Player Lair Podcast
In the Player Lair podcast, we delve into the process of making games and interview various game designers, publishers and people involved in the gaming community.
Player Lair Podcast
42: Designing Complex and Successful Games with Dávid Turczi
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
You can watch this episode with video on YouTube! Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paxJFQ90qAY
I sat down with David Turczi to talk about his approach to game design, working with other designers, and what goes into making amazing games.
Sponsors:
Hero Time Manufacturing (5% discount + free quote): https://herotime1.com/?utm_source=ivanalexiev
Omnibus Gaming: https://omnibusgaming.com
My Upcoming Games:
Siege Perilous: https://playsiegeperilous.com
Grimbrew: https://grimbrewgame.com
Song of the Wildkin: https://songofthewildkin.com
Book a call with me: https://calendly.com/ivanalexievv/5x55gamedesign
Join the Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/AeJmRJaEV3
Get your game professionally playtested (fill in bottom of the form): https://playerlair.net/playtesting-and-design-consultations/
Intro
SPEAKER_01Every developer everywhere can tell you that you need to make the players understand what the game is about so that by their second game latest they are actually playing the game, they don't feel stupid, etc. So the fact that some of my games need two or three plays to get it has always been a you're you're you're a you're a bit complicated. You need to uh with Imperium, you need six plus games to get the game. So it's like this game should have been a huge failure, and it was a huge success. So it's like, okay, so you can do ridiculously deep and not easy to get into games if you design superstar Dave Turchi.
SPEAKER_00Well, some David Torzi and David Turzi are the two designers of this. Two designers I like a lot. I really, really like Anachrony. I like Voidfall better. Final thoughts on Nucleum.
Great Game vs. Clever Game and Cutting Ideas
SPEAKER_03I love this game. David Turzi, if you don't know, he's I think one of the best board game designers out there today. Um, he's made a lot of I would say heavier games. Uh his first breakout hit was Anachrony, and then since then he's got Voidfall, Nucleum, Imperium Classics, Imperium Legends, a ton of really good games. And I was really curious to hear about his process, which is what we talked about in this interview. And I actually I wanted to talk with him so much because I like his work so much that uh I flew to his place and we did this live um in the same room. He was kind enough to host me, and uh I found the conversation really interesting, and I'm really happy to share it with you. But also, I mentioned the interview to two companies I work with, and they actually offered to sponsor the video, and it's really good because I think they provide a lot of value if you're a designer or if you're a publisher. One of the companies, Omnibus Gaming, I'll talk about them later, they're making a catalog and reaching out to publishers for you. They'll find the right publisher for the game, you still pitch your game, and I think the service is really good. In fact, I've signed three of my games with them. And uh the other one, if you're planning to go the other route, if you're planning on self-publishing your game, or if you already are a publisher and you've been struggling with manufacturing, well, a manufacturer I've worked with since 2020. In fact, one of my first games, 99 Ninja, uh, was manufactured with them, and they've got a really good reputation, and they gave me a 5% discount, a 5% discount uh for anybody who uses my link, and I get a little commission for that, and you'll be helping out the channel. So thanks so much for watching. I'll tell you more about the sponsors later, and yeah, enjoy the interview. I've heard you talk about smart design and great design. You can have a clever, smart design, and the stuff around it, if it doesn't work, you change the stuff around it. What I've done before, and I think it's uh I I'd like to do better, is like I I just cut smart stuff often.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yes, uh the older I get, the more aware I am of complexity budgets and and uh try to hit certain don't melt people's brains more than this kind of uh lines. Uh to me, with every idea I have, the question is why does this game need to exist? If I can't answer that by the end of my first big note-taking schedule, or by the end of my first prototyping session, the latest, then I should stop working on that project anyways. And if I And if the the central idea holds, then comes the next question: is there a game that can support this? And then comes the okay, what are the actions in the game? Who are we, how what is our conflict? And then if I If I can't find interesting answers, if every answer is get two blue cubes, then turn the two blue cubes into a yellow card, then even though I have a cool mechanism of how to pick whether you get a blue cube or a yellow card, I might still need to drop this. But if I have a central mechanical or representational reason for the game to exist, and I have something interesting to do with it, then the rest is just iterative improvement. Then the rest, there is a solution in there somewhere. And then after that is just like okay, what's what's bad, what's not good enough, and what two okay things could be done better by doing only one thing for them. So and and I'm lucky enough to have a bunch of very high-skill playtesters who have been cultivated into developers over the years, so I can put down an 85% of an idea onto the table and like let's figure out how this makes sense. Alright, take your turn. What what do you think you should be thinking about here? It's yeah. I've heard myths that that that I don't know firsthand, but I've heard myths that Reinek Pizia did something similar as well when he took his games down to a circle of people.
How Ideas Become Games
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've heard that as well. Yeah, so yeah, I I have circles of people too. Yeah, all right. You you mentioned first of all, you mentioned the note-taking process. Is that how you usually start with it? Remarkable.
SPEAKER_01Yes, they should really pay me a percentage for how many people I saw the remarkable on. Uh I mean the worst one has been when I woke up at like six in the morning and was like, where's my remarkable? And then seven pages of notes. But if I have something that consistent, that that's almost definitely a game. So that's what three days later was Teba. Uh other than that, it's normally you know, preparing for shower or walking the dog or something, and then it's like, okay, there's an idea there, and then then loop the sentence in my head, and then then within 20 minutes find my remarkable and just start writing. And then if I reread it the next day, and it's like, is there something here? Yeah. And then depending on what is it and how far is it from my comfort zone, that I am able to judge how much of a gap versus meat is in that idea. And if it's more meat than gap, then it might be worth working. If it's just a little bit of meat and a lot of gap, then whatever, I'll have a better idea later.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's not like I need more projects. So God no. You've got quite a few projects. Uh I every two weeks or so I tend to uh just open a new page and write down on what games I'm working on and what I need to do next because I forget them. It's like, wait, what games am I working on this week? It's like, oh crap, there's that whole game I forgot about.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah, I I would be really interested in seeing the the types of notes uh that you have.
SPEAKER_01And like would you would you be willing to share that? I mean, most of my notes are just uh short uh like like uh one sentence reminders I take during a playtest so that later on I can go and iterate them in front of uh so it's just like we got to do to do cd scoring styles. I forgot something out of the prototype. Uh uh the the the the the punk character L to the technology has a wrong icon and its effect collides with something else. Yeah, these are just notes for my like like if there is a central problem with the game, then that's not these kind of notes. That's uh alright guys, let's talk, nothing works here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01These notes come out when we are playing, and somebody says, Why is this like this? Or oh, I'm just gonna press this button every time, it's too good, or I'm never buying that. I'm done. Yes, I my I fiddle too much. Then I just make a quick note next to myself, and and you know, the rest is in the excess spreadsheets and the InDesign files. So Yeah. And uh when when the the the new game, when when when it begins a new game, then it's uh do I have a nope, this is not the beginning. Uh the new game is like I write the keywords of my ideas, and then what like what have I not not answered? What do I know what you do on your turn? Do I know what the main objects of the like the the nouns of the game are? How what's my main strategies? What what buttons push which and then if I can answer everything, then I start down uh sit down at a spreadsheet and start filling out the the sheets and and look back at the notes of did I answer that? Did I answer that? And if at no point I get stuck, then I'll have a game eventually. Yeah. So for that first prototype, uh I spend a lot of time until I get to the first prototype because if I'm working on a game that is reasonably within my comfort zone, I can foresee a lot of problems.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which means that by the time I have a playable prototype, if the game survives the first turn, then it's almost definitely good. So like I I don't make bad games. I either give up making the game or or I'm already there. So I don't have that middle trial and error. Yeah. If I can't finish the thought, then it's trash. If I can finish the thought, then I have thought about so many little things in there that it's probably in the good enough range already. And then it's a matter of exposing it to my best playtesters to see if they found anything that I didn't think of.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, which is why you know I tend to come last in all the playtests because I need people who can think of people things that I can't.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. Get those those people in the room. Yeah. Yeah. Um do you do you go into a prototype with a question? Like with that first prototype, do you have a question in mind?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I mean uh the what I call the uh what I call the playtest zero is do you care about any of these things and is there a decision to make on your turn? And if once you've done it, is there a decision to make on your second turn, or is it just keep pressing a button? Once that's established, once it's a game, then it becomes a is there any system you don't want to learn? Is there anything that's obviously too weak, obviously too strong? Is there anything that's two-thirds through the game you still felt like you didn't understand it? Yeah. Because those are the bits where I need to edit. Yeah. So plus having gone through this process with uh mostly voidful, but Nuclear Manteva taught me a lot as well. Uh I now know how to be a lot more critical with my own stuff on do I need this bit in the game. Yeah. The story I always say is that we worked a lot on Voidful, and then when we fixed all the big errors that we knew, we were like, alright, we're done, and then we pulled one little thread on it, and then suddenly a third of the game was cut.
SPEAKER_03Uh how so?
SPEAKER_01What was that thread? Uh originally in the competitive game, uh, focuses had time costs because Voidfall is uh uh origin started as Omega Centauri 2, which was Nigel's old game, and in Omega Centauri the actions had time costs. Yeah. So for a while we didn't question that. We just made time costs smarter, we integrated that into an offer of special abilities that you could and it's like, and then then that linked to that, then that linked to the turn order, and and then we were like, do we need those abilities, or can we just put one more bonus on a galactic event card and it's you get something, it's fine. It's like okay, but then we don't need a specific turn order mechanism other than catch up, we don't need time costs. If you don't need the time cost, then we can flat price every focus ding ding ding ding ding ding ding and things started falling out. So it's like holy crap, it's like we thought the game was amazing and then we cut out a third of it and it got a lot better.
Co-Designing & Learning from Others
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So that that that seems to happen, I think I think sometimes with with cutting out. Um let's talk about uh collaborating with other designers because you've collaborated with a ton of them.
SPEAKER_01Yes, uh, collecting co-designers is definitely my main hobby these days.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. How what have you learned from them and how have you changed since like in the last 10 years?
SPEAKER_01There are two reasons why I co-design a lot. First, I'm a generalist, not a specialist. I I always say that I don't design the best Italian Euros, I don't design the best heavy thematic Euros, I don't design the best uh conflict Euros, but show me any Italian designer that can do a conflict euro and any uh thematic designer that can do an Italian euro and vice versa. So whereas I've done all three of those things multiple times. And the second thing is that I don't have the style of how I design how my games play. I have a style on how I think, on what is a motivation and a counter motivation on why I want but that does that's not gameplay, that's just thinking. How that transfers uh to gameplay, I'm up for anything. So what I like is sitting down next to somebody who has figured out something that works for them and basically serving up whatever either is missing or or whatever I have already figured out how I would enhance on their stuff. So if if I know one of their games and I love it and it's like, oh, but it would be even better if it was like that, then I asked them, Did you want to design a new game like your big hit there, buttons that do this? Yeah. Or or yeah. Um the other great example of this is that uh Daniel Tacini and Simone Luciani used to be a uh author pair while while they were living closer to each other. Uh and I worked separately with both of them. And Daniel is the inventor. He'll sketch uh uh new dice drafting mechanism with with crazy rules, i.e. tekanu, down on a edge of a napkin in 20 minutes for you. But then the actions will be spend two cubes to get four victory points. So, what I did to Daniel's game is to make all the things you can do with the genius dice drafting interesting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Whereas Simone is the developer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
Sponsor: Omnibus Gaming
SPEAKER_01So what happened with Nucleum is that I came up with the core mechanism and tried to put a game around it, and then Simona just went, cut that, cut that, cut that. We don't need these two things, this is too complicated. So basically, I was the Simone to Daniel and I was the Daniel to Simone. So, and that was a super fun way to work.
Does Game Design Need to be Fun?
SPEAKER_03Do you have a game that isn't published but should be? Introducing Omnibus Gaming, a new agency that helps designers get their prototypes in front of publishers. Right now they're building a curated catalog of talented designers and standout games to present directly to industry publishers. You and your game will each have your own featured space in the catalog, you'll be professionally represented at US game conventions, and submissions to publishers around the world will be done on your behalf. Here's the best part. There's no upfront cost and no risk to you. And for this initial trial run, payment is only required if your game gets signed by a publisher. And at that point, it's just a hundred bucks. Submissions are open now through April 30th, 2026. Terms will change after this initial trial run. To apply or learn more, visit omnibusgaming.com or email admin at omnibusgaming.com. Take your game from concept to contract with omnibus gaming. Does it need to be fun?
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's how to put it, it's uh in our line of industry, some kind of uh uh the neurodiversity is a requirement, and I have them by the bucket. So it's almost like an obsession at that point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So when my brain decides that what I'm doing on this project is interesting and I wanna do it, then it's fun not in the haha, I'm having fun sense, but in the this is the only source of Andorph in my brain is willing to accept, so give me more. So, yes, it's fun, but in a in a adrenaline junky sense, fun. Yes. Just game design junky fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, definitely. I mean, there I it's almost like a junkie goes through cycles, and I feel like in game design, I I at least go through cycles of frustration and then solving something and getting dopamine and then frustration again.
SPEAKER_01Every now and then, luckily, most of my failures happen early or on very sunk, so either very early or very late. Yeah, and at that point, either there's nothing or I can do or I haven't lost a lot and just move on. Every now and then it happens that a project hits a brick wall in its prime, and then that can be hell.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I've had one a few months ago, and I'm still recovering from it. But as long as I have a reason to believe that there is a way to recover from it, and there is a publisher at the other end of that line telling me that they want me to recover from it instead of just saying, okay, bye, then then I'll I'll I'll I'll get out. You push through until you find uh Yes, because it comes down to again, it depends on how far how deep I am in my comfort zone, but but I know like if I tried to design a game that had some similarities to Nucleum but use different mechanisms, and that and that bit worked, but that didn't, then I could ask myself, okay, what motivation does the dominoes in nucleum provide that the the the polyominous in this thing didn't provide? And it's like okay, then this would have never worked like this. Okay, let's wait for the next so it's like yeah so is it a problem to fix or is it a missing concept? And or or or with Imperium system, it's the one where it's even more applicable. Uh, that uh with Imperium and Captain Share are relatively close together, but then we've done two, three more since then. And each of the the further we went from the the core, the the well-tested core, the more effort it was. But once something started working, then suddenly that gave us a second dimension to start moving into. And then when we have a big problem, that's because between two solid objects, there might be a gap in the middle, so the middle doesn't always work. So mapping out on on where where can each mechanism move to still motivate people to do what we want the Imperium system to go, because the core idea of play three cards, do what they say, buy other cards, rinse, repeat, is boring. So it has to be non-boring from something else, yeah. And and that's that's the choice system of of the uh the and and Imperium does it with the the the the puzzle of you know the garrisoning, the the empire switch with the uh card obsolution. Uh Captain Share does it with the multi-use cards. What do I want to use? This card so or the or the or the ship tokens. And it at this point when we're looking at another Imperium game, it's Imperium Engine game, it's like, okay, what kind of fun do we want in it? With the third one, we've done we've figured out a fairly Euro-y, fairly tableau-building-y fun. So it's it's it's a lot more let me buy the missing ingredient to my engine instead of uh how can I score one point faster than you kind, which is what Imperium did. So we have these three legs: we have the the the card magic of uh Imperium, the multi-use insanity of captain, share plus the area control, and the the the Euro engine of the third one that I can't say yet. And when the fourth and the fifth we start, then it's like hmm, for this theme, this mechanism of this one and this mechanism of this one would be appropriate. Let's invent one new thing and then tie it together with that thing. And and then after that try. And usually works. There has been a case or twice once or twice when when we went into the wrong direction for a few weeks or months, but live and learn.
SPEAKER_03So I feel like you you often in your design go for the not obvious thing. Um do you do you think like when do you take like what works and is proven and you can borrow from like your library of games that you've played before?
Why Complex Games Can Still Succeed
SPEAKER_01And like when do you I mean I was in the precarious uh position that my first big Euro was a top 50 game and made me the guy who designed an acronym. Yeah. But my second Euro, while many people loved it, was nothing to write odes about. So I had to figure out what's the awesome source. Is it something I know, or is it just what I know plus the chrome that the Mindclash team can provide? Or it certainly helps as proven by uh uh Voidfall, but the fact that Nucleum and Imperium could reach its success without the Mindclash Awesome Source proved that there are ways to lift the whole thing up. And Imperium was the the the greatest. Mindbender because on the surface of it, if you explain to me how Imperium engages with the player, it should be a huge failure. Because every developer everywhere can tell you that you need to make the players understand what the game is about so that by their second game latest they are actually playing the game, they don't feel stupid, etc. So the fact that some of my games need two or three plays to get it has always been a you're you're you're a you're a bit complicated. You need to with Imperium, you need six plus games to ban the game. So it's like this game should have been a huge failure, and it was a huge success. So it's like, okay, so you can do ridiculously deep and not easy to get into games if you plant a brain worm. If if they feel stupid and can't play the game, but they also have to play it again.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because then after doing that five times, they'll they'll see the light.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So it's something that you teach your audience. I don't know if that was if that was your if Imperium was your first game. Um like how many like what the expectation is?
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, both Imperium and Void 4 were original and Nigel's designs that I know I came to and and did some well with Imperium original less with Void 4, obviously a lot more. Uh but since Horizons we've been equal co-designing. Uh so we all felt that there was something different about Void uh Imperium, but we didn't know that it was as special as it turned out to be. In fact, it took me four plays of Nigel's prototype to like it. The first three plays is like this is another deck builder, I already don't like those, and this is even longer than them. So what are we doing here? And then 50 plays of Imperium later, uh, and after playing a few actually unique deck builders, the things that step out of the boring, same old, same old Core Worlds to mention the Forerunner from 12 years ago, uh Path of Light and Shadow, because it actually motivates you to get out of the one thing that would make sense to loop in your game. Obviously, uh Dune Imperium and and Arnak both added something to the concept of so those games I liked more than all the other deck builders while they still had all the concerns I had with all deck builders. But after 50 games of Imperium, I no longer had that problem with Imperium. And it's like, okay, what does Imperium do differently that makes me not feel like I'm just running an engine builder over and over again for a slightly bigger push next time? And so the first time we did that from Niger's framework, I'm sure it was accidental. By the time end of Horizons and beginning of Captain Share rolled around, we were honing on that on purpose. So and now we're just running with it. Smelling the ingredients and seeing how else we can cook the same dishes, the same cuisine out of it.
SPEAKER_03You mentioned being like uh criticizing your own designs. Yeah. What's what's your inner critic like?
SPEAKER_01I mean, uh my inner critic my inner critic's first big breakthrough was that when I went full-time in 2018, uh my first development job as a full-time designer developer was Teotihuacan. And my playtest groups and I, we played that game for like six weeks, and initially everybody hated it. And then we played it again, and then then it's like, yeah, yeah, you're right, it's it's actually good, but there's something still off. And then we questioned this, we questioned that, we fixed the thematic label problem, we fixed some iconography problems, etc. It's like we're almost there, but but I don't know, the bit too many numbers or or something's holding me back. And then after four weeks, we came up with like two or three minuscule, minuscule gameplay changes. It was so long ago I can't even tell you what it was, but it was something to do with the the plus minus one cocoa on when you're paying or when you're getting them, and how the the the tracks are like originally it cost you to go into the track, whereas now it uh originally it cost you something to bomb somebody, now it gets them something to so it's like it turned into a positive economy. Three half sentence changes, and then that plus all the clean up the UI, clean up the thematic labelings of the thing, present the darkness track properly, and then the same people who six weeks ago hated it loved it. Yeah, and then we showed it to publisher, they changed a third sentence, and then otherwise it was the same game that we were playing two months earlier, and then the game came out, and within half a year it was in the top hundred. Yeah. It's like, okay, so if I can criticize a great game this much, then why am I not criticizing my own games this much? And then the next game that came around was well, first Tavantinsu that I was still learning how to temper my big Tekken was with Danielle, so that that was basically just a heavier attempt at Taoteokan's logic. But meanwhile, on the Mindclash front, we started working on Voidfall. So, and that was all about questioning ourselves for years and years and years. So and by the time Voidfall finished, Imperium Horizons was nearing its end too. So, and Nucleum was nearing its end, so basically I I grew up with these projects. So now, because of of Teothua and the Voidfall, Imperium and Nucleum, I've developed these instincts in a way that that I look at a Hoff mechanism of mine and I'm like, yeah, Nucleum would never take this shit, or or or we would drop this out of Voidfall in 10 seconds flat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So are you immediately like that? Because like something I've heard um one one of my other hobbies is stand-up comedy. And I don't know if you know Jerry Seinfeld, he uh he he has this famous thing where he says, like, you need to, when you're thinking up of the ideas, you need to treat it like a baby, like really fragile. And then after that, like after you when you go back to the idea, that's when you like need to be really critical of it. You think or agree with that?
UI, Icons & Information Design
SPEAKER_01I don't know. It's it's it's hard when I already try to improve an existing idea, yeah, because then there are things that either I forget to question or I don't see how else it could be done. Yeah, and that's why talking to other people is such a godsend. Because do they see anything and then they give me an idea that I'm like, this is terrible, that could never be done, but actually, and then there's the new idea, but when it's a new idea, then then it's more like just uh keep a constant eye on it, and then when when I explain the new change to my co-designer or my lead playtester, and I feel like this sentence has gone on long enough that I'm like, yeah, I'm ashamed of this sentence. This this this needs to change. Yeah, so and that's not a sense I had seven years ago, so that's that that the when are you ashamed of a sentence in the rules, or when are you ashamed at looking at the component? That's another skill that I developed over the years. I have I know nothing about graphic design, I can't make anything pretty. But I have the full technical skills of Illustrator Photoshop and InDesign, yeah. Which means, and since I design complex heroes where you have to put 20 icons onto this thing, yeah, my prototype has the same information density as the published game.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which means I create an icon library equal to the published game.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01With Nucleum, the icon language of the finished game and my prototype has like two icons difference. Every other icon is just my icon pretty. Yeah. So as in and because what this led to is that if I can't iconize an ability and then put it on a tile this big, then it's too complicated an ability. And I'm not a good graphic designer. So if I can iconize it, then it's only a matter of can you do it better?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And it and the game develops itself, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. With Lloyd Fall, where when we started, none of us had this skill yet, but we had Ian O'Toole, who's you know, probably the best game the graphic designer in the industry. Yeah. When he said that.
Sponsor: Hero Time Manufacturing
SPEAKER_03Are you planning on publishing a bird game? One of the most difficult parts of publishing is finding the right manufacturer, one who you can communicate with, you can rely on, they have fast communication and support, accurate lead times, top-tier industry quality, systematic pricing, all of that. HeroTime is sponsoring this video, and right now, if you use my link below, you get a 5% discount, and I get a little commission. Reach out to Hero Time, you'll find the link in the description and in the pinned comment.
SPEAKER_01A, it took me three tries to uh understand what you want me to iconize here. Or B, I iconized what you wanted, but look at this monstrosity that came out. Yeah. Then we would go back and redesign the game to get rid of that. Or my favorite, when I would explain a mechanism to him, he would misunderstand it and make a component for something else. Then the first thing I would do is I would ask myself, why doesn't the game work like that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because if that's what you understood, that the game should be working like that. Yeah. And that's the same question I ask of my uh experienced playtesters or or basically anybody in a uh rapid playtesting environment when they're like, hey, does this rule work A or B? I'm like, you tell me. Should it work A or B?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If it's a balanced thing, if it's a motivational thing, then I have an opinion. Yeah. If it's just an understanding slash logic, then you tell me, whatever makes sense. And then if they say A, then I ask ask two more persons, and if they all say A, then it doesn't matter. Even if I had some weird justification for B, it's gonna be A.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well that's something that like when you look at playtesters. We recently had this. We have uh a mechanism, it's like uh it's a uh a dice dice placement, and you roll the dice, and um intuitive, like what we had it was in phases. So like I have a phase where I allocate my dice, and then I have a phase where I get the stuff from the dice. Um but nobody did it that way. Uh people would allocate, get the stuff immediately, then allocate again, then get the stuff immediately, and then we were like, this is so much more fun, you know?
Playtesting, Pitching & Breaking In
SPEAKER_01And uh but some sometimes it's like when the energy empire method when when when that happened, or or Manhattan Project uh method when that happened what 12-15 years ago, it was such a jump to the older compared to the older games, because the old games were all place resolve, yeah, whereas uh the Manhattan Project was the place and resolve. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It was it was like trying trying us trying to do that.
SPEAKER_01That's why an acronym is place and resolve, because uh, I played a lot of Manhattan Project and G Empire back then.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, but sometimes I like I I I think just looking at the playtesters and what they assume is Yeah. It might not be correct, like you might have a very good reason for it not to be that way, right?
SPEAKER_01Like Yes, but then you need to make it easy for them to understand why it's that way and what way is it. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh or find or find uh a compromise or like find another way. Yes, yes. Uh to make it work. Uh tell me about your playtest group and your teams and how do you do it? Do you use tabletop simulator? Do you make physical prototypes?
SPEAKER_01All of the above. Uh I have one team of my previously solo testers who have now played so many solo modes that each and every one of them is capable of designing their own solo modes, so I just hover behind them, occasionally get some jobs, and then take 15% and walk away. Uh except if it's my own game, then then I do like half of the job instead of just a little bit. Uh then and those people are all over the world and they're all self-running, and and I act as a you know uh distant group manager, then uh I have the Imperium team or Imperium Teams, because uh the it's not exactly the same people working on Imperium and Captain Share and the others, but there's like significant overlap between them. Uh that's done on Discord, and we have uh digital test beds, so we have a like an ugly app without pictures, without anything uh even maintained internally, and then that tracks the the what card play paid for what card and how many turns the game was and stuff like that. That's how uh Horizons had 700 solo playtests logged before release because uh for our four more experienced testers, in the end it was like 20 minutes to play it on the test bat, so you know that that that was easy. Uh but uh captain share, which you know, the second wave is coming out in a few months, and obviously we have a lot more content under construction waiting for these kids to say bring us, give us something meeting this and this and this marketing requirements. So those people are basically constantly playing something from the future queue. And every now and then I go and design something, but the future log of design stuff is so much. Plus, my brother got hooked on the process and and and took over the the the the one one or two decks he took over completely, but the rest he took over the the if cortex needs to be changed by one sentence, then I told him it's like don't ask me, it's just changed the yeah, which means that at that point I there are at least three people who know the rules and the cards of Captain's Chair better than me on the team. Yeah, and I'm okay with that. So I come up with what I want in the game, why I want those things in the game, and what and and I'm the biggest Star Trek nerd of what of the team, so I decide what thematic fall I want in the game. But like there has been cases where they just flat out outvoted me. Like my vote is like one and a half, and then they have one each. So, but if the three of them agree on something, then we do that and not what I say. So it's it's and then and then I have the in-person teams, it's used to be three teams, now it's like two and a half, one and a half, because people are busy. We're getting at that age. They they dare they dare to grow up and get jobs. How dare they? Go back to university and do nothing and be free for me. Yeah, yeah. No kids, no kids, no kids, no jobs, come on, sport games. Uh it's like uh on on easy season, it's it's it's once a week, usually for fun or research, and then if there's something to put on the table than that, and then on on brutal season, like now, then it's it's one or two persons come on Monday, one or two persons come on Wednesday, and then one or two persons come on Thursday evening, and then then one week gap. So for me, I have time to update the prototypes, then again, and then I have like three, four games to be tested in these three uh tests at the same time. So it's like okay, this group will do these two, this group will do these two, and then I get uh varied enough opinions on on them all.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Is is the schedule what like keeps you accountable? I know for me, if if I didn't have scheduled time with other uh designers or players, I don't think I'd ever get anything done.
SPEAKER_01Um I mean I very rarely design games for maybe this will get published. And those projects tend to not get finished. Like there has to be something special about that project for me to finish. Uh most projects I are already either awesome by a publisher or pre-sold to a publisher, or at least we both want it for some reason. Yeah, or it's a publisher I already work for and I know they need it. So so I have deadlines the the day I start designing. Yeah. So, yes, without deadlines I'm horrible too, but I have deadlines.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I and I feel like that's such a better way because we we kind of talked before we started about how um like the pitching process.
SPEAKER_01Uh we said that neither I don't recall ever succeeding in an outside pitch. Yeah, I've done a few and it always felt like I did it so that I don't feel like I'm doing nothing for this poor abandoned game. So exactly but like at the very least, it had to be there, had to be people working in that company that I knew before already to be able to explain to them why they should listen to my kind of weird. But better yet, we should have already agreed on what kind of games we want, and I should take a game exactly like that to them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's so much I I think it's it's it seems so much easier. I know a lot of people also have success with like pitching and they go to conventions and they line up a bunch of I I can't do that. Yeah, yeah. But um I'm sure it's different for you now, probably, right?
SPEAKER_01Like no, I still uh outside pitch I still have not succeeded with. It's just I have a lot more inside pitches now because I know a lot more people, but getting a publisher that I have never published with is still a lot higher effort than convincing Mindclash Border Nice or Spray Viskids to publish one more game. Yeah, so because they know what I deliver, they know how well I keep the deadlines, they know how high quality prototypes they get, etc. So they know that even if it sounds insane on paper, there's a good reason it's this kind of insane. Whereas or or or with Mindclash where I know they know that the final game will be substantially different than the game I'm showing them on day one, yeah, but we both trust each other's process to not need to see 100% up front because we know that the process will make that perfect, so I can show them something that I think is 80% ready, they'll understand/slash like 60% of it, but we both trust each other to cover 40%.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So whereas with a new publisher, if they don't understand 40% of what I'm selling to them, they'll say no.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. So and there's there's there's a period where you have to like get to know each other. I I think because you're making something, I mean, for one, it's like a big financial investment for them. Yeah, it's a big time investment.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I have a I I have a nice Trojan horse that I'm trying to think if it actually worked. It came close to working once or twice recently, and there is one ongoing project still that I'm hopeful for that it'll keep working, is my solo modes that I woke up to a publisher that I've never worked with before that does a project that for some reason is exciting for me, and I'm like, Would you like a solo mode with that? And then at the end of it, at their peak euphoria, when the solo mode and the their campaign has just funded in the big numbers, it's like, oh, by the way, and then put down the pitch meeting. And sometimes it happened that they were more eager to say to a game, say yes to a game, and then they spend the next two years dragging their feet saying actually. But but it has also resulted in in new partnerships, so it it yeah, the Trojan horses are nice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I've I've had that uh twice happen to me where I've done development for two different publishers, and then well in one case they they they said we're we're gonna scrap this design. Can you design something else with this art? Which which did happen. Uh and the other one, it's one of my most successful games that hasn't been published because I've been paid three times for it. Because that's nice. Yeah, it uh it won a contest, then it got signed and paid in advance, and then they give it back afterwards. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I I I have gotten a few uh advances back, like managed to keep a few advances, but but uh That's not the aim. That's not the aim, no. I mean, uh and I have another very fun bad habit is because I have not a lot of time to play other games, so if I latch on to somebody else's game that is not like all my others, yeah, like I don't need to tell Simone or or Vital how to design their games, but if I latch onto a game that's different to what I do and I have fun with it, and I analyze why I have fun with it, then I have this unstoppable urge of designing an expansion for it, putting my own spin on it. So uh I've designed an expansion for Vladashvatia's Tashkalar. I know I've designed an expansion for Aeon's End, I've helped design a solo expansion for Terraforming Mars. These are the games I play, yeah, because these are the games that are lighter than the heavy Euros that I think about, so these are my fun games. Yeah, and now I semi-signed a fourth expansion for a well-known game that I can't yet say. Yeah, because I played the game 10 times in two weeks, and after that I messaged the designer saying, Hey, thanks for trading the copy with me. I really like it. Can I design an expansion for you? And he said that yes, sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So well, hell, that's that's how I became a more in-house designer for Mindclash. That I went in and asked them to design an expansion for Tricarion after an acronym, so that that's how it all started. Luckily, I haven't yet figured out how to make an expansion for C Volution because. that that that would create a new obsession if I did. Why does that game work? It shouldn't. So that's that's the next game I wanna pull apart when I have time. So what was it like working with Vlada? The effortless genius is undescribable. So like there are smart people, lots of a lot of us all around us that you can explain something and they have a great idea. Vlada is like he's super nice he's he's like like lighthearted uh uh humble and then when you give him an idea he goes I I like it I like it but how about we do and by the time he's halfway through his sentence you're like yeah shit obviously that's the better answer that that's what that's what we're doing so it's like it's it's it's just yeah the man is an inspiration so uh the every two three years I I I go to him and he's like are you coming back to heavy euros yet are you coming back to heavy euros and every now and then he says like he's like yeah but it's a lot of effort to head up the digital department I need to look at the kids I I I did something light and it's like well if you don't feel the energy to design a heavy euro by yourself you know who to draw so I I've been begging him for half a decade now to design a heavy euro with me but yes I I I as I said I do collect co-designers I I had uh Darian and Simone I had Richard Brees uh key side came out this S even though it was designed seven years ago so it took a while to come around because uh we both moved and then pandemic happened and then logistical problems happened so it everything kept pushing it back with what another year another year another year another year uh I I worked for a with a bunch with Martin Wallace uh the guy is lovely to hang out with uh I don't think he was quite ready to take the drastic amount of suggestions I was throwing at him yeah so in the end we made an expansion together for one of his games and I passed on the opportunity of of of working more on the next game because I I didn't feel very hurt. I worked with Vital on a bunch of solo modes we we talked a lot about designing together but our process is so different that it's it's just it's just stressful because he thinks up a full idea yeah makes it playable quickly and then iterates it and then iterates it and then runs a hundred playtests iterating it and and he looks at every aspect of the game and and he also is the smartest person in the room in almost any rooms. Yeah which means that if all he does is he watches playtests endlessly then every day the game will get half a percent better and eventually it will be a great game plus the initial ideas he had are probably at least good. Yeah whereas I work a completely opposite way I latch onto one idea play the game and then redesign 60% of the game keeping that one idea and tossing out everything else and and and Rita was like what did you do to this idea? Where is the game? So it's like yeah no we're not not not finding the the middle ground so so I I I love the guy but it's he was he was the one person who found me too too too me to to to to work with uh I've been hanging out a lot recently with Jason Matthews because I've I've been missing my conflict uh gaming roots because before I became the heavy euro guy I I did a lot of conflict gaming but Jason obviously Twilight struggle and it's ill yeah he's uh and and he's also so he's a historian sci-fi nerd so yeah things clicked yeah it's it's easy uh we were both guests at a uh convention in Mexico the Devier flew us and basically we just had breakfast together and then by the end of the breakfast we were like God there are like three games we should design together so yeah and and and uh basically ever since Andromeda's edge obviously I've been talking a lot to Luke Lowry because he's the he's the how to put it the fun version of what I'm doing so I do the insane version he does the fun version so plus energy empire was one of my early inspirations many years ago so another person I I love to talk to so hopefully all of these discussions will eventually turn into games so no promises at this point but yeah has uh has fatherhood changed stuff for you do you plan on uh making games that you can you can play with your son I mean yes I do plan on making games that I can play with your son but that's like that's like awesome in three four years kind of topic for now it's uh uh hey Zavik please come and punch this prototype for me the level involvement and he's he's very nice at that uh but I mean early on I was quite surprised how little impact it had like Tebai designed when he was three months old uh these days it has impact on me insofar as my energies are being pulled into more directions which means I am running a little bit thinner on fuel but when I'm fully focused on the kid I'm fully focused on the kid and I'm fully focused on the work I'm like what kid so yeah one of the semi advantages of ADHD hyper focus is that I I am actually forgetting about everything else while I'm focusing on one thing. Yeah. And every now and then I make the mistake of trying to do some light work while sitting next to Xavi and that never works. That always ends up in frustration. So so as long as I can remember to not do it everything is fun. Do you have any do you have any rituals around game design other than sometimes I obsess too much on making my icon library before making the prototype I don't think so. Do you use uh do you use data merge for that? Yeah yeah yeah Google Sheets uh like I don't retain a lot of information from my software engineer roots but the two things that I do very much in a coder style yeah is that my InDesign has eight custom written JavaScript snippets in it. So whenever I put any bracketed words anywhere in a card text anywhere and I press one button in InDesign and it finds every icon with that name and just search and replaces them in there. So I don't have to bother with custom fonts and stuff like that. I just import the images in and like combined those scripts have taken me days and days and days of work to bot iteratively over five years. So now it's just like to the point where with on some projects I'm teaching the very good graphic designer the technical side so to uh like soon I should start taking graphic design credits on some of those games. That you know this spreadsheet is for Civilization A, this tab is for Civilization A, this tab is for Civilization B. And then you get to a point where you have a million of these these things and then you need one big sheet to export for data merge and then you want to calculate all the the file paths and then you want to remath a few things and in the olden days I did it the way everybody imagines Google Sheets and Excel to work is that you write a formula you drag it down then you write another formula drag it down. These days I open the first cell uh Visual Studio code I write one formula about this long and I press enter and I watch Google Sheet think about it for 15 seconds. And then my my card database is done. Yeah and every now and then I find a bug in it I fix it and done. And when I start the the next Imperium game then I take copy paste change the column headers and hit enter and done so and I literally did that two weeks ago so it works. Yeah so I finally reached that point where I don't have to design a new spreadsheet every time I start a uh a card game it's just copy paste the old one yeah and then if different image paths have to be uh calculated then then edit those custom functions and this it's just like technology doing what technology is good at not like taking the boring things fast not yeah not being a hurdle but being a speed thing.
SPEAKER_03The final question I ask is one that you said you don't want to answer but I will ask you anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah uh what would be a piece of advice for somebody who is starting out who has the maybe they've like this industry doesn't need more designers if somebody starting out happens to be a genius designer great then you will become a designer because self-selection works yeah but chances are they aren't if if 10 wishful designers are listening to this then about eight of them are shouldn't be designers. If they still want to work in board games then I'm not telling them to go away I'm telling them to figure out what else is there in board games. I was talking about this with uh Victor the CEO of Mindclash when two days ago in a Reddit AMA somebody asked us this exact question and he was like who are we kidding there are 13 employees in the company and two and a half of them are game developers. Yeah we need the other nine people too so so uh uh logistics communication uh uh media and those people will know balls games brutally well you can't uh go into a uh high street advertising agency and buy uh uh hire a marketing person from there because how do you explain to them the the difference between a card and a tie you know like never mind the meeplos and the minis and the whatever so so especially with the logistics the the the pro operations person the person who talks to the factory that person knows more about the components than I do yeah so yeah a good operations person is is gold that's that's how you get obviously the problem is that it's the kind of job where you need to have experience to be a first timer. Yeah so then then don't go in for the that job go in for volunteer for demos at a convention uh uh help uh join as a tester on their discord and then volunteer to help run that discord and then next time ask what else can I yes publishers don't have a lot of money to throw around at least the the hour weight range of publishers but they still respect contributions and they'll reward it. First they'll reward it with a free game then they'll reward it with a free SN ticket and then they'll reward it with a big dinner and then eventually they start paying and all my uh all the people who seven years ago were solo playtesting me for fun are now earning a few thousand euros a year out of work they do on on solo or other development from publishers I've introduced them to. So and and I have two other friends who met publishers through volunteering at Essen and now one of them works full time at a publisher and the other one occasionally gets hired out. So if you go to a publisher and says hi I want to work in the game design industry here is my design yeah then we don't need you. Yeah for that you have to be either a genius or super duper lucky or know the right person or preferably two and a half of those three. So yes I got incredibly lucky at being the right place at the right time if I had to get into the industry today I'm not sure I would succeed.
SPEAKER_03So thanks so much for watching the video I hope uh you liked it and you got some ideas about your game design I have a game that's coming out very soon uh in June it's already on GameFound and it's got a page up which you can see below. The game is called Siege Perilous and it is an Arthurian sandbox adventure game where you're playing as knights competing for the Siege Perilous. That's a seat a special seat at the round table. I co-designed it with Brian Saliba who recently made the Monty Python RPG which what's cooler than that? Jay Musan uh is our historical guy who knows everything about Arthuriana and King Arthur and he also worked on Tales of the Arthurian Knights. Oh let me not forget the art the art is really amazing the entire game is has art that is painted on vellum so all of the pieces that you see in the game exist on physical pieces of art which are absolutely beautiful by Jay Johnstone. You can actually see some of his art behind me. And uh there will be tiers where you can actually buy some original art from the game which is really awesome. I can't wait to have some of it on my wall. But yeah, check it out I think you'll like it. I think it's a very good game and I'm really really excited for the campaign. Thanks so much for watching
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
