April 27, 2023

Jonathan Gilmour on Storytelling in Board Games

48 minutes

This week I am joined by Jonathan Gilmour at The Corner of Story and Game. Jonathan has been working on board games for almost a decade now, but in those short 10 years, he has amassed credits on almost 60 games! He is likely best known for the acclaimed board game Dead of Winter, but he has well-known for his design work on the tabletop role-playing game Kids on Bikes.

In this episode, we dig into, amongst other things:

The tale of Jonathan's journey into the board game industry from his previous career in industrial robotics,

Where the design for Dead of Winter came from,

The role of stories in board games,

The secret origin behind the characters in Dead of Winter (Jonathan says this is the first time he's told this story!)

A bit of advice for up-and-coming board game designers,

Adapting video games to board games,

What he is up to now at Maestro Media,

Why stories and games are important in general, and

The power of experiencing a story.

Jonathan also shares the games he playing right now and the books he is reading (he's a big comic book fan!)

Give it a listen!

Jonathan can be found:

-> Board Game Geek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/12679/jonathan-gilmour

-> Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/JonGilmour⁠

-> LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-gilmour-96160b1a/

-> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.gilmour.18

Find The Corner of Story and Game:

-> Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/storyandgame⁠⁠⁠

-> Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thecornerofstoryandgame/⁠⁠⁠

-> Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/StoryAndGame⁠⁠⁠

-> Email: ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠

If you have any questions or comments on this, or any other, episode, please let me know. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to hear more conversations with professionals in the video game, tabletop game, and fiction industries.

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