@iv-studio-games started making commercials for Nike, Amazon, and Bad Robot. Then one Christmas, Zac invited Austin over to "just make a board game" — for fun, for nostalgia, no plan. That became Moonraker. Six years later, IV Studios is one of the most design-forward indie publishers in the hobby — shipping on 9-to-12-month timelines, running 800-person community tours, and somehow maintaining a reputation for quality across many titles while Austin keeps losing his rondels every time he goes on vacation.

We talked about the moment they stopped making ads and decided to make the thing itself, what it actually looks like when three designers with contradictory ideas have to build one game, why they published their press kit publicly, and what Zac wrote a 120-page screenplay for. (It's a board game. It ships next year.)

If you've ever wondered how a small team ships beautiful games on time while also designing the next five and running a community tour — this is the blueprint.

Check out Altera: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/iv-studio/altera

Check out Honors End: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ivstudios/honors-end

Check Out Realm of Reckoning: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ivstudios/realm-of-reckoning

Support this show by becoming a member: https://www.crdbrd.app/pricing

Join the Secret Club Here: https://www.crdbrd.app/hub/clubs?club=the-board-game-secret-show

Want to work together?: https://crdbrd.app/hub/creator/neon_gorilla

Chapters

0:00 — Cold open

0:34 — Intro

1:48 — Animation studio to board games: the origin

4:22 — Ten years making ads for Nike, Amazon, and Bad Robot

5:34 — "We wanted to make the thing, not the thing talking about the thing"

5:59 — The Christmas break that made Moonraker

9:29 — "Grossly underqualified" — Austin runs the division anyway

13:22 — When did they actually believe this could be real?

15:06 — Six months in: "You should stop paying me"

18:32 — What happens when the design team disagrees?

24:03 — "Don't go on vacation — they'll take your rondel"

27:52 — Who leads a project and how does it get handed off?

28:46 — "You don't know anything until it hits the table"

30:22 — The cutting room floor and the games that came back

31:55 — Time to Panic was designed in a weekend (while Austin was traveling)

36:16 — Moon Rollers and why it doesn't feel like a small box game

38:40 — Toby Arnell and why Tend is a game they couldn't have made themselves

43:09 — Tend's complicated Kickstarter — their lowest ever

45:30 — How does one small team ship this many games?

48:19 — Everyone wears multiple hats (and tariffs killed the hiring plan)

49:27 — Direct to consumer, FLGS, and the Amazon experiment

53:25 — Would IV Studios survive without crowdfunding?

55:41 — What crowdfunding lets them do that nothing else can

57:50 — 800 people on the Altera tour and how feedback actually gets used

59:50 — How to parse feedback when half the room says opposite things

1:01:46 — The playtest mistake Zach had to stop and correct

1:03:38 — Danny Garcia barely plays his own games

1:05:34 — Where IV Studios stands on AI

1:09:22 — Designing for play 1 vs. play 50

1:11:38 — Why Leder Games impresses Zach as much as it does

1:13:23 — "The cover is the most important part of the game" — Zach disagrees

1:15:24 — Old Kings Crown and the second-game problem

1:17:48 — Do they actually design for the 100-play game?

1:19:04 — The guy who played Tend solo through 200 scratch sheets

1:20:48 — Why Austin gives every content creator his personal number

1:25:40 — Publishing the press kit publicly after the backlash

1:28:47 — 100 tens and 100 sevens vs. 100 nines and 100 twos

1:31:38 — "The worst thing we could possibly do is bore you"

1:34:32 — Mythic Mischief: the outlier

1:36:06 — Realm of Reckoning: the pitch

1:40:07 — How Moonraker became a co-op game (Honors End origin)

1:42:26 — The card-tucking breakthrough

1:45:08 — "I'm a quarterback co-op player and I hate that about myself"

1:47:16 — 9-to-12-month turnarounds (and why Honors End is late)

1:47:38 — Austin wrote a 120-page screenplay for a board game

1:49:21 — Nine chapters, nine envelopes, New Game+

1:51:21 — Altera: dice-builder worker placement and 12 asymmetric factions

1:55:59 — The "is this too big?" video and the unanimous playtesters

1:58:42 — Why there are no metal dice (and the Moon Rollers math)

2:00:28 — Pre-Columbian sci-fi and how they hire artists

2:03:42 — Luck vs. skill ceiling in a dice game

2:05:00 — "Toby demolished all of us yesterday"