/pic1161107.jpg)
... and I walk a lot of dogs. I've been a "professional" dog walker for twelve years, but I've been designing games only for a year or so. This is the story of how the two intersected.
Before the Beginning
At Gen Con 2009, I discovered designer board games. I had naively gone to the con to play Warmachine and a little D&D, but the main dealer's hall was unavoidable, and it was full of these strange board games. Bright colors, little zombies, short play times, foam guns, simple rules, clear player aids, rolling boulders, small boxes, farming, robots, Cthulhu...and that was just one game! (I later learned that lack of sleep had caused me to erroneously lump everything together into one game.)
Shortly after I got home, I started listening to podcasts on board games. Through The D6 Generation podcast, I discovered that a nobody could make a game and get it published. "Well then," I thought, "I'm a nobody, so therefore I could get a game published." The seed was planted, but I had no soil, no water, and barely enough sunlight. I had no idea how to do it.
Putting the horse firmly back in front of the cart, I decided that I had better actually play some of these "designer" games before trying to design one. Unfortunately, I had no opportunity over the next several months to play any of them. All the guys I knew played either miniature games or RPGs.
So I painted some Warmachine miniatures...
Then luck struck. In short order I found BoardGameGeek, then the forum for Ontario (where I happen to reside). I found a game club close to where I lived, then another, then yet another. Now, finally, I was able to experience what I'd had been admiring from afar, and it was fantastic. I fell in love with modern board games.
How did I go so long without them? I really liked the variety of play experiences that board games offered. I liked that you didn't really need to know much about the game beforehand in order to be competitive. It was quite possible to play a few different games in one evening, and the set-up was usually pretty quick. I liked that my inability to judge distance had no bearing on my losing the game, unlike many miniatures games. Now I could lose games solely based on my poor decisions and lack of sound judgment.
In addition to playing board games, I also researched game design and self-publishing. I've always had an interest in design, and game design in particular. I had fiddled with some bland ideas for board games based on mass market kids games. Now that I'd seen a real market made up of smaller publishers, I started to think seriously of making a game. A little digging revealed a good deal of information on how to design a game. The board game industry is a very sharing and nurturing group.
The Switch
During the summer of 2010, the toggle in my brain switched from "thinking about doing" to "doing", from "I could do this" to "I will do this". The fact that I had no proof that I could in fact design an interesting game didn't deter me, although I certainly didn't expect instant results.
The next step was logical: Get a group of game designers together so I'd have people to playtest the games I intended to design. I didn't actually have any games to test yet, but I wanted the resources in place for when I did. I could have just brought games to the local games clubs, but I was worried about alienating that group by forcing them to play through my (likely very terrible) first games.
I had recently met local designers who were members of the Game Artisans of Canada. We managed to get a small group of designers together for a night of playtesting on September 2, 2010. I still didn't have a game, but I did have a mechanism and a half-dozen D6s.
How Dog-Walking Lead to a Game Design
Have you ever tried to count a dozen dogs who are running, chasing, and wrestling? It's really hard – unless you count them in groups: three black dogs, four yellow dogs, two white dogs, and three spotted dogs.
I thought this rapid counting might make for a novel game, although I needed to find a way to use dice instead of dogs. My research had indicated that dice games were "hot", Zombie Dice and Roll Through the Ages were hits, and I had figured these types of game would be good for a new designer. I figured a publisher would be more likely to take a chance on an unknown designer if the game's production costs were lower. It also made sense to learn about game design with a small, simple game first before tackling something more complex.
I started by just rolling dice and rapidly grouping them together by the number of pips showing. I found that making it easy and quick was more fun than making it more challenging. Essentially, the objective was to be the first to recognize how many of a number were present, but it didn't matter which set you were looking for. Once you had been the first to call a set of, say, 5s, you could tick 5s off your list of sets to find. Winning was based on collecting a set of 1 through 6.
I knew I was onto something because my players were engaged, and more importantly, our games were always loud and full of laughter. As it happened, I had made a party game. I don't much fancy party games so I was a little disappointed. It was what it was, and it was fun, so I could live with that. It turned out to be a big hit with kids, too. I hadn't seen that one coming. I kept hearing, "My kids would love this", and lo and behold, they did. I had accidentally designed a kids game as well. Oooops.
Before I got to know them through the Game Artisans of Canada, I had read Sen-Foong Lim and Jay Cormier's excellent Inspiration to Publication blog. One philosophy of theirs that I followed was "Finding the Fun". The idea is to figure out which part of the game is the most fun, then design the rest of the game to support that experience. In this instance, I applied this rule of thumb mostly by not adding more game to the game.
After the proof of concept testing, I looked for a theme. I wanted something in which the set collecting would make sense, something that would add a bit of narrative to an otherwise abstract game. Sure, I could have gone with a dog-walking theme and used poops instead of pips, but one's first idea is rarely the best.
Would I have thought of the Frankenstein story if Halloween weren't right around the corner? I guess we'll never know, but I'm glad I found a theme that matched the game better than any I could have hoped for. Incorporating the thematic elements of this classic tale was highly enjoyable and rewarding. Surprisingly, it made the rules easy to explain since the game play followed the (basics) of the story so closely.
Soon the game was ready enough to enter a design contest – or so I thought.
Set Back, Step Up
I entered my creation into a local design contest, where it wasn't well received. I did, however, receive good feedback and learned that my rules weren't as good as I had thought. Poor rules make for a poor game experience, regardless of how much fun the game may be. Disheartened, I put FrankenDie into its own little "coffin box" for half a year while I worked on some truly terrible designs.
I picked up my jaw, grabbed my game, and booked a flight to Calgary for Cardstock. It was time to take FrankenDie on tour!
Cardstock is the rockingest 52 hours of game designerum. The poster really doesn't do it justice. It's a members-only weekend of intense playtesting organized by the Game Artisans of Canada. FrankenDie got to spend some time in the forge, being honed by far more experienced designers than me, and it became lean and mean, like Stallone in Rocky IV.
Thanks to NutForge Games for investing in new art by adding Darren Calvert to the FrankenDie team. Having such great art for the game made it feel more, well, real. I had been using a rough prototype until then, but with the first draft of the art, we were able to put together a nice pre-production prototype, complete with thick tiles, a solid graveyard disk, and large 19mm dice.
Then in early November 2011, FrankenDie booked a gig in Hamilton for the inaugural Protospiel North, where it received a little more polish. During a Speed Gaming event, I got to teach and play it with seven groups of three over two hours in twenty-minute chunks. It was a blast, and my game was well-received by all sorts of different types of gamers.
With help from NutForge Games, I've developed an expansion with character cards that could either help slower players or drop speed bumps in front of the speed demons. Don't get me wrong – there's stuff for the average players, too, which gives the game a bit of a twist. I think the gem of the expansions is its ability to level the playing field, which is fantastic when playing with family. If Grandma is a little slow, no problem, we've got a little something just for her. And if your nephew has the reflexes of cat, then not to worry, there's a card for him, too.
The Kickstart
Meanwhile, NutForge Games was busy planning a Kickstarter campaign, which launched on November 23. One of the key components was the video to introduce our game. They drafted a script, gathered the props, secured a couple of locations, coerced their spouses, and gently persuaded our friend and fellow designer, Daryl, to work the camera. Shooting the video was a lot of fun but also a lot of work. With luck, persistence, and maybe a few well-placed threats, FrankenDie will get the juice it needs so that we can throw the switch and cry, "It's Aliiiiiive!"
Well, done. You did it. You read the whole FrankenDiary, or skimmed it, or skipped to the bottom, whatever. Feel free to pat yourself on the back for a job well done. (I mean this literally. It's surprisingly effective.)
Al Leduc
And now, just a bit more...
Interesting Facts that Didn't Fit in the Diary
** Six is the maximum number of players because the game just gets too loud and chaotic with more (but we'll include rules for the brave few who have more than five friends).
** Injuries are surprisingly uncommon while playing this game, but are unsurprisingly common before and after playing.
** There are no scores – only one winner and a bunch of, um, not-winners.
** I'm dyslexic, so many, many words were harmed during the writing of this diary.
** One of the game's original objectives was to use dice in an unique manner. (I figure if this game's a hit, I'll be able to score an invite to someone's unique manor. Cross your fingers for me.)
** It's best to move the graveyard closer to children because their arms are shorter. (The same goes when playing with a T-rex.)
** Sometimes the dice get obscured by body parts, usually belonging to other players.
** The opportunity to lord your genius over your opponents should never be squandered.
** Many of the game's few rules were rapidly developed while playing the game with other designers, or "designing on the fly" as we liked to call it. I'm still taking all the credit though.
A boatload of thanks needs to be given to GAC for without them and their support, I wouldn't have had a game worthy of being published.
I would also like to thank our supporters who have already backed FrankenDie on Kickstarter. The generosity of our little community always amazes me.
/pic938454.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic1176882.jpg)
/pic1080927.jpg)
/pic1173854.png)
:strip_icc()/pic1174164.jpg)
