Welcome to the Toy Business Unboxed Podcast, where we explore the stories and strategies behind the toys and games shaping today’s market. In this episode, Jason Hsieh sits down with Michael Welling, co-founder of Tone Deaf Bards, an indie board game company built around one clear goal: games for anyone. Michael and his partners Tom and Paulina launched the company out of a shared frustration with boring games, determined to prove they could do better. With three published titles and a pipeline deep enough to sustain a new release every six months for the next 15 years, their journey is packed with practical lessons for anyone building in this space.
#171: The $400 Patron Tier That Built a Game Trilogy – Toy Business Unboxed
Episode Highlight
- 00:00 Welcome and guest intro
- 00:38 Origin story of Tone Deaf Bards
- 01:44 Building Unsung Heroes during COVID
- 03:09 Kickstarter lessons learned the hard way
- 04:54 Why follower count before launch matters
- 07:55 Inside Hexed and the game catalog
- 09:53 The patron tier that built Unsung Heroes 3
- 13:08 Distribution challenges for indie publishers
- 18:33 The math behind game balance
- 24:14 One piece of advice for newcomers
From a Shared Frustration to a Board Game Brand
Tone Deaf Bards started with a challenge. Tom, a friend and future business partner, was about to become a father and did not want his kids playing the same dull games he had grown up with, so he challenged Michael to prove they could build something better. Michael agreed, and from that single conversation the company was born. Tom’s wife Paulina joined early on and became an integral part of the operation, though she prefers to work behind the scenes. What started as a casual bet between friends became a registered LLC built in the middle of a global pandemic.
Building Unsung Heroes from Concept to Completion
The first game, Unsung Heroes, took nearly three full years to go from concept to shelf because the team was simultaneously building the LLC, sorting out partnership agreements, and navigating COVID-era delays. Unsung Heroes is a two-to-four player game featuring unique character decks, dice mechanics, and a boss-fight finale where players spend the first four rounds building power for the fifth. It was entirely self-funded, which gave the team full creative control but also full financial risk. That experience became the foundation for everything they learned about production, timing, and what to do differently on the next project.
What Tone Deaf Bards Learned from Their First Kickstarter
The team returned to crowdfunding for their second and third titles, and Kickstarter proved to be a different world from self-funding. The first lesson was financial: Kickstarter takes a percentage of what you raise, so your goal needs to be set higher than your actual production cost. The more important discovery was around timing, because a 30-day campaign actually requires up to 180 days of preparation in advance. Michael is direct about the first 48 hours being everything, since the odds of a campaign succeeding drop sharply if it is not fully funded within that window.
How Unsung Heroes 2 Went From Zero to Fully Funded in 3.5 Days
The launch of Unsung Heroes 2 is one of the standout moments in the company’s history. Starting with no followers at all, the campaign reached full funding in three and a half days through pure word-of-mouth momentum that Michael describes as a wildfire. A major factor was convention networking, where the team struck cross-promotion agreements with other developers to back and promote each other’s campaigns. The campaign also introduced a patron tier where backers could pay $400 to co-design a custom character with the team, and all four available slots were claimed within 24 hours.
Letting Customers Decide What Gets Made Next
One of Tone Deaf Bards’ most unconventional strategies is letting their audience choose the next game in development. At a convention during the Unsung Heroes 2 campaign, they spread out multiple prototypes in progress and asked attendees to play them and share their honest preferences. Hexed, originally planned as their sixth game, jumped to third in line because demand for it was so much stronger than anything else they were showing. Michael sees this approach as both market research and early community investment, because by the time a game launches there is already an audience that feels genuine ownership over it.
Inside the Tone Deaf Bards Game Catalog
Hexed is a two-player abstract strategy game built around hexagonal domino-style tiles and pieces that move across the board toward the opposing side. Players activate elemental effects by aligning three matching runes in a row, adding a layer of strategy to what starts as a straightforward movement game. The full ruleset fits almost entirely on the board and spans only two to three pages, but the game rewards deeper play over repeated sessions. Together, the three published titles cover a range of mechanics, player counts, and complexity levels that reflect the “games for anyone” motto across very different audiences.
The Science of Balancing a Board Game
Game balance at Tone Deaf Bards relies on compartmentalization and the law of averages rather than trying to solve everything at once. The team separates shared cards (which every character uses equally) from character-specific cards, so they only need to balance a smaller subset at a time. Dice mechanics are evaluated using probability averages, so a card paired with two six-sided dice is assigned a base value of seven regardless of what any single roll produces. Tom’s engineering background and Paulina’s finance expertise drive most of the math, with the result being a game where no single character has a statistical advantage even though individual sessions can vary widely.
Unsung Heroes 3 and the Community Model Behind It
Unsung Heroes 3 exists because four people wanted their own characters in a game badly enough to pay $400 each for the opportunity. The patron tier from the Unsung Heroes 2 Kickstarter offered backers the chance to co-design a character with the team, and an added promise that four signups would trigger a full third installment of the series. All four slots were claimed within 24 hours, and the team had to turn away additional interested backers. Multiple people have since reached out asking to be included in future co-creation opportunities, and Unsung Heroes 3 is now next in the production queue when the right resources align.
Advice for Newcomers in the Toy and Game Industry
Michael’s advice comes from a conversation with a veteran board game designer at a convention, and it has stayed with him since. The designer pointed out that just 200 feet down the hall, in the playtest room, there were hundreds of games in progress, and maybe one or two of them would ever see print. The only difference between that room and where Tone Deaf Bards was set up with published products on the table was that they had actually done it. Michael’s message is simple: if you have an idea, take the plunge, because the adventure of building something real and the people you meet along the way is worth far more than any individual outcome.
Conclusion
Michael Welling’s story with Tone Deaf Bards is proof that indie board game publishing is challenging, unconventional, and completely worth pursuing. From a bet between friends to three published titles and a packed development pipeline, the company has grown by staying close to their customers and trusting the process at every step. Their Kickstarter strategies, convention-driven feedback loops, and patron tier model offer a practical framework for anyone working toward their first or next release. For anyone still deciding whether to start, Michael’s message is clear: the gap between the playtest room and the show floor is wide, but the only thing standing in the way is the decision to go.
Connect with Michael Welling
If you’re interested in learning more about Tone Deaf Bards or connecting with Michael Welling you can reach out through the following channels:
- Website: Visit Tone Deaf Bards’ official website for the latest news, game updates, and more
- Instagram: Follow Tone Deaf Bards on Instagram for visual updates, game previews, and creative inspiration
- Facebook: Follow Tone Deaf Bards for updates, discussions, and behind-the-scenes content.
Transcript
Jason Hsieh (00:00)
Welcome back to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed. In today’s episode, we have Michael, one of the co-founders for Tone Deaf Bards, which is known for their motto for games for anyone. And their studio has already released three very unique titles and have a lot more on the work as far as in development. And in this episode, we’ll talk about the background behind the company, how they turned the idea into a playbook of games, and the journey so far within the toys and game industry.
Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today, Mike.
Michael Welling (00:29)
Hey, thank you, Jason. It’s great to be here.
Jason Hsieh (00:31)
Yeah, so first of all, can you kind of share the story behind the brand and what w inspired you to start your own publishing company?
Michael Welling (00:38)
Yeah, so a few years ago, 2018, 2019, somewhere in there, a gentleman a friend of mine actually who I worked with, his name’s Tom. he’s my business partner. And Tom and I worked together at the same company. And Tom approached me about this concept of board gaming and he’s just about to become a dad. He really was wanting to
you know, be able to play cool board games with his children and had asked me, who is, you know, is a father of two already, what does that look like and how much fun it was. And it turns out that he was really nervous about playing really boring games. that’s really what this whole thing started with. He’s like, I don’t want my kids to play Monopoly or Parcheesy. Like I want them to be able to you know go to grandma’s house or whatever and play a cool game.
And I say, you know, and I agreed. I said you know, there are some games out there that are a ton of fun, right? And then there are some games out there that they’re not not as fun. And so you know, Tom basically challenged me a little bit. He goes, I’ll bet you and I could probably make a game that’s better than three fourths of what’s out there. I said, You’re probably right. And the ball was rolling. And from that moment on, that became our project together.
Jason Hsieh (01:41)
What was the first game that you two start working on?
Michael Welling (01:44)
Yeah, the first game was Unsung Heroes. it’s this yellow box right here behind me. and Unsung Heroes was a journey because when we started, we weren’t tone deaf bards, right? It was just Mike and Tom, and that was it. and eventually Tom’s wife Paulina jumped in with us. So there’s really three of us. when I say my business partners, I’m referring to them. Sometimes I’ll refer to Tom, but Paulina’s an integral part of things, but likes to stay in the background.
So yeah, oftentimes she doesn’t get brought up in conversation where I go, ⁓ hey, Mike and Tom have this business. It’s really Mike, Tom, and Paulina. but for simplicity’s sake, we just say it’s Mike and Tom because again, she prefers to stay in the background. But yeah, Unsung Heroes was you know, we didn’t have Tone Deaf Bards, it was just the three of us. And so there was a lot of not only were we trying to develop a game, but we were trying to understand the components of an LLC, how that works.
How a partnership agreement works. We were in the middle of COVID, so things moved really slowly. there were some other things going on that really hampered our progress. So Unsung Heroes was released in 2021, and so it took almost three full years for it to go from concept to completion. but it also we learned a ton, and we were also developing the LLC while we were doing that. So but yeah, it was
process and there was a lot to learn and we were we were doing it in the middle of COVID so
Jason Hsieh (03:02)
I see. And for this first game, do you also did a Kickstarter campaign? Can you kind of walk us through your journey when you’re launching your first game?
Michael Welling (03:09)
Yeah, so the first game we didn’t know any better. and we actually self-funded. Self-funded the first game. but the other two games we did Kickstart. and so for Kickstarter, again, it’s a different animal. And it’s the first time you do it, man, you learn a lot of lessons. And we’ve noticed a few things about Kickstarter as well. So for example, Kickstarter will take a percentage of whatever it is.
That you make, right? So if you say, hey, I need five thousand dollars for this game, right? Yeah. What you really need is about six thousand. By the time they take what they need, and then you’re gonna have a little extra to do whatever you need to do with, you really need a lot more than you think you need initially. ⁓ and so that was one thing that we noticed about Kickstarter that we kind of learned the hard way. We got lucky with Unsung Heroes 2, which is in that pink box there. we went from
zero followers, not even backers, just followers. We had no followers to fully fund it in three and a half days. Now that was a wildfire word of mouth style. Everyone just kind of jumped in for us. and we got lucky. And what we realized is that when you do a Kickstarter, a Kickstarter might last 30 days, but for you it probably lasts 180 because you want to set up your kickstart page.
to be fully ready and get followers and build followers so that when you say go, everyone jumps in. Because the odds of your Kickstarter succeeding drop drastically if you’re not fully funded in the first 48 hours.
Jason Hsieh (04:33)
Yeah,
yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think with all the competition nowadays it’s also very important to get everything prepared. I think most people if you want to have a successful launch, just like you say, it’s more than just getting the page ready, but also have like people lining up ready to back the campaign before the campaign go live. So that’s a lot of marketing that you need to be doing before
Michael Welling (04:54)
ton of marketing and a lot of networking too. One of the things we were able to do is go to like conventions and things and talk to other manufacturers or designers who were kickstarting and we would say, Hey, we’ll back you if you back us, right? we’ll help promote your game if you help promote our game. Yeah. But we started working with other game developers to try and build that following for when that game launched. Yeah.
Jason Hsieh (05:17)
Yeah, that’s a smart way to do it. And for those of the listeners that haven’t played with your game, can you kind of also explain how does Unsung Hero work? Like the mechanic and the rule of the games?
Michael Welling (05:28)
Yep. Yeah. So we built Unsung Heroes as a kind of I don’t want to say it’s an introductory game, but it’s very lighthearted, right? So it’s two to four players, and the concept is very simple. you get to pick a character. So this is Wanda here. and that she’s kind of our wizard, and then you get a deck of cards for Wanda. They’ll have her color and her icon on the back, and
When you play cards from your hand, you get to play a card from your hand each turn. it will give you like a score. So like this is plus four, right? Big stick for plus four points. you can also roll dice. So we have like a four-sided die. All the four-sided dice are blue. It’s that little triangle there, and you get to add that to your score. And so at the end of each round, you will have played a few cards, you’ll have a score.
You can sometimes affect your opponent’s score or try to alter your score by like re-rolling dice. and then the high score wins the round. And after you do that four times, and then you’ll d basically be defeating minions of the bad guy, right? And then you will get power ups and treasures along the way that you can then use in the final round against the boss. And whoever has the high score in the fifth round wins.
So you do well the first few rounds and still come back and win the last round and still win the game.
Jason Hsieh (06:39)
I see, I see. How many player usually you recommend?
Michael Welling (06:42)
It’s two to four. It’s two to four. we had one of the expansions or the Kickstarter like bonus things tiers was to expand Unsung Heroes from four to have five to eight player options as well. we didn’t quite get to that in our Kickstarter. Option is a possible future project for us, but we haven’t explored it yet, so we’re still two to four.
Jason Hsieh (06:58)
I see.
Mm, I see, I see, I see, I see. And you say you have Unsung Hero one and two. So two is an expansion, I assume, or is it a totally different game?
Michael Welling (07:13)
Yeah, so good question. Unsung Heroes Two initially was an expansion. we had designed the first box to contain more than what was in there, and you would have been able to fit all of Unsung Heroes II into Unsung Heroes One. but during the Kickstarter we did hit a stretch goal that allowed us to make Unsung Heroes Two a standalone game. So Unsung Heroes Two is a standalone game, you don’t need Unsung Heroes one. You can play Unsung Heroes II by itself. Yeah.
But when we designed it, it still works backwards with Unsung Heroes One. So you can mix and match Unsung Heroes One and Two and it still all works together.
Jason Hsieh (07:45)
I see. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I know you also have developed a couple of other games over the years as well. Can you also kind of just talk briefly about all the other games that you have published so far?
Michael Welling (07:55)
For sure. So the other game that we have is called Hexed. it’s in this blue box behind me over here. Hex is a two-player abstract strategy game, uses domino style pieces, has kind of a I’m gonna say a Chinese checkers vibe where you’re trying to get one of your pieces to the other side. ⁓ but it uses you know elements and runes and has different secondary effects that can help manipulate the board to help you further your goals. it takes about 40-45 minutes.
Your pieces are basically these either yellow or purple, almost like numberless dice. okay. And they walk around on these tiles, and the tiles themselves are hexagonal dominoes. Okay. So here’s what I mean by hexagonal dominoes. So then each side of the hexagonal domino has a rune on it.
Jason Hsieh (08:35)
⁓ okay, okay.
Michael Welling (08:40)
And your piece sits on that tile. So the tile will lay flat and your piece is on it. if you get three of one element in a row, you can activate that and get some sort of secondary effect depending on the element. Yeah. So all the rules, the base concept of the rules all fit on the board. the rules are only like two, three pages long. They’re super simple rules, but it does a lot of complexity within the game.
Jason Hsieh (09:01)
Mm, I see, I see, I see. So that’s very different product than the first one. Exactly. Yeah. And you I think you have one more, right? You have one more product.
Michael Welling (09:06)
Exactly.
30 more. Okay.
we have a ton of games that are in various stages from concept to complete. Okay. I see. and we have I’d say probably two or three more that if we just decided to have the money, we could probably publish them tomorrow. so we’re close on a couple of new projects. ⁓ the one that will be next is actually a result of the Kickstarter from Unsung Heroes 2, which is over here behind me. one of the options we gave on Unsung Heroes 2.
In an effort to raise funds quicker, was we gave this patron level option where if you gave us, I forget what it was, four or five hundred dollars, ⁓ we would design a character for you and you could use it in the Unsung Heroes world, and we would work with you, decide what that character looked like and what your abilities were, right? We tried to get that engagement with our customers. And we put a little note on there. We said if four of you actually do this.
Jason Hsieh (09:53)
Interesting. Okay.
Michael Welling (10:01)
we will develop Unsung Heroes three, make it a trilogy and put your four characters as the characters in the game. everyone can have them. And within twenty four hours, all four of those were snatched up. People wanted to be able to have involvement in the project. And we actually Yeah, we had two or three people actually that wanted to do it, but we ran out of slots. Like we only offered it to four people. So yeah,
Jason Hsieh (10:19)
An interesting way to do it. Yeah.
Michael Welling (10:26)
We’ve had several people come to us since then and say, Hey, if you ever do something like that again, let me know. I’d love to be able to have a character of mine in your game or be able to have some input into one of these games. So it was a very successful way of raising additional funds through Kickstarter so that we didn’t need as many people to back the project because we had a higher per backer.
Jason Hsieh (10:47)
Tier. Yeah. ⁓ okay, okay. How much is that tier? the way you structure it?
Michael Welling (10:52)
So the games themselves we tier it at a I think about retail. So like for example, Unsung Heroes was thirty-five dollars for the game. Yeah. So you could pay, I think it was thirty or thirty-five dollars and just buy the game. But then we would offer different incentives, like you can add on, you know, a special art card that you can only get through this, you know, for ten dollars, or you can get, you know,
if you’re trying to back Unsung Heroes two, but you don’t have Unsung Heroes One, you can add Unsung Heroes One on as an add-on. Okay. And then for I think it was I think it was 400 was the patron tier where we let you create a character. And I think like for 50 or 60 extra bucks, we let you design one of the treasures in the card. yeah. Yeah, one or people do that as well. So there’s really only two tiers. There’s the game.
Yeah. And then a patron. But there are a bunch of different add ons that you could have selected to get involved with the project at their various levels.
Jason Hsieh (11:44)
I see, I see, I see, I see. And what kind of marketing were you doing to promote the campaign back then?
Michael Welling (11:51)
a lot of social media. We went to a lot of conventions. you know, we only had it for sixty days, whatever, but I think we went to like three conventions in sixty days. we did Twitter and we did Facebook social media stuff. neither of us, neither of the partners are real big on social media. So I kind of I tried my hand at it. We got a few people in.
we have since hired someone to kind of manage our social media accounts for us because again, it’s not really our bag, so
Jason Hsieh (12:16)
I see, I see. I think a lot of the publisher I talk to is obviously it’s good to have a successful Kickstarter campaign. But what happened after Kickstarter is a lot of people struggle. It’s like how do I keep on growing the company, growing the exposure, the visibility? Now the Kickstarter is finished. Like what do I do? Like as far as for your brand, what is your ongoing marketing that you’re doing right now? to still continue promoting the product and kind of get your product.
And the game out there to the potential customer.
Michael Welling (12:44)
That’s a great question. So there’s a couple of hiccups, and I know a lot of other people in the industry feel this, and so I want to say this out loud so they know they’re not alone. getting into distribution is very difficult. Yeah. Very difficult. And I understand why, right? So these distributors only have so much space that they can they can allocate. And if the if you are an unknown product, you’re
Jason Hsieh (12:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Michael Welling (13:08)
probably not worth the risk to them to store a bunch of product in, right? So I understand that. And and that makes it really difficult to crack into the business unless you are one of the companies that’s already in, right? It makes it makes getting to that tier very difficult. a lot of our success is because of word of mouth. It’s because if the girlfriend and I take a vacation, I grab a handful of games with me and while we’re out, I will stop by a game store.
And see if they’d be interested in carrying the game. there’s a lot of what Tom calls grit, where it’s just, you know, sometimes you know, you’re gonna take a 24 hour business trip and go find five different stores and two of them won’t even be open, right? But because you don’t have access to distribution, going door to door is really the best way to get your product into physical locations. Now we have, like I said, a social media account. We have a web store on our website.
Right. we tried Amazon but had a very negative experience with Amazon. So we’ve scaled back from Amazon, but you now get it directly from us, right? our approach as a company is we would prefer you go to your local game store, right? Because to us, they’re kind of our business partners, right? They’re the ones that can advocate for our games and what we’re trying to accomplish better than any website ever will. So if
If it was like, hey Michael, we would love to get a copy of your game. You can order it direct from me and that’s fine. It would be even cooler if you went to your local game store and said, Go check these guys out and carry their product.
Jason Hsieh (14:34)
Mm, I see, I see. But how about digital marketing? What kind of digital marketing are you doing right now besides ⁓ social media posting?
Michael Welling (14:41)
None. we aren’t doing any digital marketing at the moment. that is something that we’re kind of we don’t have a lot in the coffers right now in terms of money. some of our projects have been put on hold due to tariffs and economic conditions throughout the globe. So we’re kind of using this time to build up a little bit, right? So that way we can do another campaign, we can do marketing for it, we can do a big push when the time is right.
Jason Hsieh (15:04)
I see, I see, I see. Got it, got it, got it. So I know you mentioned you have a lot of like City Game in the pipeline. How do you prioritize which one to develop and which one to work on next and which one to publish next? Like out of all these things you have in the pipeline.
Michael Welling (15:18)
Yeah, that’s a great question. So I guess just from concept to what completion or concept to prototype even. ideas happen, I think is the best way to describe it. So whether it’s myself or Tom or Paulina, when something happens, we’re like, yo, that’d be kind of fun to create that into a game, or hey, I have this idea. We have a Discord. We just have a little chat channel. And one of the channels in this Discord is called Crazy Ideas. We just we throw something in there.
And then when we get together, one of the things we do is we go through these and go, Hey, you posted this in here, what’s this about? And if we can develop that idea, then it gets its own little channel. And then we can take those ideas and move it to that channel so we can kind of compartmentalize these ideas. Once we’ve kind of captured them, we don’t immediately act on them, we kind of let them marinate, right? When you have as many ideas as we do,
You’re not rushed, right? We have a ton of content. And you know, with 30 games, even if we came out with a game every six months, we have enough in our pipeline right now to last us the next 15 years. Right. So we have plenty of content to work on. So we let these ideas marinate a little bit and then we come back to them. And when we start looking at what interests us, we’ll pick three or four or five at a time and we’ll start building these up in various stages.
Eventually, after a lot of playtesting, we might even create a prototype. And the prototype are the ones that when we’re like, hey, we think we’re close to having this game ready. then there’s well, what do you do next? Right. Like once you have all these ideas and you’ve kind of narrowed it down to these few, then how do you know which one to pick? And for that, believe it or not, we didn’t get to decide. We let our customers decide. So what we did is while we were
Campaigning for Unsung Heroes 2, we actually were at a convention and we have built multiple prototypes for games. Okay. And we just laid them out. And we’re just like, here’s what we’re working on now. Like here’s the games we have now. Here’s what we’re working on right now. But these are all games in the pipeline. If you’re interested, give us feedback on what
Jason Hsieh (17:13)
which one they interested in.
Michael Welling (17:16)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. And originally hexed was supposed to be our sixth game. okay. in our minds, like we kind of had them listed out. We’re like, Hex is probably six, which is funny because it’s hex, right? Hexagon like you know, right? ⁓ and so we even when we started making our first game and our second game, like in the instructions of our first game here, we have the little symbol that I showed you earlier right down here on the bottom of the page. Yeah, slid that into the instructions as like a kind of an Easter egg of hey.
Jason Hsieh (17:26)
Yeah.
Michael Welling (17:43)
Eventually that’s gonna come into play somewhere and it was hexed. Yeah. And we were starting to plant these Easter eggs about Hexed ⁓ early on, but it got pushed to third because the demand for it was just overwhelming compared to the other IPs that we were offering. So we said, Well, we should probably listen to what people want. If they’re saying hex should be next, then hex should be next. So we ended up letting our customers and our fans decide what the next step.
Jason Hsieh (18:07)
I see. Yeah, that’s an excellent way to kind of decide which one to roll out just by talking to the customer directly. I mean they vote with their wallet pretty much. Exactly. So and I know with game design, I feel like maybe mass and balance are also huge, like as far as making sure the game itself is balanced enough. how do you approach when you come to designing so many different games over the years on to make sure the game’s balanced in a way?
⁓ what are some of the different aspects you look at?
Michael Welling (18:33)
Yeah, so there’s a lot of probability and statistics when you especially when you’re dealing with dice, right? when we were discussing how to balance the game, and first of all, I got a major props to Tom and Paulina because between the two of them they are either a finance professional or an engineer. And so there’s a lot of math that gets thrown around.
And I’m decent with numbers, but I’m not engineering finance good with numbers. So yeah, they handle a lot of the math. And we discovered little there are little tricks you can do to help balance the math because it can be rather daunting, especially if you’re not an engineer or a finance professional, right? But what we discovered is that you can compartmentalize the math. And what I mean by that is like, for example, in Unsung Heroes, right, we have a deck of cards for your character. And
There’s 15 cards in this deck. Now, 10 of them have like this, peach colored background. Yeah. And five of them are going to have the character’s color background. So Wanda’s purple. Okay. This card’s only found in Wanda’s deck. Right. And you see this card in any other deck. The peach color card is going to be in every deck. And so if you take these 10 cards that have the peach colored and you give them to everybody.
It’s balanced, right? Everyone has the same tools, right? It’s kind of like Monopoly in that regard, right? Where Monopoly technically is fair because everyone starts with the same amount of money in the same spot with the same possibilities. Yeah. Right. And just through random and everything else, things happen. Well, in game design, you can compartmentalize that. So instead of having to worry about balancing fifteen cards for four different characters, we just have to balance five.
Jason Hsieh (20:11)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Welling (20:12)
And that becomes a lot more manageable to handle, right? there’s the law of averages, right? So if you roll like for Wanda here, you get to roll two six-sided dice. There’s the red squares. The average of two D6, two six-sided dice is seven. So this card would be worth seven points. Now, maybe you roll an eleven, maybe you roll a two, but the average is going to be seven. So us that card’s worth seven points.
And you’re able break down a card’s value. And as long as those values are even, right? You’ve done what you can do for If you have any sort of random element in something, you’re not going to have a complete 100% balance, but you can get pretty close by breaking down where the differences are going to be. there’s treasures involved in the game where you can get really strong power-ups to fight the boss with, those treasures
You know, some of them are better in the hands of Wanda, but some of them aren’t. There’s some that she probably wouldn’t want as much, right? And so even though that happens, all the treasures are worth about the same power level, right? Like they give you about the same benefit. So really when you get an option of treasures, you’re really trying to figure out what’s best for my character to take, which is more of a strategic thing and not a balanced thing. So even though those cards are really strong, they’re all roughly the same in terms of
value and power, so they’re balanced. And everyone has the opportunity to get them. So there’s balance there as well.
Jason Hsieh (21:35)
Hmm, okay. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. And looking ahead here, like I know in 2025 a lot of things changing in the industry. How are you seeing the board game industry as a whole evolving and what are some of your vision for your company in the upcoming years?
Michael Welling (21:50)
Yeah. I don’t have a crystal ball. And if you had told me twenty years ago this would the industry would be where it’s at right now, I don’t know if I would have believed you. I can see a few different ways the industry goes. I can picture especially with the global economy, I can picture companies shifting towards more of a print on demand style. Like you see where you can like
Publish a novel on Amazon and have it just print on demand, where you don’t have to have a stack of books in your house you’re trying to sell out of the back of your trunk anymore. Like I can see game design going that route where it’s like, hey, if you enjoy this game, buy it, they’ll print one and send it to you. Right. I think some things would have to happen. Like, for example, dice don’t get manufactured in the United States, even though the United States is a massive consumer for board games. But there are no dice manufacturers anywhere in the United States, at least as of
couple years ago, right? So I can see like there are steps that would have to be taken to accommodate, but I could absolutely see a kind of a print on demand. I also could see with the influx of game design companies such as us where manufacturers are going to lower their MOQs, which for those that haven’t produced before is minimum order quantity. So basically when you go to produce your game, you have to produce a certain number of them before they’ll
Even look at you. ⁓ more often than not, that number’s 500. I can see that coming down. I can see a two 200, 250. I can see smaller print runs being done. and I can also see the other thing I can possibly envision is something like a tabletop simulator, which exists where you can play board games online with your friends and stuff. I can even see something in the future where if you buy a board game.
It’ll come with like a QR code where you can scan it and upload the game to your tabletop simulator. So you have a digital version of your board game that comes with the board game. So I could see any of those possibly or all of those possibly happening in the future.
Jason Hsieh (23:46)
Mm. I think a lot of the things you mentioned is already happening, just not at a scale. For example, I know Game Crafter kind of do a print on demand even so their cost is a bit higher, but they are kinda already trying to do that in the industry a little bit.
Michael Welling (23:57)
That’s
yeah, that’s already starting to happen a little bit and I can see that I in ten years being a real big thing.
Jason Hsieh (24:03)
I see. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that. And as we’re kind of wrapping up today’s interview here, if you had to share just one piece of advice with someone that’s getting started within the toys and game industry, what would that be?
Michael Welling (24:14)
I’ll give you the advice and a very quick story. We were at a convention and ⁓ we were demoing Unsung Heroes, and a gentleman sat down with us who had been in the board game industry for decades with a very prominent board game designer and had basically told us, Hey, you guys are doing very well. you’re on the right path, you have the right mindset, keep doing what you’re doing, keep building your brand. but he made a real
almost philosophical comment that I hold to my heart to this day. Okay. And it was, he said, about at this local convention we were at, about 200 feet down the hallway, there was this a room where people could take prototypes of the games they were designing and get people to actually play test them and try them out. Okay. And he said, you know, you you’re only 200 feet away from the playtest hall, but you’re a worlds apart.
Right. The gap between that room and where you sit now is incredibly wide. And of the hundred games going on in there, maybe one or two get printed. and he said you should take solace in knowing that. And I thought the only difference between us and them is that we did it. and realistically, and so that would be my advice is if you an idea, Do it. it’s a hundred percent worth it. It’s scary at first, but once you take the initial plunge.
This is one of the greatest adventures I’ve ever been on. It’s been totally worth it. And the amount of conversations and the amount of networking and the amount of people I know because I said, ⁓ I actually designed board games people go, wait, what? and I’ve met all sorts of great people and had an amazing last four or five years. I highly recommend it. it’s been worth every penny. And if I don’t make or sell another game, it was still worth it.
Jason Hsieh (25:46)
Hm, I see. Thank you so much for sharing. And for our audience that’s interested to learn a little bit more about you and your company, where’s the best place for people to find you online?
Michael Welling (25:55)
Yeah, so our website is tonedeafbards.com. you can find everything you want to know about us and our games and our motto and our vision for gaming now and in the future. we are on Facebook and Twitter, but again, I’m not really active on that, but we are on Facebook and Twitter and I believe we’re on Instagram as well.
Jason Hsieh (26:12)
Okay, thank you so much for sharing that. I will make sure we put that in the show note. And thank you so much for your time today sharing your journey, your wisdom and your knowledge within the toys and game industry.
Michael Welling (26:21)
I appreciate you guys having me on here. It’s been great.
Jason Hsieh (26:24)
Yeah, and thank you for our audience for tuning in to this episode of Toy Business Unboxed Podcast. We hope you have enjoyed today’s conversation and find it insightful and inspiring. If you like what you have heard, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode. We really appreciate your support and would love it if you can leave us a review and share the podcast with your friend and colleague. For more resource, tips, and the latest update we in the toys and game industry, visit our website at toy-launch.com and you can join the conversation and join our free Facebook group.
Toy Games Launch Pad. You can find us on Facebook or you can go to toy-launch.com/group to find our Facebook group. And we’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions so we can all share with each other within the industry. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joys through toys. this is Jason Hsieh signing off on the Toy Business Unboxed podcast. We’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much, everyone.
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