Happy Holidays everyone! It's nearly the end of the year and while it has been a slow one for the Ice Cream for Everyone Podcast I'm really happy to finish the year with an awesome guest, Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games. 

Jamey is an award-winning board game designer, particularly known for quite intricate, strategy oriented games with beautiful pieces and design. He's also known in the industry for the knowledge he shares about design and crowdfunding. He raised $3.2 million on Kickstarter through different projects, and while he moved away from the platform he still writes and thinks about crowdfunding. 

I first came across Stonemaier Games with Jamey's first published game: Viticulture, a board game in which players are winemakers in Tuscany. My brother received it as a gift for Christmas last year and I really enjoyed playing it. Earlier this year I got to play Scythe, probably his most popular game. It's pretty crunchy, as in there is a lot going on and a lot to learn. I was a little lost playing the first time but by the end I couldn't wait to play again.

We had an excellent conversation about Christmas and holidays overall, the games we play, how Jamey designs games, how he works and structures his days, thoughts about crowdfunding and more.

If you enjoy the episode, please share it with a friend or post a rating and a review on your podcast app – it makes a huge difference in helping others come across the podcast too.

A few things mentioned in this episode:

Jamey Stegmaier

Stonemaier Games

Scythe

My Little Scythe

Viticulture

St Louis, Missouri

Montpellier

Richmond, Virginia

Euro style board games

Mille Bornes

Labyrinth

Stratego

Monopoly

Scotland Yard

Hero Quest

Chess

Kickstarter

Ben Rosser

Between Two Cities

Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig

Ticket to Ride

Cooperative Games

The Mind

Reef

Azul

Downforce

Scythe Rise of Fenris

Star Wars Roleplaying Game

Time Stories

Microscope

Fiasco

Wingspan

Jeni's Ice Cream

The Three Body Problem

The Malazan Book of the Fallen

Gardens of the Moon

The Gift, Lewis Hyde

Vindication

Via Nebula

A month already since the last episode of the podcast, and a (low) record breaking number, this being only the 4th episode published this season. I recorded this a while back over the summer, so it's a little overdue and at the same time it's right in time for the skiing season. My guest for this episode is Mic McCabe, one of the co-founders of Folsom Skis in Denver, Colorado. As you may know if you follow me on social media, I really got back into skiing pretty seriously two years ago. I hadn't skied since I was a kid and relearned in the French Alps.

Last season I bought an old second pair of skis with the intention of both improving my skiing and  trying a few other pairs of skis. Of course I totally geeked out, read tons about it and tried about 12 different pairs of skis from different brands, sometimes 3 in the same day! While in Telluride I found out about custom skis, then found out about Folsom, I talked to them on the phone a few times, finally tried their skis in Breckenridge on Easter weekend 2018, and loved them so much I ordered a pair! I also commissioned an awesome illustrator for the top sheet for those to become my Ice Cream for Everyone skis.

I hadn't talked with a custom product engineer, designer, and manufacturer, I thought it might be a fun conversation for the podcast.

• Folsom Skis
• Follow Folsom on Instagram and Facebook
• Mike McCabe
• Colorado
• Loveland
• CU Boulder
• Winter Park
• Freestyle skiing
• Moguls / bumps
• Big Mountain Skiing
• Race Skiing
• Freeride Skiing
• Motocross
• Wakeboarding
• Engineering
• Blue whale > structure that it inspired in building wings?
• Evolutionary Biology
• Rossignol
• Dynastar
• Poplar
• Bamboo
• Maple
• Aspen
• Vibration dampener
• Wagner Custom Skis
• K2
• Atomic
• Trigger II Shape
• DPS Skis
• Vail Resorts / Epic Pass
• Alterra Mountains / Ikon Pass
• ManHunt
• How Google Works

In this podcast episode I have a fascinating conversation with Jack Riback, who created and headed the department of Strategic Alliances for Disney Studios. I met Jack quite randomly while listening to jazz at the Green Mill Lounge, in Uptown Chicago, got talking and it seemed he had interesting stories to tell so I invited him for a recording. That said I also have to apologize for the quality of the sound, we had a few technical issues and I ended up calling Jack's phone, which didn't turn out to be as good a sound quality as I'd hoped.

I still think Jack's behind the scenes anecdotes of brokering deals Disney Studios and McDonald's Happy Meals are brilliant, as well as him sharing stories of creative different businesses.

In other news, as I mention at the beginning of the show, I am looking for new contracts and clients at the moment, so if you have questions about your brand and marketing strategy please don't hesitate getting in touch.

A few things mentioned in the episode:

• The Green Mill Lounge
• University of Illinois 
• Marketing advertising
• DDB
• Bernbach
• VW
• Iconic VW ads / Think Small
• Dancing Nixon Box (Howdy doody time)
• Urban Cowboy with John Travolta
• GAP
• Tempo
• Time
• Newsweek
• Named a "Radical Toymaker" 
• Uber
• Facebook
• VR
• Target
• Wallmart
• Disney Studios
• Department of Strategic Alliances
• McDonalds
• Happy Meal
• History of Fun - Happy Meals / Polygon
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit 
• The Little Mermaid
• Sears
• Michael Eisner
• Jeffrey Katzenberg
• Steven Spielberg

Happy 4th July to everyone in the United States of America! So far I'm celebrating with podcast editing but I'm about to go catch the end of the Cubs game at a friend's patio so I'll be celebrating properly there in Murican fashion with baseball!

I'm very excited about this episode, I had a fun and interesting conversation with my friends Alfie Dennen and Allix Harrison d'Arcy to talk about the board game they designed, currently being funded on Kickstarter, Evil Corp.

Evil Corp is a game in which players incarnate billionaire tech CEOs battling to make money and 'save the world' - whatever the cost. I've been following as they've been working on this for the past 2 years and excited to see their project come to life! The game was funded in 6 only days on Kickstarter and they are going through stretch goals. I believe you have about 9 days to back the Kickstarter!

A few things mentioned in the episode:

• Alfie Dennen on Twitter
• Evil Corp on Kickstarter
• Evil Corp Game on Twitter
• The Agent short film
• Moblog
• Playstation Europe
• Deadlands RPG
• Twestival
• We Are Social
• Dark AI
• Dystopia
• Iain M Banks
• Richard Bachman
• Bruce Sterling Distractions
• Cyberpunk
• Hunger Games
• How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World, Francis Wheen
• Exxon Valdez Crisis
• Ronald Reagan
• Margaret Thatcher
• Paul Simon's Graceland
• Mark Zuckerberg at the US Congress
• Clay Shirky Here Comes Everyone
• James Bond Villains
• Elon Musk
• A View to a Kill
• Love Island
• Ex on the Beach
• Whelan Industries
• Tyrell Corporation
• Augmented Reality
• Pokemon GO
• Kingsman
• Mike Sizemore
• War on Terror board game
• Spiel Essen
• GenCon
• Jamey Stonemaier
• Scythe Board Game
• Board Game Geek
• Pornhub
• Hot Fuzz
• World's End
• Snowcrash and Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
• Holy Fire
• Heavy Weather
• BAFTA

About time I get back to publishing after a 6 month long Christmas break from the podcast! This is an experimental update talking about what I've been up to, skiing, talking about board games and game mechanisms, upcoming guests and a few more bits and pieces.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Evil Corp Board Game on Kickstarter
• Alien Frontiers (board game)
• Kingsburg (board game)
• The Voyages of Marco Polo (board game)
• Chicagoland Games Dice Dojo
• GenCon
• Folsom Custom Skis
• Worker Placement board game mechanism

Happy Holidays everyone!! Perhaps not that much of a seasonal climax, this year we finish the Ice Cream for Everyone Podcast sans guests, just a few minutes of yours truly to wish you happy holidays / Christmas / Chanukah (at the time of recording) / Festivus /  Kwanza / However you celebrate the end of year - and a happy new year!

That's about it, I've just arrived in the South of France to spend the holidays with family in the Pyrénées Mountains and am looking forward to it! The show will be on hiatus over the holidays and I'll be slowly planning for new episodes in mid to late January 2018.

Thank you for listening, if you like it a 5 star review as a gift won't go unnoticed!!

The podcast is back with a new episode after a brief Thanksgiving hiatus - also slightly due to scheduling breakdowns too. I'm excited, this was a great conversation. Adam Pierno, Chief Strategy Officer at creative agency Santy, reached out to me on Twitter and invited me to be a guest on his podcast, The Strategy Behind Everything, in which we talked about tabletop games. I finally managed to organize my schedule properly to have Adam on my show to talk about his background as a creative in the advertising and marketing industry, how he shifted to work on the strategy side, the book he wrote (Under Think It: A Marketing Strategy Guidebook for Everyone), and his podcast among a few other topics.

I hope you enjoy as much as I did! As I explain in the intro, depending on scheduling opportunities with guests I'm looking at publishing one last episode for 2017 and wrapping up - or it might be just a brief update to wrap up the year and talk about what I'm planning for next year.

Info mentioned in this episode:

• Santy
• Instil Strategy Training
• The Strategy Behind Everything Podcast
• Adam Pierno on Twitter
• Underthink It - A marketing strategy Guide for Everyone
• Delta Airlines
• Verizon
• Metallica
• Disturbing videos on Youtube Kids
• Flicker by Theodore Rozak 
• Reply All Podcast
• Mark Pollard on Twitter
• Chipotle
• Friendly's ice cream
• Cold Stone Creamery
• Monopoly
• Risk
• Chess
• Checkers
• Chinese Checkers

I haven't had any guests having worked in both advertising agencies, in marketing as a client, and in fine arts so far. I thought it would be a great perspective to have so I invited my friend Vicky Hoffman to join me for a conversation. It's a little bit shorter than usual, as I'm exploring and experimenting with different lengths for the show, and admit I was running out of time to plan for this episode as well. We talked about Vicky's experience studying metalsmithing and enamels, her career in marketing and advertising, her transition to being a working artist and encaustic painting, and finally her recent studying of wine with the Court of Master Sommeliers.

• UCLA
• Picasso
• Rodin
• Moore
• Master of Fine Arts
• Metalsmithing
• Enamels
• Encaustic painting
• BBDO (creative agency - Full disclosure: Energy BBDO is my current employer (part of the BBDO Network), mentioned in passing in the episode)
• Tracy Locke
• KFC 11 Spices & Herbs social media stunt
• Target Black Friday wake up calls 
• The Court of Master Sommeliers
• San Luis Obispo Museum of Art

Hi there! Unfortunately I've been running behind original plans for the podcast and don't have a guest today. New guests coming up, in the meantime just an update for a few minutes talking about what is going on right now.

In short:

I have been freelancing at Energy BBDO in Chicago for a few months now, an advertising agency. and officially switched to working there full time. Ice Cream for Everyone will keep going on here on the website, blog, newsletter, podcast pretty much as per usual - and it's my personal online environment, it doesn't reflect the views of my employer, as is traditional to point out.

I will be on fellow strategist Adam Pierno's podcast: The Strategy Behind Everything, talking about tabletop roleplaying games. It was a great conversation! Check out his podcast when you have a chance!

I am scheduling conversations with guests so watch out for a more substantial update in a couple of weeks, thank you for your patience!

For this new episode of the podcast, I had an excellent conversation with fellow gamer and podcaster Meghan Dornbrock. Meghan has a lot of different and fascinating projects going on, including a video game in development, many illustrations, the Modifier podcast (which is also part of the One Shot Gaming Podcast Network). I first learned about Meghan and her podcast via Twitter, liked the different projects I came across on her main website, enjoyed listening to a few episodes of her podcast and reached to organise a recording. Modifier is pretty similar to this podcast, though more specialized in talking with tabletop roleplaying game designers, and if you check the list of episodes you'll see we have several guests in common.

In the episode we talk about Meghan's commitment to accessibility in gaming, herself being visually impaired, how her podcast started, how she got into gaming, what exactly are magical girls, what qualifies this particular genre, and much more. Enjoy!

Some of the information mentioned in the episode:

• Meghan Dornbrock, Professional Magical Girl & Modifier Podcast Host
• Follow Meghan on Twitter
• Modifier podcast
• Astral Knights Tactical Magic
• One Shot Gaming Podcast
• James D'amato
• Podcast Movement
• Brooklyn - Williamsburg
• Coney Island
• Little Odessa
• Brooklyn Industries
• Albinism
• Japanimation
• Sailor Moon
• Dragonball Z
• Cartoon Network
• Toonami
• Gundam Wing
• Magical Girls genre
• Star vs the Forces of Evil
• Rebecca Sugar - Steven Universe
• Popcorners
• Doritos
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Double Exposure Convention
• The Adventure Zone
• Dragon Age
• Headspace
• Blades in the Dark
• Golden Sky Stories
• Torchbearer 
• Apocalypse World
• Gencon
• Les Voix d'Altaride
• Sandra
• UsTwo
• Wayfinder
• David's Tea
• Collectable card games
• Metatopia Game Design Festival
• Atakacon
• PAX Unplugged