We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jason Manzano. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jason below.

Hi Jason, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I knew as early as grade school that I was not meant for the corporate 9-5 world, but it took me a while to believe that it was a sustainable path. I spent my first 3 undergrad years pursuing Engineering. Even though I was good at it, my motivation was non-existent, Eventually, I switched to a music degree and this path made all the difference as far as holding my attention and encouraging my motivation.

My subsequent film career began as a creative outlet. Eventually, even though film is enjoyable, profitable, and offers the freedom I desire, it isn’t quite the creative outlet I need. I still work in film as a primary source of income, but it is my game design that fulfils the creative/artistic outlet that is needed for me to feel whole.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been a lifetime creative with a good sense of business, who always finds new ways to express himself (music, film, photography, digital art, storytelling). Initially, making a card game was just a passion project that gave my business partner and I an excuse to get together and have a beer. We wanted to try our hand at making something that fit our own off-color sense of humor while giving us a creative outlet in a way that showcased what we saw as the best part of game night; laughing and having fun with your friends.

Self-publishing our game has been a 9 year roller-coaster of both challenges and fun, but seeing how well our finished product fits on someone else’s game shelf and knowing that it is bringing joy and humor to their table has been the proudest and most fulfilling part of this journey. If you choose to pick up our game, please be aware this is a mature audience game full of dark humor and politically-incorrect content with potential catastrophic moral repercussions on your psyche. Play at your own risk.

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

Our first attempt to fund the game on Kickstarter was a failure. We considered dropping the project all together. We then pivoted to shopping it around to publishers, but found that (at the time) no one wanted to take a risk on an adult card game. Our resilience showed, however, when we decided to completely revamp the look and feel of the game from an 80’s themed choose-your-own-adventure style game to a storytelling game with a modern feel. Keep in mind that we are managing 100% of the graphics, design, marketing, etc. between the two of us while employed full-time. This worked, and we successfully crowd-funded it our second time around on Kickstarter.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson I had to unlearn was what a realistic time-frame is for a project like this. As a creative, I thought we could flesh this out in just a few months without any understanding of the what else was involved. We initially gave ourselves 6 months to develop the game. It seemed realistic at the time, because my only frame of reference was putting together projects from idea to completion over the course of a semester. It took us 3 years of weekly work to get our first prototype out and 6 years to have a shelf-ready product. This included multiple passes of each individual card, several design iterations, and figuring out the process of printing, production, trademarking without any experience. To the creatives out there, understand that developing an idea and running a business are drastically different things and the timeline involved is likely much more than you think it is.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.OneDrunkNight.com
• Instagram: @onedrunknight
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/OneDrunkNight