Game Design Deep Dive

As a designer, John Butterfield is a bit of a troublemaker. He likes to insert friction in his designs where wargamers aren’t used to finding it. His games don’t just tell stories, they host a space for players to make their OWN stories. His titles include Ambush, RAF, Enemy Action: Ardennes & Karkov, the D-Day Series, Hell’s Highway and so many more. We discuss solitaire design, the evolution of his work, and his collaboration with Kai Jensen on Downfall.

Outro music: Jessica Ackerley All Of the Colours Are Singing | Jessica Ackerley (bandcamp.com)

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For this episode, we chat with filmmaker and game designer Yoni Goldstein about his upcoming game Chicago '68 from The Dietz Foundation about the 1968 DNC protests and his journey in game design. 

Chicago '68 on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dietzfoundation/chicago-68

Jean Genet in Chicago:
https://vimeo.com/78486625

Outro Music: "Popular Myth and the Destruction of Sodom" by Peter Thomas Sound Orchester

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We decided to break from our usual format. Dan Thurot of Space Biff joins us for a discussion about narrative and storytelling in board games, particularly how it relates to historical boardgames.

SPACE-BIFF! | Fiercely Independent. Independant? Crap. (spacebiff.com)
Outro Music: Sun Ra Arkestra - Between Two Worlds

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Maurice Suckling is a screenwriter, author, teacher of design as well as vast experience in various roles of video game production. We discuss his recent design Crisis 1914 from Worthington, the upcoming Peace 1905 from Fort Circle, and Operation Barclay (currently on Gamefound). 

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Sebastian Bae is a research scientist and senior game designer for the Center of Naval Analyses' Gaming and Integration Program as well as a faculty advisor for the Georgetown University Wargaming Society. He has two commercial designs, Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific with Dietz Foundation and a multi-pack Crisis In Korea being released through Catastrophe Games. 

We discuss the challenges of designing on the topic of North Korea, the value of modeling hypothetical war, and the frontier of designing for modern conflicts. 

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Carlos Marquez Linares is the designer of TWO upcoming games, The Other Side of the Hill from NAC Wargames and Imperial Fever from GMT (currently on the P500). We discuss his controversial topics and his design approach in each of the aforementioned games. 

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Natalia Wotjowicz has written an excellent book called Wargaming Experiences about approaches to professional wargame design informed by her experience with the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Center of Excellence. Her book offers a lot of guidance relevant to both historical games and wargames, so I invited her to discuss it along with differences between professional and commercial design.

Books by Natalia Wojtowicz:
Wargaming Experiences (2 book series) Paperback Edition (amazon.com)
Outro music: Marnie Stern "Plain Speak"
The Comeback Kid | Marnie Stern (bandcamp.com)

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Gina Willis has designed A Glorious Chance, an excellent solitaire game about naval operations during the War of 1812 and collaborated with Jeremy White on the design of Skies Above Britain. We discuss both of these games, the emphasis on narrative in solitaire design, age of sail, and much more. 

A Glorious Chance (mybigcommerce.com)

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On this episode, I chat with Jo Kelly to discuss their upcoming game Molly House which is being published by Wehrlegig (maybe you heard of it) and is coming to Backerkit on October 17th. Jo Kelly is also a Zenobia finalist. We talk about the making of Molly House, Zenobia, and much much more. 

Molly House - A game of queer joy and betrayal in 18th century London. (backerkit.com)

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Domhnall Hegarty and his Citog Creative have provided graphic design for a number of high profile and award-winning releases, such as Fire & Stone: Siege of Vienna, People Power, Red Flag Over Paris, The Vote, and more. We chat about the considerations that go into his work and the discussion surrounding the use of AI-generated images in games. 

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