Building a card game 101

As we started working, we quickly discovered that quite a few of our coworkers had either built games like this before or were game aficionados (aka. the group of Googlers who meet up weekly to play board/card games). They provided guidance as we set out goals for the game (first and foremost, it had to be fun!) and general insight as to how long this whole process would take.
After a few months of developing the game dynamics (and building an automatic card generation pipeline, of course), we put an early version into the hands of interns to get some real feedback. Based on their comments, we continued to iterate (pun intended) and make changes to ensure that the game was still satisfying our initial set of goals. We introduced the game to more Googlers to continue collecting feedback, then took the game to the University of Texas at Austin for a true beta test. Feedback continued to remain positive, so we decided it was time to launch the game on a broader scale.

The team playing one of our earliest versions of the game (in black and white!).

So how do you play?

Launch & Iterate is a team cooperative card game with the goal of launching products in order to gain as many users as possible. In order to successfully launch products, players must develop the necessary infrastructure and features while keeping an eye on external events, which might help or hinder efforts. We created a video tutorial where you can learn more about how the game is played.

Celebrating after we beat the game for the first time. Launch ALL the products!

Launching and iterating (literally)

We’ll be bringing Launch & Iterate to university campuses globally over the next few months, so keep an eye out. You can learn more (and review the game if you get a chance to play it!) on our Board Game Geek profile