BEERS OF BALLARD
Beers of Ballard is a social deduction tabletop game by 4th Hill Games and Stefan Hock. This game stood out at Emerald City Comic Con with its colorful game pieces and friendly booth workers. I had also heard of the game from my research prior to the convention, and was excited to check out a game inspired by our local Seattle area.
In Beers of Ballard, you are on a bar crawl, trying to get the most beers without getting too drunk. It is based on real breweries and events in Ballard, Washington! Each round features new brews being made and special events. You pick your brewery each round, but so do other players, and you pick them secretly. So, as more brews are made, you may end up sharing with all 4 players instead of keeping them all for your own, and you may find it easier to visit a less popular brewery to monopolize their drinks all for yourself! Each player’s tracking card has their own favorite breweries, and a traveling food truck visits different breweries to help you reset your drunken meter. Juggling food, amounts of drinks, specialty drinks, and your bonus favorite breweries makes for a richer experience than you would expect from a tabletop game about bar hopping. Just make sure you don’t get too tipsy!
Most board games confuse people when they’re first explained with words. However, Beers of Ballard was not necessarily one of those for me. Of course, as most tabletop games are, it took a moment to get a hang of as we started playing, but I felt like I had a great idea of the game just from the instructions of the developer. I was worried it may be a bit too simple, as the concept is pretty simple, but I found myself quickly getting competitive and plotting to get the most beers.
The cards in this game are bright, colorful, and very stylistic. The drawings are clean-cut and very modern. Plus, all the buildings are based off of their real life counterparts and their surrounding areas! As someone who wasn’t familiar with the area, I was able to get a great sneak peek. But as another reviewer who lives near the area saw, their location was on the map artwork on the box and they were able to recognize landmarks. This brought such a unique touch to this game, especially for Seattle natives.
Stefan Hock was a former worker at one of the breweries in the game, Peddler Brewing, and used this experience as inspiration for his game. The artist, Sam Trevino, also worked in the Ballard area, and Stefan mentioned that this was a vital part of why the artwork in the game feels so authentic to the area. We love seeing small, local creatives working together!
There is currently no demo or online ordering available for Beers of Ballard. However, there is information on their Kickstarter. If you are in the Seattle/Ballard area, you can also pick up a copy of the game at Wheelie Pop and Urban Family Brewery Co. I would 100% recommend this game, and not just because we were given a courtesy copy to use for review. I played with 3 other people that I didn’t know and still had a great time. It was the perfect amount of competitive without getting catty, and as you play the game, you get the chance to learn about special events and specialty brews at these locations that happen in real life!
Sarah: All right, I am here today at Emerald City Comic Con, interviewing with Stefan with his game Beers of Ballard. So tell us a little bit about more of what you're working on, who you are, what got you here?
Stefan: Yeah. So Beers of Ballard was launched on Kickstarter a year and a half ago that was fully funded. It's a collaboration with six local Ballard breweries, and the goal, again, is to get as much beer as you can. But as you get more beer, your buzz level goes up, so you got to go to the traveling food truck to sober up so you can get more beers. It's a social deduction game. So, each round, you're deciding which breweries you want to visit. But if you do go to the crowded brewery, you might have to share those beers with other people. So you might choose to go to more quieter brewery. It's the objective of the game.
Sarah: What inspired you to make this game?
Stefan: One of the breweries in the game is Peddler Brewing Company. I worked for them for seven years, and in that process, I got the inspiration to start making board games during the pandemic, when everything shut down I wanted create a game of my work and lifestyle at the time. So this game sort of fell into my lap with the mechanic and theme, and it worked out really well, and got really lucky on having it all meshed together.
Sarah: Yeah. What are you most excited to see with your game?
Stefan: I was, I think the most exciting thing about bringing this game to life is just seeing other people relate and play the game. When I did my official Kickstarter launch party back in January, it was really exciting to see people come to pick up their Kickstarter needs and have multiple copies being played simultaneously, and just seeing the joy it brings to people and how relatable the game is, where they can pinpoint landmarks or can relate to events that they've been to, and see it all into a little box, capturing as much Ballard as possible into a little board game.
Sarah: I know you said you were a two-person team. How has it been working with somebody else on making this game?
Stefan: So Sam Trevino was my artist. Was really, who was also, she was a barista in Ballard at the time we started working on the project. So, just really capturing someone who understands the area to bring as much life into the game. So that was a big component of selecting her as the artist, and then just making sure, working with the manufacturer and working with the artist that to manufacture the game and to get all the components right. Sam worked well with, just to convey to build the right file structures for the manufacturer.
Sarah: If you could give an aspiring creator of a game any advice, what would you give them?
Stefan: Just start doing and start creating. Doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be amazing. It doesn't have to be bad. You just need. Just have to get those ideas out and flowing and keep going, and to choose to create is the hardest part. So, I've heard one of my favorite quotes, not my favorite quotes, but comic book people say the hardest line to cross isn't the finishing line, it's the starting line.
Sarah: Oh!
Stefan: So if you can at least cross the start, yeah, that's a lot harder than to complete the finish line. So if you start doing it, that will do it.
Sarah: Alright so. Random question: since we are mostly video game based, what's your favorite indie video game? If you have one.
Stefan: Risk of Rain is indie, right?
Sarah: I'll count it. I'll count it. That's good.
Stefan: Well, it was.
Sarah: I'll count it.
Stefan: Yes, yeah. Stardew Valley is also very much up there, which is everyone's favorite. Yeah, those are the there was, what was that called? Have to look at my [Steam] store. There's a really fun role-playing game. You can leave it at that, I don’t know it.
Sarah: So if you think of it, you can let us know. We'll slide it in there. And that's really all I have for you. Is there anything else you want to plug? Where can we find your game? Anything you want to leave the people with?
Stefan: Best way to contact me is through the Kickstarter, Beers of Ballard. That's the fastest you'll get a response from. For those who are local in Seattle, you can't pick them up at Wheelie Pop and Urban Family Brewery. They have it for sale. That's the current stage I'm working on next is getting them in more into the local brewery shops in Seattle.
Sarah: Awesome. Well, thank you again for interviewing with us, Stefan, and I'm excited to see more of your game.
Stefan: We’ll see if there's another one.
Sarah: Yeah. Oh, my God, I would love that. Yeah, maybe not beers?
Stefan: No, the one I'm fantasizing about. Oh, you're still recording. That's fine.
Sarah: Okay!
Stefan: I think you can still record me.
Sarah: I was gonna say if it's top secret, ya know.
Stefan: It's not. I think there would be a fun idea to do, you're a Belgian monk brewing beers, and you have to brew these beers to expel demons. Oh, my God, that's the theme I fell in love with. But it's still figuring out the mechanics and what that looks like.
Sarah: Hey, you know, I think that's a great idea. You should, again, crossin’ that start line. Yeah, yeah, well, thank you again, and I hope you have a great rest of your con.
Stefan: Thank you. You too.
