How has the game design process changed for you as you have become more successful?
For instance, do you still mostly pitch games or expansions as you think of them to publishers? Or are you asked or commissioned by publishers for particular types of games or expansions?
I mostly just work on Dominion expansions. No pitching happens. If nothing's been happening, Jay will say, do I have more Dominion stuff? Or something else?
Companies have asked me to show them something. That has gone okay; some of those companies took a game. There was a period where I was pitching games to companies, sending them around. That did not go so well, after starting with a bang.
How did these games get published?
- Dominion, Monster Factory - pitched to RGG at Origins
- Temporum - RGG said, what are you working on? And then wanted it.
- Nefarious - ran into Scott at the GoF, after a few rejections from other companies; then Mosigra/Magellan got it due to pestering me to get to make a Russian version when Scott went awol
- Infiltration - FFG asked me to show them some games
- Kingdom Builder - Queen asked me to show them something
- Greed - Queen found out I had another company looking at this, and wanted it
- Pina Pirata - IELLO asked me to show them some games
- Gauntlet of Fools - Travis was part of the local scene, and was playing it before I was done with it
Some entities have asked for something specific, but nothing has happened there.
- 999 Games wanted a game that simulated being in the Dutch army during peacetime. I never had much of a grip on what you'd be doing.
- FFG wanted me to do a deckbuilding game for them. I would have needed a pitch that sounded good to them but which RGG didn't want. They were too busy for pitches.
- BGG wanted micro games, to try to get into the micro game business. I didn't really have one but offered them something at least kind of small. They liked it but decided against it. I had another thing to potentially offer them but it required work I never put into it.
- An Italian company wanted something along certain lines, I thought I had a reasonable match, they did not want it
- Travis wanted a dice game along the lines of Cosmic Wimpout. I came up with some directions that weren't much like that, and maybe I will still pursue those someday.
The expansions, well for Dominion they knew I had a pile of them, then HiG asked for a small one, then after Guilds one day I said "I'm working on a new one" and what were the odds, RGG was interested. For Kingdom Builder I made a large one because there was stuff to do and it seemed likely that they'd want it. Then they wanted it split into two, then I was done but the SdJ made them say, more expansions please. Who knows, those may come out after all.
