Interview with Ghostfire Gaming
We had the opportunity to sit down with Mark McIntyre (Designer of the upcoming Neopia Quest board game) as well as a few members of the Ghostfire Gaming team and ask them all your pressing questions about the game!
Q. For those just discovering Ghostfire, can you give us a quick overview of the team and the kinds of projects you’ve worked on in the past? What sets your approach apart in the tabletop space?
A. Ghostfire Gaming is based in Melbourne, Australia, though our team is truly global, with talented creators, designers, and artists working together from all over the world. We’ve built our reputation primarily through tabletop roleplaying content, primarily using the D&D 5e ruleset, with projects like Grim Hollow, Dungeons of Drakkenheim, and The Seeker’s Guide series, among many others.
What sets Ghostfire apart is that we don’t limit ourselves to a single corner of tabletop gaming. Alongside our TTRPG work, we’ve been steadily expanding into board games, bringing the same level of worldbuilding and production quality into a different format. While we’re still relatively new in that space, Neopia Quest marks our fourth published board game, and it represents our ongoing goal to bridge rich storytelling with accessible, engaging gameplay experiences.
Q. Neopets is such a nostalgic brand. What’s your team’s personal connection to Neopets? Any favorite memories, plots, or characters that really stuck with you?
A. Neopets has always been a deeply nostalgic brand for Ghostfire’s CEO, Matt Witbreuk. Growing up, he and his older brother would race home after school, knowing they had a limited window of dial-up internet time, and spend every minute of it exploring Neopia.
He has fond memories of playing games like Meerca Chase, Tug-O-War, Destruct-O-Match II, and Korbat’s Lab, trying to maximise every bit of progress before their time ran out. Outside of the games, he especially enjoyed building out his own little corner of the world, a specialty omelette shop, which at the time felt like a serious entrepreneurial venture.
To now be bringing Neopets into the tabletop space is a surreal experience. It’s a privilege for the team to work on something that meant so much growing up, and they’re approaching it with a strong sense of responsibility to do it justice for both long-time fans and a new generation discovering Neopia for the first time.
Q. Having worked with a variety of different worlds and brands, was there anything uniquely fun, challenging, or unexpected about designing within Neopia specifically?
A. One of the most exciting and challenging aspects of working within Neopia was just how expansive the world is. There’s such a huge amount of content to draw from: Neopets themselves, iconic characters, locations, items, classic minigames, and decades of nostalgic lore.
The challenge quickly became not “what do we include?” but “how do we fit it all in?” We wanted to do justice to the world while still creating a focused, approachable game. That meant constantly making decisions about what would resonate most with fans while ensuring the gameplay stayed clean and intuitive. It was a balancing act, but also incredibly rewarding because every inclusion is a chance for players to recognize something they love.
Q. Who is this game designed for? Families, longtime tabletop fans, or both? And how flexible is the experience for different play styles or groups?
A. At its core, Neopia Quest is a family game. It’s designed to be accessible enough that kids can jump in and enjoy it, even if they’ve never played a tabletop game before.
That said, we didn’t want to sacrifice depth to achieve that accessibility. The game still offers meaningful decisions, strategy, and story-driven moments that more experienced players can appreciate. The goal was to create something that works across a wide range of groups, whether it’s families playing together, casual players discovering tabletop games for the first time, or more seasoned gamers looking for a lighter, narrative experience.
Q. Can you walk us through basic gameplay? How do quests, replayability, and overall variety come together to make each session feel unique?
A. At a high level, each quest sends players travelling across Neopia, guided by familiar characters who task them with completing objectives, often by collecting specific coloured or numbered dice from different locations. Each quest introduces its own twist, whether through special rules, unique actions, or thematic mechanics that tie directly into the story being told. One quest might have you collecting dice to battle a villain, another might have you stacking dice in different patterns, there's lots of room for us to keep the game feeling fresh every time you play.
Replayability is a huge focus of the design. The game includes 10+ story-driven quests, each offering a distinct narrative and gameplay experience. In addition to the dice available across the board are randomized every time you play, meaning even the same quest can unfold very differently depending on where you need to go and the route you take to get there. Layered on top of this are the different Neopets and Petpets you can play as, each with their own unique abilities, along with a wide variety of Item cards that can shift your strategy in unexpected ways. Altogether, these elements combine to create a game where no two sessions feel quite the same.
Q. Looking ahead, what kinds of expansions or additional content are you hoping to explore? (And most importantly, when can we expect more Meepits?)
A. We’re really excited about the Mini-Game Mayhem expansion. It’s designed as one large, replayable quest that captures the spirit of Neopets’ classic games. Each session plays out differently because the minigames appear in a different order, and there are more included than you’ll see in a single playthrough. It keeps things unpredictable and highly replayable, which fits perfectly with the Neopets DNA.
As for the Meepits… that’s completely out of our control. They seem to have a mind of their own and keep showing up wherever they please. If anyone has discovered a reliable method of containment, we’d love some help!
Q. For those of us who love behind-the-scenes content, can you share a bit about the development process?
A. The development process for Neopia Quest has been a unique one. Mark, our Lead Developer, designed the core gameplay in three days and presented an early prototype to the team for playtesting. While there was a lot to like in that first version, something wasn’t quite clicking. It was originally a competitive game with individual, unconnected quests, and we found there wasn’t enough interaction between players or a strong sense of investment in the characters and world.
Based on team feedback, we pivoted quickly toward a cooperative experience built around interconnected, story-driven quests. By the end of that same week, we had a new version ready to test and it immediately clicked. The cooperative format brought the world to life, strengthened player interaction, and opened the door for the wide variety of stories we wanted to tell through the quest system.
From there, development focused on expanding and refining the experience. We designed new quests, improved the impact and usefulness of items, created unique abilities for each Neopet and Petpet, and reworked the map to better connect locations and support player movement. Each iteration brought the game closer to something that felt engaging, thematic, and fun to play.
Once the core experience was in a strong place, we moved into production. Developing the graphic design, commissioning illustrations, and preparing files for manufacturing. The promotional version of the game has since been produced and is what we’ve been showcasing at events, conventions, and through content creators as we continue building toward the full release.
Q. And lastly, what do you do if Fierce Peophins has eaten too much tin of olives?
A. You roll them downhill, collect the oil, and open a five-star Meridell salad shop!
We sincerely thank the Ghostfire Gaming team for taking the time to answer our questions (and have some fun playing Neopia Quest!)
Back the Neopia Quest campaign on Gamefound today to secure your copy with a ton of campaign exclusive extras at release!
