49 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Rory O’Connor

We are so excited to interview Rory O’Connor, of Rory’s Story Cubes fame!

We start by discussing his company The Creativity Hub. They have just launched a Kickstarter for a new game, Untold: Adventures Await.

We love their design toy/tool The Extraordinaires Design Studio. The purpose of The Extraordinaires is to get in a designer’s mindset – being curious and empathetic about what is actually needed in the world. It works equally well as a child’s toy or as a way for a professional designer to “play” and stretch their creativity. Rory says:

“A good designer should always be really curious and challenge their assumptions, so the questions we included in The Extraordinaires are ones a designer would use, but we hoped that by playing the game, children would internalize that thought process and bring it out into the world.”

Story Cubes was launched on similar principles – getting people to tell stories in a free-form way. The nine dice provide just enough structure to guide the storytelling; Rory tells us that “every time we tried to add rules … it always detracted from the heart of the experience, which is just telling these totally random stories.”

Rory discusses his big news: Story Cubes is being sold to Asmodee. This allows Rory, Anita, and the rest of The Creativity Hub to concentrate on being creative and come up with new designs, rather than continue to manage the Story Cubes brand.

Back to Untold! It’s on Kickstarter right now and uses the Story Cubes as a tool to facilitate role-playing without needing a large manual or a lot of set up. It’s styled like a madcap adventure TV show; combine it with a licensed set (Batman, Dr. Who, Scooby Doo, Looney Tunes) and create your own new “episodes” of your favorite show.

 

Stay tuned for a Story Cubes giveaway, starting next week!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:34 — 21.7MB)

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