Game Designers of North Carolina

Both Merchants of Magick expansions (Merchants of Magick: Dangerous Business and Merchants of Magick: Draught of the Dragons), designed by group member Clarence Simpson, are now crowdfunding on Kickstarter!

In the Dangerous Business Expansion, monsters are at the gates and each Merchant is hoping that they can equip their sponsored Adventurer with enough items and equipment to fend off the horde of creatures. Dangerous Business replaces sponsored Adventurer cards with new Adventurer boards. As you craft new items, your Adventurer’s prowess in battle will increase. Once it meets or exceeds a monster’s health, you can defeat the creatures to set up powerful combos.

Draught of the Dragons collects several different smaller expansions into one box adding a ton of variety and intrigue. Draught of the Dragons adds a new phase to the game where players pick an action: Brewing more potions, advertising to a central pool of customers, stealing them from your opponents, or grabbing potion recipes that provide powerful new abilities. It also adds new Order cards and a push your luck mechanic with Order Reservations.

Ghost Peppers, designed by group members Mike Belsole and Grace Kendall, is live on Kickstarter until October 1st.

Ghost Peppers is a two-player card game where two ghosts challenge each other to eat the hottest peppers imaginable. It's the closest they can get to feeling alive! But will things get too hot to handle? You'll have to play to find out!

Art Society, designed by Mitch Wallace, is now available for pre-order from publisher Mighty Boards.

In Art Society, you are an art connoisseur trying to impress your peers by putting together the most fashionable art collection of them all! 
Bid on the hottest works of art, then arrange them on your drawing room wall into a tastefully curated gallery that’s the envy of the local art scene.

But beware! Fashion is fleeting, and trends are difficult to predict. The paintings that you and your fellow collectors do not buy will eventually make their way to the museum, changing the worth of your collection.

In the end, whose wall will be the talk of town?

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?