Posted in: Dropout, Games, Interview, Tabletop | Tagged: Game Changer, Sam Reich

Interview: Sam Reich Discusses Making a Game Changer Board Game

We had a chance to chat with Sam Reich of Dropout about the crowdfunding campaign for Game Changer: Home Edition.

In all of the years that Game Changer has become part of the comedic zeitgeist, there's always been the question of whether or not Dropout would ever try to make a board game based on one of their most popular shows. To our surprise, the topic has come up before, but not to this level, as the company has teamed with tabletop game designer Joshua Balvin to create Game Changer: Home Edition. The crowdfunding campaign for the game launched this week and has already surpassed several goals, with the title currently at $2.7m in funding as we're posting this. We had the chance to chat with Dropout's own Sam Reich about the game's development and a few other topics related to it.

BC: So just kind of jumping right into it, I assume over the years with Game Changer, there's always been that talk of, "What if we made a board game?" What preceded this to finally happen? Was it timing? Did the right idea come around? Did you just cave in to pressure? What kind of got the ball rolling for it?

SR: You know, it really was, you know, we had been imagining what could this be, what could be, and I think we took pitches from folks for about a year, and I just wasn't quite satisfied with any of them. I was being my usual picky self, and I had like a half an idea for the game that I was excited about, which was this idea of a modular game or a game that consisted of different mini games, each of them inspired by episodes of the show, where you could like mix and match modules in order to create your own game that was different every time. And I met with a game designer named Joshua Balvin, and Joshua and I sort of shared this vision for what the game could be. He went away and did some game designing on his own, came back, and we did a playthrough that was with myself and my writers. And we all came out of that playthrough just absolutely buzzing. It was like, oh, we did it. Like, this totally works. It both feels like an homage to the show as well as stands alone as just like a great party game. Not just one great party, but three. So a huge credit to Joshua. And then once we recognized that we had the opportunity, we all leaned in on prompts and actually really writing the game. And that's just been like the most fun exercise, as you can imagine.

When you did that first playthrough, what kind of things did you recognize that worked well? I mean, obviously, you don't want to give too much about the game away. But what kind of stuff did you just sit there and be like, yes, this is absolutely what Game Changer is about. This is what fans would expect from the kind of game that we make.

For sure, you know, there's lots of challenges in translating Game Changer to home game form. The first is that the game's gotta change. And like all home games, for the most part, are based on the premise of here is the game, you know, sort of start and stop here, here it is. And we have the challenge of, like, this has to be novel. Then there's the element of surprise, right? Which is that Game Changer is meant to surprise everyone. How can we basically put surprises in a box and subversion in a box? And then the third is Game Changer is a hosted game, and 90% of party games are structured in such a way that there doesn't have to be an odd person out who's like looming over everyone else and in control of the game. So how can we make this a game that everybody plays together? And I think we've answered all those things. You know, Game Changer is obviously from module to module. The prompt cards really will surprise you in terms of what they ask you to do. The second of our games, which is based on an episode of Game Changer, we call it Name a Number. The entire premise of it is basically that you are buying into performing something, or you're betting an amount that you're willing to do something without knowing what that something is. In our third game, so our first game is based on bingo, second game is on Name a Number, and our third is based in Sam Says. In our Sam Says game, it's gonna ask you to do wild things, and you won't know until you pull that prompt card what it is exactly. And in terms of being a game everyone can play, like this is a version of the game that everybody can play together without an odd person out as host, so I'm really proud of that aspect of it as well.

How does that element kind of play into it so that the game doesn't just end at those three? You can make more.

This gets into our long-term vision for this game, which is that this is our starting place. We already know what games four, five, and six would be. In my dream of dreams, Gavin, this is not a one-and-done proposition. This is like we were creating basically the first Cards Against Humanity pack. And now we get to go on to create like more and more and more and basically like a series of games that all live under the Game Changer banner, so that you could have like Game Changer nights, like Game Changer game nights, over and over again, and like not feel that sense of like relentless repetition. So yeah, that's the plan. These days, I try like not to get into any of these side quests unless I think there's a really big vision behind them, because otherwise it's like not interesting enough, you know?

I know you haven't even made the first game yet, but looking long term, are you just trying to make a library kind of like Disney Villainous, where you can create chapter after chapter, where it's plug and play? Or is it more like you're going to make versions that are far more spicier than the standard game? Or create offshoots that don't tie into the series, but they're their own creation specifically for this?

Well, as far as you can kind of look at it this way, you're kind of dealing with two axes here, right? One of them is prompts. And granted, there are games out there, party games, where all there are are prompts. So some games only exist on this one axis. And we are, along with this version of the game, going to release different prompt packs. So there absolutely will be a not safe for work prompt pack, for instance. On the other axis is the actual game design. And some of these games require more tools than others to play. I think there are bigger visions for what we could translate into game form. You know, my white whale is to try to see if we can turn Roulette from last season into some sort of play-at-home game. It does require, it would require a wheel.

You're going the crowdfunding route, which is kind of the way a lot of tabletop publishers are doing things these days. What made you decide to go through crowdfunding to make this game instead of trying to find a publisher?

The most straightforward possible answer to your question is hype. We're treating this very seriously. We want the fandom to treat it seriously. If we drop it in the store tomorrow, it simply will not be as successful as if we build a community of folks around it who are excited about it before we launch it. There are other reasons too, not the least of which is we want folks' input on the game, fans' input on the game, before we launch it, at the same time, as we don't want them waiting around forever before we deliver it to them. So we really wanted to get 80% of the way there with the game before we turn it over to the fandom to help influence, which I think we've done. There's a business reason, which is just pre-orders. We would have to take a total stab in the dark on the quantity of game if we were to put it in the store tomorrow, and this allows us not to overorder or sell out immediately and then be waiting months for a restock because we know what the demand is. There is a last reason, and I actually think it's the most fun one, which is that we think Game Changer has the opportunity to run a creative Kickstarter campaign. Like, if anybody has the opportunity to think outside the box on Kickstarter, it's us, right? So, we're gonna turn it into a little bit of a game.

Of course you are!

Hahahaha!

Is there any particular aspect of this game being translated over that you're most proud of? Obviously, when you go out and you start making merch of things, you're always kind of curious whether or not the thing that you make translates over. So what's the thing that you're most excited for in this game that you hope people will check out and enjoy the most?

The honest-to-goodness answers to your question… or maybe three. The first of which is I think we nailed it. I genuinely do. Like, I think that this is a really fun, like, show-in-a-box experience and a party type of game, not three party games that have like never been dreamed up before. The second is seeing people I love play this game, like Smosh has played it for us, and they were gonna put out a video, and like Angela Giarratana came up to us. I think it was actually during the recording and was like, " You guys fucking nailed it. And I am so proud of that." The third is, you know, the world of Game Changer is still small. The world of people who get to play, and I think that this could open up like a whole new group of folks, even playing this game online, that I'm going to be excited to learn about. The community of Game Changer expands with this game in a way that's that'll be really exciting to see. Of the three games, I think Name a Number is probably my favorite. They're all great. I think Name a Number is really special.

Since we're on the subject of people playing Game Changer on their own, what has been your reaction to fans throwing their own Game Changer parties or the small ones that you see at bars where people have started making them a community event instead of a pub quiz night?

It's the best. It's the absolute best, you know, we get pictures or people, like, tweet us or send us posts on social media with that sort of stuff. I see a pop-up on Reddit from time to time. It's so gratifying. It's not just Game Changer, by the way, it's actually Dirty Laundry. It's like people host their Dropout-themed game nights where they like cycle through a few different shows. Someone, a cast member, sent me a picture on their phone from a party they went to, where a celebrity I won't name was doing an impression of me as host, running a Game Changer game. That was probably the most surreal.

How does it feel now seeing Dropout become a kind of part of the greater end of pop culture these days?

You know, it's great, but I don't feel people are sort of concerned about outgrowing our GarageBand era. When you think about how small we are relative to Netflix, right? Dropout has over a million subscribers. We've been pretty clear about that. And Netflix, I think, has over 200 million. We could be 10 times the size that we are and still be niche, you know? So I'm not really concerned about losing our indie edge anytime soon. As the company gets bigger, we have to kind of, like, fight harder to do true creative decision-making to make sure that creative is leading the way because infrastructurally it becomes harder to get everybody marching in the same direction. But I'm, you know, up for that challenge. This is like the best job in the world. It has been… It continues to be, and I think the ceiling is quite far away.

Are there any other topics we didn't get to that you want to touch on?

Maybe just that the game actively encourages creative decision-making, depending on the appetite that your group has for creative decision-making. So you can decide amongst yourselves what constitutes cheating. And if you have a high tolerance for that, we played this game on an episode of Parlor Room that's coming out. And based on Brennan's creative decision, I ended up having to chase Demi out of the room and tackle him. And, you know, that's all par for the course.

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