Full stop. We think “business is business” is a morally bankrupt copout. We want to work with people we respect creatively, but it’s more important we respect them as human beings. Equitable value exchanges are at the heart of all good business and we strive to make every deal we do more than just transactional.
We’re always looking for new ways to think about the medium of games and how we can use the tools we have to do new and interesting things. From a more functional standpoint, this means that we’re just as interested in working on a photocopy game about food insecurity as we are about doing a mass market licensed party game.
Maybe that game is watching football, or maybe it’s LCR with all your old relatives, or pinball, or catch. But play and interaction are fundamental human attributes. Nothing is for everyone, but there is something for everyone out there. And if we pay attention and listen, we can figure out what that is.
When we look at a design project we aren’t looking at a set of rules and mechanics. We’re looking at experience we want to deliver. Maybe that experience is a very procedural, rule heavy abstraction, but even when we’re buried in spreadsheets and wooden cubes, we’re still looking at how all that is adding to the desig goal. The best rules drop into the background.
Less is more, and we approach a design as if we need to cut away until we get to the core of the desired experience rather than building on layer after layer. How can we meet the design goals of the project in as concise a way as possible? A clear vision of what we are trying to create is the foundation upon which everything is built, but we need to be flexible enough to follow the path the design wants to take us and ruthlessly cut out unneeded fat.
Bringing joy, creating memorable experiences, and building human connections are the most meaningful and fulfilling activities we can spend our lives doing.
When we interact with someone, the question isn’t what can I get out of this, but rather how can we work together and be better for it? This extends from everything to being nice to the UPS driver to engaging in community service to egalitarian driven value exchanges. If we can help, it’s our obligation to do so.