| Company Site: | maydaygames.com |
It’s Gen Con time! This year for Gen Con we’re doing something a little different: over the next four days (the Best Four Days!) we’ll be highlighting five of our favorite family game companies to showcase their awesomeness! Yes 5…because I want to that’s why. On day 2 of Gen Con we are bringing you MayDay Games!
Gaming is a huge part of our lives. We play for fun, to spend time with friends or family, and even use games in our homeschooling. The games we play can sometimes have considerable setup or play times and with the variety of games available it is important to know that a company cares as much about the quality of the game as we do.
Mayday Games has been around since 2008 and over that time published some of our favorite games. Besides great games they also create card sleeves in almost 30 sizes and wooden replacement/enhancement pieces for many of your favorite games. Also, they sell replacement pieces and add on pieces for their games…I love it.
We had a chance to talk to Ryan Bruns, President of Mayday Games: MG = My Geeklings | RB = Ryan Bruns
MG – How did MayDay Games get started?
RB – Started by making custom game pieces like the animeeples for Agricola, then with the debut of Dominion Mayday moved into card sleeves.
MG – What was the first game you published?
RB – First game was Space Junkyard. It was a print & play game that we published
MG – You probably get a lot of games and game ideas pitched to you. Do you publish other people’s games or just develop your own?
RB – We publish a lot of games that we develop in house that have been presented to us by designer’s. We also do a lot of licensing from overseas publishers as well, such as Coconuts, Click Clack and more.
MG – Who decides what games to publish and how do you decide what game idea is going to be a good one?
RB – I’m mostly the gate keeper for what we publish 🙂 but I rely heavily on the input from our play-testing groups, development team and others.
MG – Do you specifically look for games that are great for kids and adults or lean towards one or other? Is it more of is it a good game and then find the audience?
RB – We tend to focus on games that are lighter and friendly to those that are avid gamers and those that are not. We have a few games that step away from the light weight games and we have some heavier games in the pipeline.
MG – I know a lot of time and hard work goes into making games, what is the hardest game or game that took the longest to publish? and why?
RB – The game that took the longest to this point was Assassin Con. We revamped the artwork and the game went through several changes along the way. I’m very pleased with the final product.
We have quite a few of Mayday’s games in our collection and there’s no question that they get a lot of play time. The quality of the games is always superb and they cover all the age ranges and experience levels we need so there’s always something fun for everyone. Here are few we think you should check out…in no particular order.
Walk the PlankWalk the Plank! is game #2 in a series of 3 Pirate themed games by Mayday Games and one of our new favorites. You represent the dumbest pirates in the crew and the Captain will only keep up to 2 of you! Shove, drag, charge and do whatever you can to NOT Walk the Plank!
Garbage DayCleaning your room has never been so much fun! Garbage Day by Mayday Games is an easy to learn, super fun game that’s great for all ages. Clean your room and put trash on the trash can but be careful, if any trash fall off you have to keep it and if you get too much…you lose!
Get Bit!Get Bit! is a fantastic card game by Mayday Games that is easy to learn and so much fun to play. Play your cards carefully or you could end up getting bit by a hungry shark…several times! If this shark takes a bite out of you then you lose a limb! Ok…your robot does but it is pretty fun to pull off a leg or an arm…if it isn’t your robot that is!
Based on everything we’ve seen and played from Mayday I can easily say that if you don’t have any of their games in your collection there’s guaranteed to be one (probably more) to fit your tastes and you’ll have a great time with it. And if you have a game you need to protect they’ve got the sleeves you’ll need to keep it safe for years to come!
Check out MayDay Games at #GenCon2017 at booth # 2101!
