Potato Man, the cult trick-taking card game from German creators Günter Burkhardt and Wolfgang A. Lehmann, is returning to the North American market this May. It features updated visuals made by Guilherme Cavalcante for Geeks N’ Orcs, the Brazilian studio responsible for the international rights of the title.
“Potato Man was originally released in 2013 by German publisher Zoch Verlag and appeared on the recommended list from Spiel des Jahres, the prestigious tabletop game award from Germany, in the following year ”, explains Renato Simões, founder of Geeks N’ Orcs.”I bought the international version and loved it, so I contacted the authors to acquire international rights. Sometime later, we reworked the visuals for our Brazilian release to be more cheerful and colorful, and the game quickly became one of our best-sellers. More importantly, we saw that roughly 35% of our first print run ended up going overseas via the grey market. So we’ve been looking for partners to make things official in many territories,” concludes.
That’s when Mind’s Vision appeared. The new US-based label, founded by Brazilian expats Otavio and Renata Lessa, was looking for its first releases and got excited with the idea of starting its operations with such an exciting and market-proven product. “It was a no-brainer. We needed a game with instant recognition from the tabletop game community, and Potato Man not only has all that with its quick and fun vibe, but it also fits our core mission to bring more international authors and designers to the North American market,” said Otavio Lessa, Mind’s Vision President and Co-Founder.
“When we started evaluating titles to kick off our line-up, we looked at tabletop products in three categories: RPGs, board games, and card games. While we moved fast with the first two categories to fill up our 2023 calendar, we couldn’t find a card game for our catalog that really spoke to us. When we discovered the possibility of working with Potato Man, we jumped at the opportunity immediately,” celebrates Renata Lessa, Mind’s Vision Publisher and Co-Founder.