Cart (0)Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Glenn Drover, game designer of the upcoming game Victory and Glory: Napoleon!
A: The main pitfall is falling in love with your original design and ideas. At the beginning of a project, a designer is usually extremely excited about the new game, and thinks that they know how it should work. Once the reality of the first playtest kicks in, the designer’s assumptions are usually sorely tested, and many issues appear. A good designer will remain flexible enough to immediately throw out what is not working and make the necessary changes. If they are too in love with their original idea, they may not be open to that and their design can become stuck and never progress.
Q: You did great tabletop adaptations of famous PC games like Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery, Age of Mythology: The Board game, Railroad Tycoon, etc. Now you had embarked yourself in a contrary enterprise: to make a PC version of a board game. What are the differences you encountered in this process?
A: This game was actually a PC game from the get-go, but one that was designed with board game sensibilities and mechanics. It’s actually far easier to create in the electronic rather than in the physical medium because the computer allows the designer a great deal of freedom to create mechanics and systems that can be handled quickly and seamlessly by the computer. Board games require mechanics that are easy to understand, easy to execute, and do not become tedious for the players to perform over and over. This often requires streamlining a design and abstracting complex elements to a point that gameplay can flow more smoothly. PC games sometimes reward the opposite: the kitchen sink approach. PC gamers often want more detail and more complexity (since the computer can manage it anyway). Converting from PC to board game is challenging because you have to know what to eliminate and streamline. Converting from board game to PC game is challenging because you have to know what to add to enhance the experience.
