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

Hey there! I’m Mila Pokorny, and I founded Deerfox Games over here in Philadelphia. I work as a Game Designer and Illustrator for the company. Currently that involves designing Magical Girls all day.

 

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?

Mahou Shojo is the first game I’ve designed! It’s really easy to pick up, and I’ve put a ton of work into the characters and their designs.

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

My art is featured in the Fangamer’s Kirby Dream Zine! Some digital games are very close to my heart, and Kirby is definitely one of those games. (Yeah, Kirby! Kirby is my Smash Bros character. –A)

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

My friend has a cool campaign going in D&D 4th Ed. at the moment, which I cannot wait for the next session. Battle of the Electric Vikings is an amazing party game everyone should play (with me). and I’m about to start a character in Lasers and Feelings. (He’s a Sexy Doctor on the hunt for Alien Honeys).

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

Cards against Humanity, I will drop whatever it is I am doing to play a round of it. Ticket to Ride is great, Love Letter, and Munchkin are all also favorites of mine. Personally, I love Pictionary as an anytime game but as you can imagine, no one wants to play with me. Hahaha!

What draws you to make games?

I make games to draw. Games are attractive because of responsive and feedback elements. This is captured easily in digital games, but with tabletop games, you have to force these elements from your friends and co-players. Something else that attracts me about games is elements of imagination and roleplaying. I try to pack these elements into Mahou Shojo.

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

For the longest time I didn’t take criticism very well, or really was overall embarrassed about the things I was creating. I’ve also learned so much about gamefeel and how to process feedback, especially from those who don’t play tabletop/card games very often. Seperately, Card Games have demanded much Graphic Design skills that I’ve had to ask advice on time and time again. I’m definitely much better than I was when I started Mahou Shojo back in July.

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

I focus on a concept and see if I can replicate that in a physical game, and how would it affect players. For Mahou Shojo I wanted to make a game about magical warriors, but I wanted something special about them. A magical girl based beat-em-up game called Grief Syndrome had a system where you could use powerful spells but the more you used, you endangered yourself and would eventually lose. This made the game feel much faster. I was able to mimic it with Mahou Shojo’s MGK system, which works a bit like Mana in Magic: The Gathering, but made it much more fleeting. Concepts like this I feel take time to manifest and need to be thought about critically to grow. I could have made a regenerative resource system, but I feel not doing so made the warriors more valuble in battle, and make players really take a step back and strategize.

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

Animation and comics are my fuel, especially for a game like Mahou Shojo, you need a specific image in your head of how combat works and how to translate that to text and card actions.

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

FireAlpaca is a godsend if you love everything Paint Tool Sai has to offer (stroke stabilization and easy color blending) but are on a Mac (or poor).

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

I playtest as often as I can with as many different as possible. Young and old, veterans and newbies! Everyone offers different advice and is always worth listening to. Mahou Shojo is intended for young girls, so they are the audience we try the most. But I’ve been experimenting with anime fans who have never touched a card game and it’s been going really well.

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

Making your first game is hard. I’ve worked in digital games, but mostly as an artist. Building your own game from the ground up is a wake up call to test what you really know about games. The biggest obstacle has been making my games quick to play and easy for children to play. Most of it was solved by pulling the reigns on numbers of actions a player can do during a turn. Once I feel the game gets too complicated I have to ask myself “Would 9 year old Mila play this?” If the answer is ever “no,” you scrap it and try it another way. Secondly, I have strict guidelines regarding the art to ensure children and adults can see themselves and hopefully characters they would want to become.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Terribly haha. I live with my boyfriend Andy, but its a chore to pull myself away from work to see them, and they’re a 20 minute drive away. Let alone see my own family. (Hi Mom and Daniel)

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

Daytime is designing for QuadraTron Games. I develop our current game Threshold to be as eye-pleasing as possible.

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

I try for at least 2 days of out my work week, but sometimes that time is away by preparing for the next event Deerfox plans to go to.

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

Playtest often and Playtest Cheaply.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Heather ONeill of 9th Level games and her adorable (and now funded) Schrödinger’s Cats.

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

My dad once told me, “The only thing constant in life is change.” Which he meant to never get too comfortable, and that people also change whether they mean to or not.

 

Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do? Why are you drawn to make games?

Hi, I’m T. C.. I am a professional part-time croupier at a casino in rural Pennsylvania. And currently I am attempting the starving artist routine by designing board games during the other part of that part time. I’m not in it for the money, apparently. Games are the way I best express myself. They say something about my personality and have been my lifeblood for years when I’ve been happy, lonely, or depressed. I like to love them just as much as I like to tear them apart and feast on their analytical insides. I do, however, hate many more games than I like, because they suck. Which is probably much of my personal motivation to make games that are great.

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?

My favorite is VivaJava: The Coffee Game, but I’d say jump right into the Dice version, VivaJava: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game. It’s a solid, dicey, euro, power-filler for one to four players and gives a good amount of satisfying decisions and variability in a tight design space. The bigger brother is a large-group, semi-cooperative, awesome game, so it’s a little harder to get to the table. Of course I only have two games out at the moment, so there’s only a few to choose from until next year when people can try out Xenon Profiteer and Don’t Get Eated.

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

I once built an atom bomb and blew up the world. But, I fixed it.

(I’m not totally sure if he’s being serious about that. –A)

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

I’m itching to play my brand-new copy of Terra Mystica. I’ve playing the hell out of Panamax, Metropolys, and Eight Minute Empires: Legends.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

It’s kind of like asking me what my favorite band is; The Beatles. The first answer is always kind of uninteresting. Puerto Rico is my favorite. But, I love Yinsh and Ticket to Ride: Europe and Yspahan and St. Petersburg and other stuff.

What are you naturally good at that helps you in your work?

Creativity. I worry about being insensitive to others, but not much else when designing a game and it helps. Any direction. Any theme. Anything interesting or not interesting. Whatever piques my interest.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do well anyway?

Networking. You need to know the right people. And not just know them. You need them to be happy when they see you. Luckily, I really enjoy the industry and the mentality behind the community behind the scenes in board gaming, so I don’t have to fake it. I’m generally a pretty introverted individual, but getting connected to Twitter and being an active contributor has seen my career just skyrocket. Also, everyone I meet in this hobby is super-fantastic. Except for that one guy.

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

Initial idea + mechanical spark = Game Prototype! Most designers talk about whether you are a “theme-first” or “mechanics-first” designer which I think is apt for most people in most situations. But, I find that my ideas only become realized when the two merge simultaneously and quickly. I love exploring theme, but I don’t sacrifice gameplay for theme, nor do I sacrifice theme for gameplay (though I tend to lean more this way in a pinch).

After piles of hand-written and text-edit notes, the first prototype is created. I don’t ever completely scrap an initial idea and begin again from scratch, but I will iterate the initial prototype forever with playtesting. And to note, my prototypes are not meant to be pretty. They are functional with just enough art and symbology to evoke the sense of theme. The worst thing to do is to create a prototype that I’m literally afraid to change. It’s easier when it’s a simpler game, but even then I don’t allow myself a pass on development. Games are a personal thing and even if I’m not making a game specifically for my own tastes, I have no reason to release a game that feels unfinished in my own personal scale of finishedness. No deadlines, just solid games.

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

Everyday I log onto BGG at least once. Usually to obsessive check the ratings on my two games, but many times because I am searching for something game design related. I’m also a huge Ludology podcast fan and I love Cardboard Edison posts on Twitter and Tumblr. (Me too – they frequently quote these interviews. –A) I maniacally click every blue link I see on Twitter and steal everyone else’s juicy game design hints (or scoff at the amateurs).

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

I’ve improved my process over the last few years, becoming faster and more efficient at iteration with each prototype. I used to make prototypes, full prototypes, in Microsoft Word. Now, nine years later I have become spoiled by the proper Adobe Suite, creating vector iconography in Illustrator and actual, real, professional layout in InDesign. From Word to InDesign file layout for final production in about eight years. I think thats pretty good for a hobby! My paper-cutter and one-inch hole punch have also changed my life. I use circles in pretty much everything ever. I am totally spoiled.

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

In general, I’m a perfectionist. The biggest hurdle for me when creating a new game is getting that first prototype to the table when it is “incomplete.” Logically, I know it won’t be THAT painful, but I still get nervous. So, I playtest, if at all possible, by myself as many times as needed, then only unleash it on my close friends when I feel I’m ready to receive outside feedback. After that initial hesitation, I’ll show it to anyone and everyone. I’ll blog about it, make PnP files, attend Unpub events and generally try to get as much feedback as possible. I need blind playtesting especially, and I’ll make changes based on feedback right up until the final productions copies are created.

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

I have to temper my ambitions. I realized very early that if I want to “finish” anything that I start, I have to create artificial and ideological restrictions on my projects or I will allow scope-creep to destroy any chance of that thing becoming a reality. The worst thing I can do is chase a “white whale.” (I’m not smart enough to understand that paragraph. –A) If I have an idea and that idea seems too big, I shelve it for later. I try to look for initial ideas that immediately pair with a good base mechanic and then jump straight into it. I may plan out the prototype for months beforehand, but as long as there’s an initial spark of a completed game, it has the best chance of survival. I fail at this countless times, but I try to not obsess over one idea for a long, long time.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Not very well. I work a job that allows me extra time and freedom to explore game design, but it kills all my weekends. I can’t promote my own games at conventions and I rarely see my close friends. But, I consider it a temporary sacrifice and I will find a way to keep a part time job that doesn’t destroy my social time. It’s all part of the five year plan, right? I’ve made a ton of friends over the last few years, and it feels like we always are in contact through Google Hangouts and Twitter. So when I do have the opportunity to attend a convention, it’s like reconnecting with dear friends all the time.

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

Apart from game design? Of course. And as I said, its not so bad, just kills the weekends.

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

I usually spend about 20 hours a week on game design, although I’m very much in waves. There are times where I will spend twelve hours each day for three or four days rebalancing and creating a new set of files for a medium-weight game. There are other times, where all I do is write a few notes in my notebook. I try to have a deadline at some point each month for playtesting which helps me from becoming too distracted.

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

Don’t dedicate yourself to one idea at the expense of everything else. Most people try their hand at game design. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. And it’s an easy thing to be bad at doing. If you find that the current game is just frustrating, throw it in the pile and start working on something else. It’s okay to make a bad game. It’s not okay to release a bad game.

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

“Everything he says is so true.” – Erin Weller (a classmate in reference to Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye”) I hated The Catcher in the Rye when I first read it. This odd comment from a classmate, outside of the assigned discussion had a poignant effect on me. And it encompassed everything that Salinger was trying to convey to a person at exactly my age and exactly that time. It completely made me feel stupid and overturned all previous objections. I like to embrace the innocence of first-time realization. What some people lovingly call teenage ennui. Fighting a pointless fight in a pointless world. I’m going to try and do what I do best at the highest level that I can do it and for me alone.

“That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact.” – The Catcher in the Rye

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Ha. Dreams would be, Sebastian Pauchon, Friedemann Friese, Rudiger Dorn, and Mac Gerdts. But more English-friendly, Brett Gilbert, Scott Almes, Matthew O’Malley, and John Gilmour. Thanks to Alf for requesting me! Here’s a selfie where he is barely visible behind my auburn locks:

Tell us about yourself – Who are you? What do you do? Why are you drawn to make games?

I’m Bruno Faidutti, I’m French (though I don’t care much about it), 53. I design games because my two passions are playing games and reading books, because I want to be creative, to impress myself and my friends, and because I’m far too lazy to write books.

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?

Everybody will tell you Citadels, and everybody is probably right. It’s generally considered my best game, and the most representative of my design style. With a dozen players, however, you should try Mascarade. I also like very much my recent party games, Speed Dating (kind of Cards against Humanity for gamers) and Animal Suspect, but they are very language dependent and not published in English so far.

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

I doctored in history, and my PhD thesis is about unicorns – in fact about the scientific debate over the reality of unicorns from late middle-ages to XIXth century. This makes me effectively the world authority on unicorns. (What an accreditation! -A)

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

Seventh Hero, but with the French edition, Héros à Louer, because the US one is too ugly. Mysterium, one of the very few cooperative games I really enjoy, a kind of mix between Dixit and Clue. I think this game will be a major world hit once it’s not available only only in Polish and Ukrainian.. Also my last prototype, about pigeons and sparrows, and a prototype by Hervé Marly, about alligators and hallucinogens (among other things).

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

Poker, Cosmic Encounter, Ave Cesar, and Kuhhandel are not necessarily games I play very often, but I always think about them when I think of games, they are the games I would like to have invented. I more regularly play Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan, but these are more like modern classics, they don’t have the same evidence and elegance.

What are you naturally good at that helps you in your work?

I’m good at writing clear and synthetic rules. Publishers like my prototypes because they never have rules questions to ask, and my rules need little or no rewriting before publication. That’s an interesting competitive advantage in the business, especially when some really big names are not that good at rules. Some publishers even try to have me rewrite the rules of other designers’ games, but I usually answer I don’t have the time for it.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do well anyway?

Writing in English. I am used to reading in English, but I had never really written in english before I went into boardgames. Technically, English is a much simpler, more efficient and more accurate language for game rules, and I use it now even for games that I know I will submit to French publishers.

What I could never learn is to make prototype with clever gizmos, stuff that makes strange noise or moves in a strange way. I would love to design games like Roberto Fraga’s ones, I sometimes have ideas for them, but I am not able to make a prototype. One of the reasons I design mostly card games is that I don’t like to draw, print and cut large boards, and find the right box to put them in.

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

There’s no precise process. I usually think of a game for a few days, weeks or months before I try to put it down on paper. I know most designers don’t start to write rules until the game is almost ready, but I usually start with rules, even when they are bound to evolve afterwards. Also, when I’m not satisfied very quickly by a design, and think there’s nevertheless something in it, I try to call some other designer friend for help.

But, once more, I don’t have a specific, regular process or method – I even think having a recipe, a clear process, is probably the best recipe for failure.

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

Whisky and Red Bull, though I don’t mix them. (That’s probably wise. –A)

I also check regularly what’s said of my games on the boardgamegeek. I’ve given up doing it on tric trac, the showy but confusing French equivalent of BGG.

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

An A3 color printer, inDesign, scissors and some cardboard. And a few thousand games as reference.

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

Unlike most other designers, I never do blind playtest. I always take part in all the tests, and try to play my prototypes, and friends’ prototypes, like I would play any other game.

I hold a game session every week or two – more or less. Usually we play about half prototypes – not only mine – and half other games. We start with a good dinner – I’m a good cook – and then we drink and play. I can’t imagine playtesting without good wine, vodka and whisky, it puts players in the mood and helps them feel free to suggest rules variations and improvements. I playtest with more or less the same group of friends for twenty years – a few have left, there are some new faces, but the group’s core hasn’t changed much.

I don’t necessarily playtest my games that much – if I’m satisfied after a dozen games or so, then I consider the game finalized. If I’m not, I usually set it aside, or ask another designer for help, and sometimes take it out again a few months later.

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

The game scene is a nice one. Game designers and game publishers are (almost) all nice people. The only serious issues I had were with game media – meaning websites and magazines, and most of these issues I’ve not overcome yet. I can be quite stubborn, and some game bloggers and webmasters are a bit jealous of designers and try a bit too hard to show us that they know games better than we do, and that we can’t do without them. When this happens, I usually try to do without them.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

I’m mostly single for three years now, which makes family things much easier. Balancing game-work and day job is sometimes problematic. As a teacher I have lots of holidays, but cannot choose when the happen, and they often don’t fit with game fairs. That’s why I’m not in Nuernberg at the moment.

Anyway, the major issue for me is handling games / books balance. I’m a compulsive reader, usually of heavy and difficult books, and have to balance my free time between reading essays and novels and playing and designing games. The years I don’t design are usually the years I read too much.

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

Though I doctored in history, I’m teaching economics and sociology in a parisian high school. I don’t really need this second job, since I make enough money with games to live modestly, and I’m not a spendthrift.

However, I don’t think I will quit, because I love my job, and because teaching brings me in contact with very different people – when people in the game scene all have the same kind whackiness. Also – though I know it sounds pretentious – there’s a political statement in working for the state – working for everyone. I’m not sure I would be able to look at myself in a mirror in the morning if I were only working to sell something, even if it were only games.

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

It’s hard to tell, because I often more or less think about games, without feeling really like work, or even design. It’s also extremely irregular, since I’m not a regular guy. If “to devote time to game design” means to sit in front of my computer and try to write rules or design cards in in-Design, or manipulate tokens on my kitchen table, I’d say no more than five or six hours a week. I also spend some time writing articles for my website, mostly about my gaming “philosophy”, about the politics of gaming, or just about what strikes me at the moment in game designs trends. This takes a lot of time, because I always try to do it both in French and English.

I spend very little time discussing game “business” with publishers or other designers, I don’t like to spend days discussing every little point of every contract and checking my royalties. I try to keep it casual – which, of course, is much easier when one is relatively successful. I always say that [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”via @andhegames”]what’s important is not what is stated in a contract, but with whom you sign it.[/inlinetweet]

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

Don’t be paranoid. Be trusting. I don’t think there’s any other business with as many nice, interesting and honest people as gaming. I could name a few exceptions, but there are so few that the probability you will ever be involved in a nicer business is negligible.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Eric Lang.

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

Life is not a game. You don’t know the rules and the goal, and you better not try, since it’s more fun this way. That’s why I despise religion, and why I’m terrified by it – religious people act in life as if it were a game with a game designer, a set of rules, a goal and a victory point systems. Life is not a game, it’s a mess – and it might be better that way.

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

I’m Sarah Reed. I’m an enthusiastic player of games as I enjoy board games, role-playing games and video games. I’m married to a wonderful and smart man named Will. We have a lot of shared interests like games, but also LEGO. Work is what pays for the hobbies we’re into, as both games and LEGO are expensive! In a nutshell, I do data processing and analytic work for the state of California.

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?

Will and I only have one game out, which is available on The Game Crafter and it’s called Triple Threat, a set of three 2-player micro games. However, we’re putting our next game, Project Dreamscape, up on Kickstarter and I highly recommend that one. The PnP files are available on boardgamegeek.

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

I have a degree in Theatre and was really into the technical side with stage management and lighting design, but I realized a little too late that it was a career I couldn’t do due to my health issues. The late nights were killer.

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

Sentinels of the Multiverse, Yardmaster Express, Dominion, Last Will and Star Wars Imperial Assault are the hitting the table the most. For my new iPad mini, I’ve been playing a lot of Suburbia and Ascension, but once I buy Sentinels of the Multiverse, I’ll be playing that the most.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

Sentinels of the Multiverse, Dominion, Suburbia, Seasons and Villagers & Villains. But this list changes constantly as my gaming preferences evolve.

What are you naturally good at that helps you in your work?

Organization and focus. I love to organize things and this comes out in all things that I do. I also get really focused on the tasks at hand, though sometimes to my detriment as I forget to take breaks to eat and such.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do well anyway?

I’m not great at it, but due to getting into game design, I’ve learned how to do rudimentary graphic design. It’s serviceable for prototypes, but nothing I’d ever go to print with.

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

My process and my husband’s process are pretty similar. We both think about our idea for a while, talking to each other about it a bit, but once we feel pretty good about what’s in our heads, we write it down. Then revise, revise, revise. Talk to each other, bounce ideas off each other, and then eventually share the document with the other. More collaboration happens, with the other writing notes and questions on the document, which the other takes and fleshes out.

Then, when things seem final enough, I take the draft document and starts formatting it into rules and creating a prototype. Once the first prototype is made with rough rules, we play-test it together. We’ll play-test together for quite some time, revising as needed, before we take it to our play-testing group, where we get a lot more help and revise accordingly.

Since we only have one final product so far, I can’t say much more as it just took working on the graphics quite a lot until we felt okay with what we had, but we knew it wasn’t great without hiring a professional. Project Dreamscape will be a lot better as we’re working with Ben Haskett who is producing it, running the Kickstarter campaign and redid all the graphic design of the cards and rules.

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

I read various articles as they’re posted to Twitter and Facebook. I also listen to a few podcasts. However, I don’t follow a specific site for design.

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

Word and Photoshop are my tools.

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

Will and I will play-test it ourselves as soon as we can and we work it through as many iterations as needed before putting it in front of others. And then we play-test it as much as were can with a variety of people. I wouldn’t say we play-test every day when we have a new game we’re working on, but at least a couple of times in a week. Then our design group meets monthly and that’s where we get the most feedback. We have scheduled other times for people to come over to our place to play-test when we felt motivated enough to do so.

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

Our biggest obstacles are the art and graphic design, which is why we haven’t released more of our games. We have several games that are finished or near finished, but because we don’t have the skills to do it ourselves nor the money to pay someone, the prototypes sit on our shelves.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Not very well! Honestly, I have not figured out the balance yet. All I do know is that I need to have our hobbies to balance out the stress that is work. Family’s not too hard because it’s just me and Will, but we have a lot of varied interests so there’s still a lot of juggling between our hobbies.

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

Nope, no second job. Working full time for the state is enough as it is. And it’s why we’ve never attempted to run a Kickstarter on our own – we’d never be able to handle the extra work.

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

It’s never an even amount as it depends on whether we are actively working on a game. Those weeks, we put in time every night to play-test and then I make changes during my breaks at work. Then when it gets to a point where we’re done play-testing and it’s just getting it in front of others, those weeks we may not do any work on a game.

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

Play a lot of games and read the rulebooks. You’ll learn a lot from what others have already done, and you’ll learn about what kinds of games you like to play. I highly recommend knowing yourself as a gamer so you’ll design a game you like to play. Which is important when you have to play-test a lot!

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

Things only have the power that you give them.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Jamey Stegmaier as it’s always fascinating to hear more about how he does things.

(Read Jamey’s interview here!)

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

My name is Nicole Kline, and I am an independent game designer with my partner, Anthony Amato. Our company is Cardboard Fortress Games. We both have day jobs, and I am currently in grad school for Library and Information Sciences. We keep ourselves busy!

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?

You should definitely start with RESISTOR_, which is our game coming to Kickstarter soon! It’s a two-player card game where you play as two supercomputers in charge of your country’s global thermonuclear warheads. It can get intense.

(I Suggest you go right now and sign up for their mailing list, so you get notified when this hits Kickstarter! –A)

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

Some of my friends watch that reality show The Bachelor and invited me to watch it with them. What I thought was going to be a grueling experience ended up being fun – we turned it into a game. We call it Fantasy Bachelorball! We each pick different contestants and get points based on what they do that week.

As for Anthony… he’s a man of mystery. Even I don’t know everything about him!

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

We play a lot of video games. We are both really into Ascension on iOS. We’ve also been trying to finish off Lara Croft: The Guardian of Light so we can play the new one. On the tabletop, we’ve been been playing a lot of Star Realms, and whenever we go to game night, we find ourselves playing King’s Forge. I just got Dying Light, so who knows when I’ll surface from that. Oh, and we play a lot of Dungeons & Dragons. Anthony is always trying to revive our Blood Bowl League as well.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

Anthony’s favorites are Battlefleet Gothic, Blood Bowl, King of Tokyo, Pandemic, and Robo Rally. I overlap only with Pandemic – my other favorites are Lords of Waterdeep, Quarriors, and Super Dungeon Explore.

What are you naturally good at that helps you in your work?

Anthony creates all the art and I do all the writing. They’re really important aspects of designing a game, and it helps to have each other.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do well anyway?

I’m terrible at taking criticism with my writing. So the first time we sat down to write instructions, it involved a lot of breaks. I still get sore about it but I’m trying to improve! Anthony’s been teaching himself all kinds of digital art tricks which has been wonderful to watch.

We’re both trying to be adaptable and work within the constraints of board game design. We’re learning a lot together!

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

Game inspiration can come from many places. For example, our game RESISTOR_ came from a game jam about using a song title – from an Oasis song, specifically. Game jams are a good place to get started. From there, we playtested a lot, then created the theme and art. We wrote the rules last only to find out that it was the hardest part. Going forward, I think we will try to take the writing of the rules into heavier consideration earlier in the process.

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

I’ve been trying to navigate Board Game Geek, and I’ve read almost the entire Stonemaier Games website. OK, not really the whole thing, but almost everything related to Kickstarter. I’m a big fan of James Mathe as well. We also listen to the Dice Hate Me podcast, along with a few others. Anthony likes to frequent the chatroom at The Game Crafter as a sounding board for advice and to talk shop.

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

Since we’ve started working on board games, I find myself constantly wanting to draw my ideas out by hand. So I’ve been using pencils and scrap paper much more. We’ve made several prototypes of games with items around the house, and ended up buying playing cards and poker chips as extra pieces. So I guess just random items we can use as game boards, and anything to draw with.

Anthony does all of his artwork digitally using what he calls “lots of dirty tricks,” and he bought a Surface Pro 2 last year to try drawing with a tablet.  (Drawing with a tablet is the best. Really, the best. –A)

Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t say we really, REALLY depend on our local copy center. We get a lot of last-minute stuff done there.

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

Our philosophy with playtesting is just that: do it early and do it often! Though most of the time, it’s more of a “how can we trick someone into playing this” scenario. Every Thursday night, we go to Dev Night at the Philly Game Forge, where all the developers in the city go and hang out and play games. On Tuesday nights, there’s a board game night at our local board game store. Those are the two places we bring games the most. But we also bring them to all kinds of events, especially those run by the UnPub Network. And, of course, we invite people to our apartment, and our friends are usually up for some playtesting after Dungeons & Dragons – especially our buddies over at Nerdarchy.

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

Our biggest obstacle is just our lack of time. We both work full time, and until we can break through into the industry and really start making a living off of it, we need to stay at those jobs. The hope is that we can at least get successful enough that one of us can quit our full time job, which could help us get games out more quickly.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

It’s really hard! We have jobs that run from 8:30-5, I have online grad school, I have a few new babies in my family who I want to see grow up, my sister is getting married this year… Sometimes I just don’t sleep, but I end up crashing when that happens. I don’t like to ever miss anything! The most important way to handle the balance, I’ve found, is to learn when to say no. I’m still learning that one…

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

Yes, Anthony and I both work at local universities full time. But I can’t wait until the day I can consider that my “second job!”

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

Anthony devotes somewhere between 30-40 hours a week on game design and artwork. I devote about 20 hours a week, and most of that has been all business lately. I’ve been trying to figure out our taxes, as I mentioned, and contacting our lawyer about setting up our business, and working on our Kickstarter feedback… I’m really looking forward to getting back to the fun stuff!

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

Get a solid group of people to play, playtest, and discuss games with. If you have a community you can depend on, even just to play games, it will be invaluable. Don’t be afraid to reach out to the pros for advice because everyone in the boardgame community is super nice. Also, start small. Make a good but small game and try selling it on The Game Crafter first.

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

That’s a tough one. I’m just going to go with “You can’t please everyone.”

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Mila Pokorny of DeerFox Games! She’s making an amazing card game called Mahou Shojo and everyone needs to know about it. 

(Here’s the interview with Mila!)

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

I’m Alf Seegert, designer of board games including Fantastiqa, The Road to Canterbury, Trollhalla, and Bridge Troll. My newest design is the card game Musée, and I recently co-designed a nifty dice-sculpting game, Cubist, with Steven Poelzing.

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?

Hmmm….it depends. They are all quite different!

If you’re a fan of fine art, or if you want a quick and easy-to-learn game that might fire your Lost Cities-addictedneurons, try Musée.

If you’re a literature or history buff and like Chaucer — or have the exquisite taste of a Black Adder or Monty Python fan — I recommend The Road to Canterbury.

If you want a quirky (and sadly underplayed) game in which you get to pillage and plunder as Viking Sea Trolls, look no further: play Trollhalla! The art is by the illustrious Ryan Laukat.

(My interview with Ryan is over here. –A)

If you are a fan of modern art, or looking for highly accessible game which uses dice in creative new ways to sculpt works of art, try Cubist, my co-design with Steve Poelzing.

My favorite self-designed game remains the wild and weird adventure gameFantastiqa, by quite a large margin. Needless to say, I recommend it!

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

When I was nine years old, I broke my arm defending the honor of Donna Summer as the Disco Queen.

(you’ve gotta respect that. –A)

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

I was late to the game with Antoine Bauza’s clever and charming Takenoko. I got it for my wife this past Christmas and we both really enjoy caring for that big Zen Garden and its hungry Giant Panda! Do you get the same glorious “Totoro vibe” that I do from the cover image?

I also recently picked up Stefan Dorra’s Medina and am quite impressed at all the nifty wooden pieces and pleasurably brain-burny gameplay.

The games we play at home the most are my own designs-in-progress.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

Perhaps it’s immodest to say this, but (speaking to fellow designers here) if your own designs aren’t among your very favorite games, then you might need to work harder to design games you like… My favorite tabletop game is Fantastiqa, and yes, I’m thoroughly and egregiously biased in saying so! (I’m not saying it’s the best game, but just our favorite, and the most-often played on our table, even a few years beyond its initial release.)

My favorite all-time games by other designers include The Princes of Florence, Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers, and Through the Desert. And I enjoy and admire Bruno Faidutti’s Mystery of the Abbey.

More recently I’ve been highly impressed by Brian Kohrman’s Jungle Ascentand Ryan Laukat’s Eight-Minute Empire series.And my wife and I find My Happy Farm charming and irresistable. T.C. Petty III’s VivaJava is a winner, too.

What are you naturally good at that helps you in your work?

Persistence. I expect creative work to require a lot of dedication and effort. I learned that lesson from the success this guy, who I admire enormously (if you can’t tell, it’s Geddy Lee of Rush).

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do well anyway?

Patience. I like to see things done right the first time. I tend not to do things at all unless I sense that I’m doing them well. But I’ve discovered the hard way that game design is as much an art as it is a science. Yes, you need to do a lot of testing. But you also need to grant your unconscious plenty of room to roam (and blunder) in devising (and revising) themes and mechanics. Both require quite a bit of patience and a no-hurry attitude.

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

• Have a theme or game mechanic smack me in the head. (I don’t “come up with” themes or mechanics. They are the ones in charge, and appear to have minds and agencies of their own!)

• Build components. Play with them, first alone, then with others. Note what feels good and what fails.

• Revise, or throw out entirely.

• Repeat, repeat, repeat!

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

Coffee. 

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

My game design “rig” consists primarily of Microsoft Publisher, a Pixma Inkjet printer, plenty of ink and cardstock (I buy generic ink, but now use plastic gloves and paper towels to keep them from spilling everywhere), a sliding papercutter (never the swinging-bladed kind — my fingers and my cat’s tail are too precious!), and a bunch of handy prototyping pieces (including these). I also recommend using a storage device like this one to sort all those bits. Mine gets plenty of use.

If I want to get really fancy I’ll use a Xyron cold laminator or card sleeves to make the prototype components feel as good as they look.

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

• I test early and often, and I try not to become too wedded to anything I devise along the way, either thematically or mechanically. I remember reading an interview with Elton John in which he said that if a song didn’t write itself in fifteen minutes, he let it go. If the game doesn’t feel like it’s designing itself, I don’t force it. Better to free a design than enslave it in irons and force it to work against its will….

• I do my best to let components inspire my game designing. Instead of coming up with abstract ideas that I then find components for, I try to let material objects themselves define the mechanics. For example, it was while playing with dice as material objects – not just treating them as random-number generators — that Steve Poelzing and I came up with the dice-stacking mechanics for Cubist.

• I still agree with Phil Kilcrease that you should test your games as “objectively” as possible — when possible “with someone who would tell you your baby is ugly.” That being said, I think that chemistry among players matters enormously. I don’t find it valuable to have people play my games who don’t already enjoy playing with each other; in such instances it’s impossible to tell if the game itself is weak or if the players just don’t thrive on playing together.

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

Migraines. Creative inspiration both inspires them, and makes them meaningful. But it doesn’t make them feel any better!

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

I’m doubt I do! But I sense such a rich cross-pollination among life/family/work that I try not to worry about “balance” too much. I often wish I had more time to devote “just to designing,” but the benefit of limited time is that the threshold for “you must design X” has gotten pretty high. When I began designing games a dozen years ago I felt like every game mechanic or theme that appeared to me needed to be pursued to the uttermost corners of the earth. With my much more limited time today I now insist that ideas prove themselves worthy before I invest my “all” into them.

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

What a charming question. I’ll have to remember to call my regular, paying job my “second job” in future! I’m not sure I could fathom being a 24/7 game designer, nor would I wish to be. My main job is as professor of English at the University of Utah, where I design and teach courses mostly on virtuality and critical theory, ranging from titles like “Video Games and Storytelling” to “Virtuality and Nature” and “Virtuality, Nature, and Re-Enchantment.” I love teaching and would never want to leave it.

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

If thinking about game design counts as devotion, then I’m embarrassingly devoted. It’s rare that I can go to sleep or go for a walk without playing through latest game developments in my imagination, and I always have a “next design” (or six, rather) in the works. Designing feels so much a part of my identity that I don’t know how to compartmentalize it — and my games draw on my job as a professor all the time. I designed Fantastiqa while preparing to teach a new course on “Weird Tales and Fantastic Fiction.” I designed The Road to Canterbury when preparing to teach Chaucer. For a new design I’m working on (not yet published) I draw most of my inspiration from teaching video games.

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

Design gameworlds that you truly want to inhabit, and draw inspiration from things other than just other games.

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

The vocation for you is the one in which your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet — something that not only makes you happy but that the world needs to have done.” 

Frederick Buechner said that, and my amazing high school teacher Neil Coen conveyed it to me.

I do think the world needs good board games and as many good excuses as possible for us to spend time face-to-face with our friends and loved ones. We already have digital devices aplenty! Board games help moderate our insatiable yearning for digital mediation, and remind us why it’s worthwhile to share intimate physical space with others and gather around an actual table together.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

Antoine Bauza, Bruno Faidutti, Mike Fitzgerald and T.C. Petty III . Not all at once, of course!

Bruno Faidutti’s Interview

T.C. Petty’s Interview

Mike Fitzgerald’s Interview

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

My name is Chris Renshall. I am a securities analyst by day, board game social media freak by day, publisher/designer by night and weekends. I read a lot of financial reports and news and look at spreadsheets for my day job.Because of this I have to work really hard to not make all my designs financial game.

I am lucky enough to have a job that allows me to be on social media all day while I get my day job work done at the same time. Because of that I get to spend a lot of time getting to know and chat with the great game people on twitter and I have recently jumped into the learning curve that is BGG.

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

What board games are you playing most right now?

Total designer answer coming up….prototypes. I do have a weekly group that I attend on a semi regular basis. We play a lot of Resistance and Avalon to start the evening when the large group is there. We then break up and I am trying to play as many different games as possible since the number of different games I have played is quite low.

Two games I love right now for Evolution and For Sale.

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

I am a designer that got into gaming rather than a gamer that wanted to try their hand at design. Aidan, my co-designer, and I bought a football game (American) a couple years ago and it was terrible. We started talking about how we would improve it and then we started to write those ideas down and then we made a prototype and then we played it and it was fun. Then we thought about designing other games at which point we realized that we no idea what games were out there other than Catan. I then jumped into research and playing games. While I don’t get to play games near as much as I would like, there is a lot out there for me to play and learn.

What are you naturally good at that helps you in your work?

Project Management, Idea Generation and a natural desire to break the games I play. making games is a massive project undertaking and having the skills to organize the to do list of making a game makes the process so much easier. I don’t know where it comes from but I can get game ideas from all kinds of places. I wish i had known about game designer earlier in life. Then I could have applied all these idea generation skills earlier and been producing games already, haha. Wanting to break games really cuts down on play testing time when the game is in front of other people because we have already broken the game multiple times before we let people play it.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do well anyway?

Social Media, at least I think I know it well enough to function with competence.

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

I think I will direct you to this blog post of ours. This is basically our process.

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

Cardboard Edison, Building the Game (vidcast and podcast), Jamie Stegmaier Blog, Ludology Podcast, Talking Tinkerbots Podcast, Meeple Syrup, Funding the Dream Podcast….I know I am leaving some out…

(That’s plenty. Thanks! –A) 

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

Notebook of some kind always at the ready. My designer box of many things. Google Docs. Dropbox. Access to Twitter and YouTube, really.

 (I’m surprised that he’s the first designer to mention Dropbox. Dropbox is the best! –A)

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

Test as early as you can and learn how to ruin your game from the start. Test your game as you are forming the idea. Use a lot of thought experiments. I do a lot of pacing when I design games. I play out a mechanic over and over using min/max strategies to think about what would happen with the mechanic. Aidan and I playtest a lot, we don’t get to test as often as we would like in the late stages of testing.

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

Learning the logistics of this industry and trying to cut down on the time sink that is making a game. We could probably fully develop a game or two per month(physical production not included) if we have a network of reliable playtesters and we were able to do this for a living. That may sound lofty (it might not, I don’t know) but we work fast and while it may not be sustainable long term, we have a backlog of ideas that if we could focus on making games full time, we are excited at the possibilities of what we could produce as far as the number and quality of games of concerned.

Getting the people together is difficult because people have lives and we are not in a position to pay people to play our games. But this is all part of the process of becoming a company. The other big obstacle is the amount of stuff we need to learn. We still need to learn a lot about the business side of things. There is a lot to wrap our heads around and that is what I will be spending the next month or two researching.

How do you handle family/work balance?

I am lucky that my wife works later than I do, so I have 2-3 hour windows from when I get home to when she gets home where I can get a lot done in the design/blog/research departments. She is also a late sleeper on the weekends so that means Aidan and I can get together in Saturday mornings to work on what we need to work on. Not to say I have not hit bumps in the road, I am still figuring out all that is required to make the game schedule work with regular life things. It really helps that we don’t have any children (yet) but for now I am able to dedicate a lot of time to this. Hopefully I can make this my full time job before my time availability goes away.

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

I work as a securities analyst for a hedge fund. I read a lot of financial reports and work with spreadsheets most of the day. I also read a lot of financial news.

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

Not enough….20-30 hours per week total. Of that, I probably so 2-3 for game design. The rest is spent on research, writing, getting our name out there. Just a lot of time needs to be spent on getting to know the people, the games and all that is the board game world and making sure they get to know who we are as well.

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

I am not a movie guy, but movies have some great lines in them. Andy Dufrain said “Get busy living or get busy dying.” The movie, About Time, is a great lesson about what we do with the time we have. I don’t think I could pinpoint a moment that would qualify as the best. Just the realization that life, to me, is too short to spend watching loads of TV and doing things that have no tangible outcome.

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

If you want to makes games for your friends and family, make you games however you see fit using whatever resources you can find and have fun with it. If you want to have any level of commercial success, designing the games is the furniture of a house you need to build. You need to build a foundation, strong walls, extra rooms for potential growth, quality plumbing and electrical systems that will last a long time. Designing games is the fun stuff at the end after the walls are plumb and leveled and all the bits in the wall are inspected and made from good parts. If you are not prepared to do A LOT of behind the scenes legwork, you will hit “the wall” (see what I did there!). I would not want a new designer to give up because they did not know the amount of work that goes into making this dream a reality.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

The Talking Tinkerbots Crew and My co-designer Aidan, but I know most if his answers to these questions!

Ryan Laukat is the classic renaissance man. He is the founder and president of Red Raven Games, the designer and illustrator of Empires of the Void, City of Iron, Eight-Minute Empire, Eight-Minute Empire: Legends, The Ancient World, and more.

He pretty much does it all, which is something that few game designers can claim. How does he do it? Read on, dear reader: READ ON!

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

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

I’m a game designer, illustrator, and publisher living in Salt Lake City, Utah with my wife and two kids. I started my own publishing company, Red Raven Games, three years ago.

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

It seems like for the last 6 months I’ve almost exclusively been playing my next game design, War of the Void. But I did find time to get in a play of Martin Wallace’s Brass, and it’s one of my new favorites.

What are your all-time favorite tabletop games?

I love Race for the Galaxy. It’s been a big influence on me as a designer. I’m also a fan of Twilight Struggle and Tales of the Arabian Nights.

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

When I was young, I was a boy soprano. I used to get paid to sing for all sorts of commercials. I even sang Mozart’s Queen of the Night as a solo on public television.

What are you naturally good at that helps you in your work?

When I get into a project, I’m an obsessive worker. Some days I don’t take time to eat or get dressed or shower because I’m so focused on getting a project done. I’ll start working as soon as I get up and keep going sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do well anyway?

I’m not a very organized person. I have a fear of paperwork and anything like it, and I tend not to keep any kind of schedule. I am very good at remembering things though, so I think that helps me get through. I rely on my wife quite a bit as well when it comes to getting the official stuff done.

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

I come up with all sorts of game ideas all the time. My wife says it’s like a faucet I can’t turn off. Any time an idea pops into my head, I write it down and try to design the whole thing on one piece of paper. The next day I take a look at it to see if it’s worth spending more time on (most ideas get thrown in the trash at this point). If it sounds good, I make a prototype as quickly as possible and play it the same day. If it isn’t terrible, that’s when the iterating starts. I tweak the mechanics again and again until it’s just right. I like to describe it as a journey through the forest. I’ll go up one path, and it’s a dead-end, so I have to go back and try another path. That one’s a dead-end too. In fact, there are so many dead-ends that I’m just about to give up, but I try one more time and I reach a gorgeous waterfall!

And that’s when balance-playtesting starts….

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

I’m a regular listener of the Ludology and Game Design Round Table podcasts. I love listening to people talk about design.

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

Photoshop is my best friend. I do almost everything on Photoshop, from prototyping to graphic design to painting and illustration. I also use InDesign for rulebooks. Good old sticky-back craft foam is something I couldn’t do without either.

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

I playtest as often as I can cajole people into doing it. In the early stages of design, I playtest mostly by myself (or sometimes with my wife). Once the game seems pretty solid, I’ll try to get it played at local game gatherings or conventions. Because I’m also the illustrator of my games, I even get a bit of the art done to entice people to play it (which means I’m pretty invested in it at that point). The third phase is when I ask for groups volunteers to print and make a copy of the game themselves and play it without me around. At that point I’m mostly focused on balance. You can see the hundreds of forum posts discussing balance for some of my designs on Boardgamegeek.com.

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

Trying to make game design a career while holding a full-time job. I had to learn patience for this one. And I’ve also had to learn to know when to take a break.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

Red Raven takes a lot of time (because apart from running the company, I have to design and illustrate all the games). And my family is really important to me. So a lot of the time I’ve had to cut things out of my life like tv, video games, and other entertainment.

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

I work for 3 hours a day at Cannonball Musical Instruments, a manufacturer of Trumpets, Saxophones, Clarinets, and Flutes. I’m a musical instrument hand-engraver, and I also playtest trumpets there. I used to work more hours there, but Red Raven has grown a lot this year and needs more time and attention. For about 3 years I worked full time at Cannonball and Red Raven, and it was extremely taxing on my health.

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

I currently spend about 40 hours a week on game design or illustration. Another 10-20 hours is spent answering emails and stuff like that.

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

I don’t know if this is the best, but I like it: If someone offers you help, take it.

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

Design as many games as you can. You get better at it the more you do it!

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

I’d like to see Alf Seegert answer these.

(Alf’s Interview is here)

Below is part 2 of the fantastic conversation we had. Check out part 1 if you haven’t already.

Now, more from Reiner Knizia on playtesting, work habits, and breaking into the industry:

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

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

It depends on the design. The most valuable resource is my play testers. I wouldn’t call them tools, but they are the most valuable input in this process. There’s a lot of creativity in this group. There are also two programmers in the group, so whenever we do something which is a hybrid game – partially electronic – we would usually have a PC simulation, which is a 1:1 functionality implementation of the target software. Then we would playtest with someone simulating it manually, so we could test the game on the laptop, and fine-tune things. It is really these people who bring the creativity into the process.

Otherwise, in phase one, the answer to this question is essentially nothing, because it’s just discussion with paper and pencil. In phase two, we have a special printer here in the office so we can print on cardboard and print our cards, and we do the graphics on the laptop, but that’s just normal day-to-day stuff. There’s really nothing specific.

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

I don’t.

I go to the different fairs – to the Nuremburg toy fair and the Essin fair and so on – so I get a lot of impressions and a lot of input from these fairs. When important things come up, my group feeds that into me. This may be disappointing to some journalists and press people, but I have learned that the day-to-day…stuff…has no real longevity and often doesn’t have a big impact on me. It costs me more time then gives me value.

I don’t read any newspapers, I don’t watch any news – the news in the U.K. is terrible. It’s all personal disasters but no world politics, and I don’t think it’s much better in America. When I want to read more substantial stuff, I pick the right books, or at good documentaries. I also listen to a lot of books.

I have the more long-term approach: I look at things that have been worked through throughly that can give me a good background rather than the day-to-day stuff, which today is overflowing: it’s very difficult to sort the trivialities from the very good blogs.

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

We play every day, usually in the evenings, because the playtesters have decent jobs during the day. They’re regular groups who I see once a week, so I have a Tuesday group, a Wednesday group, a Sunday afternoon group, and so on.

One of the core challenges in designing is to not get too close to it and develop a conventional way to play it, but to make the game robust, so when the game is out in the world people can approach it from many different angles and it still works. Therefore, I think it’s important to play it with many different test groups.

I also try to stand back a little bit and see how the game develops: I could influence the game and always pull it in one direction, but that’s very counter-productive. When we test, we need to be very hard on the game, so that it develops this robustness.

There are usually 3-5 games which are very intensively tested, and they come to the table every day. I mentioned sixty drawers, and there are probably at the moment forty games, but not all of them are active. If I can’t play it once a week, the design is paused, because I can kid myself and say “I’m working on all of these”, but I can’t work on all of them, it’s impossible. But as one game is completed, others come in. It’s a natural selection process – the games that seem most promising, with the most potential, of course would be in the foreground, and would be played. This helps me avoid the risk of hanging onto a design I love even though it’s already dead.

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

I think I’ve been lucky. My game design career has gone very smoothly. I have designed games since I was 8-10 years old. I only started marketing and publishing these in my late 20s. I had a very rich source of designs, which I developed just because I loved designing and playing games: the publication was not the important thing to me initially.

I was very lucky when I started to publish – I found two publishers right away, one who wanted to publish one of my designs, and at the same time another who wanted to publish a book of my new designs. I was lucky enough after a few years to win the German Game award for Modern Art, which pushed me forward. I think I haven’t had any obstacles in my way that were overwhelming, because I’ve always seen my game designs as a hobby – I didn’t count them as work. I’ve found plenty of publishers, particularly because I decided early on that I would go worldwide, and not just concentrate on one market.

All the different cultures in the world have always been a fascinating thing for me: you get to know lots of people, and lots of different countries.

In this respect, I think I was very lucky, but I you might also say that the harder I work, the luckier I get. I worked very hard on things, but as I said, it wasn’t work for me. I think if you’re a new designer, it’s a tough world out there. The relationship between the publishers and the designers isn’t as friendly and driven by friendship as it used to be.

It’s tough today, but I also find it exciting to see how the world changes so quickly, because if you want to be innovative, then nothing is worse than a standstill. But if everything changes around you, then it’s easy to pick up new opportunities.

It’s a long process, though – I did my first fifteen years of game design without ever trying to do business, so I had a lot of background. But if you want to start right away, it’s a big challenge.

How do you handle life/family/work balance?

I handle it very simply: I have no kids, and I’m not married. My games are my kids – it’s a bit extreme, but a lot of my time is dedicated to my games. I’ve streamlined my life quite considerably. I don’t have to do the garden – I have a gardener, I have someone who looks after the maintenance of the office, I have my assistant who does much of the operational things, so I think from learning how to organize big businesses, I have organized myself so that I can concentrate on those things that I do best.

I don’t always work, but I get up very early in the morning – 4:00, 5:00 – this gives me a head-start, and that’s when my work is the strongest, and we test in the evenings. Much of the inout into my life comes from the business, but it’s not all design. If you want to be a good designer, you need to understand the production processes, you need to have the connections world-wide to serve and understand all of the markets, so I have a lot of friends all over the world, and I see them a lot because of my business travel. I find that my focus on games makes my life very rich, and it’s very enriching.

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

That’s a difficult question, because it depends on what I’m doing. The ratio can be, for some weeks, almost 100% on operational things, and on other weeks it would be almost 80% on design. It varies a lot, which is nice and refreshing.

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

That’s a powerful question. I need a good answer for this.  I’ll come back to this question, let’s do the next one first.

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

Get a good overview of what’s out there: what games are there, what publishers are there, what the publishers are doing, and then – work with small publishers.

If you want to start with the big publishers, it’s hopeless. Even for the very established authors, it’s very difficult to have a very fruitful relationship, and to get good input and output there. When you work with small publishers, you’re much closer to the business, because there’s a lot to learn, and you will get all of the feedback and all of the input through each stage of the design and production process. It’s a much more personally rewarding situation, and you’re really involved.

You won’t sell your first design to a big publisher – the probability is virtually nil – and even if you are lucky enough to sell it, you’re completely out of the process. You won’t learn anything.

Also, don’t be too worried about getting your design stolen, there are a lot of honest people in the world, and you can trust them.

Who would you like to see answer these questions?

There are two designers I would be very interested in hearing the answers, but you will will not be able to get them. Sid Sackson and Alex Randolph – I knew Alex Randolph very well, so I would know many of his answers. But as for the old masters of game design, they have a lot to teach us, and to get the answers from them, we need to look into their books.

We still have one question open, yes?

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

I’m not sure if I would say that this was the best advice that I’ve ever received, but one of the strongest experiences I have made is if something bad happens to you, have the ambition to say “I will turn this around, I will turn this situation into something that in hindsight will be one of the best things that ever happened to me”. It’s like the frog in the water: when you get thrown in a very hot water, you jump out, and you get to look back and say “now I’m in a better situation”.

It makes you very robust and resilient, because when you go through this a number of times in your life, You learn that yes, you can do this again. It makes you more optimistic, and less fearful of what might happen.

 

Reiner Knizia needs no introduction. As the most prolific game designer in the world today, you’ve almost certainly encountered his games, of which there are many. During our conversation, I was struck with not only how kind and funny he is, but also how much wisdom he’s amassed over the years, wisdom that he was more than willing to share with me.

And now I’m going to share it with you. 

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

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

This is my third life. My first life was at university where I really enjoyed teaching, studying, and researching mathematics. My second life was in banking and I.T., where you work for the big company, get big responsibilities, and also get involved in big politics, which I never enjoyed. My last job was running a big mortgage company here in the U.K., with about 300 people working there.

Then I decided to jump into my third life – it’s been quite a while ago now – to do games. Of course I’ve done games on the side all the time – they’ve always been my love and my hobby – then I got braver and had some successes, and I knew that I wanted to do this. Now I’m a full-time game designer.

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

Two answers: I’m playing every day, because designing games is essentially experiencing the fun of games, therefore [it’s important to be] playing them. But whenever I have an opportunity to play, I play my new designs. There are sixty drawers in my office, and most of them are filled with new designs, so there are lots of ‘monkeys’, as I call them, who want to be fed. This means that I rarely play other people’s games. I do play them, and my play testers bring new designs they think are remarkable, and we look at them – but that’s not the normal day-to-day business.

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

I’m a thief. When I fly in airplanes, I steal the cutlery. I have a big collection of cutlery from the different airlines. And I’m running organized crime, because I ask other people to steal for me when they fly on certain planes. I have several hundred collectible pieces now. Of course, now we’ve stolen all of it, because the airlines have run out of cutlery, and they give you plastic instead of the metal ones.

(I want to be part of a Reiner Knizia crime ring! –A)

What are you naturally good at that helps you in your work?

That’s a very difficult question. I think every game designer has his or her own strengths – some people come from the graphics side, some people come from the storytelling side – I think I come from the scientific side. Mathematics help me create models, and my perfectionism helps me really test everything in detail.

But calling it a strength is a dangerous thing, because as soon as you call something a strength, you’re bound to overdo it – and then you turn your strength into a weakness. What I have learned over time is to not rely on one strength, and not to have one fixed methodology when designing games. Designing games is not a science where you have a specific method that you always repeat. As a designer, my ambition is to create something new and innovative every time, and it’s been my experience that I should start with something new and innovative – a new character, a new technology, a new material – because, although there’s no guarantee, that’s my best chance to come up with something innovative at the end, and not trample along the same path all the time.

So, in a way, what I’ve learned is to be wary of my strengths.

What are you not naturally good at, that you’ve learned to do well anyway?

It’s funny – some people criticize my games for being abstract and not very thematic, and I’ve learned to be careful with my models, which in the past usually started from the thematic motivation, so I don’t forget to communicate the theme.

The theme would be there, but I would very much bring it down to its bones – its essentials. I could still see the theme and interpret a lot of the actions, but sometimes the communication process to the publisher and the players causes the theme to be lost, so that players no longer know how to interpret the individual actions. I’m now putting more emphasis on communicating the theme how I see it. That’s a challenge, because I do have a scientific approach: I don’t like to tell a vast story with lots of details, or make players read long, complicated rules. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”@andhegames”]I try to make games with very few principles, so they’re natural to play.[/inlinetweet] Once you understand the basic principles, you can almost derive what to do in various situations. But this does mean that the rules are short, and you’ve got to be careful that you don’t lose the theme as you condense the rules.

Do you generally approach a game from a thematic or mechanical angle?

In the early days, I usually started from the theme: I’d have a theme that really fascinated me, and then I’d try to transfer that theme into a game system. Even when people though that the theme is missing, it was the starting point, as we’ve just discussed. But now I try to avoid this – I’m essentially trying to feel uncomfortable in the design process, because as long as I walk along the comfortable path, the innovation is not as strong as when I’m uncomfortable.

I was very uncomfortable when I did The Lord of the Rings, because you want to be true to the story and the spirit of the book, and you know that all of the fans have a certain viewpoint: therefore you must be a hobbit; therefor you cannot compete with each other; therefore you need to cooperate with each other; one thing leads to another, and suddenly you end up having to make a cooperative game that goes through this enormously big book, a game that you can play in an hour. That was an uncomfortable situation in the positive sense: it forced me to think in a new way, and therefore come up with something innovative.

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

Essentially there are three stages: there is the initial stage where there is nothing material yet: it’s closing your eyes and looking into the new world, and trying to have all the different aspects of the game flow together. This very often would [take place] in discussions. I have a good dozen people who are very experienced players in my core playtesting group; we have a lot of discussions, particularly when a new theme or a new challenge comes on the table. This brings the best out for the design.

We really don’t start implementing things until we have a very clear idea about how the game should look. Of course, in your mind it always works wonderfully well, and then your first prototype shows you reality.

In the second phase, which is a much, much longer phase, you make a prototype, and quite a number of games die after the first prototype. You think something will work, but then you realize that there are certain flaws, so we cut our losses, and that’s fine. The disasters are when you try to push it and push it, and you spend many, many days on the design, and then in the end you have to give up.

Otherwise, it’s just the normal process of selection and finding out what works. Assuming that the idea is feasible, then what follows is a very long play testing process. We play every day, and initially between the play testing sessions there’s a lot of rework, and radical changes from one session to another. This converges more and more into a stable situation, where we then do the fine-tuning, where there’s not much to do in between sessions. We change a few parameters, a few values, and if we don’t have any more ideas on how to change it, and we still believe the game is good, then we enter the third phase.

In the third phase, I leave the game for a month or two, so that I get a bit of a distance to it, and then we play it again once or twice. We just did this last night with a game that we just kind of finished in August. We looked at it, and we saw that it was still absolutely fine. Then we make a very nice prototype with very nice materials, and we have a ruleset which is written for the publisher, not for the public, because the publishers have their own style, and then we present it to the publisher.

. . .

Read part 2 here!