It’s been longer than a quarter. Has it really been six months?! Here’s a summary of what’s been going on since I last posted.
In The News
As you might imagine, the Covid-19 outbreak has generated a lot of media interest in Pandemic. Here are a few interviews and articles that I participated in recently.
The Washington Post ran a story on the popularity of games centering on the “proliferation of pathogens” including Plague Inc. and Pandemic: Virus games are going viral as the coronavirus spreads.
The Chicago Tribune ran a story on Pandemic as well. (This one was actually queued up by the Tribune prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, but by the time the interview happened, the topic was unavoidable.) Q&A with the Chicago creator of Pandemic, the board game that has become all too real.
Dicebreaker did an interview last February. "It's difficult to keep things fresh": Pandemic creator Matt Leacock on Legacy, co-ops and Lego which ranges over several topics including the game development process. (Not sure why they chose that headline as the article spends most of its time attempting to prove otherwise.)
Speaking of Covid-19, everyone please:
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
And here’s a suggestion: let person who encourages everyone to wash their hands (for at least 20 seconds) before your game be the start player.
More advice on prevention at the CDC site.
The appropriately titled expansion to ERA: Medieval Age.
Coming Soon
The ERA: Medieval Age Expansion is due at Gen Con this year. Eggertspiele released a short teaser video (20 seconds) which shows off some of the new pieces including rivers, roads, gates, bridges, and more.
At long last, the third and final installment in the Pandemic Legacy series is coming later this year! Keep an eye out for announcements from Z-man.
And look for one other soon-to-be-announced game—coming this summer!
Currently Working On
A new dexterity game, co-designed with Josh Cappel. Josh and I worked together on the first edition of Pandemic over ten years ago and it’s been fun to work together again. We’ve spent over two years on this game and I’m thrilled that we recently found a great home for it.
The next game in the ERA series—which is coming together quite nicely if I do say so myself.
A new, non-Pandemic, cooperative game that I’m working on with a first-time designer.
A big box game that I’ve been developing for over two years with two established designers.
And a few other unannounced projects in various stages of development.
The Game Designers
I appeared in the documentary, The Game Designers, which premiered last November. Directed by Eric Rayl and produced by Scott Alden (of BoardGameGeek fame), the documentary follows five different designers (Antoine Bauza, Kelly North Adams, Chris Faulkenberry, and Doug Schepers and myself) at various points in our careers, and gives an inside look at what it takes to design a boardgame.
Check out the trailer below.
You can find it on Amazon or stream it on demand via Vimeo.
Game Design Resources
So it turns out that I’ll be working with John Brieger on one my upcoming games. I bring this up for several reasons:
He’s got a new company that specializes in game development. If you’re looking for additional testing and development resources, check them out.
He’s written some great articles on playtesting and uses a process very similar to my own.
He lives in my hometown! And I had never met him until last month! (How weird is that?)
If you’re a local to the San Francisco Bay Area and are interested in doing some playtesting (your games or others’) be sure to check out some of the Meetups that he’s put together. I plan on regularly attending Friday playtesting at Game Kastle in Mountain View.
Missing GDC?
Check out the Boardgame Summit on March 17th in San Francisco. “Designers, developers, and publishers in the tabletop game (and tabletop game adjacent space) are gathering to share their planned talks from GDC, network, and talk board games. Publishers & industry service providers on hand for pitches and business meetings.”
You can also check GDC’s video archive for some great talks on design. Christina Wodtke sent me this talk by Alex Jaffe on “cursed design problems” which include the quarterbacking problem that rears its head in pure cooperative games. I thought this was a great framework for evaluating opposing forces in your game that may be irreconcilable.
TableTop Network
I gave the keynote talk at the TableTop Network in Dallas in November, and spoke about the importance of emotion and empathy in game design. [Update: the talk is now available.]
TTN is a gathering of board game designers talking shop, networking, and refining our craft, organized by game designer, Tim Fowers.
Unlike gatherings like Unpub and Protospiel, it focuses on talks and workshops and not on playtesting. It’s a fairly new event, this being its second year. I was impressed with the quality of the talks and especially enjoyed the ones given by Elizabeth Hargrave (OMG, My Wife Loves Your Game) and Nikki Valens (Creating Representation for Marginalized Groups). They’ve also started a scholarship program to attract new voices to the industry.
I’ll post videos or links to my talk and others when Tim opens them up to the public.
2020 Conference Schedule
I’ve taken this information down, pending information from the event organizers.