Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dick Durden. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dick, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Vee and I first met when we were working on a PS5 launch title called Godfall. They were a creature animator and I was the producer for our animation team. We pretty much knew from the get go that we wanted to make games together. The idea to collaborate creatively came to us immediately and seamlessly back in 2018 or so. We didn’t officially start Real Fake Games until 2022, with us drafting the first version of Quest Snakes in 2023.

We wanted to create an inclusive space to make games that didn’t take themselves too serious. The studio name “Real Fake Games” really embodies that, while also giving a slight nod to the imposter syndrome that is so common in the game industry. Developing any kind of game, physical or digital, takes a lot and it sometimes feels like you have no idea what you’re doing. But the truth is, every game is a giant puzzle and anyone who claims they have it broken down to a repeatable formula is lying (in my opinion). Every game is unique and I think the best creators are those who try their best to roll with the punches and face challenges fearlessly. I don’t want to ever frame myself as someone who has all the answers – but rather as someone who will continuously ask questions in hopes it will reveal some grander truth overtime.

And I knew working with Vee was going to be worthwhile because I think in our own ways we really embody the spirit of Real Fake Games. Even as business has ramped up and there are more “serious” topics such as tracking company burn rate, optimizing ad spend, and other key topics that we live and die by, we keep our dialogue loose and give each other a lot of space and grace to be human. Whenever it feels like things get too serious, we go back to our roots and game together.

Plus, Vee is hands down my favorite artist in the world – period. It might sound like something I just say because I’m their business partner, but I genuinely mean it. I’ve always felt like they were a criminally underrated artist. I’m not an artist myself so I can’t speak to technique. But the personality of Vee’s art is unmistakable. I would rather work with an artist like Vee who’s art elicits REAL emotions and humor, rather than an artist with perfect technique. That’s not to say Vee doesn’t also have great technique, to be fair, because they are a dedicated student of the craft. It is more to say that what I think people see in Quest Snakes and anything Vee creates its something relatable and real. And you can look no further than how often their fan art goes viral, or how Quest Snakes so quickly found an audience on TikTok and Instagram, before anyone even knew we had a card game. People just really love Vee’s art! And I’m honored to be able to design gameplay experiences around that.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Sure. My name is Dick Durden, used to go by Richard Heyne. I have been a video game developer for the past 8 years. I worked as the Head of Competitive Play on Duelyst, and was the Senior Technical Producer on the PS5 launch title. I’ve also served as the Technical Director for a fangame called Project: Eden’s Garden that has amassed a significant following.

Most recently, I am the co-founder of Real Fake Games where I served as the game designer and marketer on our premiere party card game, Quest Snakes. Simply put, Quest Snakes is a medieval party card game that is easy, fast, and replayable where you recruit derpy snakes into your guild and deploy them as parties on wacky quests.

Before I worked in gaming, I was an instructor at Illinois State University for 4 years. I miss education greatly and look forward to one day revisiting it!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Well there is certainly a story in recent memory around resilience… turns out it is quite difficult to manufacture a card game in China when you home country places a 145% tariff on all goods imported from China. Especially when these tariffs are put in places MONTHS after you Kickstarted your game.

So yeah, that was very much a big challenge for us at Real Fake Games. It was especially disheartening to me because Kickstarter projects can sometimes get a reputation for delaying fulfilment. From day 1, it was important to me that we do everything we could to ensure our backers were taken care of. I was communicating with distribution centers, freight specialists, etc. months before it was necessary just to ensure they knew all my key dates, I understood costs, and we were completely buttoned up.

But once the tariffs it, we essentially were literally days from kicking off mass production. We had to pause everything to give the situation time to shake out and fully understand any new costs and risks. As a result, we had to delay the fulfillment of Quest Snakes from June to August. A lot of groups in the tabletop space are still struggling to develop a plan for how they will complete their projects. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have been able to find a very narrow path to navigate this. We still have a ways to go, but I think the fact that we are currently financially stable and only had to delay our project about 6 weeks speaks volume to Vee and I’s resilience in the face of adversity.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

We love connecting with our players in our Discord server: https://discord.gg/ztRpTnDHjM

We post monthly announcements and plan to start hosting community events where we share new Quest Snakes content on Tabletop Simulator.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://quest-snakes.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/questsnakes/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558132257327
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dick-durden-00986831
• Twitter: https://x.com/QuestSnakes
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@QuestSnakes?sub_confirmation=1