34: Richard Garfield

Richard Garfield is a game designer and mathematics professor known for creating the immensely popular card game Magic: The Gathering.

In our conversation, we delve into topics such as game design, discovering fun where we don't initially feel it, playtesting, auto battlers, and much more! Additionally, we explore some of his other games, including Keyforge, Treasure Hunter, The Hunger, and, of course, Magic.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:00
Speaker 1
Every area of life that interests you can inform your game design in the same way that there's no topic that's wasted for an author. If the author is interested in history, that's going to help the writing. If it they're interested in linguistics, that's going to help the writing. If they're interested in math, that's going to help the writing and all that is true for games as well.

00:00:33:02 - 00:00:38:14
Speaker 2
Did you get into games with your earliest memory you have with a game?

00:00:38:16 - 00:01:21:17
Speaker 1
Well, my earliest memories are probably not that illustrative. I remember I think my old the oldest one I remember is Uncle Wiggly, which is not a particularly great game, but I, I dabbled in games throughout throughout my elementary school and my elementary school years. But it wasn't until I found Dungeons and Dragons in I guess it was 77 that that I really embraced games as as a hobby.

00:01:24:05 - 00:01:37:15
Speaker 2
And at that time, what were you doing outside of games? And what are those first D&D sessions look like?

00:01:37:17 - 00:02:08:01
Speaker 1
Well, when I first found Dungeons and Dragons, it wasn't readily available. And so I was excited enough by the idea that I designed my own version and in Dungeons and Dragons is so orthogonal to any games that I was familiar with that that that my game was nothing like Dungeons Dragons. It was more just like a regular board game.

00:02:08:03 - 00:02:54:11
Speaker 1
And so so when when I finally did get it, I, I played with friends. I ran the games all the time. And the reason there are a couple of reasons why Dungeons Dragons was so formative, not only was it because it blew my mind as to what was possible with games, but also because when you play, whether you're the player or the person running the game, you were put into a position where you're doing game design and you're and you have a certain responsibility for your game fun.

00:02:54:13 - 00:03:23:10
Speaker 1
You don't put that all onto the on the, the the, the, the game designers you you take responsibility for you're tinkering with the system. Your you really are making a lot of the fun. And so those two things really helped with my game career of both because it just inspired me to search wide and far and wide for four for games.

00:03:23:10 - 00:03:39:23
Speaker 1
That would the that would teach me more about games and and also because it trained me to to take responsibility for my gameplay experiences.

00:03:40:01 - 00:03:51:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. And what was what do you consider that your first prototype or that first attempt at game design version of dragons were.

00:03:51:16 - 00:04:23:14
Speaker 1
I think it was. I think I mean, I designed a games before that that were all sort of outdoor games, weird tag type games and things like that. But that was my first, the first board game that I remember designing. And over the next few years, I design lots of board games and and continued to design them going forward.

00:04:23:16 - 00:04:53:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Do did you form some kind of practice when it comes to game design? Like, I've, I've read about like the writer Neil Gaiman. You know, he'd, he'd every day he'd sit down specifically to write or Jerry Seinfeld or like lots of people you have some form of like daily practice when it comes to game design or is it more sporadic?

00:04:54:00 - 00:05:29:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, there's no. Excuse me. That's right. I yeah, I have no. no. Routine war. Yeah. Nothing. Nothing that I force myself to do as far as game design goes. Throughout my career, I have been driven by what interests me in games. And so there's been no shortage of ideas. Like I will fill my hours with game design and with also gameplay, which I view both as very important of.

00:05:29:18 - 00:05:55:19
Speaker 1
I learned when I was at Wizards that when I was not playing games that my design wasn't wasn't as good. And on the other hand, when I play play a lot of games, my I'm overflowing with ideas. And so and so that's certainly part of my engine is playing games.

00:05:55:21 - 00:06:09:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. So you think it's important for new designers to play a lot of games, or do you think that there's a good ratio for you? Like.

00:06:10:01 - 00:06:58:13
Speaker 1
Well, I mean, I hesitate to prescribe for new designers because everybody's different. And I've met many designers who have different approaches. But I'll say what's worked for me, which is that is that there's no limit to how much I will play, but there's a special value to playing games outside your comfort zone and playing games which you don't immediately like, and learning what makes those games popular for the audience.

00:06:58:15 - 00:07:28:13
Speaker 1
And and, and that that practice has been really useful for me because it's helped me identify of lots of parts of games which which which I can incorporate into my own design. And it's also made me a more given me a more satisfying gameplay life because when I learn what the audience likes about the game, oftentimes I learn to like that too.

00:07:28:14 - 00:08:04:23
Speaker 1
And your life is just better when you like lots of things. So. So that's my practice. And you know, that goes that that's a that's informed a lot of my design. For example, I've, I've gone in college, I hadn't played too much, too much chess. And so I set up a chess ladder and sort of made myself learn, learn to play it and learn to like it.

00:08:05:01 - 00:08:55:02
Speaker 1
And then and then lots of different card games I did that with. I did that with war games. I've done it with, you know, things which you might not expect like Monopoly, where everybody has fun putting down Monopoly. But, but it's it's very easy to write it off as being bad design. But you, you my philosophy has been that you should really first you know that there are things there that appeal to people find what those are and and and so I've done that exercise and yeah one of one of my games of half truths was directly from this philosophy It's half truth is a trivia game.

00:08:55:04 - 00:09:31:10
Speaker 1
And I read this book on trivia by Ken Jennings. You know and and I was he just really got me to understand what his love of trivia was. And I realized that I hadn't actually learned to love trivia. And I could see everything he was talking about and how how I'd always viewed trivia as being this very niche thing which rewarded specialization.

00:09:31:12 - 00:10:00:09
Speaker 1
And he explained it as being something which was very at its roots, a very broad and egalitarian game, which is what I really love in games, because you never know who's going to know what answer. And and so half truth came from my reading this book, realizing that it was a form of game which I didn't love yet or didn't know I loved yet and then trying to design a game which really brought out what what he was talking about.

00:10:00:11 - 00:10:30:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's an awesome, awesome way to work. I never thought about trying that. I do try a lot of different games that, you know, I haven't tried, but I'm kind of learning about why something that you haven't really found fun is fun. Is is really cool. Do you work with any restrictions in game design or is that one of your restrictions?

00:10:30:22 - 00:11:19:23
Speaker 1
I don't work. There's a few ways to answer that. I for the most part, I don't work with restrictions. I'm I'm guided by what interests me. And that often leads me to design things which I don't see. So I'm very I'm if if there's a lot of deck builders out there, for example, I'm not likely to build a deck builder like the ones that are out there, even though I could probably sit down and, you know, it's fun to take a game like this that's brilliant, like Ascension and say, okay, I'm going to design Ascension, but my way.

00:11:20:01 - 00:11:48:17
Speaker 1
And I'm sure that whatever I would do, you know, as I wouldn't say that would be better than Ascension, but it would be as good in its own way. That doesn't interest me as much as sort of seeing things which don't really exist and then trying to provide that. And and so I look for holes and look for it in in my game, in my game closet.

00:11:48:17 - 00:12:23:04
Speaker 1
And I look for, you know, things that things that interest me, which can come from anywhere because, you know, games games is such a wonderful I never know what to call it, art media pastime. There's there's no word which really encompasses it. But but it's, you know, it's it's infused with you. It's true. It's everywhere throughout life and throughout my life in particular.

00:12:23:06 - 00:12:28:23
Speaker 1
And and so and so it's it's just a joy to explore different avenues.

00:12:31:01 - 00:12:49:07
Speaker 2
What what separates a good game from a great game for you? Or what are some games that you you really admire or enjoy or love?

00:12:49:09 - 00:13:32:16
Speaker 1
I have. The thing I respond to most in games is is whether they can be played indefinitely. Games are. I used to back in the in the eighties I used to think that there was an analog between games and and movies or games and books and I would sort of look down on people who played a few games because that was analogous to, you know, not seeing many movies or not reading many books.

00:13:32:16 - 00:14:10:04
Speaker 1
And and I knew so many people who just played no games or played just a couple of games. And it wasn't until the nineties that that I began to reevaluate that and realize that that that the strong the the most exciting thing about games for me was that how often they became better the more you played them. And and so and so once I once I recognized that as being something that I really loved in games and that was very broadly within games, I rearranged that.

00:14:10:04 - 00:14:32:22
Speaker 1
I realized that that, that, you know, people who spend a lifetime playing a game that's kind of natural, you know, there there there may be a lot of stuff out there which they haven't explored and that they would enjoy. But it's hard to compete with the with the the value that a game can give you when you really go deep.

00:14:33:00 - 00:14:52:20
Speaker 1
And so so that's always been, you know, one of the things which I love most in games is that they are that they just keep getting better. No, I do like disposable games as well, and I like game experiences which are like, I see what's going on in that and you're done with them or It's not as good.

00:14:53:02 - 00:15:25:01
Speaker 1
So I don't I don't mean to dismiss those because those can all have their special value escape the room type games are, for example, they're and they're fine. But that is my you know is like my my go to for what I really love and games. And for that reason I think that the games are more analogous to music than to books or movies, because music can can do the same thing where just over your lifetime it can mean different things and the more the better you know it, the more it can give you.

00:15:25:03 - 00:15:53:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, you can. You can keep going back to it and yeah, what's more, what do you think makes that replayability or I know some games certainly where you know after you play them you immediately want to play again or I mean you want to go back to them other games while you're playing. Sometimes you have to force yourself to stay.

00:15:53:10 - 00:16:26:20
Speaker 2
It's for the other players that may be enjoying it. But what, what what are some ways is and all of the games that I've played of yours, I feel like they have that that first time play experience has always been good for me. But also the other games that you can keep going back to. So what do you think are things that you can add as a designer to games to make them more Replayable And.

00:16:26:22 - 00:17:17:20
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, there's well, certainly one technique which I lean on a lot is, is tweaking the game system within, within the game parameters. So what I mean there is you, you come up with, you've got a, a game and then you introduce slots with cards or special powers and ideally, you know, you don't play with all of them every game, you play with some subset and that that gives you a very rich landscape of games to explore of a But that's certainly not the only way to go back to classic games like chess and go and card games like, like, like bridge or even even Hearts or something like that.

00:17:17:22 - 00:17:43:07
Speaker 1
These games also have that quality that they get better over time the more you know them and they don't rely on this, this sort of technique. So it's a technique which you can use but is not. It's sufficient, but it isn't. It isn't necessary. And it's easy to understand why that technique works, to bring out a lot of variety.

00:17:43:09 - 00:18:11:10
Speaker 1
But but will your game have that without that technique? That's that's harder to determine on occasion. You have to do that on a case by case basis, or at least, I don't know, in a unifying way to determine that. I think I had something else to say about drawing a blank, so maybe I'll return to it if I remember.

00:18:11:16 - 00:18:22:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. Sure. How do you how do you go about testing your games? What does that look like?

00:18:22:04 - 00:19:02:12
Speaker 1
My my early play tests tend to be so low, and I find that that often times I will make a prototype. And even by the time I finished making the prototype, I know the changes I need to make. But then I sit down and I start playing with it and I realize it's lacking or that, you know, they're just things that need to be rearranged with the design or the, you know, my approach and I make lots of prototypes.

00:19:02:13 - 00:19:58:06
Speaker 1
And then after that, usually I try to get players in and in, in my play sessions after that, I've got a lot of friends who love testing games and they're very patient with my designs. And and usually my first few play tests will be one play test and then I'll redesign the game maybe to a after that, after it's sort of in the ballpark of what I want then and then I'll all play test a lot and, and I'll send it to other people to play test and I'll ideally get people to play test it, you know, from the rules without me as sort of guiding them because there's it's often a problem when a

00:19:58:06 - 00:20:19:18
Speaker 1
designer sort of tells you how how you're supposed to play for the first play test where you're just getting it, where you know how you want it to be played. And you tell people that that's fine. But once once you've got the final game, you've got to make sure that that that the people will figure out how to play from what they're given.

00:20:19:20 - 00:20:52:18
Speaker 1
And then my most important skill, the most important piece of advice, I guess, for dealing with play testers, though, is that is that everything they say almost always is correct. The thing is that as a designer and a developer, you have to learn what it is they're trying to say, and that's often not not what they're not what they're saying.

00:20:52:20 - 00:21:17:13
Speaker 1
So they're always they always have their finger on a problem, but they don't they often don't know what that problem is. And and so, for example, they may in a game say that a card is too powerful or that a card is too weak. And you know that with advanced play or proper play, that that card's not too weak or that card's not too powerful.

00:21:17:15 - 00:21:48:15
Speaker 1
But the thing is, they're getting that experience anyway. And and so there's something about your game that you can often address to make it so that they don't think that's like either. They see how to use it or that it's not that important to them. Like, like they don't care as much if a car if a strategy is bad, as long as they've got strategy is that they're drawn to that are good.

00:21:48:17 - 00:22:14:22
Speaker 1
And and so they may complain about a particular strategy not working that might not be what they might be saying is that is that they're having trouble finding a strategy that resonates with them, that satisfies them, whatever their psychographic is. And if you are able to introduce that, suddenly the fact that the original strategy didn't work isn't as important now anyway.

00:22:15:00 - 00:22:33:13
Speaker 1
There's an art to interpreting what people's feedback is. But, you know, always begin with the idea that they've got they're, you know, they're trying to say something. And even if it's demonstratively not true, they're still those still saying something which, which is important.

00:22:33:15 - 00:23:01:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. So you're trying to interpret what, what those players are saying and why it is they're feeling that way, even if it's not objectively true for the game. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's great. Part of what I do or one of my main things is I run a blind play testing company and we do blind tests for a lot of different publishers, a lot of first time designers as well.

00:23:01:01 - 00:23:32:10
Speaker 2
And that is like the one of the most important things I think is for designers to be able to kind of hear, hear feedback and decide what to do with that feedback. And it's you when you hear it, when you start hearing things the same things every time, you know, it's your job as the designer is to figure out what's what that means.

00:23:32:10 - 00:23:34:10
Speaker 2
So yeah.

00:23:34:12 - 00:24:14:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, if I could just add to that the one of the things which I regard as a mistake that, that, that often comes about in playtest, in designing and playtest and games is to try to balance the game for the top level of player. Yeah. And that's I think that's a fool's errand to begin with because if your game has the sort of depth which I look for in a game, you, you can't know what the top level player is.

00:24:14:08 - 00:24:37:22
Speaker 1
And so and so first of all, it's, it's, it's, it's something that's very difficult to shoot for. But second of all, if your games balance for the top level player, that's means of suboptimal for the average player or the beginning player. And so there's this balancing act you have to do to make it appealing to as broad a group as possible.

00:24:38:01 - 00:25:07:17
Speaker 1
At least, you know, if you're if that's what you plan, if you if you want your audience to be as broad as possible, that's something I want to do. Now, that's not for everybody. Some people want to make a a game actually for very hard core players. And that's, you know, that's its own thing. Yeah, but but there's an example that I came up with which, which is stayed with me and really illustrated that, which was for a game.

00:25:07:17 - 00:25:40:23
Speaker 1
I did a spectrum and saw a spectrum match as a, as a digital game and we gave away the priest class within it. It's a card game, effectively a card game. And in the other classes you purchased. And so there was this belief among the players that the priest class was the weakest and we expected that because that's what you would expect people to believe it's the weakest.

00:25:41:00 - 00:26:05:02
Speaker 1
But we didn't know who was true. We didn't intentionally choose it to be the weakest. We chose it because it is the class in the game that had the most flexibility and therefore showed the most different mechanics. So we ran, we ran some tests and we found that that for beginners it was pretty weak. It was 45% a two person game.

00:26:05:02 - 00:26:38:15
Speaker 1
So now it's about as big a swing as you got. But for advanced players it was 55% and intermediate it was about even. And the reason for that is easy to see because for advanced players, flexibility is intrinsically skill testing. And so and so of course, this is a better class for people to know what they're doing. On the other hand, there was a class to Necromancer, which everybody complained about beginners that was 55% advanced players, it was 45%.

00:26:38:17 - 00:27:03:05
Speaker 1
And that's because it had some very powerful cards. If you didn't know how to play again, play around it. But once you did, you could handle it. So there were like eight or ten classes and there were some that were really good for beginners, some that were good for intermediate and some that were good for advanced players. And I think that's about as good as you can shoot for.

00:27:03:07 - 00:27:15:06
Speaker 1
You don't want to have them all designed for advanced players or all beginning players. And so having it so that there is something for everybody to gravitate to really worked well for it.

00:27:15:07 - 00:27:52:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a mistake. Also, I find the it sounds to me like if if you're going for just experienced players also that sounds like it's not as elegant of a game because I think what what you, what you want to want for new players is that accessibility and those like easier to play things. You mentioned those statistics.

00:27:52:06 - 00:28:09:15
Speaker 2
Is that something that you balance around or do you think balance is more about feeling and feeling? What what is the correct balance?

00:28:09:17 - 00:28:40:17
Speaker 1
Certainly a I go more with feeling until until it's an established game. The only the only time I go with statistics are when you've got a really good source of statistics, like with the digital game, you've got all that data, then that can help you a lot in sort of assessing where the game is. But in in a game that is as big and as seriously played as magic, you've got lots of data.

00:28:40:17 - 00:29:16:04
Speaker 1
There are also and and so you can use that for your balancing but but when you're first making a game much more about a feeling of in part because you've got to make these calls about the balance for beginners intermediate advanced players and as you said, this balance and keeping beginners in mind for your game is more important these days than ever.

00:29:16:04 - 00:29:38:03
Speaker 1
Because, I mean, when I was growing up, there just weren't that many games. And, and and so when I got one, I, you know, it's like I had to learn to love it, right? Because I didn't have it, you know, So it would be hard for me to find another. Yeah. And these days that's not true. These days, you know, people will play half the game and then say, I'm done with this and go to another end.

00:29:38:09 - 00:30:12:13
Speaker 1
And it's in some some cases, in some ways that's a shame because there are there are a lot of games often behind the barrier of many plays. But for somebody who who who who wants to design these days, I think I think you it's going to be really hard to get people past those past those displays that are required if that's too many or they're too difficult.

00:30:12:15 - 00:30:36:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. That happens very often nowadays. I remember when I was when I was growing up, I heard we had access to noise fatigue and like two more games and you just play them again and again. And now it's, it's, there's so much out there that most games never get a second play.

00:30:36:22 - 00:31:11:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. So it's true it's a and you know it's something I always come back to is like I love playing new games and seeing what makes them tick and, and like as I said, learning what makes them popular among their audience, even if it doesn't immediately appeal to me. But I have to discipline myself to go back and play my favorites, because that's, you know, there is so much value in in really getting to know games and playing them throughout your life.

00:31:11:05 - 00:31:42:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. So there's so much talk now or there's so many new games with new unique twists. What are what are some of those twists that you've really liked that have made an impression on you? And what do you think is a way to find twists in games? So I'm talking about games. Like for me, maybe the crew is one of those games where it takes trick taking and makes it cooperative or or the mind.

00:31:42:10 - 00:32:08:17
Speaker 2
Another similar one where, you know, it's got it's got that time as that time element as something that really makes it stand out. What are some of your favorite twists and games or some some new things that you found in games and what do you think the future of might bring?

00:32:08:19 - 00:32:53:09
Speaker 1
Well, the thing that comes first to mind is, is not a board game but digital. The auto dealers these days are it's a very exciting game category for me and that's because it really feels like it really feels like it bridges paper games with digital in a way that hasn't been done before. And when I say bridges because it is just a digital game, what I mean is that when I play it, I feel like I'm playing a paper game, which is not.

00:32:53:11 - 00:33:15:21
Speaker 1
Very few games have given me that feeling before. Most of them feel like something the they feel like a simulation or something that that is more sport like than board game like. But but the sort of play that goes on with an auto battler in it, it's tickling the same parts of my brain that I get when I'm playing a really exciting board game.

00:33:15:23 - 00:33:42:08
Speaker 1
So I found those endlessly engaging and I know a lot of I've talked with a lot of designers, a lot of them are taking concepts from that and trying to get them into board games. And there you get a game like Challengers, which is a very derivative of a of, I should say, inspired from a auto battle or basis.

00:33:42:10 - 00:33:53:14
Speaker 1
And and so I'm really excited by that category, both as a digital thing and what it might do for for paper games as well.

00:33:53:16 - 00:33:59:09
Speaker 2
Good. Could you explain what an auto battler is for people that haven't heard the term?

00:33:59:11 - 00:34:27:13
Speaker 1
Sure. Which is very reasonable. If you hadn't heard of it in any particular way, what are your being driven by as paper games? There's no reason why you necessarily would have heard of it. An auto battler is a game of digital games in which you typically what you're doing is you're picking your army in some fashion and you're deploying it in some fashion.

00:34:27:13 - 00:34:49:08
Speaker 1
So that might be just like drafting cards in a in a game like Seven Wonders and deploying it might be just choosing what order they go in. But then once you've picked your cards for a round and you deploy them, then you battle against somebody else and your cards automatically fight. So you're not making decisions while it's going.

00:34:49:08 - 00:35:11:06
Speaker 1
You're just watching in a very fast. And the reason why. And then you go and you do another round, you you modify your army, you upgrade it, you deployment a different way and you, you, you repeat this until you have a winner. And the reason this feels like a paper game is because, as I say, you're you're effectively cards.

00:35:11:08 - 00:35:50:10
Speaker 1
The reason why it's so so good for digital is because of you can resolve these battles fast with the computer and and there's no busy work on your part. So one of the things when I've tried to adapt this myself to paper games, I keep I keep running into the feeling that that this is pretty good but it would be better on a computer and and so you don't want to make a game which would be better on a computer.

00:35:50:10 - 00:36:26:01
Speaker 1
You want to make a game which is its own thing. And so there's a lot of room. I think. And Challengers has done a better job than I did with my prototypes in that regard. Now, I have to say, for myself, I like challengers better on the computer also. And and is because even though they've done much better than I did as far as getting it to be sort of as good a paper experience as you can get, it's still a little too much busywork for me.

00:36:26:03 - 00:36:51:11
Speaker 1
So so I think there's some really interesting game opportunities there for paper game designers and for people who just like games broadly. There's a lot of opportunity for digital games which feel like they feel like war games. As I said, might they might tickle the same part of your brain that you get tickled when you play an excellent board game.

00:36:51:12 - 00:37:00:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. What are some games that you're most proud of designing and why?

00:37:00:20 - 00:37:35:23
Speaker 1
Well, it's hard not to lead with magic. There. Magic was a very exciting game design for me. I was. It was one of I was blown away with the possibilities that one could have if everybody had their own deck and and just really enjoyed exploring it and was very gratified for many years to this day, really, that that people have loved it so much.

00:37:36:01 - 00:38:19:04
Speaker 1
And it, you know, opened all the doors I could have opened As far as game design goes, that allowed me to explore what I want outside of magic. Key Forge more recently did some things from for me that the Magic did. I felt like I was exploring something in some ways as innovative and and so for those who don't know keyboards the the key idea there is that is that everybody has a unique deck which when you first hear that you think, that's like magic.

00:38:19:04 - 00:38:51:23
Speaker 1
And then but then when you understand what it really means, that it really means that everybody has a unique deck, not one that you choose, but one that one that every deck is different. They've got different card backs and different contents. Then then they then they usually realize, yeah, there really is something different going on there. And that was designed in particular to try to recapture some of the magic that was in magic when the cards became sort of this commodity.

00:38:52:01 - 00:39:37:15
Speaker 1
And I love where magic ended up and I was like, There's a lot of people who really love tournament magic, for example. But but I was always much more interested in sort of the limited environments that you get with drops and wood leagues and so forth. And in, in a way key for that was orders about playing with a small set of tools that you have to learn how to use as best you can rather than going through a big collection, trying to find the best tools and then, you know, half truth really is I mentioned it earlier.

00:39:37:15 - 00:40:15:23
Speaker 1
I'm I really am very happy with that design, with half truth. As I mentioned, I began with this idea of trying to make trivia as broad as possible. So to that end of the question and half truth as six answers is multiple choice, and there's three correct and three incorrect answers and you are of give. Given the biggest reward you give or given the lion's share of the points.

00:40:15:23 - 00:40:37:03
Speaker 1
If you can just get one of the answers correct, but you can press your luck and try to get more answers. But every extra answer you try to get, if you fail one of them, you get nothing. And if you succeed, you don't get exponentially more. You get just a little more. And that mitigates the advantage that somebody who has a lot of knowledge has.

00:40:37:03 - 00:41:09:07
Speaker 1
Because if they press their luck or happen to just know the answers they're only getting a little more and if they misstep, then then they lose lose it all. And so this turned out to really work as far as making it so that you're very rewarded for skill. And yet the very skillful players don't have as much of an edge as as they do in most trivia games in the question format.

00:41:09:09 - 00:41:33:13
Speaker 1
Just it just found like it's not like each one was a little game you play with players because if they can eliminate one, they've got a little bit of an advantage and in sometimes and so you can do things like like like one of them is you know which of these are droids from Star Wars and maybe you have no idea what the droids from Star Wars are.

00:41:33:15 - 00:41:55:07
Speaker 1
But but the negative answers are all rapper names that happened to have names that sounded a lot like droids from Star Wars. But then you can say, wait a minute, I know that that's a rapper. You can cross that off. And then if you recognize that as sort of being the negative categories, maybe you can cross them all off and then just get all three correct without knowing a single droid.

00:41:55:09 - 00:42:06:19
Speaker 1
Anyway, it felt like there was a lot of range to what was possible with this limited palette of of trivia questions that were created for this game.

00:42:06:21 - 00:42:16:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Do you do work on a lot of games at once or do you do shelf games? You come back to games?

00:42:16:06 - 00:42:51:16
Speaker 1
Both. I work on lots of games at once and I shelve lots of games and return to them. I often find myself going through my old games, which either I couldn't find a publisher for or I wasn't happy with for one reason or another. And I can. I find that the design work in them is applicable to whatever I'm one of the projects I'm working on, or I have a new way to look at it and I think I can improve, prove it.

00:42:51:18 - 00:43:18:15
Speaker 1
So my my game closet is, is a source of sort of constant inspiration for my future design and so on. And that I think is a really healthy place, a healthy way to to view your design, because in that way I never feel like a waste of my time with a design that goes nowhere. It's in the closet.

00:43:18:21 - 00:43:26:10
Speaker 1
There's some stuff there that's useful and it'll, you know, it'll be there to contribute at some point in the future.

00:43:26:12 - 00:43:58:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. And what's when when starting a new game, you mentioned trying to find something new that that's fun to you or something that you didn't find fun before. What are some other ways you start the game and or is there anything that you do to get ideas for games? Or which ideas do you choose to act on and when is it that you decide to solve a game?

00:43:59:01 - 00:44:01:16
Speaker 1
there's a lot of parts to that first.

00:44:01:18 - 00:44:04:10
Speaker 2
Serve, but the.

00:44:04:12 - 00:44:45:02
Speaker 1
Easiest wander, though, is the shelving. I when I'm working on a game after I have played, tested it and redesigned it a certain number of times, there's no hard number, but there's a certain number of time I decided I'm going I will decide I'm going in circles and our closet it and and so that's just a I guess I guess I guess there's no hard answer there.

00:44:45:02 - 00:45:27:07
Speaker 1
But I find that, you know, something like three redesigns and and I'm done with it as far as where I get my inspiration from what what inspires me. There's all sorts of places I will name a few. So one which hopefully will come out this year, but maybe next year, I read this book Radical Markets, and it had these economic systems which which I had never thought about before or heard of.

00:45:27:09 - 00:46:03:16
Speaker 1
And and oftentimes when I don't understand a system, I try to design a game to understand it. And often that isn't something which is intended to be published, and it's only intended to teach me what's going on. And so I will play it with myself or I will play with some friends, and then it'll be done right. And I've done games on evolution like that and other areas of economics and even one on astrophysics.

00:46:03:18 - 00:46:41:14
Speaker 1
But this one was special. This one I felt like, you know, wow, this, this has some game concepts here, which really I think would be more broadly appreciated. And, and so I brought the game to the GMT and and we're we're working on getting that out now some time again not too distant future hopefully so So that game came from just my regular curiosity and exploring systems.

00:46:41:16 - 00:47:20:14
Speaker 1
Another area of motivation might be and this this one has informed a bunch of my game design, but I don't think I've got a game out which currently uses it. But but with Deck building games, I played lots of them. I loved them both digital and analog. But one thing that drove me crazy was how often the correct move in the games are to get rid of cards and to thin your deck and and to not get new cards.

00:47:20:16 - 00:47:51:07
Speaker 1
And the reason why this drives me crazy and is I still love those games and I think that's a great thing. But it seems crazy that so many are that way. You know, they call them deck builders, but they're actually sort of misnamed. They're all they're they're like deck crafters or something. Yeah. And it's and it's super counterintuitive to beginners because you have, you know, something like dominion where, where one of the most fundamental thing is, you've got to get rid of your copper now.

00:47:51:07 - 00:48:16:14
Speaker 1
And what game, what other game is that good to get rid of money. You know, it's like why? How does that make any sense? And so and so I began designing lots of games myself where where they were. This wasn't a part of it. There's lots of different ways to do it. And I've seen, you know, more and more that are going in this direction anyway.

00:48:16:14 - 00:48:37:23
Speaker 1
But but you do things like make it so that all, for example, all your cards are improvements on the old cards or there are actually is no thinning. You can only add and dilute or, you know, one of the techniques I came up with was you play your entire deck every turn or you play half your deck every turn.

00:48:38:01 - 00:49:02:20
Speaker 1
You know, it's like in the basic idea there is if you add more copper to your deck, does it get worse? And there's lots of different ways to answer that. So so that it doesn't that's that's for me a very interesting design hook And so that that while that has not resulted in any games which which I have out right now it has in you know resulted in a lot of my time spent.

00:49:02:20 - 00:49:06:13
Speaker 1
And I think it's a very interesting mechanical area.

00:49:06:15 - 00:49:33:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. I love deck building. I love seeing also in Deck building, there's so much you can do. Like I've seen a catch up mechanic where the if you've played like midnight you know you get blink cards like wounds or I'm sure lots of other technologies do that as well. We've seen that as a catch up mechanic where when you draw those blink cards that are negative for you, they allow, they give you a bigger draw of hands or all sorts of little, little twists.

00:49:33:06 - 00:49:39:03
Speaker 2
And I think that's a great medium. Yeah, for innovation.

00:49:39:05 - 00:49:54:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I know there's a lot to you can do with it. And I still really enjoy sitting down to a new deck builder because. Because I'm curious what they brought to the table. And, and there's a lot of ideas that still, you know, are out there when I play a new one.

00:49:54:20 - 00:50:18:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. To go back a little bit to play testing and player feedback, how do you balance that that player or how do you know which player feedback to to take seriously. I mean you said they're always right in feeling the way that they feel, but is there some times where you decide, I'm not going to address this feedback?

00:50:18:13 - 00:50:24:19
Speaker 2
I know that's in the game, but that isn't part of my vision for the game.

00:50:24:21 - 00:51:01:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, that definitely comes up as well to keep George is a really good example of that. With Key Forge, as I said, you have unique decks, there's no deck Golden and he Forge really made me look for another term for trading card game because it is very much not a trading card game because the entire idea is you can change your deck.

00:51:01:01 - 00:51:40:05
Speaker 1
On the other hand, it's disingenuous to say it isn't related to trading card games because it feels very trading card gaming. So I started using this term, which I don't think is going to catch on because because it's a pretty ugly term, but massively modular games and so when it was being played tested fantasy like had, I don't know, 60 different playtest groups and it was pretty negatively received.

00:51:40:06 - 00:52:05:01
Speaker 1
I mean, there were some groups that really loved it, but, but there were a lot that really didn't like it, couldn't get into it. And when you think about it, there's a really good reason for that. And that's because the people who are signing up to play test trading card game like games are people who have been selected very heavily for a liking to build a deck.

00:52:05:03 - 00:52:45:21
Speaker 1
And this game is not about building decks. This game is about taking the deck you have and seeing how well you can do with it. And so we have lots of playtest feedback there that in the end I what I said is true. They were complaining about things that are genuinely real, but they were genuinely also not the audience and it's something which I really credit fantasy play with that they went through with it afterwards, you know, despite the, the mixed feedback that they got from their playtest groups and they went ahead with the vision and when it came out, it found audiences.

00:52:45:21 - 00:53:12:12
Speaker 1
It was actually quite successful, sold lots and lots of decks, had some very dedicated communities who immediately really loved the idea of being able to play these games that they had liked, but they just couldn't take the deck building that was in them because Deck building is such such a specific and time consuming skill that that they didn't have the time for or the interest in whatever.

00:53:12:14 - 00:53:19:21
Speaker 1
But with keyboards they could play the game. The games that they liked without engaging in that.

00:53:19:23 - 00:53:50:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love cooperage. So it just for that because you get it and it's a full game and it's great you know, to, to see what, what that is and make the best of it and learn about it. Do you think that math mathematics helps you in game design or do you think that game designers need to be decent mathematicians?

00:53:50:17 - 00:54:37:01
Speaker 1
But I think I think math helps. But you don't need a Ph.D. You need the math that's useful for designing games, I think is math. You can learn on the streets like like if you know poker and you can handle the odds and you can sort of deal with the probabilities of it, then I think you're fine. I think that every area of life that interests you can inform your game design in the same way that there's no topic that's wasted for an author.

00:54:37:03 - 00:54:56:19
Speaker 1
If the author is interested in history, that's going to help the writing. If they're interested in linguistics, that's going to help the writing, if they're interested in math, that's going to help the writing and all that is true for games as well. So math is useful, but but I sort of see it in the same category.

00:54:56:21 - 00:55:01:00
Speaker 2
Do you have favorite game designers?

00:55:03:13 - 00:55:34:20
Speaker 1
that's a sort of question which I always feel is dangerous to answer because I forget so but but I've got lots of favorite game designers. I've got lots of that I go to. I admire a lot of a lot of other designers. I mean, it's not risky to to mention older designers like like Syd Saxon, who was really formative for me.

00:55:34:22 - 00:56:10:13
Speaker 1
Syd Jackson did this. He did he did a number of books. But, but gamut of games was particularly in inspiring to me. In it, he, he, he talked about lots of games and variations of games, and there were games that he had found and games that he designed and games that his friends had designed and, you know, games that he improved on.

00:56:10:15 - 00:56:40:01
Speaker 1
And this that that's that's the approach which I live basically, because to me with him it was clearly about a love for games not a love for his games. He was very happy, you know, bringing up other people's games and classic games and very excited to share those with you as the reader and and share his thoughts on them.

00:56:40:01 - 00:57:34:19
Speaker 1
And and that's that's basically how I like to see myself and from, you know, some of the modern designers that are that are still extant I really like Antoine Bauza is seven wonders was marvelous and and Hannaby is still my favorite cooperative game. I think I like I like the genre of cooperative games, but I have frustration with people playing each other's positions and and I just love his his game sort of turns out on the head because the hidden information is so integral to the game that that nobody ever can play anybody else's positions.

00:57:34:21 - 00:58:22:09
Speaker 1
And it just feels genuinely like a cooperative game, not a solo game that everybody's sort of working on together and Wolfgang Kramer was I love the the breadth of his of his his game design. I always consider it a plus when I see his name on the box. And I mean, he he has done such sort of classic Euro games, but then he's done things like Xbox named six takes it, which is he's like, when I sat down and played that, it was like, you know, where did this game come?

00:58:22:14 - 00:58:52:03
Speaker 1
It's just it's so different than anything I had played before. And and everybody wants they just play a round of it. They, they sort of understand it and play it at a different level. It's just a a marvelous game. And I really respond to that in a designer, the breadth of their design and through for that reason, I actually mentioned Mage Knight and I always butcher his name, so I don't want to have to bother.

00:58:52:09 - 00:59:24:19
Speaker 1
Does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I mean he's he's outstanding again for Brett. Yeah but all the game you know is like a but but not not just breadth of course quality within that. He's got an excellent strategy games excellent party games is he's got everything and and so I really like a breadth of design in my designers but yeah so there's lots of again lots of designers I love so I'm sorry if I didn't mention you.

00:59:24:21 - 00:59:26:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, but.

00:59:27:00 - 00:59:50:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, fantastic. Getting back to the classic games, same question which I feel should, should be thought about is, you know, the theme of the game versus the mechanics of the game. Do you start to prefer certain, starting with one specific theme or a mechanic or. I'm sure it's different for different games, but it is.

00:59:50:06 - 01:00:33:06
Speaker 1
I do both. I think I'm more mechanically inclined, but but I have examples of both. And so so examples of that of King of Tokyo was entirely mechanically inspired. I was explicitly trying to make a version of Yahtzee that had a theme and was interactive. And beginning with that is sort of my homework project. We ended up with King of Tokyo, and before it was King of Tokyo, it was generic fantasy and I used generic fantasy often as a placeholder.

01:00:33:08 - 01:01:00:08
Speaker 1
It's not where I intend, not always where I intended to be. It's and so when my play testers play a game with generic fantasy, it's just because it's convenient to have a lot of content, convenient shorthand. And so it makes it makes it useful for a placeholder. But then more often than not, the publishers will push it back to fantasy, even though that's not what I give them Yellow.

01:01:00:08 - 01:01:43:15
Speaker 1
Did they let me do my giant kaiju? But for example, I did this game. what's it called? Well, I forget what what it's called, but it's a dice game with and it was with a Amiga heroes of something. Anyway, it's a fantasy theme. Got sort of animals with swords and collecting bounties. When I gave it to them, it was actually a baking theme and you were baking cakes.

01:01:43:15 - 01:02:09:17
Speaker 1
And. And so you'll often get this thing where, where the publisher thinks, well, Richard Garfield, he's going to get more people if it's got a little bit more fantasy involved. So so I get pushed there and that that was true also with Treasure Hunter Treasure Hunter ended up fantasy theme was originally science fiction themed and anyway so that's a game which was a mechanically inclined idea.

01:02:09:17 - 01:02:42:08
Speaker 1
This game, but the hunger was entirely flavor driven. I liked the idea of the the vampires becoming more and more bloated from their feeding and not being able to get back home. And so that's where I began. In fact, actually, I began with the name which was originally Fat Dracula. And so I love that name so much that I designed the whole game around it.

01:02:42:10 - 01:03:06:01
Speaker 1
And then we didn't even use the name. And you can see this is actually a microcosm. The question of steam versus mechanics, as you see in microcosm within games. So when you design like magic card, that's often a question. Do you begin with this card which is mechanically interesting, or do you begin with this concept and try to build a card around it?

01:03:06:03 - 01:03:36:12
Speaker 1
And again, both ways and and I wouldn't want to get rid of either of them because, you know, you get some really good designs when you just give somebody sometimes a name, like go make a make make a card with this name. And then, you know, that just gives you these ideas and you and you can end up with this wonderfully flavorful, mechanically interesting cards card.

01:03:36:12 - 01:03:43:18
Speaker 1
But then oftentimes also you come up with this marvelous mechanic and and you have to come up with a theme for it.

01:03:43:20 - 01:04:06:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Fantastic. And to finish up a question I ask all designers, I do realize that most questions are aimed at this, but what would be one piece of advice for you would have for somebody who's new to the game design? Or it can be one piece of advice that you've taken that's made the biggest change to the way you see game design.

01:04:06:20 - 01:04:49:10
Speaker 1
Well, my biggest advice is, is one which I've already shared in this interview, which is to play lots of games and to play games that that that you can learn from, which is to say you don't know why they're good. And, you know, I I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that. I believe it's enriched my life and my design know I know I know game designers who actually intentionally don't want to play other designs.

01:04:49:12 - 01:05:25:10
Speaker 1
And the reasoning there is they want to they don't want to pollute their their ideas with they don't want to be influenced in some underwear. I that I come from mathematics. I was going to be an academic in mathematics. And so I view it very similar to the way I do mathematics. You've got this common ground and you share your mathematics and people take that and they do wonderful things with it.

01:05:25:12 - 01:05:58:15
Speaker 1
And if you try to design, do mathematics in a bubble, if you're, if you're brilliant, you'll do something really good. But I believe if you're brilliant and you weren't in a bubble, you do something even better. And the same thing can be said for game design. I think. So the that, that, that you're better off standing on the shoulders of giants than you are trying to do it all yourself.

01:05:58:17 - 01:06:06:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much for the interview. That is really good advice I think you.

01:06:06:17 - 01:06:09:22
Speaker 1
Know thank you always fun to talk about games.

01:06:10:01 - 01:06:22:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.