The team behind Trei Amici Games designed a card game called Too Many Turtles that will be launched tomorrow on Valentine’s Day. They have partnered with the non-profit organization, SEE Turtles to use this game to save endangered sea turtles in real life. We recently interviewed Brendan Woodhall and Jordan Woodall, Co-Founders of Trei Amici Games.
Brendan and Jordan, Thank you so much for talking with us. Kindly describe your journey as Entrepreneurs.
Our company is made up of three friends, and we each have a very different story. Both of us grew up in very Entrepreneurially Minded houses and they have been around StartUps since a young age. Brendan became actively involved in Entrepreneurship early in college, helping start a successful online news site as well as freelancing as a business consultant. In 2016, he tried to start a food delivery service in Ogden and he learned a lot in 8 months, mostly what not to do. To this day, most of his friends remind him of that time
Our journey as Trei Amici Games began in a machine shop when we all started working together. In our spare time, we would talk about all manner of thoughts, jokes and other ideas and creativity allowed us to arrive on Too Many Turtles. It wasn’t our first game idea and we certainly didn’t have a solid idea of what Too Many Turtles was going to be, but we started developing the game.
Our process started with generating a list of turtle names (Jordan), figuring out the game mechanics (Chris), and figuring out how in the world we were going to start a business and sell our game. We went through paper playtest cards, to a first print, to our first decks, to a fully functional prototype game in what still feels like no time and our journey began.
What were the initial challenges that you faced in your endeavor?
One of the biggest challenges we faced early on was our own initial concept. We initially wanted to create a Trading Card Game style play experience, and eventually, we’re hoping to get to that point. However, it was pointed out to us by some valuable advisors embedded in the game and local game shop community that there are certain difficulties in building a Trading Card Game and launching a successful campaign. We made quick work of re-aligning our vision with the reality we were facing.
There have been plenty of other challenges that have come up, ranging from figuring out several issues involved with printing our first rounds of cards, to adjusting our marketing strategy as new opportunities and difficulties arise. At the end of the day, it is important to be flexible and responsive as an Entrepreneur. This partnership was built on the premise that 3 votes allow for quick decision making and movement and we believe that has helped us to stay moving forward.
Your upcoming game ‘Too Many Turtles’ is a novel and great initiative to save endangered Turtles. Tell us more about your thought process behind coming up with this game?
Like we’ve mentioned, our project started with three guys in a machine shop with a bit too much time on their hands. Our process of coming up with a game like this didn’t seem much out of our ordinary process back then. The early days consisted in large part, with Chris and Jordan coming up with Turtle Puns and Game Rules and Brendan indiscriminately being used as a sounding board for those ideas.
The real change in mindset came early on when Jordan first told Brendan about the game. Brendan has a mass of experience in sales and marketing so his immediate reaction was to start thinking about how to market and sell a game based on turtles. With the decision to create a game and sell it to the general public, the mad dash to develop a viable prototype and functional marketing strategy kicked into full gear.
Tell us more about the features of this game Too Many Turtles.
Too Many Turtles is a fast-paced, tactical card game aimed at saving turtles in-game, and more importantly in real life. Our easy-to-learn game mechanics along with our incredible art from even more incredible artists, our game can be enjoyed by anyone, from the secret nerds to environmentalists.
Our game has some educational components included, but we’ve incorporated a comedic style. Cards such as Debilitating Pollution and Plastic, represent real-world issues, and they’re unfortunately all too common today. However, cards such as Recycling and Environmental Clean-Up can correct the damage done by Trash Cards. In a turn of fate, and possibly some light social commentary, these cards are rare and prized.
One other educational component of our game comes from our early days. When we started working on the first list of turtle cards. We spent some time researching different species of turtles. We have based several cards on actual turtle species such as Cletus the Eastern River Cooter and Guillermo the Galapagos Green. These cards come with information on the turtle species on the card. These elements, combined with a company direction towards spreading information and awareness, provide a path towards a world that includes Sea Turtles.
Our game incorporates 3 major concepts in gameplay that are worth mentioning. The first concept to discuss is movement. Our game is played on a pyramid playing field consisting of 3 rows. The back row has 4 slots, and the next two rows have 3 and 2 slots respectively. All turtle cards (unless specifically stated on the card effect) are summoned into the back row. Each turn, the player is able to move one turtle up the field. The farther up your turtle is, the more points your turtle will receive during scoring.
The second concept is our cards themselves. Too Many Turtles consists of Turtle Cards and Effect Cards, each of which serve a purpose. Our turtles don’t attack each other, so to affect the field of play, you will need to employ effect cards. There is a degree of strategy that comes with our cards so you will want to make sure you’ve looked through your deck before playing.
Lastly, we should discuss winning or losing. Our game is played in rounds of 5 turns each. Each turn consists of a draw phase, a movement phase, a turtle phase, and an effect phase. At the end of the round, each player will count their total turtle HP with all applicable penalties and bonuses to determine the winner of the round. The game is decided by the best of three rounds so you better get to two wins first!
When a round is over, players will keep their hand and discard all turtle cards on the field before continuing to the next round. There is an element of strategy involved in playing 3 rounds. Sometimes it’s a better idea to hold onto certain cards until later in the game to gain an advantage. Typically, a new player can master the basic elements and begin to employ some strategy after one full game.
Humans often become blind to the existence of other living beings in their developmental journey. How do you think the modern day entrepreneurs should balance growth and development with other ethical concerns including environmental ethics.
We believe Entrepreneurship is inherently tied to responsibility, both personally, and in regards to the world as a whole. Being able to start a business is a privilege not many get to experience and we owe a responsibility to use this platform to make a difference.
It is our intention to play an active part in the conversation about Entrepreneurship and Sustainability. The Indie Gaming community is incredible and Gaming is an incredible community as a whole. Game Developers like Patrick Leder, Rich Loxam, Ramy Badie, Matthew Inman, and Ben Hantoot have taken over this industry and with their help, we could change the world. Our dream is to open the door for more collaborations and games to change the world.
Entrepreneurship is the art of asking what the customer doesn’t know they want yet. Innovation is a crucial aspect of an Entrepreneurial personality, so it’s natural to move that innovation towards solutions, both at large and in the name of sustainability. Our goal is to build a company that reflects that mentality.
Any suggestions you would like to give to aspiring entrepreneurs.
The most important thing is to be willing to do the work. The reason this is the first rule because no tips, tricks or talents will make up for not doing the work. The real secret is to do what needs to be done while also finding the most efficient ways to work. If you have a question, Google it. We can’t stress this enough. If you have the question, then someone else must have too and someone likely wrote a tutorial.
Young aspiring Entrepreneurs need to be willing and able to accept advice from people with more experience. Our process has been to do what we can and rely on feedback from people who know more than we do. Sometimes this isn’t easy, because as creators, it’s easy to view your creation with blinders. Experts help to expose some of those areas where your experience or bias might prevent you from addressing on your own.
For those aspiring individuals willing to put in the work, please don’t listen to the people who don’t believe in your vision. One of the hard lessons you have to learn from experience is when to take advice and critique and when to shut out the doubt. If you put in the work, take advice, try at every opportunity, and learn from every failure, then you will be prepared to take advantage of opportunities as they come.
For more details about this game, please go to www.treiamicigames.com
For all of their social media information, as well as information on their Kickstarter campaign, go to www.treiamicigames.com/blog/indiegamesavesturtles
