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How Hannah Shaffer Makes Games



 

(Hannah Shaffer’s game 14 Days is on Kickstarter through July 28. Go back it now! –A) 

Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do?

I’m Hannah Shaffer! I’m a game designer and web designer, and the co-founder of a game design coworking space in western Massachusetts (http://owlandraven.org/). These days, most of my time is dedicated to game design.

 

This post has affiliate links, which directly support Andhegames.com at no extra cost to you. If you have any questions about anything recommended, let me know. – Andrew

 

If I’ve never played your games before, what’s the first one I should try?

I guess I’d have to say Questlandia, but that might be a cheap answer, seeing as it’s my only complete game! Even so, I think Questlandia showcases the types of games I enjoy making and the things I like thinking about (world-building, unstable political systems, fantasy & sci-fi as social commentary).


 

One fact that we probably don’t know about you:

I’m relatively new to roleplaying games. I’ve always loved games, but until just a few years ago my gaming experience was limited to board games and video games. Because tabletop RPGs are such a social experience, and because none of my friends roleplayed, I was just too shy to jump into tabletop RPGs! The RPG community can be a bit opaque from the outside. Now that I’m an active part of it, I’d like to help change that.

 

What games are you playing most right now?

I’m obsessed with The Yawhg, which is actually a video game! It’s a beautiful story game about the final 6 weeks in a fantasy kingdom leading up to a terrible disaster. The art is wonderful, the writing is funny, and it takes about 15 minutes to play from start to finish. I’ve been playing it over and over again, thinking about how I can translate the design into a tabletop RPG.

 

What are your all-time favorite games?

RPGs: Shooting the Moon by Emily Care Boss, Microscope by Ben Robbins, and Human Contact by Joshua A.C. Newman. I’m also a huge fan of early point-and-click adventure games, and I return to them often for inspiration: The original Secret of Monkey Island, Loom, King’s Quest VII.


 

What draws you to make games?

I love the visceral experience of roleplaying games, and I love watching procedural storytelling in action. It’s amazing to see a group of people working together to tell a never-before-told story. I think the emotional experience of a roleplaying game (the laughter, the tension, the feeling of disappointment when something goes wrong for your character) has a lot of therapeutic potential as well. That excites me!

 

Describe your process (or lack thereof) when making games. How do you reach your final product?

The first step is logging every idea for a game in an easy-to-find place. I keep a long list of game ideas in Todoist. Most of these games will never get made, and some of them *should* never get made, but it’s fun to return to the list when I’m thinking about my next game.

 

I try to focus on what I hope to accomplish with a game emotionally before thinking about the mechanics. It’s easy to fall into the trap of designing a dice system or conflict resolution mechanic before you know what the goal of your game is supposed to be.

 

After focusing in on the goal, I’ll draft up some mechanics to go with it. Then, I’ll do a rough playtest to see what’s working and what isn’t. Most things are broken in an early playtest, but I have to see the game in action to figure out how to fix them.


 

How often/early do you playtest? How do you find playtesters?

I playtest really early on. I’m fortunate enough to have a great community of designers around me, many of whom know what it’s like to playtest a game in a broken, unpleasant, unplayable state. I do some of my earliest playtesting with close friends (usually to hash out little mechanical bits), then a cleaner playtest at the game design coworking space, then I’ll share a draft of the rules online to see who’s willing to playtest without me looking over their shoulder.

 

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Because I freelance, it can be really difficult to separate my working hours from my free hours. I try to schedule social stuff in advance so I don’t forget to take breaks. I’m also really firm with web clients about my work hours (no phone calls after a certain hour, no work on weekends), and I try to be pretty strict with myself about limiting social media. Staying connected online can be an important part of this work, but it’s important to know when to hit the off switch. I’m not very good at that part…


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What one piece of advice would you give aspiring game designers?

Seek mentors and don’t design in a vacuum. The best way to generate a community of fans is to talk about what you’re working on. Seek out game design events and conventions, especially those that are vocal about working toward inclusivity. An event that aspires to be welcoming and inclusive may not get it right, but aspiring designers are more likely to find support in these spaces.

 

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Becky Slitt. Her work with Choice of Games is super inspiring. I don’t know how she finds the time to write LARPs and RPGs in addition to her other work!

 

What’s the best advice about life that you’ve ever received?

A few days ago, I was overanalzying something that had happened online. I received some really good advice from Ben Robbins, who said, “Don’t focus on the unknowable internet, focus on the wonderful gamers who love your game.”

 

It’s an important reminder that extends well beyond games. Work in the service of the people who love and support you. You won’t be able to win the approval of everyone, so don’t put your energy into trying to solve that equation. 🙂

 


(Hannah Shaffer’s game 14 Days is on Kickstarter through July 28. Go back it now! –A) 


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Game Designer Habits Part 2

“My most important habit is writing down notes during play-testing.  I see way too many designers fail to bring paper & pen, and then forget some very valuable feedback.”

–Sarah Reed

“My most important habit is writing. I try to write every single day, mostly in a journal I keep. I’m trying to get back into writing a blog, but it’s hard to find the time! Anthony said his most important habit is procrastination, and he needs to solve that.”

-Nicole Kline

“Prior to doing just about anything each day, I create a prioritized to-do list on a piece of binder paper, arranging things by importance and urgency. Then I do everything I can to hack away at my day in that order. This prevents death-spirals into social media and other seductive entertainment that threatens to pull me off my projects.”

– Matt Leacock

 

“Get up early!”

– Reiner Knizia

 

“Jogging.  It’s so boring that it gets my mind wandering and I come up with some of my best ideas.  In fact, many monotonous activities help me to come up with new ideas or refine old ones.  Folding clothes.  Packing boxes.  Sitting at a dull meeting.  I just have to make sure to scribble the idea on paper before it disappears.”

– Ryan Laukat

 

“I think my most important habit is keeping things available, so when I have small snippets of time, I can do game design. I keep ideas in Google Docs, and photoshop files in DropBox, so whenever I’ve got a moment on my laptop, I can get a little work done. In the physical world, I keep game design books in the bathroom and next to the living room chair. I’m currently reading “Everyone Plays in the Library” and “Reality is Broken” in 2-3 page increments.

I’ve been writing the player profile articles this way. Sometimes only a sentence or a phrase at a time.”

– Chip Beauvais

 

“Be A Decent Human Being.  Seriously. Negotiate contracts in a way that both you and the other party will succeed, be nice to newbies in the industry, help others out if you can, be nice to the receptionist, donate games (new and used) to the less fortunate… overall realize that you are just one cog in a giant industry and if we all play nice, we’ll all be happier people.”

– Kim Vandenbroucke

“I regularly keep playlists and pin boards dedicated to my games/characters to ensure they always feel right when i further design them. I think this very important for Mahou Shoujo and helps me stay on target.”

– Mila Pokorny

 

(The next answer is by far the longest. Aerjen told me that he had written a lot and was trying to cut it down, but I told him that we don’t mind! It’s truly an amazing read. –A)

“My most important habit is tenacity. I know you could call this is a personal trait, but I believe it’s an attitude you can cultivate. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck talks about this at length as part of a mindset she calls the “Growth Mindset.”

A growth mindset is one in which a person believes that success is not just an innate ability (like people with a fixed mindset believe) instead success is about doggedness, hard work, learning and training. With this mindset you’ll be more open to learning from failure and more likely to take on more challenging projects. This is a way of life that ultimately leads to experiencing more happiness and success. Honestly, just a couple sentences is waaaaay to little text to explain this properly, so I want to encourage all of you to read up on this interesting theory. Bonus points if you also read up on MIT’s Education Arcade Scot Osterweil’s Four Freedom’s of Play and see how this fits neatly into Carol’s theoretical framework.

If I’m allowed to add a second habit, I’d like to add Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer’s mindfulness to the mix. By the way, I know that for many the term mindfulness evokes the idea of meditation, but her work focuses on mindfulness from a very different (i.e. socio cognitive) perspective. If you read up on her work (e.g. “The power of mindful learning”) you’ll see that there are many other ways to become more (or less) mindful.

Here’s a definition of mindfulness she gave to the Harvard Business Review in a 2014 interview:

“Mindfulness is the process of actively noticing new things. When you do that, it puts you in the present. It makes you more sensitive to context and perspective. It’s the essence of engagement. And it’s energy-begetting, not energy-consuming. The mistake most people make is to assume it’s stressful and exhausting—all this thinking. But what’s stressful is all the mindless negative evaluations we make and the worry that we’ll find problems and not be able to solve them.

We all seek stability. We want to hold things still, thinking that if we do, we can control them. But since everything is always changing, that doesn’t work. Actually, it causes you to lose control.”

Ellen further subdivides mindfulness into four domains: novelty-seeking, novelty production, engagement, and flexibility. These are all important aspects that IMO help make good game designers great. There’s actually an interesting Youtube episode from Gamesoup where he talks about ingenious solutions in video game design. Several of the great game developers tend to use bugs to make a game better instead of fixing them. For example the increasing difficulty in the original Space Invaders was an accident. Metal Gear Solid was supposed to be an action title, but due to processor limitations they made it into a stealth game.

Finally, I believe that by cultivating a growth mindset and being mindful, will not only become a better game designer, but that will find life more enjoyable overall!”

– Aerjen Tamminga

 

(I hope you enjoyed this roundup! Give it a quick share on Twitter if you don’t mind. Peace – A)

Reiner Knizia, Matt Leacock, Kim Vandenbroucke + more answer “What’s your most important habit?” (Tweet This!)

 

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Game Designer Habits: a roundup.

I asked a bunch of game designers one question. Today’s answers come from Bruno Faidutti, Jamey Stegmaier,  Mike Fitzgerald, and more!

“What’s your most important habit?”

 

“My most important habit is to develop at least one of our game projects everyday.”

Chris Renshall

 

“Reading – but I already said this in my interview. I read a lot of american literature, and my two all times favorite authors are probably Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace.”

– Bruno Faidutti

 

“My most important habit is keeping all of my game design ideas in one place. I have a giant blank sketchbook that I use to write down ideas, take playtest notes, and think through art concepts. Putting it in a single location like this means I don’t have to hunt for a napkin or scrap of paper. I date and title each page for easy reference later. I also make sure my notebook makes it to cons – since it’s the place I’m most likely to have a bajillion ideas and no time to work on them!”

– Jasmine Davis

 

“My most important habit as a game designer is constantly playing a game I am working on with myself playing all player roles and assigning a different strategy to each role. This way I make sure the game is playable before introducing to real players for play testing.”

– Mike Fitzgerald

 

“My most important habit as a game designer is taking tons of notes from observations, questions, and discussions with playtesters, but then waiting a day or two to return to those notes to make changes for the next round of playtesting. That incubation and separation period is really helpful for me, as helps me not dismiss revelations that were counterintuitive to how I pictured the game. I return to those notes with a completely open mind after a few days. This process has evolved over time, and it’s been particularly helpful with Scythe.”

–Jamey Stegmaier

 

“If “grit” can be a habit, then I’d go with that, but it’s more of a characteristic. I’d say getting the opinions of other people – not necessarily following those opinions, but rather hearing what they have to say, and truly listening to their feedback. It’s really easy to get stuck in your own head (since, as a designer, you’re always there anyway), and listening to others offers perspectives and ideas you may not come up with on your own.”

– Anthony Conta

 

“A habit I’m cultivating with game design–particularly for freelance work–is to do it yesterday. Fulfilling assignments when they are assigned rather than waiting until time comes around to do them helps relieve me of pressure, and makes colleagues happy. It’s harder getting there for my own work! Especially since there are some projects that have been simmering for years. But I’m finding that there is no better antidote for procrastination than getting it done right now.”

– Emily Boss

 

“I would say that mine is making lists (almost compulsively).  I find that my brain needs to constantly list things but it really keeps me from forgetting big and little things that I need to work on, tweak or want to try out.”

– Heather O’Neill

 

“Playtesting, of course. It’s the boring but correct answer.

My second-most-important habit is playing other designers’ prototypes. That keeps me sharp and flexible, and presents me with situations where games can be improved, often with a simple and elegant fix.

My third-most-important habit is playing published games. This keeps my passion up, keeps me informed of what’s happening in the field, and reminds me what I’m doing this all for. :)”

– Gil Hova

 

“I think that my most important habit is that when I am developing a game, I spend a lot of time talking to myself as if I am describing the rules to a new player.  This “interview” helps me solidly the rules, find places where the rules don’t make sense, and helps me build up the idea.  I do the same thing with RPG scenarios and adventures (for which I don’t like to write notes) but I want to be clear in my head the history or backstory.

Other than that, my best habit is writing down even small ideas in a book, so that I can reference ideas later.”

– Chris O’Neill

 

“Got a new idea for a theme or mechanic? Write it down, now. Don’t trust that you’ll remember later.”

– Alf Seegert

 

Come back next Friday for another roundup, featuring Matt Leacock, Reiner Knizia, Ryan Laukat, and more!

In the meantime, spread the word:

“Jamey Stegmaier,  Mike Fitzgerald, Bruno Faidutti + more answer “What’s your most important habit?” (Tweet This!)

 

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Jason Rohrer’s story: how to get off the rails and do what you want with your life.

(This is an interview I did years ago, for another – now unavailable – set of interviews called “The Weirdness Studies”, where I interviewed people doing weird and fantastic things. I really loved listening to Jason’s story, so I got his permission to share it with you. This was a conversation, and has been edited for clarity. –A)  

So, how did you choose your weird career?

 

Right, right, so basically you want to know how I got off the rails? I went to college for computer science. When I was in school, there was no such thing as studying video games or game design. There was a big video game industry, but there was no mention of it in academia at all. I don’t know that I was particularly interested in becoming a game designer back then – at the time I had a dream of making 3-D graphics for movies, working for someone like LucasArts.

So I went into college to study programming and computer graphics, but after doing some graphics and stuff for a while I got a little disillusioned with it. I got interested in artificial intelligence and distributed systems and operating systems and peer-to-peer networking and other stuff I was in college, and then I came out of college and went on to graduate school. There I was still doing stuff like hypertext systems, and I made a big anonymous peer-to-peer search and download kind of file sharing system, and other stuff like that.

Then I left my PhD program, had a baby, and realized I didn’t want to continue to be in grad school and work on the thesis while being a parent. My wife and I had some savings set aside, so we moved to a tiny town in upstate New York and bought a house for very cheap, and decided we could live for four or five years on our savings if we lived really frugally, while our baby was young, with the idea that eventually our child would go to school,  and we’d get jobs then.

During that time I spent time parenting and I also spent time working on my own projects. I had as much time as I wanted to work on my own projects, with no real constraints: the projects I was working on didn’t have to bring in money or didn’t have to meet some certain criteria, I could just work on whatever I wanted. So it was during that time that I said “well, why don’t I try making a game now, after all these years of programming” and I made and released some games and I slowly got sucked into the independent game design community, where it became more and more part of my life.

So I stopped working on peer-to-peer stuff and some of the other stuff I had been working on. After about four years of living like that, well, various things brought me a little bit more money here and there, and we had enough money for another year. So then we saw that it was actually working, sort of becoming self-sustaining. We also decided that we didn’t want our kid to go to school. We hadn’t really thought about it before, but we decided to homeschool. So our life just kept rolling in that direction, and the idea of someday going back and getting a real job was less and less feasible.

So we just kind of got off the rails temporarily and found out that being off the rails was so good that we never got back on.

What do you think lead you to choose this life?

 

I was born in 1977, so I’m the primary target age for someone who’s played video games his whole life, so making a game is kind of like being a baseball player or making your own rock album. It’s kind of in the back of your mind, but it’s so out of reach, because making a video game is so hard: I’d been programming in eight years or something like that before I successfully made a game.

Along the way everyone around us was sort of questioning what we were doing, of course – from our parents, to our relatives, to our friends who had real jobs and had stayed on the rails – asking us “why you guys doing this?” or “is this really going to work?”.

Especially for me as a man…if a woman is a stay-at-home parent in this day-and-age I guess some people whisper behind her back, or whatever –  like “didn’t she have any ambition?” but for a lot of women, especially modern women in modern parenting circles, it seems to be okay. But for the man to do it… maybe if the woman has a really high-powered career the man can be a stay-at-home parent – maybe – and people don’t kind of look sideways at him, but most of them are like “what’s wrong with you, dude? Can’t you go out and get a job? Can’t you support your family? All these bills are going to be coming and how are you going to pay them?”

We were basically minimizing our bills to the point that they didn’t exist.

 

Did you have people doubt your path? How did you deal with them?

 

It wasn’t a challenge for me, it just sort of bolstered my desire to stick with it because I wanted to prove everyone wrong. You know, I’ve always sort of been a contrary, Devil’s advocate kind of guy – the one who kind of questions these accepted truths about how everything “has to be”, and “that’s just the way it’s done”.

I’ve always been, even as a child, I’ve always asked “why do we have to do it that way? Just because always been that way doesn’t mean that’s the only way to do it.” Trying this experiment and sticking with it, and having everyone doubt us just sort of helped.

It was tiring I guess to have to keep defending ourselves over and over again. Finally it’s like “Okay, here I am in Esquire magazine in the genius issue. Now is that good enough for you?” I guess I kind of proved that this five-year thing was worth it because of what came out of it… but now it’s “are you making a money yet?”

 

What kind of resistance did you face, and how did you overcome it?

 

I’m really fond of arguing, I guess, so I just kind of argued with people a lot more – you know, pointed out holes in their arguments.

If you actually look at what you’re spending money on, as compared to the amount of money that’s coming in, the actual money you need to survive – you realize that most of the money that you’re spending is in order to support the job that you have. Once you cut out all those job related expenses, you realize that you actually don’t need to spend all that money to survive.

For example, in order to have a job you have to live near the job, and where there are really good jobs that pay good money there is expensive living, because everyone’s living there because they all have jobs: therefore a good chunk of money is going to cover the fact that you’re living in this place that’s expensive. Whereas if you can live somewhere not so expensive, like upstate New York, and you can buy a house without a mortgage, then your expenses go down.

Without a job, you’ll also have more of your own time so you can cook more of your food – a lot of people who work jobs are so tired at the end of the day that they just have to buy expensive convenience foods, and they go out to eat a lot more. They’re also so dead that they have to buy some sort of entertainment to make themselves sane over the weekend.

Some of the needs you used to have start to fall away because you no longer are supporting the job.

Another is reliable transportation! With a job you need a car, you need a good car, or both people need good cars because you both have jobs, and so then you have these expensive car loans. So when you actually look at your expenses you realize that 60% to 70% of the money you’re making at the job is actually being spent to keep you able to keep going to your job.

So having those arguments with people was basically what I was doing and proving to people how little money we were actually spending. For me, I’m the type of person who was always going a different way and is sort of proud to be doing it. I guess other people can kind of get beaten down by that and feel like that if everyone’s against them – that they just can’t deal with all the pressure around them – I guess you just kind of have to keep a thick skin and keep doing what you believe is interesting and what you want to do, in the face of all that criticism.

 

How have you been able to affect other people’s lives with your work?

 

I’ve been making games that lots of people have downloaded, or bought, or played, or whatever – and they have affected people in various ways… and I guess through this life I spend a lot of time with my children. Of course, even with the amount of time that I’ve spent with them I still… my oldest child is nine years old now and is almost as tall some of my friends – even with all the time I’ve spent with him it really feels like it went by very quickly, and I feel like I was so caught up in everything that I missed a lot of those moments, I guess.

On the other hand I don’t have huge regrets, like wishing I hasn’t worked so hard, or traveled so much, or something like that, because I was home for pretty much that entire nine-year period. So being able to have that kind of relationship with him and being able to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with him and my other children every day, and taking them out in the afternoon to spent time with them has definitely had an impact on their lives.

I didn’t really get to spend that much time with my father – he worked a lot and came home a little bit late most days. I spent time with him on the weekends, but I was definitely away from him eight hours a day while was at school and he was at work.

 

Have you ever lived someone else’s life – conformed to what other people expected of you?

 

Well, I did go to school… I went to school from the time I was four until the time I was 23 or 24, so that’s a long time in school. Looking back at it now, when I ask myself why I was doing that, It’s because that’s what I was told I was going to do. I went along through it, went into grade school and in high school applied to college.

Then my first little movement off the rails was in college. Instead of accepting that I was going to go to college for four years and get a job, which is basically what everyone supposed to do, I started thinking of going to grad school and getting into academia, which was one sort of small step away from the rails.

Academia is kind of not a real job, you can do what you want and do your own research and it seemed like the best possible way to do what I wanted to do with my life – you don’t necessarily have a boss and so on. But still… pretty “on the rails” way of doing it.

My parents were a little bit disappointed, you know, “You’re going to be a professor? Oh, they don’t make any money” and so without really realizing it, it was almost like I didn’t even realize there was any other possibility in the world: I was just going to college and finishing school – what other possibility was there?

My world was so closed. The idea of dropping out of college never even occurred to me.

I have friends now who are extremely successful video game designers, I talk to them now and they’re like “Oh, yeah – I dropped out of college” and I’m like “Wow, I never even thought of that” . It wasn’t terrifying or anything, it never just occurred to me.

I guess it was such a natural transition from one thing to another that I really didn’t question breaking away from it. It’s kind of funny and a little bit disturbing, the very first thing I ever encountered that really made me think about going off the rails or that the idea that going off the rails was possible was when I was reading in the newspaper about Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Now, he obviously did some horrible things and really hurt and killed some people. But he was this professor with a PhD from Harvard – he was a guy who was pretty much was as mainstream as you can be in terms of success in the world. Then he decided to break away from that, and was living out in the woods someplace.

That idea that somebody would do that – that someone really smart would want to do that – not that they would want to bomb people and hurt people, but that they would want to get off the rails and go live in a cabin in the woods and that would be a fulfilling life.  So after hearing about him I was always talking to my friends, asking them “why do you guys want to go get jobs? You don’t really need a job. Who needs a job? You don’t need a job, you don’t need money: you need shelter, clothing, a house – you don’t need money” and you know having those kinds of arguments with people and thinking about it, and I was thinking of some sort of exit, but dropping out never occurred to me.

Anything else you would like to share?

 

In living this way for the past eight or nine years I’ve encountered a lot of people who look at our life and are sort of jealous. They’re like “Oh my gosh, you don’t go to work? Oh my gosh you don’t have this? You don’t have that? You don’t have to do this? Aw, I hate my job, I wish I could be like you.”

I think that a lot of people are just terrified of taking the leap, and can’t imagine taking that kind of risk – or they feel that it’s too scary even though they want to. I guess I feel like there isn’t that much risk – you know you can always go back and get a job later if it doesn’t work, and you should at least try it – especially when you’re younger and you have less responsibility and you don’t have children to take care of, and so on.

You should be flexible with your life and try some experimental things…see what works and see if you can live a dream that might seem impossible to you; don’t be afraid of taking the leap. You can always patch things up later, it’s not like you’re going to end up homeless on the street – living under a bridge some place, freezing to death – you can always come back, if you have to.

And…I would warn people that a lot of people who have looked at us and wished they could do what we’re doing, but can’t, are stuck because of the debt they’re saddled with. My wife and I were lucky that we came through college without any debt, our parents had college savings for the both of us, but most of the people we know are saddled with the whole huge amount of college debt and are stuck working some job they don’t like in order to pay that back, over the course of decades, and they just can’t leave.

So I would caution people who are considering college, to not just automatically take out a huge amount of debt and assume that it will be worth it: for a lot of people it’s not worth it. There is this huge, looming debt crisis coming, where people are coming out of college not able to get jobs to pay back their loans.

So don’t get into debt because that really restricts your ability to make your own choices later on down the line.

Thanks for the chat! Amazing story.

 

I’m proud to be weird!

____

Learn more about Jason and this games here.

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How Suzanne Zinsli Makes Games

Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do?

I am Suzanne Zinsli, one half of Cardboard Edison. We design games and run a board game design blog. I am also a mother to two amazing little girls, Lily and Hana, and a wife to one amazing husband, Chris Zinsli, the other half of Cardboard Edison.

This post has affiliate links, which directly support Andhegames.com at no extra cost to you. If you have any questions about anything recommended, let me know. – Andrew

If I’ve never played your games before, what’s the first one I should try?

Tessen: It is an intense 15-minute real-time card game.

One fact that we probably don’t know about you:

My favorite movie is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I liked the movie better than the book, which is very unusual for me.

What tabletop games (including digital board/card games) are you playing most right now?

Doing lots of playtesting, but for published games, Lost Cities, Belle of the Ball and Anomia all hit the table this weekend.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

Tough question… I would have to say my tops are Panic Station, Captains of Industry and Mancala.

What draws you to make games?

I love the creativity, the process, the product, the people, and it is something that I get to do with my husband, Chris.


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What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do for your work?

Staying up past 8 p.m. I am an early-to-bed, early-to-rise sort of girl, so those late-night development and playtesting sessions are brutal.

Describe your process (or lack thereof) when making games. How do you reach your final product?

It is a true back-and-forth between myself and Chris. One of us will come up with an idea that the other one likes, and then the fun starts. We run through some rough prototypes to see if there is anything there. If we have a game we want to focus on, we then do lots of development and playtesting… then some more development and playtesting. I don’t know if a product is ever really final, but I guess once it is in shrink wrap I would consider it done.

What game design-related media do you consume on a regular basis?

Cardboard Edison tries to cover all the design-related material out there…but there is just so much great advice and articles, I am sure we are just reaching the tip of the iceberg.

What are some tool/programs/supplies that you wouldn’t work without?

Index cards and a notebook. Index cards are so versatile, you can use them for almost any aspect of prototyping. Nothing beats a notebook for brainstorming and writing down playtest feedback.

What’s your playtesting philosophy? How often/early do you playtest?

My philosophy is that you can never playtest enough. Keep playtesting and then playtest some more! I like to do a rough concept playtest to see if an idea has potential and if it is worth pursuing and further development. Once there is a presentable prototype, I try to playtest at least once per week.

What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in your work, and how have you overcome them?

Finding time is a huge obstacle. I have two daughters, one is 6 and the other is 8 months. They keep me uber busy. Actually, while I am doing this interview, the 6-year-old keeps running over to me to ask for help with something…haha. I try to dedicate certain times each week to work on game design, usually when one is in school and the other one napping.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Luckily, my husband is my design partner, so we are in this together. It has truly become a part of our everyday life. We still struggle to find a balance… sometimes we spend too much time on game design, other times we are doing lots of family activities and our design work stalls. Sometimes life also just makes you put everything on pause. About a year ago, there was so much going on in my personal life that I put all design work on hold until I felt I was able to return to it with a clearer mind.

How many hours/week do you generally devote to game design? How many to other business-related activities?

We spend around five hours a week on our game designs, then around 10 hours on our blog and around seven hours of playtesting other designers’ games.

What one piece of advice would you give aspiring game designers?

Immerse yourself in the community! The gaming community is very welcoming, and in my experience designers are always eager to help other designers.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Doug Levandowski, Matthew O’Malley and Vital Lacerda.

What’s the best advice about life that you’ve ever received?

Always tell the people you love that you love them.

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How the Bamboozle Brothers make games

Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do?

Sen: My name is Sen-Foong Lim. I’m a forty-two year old father of 2 husband of 1 mother of none. I’m a Scorpio by the regular Zodiac and a Rat by the Chinese Zodiac, meaning that I’m small and have a tail. I am a mild-mannered Occupational Therapist and college professor by day and a crime-busting caped game designer by night. I sleep about 4 hours a night, accordingly. That might explain why I’m so short. I’m also one of the co-hosts for the Meeple Syrup Show, the weekly vidcast where Designers Discuss Design.

Jay: Hey there! I’m Jay. I’m the taller version of Sen, but without kids. I work in video production as a day job thingy and I also teach game design at the Vancouver Film School as a night job thingy. The rest of my time is spent designing games! 

This post has affiliate links, which directly support Andhegames.com at no extra cost to you. If you have any questions about anything recommended, let me know. – Andrew

 

If I’ve never played your games before, what’s the first one I should try?

Sen: Depending on who’s at your game table, I’d say Belfort for heavier gamers, Akrotiri if there’s only 2 of you, and But Wait, There’s More! if you’re in the mood for some goofy fun!

Jay: Yep – what Sen said!

One fact that we probably don’t know about you:

Sen: I can’t sleep with clothes on. CANNOT.

Jay: I can’t sleep with Sen in the same bed as me. CANNOT.

What tabletop games (including digital board/card games) are you playing most right now?

Sen: I am addicted to Star Realms on iOS (username: senjitsu, COME AT ME, BRO!) Other than that, I play a lot of games with my boys – so Loopin’ Louie, Banana Matcho… And a ton of prototypes. A ton.

Jay: I have a game night every week where we play ‘real’ games – and we’re always mixing it up and so there’s never a game that we play multiple times in a row. Recently we’ve played Evo, Antidote, X-Men Vs. Avengers Dicemasters – and I too like playing Star Realms on iOS! Indyjones is ready for you!

(It’s on like Kublai Khan! I so love Star Realms. – A)


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What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

Sen: Basari, I’m The Boss, Inkognito, Last Will. Matt Leacock’s Thunderbirds is really climbing the charts, though!

Jay: Tikal, Entdecker, No Thanks, Tichu (Sen, how could you forget this one?!), Dominion, Carcassonne. I too really enjoyed Thunderbirds!!

What draws you to make games?

Jay: Being creative gives me such energy! I love it! I love creating new and exciting experiences for people. I used to perform and direct in the theatre and had the same motivation. A finished product is really something to be proud of!

Sen: If I don’t make them, I will go crazy. I need an outlet for all of these crazy ideas I have in my head. So, for me, this is therapeutic.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do for your work?

Jay: Discipline! Not getting distracted! Oh hey – there’s another question below…

Sen: Thinking. Pondering. And Ruminating. In that order.

Describe your process (or lack thereof) when making games. How do you reach your final product?

Jay: Sen and I will bat ideas around on our forum for awhile. Eventually one of them will excite one of us to the point that one of us has to make a prototype of it! So we make the quickest prototype we possibly can. We’ve been burned in the past by spending too much time on a prototype only to learn that everything had to change! So now – we make a super rough prototype and push some pieces around to see if and where the fun is! Then we follow the fun. Sometimes we start out thinking the game is going to be one thing – but then it morphs into something else entirely! Belfort and Akrotiri both started as games that only had 25 tiles and that’s it. Belfort doesn’t even have tiles any more! Once we think we know the direction of fun – then we’ll spend a bit of time on a nicer prototype – but by ‘a bit’ I really mean ‘a bit.’ We don’t bother with too much unnecessary art or design. We focus on making the game functional. Then we just playtest and tweak, playtest and tweak until we think it’s ready!

Sen: We think and think and think and think and think and think and think and think and think and think and think and think. And then Jay says, “Maybe we should actually make a prototype.” And so we do. Lately though, we’re not thinking as much before we make the prototype. We’re “failing forward” and learning from each quick prototype of the game how to make the next iteration better. It’s been really interesting to see how quickly we can put a half-way decent game together in a short amount of time. Getting it to the polished stage still takes a lot of time and effort with the external playtesting, but it’s all getting faster and better.

What game design-related media do you consume on a regular basis?

Sen: Oddly, not much. I produce a lot of content and media creating the Meeple Syrup Show on a weekly basis, so I get a lot of it that way. There’s a few Facebook groups that I’m active in and I check Boardgame Geek regularly to tend to our “game garden” and see what’s happening on the design forum. I watch very few reviews and listen to some podcasts sporadically. I do read a lot about gamification in education, etc. though for work.

Jay: Yeah weird…I visit BGG on a daily basis…but that’s about it. Too busy designing games to watch or listen to podcasts or read other sites. Unless of course they’re reviewing one of our games – then that’s the best podcast/review ever!

What are some tool/programs/supplies that you wouldn’t work without?

Sen: Software-wise, Corel Draw is our main graphic design program. We’ve been using Cardmaker a lot, too, lately – it’s been a God(zilla)send in the last game we’ve been working on. Other than that, the Crop-a-dile is a pretty nifty paper crafting tool, arch and square punches allow us to make specifically shaped/sized holes in things, but neither of these are as important as the mounted rotary paper cutter. A good selection of card sleeves are invaluable to make different deck.

Jay: I am a Corel Draw junkie. I grew up with it and I am just so familiar with it now that I can’t use anything else. And it’s perfect for what we need to do – functional vector based graphics. The only other thing to add from Sen’s list is CUBES! Tons and tons of cubes. It’s our number 3 prototyping material (after cardstock and sleeves). Cubes can represent anything – player markers, resources, money…very versatile for prototyping.

What’s your playtesting philosophy? How often/early do you playtest?

Jay: Super often and super early. We’ll do a solo test if we can (some games that involve social deduction make solo testing hard!). We each have our own game test groups – since we live in different parts of the country – and so we can get our games tested quite frequently. My group meets up weekly to test games – which helps us iterate quite quickly. It’s very motivating to have a weekly meet up to test games because you want to work and bring something new to the table the next week!

Sen: As much as humanly possible! We have a wider group that meets bi-weekly at our local spot, the Cardboard Cafe while my core group of playtesters might meet an additional once or twice a month for more specific testing. Having bicoastal testing groups with varied tastes and perspecitves has been very helpful in helping us to iterate as quickly as we do.

What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in your work, and how have you overcome them?

Jay: We’ve tried to be pre-emptive in our obstacles and we designed our own MVP program: Motivation, Versatility and Persistence. By focusing on these three things early – we’ve been able to avoid many obstacle that we’ve seen other designers suffer. Motivation: We have our forum online that we chat to each other on – and it’s motivating to see Sen respond to an idea I had. Then I feel like I have to respond to his response – and so on. And this really helps us stay motivated. Versatility: We are fortunate in that we like many types of games so we’re open to making any kind of game! This versatility helps keeps us motivated as we can bounce from one project to another when motivation wanes – and it can help us when we’re pitching to a publisher at an event since we would have many different types of game ready to pitch at one time. Persistence: We knew that we would get a lot of rejection – and we did. But that didn’t slow us down or upset us that much. We knew that we had to keep listening to feedback and keep tweaking our games until they got published.

Sen: Communication can be difficult when the vast majority of it is conducted electronically. We’re getting better at it, but we still get flustered with each other at times. But we were friends before we were design partners. This whole game design thing was undertaken in an effort to keep us in contact when Jay moved out west. The fact that we’ve actually made it into a “jobby” has been pretty cool, but at the end of the day, it’s our friendship that’s the glue that keeps our cardboard connected. Not a euphemism.


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How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Jay: I’m lucky in that I have a 9-5 job that only rarely requires extra time. I don’t have kids so I just ensure I spend time with my fiance and my friends on a regular basis – but the rest of the time is spent designing. I don’t watch that much TV (only binge watch now!) and I don’t follow sports – so that’s a lot of time saved! But I do love going to the movies, playing video games and reading comics – so that eats into my design time. I find that if I have spare time I always want to be working on game design though as that’s the most fun thing for me!

Sen: I’m lucky in that I have an amazing wife and 2 kids who love gaming almost as much as their dad! A lot of the media I do consume ends up informing our game design – e.g. I’m a life-long Godzilla fan, both of us watched Orphan Black, etc. and that has lead us to getting the contracts to design games for those franchises and more that we can’t reveal yet (only to say that we’re huge fans of the source material!) Also, sleep is for the dead.

How many hours/week do you generally devote to game design? How many to other business-related activities?

Sen: Let’s see…Meeple Syrup and related activites takes up about 7 hours a week at this time. Game designing, about another 14 hours. Checking up on BGG, replying to related e-mail, etc. is another 7 hours a week. So yeah, about 4 hours a day on game-esque stuff. I’m also at the cafe a lot to teach games and curate the library, so there’s that as well.

Jay: We’re both trying to see if we can make game design our full time thing. Funny thing is we’re both lucky in that we actually enjoy the real jobs we have – so we’re not in a rush really. That said – it can vary drastically. On a Saturday I can work all day and night on game design if it’s before a big playtest session (like one coming up this Sunday!). And some nights I don’t work on it at all so I can spend time with friends and my fiance! Balance! But I desperately need more time to work on game design. Sen and I have many games signed that aren’t out yet that need some attention, and many games that have been pitched that haven’t been signed that will need some attention too. Right now the majority of our time is spent on Godzilla – a new card battling game coming later this year (assuming all things go well). So we’re deep into playtesting right now!

What one piece of advice would you give aspiring game designers?

Sen: Watch the Meeple Syrup Show! No, seriously! We ask this question to, on average, 2 designers a week. So, if you watch the show even once, you’ll be like doubling the advice I’d give you here! I just did you a solid.

Jay: Read the bamboozlebrothers.com blog! No, seriously! We have outlined the 30+ steps that we took to get our games designed and published and we have heard from many others that they have followed those steps and it has worked for them as well!

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Sen: William Attia because he’s super funny and he doesn’t even know. Vlaada Chvatil because he’s got a way with words that makes everything he says poignant.

Jay: Matt Leacock! He’s one of the lucky few who is able to work full time at game design! How did he do it! How does he stay motivated? What’s his secret?! 🙂

(Matt Leacock’s Interview is here! –A)

What’s the best advice about life that you’ve ever received?

Sen: Wow, that’s pretty deep…a good friend once asked me if I was willing to lose a friend in order to win an argument. That changed how I view the world and myself in it.

Jay: About life? My principal when I was in grade 6 once told me that I should think of the consequences of what I say before I say them. Seems simple – but he said it in a way that made me understand it. Up until that day I got into schoolyard fights every day – but I exacerbated the situation with my big mouth. From that day on, I never got in a fight again.

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How Emily Care Boss Makes Games

Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do?

Hi! My name is Emily Care Boss of Black & Green Games. I am a game designer and independent publisher of analog role playing games. I live in western Massachusetts in the US, and work at a land trust conserving land for my daily bread. Back in the 90s when I was in college was when I got into role playing games, and I started designing in the early 2000s as part of the Forge forums community. Print on Demand technology had just started to make it feasible to print books in small print runs. You could now print books in the dozens or hundreds, rather than in the thousands which had been necessary before. And with pdf distributing and online store fronts using Paypal and other virtual payment options, it meant us small folks could make a game and not break the bank. Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Patreon have reinvented the independent publishing game all over again now, making it even more accessible. This is an amazing time to be gamer!

Since then, I’ve published eleven of my own games, including my Romance Trilogy: Breaking the Ice, Shooting the Moon and Under my Skin; collaborated on five more including Play With Intent with Matthijs Holter and Alex Fradera, and Dread House, and a haunted house adaptation of Dread (which was recently featured on Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop) for kids and adults, with my husband Epidiah Ravachol. Eppy & I met at JiffyCon, the local game convention I started here in Massachusetts. I also got to work with a ton of wonderful fellow women game designers, writers and artists by editing the RPG = Role Playing Girl Zine in 2009 and 2010.

Some of my games are live action role playing games. I wrote What To Do About Tam Lyn? with my friend Julia Ellingboe, about fairies and mortals coming to the Fae Queen’s court to decide the fate of lovers like Tam Lyn and his beloved Janet. The third game in my Romance Trilogy is a freeform larp, Under my Skin, about a circle of friends how all start falling in love with the wrong people. Under my Skin was influenced by a group of Nordic game designers called the Jeepform Collective, who write games about real world stories of love, loss (and occassional hilarity). After I played a few Jeepform games, I fell in love with this style of play and have written more, like Remodel about four women helping each other remodel a house and cope with major changes in their lives, and Play With Intent, which is a customizable play set which steals borrows liberally from Jeepform, improv acting, tabletop rpgs and more. There are a lot of people in the US, Canada and elsewhere writing this kind of game some of which have been collected under the style label American Freeform, others of which were submitted to a design contest called The Golden Cobra Challenge.

These days I write at my blog Last Chance Noir, at my Black & Green Games website. Inspired by my most recent game, I’m writing about the noir genre, and how game design and fiction overlap. I plan to host interviews there, of game designers and theorist who have done fascinating work in rpg design, larp craft, transmedia and Alternate Reality Games.

If I’ve never played your games before, what’s the first one I should try?

Probably a good place to start is with Breaking the Ice. This was my first published game and is the most well known of my games. The game is about two characters who go on their first three dates.Two players try to get them to fall in love, and then see if they have what it takes to make it over the long haul. It’s a quick game that needs no prep. You can sit down and start from scratch and be done in 2-3 hours. Or take your time and play it out over several sessions.

To make characters in Breaking the Ice, you start by picking the character’s favorite color. Then the players help each other create a word web of things associated with that color, like “river” and “jazz” for the color blue, or “trees” and “organic gardening” for the color green. You pick work, hobbies and personality traits for the characters which are suggested by those words. And as you play, you roll dice to help create Attraction and Compatibilities between the two characters. First, you roll dice for making things go well. Then, if that doesn’t work, you roll dice for making things go wrong for the characters. Each player takes a turn playing their character and being the Guide, kind of like a game master, who give suggestions and awards dice to the other player.

If you want to play with more people, you can have the characters go on a double or triple date. (Or play with two teams playing a single pair of characters.)Once I ran the game for three pairs of players who took their characters on three “dates” during the opening of the first live action, fully-three dimensional dungeon crawl theme park. We used the map from the Tomb of Horrors module of Dungeons & Dragons and had a blast.

One fact that we probably don’t know about you:

I am a licensed forester in Massachusetts. The town in southern Connecticut I grew up in was an old farm town when my parents grew up there, which has become much more populated and developed. The end of town I grew up in is near the Housatonic River, and was where the last big farms were in town during my childhood. I spent long summer days with my dog running around in the woods near the river, splashing in brooks and climbing trees. Studying the forest and helping people manage their woods seemed like a great way to make a living, so I studied forestry at UMass Amherst. I took that education and went into conservation, and during the day work with landowners to help them conserve their land to help give other kids those same kinds of memories of their childhood.

What tabletop games (including digital board/card games) are you playing most right now?

I am in a campaign of Dungeon Crawl Classics. This game is part of the Old School Renaissance movement in tabletop role playing game design: hearkening back to the earliest of versions of Dungeons and Dragons™, embracing truly lethal levels of character mortality and being all about the dungeon delve. Goodman Games wrote DCC and I love the tone they hit with it: gritty and fearing for your life, but with a wickedly fantastic sense of this magical world. When you start a campaign, you start with what they call “the funnel”. Each player takes four 0-level characters into play. For a reason! If you come out of the first session with one left, you’re lucky. And the characters themselves have backgrounds that are rolled up randomly: pig farmers, mushroom farmers, tax collectors, bandits. Once they make it through the funnel, they level up, take a class and you can start breathing easy (for now!) and imagining a future for them. My current character, Iquinox, began life as an herbalist and has since become a Wizard of the Chaotic Arts. The surviving character of a fellow player happened to also be named Iquinox! So we made them brothers: one a cleric of law, one a wizard of chaos, leading to wonderful philosophical debates.

I’ve run my light fantasy story-telling/role playing game Misericord(e) at several conventions recently. It takes part of the system Meguey Baker created for her 1001 Nights game, and uses it to tell the tales of adventures that members of 13 Guilds in the town of Misericord(e) get up to. The Guilds vie for whose member can tell the best adventure tale at Midwinters, so the games you play are the guildmembers trying to get into the most interesting scrapes, so as to bring honor to their Guild. The game uses Tarot cards to set up a scenario, and to bring twists along the way.

And the other game I’m playing the most these days is Epidiah Ravachol’s Swords without Master. It is a sword & sorcery rpg, meant to let you create a story like a short story by Tanith Lee, Robert E. Howard (the creator of Conan) or Fritz Leiber, in just a few hours of play. He’s running what he calls “Sunday Morning Swords,” online on Google+ Hangouts. On Sunday mornings on the east coast play games inspired by Thundarr the Barbarian–a Saturday morning cartoon from the 80s set in a post-apocalyptic world with magic in the shattered remains of our world (which surprisingly holds up well to viewing!). I play Umsa the Zook (very similar to Ucla the Mook from Thundarr). Folks in the western part of the US started a campaign set in a world fallen into an ice age.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

My top three are probably Ars Magica, Primetime Adventures, and Microscope. Ars Magica was the game that made me love role playing games. Although, we were playing in the 90s, so as was so common at that time–we used the general structure of the game and major elements of the magic system, with an original world created by my fellow players, and a homebrew, mish-mash of the GURPS rules with the AM rules set. And then mostly played freeform, based on following the lives of the characters and seeing what happened. The brilliance of the game was in giving the players permission to play different characters from varying levels of society (the Mages, their learned Companions, Soldiers and servants and Covenfolk). And the central metaphor of the magic – verbs and nouns (types of magic and forms types of actions it could take) was intuitive and supported a tremendous amount of imaginative play and authorship of a world. The simple innovation of basing play on the keep or Covenant of mages made all this possible. It’s strange that more games haven’t taken up this mantle. Many games now do have a rotating GM or more distributed world creation, so there is that.

Primetime Adventures was written in the early 2000s and was influenced by the Forge “System Matters” school of design, of which I am a part. This game was so fun and so adaptable. It uses the central metaphor of a television show to get the players on board with creating a unique premise together, and also primes you to have each person’s character have spotlight on a given session. The Fan Mail economy of the game gave input from other players and used it in plot crossroads to allow all players to weigh in on major turnings of the plot. Elegant and ground-breaking in its simplicity.

Microscope was published in 2011 and is a sideways step for rpgs. Instead of creating characters within a given setting and playing them, you take a over-arching timeline of some world’s history, and create it together. Only ocassionally do you play scenes with characters – these are scenes that answer a question a player has about a specific Event within an Era in the overall timeline. It’s a great way to create the background to a world together. And you can pick any era within the timeline and do the same thing again at that scale. In the 90s there was a game called Aria, in which you created a world to role play in by creating the history of that world – Microscope does this more simply and with greater flexibility. My favorite way to play is for 1 hour with one other person.

What draws you to make games?

All games hold a fascination for me – creating rules that let people have fun is deeply satisfying. But role playing games in particular grab me because of the spontaneous and collaboratively creative nature of playing them. You can go as deep or as lightly immersed as you like – spend six years creating a shared world with your friends, or play for 2 hours and only be in character for fifteen minutes, tops. Each has its own rewards, and there is so much territory in between to explore.

I love how surprising the stories are in role playing games. Even when you play a game where you have scenes scripted, like the Jeepform game Doubt about action, ambition and temptation, you don’t know how the players will interpret those moments, what choices will be made.

And the emotions can go deep. Even in games that would seem to be fairly light escapist fare, playing a character can connect you with a world and a story, just like reading a book or watching a film – but with that added fascination that you made that happen, your friends chose those words. Of course, that does mean that you have to do your own editing – the many pages the author of a novel writes then throws away, or the feet of film which would once have been spilled on a cutting room floor (I suppose they languish on hard-drives nowadays), you get to live those out, and have moments or role play that are perhaps ho-hum.

But maybe that’s really what keeps me coming back to designing rpgs, to find ways to keep reducing that ho-hum to amazing ratio, in favor of the amazing. Having been to the mountaintop, I want to take other folks there, too.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do for your work?

Learning to GM has been one of the biggest challenges for me. I’m not a person who naturally feels comfortable in the role of entertaining a crowd. And knowing how to give the players enough that they are intrigued and want to take action, and making it so that they have choices and room to breathe, was something I had to learn. My formative role playing experiences were freeform and player-led, so creating games that had that kind of dynamic came much more naturally to me. Most of my games work sort of like board games–everyone can do any of the moves. And everyone is providing pressure for everyone else.

Watching people whom I considered to be good Game Masters do what they do, emulating them, and finally finding my own style helped get me over the hump. I’m still not terribly interested in running games that require the GM to craft a long adventure or back-story to involve the players in. I’d prefer to have a story seed, which we can all build on together.

Also, running live action freeform games gave me the best training in scene-framing and being able to craft a story through directing it. It may be similar to a director’s role in theater, and since the scenes played are most often very direct: you’re dealing with these characters emotions, their actions & reactions right there, rather than negotiating a fight between characters in a world that you use numbers to represent–it feels more natural. Guess it’s a matter of taste and experience. But both skill sets have helped me be able to write, run and play better.

Describe your process (or lack thereof) when making games. How do you reach your final product?

Ideas are fun, playtesting is hard, writing is hard, layout is fun.

The best part is definitely the initial stages of having a game idea. It’s like a puzzle or a riddle you can mull over in your mind. Whatever the kernel of the idea is, it’s fun to think about since it’s an idea that tickles me. And there are no limitations–it’s just an idea in my head, so anything is possible.

It’s super satisfying to reach a point where it is playable, but that is the point where it starts to get painful. Trying things does mean that you find out what doesn’t work. And playtesting is process that can make you feel very vulnerable. At least, I do. Boring people, or stumbling over mechanics can be tense and frustrating. I always prefer to do initial playtesting with friends who are fellow designers (if possible!) or at least friends who are inclined to understand that if it isn’t fun, that is OK. It’s all part of the process.

Once the game works, and you’re satisfied with it, that gets to my least favorite part. Writing it all out. For some reason, this part takes me the longest, and feels the least fun. Having two or three projects on the burner, or different aspects of the same project, can help–if one section gets boring, or I can’t see a way forward, then working on something else for a while relieves the pressure. Like working on the sky for a while when doing a jigsaw puzzle, then getting back to putting the trees and dancing unicorns back together again.

Layout is another fun part. As I move forward, I’m likely to work with people who do it more professionally, since crowdsourcing has made it possible to have more capital to invest in the projects, and the bar keeps getting raised. But when I can do it myself, I prefer that. It’s always fun to learn more, and the process of placing the words and images is relaxing and fun. Editing is always best left to others, of course, when you have the resources. It is just far too easy to be so burnt out by the rest of the work, or too blinded by having seen it all so many times before.

What game design-related media do you consume on a regular basis?

History, films and fiction feed my game design muse. Reading the novels and poetry of the Japanese Classical period inspired me to write my game (in progress!) City of the Moon, for the Game Chef contest in 2005. I’d love to come back to that game. More recently, poetry and tales from the Warring States period of Chinese history (5th Century BCE – 221 BCE) lead me to write King Wen’s Tower, for Fastaval last year. Film noir and noir fiction are favorites of mine, as well as the novels of Jane Austen, and the fantasy novels of Patricia McKillip. Last year I wrote Last Chance Noir, a freeform larp tool kit based on Play With Intent. And I am working on the final version of Heart of the Rose, which is very inspired by the works of McKillip and related fantasy. Maybe sometime I’ll write a game inspired by Austen.

What are some tool/programs/supplies that you wouldn’t work without?

Although I use Microsoft Word for almost all the writing I do, I often wish there was a better writing program out there. Scivener may be just that. It organizes your work into a set of documents which are nested and can easily by linked between and inter-related. I’m using it now for organzing the revision of my Romance Trilogy, and also for a historical larp about John Milton and Paradise Lost that I’m working on. It may become a go-to program for me.

Two that I’d be lost without are InDesign and Adobe Acrobat. InDesign is incredibly useful for layout and design of games and books. And I use Acrobat to created and modify pdfs constantly in my daily professional life as well as my publishing work.

What’s your playtesting philosophy? How often/early do you playtest?

For me, the most formative parts of playtesting are running the game myself for many, many groups. The feedback that one can get second hand by sending a game out to be played is very important–but there is so much information that is lost or distorted in the reporting process. Being able to observe how players react to the game, what they do with it and how it progresses, in person, is critical to design for me.

Playtesting usually starts pretty early. Trying out sections of the game helps me tune it and see what will or won’t actually work in play. And also, many times suggests ways to structure play that I hadn’t realized it needed. For example, when I was designing Under my Skin, I just ran through character creation with a fellow game designer. We made the characters, and then at the end I asked “so what core issue is your character concerned with?” And it just didn’t work. The character was complete; it had likes and needs, but it didn’t fit with this idea of an issue that they struggled with, and the ways that they fit with the other characters, too, wasn’t apparent. So, I realized that that core issue step had to come first. And everything else would spill out from it. Pick a core issue, and have others suggest areas of life that it could effect (giving everyone some buy-in in everyone else’s characters, and also giving help to each player to come up with ideas about their role). Then, when the characters are created, pick those who may be in relationships based on logical things about their background or interests–but then we could see what the dynamic would be between them: an author and a soldier being married is one thing, but an author strugglign with loneliness being married to a soldier with anger issues is a whole different thing. It’s a relationship that has energy to it, and that you can see dramatic directions immediately. Putting the game in motion–even before you get to the point of testing it out, is a critical part of the design process for me.

What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in your work, and how have you overcome them?

In writing my first three games, the Romance Trilogy, finding an audience that was receptive to those themes was a big challenge. People shied away from having real world emotions be represented in rpgs. Either from having seen it done poorly, or not wanting to deal with that kind of feeling in a recreational context. “Why pretend to go on a date when I could go on a real one?” was some of the feedback I got. My answer was, “Why do people read books about romances? Or make films?” People love these stories. Keeping with it, running the game, and having friends and colleagues who believed in them made all the difference. And not believing the criticisms–or at least having the faith to try anyway despite naysaying. And–being able to see when I was making mistakes. It’s a balance.

Another challenge is knowing when a game is done, or can be finished. Really, it’s the latter that’s the hard part for me. Knowing when a game is fun and ready to be played is not hard. But certain games end up being cul-de-sacs. Not quite a dead end, but I keep spinning around with them, not settling on the exact right answers. In some cases, it was because I hadn’t encountered the right rules set that the game premise needed as yet. When I started working on Under my Skin, I intended for it to be played as a tabletop game, and I had ideas about including “drama points” and having people “trigger” each other by acting out. There is a tabletop version now that does include those things–but the main game, which is really what the story of the game is most suited too–is played out live, as a freeform larp. But I didn’t know that kind of game existed until after I’d been working on the game for several years. And once I had played them, it took a friend to suggest it, and me some time to realize that she was right!

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Gaming is an important part of my social life. Many of my closest friends are people I know through gaming and are people I game with regularly. As far as family, I took the novel (or is that tried and true?) approach of marrying another game designer, Epidiah Ravachol. We both get it about how nutty we are about games, so it makes it easy to understand and explain how much time we both want to spend on them. Also, we travel together to conventions for vacation. We even went to game conventions in Europe on our honeymoon!

How many hours/week do you generally devote to game design? How many to other business-related activities?

Week to week it varies a lot. I’d say on a week when I’m busy with other things I only spend 2-5 hours thinking about or working on game design. On a good week, when there is plenty of time, I’d spend about 5-15 hours a week, plus 4 or 8 hours playing games as well. In a high production time, like when I’m finishing a game, or doing a lot of playtesting, I probably spend 20-30 hours a week on them. There are many memories I have of long nights writing and doing layout leading up to going to GenCon to premier a game at a booth.

What one piece of advice would you give aspiring game designers?

Decide what you want from game design, and adjust your expectations if you find you are unhappy. For example, some people want to jump into game design and make a living doing it right away. This is much more possible than it ever has been–with crowdfunding making it possible to do more and reach more people than you could in the past. But it’s not easy to do this, and no matter what you do there will be a lot of work involved: learning, designing, refining, and meeting people. People who can give you feedback on your game, as well as help you with the parts of design you can’t do (unless you’re one of those wunderkinds who can write/draw/do amazing layout/etc!), and also support and understand where you’re coming from.

But there are many kinds of success: being a full-time paid designer, doing it part time as a for-profit enterprise, designing games to publish for the love of it and some extra cash, or simply looking at it as an artform you love and sharing your game through running it at conventions or publishing it for free online to be part of the community of play. All of these things are great. The main thing is that what you’re aiming for actually matches the time/effort/money you have to spare, and that it doesn’t drain you financially or emotionally getting there. Success can be as big a problem as failure, depending on the context!

So, pick a goal for your game design, and be prepared to adapt and change it if until you find the level of engagement that makes you feel fulfilled.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Hannah Shaffer

What’s the best advice about life that you’ve ever received?

During college, I was at a bit of a loss. I had left the first college I went to, Bryn Mawr in PA, because it was too expensive for me and my family, and I was living at home trying to figure out what to do next. Pat, a mentor of my best friend, suggested I move to the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts. It was a liberal area, full of many colleges and other people who were thinking about the world and looking for innovative answers. I moved up there and found friends I lived communally with for many years. Went to college and found a career. I’d never felt really at home in southern Connecticut, it was pretty conservative and I was very liberal.

So the advice Pat gave me was to find my place in the world. To find communities I could feel a part of. This has made all the difference for me in life: through work, socially, romantically and in game design.

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How Jonathan Gilmour makes games

Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do?

Hello! I’m Jonathan Gilmour! I design games! I’m also a husband, and father of four kids. In my “real job” I work in a automotive parts factory programming robots.

 

This post has affiliate links, which directly support Andhegames.com at no extra cost to you. If you have any questions about anything recommended, let me know. – Andrew

 


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If I’ve never played your games before, what’s the first one I should try?

Well, I am incredibly proud of the work that Isaac and I did on Dead of Winter, so I suggest starting there.

One fact that we probably don’t know about you:

I used to sing soprano in choir at school.

What tabletop games (including digital board/card games) are you playing most right now?

I am enjoying the heck out of Shadowrun: Crossfire. I’ve also been playing a lot of Omen: Reign of War and thoroughly enjoying the latest version of it.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

Cosmic Encounter and Nations are the only two games I have rated a ten on BGG currently. Though I have a hard time picking.

What draws you to make games?

I love doing creative things, and solving problems, so it’s a really good fit for both of those.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do for your work?

I am not an extrovert, so I have had to work really hard on putting myself out there into the community and interacting with people.

Describe your process (or lack thereof) when making games. How do you reach your final product?

Well, it’s kind of a brute force method. I like to prototype early and fail fast. I’ll do multiple iterations of a game in a single day if I have time. I start with writing down a ton of notes and then try to flesh the core of those notes into something. From there, I try to flesh the game out further.

What design-related media do you consume on a regular basis?

I’m a huge fan of both Daniel Solis’s blog and Cardboard Edison.

What are some tool/programs/supplies that you wouldn’t work without?

I work in Gimp and a program called Card Maker, which is an incredible tool. You also won’t find me without my trusty guillotine paper cutter.

What’s your playtesting philosophy? How often/early do you playtest?

I subscribe to the Fail Faster philosophy of design. I start playtesting early and as often as possible. Sometimes back to back to back if time affords it.

What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in your work, and how have you overcome them?

Time is the biggest obstacle for me. Fitting in working on all the projects on my plate on top of a full time job and family. And then staying motivated for all of that.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

I put my family first. We eat supper together every night. I spend time with them before getting into design work after they go to bed. It results in lots of late nights, and a general lack of sleep.

Do you have a second job? If so, what do you do? If not, when/how did you quit your day job?

I do, I work in a plastics factory programming robots. I’m hoping that maybe this year will be the year to change that.

How many hours/week do you generally devote to game design? How many to other business-related activities?

An average week would be 16-18 hours. My main job is 40-50 hours a week, sometimes more.

What one piece of advice would you give aspiring game designers?

You can never playtest enough. If you think you are done, you are not. Playtest some more.

What’s the best advice about life that you’ve ever received?

Say yes to almost everything, and don’t take no for an answer.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Oh man, there are tons of great designs and publishers I look up to! My short list: Scott Almes. Patrick Nickell (Crash Games) Uwe Rosenberg Stefan Feld

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How Jasmine Davis Makes Games


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Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do?

I work in content marketing at a small startup, so “what I do” isn’t super simple to answer (sometimes I’m editing! sometimes I write tweets! sometimes I call angry clients!). Outside of work, I’m a fiber artist and I design games.

 

This post has affiliate links, which directly support Andhegames.com at no extra cost to you. If you have any questions about anything recommended, let me know. – Andrew

 

If I’ve never played your games before, what’s the first one I should try?

That’s so tough to answer, because all my games are so differently, mechanically! But I’d recommend Knight Shift, since it has the broadest appeal. It’s a strategy card game, but can be played somewhat casually, too.

One fact that we probably don’t know about you:

I was one Art History class away from a minor in Cermics in college. I just really enjoyed spending time in the pottery studio (and the art building in general), so I took almost enough classes to be officially certified as a kind-of okay potter.

What tabletop games (including digital board/card games) are you playing most right now?

I play enough Ticket to Ride and Lost Cities via apps that it’s a little scary. In terms of physical tabletop games, lately I’ve been really into Tiny Epic Kingdoms, Steam Park, and The Builders: Middle Ages, a fun lightweight game I picked up in France. I’ve also been playing a lot of Hive with my husband. The last time we played it, maybe a year ago, he kept crushing me. But somehow in a year of not playing it, I became really good at it, so that’s fun.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

I have a really soft spot for Carcassonne and Agricola. Carcassonne was the first “gamer game” I really got into. I bought the Big Box as a birthday gift for a guy who wound up dumping me, so I kept it. Agricola was the first game that my husband and I really played together.

What draws you to make games?

When I play games, I think, “Oh, I would love it if this game had X feature” or “Oh, what if you took this mechanic, but put this twist on it?” That’s a big part of what got me started was that desire to improve existing games or put new spins on mechanics. But what keeps me going these days is the ideas – when I realized that, as a game maker, I can make any kind of game I want, even if I’m the only one who thinks it’s a fun idea, I can. I have a game about clouds that collect stuff, a game about bears that fly airplanes, and a game about spirits who inhabit people while they sleep. These are super weird games that maybe wouldn’t be commercially successful (except for Bearplanes, let’s be honest), but are really fun to think about and make.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do for your work?

DESIGN. I’m pretty okay at Inkscape now, but when I started, I had no idea what I was doing. But now, I can make decent-looking prototypes. Nothing you’d write home about, but very functional. I actually want to get better at it, because I really enjoy it now.

Describe your process (or lack thereof) when making games. How do you reach your final product?

I work with my husband, Pete, on nearly all our games. We each have a couple of pet projects, but we’re pretty much always partners these days. It usually starts with a goofy idea that we talk through for a few days, weeks, or months. When we’ve come up with enough good ideas, we’ll start working to turn it into a prototype. So we might start out with something really silly, like the phrase, “One of you is a bear.” Then we’ll throw ideas back and forth and riff off one another. It might end there – as a fun conversation – or we might tweak it into a prototype. That’s how BEARanoia came to exist.

We’re both improvisors and have done a bit of performing around town, and we bring that kind of playfulness into our relationship and our game design. We’re both big fans of “yes, and” which helps us collaborate.

What game design-related media do you consume on a regular basis?

I’m part of the League of Gamemakers, so I’m on the Facebook group pretty much constantly. I also adore the Card & Board Game Designers Group on Facebook – it’s such a great resource for designers who are getting started. I also enjoy Twitter. I have a bunch of lists of designers that I follow. It’s a nice way to keep up with what’s current.

What are some tool/programs/supplies that you wouldn’t work without?

Inkscape A giant sketchbook Paper punches Index cards Sharpies

What’s your playtesting philosophy? How often/early do you playtest?

I’d rather get something out and to the table than anything else. So I’ve playtested some seriously ugly prototypes before, just to see if the concepts are solid. That said, I’ve learned that if I’m going to show something to anybody outside of my very immediate game designer group, I need something that’s kind of pretty. Otherwise, everyone gets hung up on what the art and design could be, rather than the gameplay.

Once we have the basic idea down, we often tweak on the fly with Sharpies and immediately test something new. If it works, we’ll put it in the next version. We also keep very extensive notes on our playtests, and when we get further along in the process, we have forms to collect feedback.

What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in your work, and how have you overcome them?

I went through a huge slump in late 2013 where I didn’t want to design games or even work on them. It took rethinking the purpose of designing games, for me, to get back into it. I realized, though, that it doesn’t fully matter to me whether a game is published or not. Some games can just be fun, or artistic, and that’s enough.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

I don’t have kids. That probably helps. But I do have a demanding job and many other hobbies. I balance everything by trying to stick to a schedule. So, on Monday nights, we have “Domestic Night” where we do chores together. On Wednesdays, there’s a regular game night, so Tuesdays are often game making nights so we can have something ready to test. We’re not always great about it, but keeping a schedule helps us stay organized and make time for everything.

How many hours/week do you generally devote to game design? How many to other business-related activities?

I probably spend 8 to 20 hours a week on game design, but that includes things like emailing publishers, writing for the League of Gamemakers, and giving feedback in the Card & Board Game Designers Forum on Facebook.

What one piece of advice would you give aspiring game designers?

Get your first game onto paper as soon as you can and test it. It might not be “ready” but that’s kind of beside the point. Get it out, start testing it with close friends, and figure out what you can do to make it better. The longer you keep it spinning in your head, the easier it is to get really attached to concepts and mechanics that might not actually work like you think.

What’s the best advice about life that you’ve ever received?

Follow the fun! If something feels like a slog, change it. If there’s an option that gets more people talking, interacting, and laughing, then do that!

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Have you had Teal Fristoe or Peter Vaughan do these yet?

(Nope, but I’ll add them to my list! – A)

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How Aerjen Tamminga Makes Games


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Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do?

My name is Aerjen Tamminga, I’m a game designer and psychologist. I like hanging out with gamers and game designers which is probably why for the past couple of years I’ve been very active in the Indie community. It’s been really great to meet a ton of people from every aspect of the industry and it’s thank to everyone’s support that I was able to publish my first game last year.

Oh and a couple months ago I moved back to the Netherlands where I’m trying to find other game designers to hang out with.

This post has affiliate links, which directly support Andhegames.com at no extra cost to you. If you have any questions about anything recommended, let me know. – Andrew

 

 


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If I’ve never played your games before, what’s the first one I should try?

Pleasant Dreams. It’s my first successfully published game and it tells you some things about me and my game design philosophy. It’s a competitive dreaming game where you’re trying to get through the night fending of nightmares. The game is quick to play and focuses on out thinking your opponent. The better you are in predicting the other player the more you can mess with them. This meta thinking is something I really enjoy in games and game design. Next to that, I have a big love for art and literature which I think is reflected in the game’s design. The art itself is inspired both by the traditional illustrations from Alice in Wonderland and the 1988 surrealist movie adaptation from Jan Švankmajer.

One fact that we probably don’t know about you:

I’m a VR fanboy and have all kinds of ideas of how to explore human nature by hooking up unsuspecting well informed subjects with VR and biofeedback gear. If any programmers and designers wants to help me out, shoot me an e-mail. We can all take turns at being the mad scientist!

What tabletop games (including digital board/card games) are you playing most right now?

Games that I’m playing for various reasons are: Ligretto (I’m working on a similar game), Kakerlaken Poker (just because I love it), The Isle of Doctor Necreaux (exploring solitaire games) and I’m keen to try out Truths too Terrible which the designers swapped for Pleasant Dreams at PAX East. Other than that I love my Euro games like Power Grid and Caylus, but it’s hard to find the time to sit down with friends.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

I don’t think I really have all-time favorites, since what I like best really depends on the people I’m playing with. Some “classics” I almost always enjoy are Puerto Rico, Kakerlaken Poker, Caylus, Power Grid, Dungeons and Dragons and Hanabi.

What draws you to make games?

I like making people smile and I like making people think. It’s why I’m a psychologist and it’s why I’m a game designer.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do for your work?

Making “ugly” prototypes. I really enjoy art so, it’s been hard for me to let go and just make quick and dirty prototypes. Now that I’m doing that more it’s really sped up the game design process, but sometimes the habit kicks back in.

Describe your process (or lack thereof) when making games. How do you reach your final product?

That really differs per game. Sometimes I start from a mechanic and other times I start with a theme. What is standard procedure is the way I go through playtesting. I start with that as soon as possible by just scribbling some stuff on index cards and moving those around. I iterate until I have something that starts working well which is not necessarily the same as what I originally set out to do. I like to let myself be surprised by what happens in the design process. Once a version seems to make sense and work well enough I start playing the game with others until I’m satisfied with the results. Then I start to focus on looks In this stage I focus on adding some art or symbols that enhance usability. Once the game seems to reach the design goals I set out with (e.g. duration, audience or feel) I move to something I call an intensive playtest. During an intensive playtest I sit down with a group of people and play the game for several hours straight. The goal is to have people learn the game so intimately they start to get ideas for strategies and are better able to break the game in ways that new players that are still learning the rules can’t. After the intensive playtest, I usually get back to the drawing board and iterate some more. If I feel the game is good enough for the next stage, blind playtesting, and see if people can learn the game by just reading the rules. Usually around intensive playtesting I also start upgrading the art to reflect the theme of the game while making sure the usability stays intact. I could go into a lot more detail here, but if you’re interested in learning more you might like reading my game design 101 article that I wrote for Playcrafting.

What game design-related media do you consume on a regular basis?

Mostly these podcast: The Game Design Round Table, Funding the Dream on Kickstarter and Sirlin.net – Game Design. Some podcasts that I’ve started listening to more recently are The State of Games and BoardGameHour. Next to podcasts I’m a member of several Facebook groups on game design and Kickstarter. Let’s see, what else… Ah right, I frequent the websites jamesmathe.com, stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter, gamasutra.com and cardboardedison.tumblr.com a lot. Next to that there are several bloggers and reviewers like @boardgameben and Cardboard Republic that I like to read, but if I start listing those I can keep on going for a while 🙂

What are some tool/programs/supplies that you wouldn’t work without?

Index cards, sharpies, scissors, paper cutters and card sleeves for prototyping. Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign for graphic work. Google Docs for keeping track of ideas and collaboration. Trello, Slack and Asana for project management. Hootsuite for social media, but I’m still figuring out how to best use that. I really enjoy engaging with people and talking about game design, so whenever I can I try and do that.

What’s your playtesting philosophy? How often/early do you playtest?

As soon as possible, as often as possible and with as many people as possible.

What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in your work, and how have you overcome them?

Right now it’s finding the time to really sit down and design games next to my other work. Since I moved recently and just switched jobs, I’m still trying to figure out the best rhythm. To be honest, I haven’t got a clue as to how I can best tackle this one yet. So if anyone has suggestions, please drop me a line.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Not as well as I’d like :/ Right now I have my own clinical practice in Leiden, work for a company in Amsterdam and live in Tilburg. Commuting between three cities takes up a lot of time. Whenever I can, I try and use some of my time in public transport working on design ideas and handling the business part of game publishing. For me having a daily or weekly rhythm is very important. It might sound contradictory, but the more habits I have, the easier it is for me to break free of them and find the flexibility to do other stuff. Once I’m in a groove it’s easier for me to find the mental space to focus on other things like game design.

How many hours/week do you generally devote to game design? How many to other business-related activities?

Right now, it’s about 2 to 4 hours game design and 4 hours game design business activities. It used to be something closer to 16 hours game design. Hopefully I can ramp that up again in the near future.

What one piece of advice would you give aspiring game designers?

Just sit down and make games and start testing with people you don’t know as soon as possible. Or in other words: get your idea out of your head and on the table!

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Either Meg or Glenn from Games by Playdate. They really do interesting stuff and I admire their rapid prototyping and an open source development model.

What’s the best advice about life that you’ve ever received?

Allow yourself to keep being surprised by people. As soon as you start assuming you know what others think, life is a lot more boring… Oh and you’ll be wrong… a lot.

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