A gorgeous game of bluffing and subterfuge for 2-5 sneaky ninjas. The standalone sequel to the hit game Scuttle!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Printing update!
about 6 years ago
– Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 07:40:48 PM
Hey!
Two exciting announcements today:
Firstly, we have a new project on Kickstarter!
Village Pillage is a fast, furious, simultaneous game of risk and betrayal for 2-5 players. It was designed by Tom Lang (the Jellybean Games developer) and myself (Scuttle!, Ninjitsu!), and has gorrrgeous art by Tania Walker (The Lady and the Tiger, Dracula’s Feast).
The game is simple - each turn, you play a card against each of your neighbors. Depending on what they played against you, cards do different things - it’s basically Rock-Paper-Scissors, but with turnips!
We're more than 65% funded - if you want to help us reach our goal, check it out!
UV Spot
Secondly, we have a little bonus for you. We've upgraded the Ninjitsu! box even further!
As our printer was printing the cards and rulebook, Kelly had an idea. Scuttle! has a lovely gold foil on the front, but we knew that wouldn't work for Ninjitsu!
Instead, she thought we could add UV spot. What does that mean?
In short: it's shiny!
And as you can tell from the photos above, they've already mocked this up, mailed it to me to approve (that's my new tiny human in the background) and we've already signed off on it!
Ninjitsu!continues to print at full speed!
That's all for this week! As soon as we have news, I'll let you know. Look forward to getting your new, shiny game soon!
Thank you so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward Wondering if it's possible to get UV spot added to your kid...
P.S. We get a lot of emails about this, but: you do NOT need to confirm or change your address yet! We will let you know when you need to confirm or change your address. We're not there yet!
Ninjitsu is printing!
about 6 years ago
– Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 12:27:06 AM
Hey!
I am excited to announce, Ninjitsu! is officially printing! Our printer is printing the game, and by the end of it, it shall be printed!
As soon as it’s printed, it gets shipped to the US! As soon as it lands in the US, it gets mailed out by our fulfillment partner. As soon as it’s all mailed out, it arrives to you, and you get to play it!
As you likely know, Ninjitsu! is the second game in the Treasure Hunters series. Scuttle! was the first, but we didn’t know that when we were working on it. With Scuttle!, we thought we were just making a rad game - we made a game so rad, it turned out, that it turned into a whole series that can be shuffled together.
Being the second, when we were making Ninjitsu!, we knew that it was a part of a series, and so we spent a lot of time establishing precedents - symbols that mean particular things, very specific wording. This was a big part of our playtesting process; ensuring that everything could be clearly understood, and making it all backward- (and forward-) compatible.
Between that and the sheer amount of bonus content we unlocked...here, let me remind you:
Between the extensive playtesting and the sheer amount of bonus content we unlocked, exacerbated by the Lunar New Year, the game ended up taking longer than we expected.
But, trust me, the game is absolutely going to be worth it. Our Lady and the Tiger, Dracula’s Feast, and - obviously - Scuttle! backers can confirm, we make sure that every inch of our games are packed with quality.
(Can you pack an inch? I’m from Australia. We're on the metric system.)
So don’t fear - Ninjitsu! is printing, it’ll soon be on its way, and it’s going to rock your ninja socks off. :D
Going forward, we’re trying to frontload this process. We're now reaching out to playtesters ahead of a game’s release, and so by the time it reaches Kickstarter, it’s already gone through extensive blind playtesting and is ready to print. To be safe, we even playtest all the stretch goals - we can’t always afford to make them, but we want to be ready for if they’re achieved!
If you’re interested in joining in, let us know! Just send Jessa an email on [email protected], she’ll add you to our new, exclusive, Playtester mailing list, and we’ll send you information on how YOU can help get a sneak preview of our upcoming games (including future Treasure Hunter games!) and help us make them better.
As you may know, our seventh project (wow!) is coming up fast! Village Pillage launches in FIVE DAYS (Monday the 26th!) and, to celebrate, we’re releasing a print-and-play of the complete game online, for free.
Why? Because we are insanely proud of it. We think it’s a ridiculously fun game, and we’re sure that once you see the art and try it out, you’ll agree!
It’s fast, chaotic, and...did I mention you can play it right now?
If you’re interested in trying out the next Jellybean Game, just head to jellybean-games.com/print-and-play to download your free copy of Village Pillage!
That’s all for this week! I’ll let you know as soon as Ninjitsu! has finished printing and is on the boat (at which point, we’ll be locking down addresses! We’ll make sure to give you plenty of warning, however, so don’t worry about it until then. I’ll let you know when it's time!)
Thanks so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward Only just now realizing the village has no ninja...
P.S. In each of these updates, I like to link to a currently-running Kickstarter I think you might enjoy! This week, it’s Far Away Land, a “rules-lite fantasy science ficion weird gonzo lighthearted setting” - a tabletop RPG with adorable, Adventure Time-style art and a great sense of humor.
54 Game Design tips!
about 6 years ago
– Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 10:15:25 PM
Hey!
Not much Ninjitsu! news this week. Everything is at the printer, so now we’re just waiting for the end of the Lunar New Year break! As soon as the game starts printing, I promise I’ll let you know - we’ve submitted the final, final files, so now it’s just a game I like to call “wait for the printing to begin”.
The rules are simple: Mostly we just wait for the printing to begin.
In lieu of any exciting developments on the Ninjitsu! front, I thought I’d share some cool Jellybean Game stuff that we have in the works.
Show & Tile
Firstly, our latest project - Show & Tile - has just entered its final 24 hours on Kickstarter! It’s a creative family game for 3-6 players, designed by Isaac Shalev and Matt Loomis. It’s sort of like Pictionary, but without requiring artistic abilities.
I’ve played it literally hundreds of times since I first discovered it last year, and I’m still learning new tangram tricks each time I play. If that sounds interesting, click through now to check it out!
54 Game Design Tips!
Over the past two months, I sharied a game design tip each day on Twitter and Facebook! A few people asked me to compile them, so I thought I’d share them with you here. Even if you have no interest in designing, you might enjoy a little peek into the process!
1. Most of game design is giving people systems which they can use to have fun. The rest is removing systems which they will use to avoid having fun.
2. Any card that causes players to skip a turn, undoes their last move, or prevents them from being able to take cool actions may as well just read "Have less fun." Avoid. You never need it.
3. It doesn't matter if another, popular game does it - your game is going to be competing against current and future games. The standards are higher. Cut your mechanics which are causing negative experiences.
4. If you're a new designer, design an 18-card game. Then design a worker placement. Then a social deduction game. Then a 4X, or drafting, or party game. Develop them until they either have no major flaws or you throw them out. Then you're ready to start designing your REAL games.
5. Give a lot of (solicited) feedback, and note the responses that bug you. This will lead to you being better at giving feedback.
6. Before you spend hours and hours writing content for a prototype, playtest the core, core mechanic of your game. If that isn't at least a little fun before any content is added, it's not worth making.
7. Subscribe to Cardboard Edison, and read at least one game design article each week. There's a lot of good, free advice out there.
8. If you can cut a rule and the game still functions, cut it. You'll notice when there's stuff missing; recognizing when there's unnecessary clutter in your game is MUCH harder.
9. On a similar note to 8: Err on the side of making your economy too tight. Players will notice and complain when they don't have enough stuff; it's much harder to notice when you have too much.
10. Structure: anything that's in the rulebook, or never ever changes. Content: stuff that's in the cards, and is variable from game to game. Work out the difference; it's much easier to tweak and adjust content than it is structure.
(Examples: The tiles and buildings in Catan are structure, the advancement cards are content. The coin and VP cards in Dominion are structure, the rest is content. The original strategy cards in Twilight Imperium were structure, but the expansion made them content. TI3 is about 90% content.)
11. Make sure that every currency in your game can be spent on at least 2 different things.
12. If you can make your game truly fun at a broader player count, it's going to sell better. (Stonemaier Games ONLY accepts pitches for games that play 2-6.)
13. Remember the tactile. People play board games because they like touching things and moving them around. Reward this behaviour.
14. Remember the tactile. People play board games because they like making interesting decisions; they don't want to spend all their time managing bits.
15. Work out a general "rules structure" that you like, so when you go to write game rules, you can focus on the content (instead of the form). Here's mine, with a bunch of little #gamedesign tips sprinkled throughout.
16. The fewer components your game needs, the easier it is to publish.
17. Once you have a stable core game, don't change too much between playtests.
18. Find people who delight in breaking games and have them break your prototype. Repeat until your game cannot be broken.
19. Is your game fun? Is it consistently working? If yes, make sure it has some personality. Stop watching the game, start watching people playing it. Are they smiling? Groaning? Emotionally invested? This is a great time to add unique and fun theming to your mechanics.
20. If you can learn to play your game in your head, you'll pre-emptively solve a lot of problems. (Often too many.)
21. Here are the questions I try to ask after every playtest: Would you play again? Would you buy it? If you could change one thing about the game, no matter how small, what would it be? (Sen Foong-Lim put me onto that last one)
22. Every game has two parts: what you're trying to achieve, and how you're going about it. Make the first fun and the second engaging.
23. The fewer rules that people have to remember, the more time they can spend enjoying your game.
24. Don't make a game that can be ruined by one person being terrible. "Don't play with terrible people" - sure, but sometimes people are thrown together at conventions or board game events. Don't create something which allows those people to have an awful time.
25. Work out what you're good at, and double down on that. I'm good at games that require you to read other people, cute little mechanics, and working out what people want to buy. That's where I focus my time and energies.
26. Build up to your big games. Start with games you can actually make at your current skill level. Make them as well as you can. If you can't make an 18-card game, you can't make a 6-hour epic.
27. People want long-term goals, short-term goals, and feedback to let them know that they're achieving their goals. Your game should provide all three.
28. You know you're getting close when people end your game and immediately start discussing strategy and what they wish they'd done differently, not just what's broken or unfun. You know you're there when people insist on playing again. Not agree to play again - insist.
29. If you don't want to play your game 100 times, no one else will want to play it 10 times.
30. Whenever possible, utilise the gaming knowledge that players already have. Catan became Catan because each of your turns starts with a familiar mechanic: you roll two dice.
31. Don't use dice to track numbers. Dice should be rolled. I don't care how many MTG players do it, it's annoying and unintuitive.
32. You are not Uwe Rosenberg. He is able to break all the rules because he knows them inside out. (NOTE: Does not apply to Uwe Rosenberg.)
33. Work out how much information you want your players to have. Giving them less reduces analysis paralysis, but giving them more makes them feel informed and powerful. It's a tricky balance.
34. Larger games are the combination of multiple different intersecting mechanisms, all of which need to be fun, engaging, or both. Note that "new" is not on that list.
35. Turns are getting shorter and shorter. If they're not simultaneous, they should be quick. The best new games have minutes, if not seconds, between interesting decisions.
36. Good playtesters are worth their weight in dice. A good developer is worth their weight in minis. Without Tom Lang, every Jellybean Game would be substantially worse.
37. People are worse at understanding games than you expect. If your playtesters are able to comprehend the game in prototype form, that bodes well for customers understanding the final version.
38. It's not inherently a problem if your game involving doing the same thing each turn. It's only a problem if it doesn't feel different as the game progresses. You can accomplish this in a few ways; the two most common are escalation and a changing game state.
39. People like solving puzzles, tricking people, reading people, collecting stuff, building stuff, blowing stuff up, making a plan and following it through, adapting to new information, mastering systems, being creative, increasing efficiency, working together, and feeling smart. Your game should let them.
40. Sit down and work out why your favourite game is fun. See how different a game you can make while still being fun in a similar way.
41. Sit down and work out why people like a game that you hate. Try to make a game that taps into that reason, but solves your problems with the game.
42. A fistful of dice are statistically more likely to yield an average result, but the opposite feels true. Don't ignore that. Feelings are what most players are going to take away from your game.
43. Come up with 100 game design ideas. Prototype 10. Continue working on 1.
44. Games made entirely out of cards are the easiest games to prototype.
45. Games that can be played with 1-2 people are the easiest games to playtest.
46. Games that take less than 10 minutes are by far the easiest to get to the table.
47. My stages of #gamedesign:
1: Idea. I write brief notes in Workflowy.
2: Concept-test. I build and play the MVP (minimum viable prototype)
3: Prototyping: If 2 is fun, I flesh out a proper prototype and play that.
4: Problem-solving. 10-30 plays to remove issues and fix the game.
5: Development. Tom Langlooks at it and tells me what's wrong. Back to 4. Repeat as necessary.
6: Blind playtesting. 20-50 blind plays to make sure the game won't break. Loop back to 4-5 a few more times.
7: Publication.
48. If you're unpleasant to work with, I won't sign your game - even if it's the best thing I've ever played. I am far from alone in this regard.
49. You will be one game better at #gamedesign after each game you design. Don't feel like your early darlings are the best you'll do. Move on and design better games.
50. If you're having trouble getting the sentence to work, or you can't figure out how to represent it with icons, or you can't fit the text on the card: cut the ability. No one but you will ever miss it...and you probably won't either.
51. Until you've blind playtested it at least a dozen times without issue, your game isn't finished.
52. Don't make players spend (resources, currency, actions) to buy from a deck they have no context for. Give them at least SOME idea of what's in there - provide a market, or give everyone a card from that deck at the start of the game.
53. I have 5 published designs, 4 of which I published myself. Take everything you read here (or from any designer at my level) with a grain of salt, and find out what works the hard way: by playtesting, playtesting, playtesting.
54. Make the games you want to see in the world. #gamedesign
---
Whew! That’s a lot of tips all in a row. Not all of them are absolutisms, and keep in mind #53 as you’re reading through them, but generally speaking: that’s a huge chunk of what I know about game design!
I’m going to end this update with something I’m pretty excited about - a sneak preview at the art for the next Jellybean Game! It’s the one I recruited playtesters for in the last update (thanks so much to everyone who’s been sending in their videos and feedback, by the way!) - it’s called Village Pillage, and the whole team is SUPER excited about it:
That’s all for this week!
Thanks so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward A dude who just loves pillaging villages
P.S. In each of these updates, I link to a currently-running Kickstarter. This week, it’s Space Park by Keymaster Games! National Parks in space, from one of my favourite Kickstarter creators: check it out!
Production samples have been APPROVED!
about 6 years ago
– Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 11:18:00 PM
Hey!
Firstly, I have an exciting announcement - on Tuesday, Jellybean Games launched its fifth game on Kickstarter:
It’s called Show & Tile, and it's a creative party game for kids and adults by Isaac Shalev and Matt Loomis, the designers of last year's hit game Seikatsu (as well as many other great games).
Each player takes two sets of tangram tiles, picks a word, and starts building! At the end of 90 seconds, put your tiles down and try to guess everyone’s words.
It’s fast, fun, and one of the most replayable games I’ve ever encountered. I’ve played it literally hundreds of times, and I’m still finding new ways to use those tangrams.
I’m going to be doing a Kickstarter Live video once a week, showing off the production sample and how it all works, so come hang out and see what I'm so excited about! :D
Secondly, and just as excitingly - the production samples for Ninjitsu! have arrived. I’m happy to say, the game looks magnificent:
As you can see, Henry is more of a “Scuttle!” fan.
What does this mean? Well, to begin with, another item has been CHECKED OFF the to-do list:
Now all we need to do is print the game and mail it out to everyone. Huzzah!
Chinese New Year runs until the end of February, so Ninjitsu! will start printing in the first week of March. After that, it will take roughly 60 days for everything to print, and anywhere from 30 to 60 days for it to arrive in the US.
As soon as it arrives, our new fulfillment partner will start sending it out, and then the game will arrive to you! Until we get closer, I don’t want to put an exact date on when everything will arrive (there are too many factors outside of our control), but I’m going to keep everyone updated every step of the way.
Here’s a question you might be asking - why is this project going to be late?
If boring logistical stuff bores you, you can stop reading here! If you want to know what happened and how we’re planning on improving on this front: read on!
Publisher Diary
Jellybean Games has doubled in size in the last few months. For a long time, it was “just me and Kelly and Tania”, with my friend Tom doing development work for the fun of it. Now we have a dedicated logistics manager, a customer service rep, we pay Tom, and - of course - we brought on my business partner, Nicole.
Her first job was to look at what we were doing well (“making great games!”) and what we could be improving on (“delivering them on time!”) and start putting systems into place to fix this.
In the Pre-Nicole Era (“PNE”, as we call it) we would come up with stretch goals as the campaign was running, based on backer suggestions and whatever we thought would be cool. This was a lot of fun! It also led to massive delays - Ninjitsu! definitely suffered from this, but none of our projects have run as late as The Lady and the Tiger.
When The Lady and the Tiger launched on Kickstarter, it was a 2-player 18-card game with 6 pieces of art (two ladies, two tigers, and two wild cards). The final printed product is a 1-6 player 18-card game with 18 pieces of unique art, 5 separate games in the box (each of which required their own rulebook pages and reference card), and and and and and…
It felt great to give backers a lot of value for their support, but MAN did that delay the game. We had to blind playtest five entire games, 4 of which were brand new! Tania had to TRIPLE the amount of art in the game AND graphic design new rulebook pages AND a reference card for each game.
I don’t regret doing it; the final version of The Lady and the Tiger is a game that I’m super proud of. I think all 5 games are incredibly fun, and it’s a whole lot of value packed into a tiny box. But we’re only just starting fulfilment of that game now; the estimated delivery date was September 2017.
When Ninjitsu! went up on Kickstarter, we stretch goaled our way to two more expansions and a whole bunch of promo cards. Again, I don’t regret doing this - they make the game so much better - but it added several months of art time for Kelly and blind playtest time for me. This game was slated to deliver in April 2018. That, to my great shame, is when we’re due to finish printing.
(Side-note: before I was a creator, I remember reading updates where people said they ‘felt bad’ or were ‘embarrassed’, and I always wondered how much of that was for show. I can tell you, completely honestly: it’s real! I get a sinking feeling in my stomach and my cheeks actually go red when I think about the fact that we’re going to miss the delivery date. Doing what I say I’m going to do is very important to me, and missing a deadline is totally mortifying.)
(Pardon that emotional interlude. Back to boring logistical discussion!)
We’re now in the Post-Nicole Era (or “PNE”), and things are different.
Show & Tile launched on Kickstarter a few days ago. We got production samples for Show & Tile right after the Ninjitsu! samples arrived; thanks to Nicole, we are now working AHEAD by several months. The plan is: from now on, as soon as a Kickstarter ends, the game will be ready to print.
Show & Tile launched on the 30th of January, and will have an estimated delivery date of December. That’s 11 months from launch until delivery, and even that makes us a little nervous. All future campaigns will probably have a full year delivery estimation.
Why so long? Because we never, never want to deliver late again. Not only does it embarrass me personally, it’s disappointing for backers. We need to make sure that people can look at the campaign page and know that they’re going to get their game by the date we promise it.
This is especially important since our games are more accessible than the standard Kickstarter fare. If you’re an experienced backer, you know the rule for backing Kickstarters - “always add 6 months to the estimated delivery date”. Our campaigns attract a lot of first-time backers; they see the dates and (quite reasonably) assume that’s when they’ll be getting the games.
People back our games for birthday presents, or as Christmas gifts. The idea of someone unwrapping a present to find a Jellybean Game is thrilling to me, and I want to make sure that nothing I do stands in the way of that.
I’ll tell you this: being ahead feels goooood. We are about to launch blind playtesting for our next game after Show & Tile, a simultaneous action game called Village Pillage, and testing should wrap up before the campaign even begins.
(SIDE-NOTE: If you are interested in blind playtesting our upcoming games, send me an email! We offer some pretty great rewards, you get to see what we’re coming out with next, and it’s really rewarding to help make a game better. Without Ninjitsu!’s awesome blind playtesters, I would be far less proud of it. Email [email protected] if you’re interested!)
In any case, I hope that helps explain why Ninjitsu! is going to be later than we planned, and - fingers crossed - why Show & Tile won’t be. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments!
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back at the start of next month, when Ninjitsu! has officially started printing.
Thank you so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward Constantly trying to improve
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Baby!
over 6 years ago
– Sun, Jan 07, 2018 at 09:39:52 PM
Hey!
I want to start by apologizing for the gap between updates. As well as creating kid-friendly games, I’ve started branching out a bit, and last month I created...a kid!
His name is Henry Frank Hayward III, and I’m happy to report that he’s absolutely perfect. We got a lot of glares from other parents at the hospital for making such a great kid.
This prototype has done so well, in fact, that we’re thinking of launching a Kickstarter later this year, seeing if we can get the little fellow into mass production. Anyone want a Henry of their own?
Parenthood, I’m delighted to announce, is treating me wonderfully! As you can probably imagine, it left me a little bit swamped, and I haven’t been as on top of updates as I normally like to be.
Never fear! The Jellybean team is now large enough that even when I’m off “having kids” and “not sleeping”, everything can still progress.
Since our last update, we’ve gone through several rounds of e-proofs with the printer, making sure that everything will print exactly as intended. I am happy to announce that not only are e-proofs done, but the printer has actually printed a full production copy, and it’s in the mail to my house right now!
As soon as I receive it, I’m going to carefully look it over to make sure that everything came out just right. This involves checking colors, making sure that nothing printed too close to the border, counting all the cards and making sure they’re there, reading and re-reading the rulebook, feeding a full copy of the game to the baby, and doing a final final check for typos and anything else we may have missed.
The proof copy should be here in the next week, and it shouldn’t take me more than a day to go through all of the above. As soon as I’ve done that...we hit print!
If I find something wrong, this will obviously impact the timeline, but right now things are looking good! The process has been smooth sailing so far - this is our fourth game, and we’re feeling increasingly on top of things. Hooray!
Once the game is printed (which should be a week or two after Chinese New Year ends), it’s going to jump on a boat to the US. The shipment will go straight to ShipNaked, our fulfilment partner - we’ve already been in talks with them for the past month or two (they’re currently starting the process of fulfilling our previous game, The Lady and the Tiger) and have also begun preparations for the Ninjitsu! fulfilment. As much as possible, we’re getting everything ready in advance, to avoid any delays once it hits their warehouse.
After the stock leaves China, we’re going to start locking down addresses. Until then, you don’t have to worry about which mailing address you entered or where the game is going to go; you’ll have plenty of warning, and be able to update and finalize your address.
In short...
...everything is going well! The digital proofs look great, a production sample is on its way, the game continues to be super fun, and I made a tiny human!
The things that I am most proud of making.
That’s all for this week! Again, I want to apologize for the radio silence - both my partners (Nicole, my business partner; and Roxy, my partner in raising a potato) have helped me come up with strategies to make sure I can keep on top of updates henceforth.
I’ll be back soon with pictures of the physical proof! I can’t wait to see it, feed it to the baby, touch it, play it…I’m excited!
Thanks so much for your support, -Peter C. Hayward Proud parent of 5 board games and 1 tiny human.
P.S. Normally I use this space to tell you about a currently-running Kickstarter that I think you might be interested in - this week, however, I want to tell you about the next Jellybean Game that we’re launching! It’s called Show & Tile - it’s a design by Isaac Shalev and Matt Loomis (the duo behind Seikatsu, along with many other great designs):
Here are some examples from the playtests we’ve been running over the last 6 months. How many can you guess?
This is the first Jellybean Game that I didn’t design - I was introduced to it at a convention and kept coming back to play over and over again. I’m really excited to bring this game to you; it rewards creativity and imagination, but doesn’t require artistry skills. Also, it's SUPER fun. I have played this game several hundred times, and I look forward to playing it several hundred times more.
(It's good to play with new people, but the game really shines when you play it repeatedly with the same group - you start to build up a common language, which allows you to tackle harder and harder words!)
Show & Tile is coming to Kickstarter on the 30th of January! It’s our largest game to date, and we’re all super keen!
