We are so excited to share some exciting news! Our brand new game, Kingless: Festival of Explosions, is now live on Kickstarter. After the amazing success of Kingless, we’re back with an expansion that promises even more fun, strategy, and explosive action.

Kingless: Festival of Explosions isn’t just any expansion. It’s packed with new mechanics, unique characters, and, for the first time ever, stunning holofoil card packs. Whether you’re new to Kingless or a seasoned player, the Festival of Explosions is designed to elevate your gameplay experience.

What’s New in Kingless: Festival of Explosions?

• New Characters, Events, and Mechanics: Dive into new layers of strategy and interaction.

• Attachments: This new card type can change the power balance on the board, offering bonuses or disrupting opponents. Watch out for chaos and whimsy!

• Four New Actions: Fresh action cards bringing new fun ways to claim the King’s Crown on your Kingless adventures.

Ready to join the fun? Visit the Festival of Explosions Kickstarter page to learn more and back the campaign.

See you there,

-Sebastian

We wanted to share some exciting news with you…

Kingless: the Festival of Explosions will be launching to Kickstarter this month!

If you would like to follow our Kickstarter page and make sure you’re there for all the updates, you can Follow the pre-launch page to know exactly when we launch.

🌟 What’s New?

The Festival of Explosions brings 54 news cards. We are adding new dwarves, items, and events! We are also introducing a new mechanic with the Festival of Explosions - attachments.

We are also adding four new card actions - Game, Duel, Refresh, and Swipe.

This is just a quick summary of what is coming in the Festival of Explosions. You will learn more as get closer to the launch!

Here is a sneak peak to the Festival of Explosions trailer before the official release!

🗓️ Release Date

Mark your calendars! The Festival of Explosions campaign launches July, 2024!

🔗 Follow the pre-launch page

Sign up on the pre-launch page so you can be notified as soon as the Kickstarter goes live!

Your support made Kingless possible and we’re thrilled to continue this journey with the Festival of Explosions.

Stay tuned for more updates, sneak peeks, and surprises as we move towards the launch.

See you soon!

-Sebastian

Mofei's journey to our team

In 2023, we were thrilled to welcome Mofei Wang into our team. Mofei, an artist of extraordinary talent and creativity, has embarked on the journey to reimagine and bring to life the unique visuals of The Festival of Explosions (FoE). Prior to joining us for FoE, Mofei's remarkable skills were showcased in various notable projects, including the acclaimed Gloomhaven.

Q&A

We sat down with Mofei to ask him some questions about his experiences in illustrations, the gaming industry, and his time working with Two19 on FoE. Here’s what we heard from him - enjoy!

How did you begin your journey doing illustrations? 

I come from an artistic family, with my father being an artist who is a master of traditional Chinese painting. I studied the arts from a very young age. After I went to university, I started to learn artistic design and landscape architecture. After graduation, I worked as a landscape architect for a while but still found myself more interested in illustration and art. So, that is how it began.

Can you tell us about your first project in the gaming industry?

Back in 2019, at the beginning of my illustrator career, I did a lot of small commissions for individual clients. None of them were industry-level jobs—just a few small illustrations, sometimes even graphic design jobs. But they were good kickstarts for my career. It was in 2020 that I got my first job in the game industry.

I was asked to create illustrations for the card game Viking Raiders, which Neowulf Games published. This was an exciting opportunity for me to show my skills and develop further. My clients were satisfied with the final outcome and it successfully launched I gained a lot of confidence after participating in that project.

What did you learn from that experience? 

From that experience I learnt I needed to learn how to draw as many subjects as possible if I want to go far in my career. When I first started to draw as a child, I liked to do landscape and nature illustrations.

At the time when I was working on ‘Viking Raiders’, I wasn’t as good at character illustration and design since I had more experience in landscape and nature illustrations. My clients asked me if I could do character illustrations. If I could, they would ask me to do the entire artwork for the game. In the end, I decided that I would do the job, but I could only offer to do the environment and object illustrations. After this experience, I decided that I needed to develop my skills in character illustration and design. I focussed my time on developing my skills in character design and painting. It’s been a lot of work but I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made since then.

What are some of the projects you have worked on before joining the Two19 team?

Before joining Two19, I participated in many different types of projects. I did illustrations and game assets for many board games, such as Viking Raiders, Katmandu: Age of Artifacts for Cryptozoic Entertainment, and the acclaimed Gloomhaven for Cephalofair Games. I also worked as a contractor for many video game companies on concept art and illustration. I also had a few experiences of working on book illustrations and graphic design.

What is your favourite piece of artwork you created for FoE? What do you like about it?

This is really hard to choose as I like all of the artwork I created for FoE. However, if I were to just pick one, I shall say Surge Rumbleboom is my favourite. She was the first piece I created for FoE, and I really like the overall design of this character, and I think the scene is very engaging. What could be more exciting than the opening of the Festival?

What advice would you give to those hoping to work in the gaming industry? 

Based on my previous experiences as an artist, I would suggest stepping out of your comfort zone and trying to draw new things. You never know what projects are waiting for you! Keep curious, flow your mind, and don’t forget to always try some new games!

Other than Kingless, what’s your favourite board game?

It’s a bit difficult only to pick one. The board games I love include Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone (if this is counted), 7 Wonders, Everdell, Wingspan, Tapestry and Jaipur.

Mofei's journey and insights are not just a testament to his immense talent but are also an inspiration for aspiring artists who may be interested in pursing a career in the gaming industry.

His contributions to The Festival of Explosions have been invaluable, and we can't wait for everyone to experience the artistic magic he has brought.

Stay tuned for more updates as we gear up for the Kickstarter launch. It's going to be an explosive celebration!

Let's toast to a few remarkable milestones we've achieved together this year!

🍻 First, we're super thrilled to share that we've won the PAX Indy showcase for the second year! So many of you showed up to play we ended up causing a bit of a traffic jam.

🍻 We're also excited to announce that The Festival of Explosions expansion is on the horizon, and we've opened up the Kickstarter notification page for it. We have started to share some of the upcoming cards on our socials as well as more details over in the Library.

🍻 Earlier in the year we launched our new website, complete with The Library. Here, you can delve into the rich lore of Kingless, explore the details of your favourite cards, and immerse yourself in the game's universe.

Follow us on X (Twitter) and Instagram to get early access to special content and behind-the-scenes looks at the expansion's development and be the first to hear when we launch The Festival of Explosions on Kickstarter.

We're stepping into 2024 with more excitement and plans for Kingless, and we can't wait to share more with you soon. Happy Holidays, and here’s to a year filled with adventure and laughter in the world of Kingless!

Sebastian

View the site

If you know me, you know I'm always tinkering with websites. Perhaps too much. But this time, there's a real treat in store for you.

As the buzz for the Festival of Explosions grows, we've rolled up our sleeves and given our website a fresh coat of paint. And while we were at it, we've transformed The Library too, making it the new home for all the Kingless cards, new and old…

To all of those at PAX this year asking us about delving deeper into the Kingless world, well we heard you loud and clear. The lore, the tales, the characters – they're ready for you to dive into!

Take a tour of our refreshed website at kinglessgame.com and explore The Library at kinglessgame.com/library. We're genuinely excited with all these updates!

Oh, and before I sign off: Kingless: Festival of Explosions is teasing its debut on Kickstarter! The pre-launch page is now live, so jump in, sign up, and we'll keep you in the loop for our grand launch coming soon.

-Sebastian

PAX Aus

One of our highlights of the year was attending PAX Aus as one of the indie showcase winners. It was an amazing event made truly special by the passion of everyone involved. We were so pleased to be able to share Kingless with attendees and other creators as well as meet fans face to face.

Sebastian shares his thoughts on our first PAX Aus experience here.

The Big Milkshake by Two19

PAX Reflections

It's been a couple of weeks since PAX AUS, and while those following the Big Milkshake Podcast can look forward to hearing all about it there, I still wanted to share my thoughts here as well. Unlikely as it sounds, none of us at Two19 had been to PAX before, so we didn't know quite what to expect. I will say though, PAX exceeded my expectations and was…

Read more

3 years ago · 2 likes · Sebastian Roberts

The Big Milkshake Podcast

We were able to fulfil an ambition we'd held for many years and release the first episodes of the Big Milkshake podcast. So far we've been able to share more about the origins of Two19 and the journey of Kingless from development to its release. We've lots more to discuss and I'm looking forward to what we'll be able to share with you all this year.

Bianca has gone into more detail in her blog post where you can read all about it.

The Big Milkshake by Two19

Our Podcast

Today is the big day - our podcast goes LIVE, and I could not be more excited to share it with everyone! I remember the very first meeting I had with the team when the idea of starting a podcast began brewing. I knew I was incredibly keen from the get-go to help make this happen - I was in my final semester of uni finishing my degree in Media Communicati…

Read more

4 years ago · 2 likes · Bianca

DecideOn

A project that I was particularly excited about came to fruition in the form of DecideOn our first foray into blending digital and tabletop experiences. 
I am tremendously excited to continue improving DecideOn and to find other ways the tabletop experience can be unobtrusively enhanced with digital tools. 

You can read the introduction to DecideOn here and follow the links to give it a try.

The Big Milkshake by Two19

DecideOn

One thing that consistently excites me about our projects at Two19 is how different it is to step back from the digital world we are all immersed in, and design something physical that brings people together in a tangible way. A small part of our design work for the most significant of these projects, Kingless, was deciding which of the players should st…

Read more

4 years ago · 1 like · Sebastian Roberts

I'm looking forward to another amazing year of making our dreams real and sharing them with all of you. I'm also anticipating an amazing year from our fellow creators and I can hardly wait to see what they put out. Make sure to follow us on social media for updates and The Bigmilkshake podcast for a look behind the scenes here at Two19. 

Wishing you all the best for the year ahead,

Alex 

It's been a couple of weeks since PAX AUS, and while those following the Big Milkshake Podcast can look forward to hearing all about it there, I still wanted to share my thoughts here as well. 

Unlikely as it sounds, none of us at Two19 had been to PAX before, so we didn't know quite what to expect. I will say though, PAX exceeded my expectations and was a truly amazing experience, not only for myself but for all of Two19 and, most importantly, Kingless. Getting to meet so many fans and share Kingless with so many new players was incredible. 

When we started planning for PAX several months ago, we had many grand ideas of how we would present and demo Kingless. We very quickly swept them aside in favour of letting the game speak for itself, by playing with as many people as possible. I can confidently say that this was the right decision, as Kingless was very well received by everyone who had the opportunity to try it. We always set out to create a game that players could sit down with, play a couple of rounds, and quickly have a great time. It also helped that after years of development and testing, Nathan is well-versed in teaching the rules! 

We have had lots of positive feedback since we shared Kingless with the world, but getting to speak in person and see their genuine enthusiasm for what we worked so hard to create was a very special feeling. One of my favourite moments was when someone told us they had played Kingless the night before with their friend, who brought it back from PAX after playing it with us. They were so taken with it that they came by to grab their own copy! 

This was a continuing theme. Everyone that played Kingless thought it was great, and so many were willing to spend their hard-earned money to take it home that we ended up completely selling out. This does come with the caveat that you would struggle to find anyone more likely to enjoy Kingless than someone dedicated enough to tabletop games to be in the tabletop gaming hall of PAX. In turn, these same people know how to choose games they will enjoy for years to come, and many had insightful questions that showed a deep understanding of game mechanics and grew more excited the more they learned about Kingless. 

Of course, PAX wasn't just about us! There were so many people, companies, and products there that I couldn't possibly give them all the time they deserved. In particular, seeing the other indie developers was fantastic, with all of them showing an outstanding level of talent and creativity. The Australian tabletop gaming industry is growing quickly, and I'm looking forward to the wonderful times that lie ahead. ​

Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by our stand for a game or two, purchased Kingless, asked us about the creative process, bumped into us in the hall, our fellow indie designers, and everyone who just had a chat. You're really what made PAX so special.

One thing is certain: We will be back at PAX AUS next year! 

-Sebastian 

DecideOn is our way of combing both the physical and digital in its simplest form. allowing players to quickly and easily decide "who goes first?" With hundreds of hand-crafted "Deciders" neatly organised into various topic packs and many more to come in the future, there are clear advantages to launching DecideOn digitally.

This is the first digital product for Two19, going from design concept to reality in a surprisingly short timeframe. We have lots more planned in the future; Apple Watch, iPad, Apple TV apps, cloud sync, and a bunch more topic packs. This is just the beginning for DecideOn, Two19 and our journey into producing digital offerings alongside our physical ones.

DecideOn is available on the app store starting today.

Alex: Very good. 

Sebastian: Hello there. 

Nathan.: Stellar.

Bianca: How has everyone's week?

Sebastian: How are you doing?

Bianca: I'm good thank you. What's everyone been up to? Keeping busy? 

Sebastian: Playing Sea of Thieves with you.

Nathan.: Heyyyyy. 

Bianca: That was very good, actually. No, that was really fun. I hadn't played Sea of Thieves with you guys before, until last night. And I heard you guys were really big fans of the game and I didn't realize how, how big of a fan you guys were, you guys were using all these terms when you were sailing and I was like, oh, I was like, oh no, I'm really out of my depth year, but we got, we finished up with a lot of loot.

Sebastian: Yeah we did. Surprisingly actually.

Bianca: I don't know how we like made it out alive by the end of it. 

Sebastian: It's worth it though. Was good fun. 

Bianca: I'm very proud of us. That was very good. I think everyone else should watch us play some games,

Sebastian: A coordinated team effort. 

Nathan.: I was just very good enjoying the voting for us to risk it all. Just keep going. 

Bianca: Oh yes, we did have the Twitch chat determine whether we were gonna sell the current loot that we had or whether we were gonna go and venture out for more. And, uh, yeah, the, the chat was very, felt very risky, I think last night, but Hey, we came out of it. Okay. So I, I'm pretty proud of us.

I'm pretty proud of us.

Alex: We made the right call.

Bianca: I think so. I think so, well, uh, welcome to anyone who is tuning in. We hope you enjoyed the first episode. Uh, we had so much fun putting that together and here we are for a second one, we have so much to talk about today. Um, in terms of Kingless and more particularly the world of Kingless and the artwork.

And, um, I guess there's no better way to start talking about Kingless than to just talk about some of our favourite cards. I think that's a good place to start. What do you guys think? 

Sebastian: Mm-hmm 

Alex: Yeah, absolutely.

Nathan.: Yeah. 

Bianca: There are so many good cards to pick from not just like character and item-wise, but even artwork-wise as well.

Alex, let's start with you. Who or what is your favourite card from the game? 

Alex: Well, my favourite card is Neif Gold Dreamer. You'll find it not only in the deck but also on the box of Kingless itself. So Neif is a typical dwarf in that he has a deep unwavering affection for gold, unlike other dwarfs however, he has some unconventional ideas about how to get it. Alchemy, the combined dream of science and magic that turns common base metals into precious gold has long been Neif's obsession. His most outstanding achievement was to successfully transmute gold into lead. This was much to the anger of the other dwarfs because, despite this breakthrough for alchemical science, he hasn't quite figured out how to turn it back. 

Given his devotion to his work and his damning record of transmutation. He's kept it arms length from the tip jar of the Hammer and Crown at all times. Which ties back on into his role with the actual game there, he's a, he's a terrible Alchemist in so far as he can't actually convert anything into gold, just the other way. 

Bianca: Just the opposite way around. 

Nathan.: Keep him away from those coins.

Sebastian: Hence why he gutters the tip jar. Yep.

Bianca: Yeah, just trying the best. It's what I'm hearing there. 

Nathan.: He's practising. 

Alex: Yeah.

Nathan.: Give him a break 

Alex: Doing a bit of research and they dig it out of the ground. Anyway. 

He's my favourite because he's got all these fantastic colours and lights on, you know, in the art of his card. He's got such, uh, an evocative outfit on him.

You can tell that, he's clearly up to something mystical and different. Whereas a lot of the other drawers are very, um, very focused on, on manual mundane tasks. You don't quite know what Neif is gonna be up to. He's got all these fantastic, um, you know, little bottles full of chemicals, each of emit their own light and smoke. And. There's clearly a lot going on there. 

Bianca: And was this, was Neif, inspired by anything in particular or was it just something like, I mean, again, I know we mentioned this in the first episode, but we've got such a big variety of characters to kind of pick from, like, do you remember Neif coming together or does anyone else remember Neif coming together at all?

Sebastian: I think that's the great thing about, the Hammer and Crown and, and the patrons of the Hammer and Crown, you know, everyone who turns up there, they're all a little bit different, a little bit quirky. And I think we knew from the very beginning, we've gotta have a wizard in here somewhere, you know, there's, there's got to be that character.

And, um, Neif's got some really, he's got some really interesting background and some lore around him as well. 

Bianca: I was gonna say as well, what's Neif's use for anyone who's tuning in. Maybe hasn't played Kingless before on this card. What does Neif's card do? 

Nathan.: Ooh putting me on the spot. I think. Neif gutters the tip jar. 

I'm happy. Happy I got that.

Alex: Put him to the test.

Bianca: Put you on a spot there? 

Nathan.: Kind of helped design the game. Maybe I should remember. 

Bianca: Oh, just a little bit. Just a little bit. Nathan, what about you? 

Nathan.: Oh, I'm going to start with an honourable mention for Stumpy, cuz just love that card and, and the were beaver. Oh, no. A giant beaver, 

Bianca: I was gonna say last time you said Stumpy was one of your favourites.

Nathan.: Yeah he's just been pipped today by, uh, Therilona the Just, I mean, just magnificent on that horse, Just. I'm pretty sure the horse was named charger. Just, both of them together. Just a really crisp, bright card set outside. Yeah, I think that's my favourite artwork piece. Anyway.

Alex: Therilona actively works for the good of all in Overstone and isn't afraid of conflict when necessary.

She's one of a handful of dwarfs that are competent riders. As most of her kin prefer to trudge alongside a beast than sit astride one. Part of her good work is hounding Ulf Pocket Delver and ensuring he doesn't cause too much trouble. Although this is as much for his benefit as the town. Now Ulf is another one of our cards, um, which you might not be surprised given his name is a pickpocket and a bit of a thief, Therilona's card gutters Ulf removing him from play.

Sebastian: It's one of those cards that, well, one of the few cards actually that is set outside of the Hammer and Crown. So most, most of them take place within, I mean, there's, there's a handful that don't, but. It's probably one of the brightest cards we have in the game as well. It's kind of, you know, the the open, airy, um, look and feel about it.

And I, I quite like that, you know, a bit of change of pace, something a little bit different. We can see some more of the, of the, um, Kingless universe that it's within, um, or actually Overstone to be more precise, which is the town that, that Kingless sits within.

Bianca: Yeah. I'd love to chat more about Overstone or what you guys could tell us about Overstone, um, soon as well, and I guess, yeah, I think what's really cool about these cards.

You just get a little sneak peek into, you know, what's out there beyond. The Hammer and Crown and stuff as well, which is really, really cool. And I agree. It's one of the brightest cards out there. It's a nice little change of scenery. I think now I actually got to ask you, Nathan, what is the Therilona's card. Seb we'll come back to you in a minute, but I knew I forgot to ask you something.

Nathan.: So she gutters Ulf Pocket Delver. So a little bit of a sketchy pickpocket card. So she's obviously just keeping an eye out and if she sees him in action. She'll put him outside into the gutter. So. 

Bianca: She looks quite intimidating. Like I like I'd be, I'd be a bit scared of her. 

Alex: Yeah. 

Nathan.: Just, just strong and majestic. 

Bianca: Uh, what about you Seb favourite card?

Sebastian: It has to be Klem Poncewell. I mean, I mentioned this on the first episode, but come on, it was the first card we ever created, you know, there's I had a lot of creative input into this card. Don't roll your eyes at me. It's look at it. Look at the detail. The it's just such a fantastic card.

Bianca: Let's clarify If anyone missed the first episode, some of the characters in Kingless were loosely based off inspired by some of you guys and Klem is yours. 

Sebastian: Yes, but let's not move away from the fact that this was still the first card we've ever created. I'm going to clutch at everything I can here, but 

Bianca: tell us like a little bit more about the card and if you could tell us what Klem does as well. 

Sebastian: I'll leave that up to Alex. Alex can talk a little bit about the the lore of some of these cards.

Alex: Absolutely. Let's get started with, Klem Poncewell claims the Golden Tankard. Now as for the lore for him, Klem is known for his vanity and the love of the finer things in life. Any trader passing through is stopped and asked about the latest fashions and has their wars carefully examined before Klem haggles away, any semblance of profit they once had. This silver-tongued skill at negotiation has him responsible for selling dwarven wares to travelling traders. His greed can lead him astray, however, and while he's not a thief and would never steal. He is often found admiring the Hammer and Crown's prize ornament, the Golden Tankard.

Sometimes even going as far as to try and take it home with him to better admire it. Now he sees this as perfectly reasonable and after all, he'll return it when he's done. But Bron Law Bringer sees things differently and is swift to make Klem, uh, clear his head with a trip outside while the tankard stays safely put.

Bianca: Hmm, very greedy. 

Sebastian: It, this is the sort of thing, you know, that we lean into with the cards. So obviously the mechanic of Klem Poncewell as Alex said is, is to claim the Golden Tankard, but there's a few of these characters that interplay with each other and sort of also play into the lore. So, you know, it's quite thematic around the the actual mechanic of the card. 

Bianca: Yeah, I think it's really cool as well. I know Alex, you mentioned Bron Law Bringer 

Alex: Bron is another of our favourite cards. 

Bianca: Cause I was gonna say, Bron has an effect on Klem is that right? 

Alex: Yes. Yes. Bron moves. Um, Klem Poncewell to the gutter, um, removing him from play. 

Bianca: Ah, keeping an eye on it from taking the tankard, which is exactly what you said as well.

I think again, I think that's really fantastic. That, that, that bit of lore that you have fits directly with the effects of the cards. I think those little details really, really shine. And I'm really looking forward to, at some point, us sharing a bit more of the lore side of things, um, on our channels and stuff like that too, because I'm sure a lot of people out there wouldn't even think to know there was a bit of backstory with, with Bron and Klem, rather than them just being two characters.

They actually have some sort of, uh, Lack of a better word relationship, uh, you know, clash of, um, personalities, maybe there.

Nathan.: I definitely see it that, that Bron's just keeping Klem in check, uh, much like the like the people they were designed after. 

Bianca: Mm-hmm and of course you, you would have to be talking about yourself there, Nathan, as you are... 

Sebastian: Unfortunately we're quite competitive. Yes. 

Bianca: Yeah. You are the Bron Law Bringer of that as well. I, I have to, I have to mention, I didn't actually make the connection between the Bron effect on Klem and I went, ah, that's Nathan said, um, and I, I had a little laughter. And so's like, where, where did this come from? You made this connection. So randomly, like during the week.

And I was like, oh no, I was just looking at the cards and I just have this newfound, like, uh, I guess, knowledge of all this kind of backstory and little trivia and Easter eggs. It's just made that experience so much more fun. Yeah. 

I think it was really cool. 

Nathan.: Definitely one of my favourite interactions in the game.

Sebastian: Bianca?

Bianca: Yes.

Sebastian: What about yours? What's what's your number one card? 

Bianca: Well, when I think of times where I've played a lot with my family. And as soon as I see this card in my hand, I'm like, yes, I was like, I've, I've really, I've really got them now. And I must ask you all about more about this character is, uh, it's Ragstad Iron Pumper.

And I believe the effect is that they're immune to being guttered, which is pretty big. Yeah. And the influence on his card's pretty high as well. So

Nathan.: Highest in the game. 

Bianca: I was gonna say, that's the reason I like it. I'm quite greedy and I love to win. So , as soon as I have this character, I am so like, I, I, I consider that I've won, but I know that's not the case. 

Sebastian: So what's your strategy? When, when you, when you draw or you have Ragstad in your hand, do you play him straight away? Do you wait, do you hold like, wait till the end game, 

Bianca: It depends on how confident I'm feeling. If I'm gonna be really honest, if I'm feeling really arrogant, maybe I'll like, I'll leave him like right to the end and then there's then, then no one can do anything about it.

But I think when I first started playing, I was like, I would wanna put him down immediately, but even though. Rag dad's immune to guttering. It doesn't mean you can't be taken in other ways. Exactly. And then once I kind of, once I kind of mm-hmm, caught onto that. I was like, wow, this is a really like high-risk high of reward kind of play, cuz it's so easily, someone else could take it from you.

Um, Alex, I would really love to hear a little bit more about Ragstad and then I do have a question. Something that I actually picked up in the artwork, which I wanna I've. Yeah. Ask you about something.

Alex: I think I know the detail you're talking about and I was gonna ask if you'd spotted it. Ragstad Iron Pumper, the strongest of the dwarves Ragstad is a peerless warrior. Who's prowess has made him something of a local legend. He does, however, have one eccentricity. The other dwarfs have been, uh, slow to accept. Ragstad engages in a bizarre daily ritual of lifting heavy things and putting them back down in the exact same spot, the dwarfs do their best to humour his madness, but their eyes just glaze over as he talks about how he's gonna beat his personal record.

Bianca: Well, I have to ask now he's got a tattoo on his right arm that says mum on it. That's the one I was talking about. 

Alex: That is it yeah. Um, I, I, I do wonder how many people who play Ragstad actually picked that up. Because it is hidden there amongst the mess of his other tattoos. I say a mess they are cool as. 

We..... God, we just really, we really wanted to have that in there. Um, just to, you know, to show he's got a bit of a softer side, you know, he is a huge giant dwarf warrior with an ax, but, uh, he's not all business. 

Bianca: Yeah. I think he he's really like interesting. The whole design of Ragstad I think is really cool. I just, yeah, I guess it's always, I've been curious to know how he kind of fits in and there's a bit more. To him. Than maybe I thought there was it wasn't until I was looking at the card again today I went, Hey, I didn't even recognize that part of his tattoo before. 

Sebastian: It's hard to pick up on, on the actual card. There's so many different strategies that you can play, um, with Ragstad and as Two19's, uh, head gameplay, strategist, you know, I tend to play him whenever I feel like it, to be honest, you know?

Bianca: Yeah.

Nathan.: Just drop him on turn one. Booooom. 

Sebastian: look, I've been known to do that. We look I'm so dying to talk about this, but we can't share it at, you know, at the moment, but ah, yeah, in the, in the upcoming expansion, um, the Festival of Explosions, we've got some really cool mechanics that will make, um, Ragstad a little bit more. Immovable, perhaps we should say, um, there there's some, some fun things coming up, but he is definitely one of those cards that as soon as you see it go down on the table, you wanna get rid of it. Yeah. Or you wanna claim it. You want it on your side.

Nathan.: He's so susceptible to being bribed by chicken. He just straight over whoever has the most chicken and he's in their play area.

He's definitely the most claimed card in the game. 

Alex: Mm-hmm 

Bianca: Nathan, I have to ask as well. What, what is you, what do you think is the best strategy in terms of playing a character like Ragstad 

Nathan.: I would almost always play it in the last two turns. I'd be either setting up to use it to trigger the end game or use it in my end game turn, uh, just to try and minimize him getting claimed away.

That is, of course, if you don't have the keg, if you've got the keg, you're pretty well set up. Cause that stops your play area getting claimed. So that's why they're a bit of an iconic duo, which I think we've put a little post out before. Yeah. So they're, 

Sebastian: That's why you always keep chicken' in your pocket.

Nathan.: Yeah. Yeah. But that he loves it or a good brew, you know, he doesn't really differentiate.

Alex: It does keep you on your toes as well. If you know that, um, he's out there or rather you don't know where he is, he could be in the deck. He could be in someone's hand., exactly. If someone can bring another 10 points out right at the end of the game, you know, it can really change all your plans.

Bianca: That's literally game-changing. 

Sebastian: Yeah.

Bianca: I think what I really love about the characters as well, cuz I a really big part of obviously these characters and these cards is the artwork I think is absolutely gorgeous. Um, does someone wanna tell us a little bit more about the wonderful artist behind these characters and how kind of that process to find the artists that suited your game kind of worked out 

Sebastian: When we, when we started with Kingless artwork wasn't necessary, the art style actually, wasn't necessarily something that we particularly had in mind. We were designing the characters and we had a very workable version of Kingless long before. Um, we had any artwork and, you know, playing with basic cards with text scribbled on it, um, for quite a long time.

And then when we got round to the stage where we sort of knew the style that we were going to take the characters, we did a lot of workshopping around, you know, the lore that, that Alex has gone through earlier on. which characters play into others. How they, how they sit themselves in the world. Yeah. We went out looking for a different artist that would sort of not necessarily fit the style we want because we didn't know, but would be able to replicate the ideas that we have in a way that presents the characters really well.

We went through. Lots of different styles and different artists with, you know, each presented, um, their own unique take on how these characters could look. And we eventually settled on, on Anastas who, um, put together. I think again, Klem Poncewell the very first character we did, but this was our sort of test piece to, to find the art style.

I mean, we had a handful, um, that we did originally. Yeah. This was to try and, you know, work out the style that we want to take the whole of Kingless in and, you know, the expansions going forward, that's still being done by Anastas 

Bianca: What I wanted to ask as well. Does Anastas have a, like a portfolio or like anywhere she showcases out her artwork at all, or....

Alex: Yeah, you can find her. Um, if you look for Anastas Ermolina on Artstation, you see, um, some of her work and some of the other projects she's worked on, which really just goes to showcase her, her showcase her talent, wonderful talents there as well. Some pieces from Kingless do appear up on there. Yeah. Some really fantastic pieces on there.

Bianca: Yeah. I'd love to link that in the podcast and transcript somewhere or in a description of this video. Uh, just so you guys can see just how wonderful and talented they are. And I have to, I have to make mention as well, set behind you. You've got framed actually a few of the artwork pieces from the cards in your office. Is that right? 

Sebastian: Yeah. I can't quite see it. Unfortunately, but yes, that is actually our three dwarfs. So that's, um, clam, EEG, grunt, and bran. And then the king was logo just up there. 

Bianca: That was brilliant. That's so good. 

Sebastian: The original three.

Bianca: The, the OG three, for sure. There's no better way to do it. I don't think what was, I guess, for people who are building their own tabletop game and things like that, like, like you guys did, when you did Kingless.

You said that obviously art wasn't the first thing that came to mind. Was there anything design-wise or something that you learned in the process of finding Anastas that you think might prove to be helpful to any other creators or anything out there or any advice you might have for those? Um, looking to, to take that game, take the game to that next level.

Alex: I'd also, it'd be important to, to keep an open mind as well. And. Be willing to work with what your artist, gives you, not, not in the sense that they've given you something you didn't ask for, but if they have if they take what you've told them in maybe a slightly different direction, but it really, it really just sort of flows forward and on from your idea in a, in a positive way.

Engage with that and feed into that as well, because yeah, the creative talent for some of the people you'll meet and work with along the way is, is phenomenal. You've gotta stay flexible in the art style. Just to really bring your idea to where in, you know, to its best and fullest form. Um, you gotta keep an open mind.

Sebastian: This is so fresh at the moment, because in literally a couple of hours before we were recording this podcast, we were, um, reviewing and working on some, some new sketches for the Festival of Explosions. Um, that we've, that Anas has just sent through to us. So we are deep within this process once again right now.

And it's just amazing. Every time, you know, we are, we're working on things and the creativity that, that comes back and forth between us and, and Anastas. Yeah. It's so much fun. 

Bianca: There has to be. I can't imagine how it would've felt when you got that first piece of artwork back or seeing that card in its full form for the first time.

Like Nathan, do you remember the first time seeing the cards? Like what, what was that like? Was that a little bit surreal or, yeah, 

Nathan.: It was because obviously, we're getting our, um, own ones back. It was just great to get those first sketches and like, oh, it's, it's actually it's happening. You know this is really cool.

Um, I know we had a, yeah, as we said, it was still a lot of too, and fro I know, uh, my card, I think. Probably mine more so had a quite a lot of changes from that first.

Sebastian: Yeah. Yours changed a lot. Yeah. 

Nathan.: But I mean, the first sketch was still pretty cool. I had a Mohawk. 

Bianca: Oh, awesome. That's pretty cool. Cool.

Nathan.: I could pull it off. You know, I got this, this is fine.

Sebastian: It, I mean, getting artwork back was amazing because we'd played so much Kingless, and we played with so many different people, you know, as we were testing and building the game, just with. You know, basic, just white sheets of paper or bits of card that we had meticulously cut and punched each corner off to round the corners.

Just to make it a little bit nicer when we're playing and. In these early prototype builds, yes. Being able to stick artwork on. And I think we did a new print. Every time we got a new bit of artwork, we put like a new print on and just play. And we had one little bit of one sketch or one finished image.

And as it, it sort of came together every time we played a game, you know, it would sort of evolve a little bit. So we were still tweaking all sorts of things like mechanics and everything. As we were injecting this artwork in the very late stages, 

Bianca: I was gonna say as well, Just curious to know what the process was for, uh, I guess people looking for artists and stuff for their own game.

How, how did you come to find Anastas? Was it just through your own research, like tabletops specifically, or just artists in general, but for anyone that might be starting in that process, what was that like? 

Sebastian: Yeah, look, it's, there's so many extremely talented people out there and like I said, everyone has their own unique style, so it's sort of finding.

the style that you want to go with. I mean, we use like, Twitter's a fantastic place to find artists and people sharing their work as well as art station and, and similar sites to that. I, I think we just. Stumbled across Anastas. It was just by sort of luck that we managed to find her and, and make contact and start talking.

And she absolutely had done other games before as well. She'd worked on projects of similar scope, I guess, for us, it was just a case of, we wanted to secure the artwork and, you know, make sure that we had all of that. Right. And then we worked with a graphic designer to put it all together properly and go to print and make sure we had everything ready because that's a completely different ball game too.

Just producing, um, sticking some artwork on a, on a page. There's, there's a lot of layout and things that you need to do to get to that final stage. Yeah. 

Bianca: It's, it's just one big collaborative process, across many different streams, I think. Yeah. You don't really think about those things until you actually doing it yourself.

And you're like, okay, this is. on this, on this kind of scale. Like this is, this is a lot that we need to kind of go through together. And, you know, I think what Alex was saying about being open to collaboration and going back and forth and stuff is just so important. 

Sebastian: And I'll tell you what. We did not know the... the scope of what was gonna be required of us as we were doing it.

Things just grew, grew, grew. Yeah. Looking back over the whole project of Kingless. Yeah. If, if we had known that now, I dunno whether we would've, we would've continued on knowing what we'd have to do, but, 

Bianca: well, I do want to talk a little bit more. We've talked about the characters from the game, but I wanna talk more about Overstone.

Uh, Alex talk to us a little bit more about Overstone because I know this, this, the name for the world that Kingless was came into was only something that happened somewhat wasn't somewhat recently. I feel like to me, it feels like recently. Wasn't too long ago. 

Alex: Yeah, it wasn't tremendously long ago. Time, like time shoots passed so quickly though.

So the game is centred around the Hammer and Crown inn, but not every character is inside the Inn. And each character that appears in the game obviously has their own life and their own things going on. There's Stron Iron Striker the blacksmith, so they all, they live in a village or a town that has a Smithy as well as a Tavern. Boom, Overstone grows by another building. 

Overstone existed as an idea long before we named it, frankly, as soon as we had the Hammer and Crown, we had Overstone in effect, because we filled it with characters and people and things. And every one of them really just commanded more and more, space in our minds as to where what would they do all day?

What's their job, what's their role. So it really grew a little community around the Hammer and Crown, which you can just catch glimpses of in the game. 

Bianca: It's wonderful, and I know touched on this and how much I adored it as well. In our first episode about the fantasy setting, it's set in. And I don't, Nathan's talked about giant beaver.

There's a unicow. Have I missed something here. 

Alex: The unicow appeared as part of the Kickstarter, but hasn't appeared in the game yet. 

Bianca: Ah, okay. Okay. 

Sebastian: Yet.... 

That's key. 

Alex: That's important.. Um, you've seen, everyone's seen the giant beaver chasing Stumpy but the, the unicow, it was essentially, it's like a unicorn, but it's a Highland cow.

So it's a, you know, an adorable little picture of it with a singular horn pointing upwards. And we, we, we wanted to have a, sort of a fun, vibrant fantasy setting. So things like that were really just, just felt second nature to the setting, giant animals, different animals, some familiar, yeah. Some won't be.

Bianca: So there's no, no limit to what kind of possibilities in terms of creatures and 

Alex: no, and hopefully we'll be able to share more and more of them with people as we go on.

Sebastian: I think Kingless grew out of the Hammer and Crown pretty quickly, you know, the, the first few characters we had done, they were inside the Hammer and Crown. And then as we started expanding, you know, we've got the winery, the vineyard, you know, and other things that are happening outside the, it started to expand beyond just being inside the Tavern.

And that's when Overstone started to populate and we're gonna see a lot more of Overstone and beyond in the future as well, with, with other things that we have planned. Yeah. It's, it's been a lot of fun building out that the world beyond the, the Hammer and Crown, 

Bianca: I think it just seems to grow like quite naturally and obviously the way in which you've created these characters as well.

And the relationships like you have, like with between one another in the lore and stuff is just naturally kind of flowed outside that one kind of interior space that the game set in. I, and again, I know there's things. Can't say yet, but there are some awesome things I think we'll learn about Overstone and.... 

Sebastian: It was too hard to keep them inside those four walls.

Bianca: Yeah. 

Sebastian: There's, there's just too much. There's too many. I mean, we didn't actually mention it, but the, um, the giant beaver is he actually has a name he's called Benedict. 

Bianca: Oh really? 

Sebastian: And, uh, yeah, I mean, he just can't fit inside and some of those cards, you know, we've, we've got the giant sort of like peering in through the, through the window and things like that.

All characters that we have yet to see more of.

Bianca: To be continued 

Alex: As ominously as possible. 

Bianca: More on that 

Nathan.: Haven't even mentioned the orcs. Yeah. 

Sebastian: Yeah true. 

Bianca: I know that if, uh, I would love to know to anyone who is tuning in, uh, to the show as well. If you guys have any favourite cards, uh, please share them with us.

Tell us why you love that card so much, and maybe we'll even mention them in the next episode, 

Sebastian: just to, yeah, we can talk about some of the lore as well. 

Bianca: Yeah. There's any other characters? Those cards. Yeah. There's any other characters you guys wanna know a little bit more about even. I don't know, maybe something about some of the item cards as well might be maybe might have some interesting trivia behind them.

Yeah. So yeah. If anyone wants to ask us about any of those characters or share their favourite card, Definitely get in touch with us. Seb if anyone wants to find out a little bit more about what we have planned any like kind of sneak peeks, little snippets, maybe some exclusive content. Is there anywhere else people could find us?

Sebastian: Oh, well there certainly is. So we're actually in the process of starting a Patreon, a Two19 Patreon, and this is, uh, where we'll be sharing a lot more of the behind-the-scenes. Um, we're going to start sharing some of the, um, sketches that we've alluded to a little bit earlier on, um, some of the artwork for a festival of explosions coming later in the year.

Um, we'll also have a, uh, pre-show that we recorded before this show, actually, if you would like to tune in and listen to us talking about chocolate, that is a sneaky little behind the scenes. We've got lots more content coming. We are going to start sharing as much as we possibly can. And being able to provide you with as much behind-the-scenes, early play tests as well is something that we want to get people involved with.

So Patreon members will be able to, um, play, play some rounds of Kingless with, with us, with the team, but also be able to jump in on some of the early builds of the Festival of Explosions and, and help us test and refine that before finally sharing with the world, 

Nathan.: They'll be able to quite literally beat us at our own game.

Bianca: yeah. Maybe that sounds like a challenge. Yeah. So I, I would say as well, you know, that's a good place to uh, have a bit of a chat with us as well, get excited like, you know, we can, don't have to be as secretive about certain things about the expansion. You can come get excited with us as well. So we will link to that.

Uh, as soon as it goes officially live, uh, if it's not up by this episode, uh, just stay up to date on our social media channels. If you would like to find more about two 19 and more about king less and stay up to date, we are. Essentially, I feel like we've covered almost every social media channel. Now we are on Facebook.

We're on Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube TikTok. Have I missed any? 

Sebastian: Discord

Alex: I have started yelling facts about Kingless down dark alleyways. 

Bianca: Oh alleyways? Your closest. 

Alex: So, you know, linger on the streets of Hobart and you might, you know, you might hear something. 

Sebastian: Yes. Boardgame Geek, I heard you. I heard you say that. Nathan. So 

Nathan.: Give us a review.

Sebastian: Alex loves shark facts. 

Nathan.: Shark facts.

Bianca: Sorry. That was really, I... I'll cut that out. 

Nathan.: Little throwback to the stream.

Sebastian: Go and watch Sea of Thieves go watch the Sea of Thieves stream from yesterday.

Bianca: Yes. Actually 

Sebastian: Find out about shark facts. 

Alex: Learn what sharks are older than.. 

Bianca: Maybe if you guys want to see us, uh, get to get up to mischief on, uh, uh, not, uh, tabletop-related topics. Maybe I can put together a little video of our Sea of Thieves play-through yesterday. That was quite fun. Maybe. Anyway, I feel like I've said enough and I've kept you guys long enough as well. Thank you so much. Uh, for our second episode. Of the big milkshake podcast series. And you can find all our big milkshake updates @thebigmilkshake.co 

Alex: Cheers

Sebastian: Bye

Bianca: Bye

Nathan.: Ciao.

Oh, and if you made it this far down, we will be exhibiting at PAX Australia this year... More to come on this later! 🤫
 
See you all very soon for our first video! 
 
-Sebastian 

kinglessgame

A post shared by Kingless (@kinglessgame)

We knew our first episode was going to be about introducing the team and of course - talking about Kingless.  As the newbie of the team and fan of the game, I personally had so many questions to ask! I almost forgot at times we were recording because I just wanted to keep chatting - it sometimes got to the point where we debated whether the answers to some questions might be worth being a whole episode in itself! There were also some absolute gems during recording from the team that would make some quality bloopers…

While we film our next episodes, if you have a question that hasn't been asked yet - let us know! You can comment on this post, tweet us or drop us a DM - who knows, maybe we'll shout you out in our next episode!

There were admittedly a few nerves before hitting 'record', but I could not be prouder of Sebastian, Alex and Nathan - getting to listen back to our chats during the editing process was so rewarding to watch come together. I grabbed any spare moment I could at the computer to work on the episode, and I sometimes caught myself smiling while watching the show back. The guys might tell you I made them sound good, but I guarantee they won't admit they are podcast naturals!

Here’s a team photo taken from our second episode, coming soon!

Something that was really important to me when it came to creating the podcast is making sure it was available in as many formats as possible. For our first episode we have the video of our show on YouTube, the audio available on many streaming platforms, and the transcript of the show available here on The Big Milkshake website. 
I wanted to make sure that it was accessible as possible so anyone and everyone can tune in to the show in some way. So whether you want to watch our episode on TV, listen to our episode on-the-go and/or read the episode's transcript, you can do so wherever you go! The next step is to add (accurate subtitles) to our YouTube episodes.

I truly hope you enjoy the first episode of The Big Milkshake Podcast. If you love it, make sure to subscribe to the platform(s) of your choice so you don't miss future episodes!
Thank you to Sebastian, Alex and Nathan for trusting me with leading the way with the show - I couldn't be prouder to finally debut this episode, and I can't wait to share the many more episodes we record together!

-Bianca

Leave a comment

Hi everyone, and welcome to the very first episode of the Big Milkshake Podcast. I'm your host, Bianca. I'm also the social media manager for Two19 and we are joined here today, by the whole gang, the whole Two19 gang.

We have the managing director, Sebastian here.

Sebastian:

Hello.

Bianca:

We are also joined by our creative director, Alex

Alex:

Hi!

Bianca:

And our director of game design, Nathan.

Nathan:

Hey.

Bianca:

How are we doing, everyone? We having a good week so far? Absolutely good. I'm really excited to be doing this with you guys. I feel like it's a little personal, like, oh, I'd love to host my own show or host a podcast and you guys are giving me the opportunity to do that and it's for something really amazing and for anyone who's listening or watching at the moment or reading along in the transcript. Hello and welcome. We have decided to put together a podcast to talk really about ourselves and about Two19 and what we do. And of course, we can't talk about Two19 without talking about Kingless as well. Actually, I'm the newest member of the team and before I joined Two19, I was actually quite a big fan of the game Kingless. So I'm really excited to hopefully be answering questions that anyone at home might be wanting to know, or if you're new to us here and want to get to know us, if you're a fan of tabletop games, or even if you're potentially looking at creating your own. This podcast series, I think will be really fun to get amongst and be a part of. So I guess talking about 2019, I just want to kind of get to know you guys. I want you guys to introduce yourselves first, like who you are, what you do, and kind of what your role at Two19. Entails. I'll start with you. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Sebastian:

So I'm the managing director at Two19. I try and wrangle some sense out of Nathan and Alex and now yourself actually Bianca, so good luck with that and sort of just rope everything together. We've got so many cool projects going on at the moment, we've got so many ideas that we've got to sort of turn into something and I'm sort of just here to pull it all together and collect the creative brains that are part of 2019.

Bianca:

Awesome. Yeah. And Alex, can you tell us a bit about what you do at Two19?

Alex:

Absolutely. I mainly contribute to giving Seb a load of work to do. I come up with a number of different ideas, some of which are practical, some of which aren't, which he has to channel into the constructive, ultimately turned one of them into Kingless, which we've greatly enjoyed developing. My role largely is to help with the design of characters as an idea, come up with names, lore, and just generally work on all of the less technical details, which I rely on Nathan for.

Bianca:

So you're responsible for, I guess like the world-building that has started to happen with say, Kingless now, which I'm really excited to obviously get to and talk about. And obviously behind you in your camera there, we could see a whole bunch of those different characters from the game as well, which probably had a later episode we'll talk about because there's just many wonderful different dwarves there that are so unique to one another. Nathan, what do you do at Two19?

Nathan:

Yes, I'm the director of game design, so I know originally I got told a bit of a base idea and it's my job to make a game out of it. So about getting the mechanics, testing, retesting, retesting and putting out something that's enjoyable for everyone to give a go.

Bianca:

Well, I think one of the things that I've always wanted to know about Two19 or about you guys in general since I've met you, because I've only been working with you guys well, I say only, but I've been part of the team for two months now. But something I want to know about you guys and about how Two19 actually formed and this is before Kingless. Were you guys all friends beforehand or did you meet each other along the way? Like how did the start anyone can take the floor here.

Sebastian:

Unfortunately, we were all friends beforehand and it was just natural to pull us all together. I think it originally began with just Alex and I. The whole writing on the back of a napkin is a common phrase, but it pretty much started that way. Alex and I were just tossing ideas around and we just had a concept that we wanted to come up with. There was nothing like Kingless to begin with and then we ended up bringing Nathan on board who then sort of added a little bit of structure to those ideas and added some complex rules and designs around it which we scoffed at and after a good couple of years we managed to turn that into Kingless.

Bianca:

And I imagine all of you as well have been fans of tabletop games before growing up. Alex, is that always something that's been like a really big part of your life or did any of you get into tabletop games a little bit later on?

Alex:

Yeah, absolutely. You start off with a lot of classics. Every family has those disastrous games of Monopoly when they were small and that just leads on to more and better games. In my case, maybe not better. I love the much-maligned Munchkin playing that with my family. I am a huge fan of Betrayal House on the Hill. I don't think it's the best game technically because you can always end up bogged down on small minute details of the rules, but the sheer amount of fun I've had playing it and the variety it's able to deliver are off the charts. You run around and you're almost certainly going to fail and die, but you all fail together and you all have a laugh. It's fantastic.

Nathan:

I was probably a bit later to the party then, I guess would be expected of someone who's making games. But yeah, I really got into it probably late teenagers, around 18, sort of my sister's partner and me and my sister really got into it and that went from playing a few once a week to having a whole bedroom just filled with board games and going to a game store now and just about have played most of the ones on the wall. But yeah, probably a later start than that. As Alex said, bloody some real terrible Monopoly games. Such a deep genre. There's a lot of good games out there. There's normally one for everyone.

Bianca:

Yeah, I think that's the same with me as well. I grew up with like, Monopoly, Uno all that frustration. I think the best part about tabletop games is obviously the social part of it is like sharing it with other people. I know Alex said you love a game of Munchkin. Nathan Seb is there one game that comes to mind when you think of a favorite that really took off your love of tabletop games at all?

Sebastian:

It's hard to pick a favorite. I don't think you can pick a favourite. That's unfair. There's so many good games out there that have just crafted the way that I've played games and have with these guys and my family and things like that. Yeah, I couldn't pick an all-time favorite.

Bianca:

Nathan?

Nathan:

There are aspects that you just love from loads of different games. I haven't played it in ages, but there was a game called Arabian Nights that just has a huge book and it's just basically a story and through the game you are directed to other places and read through and there's other games like Fortune and Glory that I really enjoyed. Once again, there's so many that you sort of fall out of favour with them. But there are loads. But those two come to mind.

Bianca:

Well, I guess this is something I've always wanted to ask since playing Kingless as well. I'd love to know from you guys where the concept came about. How did Kingless come to be? Because Seb you mentioned before it didn't start off when you joined forces of Alex and Two19 came about. It wasn't quite Kingless just there. How did we kind of get to where we are now?

Sebastian:

Kingless was a totally different game when we began those initial conversations.

Alex:

Yeah, we literally just sat down with A4 for sketch pad, taking down a few ideas quickly. We initially planned things so radically different that it's an entirely separate idea. We did eventually come up with the idea of competing for influence, we didn't name it that of course, that was loosely what we were thinking and then we handed that concept over and it just transformed. And the thing that we knew and felt was sort of exactly what we wanted to work on.

Bianca:

So I'm guessing, obviously, you guys must be big fans of the fantasy genre. What I guess were your influences to put a play on words there in terms of kind of bringing Kingless together. Because when I think of Dwarves initially, like, I think of Dungeons and Dragons. I think of Lord of the Rings. What were your kind of inspirations?

Alex:

Massively Lord the rings, and Dungeons and Dragons, the big favourites. We took a lot of inspiration from sort of the happy-go-lucky nature of the Dwarves sort of from The Hobbit, more so than the heroic Gimli from Lord the Rings because not all of these characters are heroes necessarily. So, yeah, really just the big stories with all those thoughts that we know and love. Too good to ignore.

Bianca:

Something I want to ask you guys is with creating Kingless and you guys were talking about your own favourite games and things like that too. What did you have in mind when creating Kingless that you wanted to bring to, I guess, the players of your game, if that makes sense. In terms of what you enjoyed about your own tabletop experience, what did you want to bring to Kingless players?

Sebastian:

I guess from the very beginning, I think it was important for us to make something that was really easy to pick up but also hard to master. And that's quite a tricky genre to fall into. I'm a bit biased, but I think we did it quite well. I think the cool part of that was from the very beginning we came up with a principle that we coined F.E.F, which stands for Fast, Easy and Fun. And every idea that we had a mechanic that the team and Nathan came up with, we sort of all ran them through this principle. Is it fast? Is it easy? Is it fun? And there were a few that didn't make it. There are a few really good ideas, and this is the hardest part. It was not easy to cull things out of the game that you've poured so much time and effort into one of them. Nathan, you can talk about it, but one of these ideas is really close to my heart. I love this idea, but it didn't work with what we're trying to achieve but the principle behind it and we had lore for the characters and everything. It's really cool. Perhaps it's something we will revisit in the future that we might be able to make it work for us. But, Nathan, talk a little bit about the..

Nathan:

Yes, he intro'd it. It was fake Dwarfs.

Sebastian:

Fake Dwarfs.

Nathan:

Yeah. In the original play, we kind of had this idea that we'd have obviously it's a Dwarf village. That's the theme for the whole game in a tavern and that there'd be some non-dwarves sneaking in there and that we'd have a whole mechanic built around these fake Dwarves, some sneaky humans, orcs and elves, which are all still in the game. It's just the mechanic that got cut. So you can still find them in Kingless, little easter egg I guess. But yeah, we were going to have other cards that would interact with all the fake Dwarves, whether it's to gutter them, discard them or whatever it is but when we sort of brought that back to the rules, it was so complicated, it confused people when we started doing some play testing and it just got to the stage, it's like, we really like this, but it's just not F.E.F.

Sebastian:

Yes, exactly. That's what you've got to do there, isn't it? It was a really hard call to make and a few things went the same way, but that was just one of my favourites. And as Nathan said, there's still characters in the game now that have a sort of legacy from that world that still features in the lore of other characters and a part of the hammer and crown and the Kingless universe as well.

Bianca:

Take me through, I guess, in the most simplest way possible because I know, like, no journey in creating a tabletop game is far from simple. Kind of how Kingless came about. So when did you start creating Kingless? Like, when did you get that ball rolling?

Nathan:

When I first got involved, it was Seb & Alex coming at me. It was late one evening at about 10:00, I think, from memory, and just say, "oh, we really want to make a card game" I think it was called Dwarfquest at that stage and we want to get it together. And I'm like, why haven't I ever thought to make a game that sounds really cool. And I remember I grabbed my phone, open the note page and just put down about 15 lines of just different mechanics, just dot points, spitball, sort of stuff, and then putting all that together, then making a version. Obviously, at the start there was a lot of unnamed things and that's where Alex came into it like a boss and gave us a lot of good content there and we could make the names and start from some actions and some mechanics and making some base rules. And that first version was a bit rough, I do say so myself, needed a lot of polish from there. But that's kind of how I rolled in for Kingless at the beginning.

Bianca:

And this was a couple of years ago, is that right?

Nathan:

God, it's not too.

Sebastian:

We are looking at three or four years ago now.

Nathan:

Yeah, I could open the note page.

Sebastian:

Yeah that original note still exists. It's a relic.

Nathan:

The first of September 2018.

Sebastian:

There you go.

Nathan:

Last edited at 01:52 a.m. On the 1 September 2018. Still got it word for word

Bianca:

So I'm kind of backtracking here a little bit. But who was it? I guess first it was between Alex and Seb but who came up with the idea of dwarfs like this fantasy card game to each other first?

Alex:

I believe that was me. I think that was literally how I worded it, I think late one night, just on WhatsApp or something I said to Seb, "do you want to make a game about dwarfs" or "wouldn't it be cool if we made a game about dwarfs"?

Sebastian:

I said, no, don't be silly. Go back to sleep. Alex.

[Laughter]

Bianca:

And just to clarify, this was your first introduction into creating and producing a full tabletop game, is that right, Seb?

Sebastian:

Yeah, we've never done anything like this before. My background is in technology and I've been involved with app creation and things like that sort of my entire career but this was a completely different step. We've gone from the digital world that we all live in, using our phones and all of our devices, to the physical world now and sort of taking a step back that is different to anything else we've done before. Well, certainly I've done before. It's really refreshing, actually. It's great.

Bianca:

I think it's still really great that there's such a strong tabletop community out there despite in the age of technology and stuff, people are still excited to meet up together and play a campaign or play a card game or board game and things like that. I think that's something I've always really admired about the community and I guess I'm pretty new to the community, I guess, online, since working with you guys and it's just brilliant to see all these ideas come together that start in like the smallest of places and turn into something really cool. Alex, tell us a little bit about we've kind of discussed a bit about world building and the characters that you have in Kingless. Do you remember the first character that you created for the game? Like if they're still in there now and what your inspirations were for it?

Alex:

Absolutely. Well, the first character in the game should be wearing a bright red coat appearing just over my shoulder, Klem Poncewell, Now, he's very loosely inspired by a very dear friend of mine. His whole theme is that he's vain, pretentious, and selfagrandising at every step of the way, and he was our absolute first Kingless character.

Bianca:

And you can find him on one of the cards now, which I think is awesome. And then I guess when you start creating these characters, did you just start from having one character and then building on from there? Because I believe we've had discussions in the past before about how some characters are intertwined with others. Did you build a small little community or little family of characters or was it like a one-by-one kind of process?

Alex:

We largely went one by one. We wanted all of our dwarves to be essentially jolly and fun, so we set out with a theme and then we figured out how to build on top of that. So we wanted a dwarf who was in charge of maintaining law and order. We then ended up with someone, a character that looked like a British bobby, essentially, with that old-fashioned helmet. And so it went through all of them. Now, once we had them, we started drawing direct links between a few of them. So some of them will gutter or remove others from play effectively. Other characters based on some traits that they have and some background and basically a relationship that they share. Others will just remove items or things like that based on what we were trying to go for with their personality, for want of a better word.

Sebastian:

I think as we were designing the dwarves we had a sort of a parallel between the mechanics of these characters, but also how we wanted them to look and their background and things like that, so they play into each other. It's not just, here's a random mechanic that's attached to this one random character. They all have a meaning behind the mechanic that's attached to them and in some instances, not the artwork, but the character design came first and then we built a mechanic around that, and then other times it went the other way. We had a mechanic that we wanted to use and we build a character around that.

Bianca:

Mechanics aside. Favourite character?

Seb:

Alex.

Bianca:

Anyone?

Alex:

I was waiting for you.

Nathan:

Klaut and Biscuit. Come on everyone loves a dog.

Alex:

Yeah yeah it has to be the dog. Klaut and Biscuit. Although I really love Torb the Solid.

Nathan:

Stumpy. The were-beaver.

Sebastian:

Yeah, a lot of interesting stuff there. For me, it has to be Klem Poncewell.

Bianca:

Why's that?

Sebastian:

Alex alluded to that being after someone. I think he may have been referring to me, unfortunately. But definitely. It's the original, the original character it's the first one we created and I've got a soft spot in my heart for that too.

Bianca:

I was going to say. And like, obviously you guys can keep the secret if you want, but I didn't know this until quite recently, but there's a couple more characters that are based off you guys. Is that right?

Alex:

Yeah. So one of the Dwarves, Egrunt Hardfeaster, he might have some traits which maybe are associated with me.

Sebastian:

And Bran Lawbringer, who is loosely modelled on dearest Nathan there.

Bianca:

Lawbringer rule maker I like the connection. I think it's really clever. And I like the fact that it's like a little easter egg that maybe not a lot of people know about, which they do now, which is really cool.

Sebastian:

And I heard that there may be some involvement from you in the latest expansion that we might have touched on as well, Bianca, maybe a little feature,

Bianca:

Maybe... maybe... I wasn't going to suggest anything, but you said it. Perhaps we'll just have to wait. I was going to say as well for anyone listening if you do want to get some updates since this podcast, we have actually announced an expansion for Kingless called the Festival of Explosions. If you would like to stay up to date with all the news coming your way for the new expansion and for new Two19 material and news, make sure you go visit www.thebigmilkshake.co and you can sign up to our newsletter there because you give some really awesome monthly wrap ups there about what's been happening. Obviously we're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and hoping to bring out a lot more content in the lead-up to the release of the expansion, which is super, super exciting,

Sebastian:

Really is.

Bianca:

I think it will have to be a whole other episode where we talk about the expansion. Obviously, we're quite limited to what we can talk about but, maybe I'm biased, but I am very excited, especially working with you guys on the last couple of months and getting a glimpse at it, especially seeing that logo for the first time. It's such an awesome thing to be a part of and to share that journey with you guys. Interestingly enough, I don't think we actually mentioned this at the beginning of the podcast because we are based in Australia for anyone tuning in around the world and we've come into this interesting hurdle of us living on separate sides of the country, like different sides of the country. So I'm actually in Western Australia. I think the fun part is hopefully we will all meet each other for the first time towards the end of the year, potentially.

Sebastian:

Fingers crossed at PAX.

Bianca:

Yeah. And I would love to talk about at some point and maybe even briefly now, about the involvement that you guys had at PAX with Kingless as well, how that all came together, because you guys did some really cool stuff there. I mean, I wasn't there, but could any of you tell me a bit more about that?

Sebastian: Yeah, I mean, last year we won the PAX Indie showcase for tabletop games. Unfortunately, it got moved because of COVID to an online-only event, so we weren't there in person, which is a bit of a shame, but we had some panels, we did some talks over the course of PAX and we were demoing Kingless.

Bianca:

I feel like it's really hard to not talk about the pandemic over the last couple of years. Kind of run me up to speed here. When Kingless had come out, how long was it after that? When everything kind of just....

Sebastian:

We actually were planning and we had planned for a long time. We were sort of a year ahead of ourselves and we knew when we were going to launch on Kickstarter. And I think it was about, correct me if I'm wrong, Alex, about May 2020 when we had planned and that was sort of... sorry, March. It was about March, wasn't it? And that was about when everything was kicking off at the very beginning of COVID and we had a really tough decision to make. We saw other people running Kickstarters at the same time who were cancelling or delaying, some people deciding to, you know, let's just hold out and launch later in the year. Nobody knew how this pandemic was going to unfold and how many years we'd sort of be involved in this. We made the decision to press ahead and sort of continue with the Kickstarter. A lot of people who talk to us sort of think that this was one of those everyone's in lockdown, let's make a board game style things. But we've been designing and building King's like a year prior to the Pandemic and it was just crazy timing for us. Obviously, we couldn't manufacture in time for lockdowns and things like that. We didn't get that finished, but we launched officially at the beginning of 2021 and delivered to all of our Kickstarter backers then. So a lot of people who are still in lockdown managed to have a copy of Kingless to play at home with friends and family that you're unfortunately locked in with.

Bianca:

Like you said and talked about PAX earlier before having the facilities to still be able to show off your game and still play the game online. I guess it's just,

Sebastian:

It's so helpful we can do that. Yeah, it's amazing.

Bianca:

I think especially with social media and everything now, it's like you still have the facilities to be able to advertise your game and stuff like that, despite all of it. And that's something I personally really enjoyed working with you guys so far. You guys have this amazing world that you've created and all these awesome characters to show off and I think that's obviously really excited to see Festival Explosions come together and for us to show off more stuff because obviously, like I said, there's a lot of things we can't talk about yet, but just getting a first taste of everything is super exciting. So I think that's all we have time for, for today's episode. Thank you again, you guys for joining me this afternoon. I know it's like late at night for you guys and it's only in the evening for me, so I do really appreciate it. So thank you Alex, thank you Nathan, and thank you Seb for joining me tonight.

Sebastian:

Absolutely.

Alex:

Happy to.

Bianca:

I think I'm really looking forward to recording more of these sessions with you guys just so we not only can all just chat together and everything, but also so we can keep everyone in the loop of any updates that we have coming on any other things that we want to talk about. I know that we want to have an episode just talking about Kickstarter. I know I personally would love to know because this was your first Kickstarter campaign, is that right?

Sebastian:

First Kickstarter.

Bianca:

All of this was all very first time for you guys. So I'd love to know more about the process and what was involved just so anyone who's watching or listening or reading might want to know a little bit more about it and then also just what it's like to build a game in general. Like I said, it's no easy feat and we could spend hours just talking about it and I personally would love to know more about Kingless and what you did do what you didn't do and why you did it, why you didn't do it. So I just want to say thank you to anyone that's been listening or tuning in so far. You can stay up to date with Two19 and Kingless on our social media channels. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, potentially more platforms on the way. Maybe potentially. If you want to stay up to date with the podcast and any of our posts for our monthly shake-ups, make sure you check out www.thebigmilkshake.co and I will catch you guys very soon for the next episode. Thanks, everyone.

Sebastian:

Thanks very much. Bye, everyone.

Nathan:

Ciao

Alex:

Bye.

Game Jam

We had our first Two19 Game Jam of 2022. Marking out some time to bring everyone's creative minds to bear was a delight and you will be hearing more about what we made in the fullness of time. Sebastian did a short writeup on this, you can read it in his post

The Big Milkshake by Two19

Two19 Game Jam

Game Jams are a really fun way for us to play around with new ideas as a team, usually going from brainwaves to prototype in a day or two. Festival of Explosions our upcoming Kingless expansion, for example, is the product of our last Game Jam back in early 2021…

Read more

4 years ago · 2 likes · Sebastian Roberts

Podcast

Bianca has been hard at work at putting the finishing touches on the podcast, we should have this to you very soon. 

Tips and Tricks

I am building some resources to help those of you who find yourselves as the Fool more than the King. These will have all sorts of tidbits of knowledge to help new and experienced players.

In the Works

Sebastian also hinted on Twitter recently of something exciting we have in the works - Club Two19 - But more on this in a later update

Game Jams are a really fun way for us to play around with new ideas as a team, usually going from brainwaves to prototype in a day or two. Festival of Explosions our upcoming Kingless expansion, for example, is the product of our last Game Jam back in early 2021. 

We try and host at least one Jam sesh every year - this year was no exception! And, for the first time, I wanted to share some of it with you and let you peer behind the curtain. 

Given our team has grown from the 3 of us (Alex, Nathan and myself) to include Bianca 👋, I thought it was time to try something a little different with this year's game jam. 

So, to kick off, I tasked everyone with pre-preparing an idea before the event. The idea could be as wild or obscure as you like, a completely open field for the imagination to run wild. (Spoiler: run wild it did!).

We'd each then have 15 minutes to present that idea to the team, with a few minutes for Q&A at the end of each presentation. A small buffer to iron out any last-minute kinks or questions people might have had. Everyone presented differently; from PDFs to a pre-recorded video, even a live demo of the idea in the presentation! - This turned out to be a lot more fun than I had anticipated, with equally helpful and insightful probing questions at the end. 

We then split into two groups, taking our 2 favourite ideas to work on further. When we regrouped an hour later. We found each of us had contributed a personal touch, taking those initial ideas further far quicker than any of us could have done alone. 

The greatest challenge of the day was choosing a single idea for all of us to carry forward into a rapidly designed prototype. With some swift rule writing and the help of some of our favourite design tools, we were able to do a milestone playtest that same afternoon. We have a long way to go but being able to take an idea from its inception to the team having genuine fun playing a first round was fantastic. 

Despite picking a single game to work on, ultimately we had 4 stellar ideas from these presentations, 4 ideas that are being cultivated into their own projects and eventually prototypes. As with FoE and Kingless before it, we know all too well just how much these ideas morph over time! 

This is where I have to be a little secretive. I can, however, share that all of these ideas take place within the same world as Kingless (and FoE). Things are getting a little bigger than the Hammer & Crown! 

We have a bit to unpack today, so let's just dive straight in.

A brand new website 👋

That's right, it's finally happened, the new website. We have merged our Two19 website and the store into one. Simple and clean. Some might even say it's FEF! (Fast, Easy, Fun for the uninitiated)

Check it out, we are especially proud of this one.

Check it out!

A brand new logo 👋

That's right, not only did the website get a makeover, but we also dropped the new Two19 branding. It's a little more 'us'.

You can read more about this over in my previous post A fresh new look.

The Festival of Explosions 🎆🎪🎆

Development is drawing closer and closer to a close on FoE. We are still deep in testing, but the change-log is getting shorter and shorter with each new version (I'm sure this is something Nathan appreciates!).

We've recently begun working on the artwork for all our new cards (49 individual pieces to be precise!). We will start sharing some of these sketches soon. Keep an eye on our socials for that!

The Pod 🎙️

Yeah, we recorded a podcast! This is new territory for us so we are still finding our feet. The first episode is currently finishing up in the editing suite (thanks Bianca) - We hope to release that very soon! 

This first episode is an intro to Two19 and how we came to be. Stay tuned! 

That's it for this update. Keep well and I will see you for the July Shakeup! 

-Sebastian

Two19, the name, the brand, had been with us for long before Kingless. But it wasn’t until the Kingless Kickstarter in 2020 that we decided to file the paperwork and formally establish the company, Two19 Pty Ltd. 

Caught up in the excitement and complexities of designing, manufacturing, shipping and publishing a brand new board game, our company branding slipped by the wayside. 

It’s now been 2 years since the launch of our first Kickstarter, and a year since Kingless hit the market. We recently announced Bianca joining us as our Social Media Manager as well as a tease for our upcoming expansion to Kingless: Festival of Explosions. 

As Two19 continues to grow, so must our branding. It’s been such a long time coming, I personally feel a huge sense of relief in being able to finally tick this off my to-do list! 

Don’t panic, we’re not doing a Facebook and going all Meta on you! Two19 is still Two19, but as of today, we are moving to a new logo and launching our new website to go along with it www.two19.co 

From today, this is Two19. 

Alex here and I'm happy to be doing this month's update. May is a special time for Two19 as we celebrate two years since we released Kingless to the world on Kickstarter.

In true game developer fashion, we celebrated by introducing some new optional rules to let you play Kingless in different ways. They were a blast to make and test with lots of laughs while we ensured they affected the game as intended. We will be going over some of our favourites later but in the meantime, I can't recommend you try them enough.

You can read all about it and get the optional rules in digital and print-friendly formats from our Birthday Post:

The Big Milkshake by Two19

Happy Birthday Kingless!

Today marks the 2nd year since Kingless was brought to the world via Kickstarter. Or as we like to call it, Kingless's birthday! This is a really special day for Two19 and this year we have something a little different to share with you. Everyone likes to play games differently, over the course of the last year or so that Kingless has been on sale public…

Read more

4 years ago · 3 likes · Sebastian Roberts

I'm also happy to say that the development for Festival of Explosions is well underway with extensive bouts of testing letting us get to grips with some of the more ambitious card combos in the current build. We are finding that the new actions and cards are adding more depth of strategy to the game and allowing players to vie over influence in more interesting ways. 

With the mechanics of FoE taking shape, we have more time to work on the story of each of the characters and of the Hammer and Crown itself. The observant among you will have already noticed one new detail but we are working on some really exciting ways to share more of this with you soon. 

Just a heads up, we are planning something big towards the end of the year and I'm looking forward to sharing more details with you later. 

Today marks the 2nd year since Kingless was brought to the world via Kickstarter. Or as we like to call it, Kingless's birthday! 

This is a really special day for Two19 and this year we have something a little different to share with you.

Everyone likes to play games differently, over the course of the last year or so that Kingless has been on sale publicly, we have heard amazing stories from players all around the world about how they like to play. 

Learning rules is always a challenge, quite often you end up playing the intended rules wrong on the first play of a new game. However, not playing by the book often leads to really unique and fun gameplay. We refer to this as "House Rules".

We LOVE house rules. It's just people being creative and having a good time with tabletop games, which is what we are all about.

We spoke to Blossy from the Hammer & Crown and put together a collection of our own Kingless House Rules for you to try!

Watch out though a few of these are really chaotic!

For those that don't want to have their phone at the table, we have also put together a little more print-friendly version of the rules. Both versions can be downloaded below.

House Rules PDF

House Rules Print Friendly PDF

We'd love to hear your stories and adventures with these rules! 

Sebastian & Nathan