Ready to play? This Fall River couple designed a card game with a twist on Chinese takeout

Dan Medeiros, The Herald News
·5 min read
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FALL RIVER — When Meg Stivison plays cards, it’s both work and fun.

She and her husband, Harold Sipe, are newcomers to Fall River and co-founded Small Monsters Games, an indie company that creates and sells card games with fun themes that inspire laughs and learning.

Small Monsters sells three games. Takeout lets players design a Chinese dinner. Wonderful Zodiac Fortune-Telling Cards are a “tarot-lite” deck full of mysterious messages. Undersea Explorers, which is being released this week, sends players on a mission to find creatures of the deep, from starfish to the Kraken. All their games take a few minutes to learn, by design, but provide hours of fun.

“When I get the chance to see my friends, I want to be playing in 10 minutes," Stivison said. “The idea of a casual game, easy to learn, easy to play — when you see your friends, you’re doing an activity together but you didn’t spend 40 minutes or an hour learning the rules or getting set up — that’s the kind of game I want to play.”

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Takeout, a card game by Small Monsters Games, is for two to four players, with cards inspired by Chinese takeout restaurants. The creators of Small Monsters are based in Fall River, and sell their decks locally.
Takeout, a card game by Small Monsters Games, is for two to four players, with cards inspired by Chinese takeout restaurants. The creators of Small Monsters are based in Fall River, and sell their decks locally.

How to design a game from scratch

Stivison and Sipe moved to Fall River in April, coming most recently from Boston. She works as an ESOL instructor, but has been a fan of gaming since she was young.

“I’ve always liked playing games and thinking about, writing about, blogging about what makes it work and what makes it not work,” she said. That led her to a career reviewing video games and then designing them, writing dialogue, working on the massively multiplayer online game Next Island, playtesting others.

When it came to building her own games, she’s gone more low-tech — decks of cards.

“It starts out with index cards and Excel spreadsheets,” she said.

The games are simple to play but not simple to make. Takeout, her first game, released in 2017, took over a year and a half of development.

Takeout, a card game by Small Monsters Games, features colorful playing cards inspired by Chinese restaurants. The creators of Small Monsters are based in Fall River, and sell their decks locally.
Takeout, a card game by Small Monsters Games, features colorful playing cards inspired by Chinese restaurants. The creators of Small Monsters are based in Fall River, and sell their decks locally.

“I lived in China for a couple of years, and it’s sort of my experiences trying to order food and not having a lot of Chinese skills," Stivison said.

The object of Takeout is to build a complete meal with five different flavors — spicy, sweet, sour, salty and bitter — and a cold treat. Players draw cards with dishes like dumplings, sweet and sour pork, Szechuan bitter melon, bubble tea and more, but can steal other players dishes, trade them, or return them to the kitchen. In the meantime, they learn a few Mandarin words and develop a growling stomach.

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Exploring the ocean from the living room table

Undersea Explorers Coral Reef Adventure is a card game by Small Monsters Games that has players finding amazing creatures in the depths. The creators of Small Monsters are based in Fall River, and sell their decks locally.
Undersea Explorers Coral Reef Adventure is a card game by Small Monsters Games that has players finding amazing creatures in the depths. The creators of Small Monsters are based in Fall River, and sell their decks locally.

Undersea Explorers, debuting now, is a kind of memory-match game with a twist. Players are researchers looking for sea life in the ocean, but the playing field is designed to get larger as the game goes on, mimicking the process of exploring a vast coral reef.

Like Takeout, this card game was inspired by Stivison’s life. During the COVID pandemic, she taught English for speakers of other languages to second-graders via Zoom. It wasn’t always easy to connect with them right away.

“The kids loved to tell me about shark facts and things about oceans," she said. “So when the kids were shy, I’d say, 'Man, I sure don’t know anything about sharks. I think a dolphin’s a fish — I wish someone would explain it to me.' And then they would feel more comfortable and get excited, and that kind of grew.” 

Like Takeout, this game took months of development, running simulations, and endless playtesting by her friends to make sure it worked just right and was entertaining.

“We worked with marine biologists to get actual animals and actual facts about them, that made sense, that were cool and weird and not scary for kids,” she said.

Small Monsters Games' Wonderful Zodiac deck lets players tell each other's fortunes. The creators of Small Monsters are based in Fall River, and sell their decks locally.
Small Monsters Games' Wonderful Zodiac deck lets players tell each other's fortunes. The creators of Small Monsters are based in Fall River, and sell their decks locally.

Where to buy their card games

Stivison and Sipe, who handles the art and design of the card decks, have taken their games to comic conventions nationwide, including San Diego Comic Con. Their decks are available at the Viva Fall River maker shop on South Main Street, on Amazon, bookstores online and elsewhere, retailing for about $17 to $20 each.

The Viva Fall River shop, at 333 S. Main St., is open Tuesdays and Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays noon to 8 p.m.

Meg Stivison, left, and Harold Sipe are newcomers to Fall River and the co-founders of Small Monsters Games, an indie company that designs and produces card games.
Meg Stivison, left, and Harold Sipe are newcomers to Fall River and the co-founders of Small Monsters Games, an indie company that designs and produces card games.

Takeout and Undersea Explorers are for two to four players, good for ages 8 and up. The Wonderful Zodiac deck was first released in the early 20th century by self-proclaimed “greatest fortune-teller in the world” Harry Ingalls, but Small Monsters now owns the rights and produces it; it's more of a fun party game to amaze your friends.

What is next?

Stivison is currently working on two more games: a bakery-themed card game and a horror-themed game where “you’re the bad guy trying to suck people into a haunted house.” She's using mockups to playtest them, tweaking the rules to keep them simple and maximize the fun.

“When you’re part of a team, you’re making somebody else’s idea,” she said. "It's not your project. Now I have something that is my project, so if it gets too hard, I’ll just make it easier. If it’s not exciting, I can change it.”

Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Indie game designers Small Monsters debut new card deck in Fall River