Pamplemoose Games
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Pamplemoose Games × Craniacs

Your cards are
already a game.

Let's finish it.
A tabletop game partnership, pitched to Ira Friedman Enterprises.
Why I'm here

We opened a box

I bought a box of Series 2 and opened the packs with my five-year-old. We sorted the characters, read the stats on the backs, laughed at Hot Dog Breath.

And then we hit the question this whole deck answers:

“Okay, how do we play?”

That afternoon is the pitch. The cards already made us want to play. There was just no game yet.

Craniacs Series 2 cards spread out after opening packs
Series 2, opened at our table.
Why I'm here

Every surface but one

Craniacs already lives everywhere. There is one thing the whole universe cannot do yet: be played.

Trading cardsLunar Distribution✓
ComicsTitan Comics✓
Middle-grade booksSimon & Schuster, R. L. Stine✓
AnimationTitmouse✓
Merch and D2CIFE direct✓
Tabletop gameOpenYou are here

The missing verb

Collecting is a noun. Playing is a verb. A game is the one thing that turns a binder of Craniacs into something kids do, together, again and again.

Who we are

Your fourth category partner

You do not hand your IP to giants. You pick focused partners, one per category. Games is the open seat.

Comics
Titan
Books
Simon & Schuster
Animation
Titmouse
Games
Pamplemoose
30 MIN

HAVOC: Gen Zero, the card game we designed, funded on Kickstarter in under thirty minutes.

15+

Card game concept decks we have designed and deployed for licensed IP across sports, music, and more.

TWO

designers: Zack Howe and Cole Beardsley. Small-studio speed, the same focused-partner profile you already chose three times.

The insight

The cards already contain a game

Ira printed the mechanics years ago. We just have to make them playable.

16

stat categories on every character. A finished attribute system, already balanced by hand.

○○○

Skulldallions: the in-fiction win currency. Your scoreboard, already canon.

◆

The Chrome Dome: the arena where it all happens. Your game board, already printed.

2

factions, Retrovia and Futerra. Built-in asymmetry, all the way down to the SKUs.

The one constraint, and the key

Every card back is unique, so no player can hide a hand. That rules out a traditional deck game on these cards, and it points straight at the answer: open-information games, where seeing everything is the whole point.

The flagship
Baseskull
The Chrome Dome's national pastime, as a dice-driven tabletop game.
Already a Craniacs sport.Baseskull is a named Craniacs sport, and Sam is printed as Futerra's best baseskull player. We are dramatizing a game the world already plays.
Built for these cards.Baseskull uses a dice-driven engine that suits sparse, three-stat cards far better than a hidden-hand deck game. Dice supply the tension without concealing anything.
Runs on today's cards.Field your team face-up, roll the dice, use the stats already on the cards. No universal back, no new printing, playable on product Ira has already sold.
The flagship

How Baseskull plays

1
Field your team.Place your Craniacs in positions on the diamond. Everything stays face-up.
2
Roll it out.A pitch die rolls from the mound. A hit die rolls from home plate outward.
3
Where it lands matters.The landing spot picks the fielder who contests the play. The number sets the power.
4
Stats twist the play.Send a ball to a high Hot Dog Breath fielder and he eats it. Muscle Strength drives the long ball. Bravery holds the line.
5
Skulldallions win.Score the most across the game and take the crown.
Baseskull field layout diagram
And a growing catalog

More ways to play the same cards

Baseskull is the anchor. Around it sits a catalog of quick games, each built on the cards you already sell.

Location Circuit

Open info

Marvel Snap, skull-style. Commit characters to location cards that supercharge a stat, then win the room with the higher number.

Lava Hot Dog Gauntlet

Dice · Co-op

Cook your dogs in the volcano, dodge the lava, and clobber the Rhinobino. A silly co-op event built from canon hazards.

Racketskull Rally

Speed

A fast hot-potato of the one stat you do not want to be caught holding. Learned in a minute, chaotic to the end.

Skull Bluff

Advanced

A grown-up bluff-and-wager showdown over hidden stat lines. The advanced entry for collectors who learn the roster.

The model

We are your game studio, on retainer

The pitch is not one game. It is an ongoing capability: for a monthly fee, Pamplemoose Games keeps generating games that play with the cards you already sell.

Month 1
Baseskull + launch catalog
Month 2
New mini-game drop
Month 3
New mini-game drop
Ongoing
The catalog keeps growing
A living game shelf

A static binder becomes a shelf of ways to play, refreshed on a schedule instead of a one-time product.

Every game sells cards

New games reward owning more characters and locations. Buying cards buys gameplay.

Always-on activation

A steady drumbeat of Craniacs news and reasons to gather, between your other launches.

Product opportunities

And the shelf it opens up

Every game plays fine with just the cards. These make it official, and every one is a new SKU.

Cipher Dice

New SKU

Custom dice faced with the Skull Key symbols. A randomizer written in Craniacs' own alphabet, built from art you already printed.

Baseskull Field Mat

New SKU

The diamond as a playmat, with location mats to match for the Location Circuit. The classic card-game accessory, in Simko style.

Skulldallion Tokens

New SKU

The canon victory medals as physical scoring pieces. Born for organized play prizes and convention exclusives.

Game Night Box

Retail bundle

Dice, mat, tokens, and rules in one retail bundle. The free-to-learn catalog, packaged as something a store can sell.

On the horizon

And a true TCG, when you're ready

The catalog runs on today's cards. The next product line is purpose-built: one universal card back that unlocks the full hobby engine.

Track A · Now

The catalog

  • ○ Runs on existing cards
  • ○ Open information, no new printing
  • ○ Baseskull plus a growing catalog
  • ○ Ships immediately
Track B · Next

The universal-back TCG

  • △ New product line, shared card back
  • △ Hidden hands and deckbuilding
  • △ Boosters and organized play
  • △ A contractual stretch goal
The business case

Why this moves your numbers

Turns collectors into players

A game gets kids playing with Craniacs, the one verb your portfolio is missing.

Collectibility drives play

The more cards someone owns, the more the games open up. Buying cards buys gameplay.

Right in your lane

Organized play is what you built at Topps. Now Craniacs can have a store-level community.

Aimed where you're aimed

Lands at the 8 to 12 sweet spot, alongside the Stine books and the Titmouse show.

Cranimals are ready-made

Creature-collector is proven TCG architecture, and Series 4 is already shipping it.

Fills the calendar

Keeps Craniacs making news between your book, comic, and animation launches.

The ask

Let's finish
the game.

1
Make Pamplemoose Games your tabletop partner.
2
Launch with Baseskull and a starter catalog on your existing cards.
3
Grow the catalog every month.
4
Build toward the universal-back TCG together.
Zack Howe
Pamplemoose Games
with Cole Beardsley, co-designer
zack@pamplemoosegames.com
Your cards are already a game.