Victory Pointers 007 – Seeking Excellence with Jamey Stegmaier

We are joined by Jamey Stegmaier to discuss seeking excellence in board game design. We discuss setting expectations, blind playtesting, how our views on excellence have changed, and figuring out what games to publish.

Jamey Stegmaier – @jameystegmaier / stonemaiergames.com

Kim Brebach – @secretbasegames / secretbasegames.com

Aaron Lim – @ehronlime / theactionpointspodcast.com

Sye Robertson – @syelon / syelon.com

What we talked about

What makes a game exceptional? 2:20

Meeting audience expectations 8:25

Changing views of excellence across Stonemaier games 11:12

Blind playtesting 13:40

Play testers as promoters 28:00

Our changing views on excellence and uniqueness 30:00

The game ‘experience’ 34:30

Studying the craft of game design 37:40

Outside inspiration 42:28

Top 3 resources for improving your game design craft 46:45

How important is the meld between theme and mechanics in game design for the promise of excellence? 56:00

Importance of art in the promise of excellence 58:33

What does Stonemaier games look for in other peoples designs it considers
publishing? 1:04:55

Retheming 1:06:12

How is kickstarter mixing things up in game design and publishing? 1:09:00

What is the publisher’s role in publishing exceptional games? 1:10:20

Links to what we talked about

Check out Jamey’s blog here
Jamey’s book “A Crowdfunder’s Strategy Guide” can be found here
Jamey’s blog post “An Open Letter to Game Designers”
Ignacy Trzewiczek’s blog post “I challenge you! Honest publisher manifesto!”

Games we mentioned

Scythe on Kickstarter
Scythe art by Jakub Rozalski
Viticulture
Euphoria
Between Two Cities
MONSTROUS
Robots and Rockets
Gloomhaven
Consentacle
Bycatch
…and then we held hands
Patchwork

Game Design Resources

Ludology
The Game Design Round Table
Stuff You Missed in History Class
History of Pirates Podcast
Art and Graphic Design for Tabletop Games on Facebook
Cardboard Edison
Gamasutra
99% Invisible
The Psychology of Video Games
MailChimp
Print and Play Productions
Board Game Geek Design Forum – Brief crash course on game design
Perfect Information Podcast
Tabletop Game Designers Australia

Other Facebook Groups:

Card & Board Game Designers Guild
Kickstarter Best Practices
Tabletop Games Kickstarter Advice
Tabletop Game Publisher’s Guild
Writing for Tabletop Games

Check out our interviews with Malaysian board game designers in our previous episode

If you’re in Australia, there are some Australia-specific resources here as well.

Music: Something Small (Instrumental) by Minden is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. Based on a work at http://needledrop.co