Olympia based game publisher and distributor, Heart of the Deernicorn, hosted award-winning game designer, artist, and social media marketer, Andi Licht for a 10-day artist-in-residence in early August 2025. Andi has proven herself tobe a true polymath by taking on the design, illustration, and marketing work for her two self-published tabletop roleplaying games, Between Clouds and Soulbound – Dark Industrial Fantasy.
Andi previously worked at Heart of the Deernicorn as a game designer, graphic designer, and social media marketer. During her time there, she produced short-form video content that amassed millions of views and shared her love of the tabletop roleplaying game hobby. She contributed graphic design work to titles like Bad Baby Lich Lords and BFF – The Golden Years, as well as game design for some of Deernicorn’s upcoming and unreleased titles.
For her August artist-in-residence, Andi came to work on her new game: a card based TTRPG game based on Desperation by Jason Morningstar. Andi describes her game as being about “freaky death gods creeping on a sleepy little town”.
Like her two previous games, this new project will be entirely designed and illustrated by Andi. One of the perks of completing an artist-in-residency at Heart of the Deernicorn is their partnership with and proximity to The Mystic Game Shop and the recording studio co-located there. During her stay, Andi and Heart of the Deernicorn staff were able to record promotional short-form videos of Andi’s work and the studio was also utilized for a play-through of Andi’s new game. 
I sat down with Andi on the last day of her residency to ask her a few questions about her experience.
Keylee: Tell me about your residency?
Andi: I can give you a recap: I have done four playtests for my game. I have recorded interview content with Heart of the Deernicorn. I have recorded my own social media content at Heart of the Deernicorn. I have importantly, notably given a talk at TESC about game design, and I have produced a lot of artwork. That’s what a lot of my time’s been. I have consulted with Ross about production, product design and manufacturing.
K: Have you done a residency before?
A: No. This is my first.
K: Did you have a pretty solid idea of what you wanted to do with your time?
A: I had a few things that I knew I wanted to do. I made a TT video about this where I said “It turns out the first day of your residency is for doing admin work for the rest of your residency”… I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t have any of the specific dates scheduled, set and lined up.
K: How are you feeling at the end of this process?
A: Honestly on one hand – and this is always the case – I feel like I didn’t get as much work done as I wanted on my game, but I only feel that way because there’s always an endless amount of stuff to be done. The most I could get done would be producing, publishing, and distributing the game which I’m not gonna do in 10 days. Turns out there’s still more to do. I feel really excited about what I’m working on, and like I had a chance to super-charge this project in a way. Give it some very intense and focused attention.
One of the potential benefits for a game publisher/distributor to host artists and game designers in residence is building professional connections that are mutually beneficial for both parties.
K: Did you and Ross (Deernicorn) create a business connection during this process?
A: Yes, Ross and I did create a business connection… I think we may manufacture some kind of component for the game here at the workshop. We were talking about a play mat (to keep game play organized).
K: Do you think a residency is a helpful process for game designers? How did the residency help?
A: I would’ve gotten to this point anyway, but at a much slower rate. I feel like this was a fasttracked super-charge for the game, it really moved it along. Every time I talk to someone about the game and get feedback, I’m like, “Oh, wow. I feel like I’m doing a marvelous job of avoiding some potential pitfall that might have made a potentially worse version of the game!” You come into a new idea and you’re like, “Wow! That’s way better. I’m so glad I didn’t do that other thing. This is clearly the best version of the game”.
Andi’s new game will be on Kickstarter next year. For now, Andi can be found at any pacific-northwest coffee shop, toiling away at artwork for her next tabletop project.
