Game Designers of North Carolina

It's the fabulous '50s in America. Hometown pride is in full swing, everybody likes Ike, and the baby boom is exploding all over. What those growing families need is something fresh, something local, and something healthy, and you've got just the thing - milk!

In Milkman, you'll take on the role of a local dairy farmer, doing your best to manage your farm, keep the cows happy, process and deliver whole, skim, and chocolate milk, and persuade local customers that your milk is definitely the freshest and tastiest around. Each round, all players roll a certain number of custom dice with all the actions available to do what's mentioned above. They may press their luck and re-roll those dice a couple of times, or match up sets to get the result they want. The active player will have a few more dice to work with which, unfortunately, can't be re-rolled, but can be manipulated with cash on hand.

Dairy Farm board with customer cards in each neighborhood.

Throughout the game, players will have to decide how best to manage their time, either expanding the farm for more flexibility and output, grabbing valuable customers before others can, or shipping out that delicious milk to customers for pride and reputation.

Close-up of Customer cards. Every card is unique, with house illustrations by Marlies Barends appropriate to mid-century American architecture.

Milkman plays quickly, is easy to teach, and comes with great components like custom dice, personal farming and neighborhood boards, cow meeples, and much more.

Milkman is a game for 2-4 players, ages 10+, and plays in about an hour (about 15 minutes per player).

• Fright Falls: A co-operative game about trying to escape a summer camp while being chased by an axe wielding serial killer.
• Toyline: A competitive game about being Toy Manufacturers attempting to release the next hottest toy.
• Trick Force: A one versus many trick taking game about a group of heroes taking down an evil villain.

• Tether: Astronauts love floating in space, but not all by themselves. Tether them together so they don’t drift through the galaxy alone.
• Towers and the Things Between Them: Build paths to connect your tower to important places and "important" places. Make other towers while you're at it, and move your influence along the paths you build.

• Milkman: You'll take on the role of a local dairy farmer, doing your best to manage your farm, keep the cows happy, process and deliver whole, skim, and chocolate milk, and persuade local customers that your milk is definitely the freshest and tastiest around. Each round, all players roll a certain number of custom dice with all the actions available to do what's mentioned above. They may press their luck and re-roll those dice a couple of times, or match up sets to get the result they want. The active player will have a few more dice to work with which, unfortunately, can't be re-rolled, but can be manipulated with cash on hand.

• Please Hold: A cooperative, hidden information game about resolving angry callers in a call center.
• WordCraft: A cooperative story game and dungeon crawler where players use letters and words to uncover and solve the puzzles.

• VNTYPLTS: A party game about creating vanity license plates.
• Horns of Harlem: Manage a jazz band during the Harlem Renaissance, competing to gain the most fame. Hire Musicians, Busk, Network, Play Gigs, and hit the Recording Studio. Tableau building, worker placement, and contract fulfillment.

• Henhouse: Arrange chickens carefully in your henhouse to make the chickens happy. Certain chickens want to be next to other chickens, while others want to be on a specific level of the henhouse. Where you place the chicken determines what card you add to your hand from the market. And sometimes you'll want to build a roof on your henhouse, too. Whoever best manages their henhouse will win!
• The Politics of Dragons: You're a dragon politician running for office in a modern dragon society. Hold campaign events, give landmark speeches, earn endorsements, and spend political favor all in an effort to convince the voters you're the best candidate for their pet issue. Issues like Princess Relations or Fire. The politician with the most votes by the end of the election will win!
• Substitute Art Teacher: The regular art teacher is sick today and you're the only substitute teacher available. You agree to cover the class, but there's a problem: You don't know anything about art. You normally teach gym class. Can you convince the students that you really do know what you're talking about? 

• Papers Please Stamp Me

• Anatolia: Help the Sultan rebuild the Ottoman Empire. Mid-weight engine builder with a unique double-use dice mechanic.
• Footsie: Cooperative game of hidden information and foot-based communication where you organize each group of similar cards together into a player’s hand.
• Four Forests: Set collection game where you make secret votes to determine how each set is scored.
• Fruit Fingers: You and the other monkeys have taken over Bangkok’s floating market. Steal fruit without capsizing the boat. Frantic silly dexterity game.
• Is It Food?: You're early humans who have left the safety of your cave, but you don't know if these plants are food or not! Exploration & negotiation game - try to avoid starving or getting violently ill.
• Neighborhoods: Negotiation and hand management where you organize a street of ‘houses’ (cards) so your ladies, tigers, colors, and dragons are grouped with their neighbors who share common interests and attitudes.

• Spacewrecked!: An exciting, social, 2-8 player competitive asymmetrical team game in space. Each team is battling for limited food and technology to see who will live to fight another day!

• Miniature Adventures: A lightweight adventure card game inspired by 16-bit RPG classics.

•  Tether: A "mirror deck" card game for 2 players/teams about connecting astronauts together.
  
  

• Free Hand: Party game coming from Stronghold Games later this year.

• Mall Crawl Paper Doll:  A 2-4 player family-weight game that blurs the line between role playing and engine-building strategy. Players will work together to complete a series of absurd scenarios in stores throughout the mall, but only one player will win the costume contest at the end.

• Horns of Harlem: Manage a jazz band during the Harlem Renaissance.
• VNTYPLTS: Party game about creating vanity license plates

• The Great Victorian RPS Monster Confrontation
• Ninja Death Party
• Poisoners’ Soirée: You literally are scooping ingredients from a bowl using a spoon, then using the scoop as a sort of I-pick-you-choose with another player. Every turn is a double-sided negotiation, I want you to give away a bit of your secret in return for a bit of my secret. I set the terms (to the best of my scooping ability), but you decide whether we’re hinting at information or acting on what we already know. This is no game of memorization where you’re trying to trick people or force their hand. This is a civilized contest of deducing your opponents desires and ruining them through gifts. All that while scooping cubes with a spoon, & killing husbands.

• Holiday Horror: Protect your precious orphan children from the holiday mythological creatures arriving throughout the game.
• Politics of Dragons: Play cards with 2 events to share with another player as you run for office in a fantasy dragon society.
• Substitute Art Teacher:  A party game where you attempt to convince the other students you know something about art. Use picture frames to highlight a section of artwork that you think conveys 1 of 6 ridiculous feelings on display. Get the students to correctly guess to win (and save your job)!

Listen to this episode on Buzzsprout

Mark McGee (@mmark40) and Kevin Ude (@UdeGames) join Matt Wolfe (@mattwolfe) to talk about starting a new publishing company How To Steam Broccoli.

• Tell Me Something Good
• Main Topic - Designers Becoming Publishers

Discuss this episode in our guild at podcast.gdofnc.com. Follow us on Twitter at @GDofNC.

Listen to this episode on Buzzsprout

Ashwin Kamath (@BoardGameGhee) and Clarence Simpson (@stoichamster) join Mark McGee (@mmark40) to talk about their journey designing their game The Wolves.

• – Getting to know Ashwin
• – Main topic: Talking About The Wolves

Discuss this episode in our guild at podcast.gdofnc.com. Follow us on Twitter at @GDofNC.