How Grod Games Balances Storytelling and Game Design

Jason Hsieh (00:00)
Welcome back to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed. In today’s episode, we’ll dive into the creative and business journey of Grod Games with co-founder Catherine. Their debut game, Estate: Raise the Realm, is more than just a tabletop title, it’s also the first chapter in the epic fantasy trilogy. And today we’ll talk about how they blend storytelling with the game itself, building connections within the tabletop communities and also navigate the many rules of being an indie publisher.

And we’ll also talk about the reality of running a small game company, the power of crowdfunding, and also how to know when to outsource versus do it yourself. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Kathryn Hahn (00:38)
Thanks for having me, Jason. Super excited to be here and to chat.

Jason Hsieh (00:41)
Yeah, so first of all let’s start out with the background. How did the company came to life and what was your journey so far to creating your own publishing company?

Kathryn Hahn (00:50)
So I’m one of two founders of our company, Grod Games. My other co-founder is also my husband, Devin. And he’s always had a vision to design games ever since he was pretty young. But I think the fire got lit underneath him from a point of view of like putting pen to paper during the pandemic. So we were at home, like most of everyone, had played through our whole game library and really just had that time and space to start prototyping and

That’s when our first game and kind of the vision of the estate trilogy was born. been working on it for the last five years. A little bit more in earnest the last two years as we kind of brought it to market and had our crowdfunding campaign last year. But yeah, we really have a vision for standing up this company and making it like a full time publishing business. And a Estate: Raise the Realm title is our first title. So…

Jason Hsieh (01:40)
I see. Okay. Okay. Well it sounds like it’s off to a good start. So since we’re talking the game, and I know you have a copy right next to you, can you also talk about the game itself, how it played, like a little bit about the gameplay?

Kathryn Hahn (01:52)
Yeah, so in a Estate: Raise the Realm, a great war has ended and you are working to rebuild your estate over the course of five eras of the game. And you have workers to do so. So it’s a worker placement mechanic, and you’re going to use those workers to take different actions in your estate. So you can draw more cards, you can gather from the game board, or you can produce on cards, and then you can also expand. And so expanding is when you play cards in your estate.

And that is what’s gonna expand and make your other actions more powerful. cards themselves have victory points, but there’s a lot of other ways to get points. And thematically in the game, you’re playing as a character. So there’s eight characters in the game. They’re all asymmetric in terms of how their estate gets built out. And so each character also has a special ability. And so then who you play really matters in terms of the strategy you take and

Each character has a little but backstory and that’s part of the world building we’re also trying to do.

Jason Hsieh (02:48)
I see. How long is a typical gameplay last and how many players?

Kathryn Hahn (02:52)
Great questions, it’s one to five players and it’s 20 minutes per player. So it scales pretty evenly based on if you’re adding or reducing those players. And we do have a solo mode, which is really cool. It plays pretty much the same as normal game, except there’s different era events that get added in instead of the normal ones.

Jason Hsieh (03:09)
I see, I see. So the game sounds like it’s a gathering resources, right? So like how do you win at the end of the game then?

Kathryn Hahn (03:16)
Yeah, you’re trying to get the most victory points in your estate by the end of the fifth era. So it goes through five rounds. And I like that personally as a player because no one can end the game early on you. You have the full length of the five eras to get as many points as possible. And there’s a lot of ways to get points. So there’s cards, there’s also gold you can collect, there’s victory points from winning era events, there’s secret objectives. So there’s kind of a lot of

We sometimes call it it’s a point salad, like you’re adding a lot of things to your that you’re trying to win. But it’s also I think allows players to be pretty creative in terms of the different paths to victory and it’s generally a pretty tight scoring and you know one player doesn’t typically run away with it.

Jason Hsieh (03:46)
Yeah.

I see, I see. And I know you’re also building a series of games like in the same kind of product family with the same theme, so to speak. How does the second and the third and maybe the fourth game gonna play into this kind of the same universe?

Kathryn Hahn (04:12)
Yeah, so this is game one and as I said, thematically in the world of the state, a great war just ended. So you’re working to rebuild. The second game is gonna go back in time and you’re gonna play as those same characters, but you get to decide the outcome of the war. So it’s gonna be called the Great War. Surprise, surprise. But it’ll be kind of two different coalitions that are fighting against each other.

It’s still gonna be like a strategy competition game, but there’ll be a little bit of co-op in the sense that you and like if it’s more than two players, like you’ll have teams that you’re fighting against each other on.

Jason Hsieh (04:46)
⁓ interesting.

Kathryn Hahn (04:48)
And then the third game is gonna be called Estate and the Anthology. And that is more of a exploration style co-op game where you’re really just exploring the map of the state and there’s gonna be different quests and journeys and that one’s a little bit more just kind of on the brainstorm board right now, but ⁓ that one is intended to be just cozier and like really thematic, maybe a little bit more like D&D-esque in the sense that like you’re playing as those characters.

Jason Hsieh (04:59)
Awesome.

Kathryn Hahn (05:17)
And there’s different quests and stuff that you’re trying to build. so that’s the theme is like kind of like your the world of a state. So it’s this world building, there’s different areas in the world, and we’re trying to do this storytelling as well about the journey of these characters in the world, and there’s different playstyles. So each game has slightly different mechanics, trying to also kind of expand the audience of players as well. So you might have friends who really like competitive Euro games, and that’s really what our

first title is about, but then the third title will be more of that co-op style. So it might be more fun to play with people who like co-op games.

Jason Hsieh (05:53)
Mm. So in the very beginning does it always like created with three game in the series in mind, or was that other additional idea came up a little bit later?

Kathryn Hahn (06:02)
We kind of always had a vision for a trilogy and what the games are has come to be now, right? Like we’ve kind of baked out what those ideas and mechanics are. we also have a vision for doing short stories about these characters. And ⁓ maybe longer form, but I think that we’re starting off with the game and then we’re gonna be building around.

Jason Hsieh (06:23)
I see, I see. Sounds like there’s a whole bunch of not just like the gameplay but also storytellings and also how do you balance storytelling with all the different mechanics you’re also trying to bake into the game so the game is still fun and also immersive.

Kathryn Hahn (06:36)
Yeah, I think when we designed the different pieces of the game, so like the cards themselves are either people or place cards, they’re very thematic in what they do. So like the charcoal burner is a card where you can convert wood into gold because like you’re burning the wood and turning it into charcoal and selling it. So like that is kind of how we in Estate Race the Realm try to embed the theme and the storytelling. And then each character on a player board actually I can

Probably grab one real quick. So there’s the front side of the player boards here and this is what you’re playing on. These are like the tableau tracks and like the different actions you’re doing. But then on the back, we actually have a more blown up version of the art, and it has a lot more narrative of who that character is.

Jason Hsieh (07:06)
From the box.

Kathryn Hahn (07:26)
We’ve seen players, you know, like read this before they start the game and then they like try to like, you know, more narrate and act out like what they’re doing. Or ⁓ there’s a warlord character and they start off with an assassin in their estate. And so that character is like, I’m gonna assassinate this foreign ambassador. And so like that I think like that put piece of it is still very lighter in Estate Raise the Realm, but we’re starting to see that and we love to see that.

Jason Hsieh (07:53)
I see. What are some of the early feedback from all the customers that you got so far with the first game?

Kathryn Hahn (07:59)
People really like the replayability of the game ⁓ because again there’s all these different characters, they’re each a little bit different. And then we have ⁓ era events and so that impacts each round in producing effect. So yeah, the worst one is called the era of plague, and then when that is unveiled, a character in your estate has to die because they get the plague and they you know, they don’t survive.

but so like those are also thematic events that happen, and that adds to replayability because it’s randomized when you set the game up. so that is just another aspect that players really like. it’s a lot of strategy, but there’s a little bit of variance each gameplay. I think the other thing people really like is the like table presence. So we designed this 3D castle ⁓ and

Jason Hsieh (08:44)
Okay.

Kathryn Hahn (08:46)
It’s a good size, but it fits in the box, which is a fun element. and in the game you have the workers and they sit on the top of the castle when you’re not using the extra ones. And then the deck kind of sits here in the center of the castle.

Jason Hsieh (08:58)
that’s actually included in the game setup too, huh?

Kathryn Hahn (09:01)
Yes,

so this comes in the standard game. we do have a doll exhibition right now from the Kickstarter, but we felt like it was really nice and important to have just good table presence for the product on the table, making players enjoy playing it. And then also when you’re you know out at a convention, like you walk by, it kind of snags your eye. So yeah.

Jason Hsieh (09:20)
I see. Okay, thank you so much for sharing that. And what has been the process like for finding and connecting with your target audience in the tabletop gaming communities?

Kathryn Hahn (09:31)
Yeah, we’ve focused a lot on in-person events, so conventions across the US. We’re actually on a road trip right now where we’re taking the game ⁓ to conventions, but also to retail shops and stopping at game nights, et cetera. And I think that that’s done a fantastic job for us to like get the early kind of super fans of our product. And then we are starting to try to build our digital brand. So as a business, we’ve had an Instagram account for a little while now, but we’re actually

working on building up a account to expand that audience because we knew that that there’s a lot of players on there who are on game talk and just working on building the brand. That’s a muscle it’s a little bit newer for us. People creators, like we’re not really big on the social media ourselves, but I think it’s also a fantastic way to connect with people who maybe can’t go to the conventions or

Jason Hsieh (10:13)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kathryn Hahn (10:25)
you know, might live across the country and like they don’t know about the game, but they see it. And then we’re also I wanted to share that we’re working on getting the game on what’s called board game arena.

Jason Hsieh (10:34)
booking arena, yes.

Kathryn Hahn (10:35)
A free platform that people then can also go and just try the game out and test it out themselves. so we heard from a lot of players at conventions like asking us if it was on a BGA, especially people who maybe like didn’t have time to sit down and play the game there because there’s a lot going on. So we heard them and are now working to get it on the platform.

Jason Hsieh (10:55)
I see. Based on my understanding, don’t you need to pay a developer to turn that into a digital format so your game is compatible with sport game arena? Can you kind of elaborate on how you

Kathryn Hahn (11:05)
Yeah, so we are we are working with a freelance contractor who is doing that for us. we connect with him through like a Facebook group ⁓ of other people in the gaming industry. But BGA I think also has a way where you can put up your game, like re basically a request, and then there’s a community of developers on BGA who will then, you know, pick it up for you and kind of help you get it online as well. Cause it is you need to like code.

Jason Hsieh (11:30)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. the game into a digital format, even with their platform as well. So okay, that’s a very exciting project for sure as well. So and actually some of a client we’re working with, they are also looking into ⁓ translating some of their boarg game into digital format. So it’s good that you also are already doing that as well.

And I know you also did a successful Kickstarter campaign. Looking back, what work and how will you do it next time if you’re gonna do the next Kickstarter?

Kathryn Hahn (12:00)
Yeah, it was a wild ride. I think going through it, we learned so much. what really worked was trying to showcase the game and what made it unique and like explaining the vision of the trilogy because I think that helped people get excited that like this isn’t just a one and done, like there’s gonna be more coming. ⁓ I think one of the challenges for us was just as a first time creator, you know, getting people to trust us that like this is a real thing and I think that there’s that

know just like level of professionality that we were trying to build for our business. So we did a prototype run of the game to send to reviewers and to get some, you know, just social proof that the game is real. I think what we would change next time is you know, as a first-time creator, we had brought the project to a certain point where it was like, you know, mechanic-wise, like 95% done.

But a lot of the digital assets were not yet finished. And that’s because one, like we wanted to invest only so much in the project until we like had confidence that people were really interested in it. Yeah. So that’s what we used the Kickstarter for, like basically to validate that people are interested in this game enough to buy it and then to raise money to finish the project. So with that, it’s taken us about a year to finish everything.

because we had to have our artist finish all the art because he had only done about ten percent of it before the campaign. We had to work with our manufacturer on like some additional proof copies to like test out some of the final components. So what I would change for next time is trying to bring the game more to a hundred percent completion before we go to Kickstarter I think that one, I’d just love to get a game in hand in the hands of the backers sooner. You know, waiting a whole year is a little bit hard.

Jason Hsieh (13:34)
Before, okay, so it’s fast.

Kathryn Hahn (13:43)
But then two, a lot of the assets we created for the Kickstarter campaign are now dated. So they’re not a good representation of the final game because we’ve made the game better and better. So it was great that we had such a beautiful looking Kickstarter campaign, but like now we have to make basically new versions of that for like ads and our website, etc. So I think just like that would have been an overall cost and time savings if we had just

Jason Hsieh (13:54)
Yeah, yeah.

Kathryn Hahn (14:10)
you know, had confidence in ourselves like all the way to the end. But hindsight’s 2020 and you know, like I don’t think we did anything wrong. Like it was a learning process and it’s just something that as we mature as a publishing company, like we’re gonna set the bar that much higher for the next time we bring it to the Kickstarter.

Jason Hsieh (14:17)
Let’s see.

Sure, it’s definitely a learning curve that you go through when you first started the campaign. There’s a lot of different moving pieces as well. So I guess my next question, I know as a two people teams, how do you decide which role to take on yourself versus which one to outsource?

Kathryn Hahn (14:44)
Yeah, I think that again is a a probably a challenge most small business owners have ⁓ because there’s only so many hours in the day. ⁓ Devin and I are I would say like very complimentary in terms of our skill sets and strengths. So he definitely wears a little bit more of the creative and the design hat. I’m a little bit more of the operations and like just you know, getting a little bit more of like the relationships on all the vendors built out and everything. So we partner very well in that sense, but I think that

something I’ve learned over the course of outsourcing certain things and not. It’s like one, what is a skill if I don’t have it, like do I want to build it myself and like kind of build that up as a skill set? Or I’m not that interested in it and someone else is gonna do it a lot faster. Like maybe that is a better use of my like budget to get that, you know, done. As well as just building partnerships because I think that, you know

the industry is small yet very big. And so I think like finding the people who you jive with who then you want to form that long term partnership with is really important because then they can bring their network of people to you or like they can help, you know, advertise or like just like spread the word about the projects that they’re collaborating with you on. So I think it’s like a very organic way to also just like get word of mouth out about what you’re doing.

Jason Hsieh (16:05)
Yeah, for sure, for sure. That’s definitely a lot of things you could try, but just like you say, that’s just so many hours that you know have in the day. You couldn’t try to do everything yourself. So and looking back, what has been some of the steepest learning curve or some of the biggest challenge so far on running your own publishing company?

Kathryn Hahn (16:23)
Yeah, I think that one of the steepest learning curves was learning about making a physical product. I have a lot of experience from just my background and my career in building like software project products and like, you know, things online, right? Yeah, yeah. So building something physically has a whole, whole new set of things that you have to consider. And I think that was just a very steep learning curve for us.

the proofing process, like I thought was gonna go a lot faster. And for anyone listening who may not know what that means, it’s like, you know, you have the design components for your game, the manufacturer will make it and you review it to make sure it’s correct. Yeah. We’ve gone through about three iterations of that now. Okay. And that’s partly because, you know, there was a couple minor mistakes in the first one on both sides. Like we missed seeing a die line showing on one of our cardboard pieces.

But then another one was like the size of the wooden pieces that we had cut out were just like totally off. Like it was just like me like not realizing like all right, like this millimeter, like 10 millimeters versus 20 millimeters. And you can like sketch it out yourself, but until you’re physically holding it sometimes, like you just don’t you can’t like tell the difference. yeah, I think and then like learning about like what it takes to bring that physical product.

into the country. So like you know, the manufacturer makes it and then you have to get it on a boat and then that boat has to come off the ocean and then it has to come from that port to your fulfillment center. So yeah again, like everyone in the industry’s been very informative, collaborative, like super helpful for learning about it. But that was a huge learning curve for us doing it for the first time.

Jason Hsieh (18:03)
I see. And looking back, what was the fondest part of the most interesting part of running this business?

Kathryn Hahn (18:08)
Ooh, I think that I get a lot of energy from going to conventions and like networking with people, but also like networking with gamers. And I think that is like the most fun is like seeing people play our game, finding interesting, you know, chains of cards or just like different ways of playing. And like sometimes in the early playtesting phases, it’s like you need that because like someone’s thinking about a way of doing something that

breaks your game. And that’s I think like that’s also fun too because you’re kind of like everyone’s brain works a little different. And so you’re kind of like getting all of these people playing the same thing but doing it so many different ways. And I think that’s like so, so cool.

Jason Hsieh (18:49)
I see, I see, I see. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. So looking into the future for the next few years, what are some of the plans that you have in mind as long as I was your business partner to continue growing the brands and introducing more product into the product line?

Kathryn Hahn (19:05)
Yeah, so as we talked about earlier, we have this vision for a trilogy. And so we are hard at work already on prototyping game two. We ideally want to try to bring that to Kickstarter early 2027. I think that ⁓ if we could try to do it next year, we may, but we don’t want to rush it. Like I said, I think we want to bring a more final version of the product to Kickstarter. And we’re also thinking about like what are other

games that we want to potentially include in our game catalog that maybe we’re not just designing ourselves, but we’re licensing from other designers. And so as we think about the types of games that Crowd Games wants to bring to market, like I think what we’ve narrowed down is is we really want that like deeply strategic and immersive game. Yeah. But that it also has the ability for like a broader audience of players where you can like scale up or down the complexity or

have that ton of replayability so that like maybe it’s not like I wouldn’t say like a Estate: Raise the Realm is a really hard game to learn, but I think that it’s got like an endless amount of depth and strategy. And so like it keeps you wanting to come back play again and again. And so I think that is some of those core pillars. We’re still honestly sussing that out ourselves as we’re building the company. But yeah, like we’re kind of you know, starting to have conversations about like what are the other types of games that

you know, we would want to bring to market.

Jason Hsieh (20:27)
I know some publishing company I talk to they’ll also facilitate their own tournament. Is that something that you have to think about? Like running your own

Kathryn Hahn (20:34)
Yes. We were literally just talking about this for PAX Unplugged. So we were just at Gen Con this summer for the first time ever and we had like a little impromptu tournament just with a couple core fans and players of the game who wanted to play the game multiple times. So we’re like, all right, let’s turn this into tournament. That we are very excited to do like more formal tournaments ⁓ of the game because it only takes 20 minutes per player. So if you do

Jason Hsieh (20:39)
okay, okay.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

Kathryn Hahn (21:03)
Tournaments of four players, that’s like just over an hour for each game. And then like I think it it would work very well in a tournament setting. Yeah.

Jason Hsieh (21:12)
Mm, I see, I see. Yeah, that would be a really interesting way to get more people involved and more people interested, as well. So yeah, so thank you so much for sharing that. So as we’re kind of wrapping up today’s interview, ⁓ looking back, if you had to share just one piece of advice with someone that’s getting started in the toys and game industry, what would that be?

Kathryn Hahn (21:32)
I would say don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you have a question or you’re worried about something, like someone else has already thought about that or worried about that and just trying to find those people in your community who are willing to share what their journey has been and like share their lessons learned because I think that, you know, we’ve definitely made some beginner mistakes and I’ve already been trying to tell other designer friends about them so they don’t make the same mistakes and I think

That just helps us all succeed. And I know sometimes people can be a little shy or and you know, myself included, where I’m like, ⁓ like, should I really ask someone about this? You know? But like honestly, like I think it’s just a very collaborative community and you know, there’s a bunch of really active Facebook groups that people are posting in. There’s obviously like conventions and stuff that you can meet people at, but yeah, don’t be shy.

Yeah, I’m an open book too. If anyone’s listening and has a question and wants to reach out.

Jason Hsieh (22:30)
For sure. And or you can also listen to our podcast for more stories and more experience and journey being shared since we have interviewed hundreds of companies within the industry. And a lot of people share very similar struggle as well growing the businesses, but everyone is coming from a little bit different background, different perspective. And that’s what makes it interesting as well. also. So for our listener and our audience that’s interested to learn a more about you and your businesses.

Where is the best place for people to find online?

Kathryn Hahn (23:00)
Yeah, you can find us on our website called grodgames.com. That’s G-R-O-Dgames.com. I actually just revamped it. So we have some fresh new photos of the products and some more information about us as a publishing company and why we set it up. Similar to what I already shared. That’s the best place to find us. That’s the best place to pre order the game. We are having a limited number of our deluxe copies still available. ⁓ So if you are interested

in that that’s still on the website. And yeah, we also have an Instagram called Estate Raise the Realm and a TikTok is coming very soon. ⁓ It’s probably gonna be live before this gets fully posted because it’s standing we’re standing it up in the next couple of weeks.

Jason Hsieh (23:40)
I see. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that. We’ll make sure we include it in the show notes. And thank you so much for your time today, sharing your story and your journey so far within the industry.

Kathryn Hahn (23:50)
Awesome. Well thank you so much for having me.

Jason Hsieh (23:52)
And thank you so much to our audience for tuning in for this episode of Toy Business Unboxed Podcast. We hope you have enjoyed today’s conversation, 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. We’ll 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 within the toys and game industry, visit our website at toy-launch.com.

Join the conversation and connect with us on social media using #ToyBusinessUnboxed. We’ll love to hear your feedback and suggestion for future episodes. 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.