About Us

What Is Tasty Minstrel Games?

Tasty Minstrel Games is, simply put, a game publisher. We concentrate on board games, card games, fun games, addicting games, family board games, and any non-video game that can be imagined. Our criterion for publishing a game is that it must be a fun, intuitive, and an addicting game. A game must be replayable and have good value compared to other entertainment such as video games and movies.

Why Start Tasty Minstrel Games?

We have loved games for as long as we can remember. Board games, card games, video games, city-building games, simulation games, war games… You name it, if it is a quality game, we love it. Michael and Erin have two wonderful children (3.5 and 1.5 years old) that compose our small family. Seeing how much our oldest, Sophie, loves games reminds us how much we love them. We also realize that many parents do not share our love for games. We feel it is a question of playing the right games. Looking back at the children’s games that we like we understand the lack of desire that a parent can have to play games. Often, there is little to no choice making in children’s games. Roll the dice, move, and make three decisions in half an hour. As children get older, they have the capability to make the more difficult choices associated with advanced board games and card games.

Ultimately when children grow up, they still love playing games. If we can bring families together to play a board game before children irrevocably grow up, then we believe that bonds and lines of communication can be forged that a family will cherish forever. There are enough forces in the world aiming to destroy families; we just hope to be one force keeping families together. Parents want to be close to their children, but it is a difficult mission. Board games can transform this mission into something easy to accomplish. It is an ambitious goal, but without the goal we cannot achieve it.

Michael Mindes, Founder

Early in 2005, as Michael prepared to graduate from college, he also prepared to publish board games. As graduation neared, he and his wife Erin found that their pregnancy efforts were successful. They were going to have a baby. Feeling the call of responsibility and adulthood, Michael temporarily abandoned publishing, and went to work as a financial adviser at A.G. Edwards. He never forgot his dream of publishing games. With the goal of bringing families together in the era of video games, cell phones, and instant messaging; Tasty Minstrel Games was founded in early 2009.

Seth Jaffee, Head of Development

Hi, I’m Seth Jaffee, head of development for Tasty Minstrel Games. I have been playing games ever since I can remember- from Rummy-Q and Monopoly with my family, to Magic: the Gathering, to a host of Euro-strategy games. While playing Magic I started thinking of making my own games, in particular a collectible card game which I called Crime City: Clash of the Kingpins – I was trying to do better than Lord of the Rings In about 2004 I stumbled upon the Board Game Designers Forum, and I have been fascinated with game design ever since.

I have a number of designs on the back burner at the moment, but one of my strengths has proven to be game development. I really like identifying an idea that has potential and then revising it to be as good as I feel it can be. I think part of that strength comes from simply playing lots and lots and lots of games, which over time has really given me a feel for what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been working on game designs, both my own and those of friends, for 5 years and lately I’ve been concentrating on getting something published…

Enter Tasty Minstrel. When my longtime friend Michael told me he’d decided to start a publishing company to publish Terra Prime and Homesteaders, well you can imagine my excitement! It so happens that due to the economy my engineering job went on hiatus, so this endeavor couldn’t have come at a better time for me; I decided to do what I could to help ensure Tasty Minstrel’s success. If someone had asked me last year what my dream job would be I probably would have said “working for a game company finding games worth publishing and developing them to be ready for publication.” Well here at Tasty Minstrel that’s exactly what my job is going to be!