BOARD GAMES 2: Making our prototype

Planet Money

NPR

News, Business

4.6 • 30.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s here! It’s free to download and playtest! It’s the Planet Money game! (Download here.)

In this episode, the story of how we arrived here. Ride along as our game-making partners at Exploding Kittens help us turn our (sometimes wild) economics game ideas into the next blockbuster game. It’s a behind the scenes look at how to design a game from scratch — a game that is somehow filled with economics, impossible to put down, but does not feel like you’re cramming for school. Which is… harder than we thought.

After months of trying to find the perfect balance of ideas and entertainment, the Planet Money game is ready for our next phase. And that’s where you come in, listeners! We need you to playtest the Planet Money game to help us perfect it.

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This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from 99% invisible.
0:03.1	Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we've just stopped noticing.
0:09.9	Explore the power and process of design and architecture with 99% invisible, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:18.0	Hey, it's Mary Childs. This first week of October is historic. It is the first time in over
0:23.8	half a century that NPR and its member stations are operating without any federal support.
0:30.1	It may feel uncertain, but here's what is certain. Public media endures. Independent, resilient,
0:36.8	people powered. Whatever the resilient, people-powered.
0:38.2	Whatever the moment you will still find us here telling stories that matter.
0:42.9	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:49.1	Previously on Planet Money.
0:51.6	We are making a board game.
0:55.1	Tabletop games is actually the largest category on Kickstarter.
0:58.6	Get out of here.
0:59.2	Yeah, it is.
1:00.3	If you make games, there has never been more competition.
1:03.3	This is Orbeo.
1:04.3	This is masterpiece.
1:05.7	This is Cargo.
1:07.0	We need help, a partner.
1:08.8	Welcome to the Exploding Kitten's office.
1:10.9	Our basic question here is, can we make a board game?
1:15.2	And where do we start?
	...

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