself and to put a part of you out into the world. And so that, learning, creating, connecting, that's what I'm all about in life.
And that's what games have provided for me and a lot of people I love.
Joseph Rueter: That's awesome. And what's your favorite game that you're playing right now?
Justin Gary: Yeah, so there's a sort of generalized, what's my favorite game, magic still has to take it, take the [00:04:00] king there, because it just changed the course of my life and really pushed a lot of things forward.
And nowadays, it's funny, because I don't have a lot of spare bandwidth cycles for games that are not my games, right? Not the games that I'm working on, which is one of the ironic things about making games for a living is that we get to, we don't get to do that for as much fun as we used to. But I will say I've gotten re addicted to Civilization.
I love these kinds of 4x turn based games. And so I've been playing a lot of 7 just came out. We're going to go play that with some friends this weekend. And just that sort of epic scale and scope of kind of the, literally going through the ages of civilization and being able to have these battles and all these different mechanisms that go with it is something that's always hooked me since I was a kid.
And, actually Alpha Centauri was the one that really hooked me where you take the same concept of civilization, but you bring it out into space. And I had so many mornings or, late nights that I would suddenly see the sun coming up because I was just taking one more turn. and that addictiveness is, has always stuck with me.[00:05:00]
Joseph Rueter: It's just one more turn. This is like when TikTok first came out, right? You're like, wait, hold on. How did the life get spent this way? That's awesome.
Nate Kadlac: What I love about games in general is the community aspect that you touched on. And you can go, like you just said, civilization, epic game, large community around that, playing with friends especially.
But then you can go down to Wordle. And you still have this ability to share and bring people in. How does that happen? And what about a game makes it that great to be able to share between friends and family and build this community, even at the smallest of games at a daily level?
Justin Gary: Yeah, so it's, a great question.
And it ties to a lot of different games answer that question in different ways. So you did, great juxtaposition there, right? Civilization, what's makes us all unite around civilization versus what makes us unite around and they're different answers, right? Wordle. is that the genius of Wordle is that one same word a day [00:06:00] for everybody, right?
The like week, oh, how many guesses did it take you to get Wordle today? Or can you believe the answer today or whatever, right? We can now have this shared experience around this sort of temporal moment. That's actually really powerful, right? And this used to be the kind of thing that like, TV provided, but it doesn't quite anymore.
It does every now and then, right? Because it used to be, we had to go, all right, it's eight o'clock on Thursday and we're going to tune in and watch whatever Seinfeld or whatever your show of choice was, right? And that was it. If you missed it, This is dating myself here a little bit, but this shared.
cultural moment, and Wordle broke through and created that, and so it created this thing where now we can have this sort of shared struggle and shared moment. Things like Civilization are some of that shared struggle, where we can share strategies and things, but I think a lot of it honestly came down to this, a lot of the customization and modding community around those games I think was a huge part of it, where it allows the players to be creative and be a part of crafting an experience and share different aspects of it.
And because the game would be live patched and then certain mods would be [00:07:00] made more available or less available in the same way games like. Magic the Gathering, and Dungeons and Dragons, and like other collectible, customizable games, that ability to take ownership of this is my thing, and this is the version of this that I like to play, and this is the way that I I can express myself and create inside this broader framework.
And I think that, type of thing extends the lifespan of a game and extends the community connections of a game so that people can not just, not everybody's going to be making mods for civilization, right? I never have. But it lets the people who want to go really deep go really deep and lets other people connect around those different experiences.
And so I think that it's a great question because each game I think needs to independently answer, how are you building community and how are you connecting people around your game? Because no matter how good your game is, if people don't form communities around it, it's not going to stand the test of time.
Nate Kadlac: I think that's so fascinating because modding civilization is maybe not so different from modding Wordle, right? [00:08:00] How many spinoffs of Wordle has there been created that's really lifted up this whole ecosystem at that simple level? And so Wordle is maybe, you could maybe look at that as it's been modded, right?
so many different variations and it's blown up this economy of daily games.
Justin Gary: Yeah. I think that there's a, we were talking about TikTok a little bit earlier. I think there's this like new world that's coming as the sort of simple game and simple game development gets easier and easier with new technology that there'll be a lot more of these.
bite sized game experiences that I can quickly filter through, right? This is already true to some extent in mobile gaming, but it's still, significant cost to develop. I think as that goes down, you'll see a lot more of these kind of micro games and those micro games will, create entire new communities, entire new systems and modes of play and gathering around individual designers who might design a game a day and post a game every day because of these things.
so there's a fascinating world that I think we're on the cusp [00:09:00] of that will change the way that everybody engages with games.
Joseph Rueter: So that's under this kind of like submarine hatch of AI, right? we're just, do you want to open that up and walk us through the submarine of AI and danger?
Let's jump in. Periscope. Dive.
Justin Gary: Dive. I like, I made like a truck backing up noise for my submarine, but you get the idea. yeah, no, I'm happy to talk about it. it is, deep and controversial and a lot of people shy away from it, but I do not. At the end of the day, I think there's gonna be, there's no stopping this, right?
This is a technology that's already revolutionizing the process of game development. It will only get better and continue to be. And so the question is, how do you want to adapt to it? Cause you don't really have a choice otherwise, right? So this is a tool that will allow individual indie creators to create far more, far better games than they ever could before.
It is going to equalize the power of the thousand person team to a 20 person team. And What does that [00:10:00] mean for people's careers? And what does that mean for how the industry reshapes? those are hard questions to answer. But I think as an individual creator, it's actually now and probably for the next couple of years is probably the best time to be a game designer because of what you're capable of.
I started, taking this course. So I started in the tabletop gaming industry, right? So my game Ascension made it 15 years ago, which was a huge This is our 15th anniversary. Our first copy will, it'll be in August. We'll be like exact 15th anniversary of the first copy sold to the game. We're still releasing.
Big time
Joseph Rueter: congrats.
Justin Gary: Yes. It's crazy. It's crazy.
Joseph Rueter: it's in, it's in driver's ed.
Justin Gary: No, that's, that's it. And then, we talk about community and what's exciting about being a game designer? I now go to shows and I will have someone who will, like a father that will say Hey, my daughter and I bonded over playing Ascension and she's 13.
Like she wasn't even alive when I made the game. It's it's crazy. And so that's, really cool. But then the, year [00:11:00] after the Ascension app released, And that was on, and we were the first deck building game to come to mobile. And that was a huge success. And I think. It was an amazing thing, but I had, I had to work with an outside team of engineers and they, have this whole process.
I could never program myself. And then I started working on SoulForge and SoulForge Fusion, where I had to hire teams of engineers. And I have been kicking myself for over a decade of not learning to program. Because it's as a designer, as a CEO, I understand the basics and I can lead the team, but it's I was hamstrung.
I've had my, like having to, I can't rapid prototype like I would with a tabletop game. So much of the physical, so much of the process of game design is about that core design loop and being able to iterate. And now. I can, what they call vibe coding now, I guess is the thing where I can use plain language and the AI tools to code things.
And I'm not going to make something that's a finished product myself, but I can make a thing that's a good prototype and start testing and moving forward. And the engineers that I had that actually know a little bit more than I do can now use [00:12:00] this to accelerate their design process or, their process of creation.
And so it's been amazing. And again, when we're just at the. kind of forefront of it. But I think that the capacity that one has, if you're somebody that's coming up as a designer, you just, you should be playing with these tools and experimenting with them and getting ahead of again, the number one thing that I tell new designers is reduce your scope.
Like most people, they're like, Oh, I want to make a game that's like Halo and Fortnite combined with World of Warcraft. And let's go. I'm like, you've never made a game before. Stop. Your scope is crazy. Like your goal is to make something that's very. small and bite sized so that you can practice going through the core design loop, testing and iterating and learning.
And that's still true, but now the capabilities of what's possible for somebody that's starting out, what that scope can be and how quickly you can escalate that scope is so much better than it was. And even though there is a lot of upheaval and there'll be a lot of challenges as there is with any new technology and any new evolution or technological revolution, I think overall, there's a lot of cause for real [00:13:00] excitement as a creator.
Nate Kadlac: So you've written a book called Think Like a Game Designer. And one of your frameworks in that is, the core design loop, which is six steps and correct me if I get this wrong, but it's inspiring, framing, brainstorming, prototyping, testing, and iterating. What part of that framework is most enhanced by AI?
And is it all of it? Is it the beginning stages? Like, how do you see AI affecting Yes,
Justin Gary: it absolutely can help you with every single step of the process. So depending upon where you are and which part you want to be the one to add value, right? Inspiration is step one is really about what is it that's driving you to make this game, right?
What is it that's the core of the game? Usually we'll frame this as what's your elevator pitch. What's driving, like, why is this unique? What's the hook that you're trying to get at? What's motivating you? If you don't have any ideas as a designer, you can go ahead and ask AI. Hey, give me a hundred ideas of a game designs that are like combination of A and B or in this category but with a [00:14:00] a twist because I really like, I want it to be like a puzzle game but with cats or whatever, you want and AI's pretty good at throwing out a bunch of ideas for you and It's not that the AI is going to be the idea that you use, but it will help you to come up with that inspiration.
And it's helpful to bounce ideas off of. So that's part one, part two is framing. Framing is really about putting parameters around your game and giving yourself that told you like, reduce your scope, put yourself in a box. Probably the least AI is going to do here, but in general, like most important part of this is really setting yourself deadlines, ideally short deadlines.
So like, all right, what can I prototype in two weeks? How can I get this in front of people? What's the, I'm going to try to make this a card game that costs. 9. 99 and only uses 15 cards or I'm going to make a mobile app that is playable in a minute or whatever, right? You're creating your frame.
Brainstorming is a great aspect where AI can help, right? This is about where initially you're trying to get as many ideas as possible. And again, this is like It would take, I say, set aside 20 minutes for just writing down as many ideas as you want and, you're lucky if you get like a hundred and AI can get you a thousand in 30 seconds, right?
it's [00:15:00] crazy how many ideas it can have. And then you filter those down. At the end of the process, you go from open ideation to organization where you find the patterns and find the kind of through lines of all these different crazy ideas to elimination where you try to now get to as simple a thing as possible that you can prototype.
AI is also obviously very helpful for prototyping. As we talked about, like I can now prototype a quick digital app, just talking to the AI and going back and forth with it, as opposed to actually having to code something myself. And then when it comes to testing, believe it or not, AI is actually good at simulating a testing customer.
It's not going to replace a customer, but you can actually say, Hey, you are a. 40 year old mother and from the Midwest. And I'm going to present this idea to you and give me your feedback. And they've been studies that show it's like pretty good at this. Like it's not again, not replacing doing real testing with real humans, but it can, those first core design loops and those first iterations you go through, you won't try to go through them fast.
And so getting some simulation of a test, I even tell. new designers, your very first core design loop, your very first [00:16:00] play test, you should just run it through in your head, like step by step in your own head. imagine what's happening in the game. Imagine so what somebody is playing, where are they getting the information?
What are they motivated to do? And you can actually catch a lot of stuff in a mental play test. And this is a step significantly better than that. And then, when it comes to iterating, that's the part that generally speaking, you're going to be on your own, but again, having the AI as somebody to talk to where it's okay, here's the feedback I got, here's the test results I got, here was the idea.
What should I do next? What should I, how should I improve this? And again, if you're stuck, you can have a conversation with AI to help you move forward. And this is the kind of, cyborg approach, right? Where you're not handing everything off to the AI, which I think is not a good idea.
And you, but you are able to use it as a kind of tool, as a sounding board. Even there's a concept called a rubber ducking. which is a, an idea from coding where you just talk about your problem to like a rubber duck on the table, right? And why is, the rubber duck doing anything to [00:17:00] help you? no, but just the fact that you are talking about the idea out loud as though to another person helps you solve problems.
And so AI can just be a better rubber duck and that's fine, right? If you want to dive deeper into this. I highly recommend the Think Like a Game Designer episode I did with Ethan Mollick. He is one of the foremost experts on AI. He wrote a book called Cointelligence, and we go deep into all of these different aspects and it's with the episodes from a couple months ago and even though AI moves super fast and a couple months ago feels like Years it holds up pretty well if you want to get more in the weeds on that But hopefully that gives you a good starting point for the ways that AI can supplement and enhance the creative and testing process
Joseph Rueter: You can use these tools and the ducks without driving the Jeeps, right?
Because you've seen the Jeep ducking. Do you know about this? I don't know Jeep ducking. I haven't heard of this one. What is this? What is that? If you have a jeep, then you get these little rubber ducks, and then you leave them for other co jeep drivers. And when you get them, then you have to put them on your dash.
So when you're talking about talking to rubber ducks, it's oh, all the [00:18:00] jeep drivers are game designers. So rubber ducks, Oh, I'm missing it. I gotta give myself a duck, but it's absolutely true. if you can just get out of your own brain into some other interface and have it ask you back, That tool. In all of the steps, the AI tool is, has been fascinating in the work that we've done. Absolutely. It's jeepers, really? Fantastic. Thanks.
Justin Gary: There's a hypothetical world in the not too distant future where like AI is just better at everything than we are, and which is going to really change the way things work.
But I think we're in the best of all possible worlds as far as AI for probably the next two to five years would be my guess where it's like, As a someone who is really motivated and curious, you now have so many more tools at your disposal than you ever did before. And you can learn anything that you want.
You can build things that you could never build before. And you can just go through, when we talk about the core design loop, there's a lot of [00:19:00] different principles I teach about game design, but this is the most important one because it really is just about how efficiently can you move through this process of come up with ideas.
figure out how you're going to test, how you can morph those into something testable, figure out how quickly you can get the feedback from that test back into the cycle. And the faster you can go through that and the more you learn each time, the better a game designer, you're going to be full stop.
And so that anything that can support you in that process. And when I say. my advice pre AI, and it's still good advice, is like literally just find whatever you can do to test things, keep it simple, keep it ugly, be happy that your prototypes are ugly, like as fast as you can get something on the table, or the virtual table, whatever, make that happen, and then and get used to that idea, because you actually see a lot of people that design.
and make their first like prototype of a game and they invest in really great UI, UX, or they're building a bunch of really cool art and they'll make a, if it's a tabletop game, they'll print a really nice board professionally. And that's the worst thing you could do. It's the worst thing [00:20:00] you could do because not only does it take you like weeks and weeks, best case scenario to get something done first.
So you're going to be slow to get something to the table, but also you build up this like substantial unconscious resistance to not changing the thing. Cause like I invested so much in it. If I have to like, Scrap the core principle. And now all of this artwork I did is useless. And all of this coding I did is useless.
You're like, you're going to feel resistance to that. So you actually want it to be ugly. Like I will literally take a Sharpie and write and cross out things on the cards or like hack together code with something really fast. Like that is a ugly as a strength, not a weakness in this world.
And so I just want to encourage that for anybody out there to let go of this idea of, trying to make things pretty and perfect.
Nate Kadlac: It's a lesson I need to tell myself every single day. Just a perfectionist at heart.
Justin Gary: We all want to make great things. And as you go through the core design loop, and this I go into more detail on this, in the book, but like we go through what I call the phases of design.
And what I'm talking about is those early phases where you're trying to find the fun and find the [00:21:00] fundamentals of what's happening here? what's the core? What's the heart of what I'm doing? And as you move through to future phases, into development and into polish, then yeah, okay, now we start worrying about, it's if you're trying to build a house and you're really worried about like where you're going to hang paintings and what color you're going to paint the wall, but you haven't, you don't even have a foundation yet.
Like you haven't done anything right. So work on the foundation, then worry about the paint later.
Nate Kadlac: You have this quote in your book. That's stood out to me, but it's to be a great game designer, you must be able to predict your players, emotional responses to the rules that you design, I'm curious, especially with AI around, there's this.
Our emotional connection to the things that we're creating, the connection that our players are having or resonating with, like what, I guess in your mind, when you think about that quote, how does that apply to games that are like more modern day games that are being built today?
Justin Gary: Yeah, look, this is one of those core universal principles of games and frankly art in general, right?
Like what we are doing is trying to create an emotional experience in our audience and for most games that [00:22:00] means your players every now and then if you're designing a game for Television or streaming you care about the experience of the audience there but the idea is that I don't care.
I could give you a million tips and tricks. We talked about the core design loop, which is a process thing. I could talk about little tips about how you balance a game and different mechanics and different what code base you want to use and what art you want to use. All of that stuff all has to serve the player experience.
If it doesn't make the player experience better. Get rid of it. It's useless. If it does make the player experience better, fantastic, right? And so at the end of the day, like a lot of people, myself included, like I came at this as a very analytical person, right? I started off as a professional game player where my job is to break the game down into its constituent parts and then just break it in half so that I could win the game, right?
that was my whole mindset. And when I became a designer, I had to like slowly unwind and like untangle all of that stuff and be like, Oh, actually I'm a feeling guy now. I need to make feelings happen. And what does that mean? And so that's why literally why I wrote the book was like, I had to construct [00:23:00] a model for like how this works.
And so then what it comes down to is. You need to train these instincts to understand what's happening. And so for anybody that's out there that's even if you're far from making your first game, you can start doing this right now, right? You like playing games, presumably, or you wouldn't be listening to this podcast.
You can just pay more attention, right? So there's one thing when you get lost in an experience, right? So everybody's had this, it's maybe a little easier to talk about with movies, right? You get into the movie theater, the lights go down, the screen lights up, and then you just get lost in the story and you feel the excitement and the drama of whatever's happening, right?
And you just, you don't, you forget you're in a movie theater. You're just. Participating and the same happens in games, right? If you're really in a game, there's excitement, there's, you're rolling the dice and hoping for the thing, or you're fighting the boss, whatever it is, right? You get lost in the experience as a player.
And that's great. As a designer, you need to step back a little bit, right? You need to start thinking, okay, wait, when I feel that intense emotion. Why do I feel that intense emotion? What's causing that? okay, it's actually because there's a, the life bar on this is flashing red, which [00:24:00] is giving me this feeling like I'm almost gonna die, and that is actually impacting emotionally how I feel.
Or I have this new, this card, whatever card gets flipped off the top of the deck right now is gonna massively impact the game. Or I have a really tough choice to make about do I move my king or do I move my pawn, and I'm putting my king at risk, but maybe he won't see that. That what is it about the agonizing choice or the visual representations or the variance that's available?
There, there are a lot of these little pieces that you start to realize, oh, okay, if I want to ratchet up the tension in my game, I should do this. Oh, if I want to make the game more calm and more of a, like a relaxing experience, do this. And that's one thing you could just see it for yourself. And then the next step is to start looking at it from your players and other people.
Watch other people play games, right? And not just, again, it doesn't have to be your games, any games. If you see someone leaning back and checking their phone and like disconnected, okay, wait, what caused them to get disconnected there? what are they doing? Is it, is there too long between turns?
Is there something that's made this not interesting? Or if you see somebody the opposite, getting up in their seat and getting getting fired up and starting to [00:25:00] chat and there's a lot of those things. Now you start to look for the, Non verbal cues and other things that people are giving off and you could say, okay, what caused that emotional experience in them?
Cause not everybody's the same. You're not, your instincts are going to be the most important, but you want to be able to train and learn from other people. And this also helps with your testing process because. People will tell you things about your game that are flat out lies. Now they may not be intending to lie, but they just, they don't want to hurt your feelings, or they're confabulating.
A lot of times people will think that something means that they want something, and you as the designer have to have the instincts and the awareness that's actually not it. And you could see it from how they behave and how they react. So training your instincts in being in tune with your own emotions, training your instincts and being in tune with other people's emotions, and then noting the connection between the tools that you have as a game designer, right?
The rules, the components, the interaction between players, all of that, and connecting those dots together is like the baseline of like how you build that core intuition so that when you do start making your own games, you're going to start to be able to [00:26:00] use those intuitions to tweak the knobs and tools that you have available to make great games.
Joseph Rueter: Is that it?
Justin Gary: Sorry, are my answers too short?
Joseph Rueter: So good So have you used AI to help with the how to build community side? So like you go through the process you run through all the community you get your core design loop use the AI You don't use the AI, you got an ugly prototype You've modified this thing you get into the phases of the whatever the hell you're at with and then earlier you said Community's it.
If you don't make it, you don't got it and you need it long term. What are the cores that you found, because it might not be AI that helps us get that done, maybe it is, to drive community around game?
Justin Gary: Yeah, so I've tried. because you're right, like a community is the most important thing. It's probably the hardest thing, from my perspective, I've been games long enough making a good game.
I know I can do making a great [00:27:00] community very hard, even though I've done it several times. And so I've asked AI about these things and AI's answers aren't bad, but they're basic. They're stuff I could have found elsewhere. There's stuff that I already knew. So if you don't know anything about building community, sure, go ahead.
Just like you'd Google something. You could AI, you could ask AI and it's fine. But I don't think it's like solving that problem for you. On the AI side. I can imagine worlds where the AI is simulating community for you a little bit, right? Where you can have bots in your game that feel like they're people and react more, and some games do this better than others and have done it even before the current generation of kind of large language models.
So there's some aspect of that, but really what we care about is actual humans, and that plans, I plan that to be the true for a long time, and how do you attract actual humans to the thing and the thing that you're doing? And I think that over time? The answer is different based on the different games that you're doing, right?
How you build community around wordle is different than how you build community around trading a collectible game like Soulforge Fusion or a game like Ascension. but the things that I have [00:28:00] found that really work are you want to create, there are hooks that bring us into games. We talked a little bit about this earlier, right?
There's the aspect of learning and growing, there's aspects of connecting, there's aspects of competing, there's aspects of expressing yourself, and you want to find ways to give people those tools to do in a shared format. And so there's a lot of different formats. that work depending upon the mode of your game.
So for example, in my games, there's a lot of strategic competition in a lot of these games, right? Specifically things like Soulforge Fusion and Ascension. So they, we create major tournaments. And so there's tournaments that you can play. Soulforge Fusion is a hybrid game. So it's, it actually exists both in physical tabletop form and in digital form.
And you can, every physical deck is algorithmically generated and printed. So it's one of a kind. You can scan it into your digital account. So we run events at tournaments, physical tournaments at events, at conventions. And we just did one in Denver. We're going to do another one at our championships at Gen Con in August.
And that brings people together physically in the room, so you get to make real [00:29:00] friendships, and you get to sit and like share experiences and share stories. And we do digital events, where anybody can access it anywhere in the world, and there's easy touch points for you to come into the game. But then we also want to hook people in with story, and so that we have a storyline mode of the game and a storyline events that people can actually follow.
Our website, soulforgedfusion. com and click on the story button. Not only do we have a lore that we have built, but players influence the story and change the world based on the events that they do in their tournaments. And then we actually will tie a written custom written story to the digital code of their deck.
So it stays with that deck forever. And it changed which cards appeared future sets and which characters rise and fall and which ones die and live. And so you get to become invested in the story by being a part of the lore in the world. So some people love the competition. Some people love the story.
Those don't often overlap, right? Some people love the art of the world. Some people love just being able to earn money from playing. Some people love to just see what new content is coming out and try weird formats and weird decks. And so when I try to build what is the [00:30:00] Soulforge Fusion community, I'm trying to put hooks out into the world for every type of player that are all going to form this kind of broader community and then continue to deliver the things that are going to appeal to that particular demographic and psychographic.
And so building a kind of large tent, the other things that are like, so it's just getting really specific into something that's like a bigger. community that, you're going to build your identity around, right? You're not, most people, even though you, say, I love Wordle, you don't say, I am a Wordle player, that's part of who I am.
Whereas, but a game like Magic the Gathering or Soulforce Fusion, no, that's, part of who I am, is my identity, and so you've got to get a lot more invested into those kinds of hooks, because it really does become a part of who people are, and that, that's at the core level of, like, How do you build community?
You make enough people that it's their identity and they're a big part of it. And then they become the hubs that spread the word, right? Because you don't get to build identity, your fans build community. And those super fans, you've got to give them reasons to become super fans and make this part of identity.
And then they're going to gladly show the game to everybody. They're going to tell all of their friends. [00:31:00] They're going to bring everybody in. And that's like how you really build a movement, not just in games, but anywhere, frankly. Other tools that are a little bit more wide ranging, right? Making your game easy to share.
making it easy for me to post and share my Wordle score and show you where I got it and how I guessed now starts conversations and let's, and giving people a pride and a reason to do that works, making your game easy to stream more people watch games now played than they do play games. And so making it something that's easy for you, for people to become as viewers and participate in a light.
way to connect to what's going on is also very valuable. Having obviously things like, like visual appeal and being able to like have something that captures people's attentions and brings them in. And then I think the last piece I'll say on this, since I continuously give you very long answers is, you as a developer being out there.
And being a real person that's actually engaged with the community really makes a difference, right? Why I not just love to do podcasts like this, but I participate in AMAs and, spaces and be in my discord. And I talk to the players and I listen to the [00:32:00] players and I, let them hear my thinking, my genuine thinking of what's going on, because when you're trying to make games that stand the test of time, especially, It's one thing to say, I'm going to play, make a mobile game. You're going to play for a few months. You're going to leave, but a game where you're going to. be playing Ascension 15 years later or, Soulforce Fusion 20 years later or whatever, I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to do things you don't like.
You're going to have moments where you get disconnected and being, having a relationship with the developer and with the personalities behind it and understanding why they do what they do helps to build trust and help people to come along for the ride. Because, as you're making new content over time, you've got to.
You've got to constantly thread that needle of same, but different. People are playing Ascension to get a certain experience. But if I just release an expansion, that's the exact same experience. what the hell am I doing? Why am I going to buy, why am I going to buy that expansion? So I got to take you somewhere new, but it's still got to feel like home.
And so that exploration and taking people across. So when it works, it's beautiful. And when it doesn't. And so again, just to take it out of the game analogy for a minute, you've, everybody's had the, [00:33:00] their favorite band and you're like, nah, man, they sold out. they don't have the same band anymore.
That's because they took, they went and they lost that core for you. And sometimes they can, that's, it's a good thing. And they're like, Oh my God, they have a whole new sound. That's amazing. But it's usually because they've. It held on to what's the core identity of this experience. And then once you know what that core identity is, if you hold true to that, you could take people on pretty incredible journeys.
And so knowing that people are going to be along with you for that ride and being personally engaged is another key piece of community. So a lot of threads to pull on there, but hopefully that answered your question.
Joseph Rueter: Oh, it's super. It leans towards, games reflecting or impacting life, right? As you're talking earlier, I'm like, ah, some of this is d.
school, rapid iteration, prototype, like business design. And you're like, yeah, I'm building a business. But it's a game, right? And it's wait, that's two separate systems. Similar approach vectors or just like toolkit in terms of that. And on the last answer, I was like, [00:34:00] Oh, that's a activations in brand marketing, right?
Justin Gary: No, they're not different, man. And this is the thing. It's actually the book I'm working on right now is literally this. Realization and applying this principle. The same things that you do to design a game are the same things you do to design a business, to write a book, to design a life, frankly. it is not different.
The creative process, the core design loop, and other aspects of it are universal. And so whenever you're addressing novel problems, something that is you're trying to put something into the world that hasn't existed before, and try to do something different, This is how you do it. And so that's been a really big thing for me.
And, I've been very lucky as a, kind of founders, entrepreneur, in addition to game designer, I see the parallels so much. And so being able to apply those and help other people to apply those, and then also do the, use the tricks that I've learned as a game designer to make the process more fun.
As you're building a business, as you're struggling, because you're going to struggle, let me tell you what it does. I've been doing this for 25 years. I still [00:35:00] struggle that you can have fun in the struggle because again, I could be in a game of civilization and I could be getting my butt kicked and I'm down the tech tree and I'm trying to find a way to survive and I could be having a blast, right?
And so the same is the same can be true in your business when you're running out of funding and your game's not quite working and you're trying to get your metrics up. You could still have fun with that too. And that's like the real shift, right? Not only just the tips and tactics of how do I, design an experience like this and design something that will work, but also how can I enjoy the process because the illusion of.
Games give you some goal and the goal is arbitrary. It doesn't matter, right? It's capture the King. It's get the ball in the hoop more than the other team did. It's whatever, right? who cares, but we choose to care about that in order to have the experience, the fun of the challenge of the game and in life, we make the mistake that the goal, the thing as I want to make a million dollars, I want to do the thing, whatever, that's just get the ball in the hoop and capture the King you're it's there to make sure you can have fun along the process.
And most people don't [00:36:00] realize that. And so that's one of the things I'm also working on helping. Helping to make more clear so that, we can enjoy, the creative struggle more.
Joseph Rueter: What you choose to care about. Step one. So curious. I remember watching my son play and I would have this instinct to hoard resource, right?
And he would just not care. Like whatever, he's just he is this, test to learn high risk approach, which like I don't. And, it's been really interesting to watch him succeed and then fail in those instances and then have conversations post facto Hey, what was going on in that?
Situation. why did you choose to go that direction? And he's ah, there's always another cane, right? And that is not how businesses or jobs are frequently approached. But the reality is. There's always another.
Justin Gary: [00:37:00] Yeah. That's right. listen, we're very lucky, most of us and most people listen to this, right?
You're not like worrying about being able to put food on the table. And I understand that can create real stress and real challenges, right? Most of the times it's really, we're playing status games. We would like more. I would like to have a nicer. I'd like to have a nicer meal on the table, maybe I'd like to have a nicer trip and a nicer thing and not have to stress, but like what we really feel like we're seeking is certainty, right?
We feel like what if I just knew for sure that this would work and I just could keep these things the way that I want. And so one of my mantras is cultivate comfort with uncertainty and impermanence, like cultivate comfort with uncertainty and impermanence because you can't get rid of those things.
You can never be sure that things are going to work out the way you want them to. In fact, life would be really boring if in fact that were true and you could never hold on to everything, right? Eventually we're all going to lose everything that we care about. There's just, that's just the realities of life.
And so we have to be, find a way to be comfortable with that. And if once you can do that, and it's a practice, not a destination, right? I'm not saying I got this dialed in. I'm saying I keep reminding myself of it [00:38:00] because then you can enjoy the game. You can enjoy the experience of it and learn, right?
Exactly. Like your son has it righter than most of us do. It's yeah, a lot of times you should be taking these risks because the realities are that everything that we're afraid of 99 percent of the time, again, assuming you're living in a. non war torn area and have a basic level of resources.
It's not a real fear. It's all stuff you could recover from in six months or a year at most. Typically, it's not even as bad as it's going to be two weeks later. And it's just that ability to free yourself of the, Oh, I need to hoard resources. I need to protect myself. I need to stay in my comfort zone.
The more we can let go of that and dial in this, this ability to willingness to take risks when the only harm is emotional, right? When the only harm is ego. Yeah, you learn a lot more a lot faster.
Joseph Rueter: Yeah, it's memento mori, right? We're all gonna die.
Justin Gary: You literally, the necklace I'm wearing right now is literally, is a memento mori necklace.
It is exactly the thing I remind myself of every day. And some people think that it's morbid and I strongly disagree. I'm going to be, I literally, I'm one of the happiest [00:39:00] people you're going to meet because I just, I take that very seriously. I want to live forever. Don't get me wrong.
But if I had to die tomorrow, like I would not have any regrets about the way I lived my life.
Nate Kadlac: I am curious, going back to community and how do you think that intersects with marketing? trying to get the thing that you built out into the world, do you feel like the time you would rather invest in community and trying to build that, those relationships and that is marketing to you or do you view those as two separate things?
Justin Gary: Yeah, they're all related, right? the goal of marketing. is you're trying to put out the bat signal, right? You're trying to call the people who would be great members of your community, who would love the thing that you are, you're, you've built to come. And you also are trying to do the opposite, which is you want to repel actually the people that don't, that won't be the right fit.
And it's very hard because a lot of people by default think they're building something for everybody and everyone's going to love this game. And if you're building for something for everybody, you're not really building anything for anybody, And so marketing, in the same way that I was very, [00:40:00] exuberant about how incredible it is to be a creator nowadays, because the tools are so much easier and the buried entry so much lower, there's so much you can create.
I actually am. I think it's one of the hardest times to successfully market ever in the history of gaming and history of the world because and it's a corollary because it's so much easier to create. There's more crowded stuff in the marketplace. There's more channels that people are paying attention to.
There's more games for them to take away their attention and time span and the dollars in the wallet. And those games are all competing over this, a lot of the same channels, right? it used to be that you would just, advertise on Google and that's not very cost effective for most people now, or advertise on Meta, it's not very cost effective right now.
And then it was like, Oh, just go work with influencers. And now that also price has gone up. So, the traditional channels are constantly the goalpost is constantly moving in like kind of the, when you think of like marketing, traditional marketing, and so you gotta get creative and you have to think, where is my.
asymmetric advantage, right? Where is it that I can pull people in a way [00:41:00] that is genuine and will bat signal to the right people? And how do I scale that? And so I wish I had a great answer. Do step one, then do step two, then do step three, and that's it, right? But this is exactly the kind of thing you need to apply the core design loop for it, because the right answer of how you market product X, I'll give a good example.
I've got a game called, You Gotta Be Kitten Me, which is someone in the background here, right? Which is a hilarious, like fun party game where you're bluffing and the cats all have different hats and accessories on them and stuff. and that's a target. And I had most of my games are either like hobby channel, more kind of core gamery games.
And I know how to reach that audience. I didn't know how to reach the audience at Target. So I, we ended up spending quite a bit of money and more than I care to admit to try to reach those audiences and do TikTok influencers and do different things to bring, build awareness. And it was very, tough and it was a marketplace I learned a lot.
in some painful ways. the game was successful, but it was, I definitely overspent, for what we did. And so that, the answers I had for how to reach the audience I know didn't quite work. And so I [00:42:00] think anything you can do to build your own platform as a creator, I think is valuable. Anything you could do to add value to the world.
Genuinely without expecting a return is valuable, right? I, again, I do a podcast. I've been doing a podcast for free for six years. I do a video digital courses and teach people design and write articles and post and do, interviews and things like that, where I, my goal is just to add value to the world and try to do the best that I can.
I don't expect anything in return for it, but what I have noticed. Is that then more people follow me and those people, some of them will buy my games. And so it's something where I love doing this stuff genuinely. I hope that probably comes across, but it's I would do this for free. I continue to do this for free, but then it creates something that now helps to put the backstaging allowed, Hey, do you like.
design. Do you like games? Do you like talking about this kind of things? Hey, you might like some of my products, come check these out. And so that's, for me, it's probably been my most effective channel and marketing strategy, if you can call it that, which is just add value consistently to the communities that you care to serve.
And. Eventually that [00:43:00] will pay its way back to you. And so that's the, my best answer that I have found personally. And then otherwise I think you just got to, for any specific product or game, you've got to apply the core design loop. You've got to test different ideas, try to test and learn as cheaply and quickly as possible.
So we will do things like, we, I mentioned a bunch of the different marketing channels that we do. We do try all of those for different games. We'll try different creatives. We'll try different spends, but we'll do small spends, small tests, work with different partners and then the ones that work.
Great. Awesome. Dial those up. The ones that don't pull them back and just keep that process because it's a constantly moving, target, depending both on the product and the timeline and how many people have discovered this incredible channel that you already have used and now isn't working anymore.
Nate Kadlac: What does your team look like at Stoneblade?
Justin Gary: beautiful, all models. I only hire good looking, Oh, that's not what you meant. Okay. Nevermind. I, Where do I
Joseph Rueter: apply?
Justin Gary: we have a team [00:44:00] of, 14 full time people and we have another about six to eight, contractors part time, with more that we'll expand to as we need.
I've got a very. wide ranging business. we have a digital games division, which does things like Soul Forge Fusion. We have a tabletop games division, which does our, tabletop releases for Ascension and others. We also have a consulting division. So we'll partner with other toy companies and game companies and even businesses.
We do, we know we do consulting with the Wharton school of business and teach creativity and design. Into fortune 500 companies. And so like a wide range of things that the team will shift on. So the makeup of the team will shift a lot depending upon which projects we're working on. That's a top line of who we are and what we look like today.
Nate Kadlac: I know you released SoulForge Fusion. What are you working on now? What are you working on next?
Justin Gary: I've got five or six projects in the pipeline at any given moment that are very active and then, more on the kind of back burner. so Soulforge Fusion, actually, I don't know when this is actually going [00:45:00] to release, but in a couple days off, as of the day we're recording this, Soulforge Fusion is releasing its fourth expansion called Shadows Over Solace.
And there's, we're going to be moving to mobile. And that game has a whole web three crypto component to it, where you've got 100, 000 worth of prizes that are being given out in the next couple of months. So there's A million things happening with that project alone. I mentioned Ascension's 15th anniversary is happening.
So we have not only our 17th expansion is coming out and our entire back catalog is coming back into stock for the summer. For the first time in 10 years, we have a new crowd fund. That'll be the 15th anniversary crowd fund that we're going to be launching this summer as well. We have two new projects that we'll be launching through Stoneblade, my publishing company.
one that actually is about like we partnered with a regenerative. Farming group, and it'll be a game that helps teach you about how to help save the world to save the planet and do regenerative farming and how that works. And part of the proceeds are going to go to charity to help try to save the planet.
We have a, partnership with another company called Japaname Games, which is another, making a trading card game that's based [00:46:00] on VTubers, which I didn't even know what a VTuber was, but they're like. Massive. There's these whole digital avatar streamers and stuff. And so there's a whole TCG for that.
That's going to be launching in May. I mentioned, I've got a new book that I'm working on and we're going to be launching a new digital course over the next couple of months. And I have two other projects that I'm not allowed to talk about. So that's what I'm working on right now.
Nate Kadlac: My man. That's insane.
Love it. Love it.
Justin Gary: Yeah, listen, I, people say that, when you do something you love, you never work a day in your life. And those people are liars. It is, a lot of work. But the difference is, when you're passionate about it, you're willing to push through Those challenging times, because you really care about what you're making.
And that's exactly the situation I'm in. I, we have this, we do quarterly reviews with the team. and, at the beginning of this year, we had a big one. It was like, Hey, are we, are we doing too much? Do we have too many projects? Are we, do we want to cut it? I was like, okay, great.
What do you want to cut? What do you guys not want to do that we're doing? And nobody had an answer, right? Like we are very excited about all the things now, our timeline, we don't [00:47:00] always hit the timelines that we say we're going to hit. And we have, we definitely make sure that there are clear priorities.
And this is the top thing we do. I try to make sure there's no more than three core priorities for any given quarter, that these are the top three things and everything else. we make progress on as we can, but I do believe that, I work better having more multiple projects at the same time.
Not everybody is like this, but I can hit a block on a game or a project and not know what I'm supposed to do yet, but I can take a week and shift to another game. And then when I come back, The solution is magically there because I was able to let my brain shift and let my subconscious process it.
so I like having a lot of things to shift between and I've, I optimized my team for that. And for those that aren't right, there'll be several members of the team where all they do is one project and that's fine. you just got, I very much try to. Make sure that both we hire the right people for a company.
And also my company is, 100 percent remote. We, people have a lot of autonomy, but making sure that they get in positions that are work well for them and that you bring in the right people that can survive and thrive in that type of environment. And [00:48:00] also that we do a lot of work to make sure that the culture is strong enough to support that and that people understand what we value here as a company and that if they.
are the right fit. We make sure we're the right fit for them and that their vision is aligned with ours and that our vision is aligned with where they want their career to go. And if it's not, then, help them find a job somewhere else.
Nate Kadlac: I'm feeling all the positive energy. I can sense that.
And I think that's such a pure thing to be able to enjoy and talk to you about and. We love it. We love it here. If people want to find you online, where might they, go look?
Justin Gary: Yeah. So you can just Google my name, Justin Gary. my sub stack is where I post most of my content. So it's justingarydesigns.
substack. com or just again, just Google my name. It'll come up Justin underscore Gary on X and all the other social channels I'm there, but that's probably the two places I publicly post the most. If you want to find out more about. My games, stoneblade. com is my publishing company. Soulforcefusion. com is available as a free download on Steam right now.
We're still in early access, but as we mentioned, there's lots of exciting things to come, on that project. You can join our discord, join our community. I'm [00:49:00] always in there chit chatting. so lots of ways to come find things. And of course, Think Like a Game Designer podcast, totally free, downloadable games, books available.
I have lots of fun conversations, not just with other game designers and. industry leaders like Alex Seropian, who created Halo and, but also people from other industries and, Morgan Page, who was a Grammy nominated EDM music producer and Steven Pressfield, who wrote the War of Art, which my favorite books on creativity.
And this is part of where the, when I talk about the creative process is universal, I like bringing these people in because they show you exactly that. They also go through the core design loop. They also do these things. lots of fun conversations, which again, I love having these kinds of conversations.
So that's what I do on my podcast as well.
Joseph Rueter: It's awesome. And I think we can all take the add value consistently to the communities in which you wish to serve to heart. it was like, Oh yeah, that yes. Can just be like a persistent, maybe it just ends up on the top of my teams. Daily or weekly, like weekly agenda, right?
Like, how are we going to add value here, guys?
Justin Gary: I can't [00:50:00] rationally, give you a promise or justification, but I can tell you that without fail, in my experience and everybody I've ever talked to that's been successful, just taking that attitude will never do you wrong. It will come back to you in ways you cannot predict when you get started.
Nate Kadlac: So good. Thanks for being with us.
Justin Gary: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Thanks so much, Gary.
