Zero Strategy Games put a perfectly normal sheep on the cover of a horror game โ and people did a double take all the way to a hit campaign. Jeremy Stark co-designed ๐ THE SHEEP, ๐๏ธ SHUFFLE DUNGEONS and ๐ UNHEIST.
โโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโ
๐๏ธ IN THIS EPISODE:
๐ช๏ธ Surviving the Gen Con tornado in a 10ร10 booth
๐ป A board game company founded over "one drink after another"
๐ฅ From project-managing Pennsylvania Medicaid to shipping board games
๐ธ Where THE SHEEP's campaign money went โ "I didn't go home with half a million dollars"
๐ซ Gamefound passed on UNHEIST: "not the type of game for us"
๐ฎ His claim to fame โ the lantern economy, and why it split their community
๐ UNHEIST โ kobolds putting a sleeping dragon's stuff back before it wakes
๐ฒ A secret dragon dice-builder with minis on the way
โโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโ
๐ LINKS
๐ Zero Strategy Games
โถ https://zerostratgames.com/
๐ The Unheist of Hearthburn House: Mansion Decorating Madness โ live on BackerKit through October 10
โถ https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/zero-strategy-games/the-unheist-of-hearthburn-house-mansion-decorating-madness
โค๏ธ Support My Work โ Join Cardboard
โถ https://crdbrd.app/
โโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโ
๐ง TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST!
๐ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165
๐ข Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4
๐ต Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364
โโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโ
โฑ๏ธ CHAPTERS
00:00 - Cold open
00:43 - Who is Jeremy Stark?
01:46 - The sheep cover that stopped David at Origins
03:26 - Gen Con: surviving the tornado in a 10x10 booth
05:51 - Should conventions actually make money?
11:00 - From Pennsylvania Medicaid to board games
15:15 - Why editors can tell he's a Magic player
18:25 - Cutthroat Cove, 750 backers, and one drink after another
29:06 - What made Shuffle Dungeons break out
32:35 - One campaign away from cutting hours
35:43 - Where The Sheep's campaign money actually went
40:37 - Paid ads, AI noise, and falling returns
44:18 - Why Unheist left Kickstarter for BackerKit
45:47 - Gamefound: "not the type of game for us"
49:07 - Shuffle Dungeons: double-sided cards, one-hour crawl
54:57 - It was never supposed to be co-op
1:00:25 - Why there's no day-one expansion
1:04:00 - What the hell is The Sheep? (and a plushie run)
1:09:15 - The rule they rewrote 10 times
1:16:10 - Jeremy's claim to fame: the lantern economy
1:22:26 - Killer sheep, The Black Sheep, and internal controversy
1:35:25 - Unheist: returning a dragon's stuff before it wakes
1:42:29 - Why it's literally called "stuff"
1:46:04 - A three-player minimum and no solo mode, on purpose
1:55:18 - What he tells new players to buy first
1:56:11 - Dragon minis and what's next for Zero Strategy
#cardboard #bgss #unheist #zerostrategygames
