Our Friends are Cooler Than Yours

I've talked many times about our friends, Mike and Kelsey. Some of you know that they make board games.  You've probably also seen a few things I've shared recently on facebook about the latest in their game developments. But I wanted to explain a little more here.

Mike and Kelsey have been developing their game, The Amberden Affair, for a couple of years now, and even coined a business name (Two Penny Games). They had the opportunity last year to enter their game in a Tabletop Deathmatch competition put on by a very famous game maker, Cards Against Humanity.  Within this competition there were hundreds of games submitted, and 16 finalists were chosen to present their games to a panel of judges and be recorded for a web series. The Amberden Affair was among the finalists. The winner will get their game printed for free and will have a booth at this year's conference to promote/sale the game.  You can watch Mike and Kelsey pitch their game to the judges here at a big gaming conference known as GenCon, and learn the meaning behind their company name:

Several weeks after the competition, they were notified they did not win, so they moved forward with other plans to produce their game.  It's a passion of theirs they couldn't let die.  They made some great connections at GenCon and even struck up a deal with a game manufacturer to print their game without putting out much of their own money up front. So they tweaked the game a little more to its final state and sent it off for mass production. Then they wondered how they would fit 2000 copies of their board game in their tiny apartment. (They have since figured this out as well.)

They decided to return to GenCon this year, and wanted to do something fun while there to promote their game. Having a background in theatre, they decided to host a live event of their game, where people can sign up to play as characters of the game in a themed hotel room. On June 1st they launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund this life-sized event. So what does that mean? Kickstarter is a crowd-funding site where you can set a goal to raise money to help produce your product or production, whether that's an artist to record new music, a new gadget, or a game (among many other things). Reading Rainbow is even making a comeback through Kickstarter supporters!  The idea is to have many people (known as backers) pledge a little bit of their money to help you reach your goal.  And you only actually get the funds if your goal is fully funded within the time period. There are different levels of backing so that you can choose an amount you're comfortable pledging, and many of them offer rewards - such as a copy of the product once it's funded and produced.

So go check out Mike and Kelsey's Kickstarter page (<-- Click there), and help support their live event! You can even only donate a dollar or so if you'd like, or a little more and get a copy of their game for your own home! Watch the video below to learn more about the game, and see Jesse and me in what is the closest we will ever get to a big-screen debut! So go support Two Penny Games on Kickstarter and help make the live-event possible! Mike and Kelsey would greatly appreciate it!