No Offence is a game created by four friends from Limerick City in the Republic of Ireland.
The founders of this game are Eamon, Jordan, Jake, and Rico. Our story came about quite naturally, and we never intended to develop a game. However, once we noticed that we had an idea for a way you can get to know your friends better, we believed it was a project worth pursuing.
We hope that you get to know your friends/family/strangers more intimately based on your experience of playing the game. Despite how much pain and anguish that might bring.
The story of how this game was created unfolded over months and years. The earliest we can remember is approximately 2023. Two of the game creators, Eamon and Jordan, would walk their dogs at night and ask each other different scenarios about our friend group. Over time, we built up a bank of questions in our heads that we regularly asked our close friends.
Interestingly, we noticed that everyone had their own perceptions of these questions, and often, when we shared in a group discussion, at least one person would be offended about being ranked highest or lowest for a given scenario. We also noticed that everyone had their own take on these scenarios; some sought the easiest route, some sought the most fun, some sought the most loyal, some sought the quirkiest answers, and some just chose to annoy others.
This is also how we came up with the title of the game. Once we realised that some of our friends were getting offended by the discrepancy between their expectations of where they believed they should be ranked and where they actually were ranked. This was the first rule we established for the game: you can’t be offended by someones rankings. We decided that a fitting title for the game should be the primary rule of gameplay – “No Offence”. As to offend is not often the intention of the player ranking others, although it is often an unintentional outcome.
Rico, one of the friends we often posed these scenarios to, took it upon himself to begin a mock-up of printed cards. This was our first ever prototype of the project, which you can see on our Kickstarter page. Rico then presented the mock-up of the cards to Jordan and Eamon, we then began to believe we might have traction with these outrageous ideas. (Submit pictures of the old prototype.)
Shortly after this, Eamon and Jordan were describing the project to Jake, who worked in graphic design at the time. We told him about these scenarios and showed him the mock-up that Rico had created. Jake offered to create custom designs for each of these cards and believed the game idea had potential. He even drew sketches for us then and there which we found hilarious. Jake had previous experience with his own company Krooked Tease (https://krookedtease.com/), and his enthusiasm provided us with huge inspiration.
This led to the four of us working toward making this game a tangible idea. Each of us had different talents and skills we brought to the table. Eamon has a background in Psychology, Jordan had a background in writing, Jake had a background in art, and Rico has background of launching projects in architecture.
We have been working on this project for many years. We wanted to ensure it was the highest quality project it could be before we opened up to the Kickstarter community. We have spent hours asking our friends about different scenarios, changing card designs, choosing appropriate themes, and layouts. We have printed numerous copies, tested the game ideas and mechanics, and queried it with numerous manufacturers internationally. Ultimately, this led to a finalised game prototype with the company HeroTime.
The game has changed in many ways due to these iterations. Initially, we couldn’t decide on a logo and we experimented with many different point systems, before arriving at the current point system, which we believe works best. Thankfully, over time, we were able to resolve these issues in a manner that we feel is most enjoyable and most practical.
We also wanted to ensure that as soon as somebody receives the game, or decides to take it somewhere to play it, they have everything they need. Therefore, we were certain we wanted to design our own score sheet and include this alongside a pencil in every game. We also designed special cards that brought new twists and turns to how the game was played.
While we acknowledge that the game has come a long way since we were walking our dogs and thinking of various scenarios, we believe there is still room for improvement. We would love to hear what ideas or suggestions you might have for us!
One item that has not changed since we began, is the use of beans. For those wondering, why beans? When Jake originally drew his sketches, he retained the idea, “Have you bean offended?”. This led to funny designs but also a simple, recurring theme and quirky chatacters that we used to play out our dramatic scenarios. This is also how we settled on a logo. Can you guess the hidden easter egg with our logo?
We believe this project, brings a novel, unique take on a card game. One that is less innocent but still playable with friends, family or strangers.
To ensure that everything is above board, we created an Irish-based business to support this game, No Offence Limited.
