this is amazing, and i feel very inspired by your work! Can you tell us anything about how you design games? I mean, how frequently do you work on game design? what is your day job? do you consider game design a hobby or eventual career? how old are you? do u have a family? do u have other hobbies? how do u balance game design/playtesting with life/hobbies? where do you get the art/graphic design for your games? where do you get the components for your games? does anyone help you design them? where do u find playtesters? have u ever published anything or contributed to a published game? are your games intended to be in italian (not english)?
1. a couple hours per day 2. family business of services for events (stages,lights,chairs,etc). also we run some cinemas and we organize concerts as local promoter. 3. hobby as an author, but have an ongoing project about becoming an editor. 4. just turned 30 5. wife and 2yrs old daughter 6. gaming mostly 7. while prototype, google images. when it gets serious, i hire a pro illustrator. 8. cards etc i print by myself. other stuff from gaming sites. there is also a shop in germany called spielmaterial that has a lot of stuff. 9 usually not at beginning when i'm getting an idea, but sure for tests. 10. gamers associations meetings. 11. not yet, but i have a couple games that should be out next year. 12. depends. best choice is a game without written parts so you have only to make rulebook multilingual
Thanks for the replies. Feeling very inspired by you Some of my games: 1. https://nanoarena.wordpress.com/ Anime + Pox Nora + Malifaux/Puppet Wars (tabletop games) After I sold most of my anime figures, I created hexagonal pieces to replace them in the game: (the poker cards are used as resources in the game in a totally innovative way - stolen from Malifaux!) 2. Kantai Collection Card Game WWII-era naval warships anthropomorphized as school girls. Grid-based tactical strategy game of fleet vs. fleet combat.
I dream of designing games, but I was heavily discouraged by a couple things: I design based on art. It's not a "normal" way to design games, especially euro-style games (which I am for - I hate RNG). And I struggled very hard with "accepting" myself on this. Only recently have I felt that it's ok to design starting with art rather than starting with an abstract game concept. Because I design based on art, my two most-recent games were using existing art assets (IP) - and since the design was totally integrated with the art, it was impossible to just swap out the art for something not copyrighted. Once I was doing betatesting and wanting to start consider publishing, I realized that I had so much fun designing, I didn't stop to think if what I was doing was even feasible - actually acquiring rights to popular anime series art. I eventually just abandoned both games because I thought I wasted my time entirely. :-(
Designing games based on art is fully okay. It's also okay to make games for yourself and share it with friends and online instead of thinking you have to make money of it. I am working on a miniature board game for myself based solely on some miniatures I ordered that I won't publish for money. Aquiring rights to anime art is super expensive, however some games get over it by making a parody of the characters. Would you be okay with parody characters? You could make your own original characters too of course. Just hire an artist.
the graphics are really nice, gj! (you really like anime girls, don't you ) if you want to share rulebook i could give you my opinion on it^^ btw have you heard of the game " fast food fear"? it sold quite much at gencon...and its made by an author that is a friend of mine, working with me at the editor project
acquiring a license is extremely expensive so i wouldn't even try it if you are not supported by a professional editor. designing game based on art is ok, but dangerous so keep care i think its better if you get and idea from art, then design the game always keeping in mind the art but not basing the game only on that, and then finalize it. One of the things that happens when you send a game to an editor is that they like the mechanic but want to change art/ style / theme, so if you are too based on art you would be disappointed
Yes I love waifus. I abandoned these games for 2 years now, I need to figure out how to dig myself out this design slump I got myself into from getting discouraged over the art/IP issue. I haven't heard of fast food fear yet, but I like Food Chain Magnate, a popular heavy game ;-)
