by David Gordon

Initial Brainstorm and Early Testing

In April 2023 in the car on the way to a convention, TAM and I brainstormed - as we do in cars! - and formed an initial plan for a game centered around a Dutch auction and domino tiles. On our way to check into the hotel, we stopped by a Target and picked up sets of dominoes so that we could test the idea at the convention. In fact, later that day, we got it to the table with Philipp El Alaoui from German publisher Deep Print Games, and we immediately knew that there was something there.

Part of the idea was that the game would use a software system that TAM, who's really great at these things, came up with that is now known as Scan UP. The software was particularly useful for this new game because it would be able to handle the accounting and run the auctions. Dutch auctions work backwards - as the clock winds down, the price drops, providing the unique tension of wanting to buy but also wanting to wait for the price to go down. Of course, we didn't have the app for the early playtesting, so I had to run the timer and track everything on paper, which was quite arduous.

The first playtest!
We tested the game several times at the convention, but by test #3, we had in place the core loop, each player's budget (30 coins), and the scoring system (groups of size 3-6-9-12 = 1-3-6-10 points), all of which have stayed the same since then! TAM quickly iterated an app in the following weeks, and we tested the design extensively over the next few months.

The core loop, by the way, is that each round you reveal four tiles, each of which has a flower on each half (like a domino tile). Players place a finger on their half of the phone, with the app initially showing a price of 5 coins and 15 seconds, and when they lift their fingers, the clock starts counting down, and the price drops 1 coin every 3 seconds. Whoever taps their finger first pays the listed price takes and places three of the tiles, and the other player gets the leftover tile.

We tested many different iterations. We tried a host of scoring systems, including flat systems and steeper curves, but we kept coming back to the original. We probably spent the most time figuring out scoring for remaining coins at game's end, which was critical to score, or else you just spend everything you have in the last few auctions. We tried 1 point per coin, 2 points per coin, a flat 5 or 10 points to whoever has the most, and several others. In the end, applying the coins to the same structure (1-3-6-10) was just the right balance to make you care about coins but not too much; this structure was also the most elegant, as it parallels the flower tile scoring.

A test in June 2023 with Elizabeth Hargrave and Beneeta Kaur
We tried all different combinations of flower tiles, too. We tried having fewer of the doubles and fewer of certain types, but ultimately, we found that the balanced counts were both the simplest option and yielded the best play.

The final extra sauce is thanks to my wife, Jen, who remarked while looking at an early draft of the cover art, "You know, it could use a little life. Can you work some cats into it?" We all agreed she was right and immediately put TAM's cat Parfait onto the cover and score tokens!

We ended up pitching the game by Gen Con 2023 that summer, and it got really good reactions. The game was in such great shape that some buzz started to circulate, and a major publisher asked to take the prototype home to consider it for publication.

Adam Wersan (middle) joined us for an informal pitch to The Op's Pat Marino (right) at Gen Con 2023
Kickstarter??

In the summer of 2023, TAM and I started discussing the idea of self-publishing, partly because we figured the strong interest from publishers was a good sign, but also because TAM had been wanting to try crowdfunding.

What's more, local NYC game café proprietor Greg May told us that there was a strong demand for two-player games, which had been in the back of our minds even during the early testing of the design. TAM and I presented the idea to Greg, who liked the game and said he had run several Kickstarters and had a fairly long email list, so we jumped in and partnered with Greg with a plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign in the spring of 2024. We formed Uncommons Publishing, which we refer to as UP Games, and we were in business.

We spent the fall and winter getting quotes from manufacturers, studying KS campaigns, working through the DIY service from LaunchBoom, and generally showing Floristry to everyone we could to try to build a following and email list.

The 2023 PAX Unplugged Showcase
We were thrilled to get selected for the PAX Unplugged Showcase in December and raced to get posters and updated prototypes made. We even made little Floristry pins to wear. The showcase went incredibly well, and we collected hundreds of emails.

At the showcase, we met with our friend Ammon Anderson, who had designed and done the art for Gnome Hollow, about the possibility of his joining us as our art director. Ammon was excited to come on board and immediately went to work on the vision for artwork and the box cover. He found an amazing young Serbian artist named Mari Tan, who not only worked super quickly but somehow knew exactly what we had in mind and what would be great for the game. Under Ammon's direction, Mari's illustrations took Floristry, the product, to a new level.

From left: TAM, David, and Greg having fun at Pax Unplugged in December 2023
GAMA Expo 2024

By the time GAMA Expo arrived in February 2024, we were well on our way, with plans to launch the campaign on April 30 with the slogan "April showers bring May flowers" — but a funny thing happened at GAMA.

Our plan at the convention was to meet with distributors to gauge whether we could print extra copies for distribution if we had a successful crowdfunding campaign. Now, keep in mind that for us, success meant 500-2,000 backers, so if we could print 5,000, our manufacturing costs would go way down.

Distributors were initially not so interested in an unknown publisher and unknown game, but after they saw the ideas for our box cover and heard about the game, they became more and more interested. In fact, we were able to arrange meetings with some of the biggest distributors in the world, and incredibly, they were so interested that a few of them wanted to partner with us for a worldwide release!

Playing with retailers at GAMA Expo 2024
Well, this was a game changer. We knew immediately that we were not going to launch a crowdfunding campaign in the spring, and we turned our attention to making Floristry as attractive as possible to these distributors. Over the next month or so, we had several more meetings — and yet another huge publishing company with a worldwide distribution network made a strong push to partner with us. Ultimately, we chose to work with asmodee, so instead of a couple thousand copies, we were now talking about much larger print run possibilities.

Also at GAMA Expo, Greg, TAM, and I discussed how much Ammon had been a part of what we were doing and how important the art direction piece of the puzzle was, so we decided to invite Ammon to join the UP Games ownership group, and Ammon happily joined the team!

From left: Danielle Reynolds, Ammon, David, TAM, and friends at PAX Unplugged 2023
Worldwide Distribution

Asmodee invited us to join its spring cycle of pitching to retailers with the intention of a spring 2025 release, so in the spring and early summer of 2024, we worked intensively to finish the art, polish the rules, make dozens of finished-looking prototypes by hand (not easy!), and make a Powerpoint for the sales teams. We also narrowed our search down to two manufacturers and ordered pre-production samples from each to compare. We ended up choosing Boda Manufacturing, and they have been absolutely wonderful to work with and reasonably priced - and made consistent super high quality components!

In April, I was fortunate to be in LA when John D. Clair had some friends over for gaming, and I asked Paula Deming if she'd like to play test Floristry. She kindly obliged, and she loved it! I was struck by how excited she was about the game, and she included it in her top 10 games here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLJVVMXRO4U&t=674s, saying it might make her game of the year when it comes out! Jaysen Headley also made a wonderful video on Floristry.

By the summer of 2024, asmodee informed us that Barnes & Noble and Indigo Canada had committed to a full chain releases, and that Floristry would be "Game of the Month" at B&N! Asmodee also had enough worldwide interest to plan for localization in several languages. We ordered pre-production copies and started planning our marketing efforts. UP Games started to feel like a real thing and populated our calendars.

In the spring of 2025, Floristry released and is doing really well - we're preparing for our first reprint! We also had a lot of wonderful influencer responses, including an amazing review by Shut Up & Sit Down here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsaSOAF91sw.

Hop forward to today, and Floristry is flying off the shelves in stores throughout the U.S. and Canada. We also have units in English, French, Hungarian, and Korean on their way to the UK, Nordics, Netherlands, French Canada, Hungary, Korea, and The Philippines!

We could not be more thrilled by the reviews and feedback from players and cannot thank enough everyone who playtested, advised, and participated in Floristry's development. Any success Floristry or UP Games finds is a tesTAMent to how wonderful the board game community is.

Thank you!

David Gordon

My dad enjoyed it