Hey there Cardfolk, Speedrobo here. I wanted to start doing these dev logs again, and I figured a great place to start would be one of our most recent games, “Claim! Mine Rush”.
Mine Rush in many ways signifies a turning point for me, personally, in my career. I am less all hands on deck with development these days. No longer am I doing all the card effects, balancing, number, equations, etc. Now, I am much more of a supervisor and advisory role for the different developers that we work with. Mine Rush is a perfect example of this.
When Ryan and I were first talking, he was actually pitching me on his game The Condemned. While the game did look great, it just wasn’t really what we were looking for as a company to publish at the moment. Additionally, The Condemned is already out there and successful. Ryan just didn’t really need too much help on it. However at the end of the call, Ryan told me “Oh yeah, I’ve also been working on this tile placement game”. He proceeded to tell me all about his design for a family friendly, all ages, tile placement game set in the gold rush. I said “Dang! That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for!”
I had been wanting to do more with the Claim! brand for a while, but I just didn’t know what. I could instantly tell that Mr. Juel’s game was going to be perfect. Speedrobo Games hadn’t made a tile placement game yet, so Mine Rush would fill that missing puzzle piece nicely. Furthermore, we had the ability to make just about all of the components for the game ourselves, which nicely protected us from tariff based chaos. It was a match made in heaven. Very quickly I was able to help Ryan get the graphical assets he needed ready, reviewed the rules with the help of the amazing Kevin Cote, and we were ready to rock! The game is now available, is made print to order, and was heavily enjoyed during BGG Con 2025.
Ryan’s been a huge asset to the team and it’s been so great to have Juel Games around as a second party developer for us!
This is just part 1, as Ryan himself will be sharing more about how he came up with the mechanics for the game. See you then!
Rhydon “Speedrobo” Vassay
CEO of Speedrobo Games