Jose Pablo Cantillo And Jeff Levine's 'Free Me' Card Game

The time between seasons of The Walking Dead can be brutal for fans of the series. Luckily for us Jose Pablo Cantillo (who plays Caesar Martinez on The Walking Dead) and his friend Jeff Levine have developed a card game called “Free Me” based on the pitfalls of social media.

"Free Me' deck /

The goal of the game is a simple one, to disconnect from social media. That happens through a series of “social media blunders”, some of which are hilarious. The game plays out in a similar method as the card game “War”, where the highest value of followers lost on the card takes the stack.

Along the way, you’ll encounter breaks in the action that will require you to smack a card like you’re playing “Slap Jack”, come up with a witty name for a social media blunder, play a hashtag game, or something else. Those are great chances to interact with those you’re playing with and change the pace of the action.

However, the main goal of the game is to not have to use the dreaded Black Card! The Black Card will have a challenge that you will have to perform which could be slightly embarrassing or a lot of fun (especially to those not having to act out the card).

Recently, I had the chance to talk with Jose Pablo Cantillo about Free Me about how to play and why this game should be a lot of fun. Here is what he had to say about the cards in the game:

"“Free Me: The Game, as you mentioned, is a card game that highlights some of our favorite embarrassing moments people have on social media, embarrassing behavior and annoying behavior that people have on social media. We’ve taken all our favorite moments from those and put them onto cards and all original illustrations with very carefully crafted posts with hashtags to really create a stand-alone, satirical almost comic strip, really. And there’s nearly 40 of these blunders in a box that looks like an iPhone box and all framed like they’re in a phone. Also included in the deck are these social media disaster cards…and the black card challenges. So, you really get a hefty, meaty game.”"

Cantillo also explained the purpose of the game during the interview.

"“The idea of the game is to lose your friends and lose your followers so that you can win. Whereas everybody now is focused and driven to gain more friends and followers, gain more exposure, gain more eyes and ears all the time, and gain more connections…and when I say connections, I mean “connections” there’s just so much noise. What do you do then to unplug? So, we turned this thing on its head.”"

Here is the full portion of the interview where Jose Pablo Cantillo and I discuss Free Me. (NOTE: I apologize for the poor audio quality of the interview clip, it was my first attempt at a phone interview and I haven’t quite mastered it):

The project is currently over 85% funded on Kickstarter and just needs that little push to put it over the mark. In fact, at the time of this writing, Free Me has received $8,616 of their $10,000 goal. When you donate, you can also get some really cool gifts for helping the project out. Those extras include:

Updates on the game and “Making of” videos
An EXCLUSIVE first edition of the game
ULTIMATE copy of the game with extra double downs and black cards
Enlarged playing card signed by Jose Pablo Cantillo
Contributor t-shirt
A “Thank You” credit on the game itself
An opportunity to play the game over Skype with Jose Pablo Cantillo himself
Have your face on one of the game cards
AND MORE!!

For more information about Free Me and how you can donate to the game, be sure to check out their Kickstarter page. At this time, there is no expected date for the game’s release, but we will definitely keep fans up to date on this great project and many others involving The Walking Dead cast members here on Undead Walking.

Next: Walking Dead 50 most shocking moments and deaths

More from Undead Walking

Home/Interviews

Jose Pablo Cantillo And Jeff Levine’s ‘Free Me’ Card Game

By Adam Carlson | Jul 2, 2015

More from Undead Walking