This week I spoke to Matteo over at Tin Hat Games. They have just released a game on Kickstarter, called Dungeon Digger, and it has already funded. We spoke about the company, game, and the future of Tin hat. For a small European company, they have big ambitions as you will see below.
Can you tell me a bit about Tin Hat Games?
Tin Hat Games is a small Italian game design project which includes people harnessing several different competences into one creative team, capable of giving birth to cross-market products. Our path started with #UrbanHeroes, an old-school superhero role-playing game that got funded on Kickstarter in 2014. Now it's time to find funds to manufacture Dungeon Digger and achieve with all of you this brand-new gaming dream!
The team behind Dungeon Digger is composed of:
- Alessandro Rivaroli - The beard and the hood: game designer, graphomaniac and renowned Stooges’ torturer.
- Matteo Botti - Communication specialist, perfection addict, he’s the one who whips the Stooges who like talking too much rather than digging.
- Manuel Strali - Master of the dark arts, the graphic designer who made the whole dungeon, the game box and symbols: he loves to see the Stooges warm corpses assembled into perfect geometrical shapes.
- Laura Guglielmo - The colourful mother of the Stooges, professional illustrator, Grimorio co-author and Attaccapanni Press co-founder, she’s the one who made literally every illustration for this game.
This is your second Kickstarter, so what did you learn from your first and how will that help you?
UrbanHeroes was our first project and we did make a few mistakes. We were a group of Italians with our little project ready to show it to the public, we were naive and pure but it was a great experience that gave us the opportunity to meet a lot of new friends and partners (first of all the guys behind Metagames Inc. that recently funded a card game: Lucid) around the world. Now we're at six expansions for UrbanHeroes here in Italy and we're translating our second #UrbanHeroes rule book into English - which will be ready by the end of the year. Our first experience went well and we learned a lot of micro-lessons. From the shipping costs, to the importance of communication with the backers and the attention of every single detail. We still have a lot to learn, of course, but we're doing our homework!
What can you tell me about Dungeon Digger?
Dungeon Digger is a strategic competitive dungeon building game, a lot of words to say: you will be a malevolent Dungeon Lord ready to rebuild an evil empire from its ashes thanks to their clumsy servant, the Stooges.
In Dungeon Digger you, from the depths of Mount Peril, must enslave those lazy Stooges to make them work for your dungeon to build Dorms, Throne rooms, Treasure rooms and even Torture and Sacrifice rooms. Of course you won't be the only Dungeon Lord: the other players, your opponents, will try to invade and ruin your precious and intricate dungeon not to mention forgotten monsters, dragons and even human adventurers, the most evil, despicable and horrid thing in the world!
During the game you must build your dungeon, place traps to avoid intrusion, dig, steal and hide golden coins and ruining your opponent's invading their dungeon with your army of Stooges.
The game funded very quickly and this can only lead to great stretch goals can you tell me what you have planned?
We have a lot of work to do with stretch goals: we're trying to create a game with a lot of extra material. Today, after the first stretch goal is unlocked, we are looking to unlock new awesome things like better pouches, cards, - spoiler! - new scenarios, tokens and even miniatures!
What future games or ideas do you have for this game or others?
As you can imagine Mount Peril can hide a wide range of creatures, monsters and even new Dungeon Lords (take a look at Noname, the shadow of the Dungeon Lord, our Kickstarter exclusive card). If this project goes well we will work on a expansion and on a new super-secret project still in the test phase.
Why do you think people should back your game?
We think that Dungeon Digger can be fun for the old-school pen & paper fantasy games like the old editions of Dungeons & Dragons and Dungeon Keeper. For those of you who love the idea of building an empire with the help of clumsy and helpless Stooges. The game is all about construction, planning and enslaving resources so if you like playing (and ruining your opponents with the power of your strategy) a strategic game Dungeon Digger is a perfect choice!
The guys over at Tin hat are very fun-loving people who I have had great conversations with. I am glad the game has funded and I really look forward to seeing what surprises the game holds as more SG’s are unlocked. I also love the little teddy you can buy as an add-on!! Go check it out on Kickstarter.