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Planet Money

BOARD GAMES 2: Making our prototype

with Elan Lee, Ian Clayman, Jamie Wolanski, Carly McGinnis, Kelly Volpalak, Thor Ritz

Published October 4, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Planet Money follows its collaboration with Exploding Kittens as they turn an economic concept into a playable board game prototype. The team settles on the "Market for Lemons" idea about asymmetric information, watches Exploding Kittens discover and refine a simple but engaging deal-making mechanic, and wrestles with balancing economic education, fun, and manufacturing constraints. They then test the prototype with game consultant Jamie Wolanski and invite listeners to download and playtest a printable version to help refine the game.

Topics Covered

Product development Entrepreneurship Retail distribution Unit economics Marketing and customer education Board game design Asymmetric information Content creation

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • The Planet Money team partners with Exploding Kittens to create a board game that is both fun and rooted in real economic ideas.
  • From 17 initial economic themes, the designers focus on the "Market for Lemons" and its core idea of asymmetric information.
  • Exploding Kittens discovers a simple card-trading mechanic that generates bluffing, risk management, and social deduction around hidden information.
  • Iterative prototyping reveals how many small details-card balance, hand size, game length, and special powers-can make or break a game.
  • Exploding Kittens targets a roughly 20-minute playtime and all-paper components to keep both players engaged and manufacturing costs low.
  • A key refinement is revealing one card in each proposed deal, bringing the gameplay closer to real-world asymmetric information dynamics.
  • Game consultant Jamie Wolanski sees the prototype's core mechanic as novel yet accessible enough for mass-market retailers.
  • The team now looks to naming, artwork, and listener playtests of a printable prototype to polish the Planet Money game.

Podcast Notes

Project recap and goal: making a Planet Money board game with Exploding Kittens

Reminder of previous episode and partnership setup

Planet Money is making a board game in partnership with Exploding Kittens, a major tabletop game company.[1:35]
Exploding Kittens co-founder and game designer Elan Lee is introduced as a key collaborator.[1:29]
The Planet Money team wants a game that anyone would want to play and that also has big economic ideas baked in.[1:44]

Initial assignment: brainstorm economic themes

Exploding Kittens had assigned Planet Money to bring back three interesting economic themes as potential game seeds.[1:52]
Planet Money took the assignment very seriously, held a full staff meeting, and generated 17 ideas instead of three.[2:02]
Elan reacts enthusiastically to the overabundance of ideas, joking that it will be a fun project.[2:17]

Pitching 17 economic game ideas and early feedback

Sampling of pitched game themes

One idea involved elves who live forever but must plan for retirement, raising questions about what retirement planning means for immortal beings.[2:33]
Another idea: apprentice wizards running a bank who can create money but whose spells backfire because they are inexperienced.[2:47]
Some ideas received no immediate response; Elan sometimes let concepts "settle" without reacting to each one.[2:59]

Compound interest-inspired game and Elan's reaction

Planet Money pitched a game inspired by compound interest, where a small investment can snowball into something massive over time.[3:03]
Elan compares the described mechanic to how armies are built in Risk, pointing out that the same underlying mechanic already exists there.[3:14]
He calls the idea "half of an idea," suggesting it has a foundation but needs further refinement or differentiation.[3:23]

"Moral Hazard" and other concept pitches

They propose a game called Moral Hazard, where players decide which failing banks to bail out, risking teaching them that mistakes will be cleaned up in the future.[3:25]
Elan is intrigued by the idea of a game where you play against your future self, a concept he says he has not seen before.[3:43]
Another idea, Keeping Up With The Joneses, would have players buy status items like boats to make others jealous, only to learn those items are costly and miserable to own.[3:48]
Elan criticizes the Joneses idea, saying it would have no replay value once players learn the properties of each card and item.[4:10]
They pitch a game where you might unknowingly be playing under capitalist or socialist rules, and discovering which system you're in is a twist.[4:23]
An inflation game is floated, but even the presenters admit they have not fully thought through its goal or structure.[4:32]
Another idea invokes "pro cyclicality" as a concept, which Planet Money notes would not be a good game title, and Elan agrees they would not call it that.[5:24]

Elan explains two main ways games are born

Elan says one way to design a game is to start with a gameplay mechanic you absolutely love and then spend months finding the right theme that will sell.[5:04]
The other approach is to start with a really strong theme that already has an audience and then find a gameplay mechanic to match it.[5:08]
He notes Planet Money has essentially done neither so far, but credits them with planting seeds that could lead to a theme-first path.[5:24]
One of the 17 economic idea seeds from that meeting would eventually become the basis for the Planet Money game.[5:24]

Setting objectives for the Planet Money game

Stated ambitions for the game and distribution

Planet Money observes that some of the most popular board games, like Monopoly and Settlers of Catan, are about economics.[7:23]
They want their game to be nerdy and teach people economics while also being popular and beloved globally.[7:38]
They explicitly dream of selling hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies.[7:42]
Getting into large retailers like Walmart or Target is described as key to selling many games.[7:51]
Exploding Kittens is valued as a partner because they know how to make games that sometimes get picked up by big-box stores.[8:00]

Revisiting Exploding Kittens after the 17 ideas

In a follow-up meeting, Planet Money asks what the Exploding Kittens team did immediately after hearing the 17 ideas.[8:13]
Elan explains they took notes during the pitch, marked which ideas to explore further, and quickly discarded many that felt like school and not fun.[8:54]
He and game designer Ian Clayman say one idea in particular sparked special interest: the Market for Lemons.[9:05]

Choosing the Market for Lemons concept

Explaining the Market for Lemons paper

Planet Money describes Market for Lemons as a classic economics paper from the 1970s by Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof.[9:29]
Akerlof is also noted as the husband of former Fed chair and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.[9:36]
The paper analyzes the used car market and the problems caused by asymmetric information between buyers and sellers.[9:24]
Used car sellers know everything wrong with their cars, while buyers do not, creating an informational imbalance.[10:11]
Some sellers hide defects, leading buyers to assume all sellers are dishonest and all used cars are lemons, so buyers only offer low prices.[10:13]
Honest sellers with good cars drop out of the market because they cannot get fair prices, leaving mostly bad cars in the market.[9:41]
The spiral where only lemons remain is described as market failure driven by asymmetric information.[10:39]
Planet Money notes asymmetric information also matters in health insurance and hiring markets.[10:47]

Why Market for Lemons works as a game seed

Exploding Kittens liked the Market for Lemons concept, partly because of its compelling name.[10:56]
They were also drawn to the play pattern of two people trying to make a deal when one side has more information than the other.[11:06]
Elan calls that dynamic a well-established gameplay pattern that is not overused.[11:13]

Design retreat and discovering the core mechanic

Design retreat setup and early failed attempts

Exploding Kittens captured their design process on video at a retreat in a rented house.[12:14]
The dining table is covered with blank cards, markers, and existing games to cannibalize for parts.[12:18]
One early idea has a single car seller and multiple buyers, using four homemade cards indicating good cars or lemons.[12:41]
Playtesters note some interesting asymmetric information but agree it is "not fun yet."[12:47]

What a game mechanic is and why it matters

Planet Money explains that Exploding Kittens is not yet testing a full game, but discrete game mechanics.[13:08]
A game mechanic is described as the atomic-level building block, the loop players repeat throughout the game.[13:17]
If a core mechanic does not "spark," there is effectively no game to build on.[13:23]

The breakthrough bluffing mechanic

The team reconvenes, and Elan starts conducting the discussion while someone grabs a standard deck of playing cards.[13:47]
They set a simple rule: black cards are good, red cards are bad.[14:41]
The seller draws two cards and decides what offer to make: they can offer one, both, or none of the cards to the buyer.[14:41]
The buyer cannot see the offered or retained cards and must decide either to accept the seller's proposed division or reverse it.[14:30]
This creates a deal-or-no-deal style choice where the buyer guesses whether the seller is bluffing or sincere.[14:17]
Elan says they are testing whether there is enough social manipulation in this mechanic to be interesting.[14:57]

First test of the mechanic and team reaction

In the first run, the seller repeatedly looks between the cards and the buyer, clearly puzzling over strategy.[15:29]
Elan is delighted to see the seller visibly thinking hard before even making the first offer.[15:11]
The seller splits the two bad cards, effectively choosing to absorb one bad card to avoid the risk of ending up with two.[16:25]
The table reacts strongly, with exclamations and some non-radio-friendly language, as the strategic nuance becomes apparent.[16:05]
They repeat the mechanic several times and find that such a basic rule set still produces tension and excitement.[16:32]
Elan pauses to note that something compelling is happening, rating it about a six out of ten but clearly promising.[17:01]
He later jokes that intellectual curiosity and use of the F-word correlate with how well a test is going.[17:19]

Balancing economic pedagogy with fun gameplay

Planet Money's concern about educational depth

Planet Money admits they initially did not fully appreciate the elegance of the simple bluffing mechanic.[17:48]
They worry the mechanic looks like a generic bluffing game and may not literally teach the deeper lessons of Market for Lemons.[17:58]
They express a desire for a game that could almost substitute for reading the Market for Lemons paper, yet still be fun for a 10-year-old.[18:54]

Elan's philosophy: start with fun, then hide the econ lesson

Elan acknowledges they are not yet at the point where the game fully conveys the complex economic concept.[19:10]
He argues it is better to start with a really good game that only roughly outlines the economic principle and then add ways for players to realize the underlying concept later.[19:40]
His goal is for players to walk away feeling like they were "fooled" into learning something nerdy without noticing at first.[19:31]
He insists it is much harder to start from a pure educational goal and then bolt fun on later, compared to starting from fun.[19:46]

Iterative prototyping and design constraints

Multiple drafts and Ilan's audio journals

Exploding Kittens sends Planet Money successive prototypes, including handmade cards and written rules.[20:32]
The early rule set instructs players to make deals to collect good cards and avoid bad ones, with the first to five good cards winning.[20:38]
Elan records audio journals after playtests, noting when tests are good but not great, when decks are unbalanced, or when mechanics need changes.[20:46]
He describes some tests where superpower cards are overpowered or underpowered and need rebalancing.[21:29]
In another iteration, players hold 16 cards to avoid boredom, but decision paralysis becomes a major issue.[22:04]
At one point, average gameplay is only about four minutes, and they aim to push it closer to 20 minutes.[22:12]

Planet Money's push for more explicit simulation

Planet Money keeps suggesting features to make the game feel more like living inside the Market for Lemons scenario, such as money, bidding, and complex trading.[22:38]
They even imagine a long, 15-page rulebook in an attempt to fully model the economics.[22:43]
Exploding Kittens responds patiently, sometimes incorporating tweaks and sometimes explaining why ideas are impractical.[22:50]

Target game length and player experience

Executive producer Alex Goldmark asks why they should not aim for longer games.[23:29]
Elan says their sweet spot is a 15-20 minute game that delivers maximum entertainment, satisfaction, and a sense of mastery.[23:21]
He emphasizes that players should be able to continue playing longer if they want, but the game should not force a long duration.[23:35]
He cites Exploding Kittens as an example optimized to be about 20 minutes almost every time.[23:45]

Manufacturing economics: why paper-only matters

Planet Money suggests using colorful plastic coins to track scores, finding it hard to see who is close to winning.[24:02]
VP of Creative Operations Kelly Volpalak explains they prefer an all-paper Planet Money game for cost reasons.[24:11]
Paper and cardboard components are cheaper and allow more profit if the game is priced around $20.[24:31]
Mixing materials, such as adding plastic coins, can increase manufacturing complexity and may require multiple factories.[24:49]
They want to keep the retail price in the $20-$25 range, so costs must be tightly controlled.[25:00]
Kelly notes that anything made from trees-cardstock, boxes, cardboard coins-is considered "paper" for their purposes.[24:45]

Realizing the limits of a full Market for Lemons simulation

Planet Money comes to see that faithfully simulating a Market for Lemons-style collapse would mean designing a game that grinds to a halt.[26:04]
They admit such a game might have limited popular appeal, even if it illustrated the concept beautifully.[25:57]

Refining asymmetric information in the core mechanic

Limitation of the initial bluffing setup

In the early mechanic, the buyer had zero information and the seller had all the information, making it a pure bluffing game.[26:28]
Planet Money points out that in a real used car sale, buyers at least see the car, so they have some, though incomplete, information.[26:31]
They want the game to capture that more nuanced, messy form of asymmetric information.[26:11]

Key rule change: revealing one card

Elan presents a new version where the seller still constructs a deal, but now reveals one of the cards included.[27:17]
The revealed card gives the buyer some information, but not full knowledge of the deal.[27:17]
This change shifts the decision from pure guessing to weighing partial information, closer to the used car analogy.[27:35]
Planet Money reports that, almost unexpectedly, the game now feels more like an economics game.[27:56]

Planet Money's reaction to the refined prototype

After playing the refined version, Planet Money tells Exploding Kittens they had a lot of fun.[28:07]
They and Elan agree this version represents having a real game, even though cards are still handwritten and rules need tweaks.[28:23]

Testing the prototype with a big-box game consultant

Introducing consultant Jamie Wolanski

Game consultant Jamie Wolanski says she has played well over a thousand games in her life.[30:37]
She helped get Settlers of Catan into Target and often pitches Exploding Kittens games to big-box stores.[30:56]
Planet Money views her as a key gatekeeper for whether their prototype has retail potential.[31:12]

Hotel lobby playtest setup

The playtest takes place in a hotel lobby, with Exploding Kittens staff and Jamie gathered around high-top tables.[31:30]
Head of game development Thor Ritz explains the rules, dealing each player five cards.[31:32]
The prototype uses homemade cards with simple markings; red cards are bad and green cards are good.[31:58]
Players win by collecting enough good cards through the deal-making mechanic.[32:08]

Jamie experiences the core mechanic

In one early round, seller Carly offers Jamie a single face-up green "2" card and keeps two face-down cards.[32:46]
Jamie reasons that the visible green "2" looks good and decides to accept that single-card pile instead of reversing.[32:51]
When the cards are revealed, Carly had hidden a much better card in her pile, and others tease that they never trust Carly.[33:30]
Jamie initially says she does not yet love the game and does not recognize the Market for Lemons academic reference.[34:09]
As play continues, Jamie remarks that she loves games where strategy changes on every turn and suggests that is happening here.[34:11]

Jamie's criteria for great mass-market games

Jamie says a hallmark of a great-selling game is when you cannot stop thinking about it at night and really want to play again.[34:25]
She looks for new game mechanics she has never seen, as novel concepts excite both hobby gamers and retailers.[35:19]
During this session, the game becomes more heated as all four players near victory.[34:35]
In the end, all four players are one chip away from winning, and Jamie wins as an underdog.[34:48]

Jamie's verdict on the Planet Money prototype

After winning, Jamie says she is excited because she cannot equate this game to any existing title.[35:58]
She believes gamers will be excited by the new concept and that it is mass-friendly enough for casual players and retailers.[35:30]
Planet Money feels this confirms they have a viable Planet Money game, at least in prototype form.[35:37]

Next steps: naming, theme, and listener playtesting

Importance of title and artwork

Jamie stresses that the most critical thing at this point is naming the game.[35:47]
She says a good or bad title can absolutely sink a really great game.[35:58]
She also highlights that artwork, aesthetic, and theme choice will be critical for mass appeal.[36:12]
Planet Money notes that naming and drawings will be tackled in future episodes.[36:23]

Announcing the listener playtest of the prototype

Planet Money announces that a prototype of the Planet Money game is available for download as a printable version.[36:41]
Listeners are asked to schedule a game night, print and cut out the cards, and help playtest the game.[37:09]
The hosts say the prototype will come with instructions for play and a way to send feedback.[37:37]
They mention a group play-along and Ask Us Anything event scheduled for a Saturday, November 1st, with Kenny, Erica, and Elan participating.[37:41]
They note that the downloadable version will differ slightly from the one discussed in the episode because Elan keeps tinkering.[38:03]
The episode closes by framing this as just the beginning and urging listeners to stay tuned as they explore the world of asymmetric information through the game.[38:11]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

In complex creative projects, it is often more effective to start with a simple, genuinely fun core mechanic and then layer educational content or deeper meaning on top, rather than starting from a didactic goal and trying to retrofit fun.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in my current work am I starting from the message I want to deliver instead of the experience others actually enjoy?
  • • How could I strip my next project down to a single, repeatable "core loop" and test whether people find that loop intrinsically engaging?
  • • What is one project I'm working on right now where I could pause and ask, "Is this actually fun or compelling on its own, even before I add the lesson or message?"
2

Rapid, iterative prototyping with small tweaks and frequent tests uncovers issues that planning alone cannot reveal, from balance problems to decision paralysis and pacing.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What is a current idea I'm overthinking that would benefit more from a quick prototype and real-world test than from more planning?
  • • How might my decisions change if I assumed the first version of anything I build is just a learning tool rather than the final product?
  • • What simple, low-cost experiment could I run this week to gather concrete feedback on a key assumption I'm making?
3

Real-world constraints like time limits, cost of materials, and distribution requirements are not just obstacles; they can serve as design parameters that focus creativity and improve the final product.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which constraints in my current project am I treating as annoyances instead of using as design boundaries to sharpen my thinking?
  • • How could explicitly defining a "sweet spot" (like a target duration, price point, or complexity level) clarify my design decisions?
  • • Where could I reduce complexity in my current work by standardizing on fewer types of "components" or resources, as the game designers did with all-paper materials?
4

Designing for both niche enthusiasts and a broad, mass-market audience requires finding elements that are novel enough to excite experts but simple and intuitive enough that casual users can jump in quickly.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Who are the "gamers" and who are the "casual players" in the audience I'm trying to reach, and how do their needs differ?
  • • How could I introduce one genuinely new or distinctive element into my product while keeping the rest familiar and easy to understand?
  • • What parts of my offering are currently too insider-focused, and what could I simplify or better explain to make it accessible to first-timers?
5

Information asymmetry and signaling shape how people make decisions under uncertainty, and small changes in what is revealed can dramatically alter behavior and perceived fairness.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what important relationships or negotiations in my life is one side currently holding much more information than the other?
  • • How might selectively revealing more (or less) information change trust, engagement, or outcomes in a situation I'm dealing with now?
  • • What is one context-at work or at home-where I could experiment with sharing a bit more transparent information to reduce misunderstandings or misaligned expectations?

Episode Summary - Notes by Jamie

BOARD GAMES 2: Making our prototype
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