An Interview With Walk The Plank Designers Shane Steely and Jared Tinney

This is a special interview for me (Firestone). Jared and Shane are the designers of the new game Walk The Plank, which you can find on Kickstarter here. But more than that, they’re members of my own game group, and friends. I’m thrilled they agreed to let us interview them.

So tell us a little about yourselves.

J—I spend a good chunk of my time playing games or studying and dissecting games to better understand their inner workings.  When I’m not playing or designing games, I find myself interested in other creative pursuits such as programming or cooking.

S—What would you like to know?  Born and raised Colorado native.  Spend most of my time working, sleeping, or gaming.  On occasion I’ll go outside, but the sun is not my friend.

How did you guys get started playing these type of games?

J—I’ve been a gamer all my life.  This was mostly limited to video games until a college buddy introduced me to the local boardgame store and I’ve been hooked ever since.  I still love digital games, but board games offer something different, and it’s awesome to have such a wide variety of games available to explore.

S—I started playing board games with my family when I was a little kid.  The usual classics, and as I got older I spent a lot of time by myself playing board games and video games.  When you switched schools every year as I did from 2nd through 6th grade, it’s hard to keep friends. So I really got into gaming and it just grew from there.

How did Walk The Plank come about?

S—I had a dream. It was about pirates all trying to shove each other off the plank. It seemed like it would be a cool game, so I came up with a quick, and pretty much all random, dice game. I showed it to Jared, and with his help it turned into a much better and way-more-fun design.

J—Shane came up with the core idea near Talk Like a Pirate Day 2007.  Shane’s initial game was mechanically weak, but I loved the concept.  So, drawing on our experience from other games, we worked together to find better mechanics to truly make the concept shine.

What was the process for getting it published?

S—To be honest, most of that was on Jared. He pushed for getting it published, and so I'll let him tell the tale.

J—We’d had some prior interest from Indie Boards & Cards, but they decided to pass. We also got a narrow 2nd place in a design contest run by Rio Grande. It was clear people really liked the game from this interest and our playtests, but we didn’t have the time and resources to pursue it further.

I was fortunate enough to have a chance to go to Origins 2012—my first gaming convention.  Making sure not to squander this opportunity, I printed up several spec sheets for the game, planning on presenting the game to as many publishers as possible. I was nervous and not really sure where to start; I’d already been chatting with the people at the Mayday booth a bit, so I decided to start there.

I met Seth, the owner of Mayday Games, shortly thereafter and showed him Walk the Plank. He was interested right from the start; the game fit perfectly into Mayday’s product line, and he found the theme and mechanics a lot of fun. A little later I had a chance to play a full game with Seth and his son—and he loved it.  Two days later I had a contract in my inbox.

Are there any other games you guys are working on?

S—I haven’t worked on any others with Jared, but there are always game ideas in the works. None that have turned out to be worth showing off yet. The closest I got to one I thought was playable, but haven’t finished, was my attempt at a dice game. I didn’t look to see if anyone else has done it yet, but after talking with another guy from our group, Devin, we decided there needs to be an Oregon Trail Dice game. If anyone wants to give it a go, let me know.

J—As Shane said we aren’t currently working on anything else together, but I have a handful of designs in progress. Several have interesting mechanics or concepts, but I don’t currently have anything I’m happy enough with to start playtesting heavily. I’d like to have a 2nd finished design within the next 1-2 years, so we’ll see what comes to pass.

What are your five favorite games right now? And what do you like about them?

J—My all-time favorites would probably be Time’s Up, Crokinole, Mao, Galaxy Trucker, and Liar’s Dice. The 5 I’m currently most interested in would be Hanabi, Article 27, The Resistance, Time’s Up, and Tzolk’in. Hanabi is an amazing cooperative game of deduction with a lot of room for clever plays. Article 27 I’ve only had the chance to play once, but it’s such a pure and elegant negotiation game that I’m very enthusiastic about trying it more.

The Resistance continues to be a fantastic team game of deduction, though I wish it wasn’t so heavily biased in the spies’ favor. Time’s Up is always a blast and it’s just a great feeling to be in that zone where you and your teammate are in synch, nailing card after card. Tzolk’in deserves the hype and the gears aren’t just a gimmick—a fresh and interesting take on worker placement with a strong back-end to support it.

S—Favorite anything for me changes on a daily basis, but if I had to list them off the top of my head I’d do so in this order: Galaxy Trucker, Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed., Space Alert, Merchants & Marauders, and Ghost Stories.  I love games with theme. I don’t care how long it takes to play as long as I can immerse myself in the story.

Jared, I know you’re a big Time’s Up! fan—having played many, many games with you. What’s your favorite Time’s Up memory?

So many to choose from! Probably the most recent great memory was the ferocious dinosaur-beast known as Winnie the Pooh... Other classics include the inability for anyone to remember Mr. E. Lee’s first name, Buzz Lightyear the Nazi, and of course Maya Angelou the fighter plane.

Shane, you’re a big Vlaada Chvatil fan. What is it you like about his games so much?

He is my favorite designer. Why? Theme and mechanics. I find most of his games just grab my imagination. And most of his designs are very different, so you can play several and know that each is its own game. I haven’t found one yet that I didn’t enjoy.

What upcoming games are you most looking forward to?

S—There’s a lot coming out lately that I want. I can’t wait for Zombicide Season 2, looking forward to trying Sails of Glory, and Star Trek: Attack Wing, to name a few.

J—I’m cautiously optimistic toward Bora Bora—I haven’t especially liked a lot of Feld’s recent games but I like what I’ve heard of the mechanics so far. Compounded looks interesting simply because I like alchemical themes. Beyond that, I’m sure there are plenty of other interesting titles coming out within the next year—I just don’t know about them yet!

5 Questions with 1-Word (or Phrase) Answers

Best thing about Babylon 5?

S—The Shadows.

J—The... space... pirates?

Worst thing about Babylon 5?

S—G’Kar

J—It’s 110 hour-long episodes, so I probably won’t get around to actually watching it. Ed note: This explains your answer to Question #1...

Llamas? Yea or nay?

J—Llama School or bust!

S—Llama llama duck

The Cheat or the Poopsmith?

J—Does the Poopsmith perform lightswitch raves?  I didn’t think so.

S—Coach Z

What is “the” word?

S—Is this where I’m supposed to say bird?  I’ll play your game and say bird.

J—Hobo.

Thanks to Jared and Shane for answering our questions! And go check out the Kickstarter campaign! There's less than a week to go; trust me: This is a really fun game.

A Look into the Future—An Interview with Jason Tagmire

Today we sit down once again with Jason Tagmire, designer of the much-anticipated Pixel Lincoln deckbuilding game. Last time we caught up with Jason was on election day last year, and since then he's been very busy with all sorts of new projects.

Jason, thanks so much for taking time out of what seems to be a VERY full schedule to chat about all of the big things you’ve been up to!

First of all, can you give us a quick update on the Pixel Lincoln Deckbuilding game? How soon can we expect to see that hit the shelves?

After a loooooong winter, the deckbuilding game is hitting the final stages of production. I should have the final game in my hands for approval within the next few days, and once approved they’ll proceed to assembly. This is extremely exciting and I’m happy to say that our backers have been so unbelievably supportive throughout this process.

Game Salute estimated early June and it seems like we’re still on track for that date. I would love to see a big Origins launch since I’ll be there this year.

We hear the pixelated President is going to show up in other games besides Pixel Lincoln... What’s up with that?

You know how rappers all appear on each others songs? That’s how PL rolls.

We’ve had a few opportunities to pop up in friends' games and have friends pop up in ours. It’s really cool to mix universes. We’ve had Sentinels of the Multiverse in our game, and Pixel Lincoln will be a Boss Monster adventurer, a gold-mining Lost Dutchman and an alternate Emperor in the mysterious Emperor’s New Clothes. All of these are very inspiring projects and I’m honored to have the opportunity to explore those worlds via Pixel Lincoln.

And finally, he’s showing up in a deck of Bicycle playing cards. This is similar to the deckbuilding game since it uses the same art, but it’s a very different type of project. It’s a standard playing card deck. The kind you can play Go Fish with your grandma. Except you might play Go Laser Shark instead.

The idea of challenging would-be game designers to develop a game around a deck of cards is great; how is that going? Are you getting TONS of submissions?

We’ve gotten a handful of submissions, plus a bunch of people who said they are interested. There is still some time left, so I assume we’ll see some toward the end. If anyone works like I do, they’ll be coming in right before the deadline.

Can you tell us about the craziest submission you’ve received (no names, please)?

We haven’t officially received it as a submission yet, but I know someone was talking about making a dexterity game. I cannot wait to see it. I also saw a photo of someone playtesting theirs on a train. We’re still taking submissions until 4/15, so there’s plenty of room for more crazy!

Speaking of submissions and game design, word on the street is that you’ve put a little something together that doesn’t have anything to do with former presidents or food-based weaponry. Fill us in on this!

MAXIMUM THROWDOWN! Yes! It’s a card-throwing battle game coming from AEG and featuring some of the awesome characters from other AEG games (Smash Up, Nightfall, Thunderstone, etc). Players will throw cards to enable abilities and then try to cover up opponents cards to disable their abilities. My wife nicknamed it AEG Smash Bros., which was a massive compliment and realization. Being thrown into those universes has been super exciting and I can’t wait for everyone to get a chance to play.

"Throwdown" reminds me: Do you think WWE Wrestling is legit? Or is it an oily, be-singleted soap opera?

It’s totally a big oily soap opera, but isn’t that what makes it so desirable? While I’ve seen some hilarious clips online, I haven’t seriously watched wrestling in decades. My era is a little less oily, but way more gimmicky. Brutus the Barber Beefcake, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and Jake The Snake. If the wrestler had a prop, I was sold.

Anyway, is Maximum Throwdown (and yourself for that matter) going to make it to the conventions this summer?

I will be at Origins, Gen Con, WBC and a few others. The Maximum Throwdown prototype will be on hand, as always. As for the complete game, it will be available to purchase at Gen Con. Hope to see you there!

Can you tell us anything about the game you’re developing for the Button Shy brand? It seems storytelling is making a bigger mark in the gaming industry these days.

I’m developing a deck of cards called Storyteller Cards. It’s made up of 54 cards with an illustration that features a Character, an Item, an Action and a Location (illustrated by the amazing Campbell Whyte - see 8-Bit Dreams if you want to immediately fall in love with his art). Instead of a game, it’s more of a toolkit for gamers, or writers, designers, artists, kids, etc. The cards are meant to inspire creativity. If you are writing a story and need a location, just flip a card and you’ve got one. And along with the illustrations there are icons (Rank/Suit, Letters, Colors, Moods, Seasons) that will provide additional inspiration.

So it’s not actually a game, but there are games that can be played with it. I’m including rules for my game Director’s Cut that’s played using 8 cards from the deck and your imagination. I’m also gathering a whole bunch of creators to make games, activities, and examples of uses for the cards. It’s a big undertaking and an ambitious first project for the Button Shy brand, but I have a lot of good friends in the industry who are willing to lend a hand and their experience in helping me kick this off.

So that’s it then? Anything else going on?

There are two other things on the horizon.

First, I’ve been itching to start my podcast Designing Out Loud. It’s a interview/game show style show where myself and Alex Strang put game designers through challenges forcing them to design on the spot. Unfortunately Alex has been hospitalized since the start of this year, so it’s on the backburner. Hoping the best for him and looking forward to this and other projects we have planned.

And second, I’ve been developing games with Island Officials as part of their tabletop division. One of the first is Pigpen by Kevin Kulp. It’s a family style pig-penning / pen-destroying game. The art is wonderful and the game has been in the pipeline for a few years now. Kevin’s a good friend and it’s been great to work with him, as well as on the other side of things.

Ok, so when do you sleep?

I’ve learned that it’s not the amount of sleep that matters, as much as the quality of your sleep. When I sleep, I sleep like a loud, snoring rock. I’ll get in good few hours and then I wake up around 5AM and get right to work. I’d rather work than sleep any day.

You know the drill: 5 questions answered with 5 words (or Phrases). And GO!

Nazgul or Deatheaters?

Nazgul!

Psyduck or Slow-Bro?

Haha, this is so hard but I love good old Psyduck.

Favorite guilty pleasure movie?

The Warriors

G.I. Joe or Transformers?

G.I. Joe all the way.

Super Mario or Legend of Zelda?

Super Mario (World to be precise)

We'd like to thank Jason Tagmire again for taking the time to share the latest in his world with us and our readers. You can find the Pixel Lincoln playing card Kickstarter here.

You can also keep up with Jason on Twitter, and find out more about Jason's latest work on ButtonShy.blogspot.com

Don't forget to like, share, and tweet out your favorite posts here at TOG, and we'd love it if you liked and followed us too!

Thanks for reading!

Another Interview With Designer Eric Lang

We’re glad to welcome back to TOG Eric Lang, game designer extraordinaire, to chat about some of his upcoming projects, the latest Star Wars The Card Game news, and much more!

Eric, so glad we didn’t scare you away the first time; thanks for coming back!

WHAT?! Oh, sorry. You frightened me there.

So, from the looks of your twitter account @eric_lang you've been doing some serious game design work away from home. Tell us a little bit about where you were and the project(s) you've been working on?

I’ve been in my comfort zone for the year, at all times juggling 2-4 games in various stages of completion. Two of them are currently in post-design, and ready for announcement within the month.

So, in total, how many projects have you had your hands on since we last talked?

Seven, I think? Maybe? It’s hard to keep track. Some games are ongoing developments, others are near-completion, and yet other ongoing games are in publishers’ capable hands but still need attention (like Star Wars LCG and Quarriors).

Via Twitter you’ve given each of your projects their own code name. You said several weeks ago that “Project Phoenix” is heading to production; can you tell us more about the game, who is publishing the game, and when we can expect to see it hit the shelves?

It will be published by Cool Mini or Not, and my producer is the extraordinarily talented David Preti (from Dust Games). They will be announcing it soon. I wish I could tell you more, because this is a game (and original IP) I’ve been working on for a long time.

How often do you leave town to get work done? Do you make the same pilgrimage every year, or do you travel to other places around the world? If so, what's been your favorite place to work so far?

I generally get work done at home, actually, and travel for inspiration or to crunch on administrative or production deadlines, which are easier on-site with publishers.

I love Brazil for the climate, the gamers, and the food. Singapore for the space-age lifestyle, the gamers, and the food. Malaysia for the gamers, the amazing islands, and the food. Minnesota for all my longtime friends, and the food. There’s a general food theme.

You said that “Project Phoenix” is something you've wanted to do for a long time; where did the idea first come from, and how did you get it to production?

Project Phoenix is a game I’ve wanted to do for about five years. It is a hybrid of two genres I really enjoy in gaming (which I sadly can’t talk about until the announcement). The nucleus of the game coalesced while I worked on other games, but crystallized when I met with David Preti in Brazil and pitched the basic concept. He said, “We’re making this game,” immediately, and then asked me for an IP to go with the game. I built the foundation of this world over a weekend, and we worked together to flesh it out (me on world details, he on visual direction).

We’ve also heard that your funding a project through Kickstarter, what can you tell us about that, and when will we see it over on KS?

I actually have four projects, with various publishers, slated for Kickstarter this year. Unfortunately I can’t talk about any of them :(

Since we last spoke with you, Star Wars The Card Game was released; we've enjoyed the base set and are looking forward to the multiplayer expansion. What can you tell us about the multiplayer experience?

Sadly, nothing of substance (NDA, as you’d guess). I can say that multiplayer completes the core vision I had for the game.

The idea of having multiple players team up against a single dark side player is really making me kind of giddy! And it seems that you had this in mind all along. Is there a reason the multiplayer expansion is delayed, or wasn't a part of the base set?

It was part of the game’s DNA from the start, but we realized during development that it would take a significant chunk of the core set’s card pool to execute as fully as we wanted. And we wanted to maximize variety in objective sets for regular play, both because variety is good and this game was experimenting with a new deck-building philosophy, so we wanted to give it breathing room.

It didn’t take long to realize we could easily take the multiplayer component and expand it even further if we made it a deluxe expansion box. Expect some surprises!

We're both pretty big fans of Quarriors, is there any news of what's coming down the line for that title?

The Quartifacts expansion is coming soon, which adds quests—an entirely new play pattern—to the game. Beyond that, they announced the exciting “Light and Dark” expansion that Mike and I finished a few months ago, so it won’t be coming for awhile.

We got the press release from Wizkids about Train Stations. There’s scant information so far, but the description reads like a standard pickup-and-deliver-type train game—but then we noticed it comes with 50 custom dice... Is this some sort of Quarriors/Age Of Steam mashup, or what?!

There are lots of dice, but the game is nothing like Quarriors. It’s more of a risk management game with a ton of player interaction (with mild cooperative elements, even though there is only one winner). I designed this game as an homage to Sid Sackson, one of my favorite designers, and even though it shares no mechanics with his games, my guiding process during design would often be to ask myself, “What would Sid do?”

Are there any other new and exciting projects that you can tell us about?

Absolutely! I am working on two games with my good friend and awesome designer Kevin Wilson, codenamed Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The games are not related; the codenames symbolize something else (shhh). One is a really fun little strategy game that “scratches your OCD itch” and the other is an intense psychological social game dripping with warped theme. Both are based on really cool existing IPs, and will be out later this year.

Last year I finished design on a risky but really compelling game that adds a new twist to a classic genre. I call it Project ZOMG, and have described it as a “youthful power fantasy come to life.” This one will be announced by a major publisher shortly. I can’t wait to talk more about it.

Finally, I started work on another big game for FFG. This one won’t be out for awhile, but the initial design is already mostly done, and I’ve scoped out some crazy ambition. One thing I can say is that I love how FFG is a big game company and still likes to take risks and try new ideas.

Here’s another round of 1-word questions!

Favorite Monty Python member?

The Foot

Kirk or Picard?

Sisko

Favorite Star Wars film?

Empire (obviously!)

Bill S. Preston esq. or Ted Theodore Logan?

Bogus!

Favorite comic book hero?

Ozymandias

Thanks again for taking the time to chat with us!

Thank you! Fun questions as always.

Update: Shortly after we finished this interview with Eric, Cool Mini or Not leaked some info on the Project Phoenix game, which is Kaosball. From Eric's Web site:

"Kaosball is a fantasy sports game based on modern world pop culture. It has a different approach than most sports games, using card play rather than standard miniatures style simulationist rules for resolving conflict. There’s luck and variance, to be sure, but key skills like bluffing and reading your opponent enhance the drama and can turn the tide.

The sport (a 2-4 player cross between rugby and domination-style e-sports) is designed from the ground up to play well as a team management board game focused on special powers and their interactions. It’s bloody and lethal; in fact, kills help your overall score! Four teams come in the core set, but I have already designed over a dozen more.

More details and blog updates to follow over the next few weeks. I have been waiting a very long time to talk about this game!"

We can't wait to hear more about all of the games Eric is juggling right now. Thanks, Eric, for the interview, and thanks to you for reading—and please check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Machine of Death—An Interview with David Malki

We’re super excited to be chatting with David Malki, co-author of Machine of Death, and co-designer of the game with the same name. Machine of Death the game is currently a runaway train on Kickstarter, and we couldn’t be happier to have a chance to have some Q & A with David. David, thanks so much for taking a few minutes to chat with us!

Let’s talk about the book form of Machine of Death, and This is How You Die; tell us a little about how the books came to be, and your involvement in them.

The books are collections of short stories, all by different authors, that all share a common premise: the idea of a machine that can predict how you die. If such a machine were to exist, how would that change everything about the world we know? Every author started with that central idea and wrote a story exploring some different facet of that concept.

The original idea came from a Dinosaur Comic by Ryan North. After Ryan posted the comic, readers and fans began to speculate about the idea, and eventually Ryan decided that it’d be cool to do a short story anthology exploring the concept in more depth! Matt Bennardo and I came on at that point to help manage the task of compiling the actual anthology—we held a public call for entries, and ended up getting almost 700 submissions. Choosing our favorite 34 was a tough task, but I think the fact that the stories come from all sorts of people with all sorts of different perspectives on life makes the book diverse and really compelling!

Our next step was to shop the book to publishers. We found many who were intrigued by the idea, or even really liked it, but didn’t feel they could sell it. So we eventually decided to publish the book ourselves, and as sort of a challenge, we asked all our fans to buy it on the same day in an effort to get onto the Amazon.com bestsellers list.

On the book’s release day, we shot all the way to #1! It was pretty amazing, and I think it’s the first time an independent anthology has ever been #1 on Amazon. We discovered later that Glenn Beck (among others) had a book that came out the same day, and on his radio show he complained about not being #1, calling us part of a “liberal culture of death.” That’s hilarious and insane and it just added more fuel to the fire.

Once people read the book and fell in love with it (hooray!), we got a lot of requests from writers who’d missed the original submission window and really wanted to be involved in another volume. So we re-opened submissions, and this time got nearly 2,000 stories, from writers on every continent (including Antarctica!). We had the difficult task (again) of paring that field down to our favorite 31, and this time we decided to partner with Grand Central Publishing to bring the book to a wider market. That book, THIS IS HOW YOU DIE, comes out in July and we couldn’t be more excited about it! You’ve enjoyed some success with the book titles; how has that changed your life?

When we released the first book, it had been such a long process of compiling and editing and designing and pitching the manuscript that I actually breathed a sigh of relief: “Finally, this thing is done.” How wrong I was! It took off in an amazing and totally unpredictable way. That’s super-great because it means that people read and loved the book, of course! But it’s also been a crash course education in publishing. We’re in this weird flux period where business models are changing, and just trying to stay informed about what’s going on in the world of media is a full-time job by itself. But we’re very grateful that folks have responded so well to the Machine of Death idea and it’s given us a lot of opportunities to do fun things like hold stage shows, invite various forms of participation from fans and readers, and now, of course, make the game. None of which would have been possible without people taking a chance on the first book! How closely connected is the game to the books? It’s yet another exploration of the core concept. All the stories in both books start with the common theme, but then branch off in different directions: some stories are funny, others are sad, some are serious, some outlandish, and they cover many, many different genres. The game is essentially another spoke off of that same hub—it’s not an adaptation of any story in particular; it’s a new and different (and much wackier) take on the basic idea of “What would it mean if this machine actually existed?” Who came up with the idea to create the game? And how did you go about getting it from idea to tabletop? The basic idea was mine. In the books, the machines issue little cards with just a word or two printed on them, listing your cause of death and nothing else. We printed a bunch of them just for fun, to use as promotional materials. And when I held a huge stack of them in my hand, I had an epiphany: “This is a deck of cards!” We went through a long process of developing and testing different games, and the idea of figuring out how to make someone meet their predicted doom (in a morbid but very cartoonish way) kept coming up as the perfect game. Refining the mechanics was a long task, but I’m really happy with where it ended up! So, is the game more storytelling, card playing, or dice rolling? Or an even mix of all 3? It’s mostly storytelling. There is some very, very light strategy in terms of choosing what cards to play at various times, and you do have to roll a die at points, but both are just constructs to force you into different storytelling situations—you have to adapt and change your story on the fly as circumstances change. So it’s not a good game for people who like complex strategy games like Dominion, but it’s great for folks who can riff and joke around and make up outlandish stories with their friends.

Do you think we as humans are locked into a single “fate,” and will meet it regardless of our life/decisions? I think it doesn’t really matter whether we are or not, since we have the perception of free will! But part of the fun of the game (and books) is definitely that even when you think your fate is locked—for example, you receive a death prediction reading “OLD AGE”—it may not mean what you think. In the world of MOD, an old person could fall asleep at the wheel and run you down in a crosswalk, and that’d still count as OLD AGE. Is that considered fate? Who knows?

How deep did you get in the game design process? Was it a large collaborative effort, or did one person take the majority of the workload? I took the lead, but I definitely sought out the help of talented collaborators as well. People with experience in game design, people with fun senses of humor to help playtest, and of course my good friend Kris Straub to help design the visual look of the game and contribute jokes. I do think it’s important to have a single vision at the head of a project like this, where tone is so key, to be able to make final decisions on “this is how this will look; this is how that text should be worded.” But I have been trying very hard to surround myself with more talented people than me, because—especially now that the game has grown in complexity with the success of the Kickstarter—it’d be just too much for one person to handle! I’d never get it done. How long and how many iterations of the game did you work through to arrive with the finished product? The very first glimmers of what this game would become were developed about two years ago, in a simpler version called “Hitman on a Budget.” It was also a “creative assassination” storytelling game, using only the original set of death cards, but the game mechanics were very different, and it lent itself to long, slow-paced gaming sessions requiring lots of people, which made it hard to play on a whim. Once we decided that this needed to be a more elaborate game with specialized cards, we were able to workshop different modes of play with testing groups, and continued to iterate and playtest until Kris and I felt confident that we’d landed on the best version. He and I have played a lot of 2-player mode, too, which is something we could never do with the earlier versions (which always required at least a third to act as a judge).

Are you a big gamer yourself? What are some of your favorite board/card games of all time? I like to play party games, but I know there a lot out there that I haven’t gotten around to playing. I think in a way that’s good—I made a game that I would like, and hopefully the wider audience for party games will like it too. But I love fun card games like Fluxx and We Didn’t Playtest This At All, which is a ton of fun to whip out with a big group and get everyone playing really quickly.

How surprised are you at the raging success you’ve had with the Kickstarter campaign?

I’m just really pleased that everyone’s responding so eagerly! It’s really gratifying to see people say, “This thing you presented to us? Yeah, I like it.” That’s the best sort of praise you can get: people betting with their wallet that they’re gonna like the thing you pitched them. I’m grateful and excited because I can’t wait for everyone to get the game and start playing it!! Now we have come to what we like to call - The-five-questions-that-only-require-a-one-word-or-phrase-response-because-your-answer-will-explain-it-all part of the interview. (We really need a better name for it.)

Favorite 4-syllable word in the English language?

“Schwarzenegger”

Who shot first? Han Solo or Greedo?

This isn’t even a question. Has anybody EVER said Greedo? Favorite Hogwarts house?

I don’t think Hufflepuff gets enough love. There’s some great kids buried in there, I bet. Give them a chance! Favorite deceased author?

I’m really falling in love with L. Frank Baum these days. He wrote the Oz books, of course, but he also wrote girls’ books under the pseudonym Edith Van Dyne. He was fairly progressive for his time. Favorite Hobbit?

Milbred Thatchgrubbin. He wasn’t in any of the books, but he’s the best one of them all.

We'd like to thank David for taking some time away from his busy schedule. If you'd like to check out Machine of Death on Kickstarter you can find it here. And you can follow David on Twitter @Malki!

As always, thanks for reading, and don't forget, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter to continue the conversations!

Awesome Level 9000! An interview with Smash Up Designer Paul Peterson

We here at TOG have certainly been anticipating the first expansion of Smash Up! (one of our top 10 games of 2012). And to say we’re more than a little excited about today’s interview would be completely accurate. Today we’re chatting with Paul Peterson, designer of Smash Up! and its first expansion Awesome Level 9000—and much, much more. Paul, we’re so glad you’ve given us some time in your busy schedule. Thanks for chatting with us today!

First, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’ve been a professional game designer for almost 20 years (and an amateur before that.)  I started out at Wizards of the Coast working on Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, and pretty much every other CCG the company put out while I was there.

Since then I’ve worked on a truly staggering variety of game types from MMOs to games for girls to games for mobile devices to social games.

No matter what area I’m working in, though, my heart always goes back to board games.  I couldn’t be happier about the success that Smash Up is having.

Let’s go back to last year and the release of Smash Up. How did Smash Up come to be? And how did you land on the shuffle-building concept?

One of my favorite things about CCGs is building your deck from all of the cards available, but that can be a daunting task.  So I started thinking about ways to capture that same feeling of customizing your deck without getting overwhelmed.  Shuffle-building was what I came up with.  The theme of different factions working together was a natural fit, although the game itself was much different when I initially started designing it.

It was originally much closer to my CCG roots in games like Magic: the Gathering, and players putting minions in front of them and attacking each other.  The hook was that you could play one of your minions on top of another one to make a combo minion that was both a Ninja and a Robot, for example.  But it really wasn’t coming together very well so I kept changing it.

The game went through a couple of other incarnations, but it wasn’t until I decided to make the game revolve around fighting for control of bases that things really fell into place, and Smash Up as it is today took shape.  

Can you tell us the story of getting the game to market and your experience working with AEG?

Once I had the basic game done, I polished and playtested it a lot. I eventually had a version that I thought really showed the potential of the game, I decided to take it to the GAMA Trade Show and show it around to the all the game manufacturers.  The show takes place around March and that is when they are usually starting to think about what games they want to make in the next year, so there are a lot of meetings between the companies and designers with games to show.

I met with several companies there and showed them Smash Up (although at the time it was named “Pirate, Ninja, Zombie, Robot.”)  Everyone liked the idea of building decks by shuffling them together, but my meeting with AEG was different.  John Zinser instantly liked the game.  It seemed to strike a chord with him.  After the demo he wanted to play again immediately, and after that game he got very excited and started talking about all the things we could do with the game.  He started contacting his staff and setting up meetings with me to show them the game as well.  It was very gratifying to see .  I knew instantly that this was the company that I wanted to make this game and luckily it all came together.

AEG has been amazing to work with through the entire process.  They have a tremendous amount of respect for the designers they work with, and want us as involved as we’re willing to be.  I’ve had a lot of control over the vision of the game and input into areas that I might not have gotten with other companies. So, as the release of Awesome Level 9000 (which is probably my favorite expansion name ever) draws near, we’ve seen LOTS of search terms in our metrics regarding “When is the Smash Up expansion release date?” So can you tell us and the world: What is the Smash Up expansion release date?

It is printed and on its way. You should see it on store shelves at the end of March or early April at the latest.  I can't wait! We know the expansion will feature 4 new factions and some new bases; does it add any other rules, or changes to the game itself?

Each of the four new factions adds new mechanics and strategies to the game, but they all do so within the same rule set as the base game. We wanted to expand the universe a bit before we started changing all of the rules on the players. The second expansion, though...

What is your favorite faction in the Smash Up world?

That’s a tough one.  I am very partial to the Plants in the expansion, but overall I think the Zombies are my favorite.  They have so many interesting cards like Tenacious Z and Mall Crawl. Here’s a suggestion for a future faction: Bloggers!—the pen is mightier than the sword! (That’s a freebie...) Anyway...your design credits include games such as Guillotine, The Harry Potter CCG, and others; are there any games you’ve designed in the past that you would love to reboot or do a new edition of?

That is a great question because James Ernest and I just did exactly that for Unexploded Cow.  We originally designed the game in 2001 for his company, Cheapass Games.  When he decided to relaunch Cheapass Games this year he choose Unexploded Cow to be the flagship game for the company, so we pulled the game out and took a hard look at it.  We’ve both gained a lot of experience in the last 12 years and we found some areas of the game that we thought could use a little “sprucing up.” So we tweaked a bunch of the cards and changed the way the city deck worked and I think the game plays much better now, even though I loved the way it played back in 2001.

As for my other games, there is one small change I’d LOVE to make to Guillotine.  There is a card in the game called Callous Guards.  Currently it lasts until the person who played it wants it to end.  This was a huge mistake.  If I could go back, I’d make it last one turn.  I urge everyone to take my advice and play it as such. Looking at the inside tray of the core set of Smash Up, it’s apparent that the game was designed to be expanded. How soon can players expect yet another expansion?

Well, we aren't ready to announce a title or anything, but I can say that we are planning on having another expansion out for Gen Con this year.  We are just wrapping up the play testing on it and players are in for a few surprises. What are you top 5 games, and what do you love about those games?

At the moment my favorite games are:

Lords of Waterdeep - I’ve been a big fan of worker placement games since the first time I played Agricola, and I think that this is the best of them.  It plays fast, but the mechanics are elegant and all work very well together.

Magic: the Gathering - I don’t really have the time to keep up with the current deck technology in the ever changing world of professional play (which was a big inspiration for making Smash Up,) but I’m always willing to break out some preconstructed decks or do a draft or even a league.

Dominon - There have been many deckbuilding games that have added to the genre since Dominion came out, but this is still the best overall.  Some of the expansions are hit or miss, but overall the game still shines and continues to innovate.

Robo-Rally - Brain bending, robot destroying, factory racing fun.  Plus people do little dances in their seats to try to figure out what the program they are making will do.

Cosmic Encounter - I am talking here about the original version of the game.  The last several editions are just fine, but it’s the original version of the game that really taught me about how crazy a game can be and still be fun.

Are there any other non-Smash Up games on the horizon you can tell us about?

Well, a lot of my design efforts have been spent on Smash Up and Awesome Level 9000.  I have managed to squeeze in a few other projects:

As mentioned above, James Ernest and I reworked Unexploded Cow which should be available right about the time that your readers see this.

My friend Mike Selinker designed the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game for Paizo, and asked me to come do some design and development on it.  It is a huge project and we just finished the playtesting for that.  It should be out later this year.

I do have a couple of games in the works at a few companies, but they are all in early stages and won’t be announced or on shelves any time soon.

And, of course, I’ll be at the GAMA Trade Show this year with a couple of new board game designs that I’m pretty excited about. I hope you like rolling dice... Now it’s time for our 1-Word Answers section! (Short phrases are also allowed.)

Favorite burger topping?

Jalapenos

Favorite Hitchcock movie?

Psycho

Favorite board game designer who’s not you...?

A tie between James Ernest and Richard Garfield.

Favorite ship in the Star Wars universe?

Slave 1

Favorite Doctor? (And I don’t mean your urologist...)

Tom Baker

Thanks so much for taking some time to chat with us! We are looking forward to Awesome Level 9000 and more!

You can follow Paul on Twitter right here! And you can follow us on Twitter right here! And like us on FaceBook over here! And you can find out more about Awesome Level 9000 on the AEG website right here!

As always thanks for reading!

Anybody Want a Peanut? An Interview with Game Salute's Dan Yarrington

A few weeks ago, out of nowhere, Game Salute announced that they had secured the game license to the cult classic The Princess Bride. Well, this got us all kinds of giddy, so we immediately fired an email off to Dan Yarrington, President and CEO of Game Salute and the mastermind behind the project. He graciously agreed to sit down and answer a few of questions. Or maybe he was standing—we don't really know. Dan, thanks so much for taking some time to share with us. Before we talk about The Princess Bride game (which is so exciting!), can you share with our readers a little bit of the Game Salute story?

Game Salute started back in 2009 with the mission of “Providing tools and services to make the games industry a better place,” and we continue with that goal today. We’ve expanded quite a bit over the years and we now work with over 60 independent game studios to bring awesome tabletop games to market and support the industry as a whole. We’ve grown from just me back in the beginning to 18 employees and a ton of great Ambassadors, hundreds of Select Stores, and over 100 titles.

It’s safe to say that The Princess Bride is probably one of the most quoted and beloved movies of a generation. Tell us about the process of securing the licensing for the game, and how excited were you to close the deal?

I’m a HUGE fan of Princess Bride—yes, one of those annoying fans who can quote the entire movie from memory—so it was one of the first licenses we looked at picking up, and I’m happy to announce it’s the first licensed property that we’re bringing to market. We approached the fine folks in charge of the license and explained our vision for the game series and they loved it. We’re aiming to produce a series of games in the light- to medium-weight range that matches the fun and flavor of the movie. We’re super excited to be working on this classic license and dedicated to doing it justice with these games.

The Princess Bride will be a Storybuilding game. Can you tell us exactly what a Storybuilding game is?

The concept of the Storybuilding Game™ is that each mini or micro game is a part of the overall play experience. You can customize your gaming experience by selecting game “scenes” by length of play, complexity, style of play, and recommended ages. Then you shuffle those scenes up, deal out a number based on how long you’d like to play, and then play, gaining points from each scene you win. It’s sort of a choose-your-own-adventure style of play so that gaming groups and families can play the games they want.

It sounds like The Princess Bride will be a vast gameplay experience, covering many different genres of games, and the different themes of the movie itself. Will the initial board game be a core game and then be followed by expansions, or will everything be packed into one huge box?

The core Princess Bride The Board Game box will include several scenes so you can play those right out of the box. Additional releases will all be standalone scenes that you can either combine with previous releases or play by themselves. Prepare to Die! is a good example of a standalone game that you can drop into the overall board game experience.

What are your five favorite games—and what do you like about them?

Wow, that’s a tough one. I’d be here all day if I go into that one—seriously—just listen to any podcast I’m on. ;) The favorite parts of games for me are quick, fun, innovative games. I have a tendency toward co-operative games and I like games with adventurous themes. I also enjoy smooth, elegant, less-thematic games, but I’d always rather build a game from the ground-up based on theme.

Game Salute through Springboard has had great success with funding titles through Kickstarter; will a Princess Bride campaign be showing up over on Kickstarter soon?

Given the nature of the project, and the scope of Springboard as a system that goes beyond any one crowd-funding platform, we will have some sort of Springboard campaign for the game. This will provide a great opportunity for fans to help build the Princess Bride game line into something bigger than just one title. The success of the line is directly dependent on the fans, so we really want to give them an opportunity to interact.

What advice would you give an aspiring designer who is considering launching a campaign on Kickstarter?

Plan, plan, and then plan. Set aside a budget so that you can spend the money to make your campaign optimally successful. Don’t try to do it on your own.

Gaming has obviously become a business for you. How do you keep it fun at the same time?

I work with games! :) Seriously, I play games pretty regularly and I still love them, but I also love the game of business, so that’s a separate element of fun (and challenge) each day. The official announcement about the Princess Bride Board game said it will hit shelves in 2013. How soon can we expect to see it in our favorite local game store?

We’ll have advanced preview copies of the initial releases at conventions this summer and then the first products should be out in the fall in time for Christmas.

There was also mention that Game Salute has secured licensing for accessories; does that mean we’ll see a plush R.O.U.S? or 6 fingered gloves? Or is it strictly a gaming accessory license?

We just focus on tabletop games, so mostly gaming accessories. Many of these will be based on requests from individual fans, so if you have something you’d like to request, contact us on Twitter @GameSalute or email me at Dan@GameSalute.com.

As if the Princess Bride announcement wasn’t big enough, are there any other awesome projects from Game Salute that we can be on the lookout for in 2013?

We have a lot of exciting titles and programs we’re launching this year, so stay tuned to GameSalute.com, our Facebook page, and our Twitter feed for all the latest and greatest from Game Salute :)

And now for the questions that only require a single word or phrase as a response!

Favorite Princess Bride character?

Fezzik

Favorite Indiana Jones film?

Last Crusade

Professor X or Magneto?

Professor X

Least favorite berry?

Boysen

Favorite season?

Autumn

Favorite Firefly character?

Mal

Compounded—An Interview with Designer Darrell Louder

Today's interview is a preview to tomorrow's Kickstarter Weekly. We're chatting with Darrell Louder, the designer of Dice Hate Me's Compounded, which is chugging right along on Kickstarter. Hey Darrell! Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to sit down and give us the answers that inquiring minds want to know!

First let’s start off by having you tell us a little bit about yourself. My name is Darrell Louder (yes, last name is my birth name.) I’m a 33-year-old graphic & Web designer—I guess game designer now as well. Father to a handsome 2-year-old named Ethan, and husband to the greatest woman in the world, Lesley. I work for Game Salute as their Web site administrator and a member of their graphic design team. I also tend to do freelance design for a few people when the need arises.

Compounded is your first game design that's getting published; is this your first ever attempt at a game design, or have you been beating down doors trying to get published for a while? Compounded is my first game, period. I never had the desire to make a game before, as I was totally content playing the games that my friends would bring over. Compounded only came about because my friend John Moller started a ‘revolution’ called the Unpublished Game Festival, now known as Unpub (http://www.unpub.net), in 2011. Four days prior to the event, I was concerned he wasn’t going to have enough game designers in attendance, so I made Compounded. It was received pretty decently, and I was urged to continue working on it—so I did. I kept working on it that year, bringing it out every now and then to playtest, but that was it. It never left my hands or our play group.

So...a game about science; how did you land on that? Are you a science geek, or did it just sound like an interesting premise for a game? Well, this is a funny story. Initially Compounded was going to be about mad-scientist alchemy. Same mechanics, but instead of Hydrogen, Oxygen, and the lot, it was rat tails, snakes, etc. Before I built it out though, my wife questioned it. She pretty much said to be original, and that the alchemist track would be "white noise." She is an AP English teacher at the local high school here, so she immediately recommended using real compounds and elements. That was it. It was one of those EUREKA moments! My grandfather was a zoologist, so I was raised knowing about science and nature. So there was no questioning it; I had enough info from my childhood and schooling to get started on it. Add in a bit of research and BAM! It was just a perfect marriage of ideas and my childhood.

How long have you been playing games like this? And what made you want to design one of your own? I had been playing a little game known as Magic: The Gathering for about 15+ years. So I shunned all other games, as I was one of the ignorant Magic players that thought all other games were cheap and stupid. Turns out, I was the cheap and stupid one. I gave in one day and tried Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings, and I was hooked. Then came Catan, Carcassonne, and the usual lot. I still stuck with Magic, but my eyes were opened to the entire hobby of gaming. As I said above, I only designed a game for Unpub. Before that, I had no desire to do it, as I thought all others have done well enough.

Tell us how you ended up with Dice Hate Me. Then in the fall of 2011, John took it down to North Carolina with him (at my request) to playtest it with Chris and Cherilyn of Dice Hate Me Games. Now, this wasn’t to pitch the game to them; this was just for feedback. I had made friends with Chris and Cherilyn over the course of a few months through Twitter. They have very similar game likes and dislikes that I do, so I thought their advice on gameplay would be helpful. I honestly wasn’t looking for publication—heck, the game was only 6 months old! So anywho, John came back with the game and suggestions from them. I did those changes and liked the improvement of the game. So I ran with that for 6 more months to Unpub2. Chris and Cherilyn came up for the event (this was the first time I met them in person), and within 30 minutes of meeting them they asked for the rights to publish Compounded. So, really, I got incredibly lucky. My path is incredibly rare, and I am incredibly thankful for them for making my first design so easy!

Who is your favorite scientist—living, dead, real or imaginary... Wow, great question. Knee-jerk I have to say my Grandfather (Darrell Louder Sr.) but you probably mean famous, so I have to go with Michael Faraday. He's known as the grandfather of science, and is credited for giving so much to the field.

Give us your top 3 games and why you like them so much. Wow, this is a tough one. What do I base the three off of, games with lots of players, games with small players, different mechanics, there are many directions on this. Hmm... I’ll side with games that I get the most excited for when they are on the table. In no particular order:

• Alien Frontiers
• Stone Age
• Road to Canterbury

What are some of the benefits gaming provides us? What are some of the downsides? Brain food. Gaming is problem solving and strategy practice. My wife is trying to bring gaming into the classrooms because of this very reason. Sure to dive into our level of gaming is like jumping into the deep end of a pool with only the doggy-paddle to survive on. But once you get a few down you can swim laps. So I think (and I would love to see a study on this) that gaming actually increases your brain power, social awareness, and makes you look better. Okay...maybe not the last one, but one can dream. :) The downside, beside the dreaded gamer-stink (seriously, SHOWER when at conventions) I would say distractions. I get distracted a lot wanting to play a game or work on a design. So I have to fight that urge to get my job done first.

Yes, friends don't let friends leave the house with gamer-stink... Wanna give us a spoiler on the third stretch goal for Compounded? What can I say. Let me say this: Chris and Cherilyn (of Dice Hate Me Games) care first and foremost about the quality of the games they put out. So the first thing you’ll notice with this KickStarter campaign is that there are no "KickStarter Exclusives," and there are no bags, mouse pads, coats, cars—everything goes 100% toward the game and making the game components the absolute best they can be. The third stretch goal will continue that trend, and will be great. Out of all the goals, I can honestly say the third one is the one I am most excited for, and the one I really want to see become a reality.

Ok, here’s the One-Word Answer section: Answer the next 5 questions with only 1 word or phrase.

Favorite Muppet? Grover

Last Vacation destination? Outer Banks - Kitty Hawk, NC

If you could own a REAL ship from Star Wars, which one would it be? A-Wing

Yes or no, have you ever gone around banging two empty halves of coconuts together? Yes, very much so. I ain’t ashamed of it either.

Apollo or Starbuck? Neither. Not a Battlestar fan, sorry.

Darrell thanks so much for taking time to tell us about Compounded!

You can find Darrell on Twitter at @GetLouder, and you can check out Compounded on Dice Hate Me's site right here and the Geek right here. And come back tomorrow for more about the Compounded Kickstarter Campaign!

And don't forget to like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter! Thanks again for reading!

An Exclusive Interview with Scott Firestone IV!

Hey Scott, thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to answer a few questions for us today. So let’s start out, and have you just tell us about yourself.

Well, I’ve been married to an amazing woman for more than 15 years now. We have two young sons, ages 8 and nearly 5, who are crazy and wonderful and more fun than I can describe. I work as a magazine editor for Group Publishing in Colorado. I’ve lived in Colorado all of my life, and can’t really see living anywhere else. Maybe Hawaii, but I’m not sure how I’d eat... I love to read and play video games in my spare time. And I volunteer with the youth ministry at our church. There’s not much else to tell. I’m pretty stinking boring, really. :)

When did you first come to the realization that you are a gamer? And how did you arrive at that conclusion?

I always loved games. Growing up there was another family that we’d get together with every other week or so and the adults would play Aggravation and Pepper (a midwest variant of Euchre) while the kids goofed around. I was always more interested in watching the adults play than hanging with the other kids. I’d ask them to explain Pepper to me, and then they’d start talking about the right and left bower and my eyes would glaze over and I’d wander off... Other than that it was just my sister and me, and we usually just got on each other’s nerves. So rather than play board games, I moved on to video games.

What game was your “gateway” game?

I have two. I was in a game store one day, and looking over all these board games I’d never heard of. The owner was trying to explain Carcassonne to me—which he had out on display. Then he invited me to their monthly game night. I decided to come and we played High Society (a short little filler from Reiner Knizia), and I remember thinking, That was pretty cool; it fit some real fun into 20 minutes. Then we played Goa, and the heavens parted and I heard the Hallelujah Chorus. (That’s hyperbole, but my mind was BLOWN.) I’ve never looked back...

In what way has gaming affected your marriage? Does your wife game with you? I have a weekly game night, and then we try to get together one Saturday a month for an all-day thing. My wife is gracious about these times away, but I have to make sure I’m meeting needs on the homefront end of things. My personality is “Fun first!” so I need to push against that sometimes and ditch the gaming for important stuff. As far as my wife gaming? In general, no. She’s certainly played with me, and she usually plays something with the Boys and me on Monday evenings, but she’s not really into them. For me, games are a relaxer—something to break the stress. For her, games are stressful—learning a bunch of new rules, and keeping them straight, and wanting to make the right moves. She has enough stress in her life, so I don’t often ask her to play games with me anymore... :)

It seems that your boys are following in your footsteps down the road to being gamers themselves, how does your wife feel about that? She’s great with it; she loves that the boys have something to share with Daddy. As I said, she’s not much of a gamer, so I can tell some of the games start to really drag on for her. But she knows the boys love it, so she plays. Plus, it keeps their minds active, helps them think logically, practice some arithmetic...

How early in life did you get them (your boys) into gaming, and what game did you introduce to them first? I think I started with my oldest when he was 3 or so. I bought a HABA game called Knuckling Knights that wasn’t all that good, but it had a cool punchboard dice tower that you’d assemble. We played that a lot. With my youngest it was a Go Diego Go game where you blindly drew tokens out of a bag and hoped it fit on your “bingo” board in front of you before your opponents filled theirs. It was awful, but he LOVED it. Now we have a Family Game Night every Monday, so we’re playing more and more games.

What did you think about last week’s interview; that Jeremiah guy seems pretty awesome don’t ya think? I’m so glad God brought us together. Having a friend who loves ministry to teenagers and loves board games is awesome. The fact that I actually LIKE him is just icing on the cake.

How does gaming fit into your spiritual life? That’s an interesting question. I’m coming to see how much our health is tied to our spiritual formation. But not just physical health; we must love our God with all our minds, too, and I really think that board games help keep my mind sharp and firing.

In your opinion, board games in Heaven? Yes? No? Why?

Yes. Probably not Munchkin, though...

What were some of your favorite games to come out in 2012?

Android: Netrunner Gauntlet Of Fools The Resistance: Avalon Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game Kaispeicher King of Tokyo

As we forge ahead into 2013, what are some milestones you see ahead, both in the gaming world and in your life?

Well, I’m intrigued by the explosive growth of iOS games. It’s great that we can play these games when we’re not right there with our friends, or have some downtime. But I really don’t like how it’s a move toward isolating people again. Board games are social, and slowly brought people out of their video game caves to interact with other humans. Putting board games on iPads might be a small step toward pushing them back to the caves. Or maybe I’m overreacting... :) I do know that as good as the iPad implementations are, I still rarely play them. It’s just not as satisfying to me. As far as my life? Well we just passed a milestone of finally moving to a city that’s much closer to work and where the kids have been going to school already. It has completely changed our family’s lives, and now we’re just kind of basking in that. More time for board games!

If all the games in the world were going to be tossed into a fiery furnace, except for the 5 you choose to save, which 5 would you choose, and why? Well number one is The Princes of Florence. If you have 5 players, there’s no other gaming experience like it. There are auctions and actions and messing with people and...it’s just a perfect game. Two would be Goa. It still holds a soft spot because I played it that first night, but it’s also a really great game that’s full of interesting decisions. I find myself agonizing over which decision to make, and then kicking myself for making it. That may not sound fun, but it really is. Then we have Crokinole. I’ve played this game a ton, and it never gets old. Next is Age of Steam. This is a Martin Wallace design that is so wonderfully tight and brutal. Every little decision is important, and can wreck you or help you. Plus there are a crazy number of expansion maps, and each one adds a unique twist. Finally I’d have to say Amun-Re. It’s another auction game (hmmm...4 of my 5 have auctions in them; I didn’t know I liked auctions so much...), and you’re buying pieces of land on the Nile and building pyramids. Really interesting game.

One Word Questions:

Favorite Stooge? Larry.

Favorite Star Wars episode? IV (It's not the best [that would be V], but it was so hugely influential on my life)

Favorite musical artist or group? Sunny Day Real Estate

Favorite Crossfit exercise? The last one...

Favorite Star Wars alien species?

Wookies

Thanks for taking some time and answering our grilling questions!

And thank you our readers for coming back time and time again! Don't forget to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and tell all of your friends about us!

We Interview Jeremiah Isley!

Jeremiah is one half of the team here at Theology Of Games, and since Reiner Knizia won't return our emails, we thought it would be fun to interview each other! (We haven't actually tried to contact Reiner. I'm sure he's a nice guy who replies to every email he receives. Seriously, Reiner...email us.) Thanks for agreeing to answer some questions, Jeremiah. So tell us a little about yourself.

Sure thing! My interests in life are about as varied and polarizing at times as you could think of. I love live theatre, and professional dance; I studied dance for over 13 years and still appear as a guest artist annually in the Nutcracker for a local professional company. I also worked for many years as a stagehand both in the local stagehand’s union, and as a freelancer. I’m also a trained audio engineer and have mixed for a few pretty big names over the years. I’m a huge football fan, and a glutton for the punishment of being a Cleveland sports fan. I've been married very happily for over 10 years, and have two sons, ages 4 and 6, who are the craziest, most awesome, and caring boys ever! We enjoy the outdoors, and like to canoe, hike, raft, and camp whenever the opportunity presents itself. We love to geocache too—nothing like using billion-dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods! I also play guitar, drums, bass, and a smidgen of keys. My current day job is in the AV department at a satellite campus for a local state university, and for the last three years I was the youth director at my church until I recently stepped down. Oh, and I co-write this blog.

How did you first get mixed up in these type of board games?

My path to board gaming really came through the collectible card game craze of the nineties, when everything was turned into a collectible card game. My brother and I played Marvel Overpower (which in hindsight is a terrible game!) and then we got into Middle Earth (which is an awesome game!). I loved the depth of strategy it took to do well at games like that. Middle Earth was also a great multiplayer game so we could have a few friends over, put the animated version of LotR on TV and play all night. (No, we weren’t the cool kids in town.) I then went through a long period of time of playing only video games, specifically Socom Navy Seals (shout out to my old clan SV!). I enjoyed video games, but the draw of Socom for me was the social side of being in a clan and working together as a team; it was more of a social activity than a gaming habit. I think that’s what I really enjoy about board games: The games themselves are great fun and all, but sitting down and having face-to-face interaction with good folks is better than any game I’ve played. For me the world of board games, like so many others, came through Catan; once that gateway opened up, all bets were off... I pretty much exclusively play board and card games now; the ps3 is basically a Netflix machine.

How has your faith affected you as a gamer?

I'd say pretty heavily. A lot of times it gets easy as a Christian to try and make your faith or your beliefs fit the mold of your interests, or political or social practices, when we should really be holding those things we enjoy up to the light of scripture and see them for what they are. The gaming world is full of thematic elements that dabble in the fantastic or supernatural—that's part of its allure. It's for this reason I tread lightly when checking out games, and especially before buying them. Many times a game is pretty benign, but other times I'll have to pass on a particular title. I try not to get hung up on those titles I won't play. There are literally hundreds of great games being published each year, so there are plenty of games to choose from that don't give me pause.

You have two boys. What are some of your favorite games to play with them?

Well, we got them Loopin' Louie for Christmas, or "Woopy Wooin" as my 4-year-old calls it, and they haven't stopped playing it. They also really enjoy Forbidden Island a lot! My oldest is six and has a pretty good handle on playing Carcassonne and Castle Panic, too.

Does your wife enjoy board games?

Yes, she gets incredibly frustrated when I teach them to her, but once we get through that she usually enjoys playing them. However, she does have her limits; she told our sons the other day that she doesn't play "Star Wars games," but she enjoys Carcassonne, Kingdom Builder, The Resistance, and a good deal more. As long as it doesn’t have a terribly nerdy theme, or a billion rules, she’s a gamer. She won’t sit and play an LCG, but Catan, yes.

Is it true you shaved your head so you’d look more like me?

There's not a shred of truth to that rumor. Although I did convince my sons that it would be cool because I would look like the Silver Surfer. My poor wife had gone to the grocery store one evening and left us home alone; when she returned I was completely clean shaven. I’m enjoying the new look, although the first winter has been a little rough.

Yeah...hair—even if there's not much there, insulates your head more than you think...

What are your Top 5 games…and tell us a about why you like them so much.

This is in no particular order, because I don’t think I could actually pick a favorite.

1. Lord of the Rings the Card Game—When I picked this up, I thought, “I don’t know about this whole co-op thing...” But one play through it and I was hooked! We played through the whole first cycle of expansions and are part way through the Khazad-Dum quests. It’s great, really deep game play, scales great for 1-4 players, and has a continuous story line. It’s almost like playing a role playing game without having to put in all the work to set it up. The down side to this game is the money to keep up with the quest packs, and they don’t feel that replayable after you’ve defeated a quest.
2. The Resistance—I love this game because it is everything that LOTR is not. Really simple game mechanics and tons of backstabbing and chicanery! I’ve never played this game and not had people ask me to play it again—and ask where they can get their own copy. I love that you can play up to 10 people at once, although it’s hard to find 10 people that play it well all at the same time. I’m REALLY hoping they retheme the plot cards for Avalon because using the original ones really kills the mood.
3. Carcassonne—Although recently this game is getting a little overplayed for me right now. I still love the game, and it took about 784 game plays to feel overplayed. There’s a solid base of expansions to keep it fresh, mix it up, and throw you for a loop. It’s a very good game to act as a next step for my friends who are ready to move on from Catan, and it plays up to 6 very well.
4. Pirates of the Spanish Main—I know, this is kind of an oddball title, and no they don’t still make the game. But building those little pirate ship and sailing them around the dinner table looking for treasure is just a lot of fun. I have a HUGE fleet of literally thousands of ships. My gaming friends and I haven’t played in a while (which is very unfortunate), but it’s a really fun game with very high replayability!
5. Fluxx—It’s an old standby with lots of different versions that add to the craziness of it. I’m probably most partial to Zombie Fluxx. We’ve had a lot of good times and good laughs over this game, as well as some frustrating defeats. Just a good time all around.

What are some games you’re looking forward to playing in 2013?

One of the titles I’m really looking forward to is Boss Monster; it kind of crept under our radar last year, as we didn’t find out about it until their Kickstarter was almost finished, but playing the bad guy is always fun. I’m also really looking forward to the multiplayer expansion for the new Star Wars The Card Game. I like the game as it is, but I think it will really come into its own when it supports 2-3 light side players teaming up against a very powerful dark side player. I’m also REALLY hoping that Wizkids gets the Lord of the Rings dice building game to market soon! Quarriors just barely slipped out of my top 5, and I’m of course a fanboy when it comes to Tolkien. And my boys will be very excited to hear that Forbidden Desert is on its way! One-Word Answers:

Favorite Doctor? Tom Baker

Grail game you’d like to find a copy of? My old 1st edition of Fluxx.

Favorite superhero? Spider-Man

Favorite major Star Wars character? Han Solo

Favorite minor Star Wars character? Dengar, the fiercest of the bounty hunters!!

On a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being how you feel while watching Bambi, and 10 being blind, seething, murderous rage), how did you feel toward George Lucas immediately after watching The Phantom Menace for the 1st time? The 1st time? 4.5 (I was blinded by the shiny new toy.)

Favorite LEGO line? Star Wars

Last good book you read? Shrewd by Rick Lawrence

Thanks, Jeremiah! No no, thank you.

We hope you enjoyed this. Stay tuned for Jeremiah's questions for me! (Unless Reiner emails us back. We'd totally bump that for you, Reiner...)

Who's the Boss Monster? An interview with Brotherwise Games

Today we have the pleasure of chatting with Johnny and Chris, the masterminds behind Brotherwise Games, and the ridiculously successful Kickstarter campaign for their upcoming game, Boss Monster the Dungeon Building card game.

Hey guys, thanks for taking a few minutes to answer some questions for us! For our readers who may not know who you are, could you introduce yourselves and tell us one random fact about yourselves?

Johnny: We are Johnny and Chris O’Neal, two brothers who share a lifelong love of all things geeky. Comics, novels, movies, video games... but especially tabletop games. A random fact about me is that I used to write for a video game review Web site called Nintendorks.

Chris: As the elder brother I like to take the credit for the nerdification of my younger sibling (although I can’t take all the credit). For years after I went to college we lived in separate states, but a common move to Southern California in 2009 put us within an hour of each other, and reinvigorated our common love of gaming.

How did you first get into gaming? What game was your first love?

Johnny: Growing up, of course I assumed that everything my big brother did was cool, which included playing D&D with his friends or video games on our family’s TI-994A. But it was our family’s acquisition of a NES and the original Super Mario Bros that really got me hooked.

Chris: Being almost a decade older, I was already playing a lot of tabletop games (Morrow Project, anyone?) when the first home video game systems came out. Video games derailed my investment in tabletop games for a while, but after college I got back into them pretty heavily. First love game? Probably D&D. I was one of those kids who would sit around and make character after character that would never see the daylight of an actual adventure. I loved it.

Is Boss Monster your first attempt at releasing a game through Kickstarter? If so how shocked are you at the number of backers the game has received?

Chris: Boss Monster is our first Kickstarter. Despite feeling like we had a solid game, a good look and theme, and a decent understanding of how to appeal to our gamer compatriots, I think it’s safe to say that we were pretty overwhelmed by Boss Monster’s success. I think it’s natural to keep your hopes and dreams a bit in check when you do this sort of thing. On launch day I called Johnny at six in the morning and said calmly, “don’t freak out if we don’t hit $1000 this week. We’ve got a month to raise $12,000. Chances are good we can pull this off.” Two hours later I was gibbering into the phone like an overexcited idiot as we passed through $3000. Even once it was clear that the campaign would be successful, we were still underestimating the final amount by a huge amount. Kickstarter is a strange and wondrous beast. Despite what could only be called a huge success, we made a truck-full of mistakes, and learned a number of lessons that we’ll take into our next campaign.

So if you would, take us through the creation and design process of the game. It seems to cross multiple genres; how did you put all of that together?

Johnny: It was a highly iterative process. In the very beginning, weirdly enough, it was a game about acquiring friends in high school instead of acquiring dead adventurers in a dungeon. When we stopped worrying about what game would be “marketable” and “mainstream,” and focused on making a game that we’d love to play, that’s when it came together.

Looks like Pixel Lincoln is making an appearance in Boss Monster; did you approach Jason Tagmire about putting that together, or did he come to you?

Johnny: As our Kickstarter campaign went live, we sent preview copies of the game to a number of Web sites. To our surprise, one of these copies was actually passed on to Jason. I’ll admit we were anxious to hear his opinion of the game, and thrilled when we heard he liked it. The crossover cards were his idea, but we embraced the idea wholeheartedly. Pixel Lincoln appears as a promo card for Kickstarter supporters, and it’s a card that can really shake up the game.

So what is it like designing games with a sibling? Who usually wins the arguments?

Chris: Every game that Brotherwise has in the pipeline has one of the brothers designated as a Lead Designer. The Lead Designer, in theory, wins every argument for that particular game, and we think it’s important to have one person who is ultimately in charge and on the hook for a game’s success. In reality, we’re very good at listening to one another, and relatively unabashed about criticizing work in progress. In almost every situation where we had a disagreement about a key decision, the resulting discussion led us to a good outcome.

Johnny: I have to say that Chris is awesome at keeping things positive and never letting discussions turn into arguments. My natural instinct in a game design debate is to stick to my guns and rarely concede a point right away, but often I’ll sleep on a decision and realize that Chris was right. From pointing out that we should use pixel art to removing dice-rolling as a core mechanic of the game, he managed to change my mind in some very important ways.

What are some of your favorite board/card games?

Chris: I am first and foremost a Heroclix player. I gravitate to complex games and they don’t get much more complex than that one. I’m also a wargamer, with World in Flames as my hands-down favorite. I’ve been playing a lot of Small World recently, and I just marvel at it. It’s my standard for what a quickie game should be: balanced, simple, thematically compelling, and a lot of variation in a small package.

Johnny: My favorite recent game is Ascension. I know some of the team at Gary Games and they’re a bunch of geniuses -- I can’t wait to play SolForge. I also love the classics: Magic, D&D, and Settlers of Catan.

Are there any other games on the horizon you can talk about?

Chris: The success of Boss Monster: Master of the Dungeon allowed us to move forward our production time table for expansions considerably.  Summer 2013 will see our first Boss Monster mini-expansion, Tools of Hero-Kind, and in Fall we will launch a Kickstarter for our first full expansion, Crash Landing. Tools of Hero-Kind will add a whole layer of complexity to the game, turning our heroes from mere resources into honest threats. Crash Landing will riff on some famous fantasy/sci-fi crossovers and introduce sci-fi themed dungeons to the game. Crash Landing will work as a standalone game or as an expansion of the base game. If you missed out on some of our customize-your-card pledges this time around, we’ll repeat those sorts of pledges for the Crash Landing Kickstarter campaign.

2014 will see the release of our first non-Boss Monster title. We can’t say much about it now except that it’s a totally different genre and will introduce a novel card-play mechanic that comes right out of its theme.

One Word Response Time:

Favorite NES game?

Johnny: River City Ransom

Chris: The Legend of Zelda

Best villain of ALL TIME?

Johnny: When you put it that way, Darth Vader

Chris: Kaiser Söze

Megatron or Starscream?

Chris: Megatron (Starscream is soooo whiny)

Johnny: As a younger brother, I relate to Starscream’s constant efforts to overthrow his superior.

He-Man or Thundercats?

Chris: Thundercats HOOOOOO!

Johnny: He-Man. But I’m biased because I had the chance to work on He-Man toys when I was at Mattel.

Legolas or Gimli?

Chris: Gimli, son of Gloin, son of that other dwarf.

Johnny: Legolas and his flowing mane of golden locks.

Thanks, guys, for talking to us!

Make sure you check out Boss Monster, at www.bwisegames.com, pre-order your copy at shop.bwisegames.com and follow Boss Monster on Twitter @BossMonsterGame ! And thank you for reading!