Trump Roast: Behind the Scenes – Live on Kickstarter

Trump Roast: Behind the Scenes – Live on Kickstarter

Every good Kickstarter project begins with a strong idea and a stronger product design. From the looks of Trump Roast, they’ve flexed some creative muscles with a fun design and an awesome brand. Trump Roast is a self-proclaimed,“Tremendously Huge Tasteless Party Game” that uses Donald’s “best words” to solve ridiculous policy questions. The game plays similar to Apples to Apples, but uses real Trump quotes. Players choose their favorite Position to answer the absurd Policy questions, like What is Donald’s best fatherly advice?

Trump Roast is the work of Oshkosh-based creative designer, Drew Mueske. You may be familiar with Drew’s work as the owner at Offbeat Press, a local design office and apparel print shop that works behind the scenes with hundreds of area businesses and nonprofits.

“Trump Roast is a ridiculous game based on a larger than life celebrity president. The Donald is a caricature of a real person, with many strange oddities. We tried to bring those absurdities to life for this project, which gave us the opportunity to push the creativity.” The Trump Roast logo is an illustration of Trump’s signature hairstyle, turned into a cut of meat, a strange combination that comes through surprisingly well. Drew explains, “I highlighted 2 of my favorite oddities of Trump, his hilarious hair and his love of red meat, part of his seemingly horrible diet. As someone that both owned a Vegas steakhouse and had his own brand of steaks (2 of his failed business ventures), it’s pretty funny that he demands his steaks well-done and then douses it with ketchup.” Inside the Trump hair + meat roast, you see a great juxtaposition with elegant custom lettering, a fancy meat fork and meat ticket featuring their hilarious game slogan. To really get the full effect you have to watch their logo animation, where they partnered with master animator, Dave Razor.

The Trump Roast game carries the meat-theme through their marketing in subtle ways with butcher knives, vintage meat tickets and meat-themed packaging. Their Kickstarter video brilliantly plays up the meaty concept behind the game with the opening scene filmed in a local meat market. Drew and his team took a hilariously unconventional approach to this product launch video. “We really wanted the video to be as funny and absurd as the game and the brand behind it. I wanted to make it on par with this hilarious game. I hope we pulled it off.”

The Trump Roast product launch video almost feels like a short film, complete with a storyline, a few cameo appearances by local celebrities including state representative Gordon Hintz and finishes with a compelling interview from Drew and creative partner, Adrian Mulloy. “Adrian did an awesome job playing multiple roles. There’s no way it would have come together without his acting and voice skills,” Drew gushes. “He’s a talented dude that can do so many voices and wasn’t afraid to follow my ridiculous ideas.” The video work all came together with the help of Alex Bellville and Mirrorless Productions. “I also have to give a giant thank you to musician Kurt Stein from Kurt Stein’s school of music for loving the creative vision and asking to jump on board and create a custom soundtrack to pull it all together. I’ve never directed a product launch video before, but Alex and Kurt worked in unconventional ways to bring all of it together.”

Digging into the game is fun and easy as we did at their public game night at McFleshmans. After a 5-minute introduction & rules, we were ready to play. Everyone starts with 6 position cards and the oldest person at the table begins as the policymaker, reading aloud the first policy question, “How does Donald begin his scary campfire story?” I read through my cards with a chuckle and play my favorite that reads, Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. The Policy makes dreads then outlets and chooses It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier – and Ben wins the first policy point.

I draw another card, this time it’s a collision card, one of a handful of special cards in the deck. I decide to Collude right away. I choose to collude with Drew. Collusion cards allow players to cheat by seeing and choosing their favorite card. I gain a Veto card through my colluding and I’ll save that for later. We play another hand and the night trails off into a stream of laughter and amazement. The game ends with some drama as Veto cards fly but and Ben comes out victorious. We grab another beer and dig in for another game of Trump Roast. Now live on Kickstarter, you can check out the campaign or pre-order your copy on the Trump Roast Kickstarter page.