Like movie trivia? This new game a couple of Wichitans created may be for you

Some people used the pandemic to clean their closets, start a craft or learn to bake bread, but you might call Jace Bothner and Jake Treat toppers thanks to what they did.

The two used that time — the last four years, actually — to invent a game they’re now trying to take to market through Kickstarter.

Martini Shot is a movie trivia game that can be played online or as a “quasi virtual game,” as Bothner put it, both online and on a traditional game board.

The name of the game is a film term that references the final camera shot of the day on a movie set, meaning “the next shot will be from a glass instead of a camera,” Bothner said.

He got the idea for the game from a similar one, Pass the Popcorn!, he received as a gift.

Pass the Popcorn! features movie trivia via paper cards. However, Bothner said as soon as you buy the game the cards are “already out of date because movies come out every week.”

His idea was to allow players to access a continually updated set of cards with questions they can access from any internet-connected device.

Though Bothner isn’t an especially serious board game person, he started contemplating Martini Shot in 2020 as he was finishing up his senior year at K-State, where he earned a marketing degree with a data analytics background.

He said he fell in love with programming and wanted to apply what he learned in class while “kind of exercising the left brain.”

As much as it reinforced what he was learning, Bothner said, “It was absolutely something I did to procrastinate the homework I was doing.”

He said the thing about programming is trying to figure out how to make something work the way you want it to. When things aren’t clicking as they should, he said, “That just gets you more invested in trying to figure out the answer.”

Then, it’s “pure dopamine when you figure it out.”

“I’m not going to let the computer be smarter than me.”

Bothner asked Treat to help with the aesthetics of the game.

“We really leaned into the martini aspect of it for the design,” Bothner said.

Treat said he started his design by choosing a green for a martini olive and built colors from there.

He said he considers “myself a pretty big movie guy” more than a game guy.

Still, Treat said the game “might be for maybe people who are even more into movies than I am.”

“I am a frequent loser of the game. I guess that’s just why I’m the designer.”

Easy, medium and hard

When Bothner first approached him for help, Treat thought Martini Shot was simply a school project. Then he said he saw its potential.

“I was impressed as to how detailed he was able to make it and how many movies he was able to get added.”

The game is for two or more people.

Players guess the titles of movies from clues about plots, casts, directors, settings, characters and quotes.

There were a number of hurdles Bothner had to overcome, such as grouping movies into easy, medium and hard categories.

He said he didn’t exactly create an algorithm, “but it’s definitely a formula we’re using.”

The categories are based on how popular movies are.

With each question a team gets right, players can advance a token in the shape of a martini glass on the playing board.

Bothner said he’s not a particularly competitive person, but he wanted to ensure the game is fair with its questions.

“It’s pretty annoying when your team gets a really hard one, and the next team gets a really easy one.”

He also wanted questions to get progressively more difficult the more players answered correctly.

“That was kind of one of the other things I wanted to solve with my programming skills.”

Even when the questions are harder, Bothner said his goal is to have an easygoing party game where you can “turn your brain off a little bit and have a conversation with the people you’re playing with.”

As he and Treat have tested the game with friends and family, they’ve noticed that some of the movie lines or subjects become running jokes as they play, which turns into even more fun.

“That’s what it’s about for me.”

Treat said friends now even request playing the game when they get together.

“It’s kind of like a whole movie cult that we have going.”

‘A little more serious’

Unlike a lot of games where creators are seeking support via Kickstarter, Martini Shot is ready to play now since it can be completely online. It’s also free.

“They can play it right now kind of risk free,” Bothner said.

Anyone who backs the project with at least $20 will get the board for the game, too, as long as Bothner and Treat reach their $10,000 goal.

They didn’t initially set out to use Kickstarter to raise money, Bothner said, but, “Things got a little more serious, which also meant more pricey.”

They each have day jobs.

Bothner is in advertising at Idea Ranch in Old Town.

Treat is in marketing as a graphic designer at Fidelity Bank, which is where the two met when Bothner was an intern there.

Kickstarter minimizes their risk.

Though they may lose some support from people who want the free version only, Bothner said Kickstarter is a way to have more people try the game and share feedback.

Martini Shot has already gone through a lot of iterations thanks to input from friends and family, but Bothner said it could be refined even further.

“The nice thing about our game is it’s not rigid. . . . We can listen to feedback. We can implement that.”

Since it’s partly virtual, Bothner said “it’s a kind of living, breathing thing that we can update when we need to and when we want to.”

In Treat’s ideal world, the game would sell so well they could quit their day jobs.

More realistically, he said he can see Martini Shot becoming a popular Wichita game.

“My hope is for it to expand farther than that, and I think it will.”

Bothner said his main goal is for people to enjoy the game.

“That’s really all I care about,” he said. “If it resonates with people, man . . . that’s the icing on the cake.”

And if the Kickstarter, which runs through April 25, isn’t successful?

“We could always try again, for sure, and we absolutely might if that is the case,” Bothner said.

“I really haven’t thought that far ahead yet. Maybe I’m just too much of an optimist. I’ll let future Jace deal with that problem.”