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Get to know designer Fertessa Allyse

You may know of Fertessa Allyse as a contributor on the Girls Game Shelf or as the designer of Wicked and Wise (Weird Giraffe Games) and Book of Villainy (Gold Seal Games), or because of her encyclopedic knowledge of all things Star Trek! When we found out that Fertessa was moving to the Pacific Northwest, we hoped we'd have the opportunity to work together. It took a few years, but in 2023 she joined the Nocturne and Cascadia: Rolling development teams. More recently, however, she co-designed Cascadia Junior (Flatout Games, AEG, KOSMOS), which is now available from your friendly local game stores! 

What are some of your favorite games? And why?

I'm a fan of Dune Imperium, Cockroach Poker, and No Thanks. The first because I love deck building and worker placement and that's as elegant a game you can get with that combination. The latter two because they're always fun games to bring out whether it's with casual/lighter gamers or with hobby gamers. They both support a good player count and they're quick to teach.

What games got you into game design?

I got into game design before I got into the hobby, so I suppose you could say my own, Book of Villainy. I had knowledge of very few games when I started designing so my first prototype resembled Monopoly and it evolved from there.

Do you start with theme or mechanics?

I usually start with a question I want to answer. Half the time it has been theme based and half the time it has been mechanic based.

Do you have a favorite theme?

Star Trek, otherwise nope I just wanna be entertained.

Do you have a favorite mechanic?

Worker placement is my favorite followed by deck building.

What is something unusual/cool about you that people might not know?

I've been trying to learn Korean for a ridiculously long time and I have over a four year streak on Duolingo. (You can't be fluent from Duolingo alone btw).


 
Thursday 03.20.25
Posted by Molly Johnson
 

Get to know designer Emily Vincent

Did you know that Knitting Circle is Emily Vincent’s first published game? She started designing games in 2022, working on multiple designs at once. In March 2023, she took three prototypes to Unpub, one of which was Knitting Circle. Randy Flynn (Cascadia) played Knitting Circle and suggested to us that we should check it out. We enjoyed it a lot and decided to sign it to expand the Calico universe! Since then, Emily has formed her own publishing company, Pink Hawk Games, been a GAMA Horizons Fellow publisher, and is getting ready to publish some of her other designs starting with Pirates of the High Teas. We asked Emily a few questions about her process and her interest in board games.

What are some of your favorite games? And why?

I’m a huge fan of Pandemic, specifically the original game and the legacy games. I love cooperative games and for me this is just a classic that I can play over and over again. I always get to feel clever playing Pandemic. I also really love Sagrada, both because of the puzzle and just the beauty when you see it on the table. And I love the game Aftermath, which is a cooperative storytelling game. It’s got a lot of the awesome moments of playing an RPG but you don’t need a DM and the sessions are pretty consistent in timing. It opened my eyes to how you can inject story into a board game experience. Also, you get to play as adorable rodents in a post-apocalyptic world where you break into vending machines and use household items as weapons, which is just a ton of fun.

What games got you into game design?

It’s probably a combination of Pandemic, Aftermath, and D&D. The goal of my first game design (that I’m still working on) was to create a cooperative board game experience with the memorable story moments of an RPG. It’s a game of house cats trying to take over the world when their humans are asleep each night. As I was working on that game, I knew I wanted to hone my game design skills so I started working on all sorts of other designs. Which is how I eventually got to puzzley tile placement!

Do you start with theme or mechanics?

I always start with theme. I either start with a story I want to tell or a specific table presence I want to create. I’m personally drawn to games with beautiful table presence - I like lots of colors, things that are glittery or translucent, and components that feel great to hold and manipulate. So I tend to start from brainstorming themes that will lend themselves to the kind of table presence or story that I want to play. 

Do you have a favorite theme?

I’ve been really interested in games about crafting and creating. I’ve prototyped games based on knitting, cross stitch, and weaving, and I’ve got a notebook full of game ideas about other crafts. I just find the idea of creating something beautiful to be a really satisfying concept for a game. I’ve also tried my hand at games around cooking and baking. Again, I’m just intrigued by creating a game in which your goal is to be creative and build something that you want to share with others.

Do you have a favorite mechanic?

I don’t think I do! For me, mechanics are just the tools in my toolbox to achieve the game’s thematic goals. I usually start with a vision for the story that’s going to unfold in the game and then dig around for mechanics that achieve that goal. When I’m early on in a game design, I often put some sort of simple draft into the game in order to be a placeholder for “this is how you’ll get your cards or tiles.” That usually gets changed later in the process when I’ve got an inspiration from the theme.

What is something unusual/cool about you that people might not know?

I’m an amateur circus performer and dancer! I performed regularly on my aerial hoop before the pandemic and I’ve been working on getting to performance level on the cyr wheel. I also recently co-founded a contemporary dance company called Pluto Return. We’re working on our first show, currently scheduled for May of 2025.

 
Sunday 11.03.24
Posted by Molly Johnson
 

Get to know designer David Iezzi!

Did you know that Nocturne designer, David Iezzi, was on the development team for Calico? It’s true. In 2018, Emma Larkins and Flatout Games’ Shawn Stankewich decided that Seattle area game designers needed more opportunities to meet and playtest. The weekly Wednesday nights at Via6 brought the community together. David got involved in the CoLab with Calico and was also part of the Cascadia team. His original Nocturne design, then called Cabinet of Curiosities, won the LUCI award in 2019 and we signed it almost immediately. Since then David has been working at Wizards of the Coast, Funko Games, and the Uzzle. 

What are some of your favorite games? And why?

Some of my favorite games are: Imhotep, Santorini, 7 Wonders Duel, Skull, and Capital Lux. I like games that are simple to learn and have a short playtime, but the decisions are still rich and interesting.

Do you have a favorite mechanic?

I don't know if I have a favorite mechanic. Maybe drafting. But a thing I've noticed is that I love grids in games.

What games got you into game design?

I learned about modern boardgaming because of my interest in game design (sparked by video games). So, I kind of got into the hobby backwards. But I definitely gravitate to games with novel mechanics or systems.

Do you start with theme or mechanics?

My natural inclination is to start with an unique mechanic. I really only start with theme first when that is the prompt or constraint I am given to work with.

What is something unusual/cool about you that people might not know?

A lot of people might not know that I was a singer and guitar player in a pop punk band for most of my youth.

Nocturne designer, David Iezzi, showing off Nocturne at PAX Unplugged in 2023.

Sunday 09.29.24
Posted by Molly Johnson
 

Gen Con and Origins! - what's new?!

Molly teaches Point Salad at the AEG booth on Saturday at Gen Con 2019

Molly teaches Point Salad at the AEG booth on Saturday at Gen Con 2019

Howdy, folks!
Shawn from Flatout here!
I thought I would take this opportunity to talk a little bit about what has been going on with Flatout Games over the past couple of months since we launched the site!

We have a lot of really exciting things going on at the moment, and that means that everyone at Flatout has been pretty busy! I will attempt to keep this relatively brief to hit all of the topics of ‘what’s new’!

Point Salad
Our first game design to get published got released at Gen Con! It’s been super exciting! Robb, Molly, and I all got to attend the show and celebrate the release, together with tonnes of gamers at AEG’s Big Game Night! It was a really special evening where we got to see hundreds of copies of our game go home with folks who attended the event. We also got to share it with some of the game’s biggest fans, Jan and Chad Martinell! They made us special t-shirts and everything - pretty awesome! Overall, the reception for the game has been overwhelming! The Game Boy Geek pitted it up against Sushi Go for the title of go-to drafting game, and to our surprise, Point Salad came out on top! (Cult of the new, amiright!?) The Dice Tower also gave the game an 8.5 rating and a Seal of Excellence, which was pretty remarkable! There have also been countless other great reviews. It’s been really special to see people out in the world enjoying something that we made with so much care and love. Point Salad is about simplicity and taking some fun mechanisms and boiling them down so that you can take a game home to family and non-gaming friends and have a fun time introducing them to drafting and set collection. The official launch date isn’t until September 6th, but retailers who participated in AEG’s Big Game Night satellite events were able to order their copies, so there should be some floating around. Pretty excited to see if the game can maintain the buzz and continue to be something people are interested in playing! Also, a huge thank you to everyone who has made this possible! We have had nothing but massively supportive folks helping us push things forward and we are really excited to share the fun with everyone!

Calico
We have been hard at work on the first game we are publishing ourselves! It’s not one of our games, but our good friend Kevin Russ’s! In order to take on the role of publishers, we knew we had to enlist the help of our friends, so in early 2019 we formed an extension of Flatout Games called the CoLab. The CoLab for Calico was formed as a working group where the 6 members have come together in order to split the work and profits of successfully crowdfunding a game. It’s a way for ourselves and Kevin to get a game made by enlisting the help of colleagues who have a range of skills. I will likely do another blog post about the CoLab and some of the aims and terms of it later, but for now it’s basically an experimental way of doing publishing where we get everyone on board and have a very democratic approach to design, development, marketing, and publishing. It’s been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun! We have been showing off Calico for the past several months and the reception has been awesome. Running tiny demo tables at Origins and Gen Con was a lot of fun and we got to meet hundreds of folks and show them the game. We are really excited about the design - it’s super simple, but so deep - and the development work that has gone into it. Working with Beth Sobel on the artwork is another bucket list dream come true! She is a lovely human and an amazingly talented artist! We couldn’t be happier with how things have turned out so far and we’re really excited to share this game with the world and help get Kevin’s name out there! It has been unbelievably great working with Kevin, David, Dylan, Molly, and Robb on this project. It’s pretty special when you get to make something really cool with people you love and respect - it’s been an absolute blast so far and we are excited to keep pushing forward! Thanks to everyone who has shown interest, said kind words about the game, and/or taken the time to playtest it and help us make it better. Calico is a labor of love for so many people and we thank you all for joining us on this crazy journey! If you haven’t heard about it yet, you can find out more about Calico on our game page. Make sure you sign up for our newsletter so that you can be notified when the project goes on Kickstarter in the next few months!

Public Market
We have another puzzly tile-laying game coming soon, and this time it is one that we designed! Public Market is a spatial puzzle bidding game that is being published by Talon Strikes Studios. We have been actively working through development on the game and are having a blast working with Eric Elvarado and Jason Washburn - they are extremely knowledgeable and they love their craft! We are really excited for the game to come out. It’s got some fun and different mechanisms that we think folks will enjoy, and it’s based on fish mongers in large, open-air markets, like the Pike Place Market here in Seattle.which is a pretty unique theme that we are excited to bring to life!

Other Game Designs
While working as part of the CoLab to bring Calico to life, we have not stalled out on the design front! We have a number of designs that we have been developing throughout 2019. We had the opportunity to pitch games at Origins and Gen Con and will hopefully find great homes for a number of our games! We are currently working on:
Deep Dive - a simple push-your-luck game with penguins!
Galapagos - a spatial tile-flipping game about creating habitats of native species on the Galapagos Islands
Realms - a streamlined worker placement engine building race game
Cropped - a spatial deck builder
Satchel Quest - a bag-building dungeon-crawl puzzle game
Mosaic - a simple spatial engine-building game

We also have probably a dozen others.
I am also co-designing a game called Skeleton Keys with Rob Newton from Coin Flip Games. It’s a unique 3D puzzle game with some of the craziest components we have ever made! I’m also working with Chad Martinell on a pinball card game (really excited about this one, just need to carve out some time to get it together!)

We continue to do design and development work. We are really focused on creating really elegant games and unique experiences. I’m really excited about a lot of the things we are working on and we feel pretty proud of our production in 2019! We have such a great community in Seattle that help us push ideas forward. We are really lucky to have a tight-knit group of super-dedicated designers who contribute so much to the games that we are all making. We can’t thank these folks enough - community makes all the difference!

___

Well, that’s a little bit of a window into what’s new with Flatout Games! Thanks for stopping by!

Shawn

Thursday 08.08.19
Posted by Molly Johnson
Comments: 2
 

It starts!

IMG_20190504_113456_MOD.jpg

Hello, world.

This is the inaugural post to the Flatout Games blog.
We don’t really have a particularly good sense of how this is all going to go, but we decided that writing was good and so we should do it.

Although there is no concrete plan for the blog, one of the primary goals of this space is to talk a little bit more at length about different topics. Twitter is a platform we are really engaged with, but it isn’t always the best place to get longer ideas out in written form. I have a lot of respect for folks who can do this, but I often find myself making lengthy threads and saying too much, even though it is the equivalent of a paragraph. It also has that awkward bit about each tweet being so many characters (remember when it was fewer!? Hard to believe….). Anyways, this is an opportunity to discuss any topics that come up that any of us, our CoLab collaborators, or other guests feel compelled to explore.

We are looking forward to it, and we hope you will join us for the ride!
We would love to engage with the comments here, or have a conversation on Twitter afterwards (complete with not-enough-characters, etc… but if we take the discussion outside, then there is a chance more people will engage and we will have more fruitful discussions.

Thanks for the fun, and enjoy your remaining games!

Shawn

Saturday 05.11.19
Posted by Molly Johnson