Speaker 1: Out of the street corners. They scream. You knew it
Speaker 1: was coming. You've been waiting for this for months, rumor
Speaker 1: hardened into fear, and now they scream at you, the sirens,
Speaker 1: their hysterical wail, tearing through the white noise of the city,
Speaker 1: and you run. You run to pick up those things
Speaker 1: that can never be replaced, a picture of them in
Speaker 1: the days when they still loved you, your mother's wedding ring.
Speaker 1: And then you turn to your shelf of games. You
Speaker 1: only have room for five. Five Games for Doomsday. Five
Speaker 1: Games for Doomsday is a show in which board game
Speaker 1: personalities are thrust into a cabin in the woods to
Speaker 1: outrun an oncoming disaster, but can only take five of
Speaker 1: their games with them. But which will they choose. My
Speaker 1: guest this week is one half of the most original
Speaker 1: publisher in hobby gaming in real life. He's a graduate
Speaker 1: in cryptography and a business owner working in deep tech
Speaker 1: in games. He designs and publishes under Splotter, Spell and
Speaker 1: the hugely original Dutch publisher responsible for Antiquity Indonesia, food Chain, Magnetum,
Speaker 1: and many others. My guest this week is your own Dowman,
Speaker 1: your own Welcome to the cabin.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So my first question is is how difficult was it
Speaker 1: for you to pick the five games take to the cabin.
Speaker 2: Well, there's two answers to that question. On the one hand,
Speaker 2: it's very difficult to narrow something down to five games
Speaker 2: and just just pick only five. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: gaming for me is always more about people I gained
Speaker 2: this and having a fun experience together than the actual
Speaker 2: game that's on the table, if you understand what I mean.
Speaker 1: Sure, So let's go back to the beginning. Then, so
Speaker 1: you studied cryptography. How does a person get into cryptography?
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's an excellent question. It's essentially by not
Speaker 2: being able to choose in a way, because cryptography is
Speaker 2: essentially a branch of mathematics that takes whatever font puzzles
Speaker 2: can be had from left and right anywhere in mathematics
Speaker 2: to create a difficult puzzle out of that and build
Speaker 2: a cryptosystem.
Speaker 1: And so what do you do in a cryptography degree.
Speaker 2: Well built, build secure systems, may make sure stuff can
Speaker 2: remain secret or authentic or what have you not.
Speaker 1: And so then that resulted in you working in deep tech,
Speaker 1: and I tried to work out what deep tech actually meant.
Speaker 1: But the problem is your own is I'm not very clever,
Speaker 1: and certainly anything to do with mathematics is an absolute disaster.
Speaker 1: So what is deep tech?
Speaker 2: Dep tech doesn't really have much to do with mathematics
Speaker 2: or with the technology itself. I think it's it's more
Speaker 2: to do with with an investor's horizon, because deep tech
Speaker 2: is something that will take a long time to pay
Speaker 2: off any investment. I think that's a good definition to
Speaker 2: look to.
Speaker 1: But what kind of things does deep tech do? What
Speaker 1: kind of products does it produce?
Speaker 2: There's typically a lot of semiconductors, so computer chips, things
Speaker 2: like that. They often take years to design. Then you
Speaker 2: have to convince people that yours are better than those
Speaker 2: of somebody else, and before you know it, you're five
Speaker 2: to ten years down the road. Well, typical investor will
Speaker 2: want a return on his money in I don't know,
Speaker 2: three years or so. And of course I'm fantasizing slightly
Speaker 2: here because this is not my world. I like I
Speaker 2: like to keep in the technology part of the business
Speaker 2: and be clever and not have too much to do
Speaker 2: with the money side of things unless I have to.
Speaker 1: And you formed your own company, what does it do yees.
Speaker 2: So I did that with a bunch of co founders
Speaker 2: and essentially what we do, and I think the easiest
Speaker 2: way to explain it is we create electronic bar code.
Speaker 2: So any piece of electronics you can stick a unique barcode,
Speaker 2: the thing gets its own unique identity and it can
Speaker 2: prove its own identity. And that that way you can
Speaker 2: keep track of the life cycle of your your electronics
Speaker 2: or the electronic components throughout throughout this whole life, even
Speaker 2: after you refurbish it, and you still you still know
Speaker 2: it's life history in a way year or you have
Speaker 2: a way of tracking that.
Speaker 1: Excellent. So your first game then is unsurprising to me
Speaker 1: as an eighteen xx and this is eighteen thirty three.
Speaker 1: So what is your background with eighteen xx and why
Speaker 1: do the games appeal to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, They've always appealed to me a lot. And what
Speaker 2: I really wanted to pick an eighteen xx game for
Speaker 2: one of my five games. And I think one of
Speaker 2: the ways it tackles me is that the entanglement it
Speaker 2: creates between players because it's the type of game that
Speaker 2: plays in two levels. As a player, or you're an
Speaker 2: investor in companies, you have no clue yet what those
Speaker 2: companies will do and whoever invested most in a company
Speaker 2: to run it in the operation round and make all
Speaker 2: these decisions. So that game on two levels is fascinating
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: And then what's special about eighteen thirty three n E.
Speaker 2: Well, in a way, it's a little bit of a
Speaker 2: gamble because I've played prototype a handful of times. The
Speaker 2: game has not been released yet, should hopefully finally be
Speaker 2: out end of this year, and I really like what
Speaker 2: it does. It's kind of the bigger broader to eighteen
Speaker 2: forty six, which is a game that was distilled down
Speaker 2: from the roots of eighteen thirty three and E. And
Speaker 2: so I like what it does, and I hope there's
Speaker 2: it has enough legs for me to spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time in the cabin.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, you look at eighteen xx publishers.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Lonnie Augla recently, and the eighteen xx community
Speaker 1: is its own kind of cult within board gaming. Do
Speaker 1: you do you kind of feel an affinity with what
Speaker 1: you do and what eighteen xx publishers.
Speaker 2: Do partially partially, uh, but but maybe for the eighteen
Speaker 2: xx mostly designers, I would say they're designed and more
Speaker 2: constrained in that you still want to keep to the
Speaker 2: eighteen xx guardrails in the way it's almost always about
Speaker 2: railway companies and owning shares and debt. There's there's a
Speaker 2: few exceptions to that, including our own.
Speaker 1: One of yours, yeah, which I'll which I'll never play again,
Speaker 1: your own because the first time I played it, I won,
Speaker 1: and so I can never play it again because I've
Speaker 1: got one hundred percent record.
Speaker 2: Well, but I hope you liked it at least did
Speaker 2: I love it? Yeah, there's there's a really fun story
Speaker 2: about that part because when we released eighteen thirty BC,
Speaker 2: there was one of the Norwegian stores kept kept buying
Speaker 2: copies from us, and at some point we asked, how
Speaker 2: do you sell this many copies of an eighteen x
Speaker 2: X game? Because they were the only shop that was
Speaker 2: selling so much and and and they were saying, oh,
Speaker 2: your game is fantastic. It's it's it's relatively short, and
Speaker 2: and it teaches more dirty twigs and eighteen thirty has
Speaker 2: it's the perfect preparation for someone to learn how to
Speaker 2: play eighteen thirty or any of the others. That was
Speaker 2: really good to hear.
Speaker 1: So I want to move on there and talk to you,
Speaker 1: talk about you as a gamer rather than a designer.
Speaker 1: So how did you discover board games?
Speaker 2: Well, I I've I've played them from from childhood onwards essentially.
Speaker 2: So when I was in high school, I played actually
Speaker 2: Allies with with my friends with friends, that was the
Speaker 2: brand new game at the time. I then also discovered
Speaker 2: this this little weird male order shop. There was an
Speaker 2: efvert in a newspaper or magazine somewhere which was nine
Speaker 2: and nine games, and and one of the games the
Speaker 2: advertise for Civilization. I was like, well, this sounds fun.
Speaker 2: I'll take a chance and I'll order a copy. It arrived.
Speaker 2: I never at that point really played it that much
Speaker 2: because I didn't have the group for it, and the
Speaker 2: group wasn't big enough. But it was a wonderful game
Speaker 2: to own and and play. When I went to university
Speaker 2: I met more people to play with and to play
Speaker 2: lots of other games with as well.
Speaker 1: And so what kinds of player are you? Are you
Speaker 1: a quiet, thoughtful game or are you someone who Are
Speaker 1: you someone who plans a million turns ahead? Or are
Speaker 1: you more sort of shooting from the hip, shouting at
Speaker 1: people across the table? I mean like me.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm much more quiet's soulful player. I'll probably plan
Speaker 2: a million terms ahead, including for you. I also remember
Speaker 2: about what was visit game club here in Ainthoven. We
Speaker 2: were playing Game of Titan and and and people. Uh.
Speaker 2: For people who don't know the game, it's it's a
Speaker 2: fantasy combat game. You have hit, you have hidden armies.
Speaker 2: You show a little bit of information if you get
Speaker 2: a new fantasy creature into your army, uh, and and
Speaker 2: and how you got it there, and then for the
Speaker 2: rest of it is hidden you you move your armies around,
Speaker 2: so you don't quite know what's what a miss the
Speaker 2: other people have. But at some point everyone was just
Speaker 2: asking me what's in this army of mine? And I
Speaker 2: was correct ninety percent of the time or so, and so.
Speaker 1: When did you think, oh, I like these things, maybe
Speaker 1: I'd like to make them too.
Speaker 2: So that's that was really at the start of university
Speaker 2: and near the near the start of splot of as well,
Speaker 2: even though I didn't join as a partner all the
Speaker 2: way at the start, because we we were playing lots
Speaker 2: of lots of different different games, there were far fewer
Speaker 2: different games than than there are now. And I think, actually,
Speaker 2: well I had met your yours as well, and and
Speaker 2: other people we.
Speaker 1: So did you meet him at university?
Speaker 2: Yes, So we founded a gaming society together to play
Speaker 2: board games with with a lot of people. And at
Speaker 2: some point we also had like, well there's too few games,
Speaker 2: let's create, let's create some of our own. So we
Speaker 2: had evenings or or days where we would design a
Speaker 2: little game of our own. And one one of the
Speaker 2: other things is I also played a lot of computer games.
Speaker 2: I still play quite a few. One of the games
Speaker 2: that I enjoyed was low so that Settlers. You you
Speaker 2: may have heard of it, And if if you did
Speaker 2: some arcade things to your computer hooked up to miles,
Speaker 2: et cetera, you could play the split screen with two players.
Speaker 2: And I played it a few times videos and then
Speaker 2: we both enjoyed that and we were like, but can
Speaker 2: can we also do this in board game for him?
Speaker 2: So that's how Roads and Boats was born. And that's
Speaker 2: that's actually the first game that that we started working on,
Speaker 2: even if it's not the first published game from Slaughter.
Speaker 1: So your next game then is Age of Craft. Why
Speaker 1: are you taking this one to the cabin?
Speaker 2: I But one of the reasons I wanted to have
Speaker 2: a diverse set of games. Each age of Craft is
Speaker 2: wonderful for me because it's a it's it's a dice
Speaker 2: drafting game, and it's relatively quick and you're building new building,
Speaker 2: new buildings, uh with with the dice that you collect,
Speaker 2: some building if you'll produce dice, et cetera. So in
Speaker 2: a in a way, it's what resource building game or
Speaker 2: what's what's the current name for the sayings a cube,
Speaker 2: cube turner, cute pusher, Yeah, and but it's it's it's
Speaker 2: a wonderful little quirky little thing. And well I also
Speaker 2: I also very much nowadays and enjoy Japanese games because
Speaker 2: they often well they're often relatively small, not not and
Speaker 2: not too big, but they can contain it one wonderful
Speaker 2: little ideas. They're still down to the core because not
Speaker 2: more fits in the box, and so.
Speaker 1: More and more over the last decade, Asian games have
Speaker 1: been becoming a thing, I think culminating really with Bombusters
Speaker 1: winning Spielder Sharas last year. But is there anything unique
Speaker 1: about the games coming out of Asia, do you think?
Speaker 2: But in it in in a way it's it's a
Speaker 2: different scene. There's not as many big publishers. I think
Speaker 2: though the big Western publishers are now also scouting a
Speaker 2: lot for for Japanese designs. So there's much more culture
Speaker 2: of the miners producing five to fifty copies of their
Speaker 2: own game, and they are very happy with every with
Speaker 2: every sale and everyone who plays their game, and if
Speaker 2: it doesn't sell, then they're making you. They're make a
Speaker 2: new one.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk now about more about you
Speaker 1: and your your your start in design. So the first
Speaker 1: game you published, which I which I played the other day, interestingly,
Speaker 1: was Web and I was playing it with someone and
Speaker 1: they were saying, I see the origins of Splotter in
Speaker 1: this game. What what does Web share with the games
Speaker 1: you subsequently designed.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's that's that's a hard question. I would say
Speaker 2: one of the things that shares is is roudbuilding, because
Speaker 2: a lot, if not almost all of our games involves
Speaker 2: some form of network or routbuilding, and that that is
Speaker 2: the core of Web. You're you're building a route from
Speaker 2: the start or from a start to point two point
Speaker 2: scoring locations, and a little bit in there is also
Speaker 2: distilling down what you actually do in a turn, because
Speaker 2: in Web, you get if you get a few action
Speaker 2: points depending on the towel you play, and you and
Speaker 2: you can spend those on a on a few different options.
Speaker 2: We actually played it, uh two months back or so
Speaker 2: again and we and we were also both seeing yours
Speaker 2: was in the same game. We were both thinking along
Speaker 2: similar lines, it's like this, this really still is a
Speaker 2: blotter game. And we were also both like, if we
Speaker 2: would design this now and nowadays, we would do so
Speaker 2: much different.
Speaker 1: And so then when did you decide to form the
Speaker 1: company and why did you end up calling it splotter spelling?
Speaker 2: Forming the company was what was Tomara Harmon and yours
Speaker 2: started it basically because we we we had a bunch
Speaker 2: of games that we that we we all enjoyed ourselves,
Speaker 2: and we had shopped them around to a few bigger
Speaker 2: publishers and they they all very politely but very firmly
Speaker 2: said no, we don't, we don't want to publish this.
Speaker 2: And then at some point we or I should say,
Speaker 2: Tomara Hammond and simply decided, hey, we know a few
Speaker 2: other Dutch designers Kraley and side On, why don't we
Speaker 2: just rent the boots in Essen and make a few
Speaker 2: handcrafted games and sell them there. So that's really what
Speaker 2: what the start of Splotter was. So Web was one
Speaker 2: of the first games that was was in the mix
Speaker 2: for the first year. I didn't join as a partner
Speaker 2: until a few years later. And the name came from
Speaker 2: Tomorrow and actually from the logo because Tomara had drawn
Speaker 2: the logo first. And it's a shortening of spell and
Speaker 2: otter because the logo is a little otter, so it's
Speaker 2: really game otter.
Speaker 1: So so the Dutch word for otter is otter. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I know a Dutch word. Now, I'm sure you know
Speaker 1: more than one. You know web well? Also also I
Speaker 1: know web. Yeah, so I'm getting on to that. So
Speaker 1: your first big game then was Boss. How did Buss
Speaker 1: come about?
Speaker 2: I would argue that Roads and Boats was really the
Speaker 2: first big game, both because we started designing that earlier
Speaker 2: and I think it released a year before Bus. Okay actually,
Speaker 2: but but Bus really really came out of one of
Speaker 2: the design sessions where we were fooling around and trying
Speaker 2: and trying trying to make a game about moving about
Speaker 2: delivering passengers to where they want to go, and it
Speaker 2: grew from there. End my memory on it is very
Speaker 2: hazy at the moment.
Speaker 1: It's been a while, And so Buss is a game
Speaker 1: I first played when the Capstone version came out, and
Speaker 1: I recently had a gaming weekend and Bus was the
Speaker 1: first game that was played at the weekend. So it's
Speaker 1: a game that came out in nineteen ninety nine and
Speaker 1: people are still buying it, people are still playing it.
Speaker 1: Does that surprise you.
Speaker 2: In a way? Yes, that it's it's fair to be honest,
Speaker 2: and an old design, but it's the design still still
Speaker 2: holds up quite well, and I think I think it's
Speaker 2: still a good game. I still chuckle a little bit
Speaker 2: because you can. It's it's a game you can play
Speaker 2: in two very different ways. And when we designed it,
Speaker 2: we mainly played it in the as mean as possible game.
Speaker 2: So that's why why we put duration of two to
Speaker 2: three hours on the box. And and we had a
Speaker 2: little joke in that we put the score track up
Speaker 2: to I forget thirty points or so. Well, high score
Speaker 2: we had seen was more around seven points, but hey,
Speaker 2: we we had this wonderful game board all this. All
Speaker 2: the score islands were named after island games, and we
Speaker 2: came up with thirty or so of them. But but
Speaker 2: then we also got comments like why do you put
Speaker 2: two to three hours on the game. We finished this
Speaker 2: in thirty to forty five minutes, and the score treg
Speaker 2: is too short. If you play it extremely friendly, don't
Speaker 2: block anyone, Yeah, then you score a lot of points.
Speaker 1: I have never played a game of Bus where the
Speaker 1: winner has scored more than eight points.
Speaker 2: I think it's shame. But that's not the only way
Speaker 2: to play the game.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I mean, I know, in this modern
Speaker 1: world your own that we should be we should be
Speaker 1: nice and open to other people's points of view. But frankly,
Speaker 1: that is playing bus role.
Speaker 2: I agree. It's also not the way I play Bus.
Speaker 1: But so your next game then is something I never
Speaker 1: knew existed until you sent me the list, and this
Speaker 1: is Babylon five Walls. But before we get to the game,
Speaker 1: this is one of those TV shows that I've never
Speaker 1: seen that everyone always says to me, Oh, you have
Speaker 1: to see Babylon five. Of those nice anti sci fi shows,
Speaker 1: it's by far the best. Why is the TV show
Speaker 1: so good?
Speaker 2: I will join the chorus and say, it's it's really
Speaker 2: a wonderful sci fi show. You you you should, you
Speaker 2: should really watch it. And I think, apart from the
Speaker 2: c g I effects. It's it still holds up extremely
Speaker 2: well even even now. And for me, it's the TV
Speaker 2: show is so good because it's essentially it's a it's
Speaker 2: a Greek tragedy. It's it's one big story. It's it's
Speaker 2: it's not episodical. It's almost actually entirely from the first episode,
Speaker 2: it's already leading into the end of the show. And
Speaker 2: that that shows and the writing is phenomenal, phenomenal for me.
Speaker 1: And so how well does the game evoke the show?
Speaker 2: It's it evokes the show pretty nicely because the game,
Speaker 2: because the game has a gazillion different spaceships that that
Speaker 2: you can use to fight with, and most of at
Speaker 2: least the earlier ones appear on the show, and then
Speaker 2: later you get to ships that are only mentioned on
Speaker 2: the show, and then all the way to fantasy ships
Speaker 2: that somebody made up at some point. But it's if
Speaker 2: if you look at there are let's say, four main
Speaker 2: alien races, including humans, and two more powerful races, and
Speaker 2: those are have very different philosophies, both in the writing
Speaker 2: on the show how they're acted, and that that comes
Speaker 2: true in in the spaceships as well. So that's real
Speaker 2: that's really fun to see, and it's it's also a
Speaker 2: game that I played a lot with my girlfriend, so
Speaker 2: it's it has emotional connections for me. They are two
Speaker 2: and it's it's it's a fun dice chugger. You wore
Speaker 2: a ton of dice to see if if you should
Speaker 2: if you hit each other, yes or no. It's it's
Speaker 2: essentially more or less starfreet Battles Clone. That's a little
Speaker 2: a little bit easier rules wise, but it's great fun.
Speaker 1: So now I want to talk more about Splotter. So
Speaker 1: the the thing about Splotter is they they're a cult
Speaker 1: publisher and they that the people who are devoted to
Speaker 1: Splotter are crazy devoted to Splotter. When did you start
Speaker 1: to realize that you were developing a following?
Speaker 2: Probably after after Indonesia or so, so that that was
Speaker 2: really the dessert big game, and there was that was
Speaker 2: also around what a few years after Board Game Gig
Speaker 2: really started, and of course Red Games Board was was
Speaker 2: already quite entigesticals also about our games. But I don't
Speaker 2: know when when it was really a following or when
Speaker 2: that when it became a following, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And so then if you had to boil it down.
Speaker 1: I've had this conversation a lot with people in my
Speaker 1: game group. What would you say is the character of
Speaker 1: a Splotter game?
Speaker 2: I would say the character? And at least that's how
Speaker 2: we try to design new games, is that there's at
Speaker 2: least one new and unique mechanism in there. And it's
Speaker 2: also a game that's boiled down to it, to its essence,
Speaker 2: there's no superfluous parts.
Speaker 1: And so then so then when you when you're designing
Speaker 1: a game, how the duties split between you and yours?
Speaker 1: Do you have regular things that you excel at? Or
Speaker 1: is that all mixed up?
Speaker 2: It's it's it's it's very it's very mixed up. I'm
Speaker 2: sometimes a bit more analytical, and I I play more
Speaker 2: different board games from other publishers. Yours almost or only
Speaker 2: plays our prototypes nowadays. So sometimes Yours comes up with
Speaker 2: a great vis a, great idea, like what what what
Speaker 2: if you use this type of mechanism, And then I'm like, oh, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: that's a great mechanism that's exactly in this game already.
Speaker 2: So then we have to steer steer away from that
Speaker 2: a little bit. And yours is great in let's say
Speaker 2: a bit a bit more of the abstract few and
Speaker 2: and making sure that there is meaningful player interaction and
Speaker 2: player entanglement for to call it like that. And I'm
Speaker 2: often more analytical, and I'm like, if if you do
Speaker 2: the rules like this, if this and this happens, the
Speaker 2: game breaks. I'm quite good at break at breaking game prototypes,
Speaker 2: if I say so myself.
Speaker 1: And so the one thing about splotter, because the advantage
Speaker 1: you have of it not being your profession is that
Speaker 1: you're under no pressure to release games. So your release
Speaker 1: schedule is fairly irregular. What prompts you to start a game?
Speaker 1: Or are you always in the process of.
Speaker 2: Designing We're actually, we're we're always in the process of
Speaker 2: designing a new game. And uh, before this interview, actually
Speaker 2: I actually looked looked up and release schedule is is
Speaker 2: even it's relatively regular, or that we we slow down
Speaker 2: a lot because both you and myself have gotten busy
Speaker 2: or with our professional lives, and we no longer live
Speaker 2: in the same city so it's harder to see each other.
Speaker 2: But we but we've released a new game about every
Speaker 2: three years over the past decade or so. And sometimes
Speaker 2: we also had projects that we've worked on for a
Speaker 2: year or two years, and then and then we said, hey,
Speaker 2: we've developed this game or this game idea as as
Speaker 2: far as it's as it goes, we've distilled down the
Speaker 2: essence and there's no fun anymore. This is this is
Speaker 2: not a fun game. And then we discarded that and
Speaker 2: started with a new idea, and parts of it have
Speaker 2: appeared in other games, so that that often happens. But
Speaker 2: so for us, the design process often is we start
Speaker 2: with this a big thing, this, this is a big idea,
Speaker 2: and we chop chop away at it and could sometimes
Speaker 2: we cut away half of the game and that's extremely painful,
Speaker 2: sometimes more for me than for yours, and sometimes the
Speaker 2: other way around. But then we always say, hey, let's
Speaker 2: chop off this half of the game, play it once
Speaker 2: and see what remains. And sometimes it's it's a bad idea,
Speaker 2: and often it's like, hey, if we do that, the
Speaker 2: game improves a lot. For let me let it. Let
Speaker 2: me give give an example for the for the Great
Speaker 2: Zimbabwe that originally was was about colonizing an alien planet
Speaker 2: and there and there were three types of aliens that
Speaker 2: that would grow on the planet. You would have to
Speaker 2: defend yourself and your buildings against them. There were laser
Speaker 2: towers and all the stuff that you could build, and
Speaker 2: it was it was great fun. But it all so
Speaker 2: I added well more than double the game at the
Speaker 2: gameplay time because each turn those aliens had to grow.
Speaker 2: They each had their own rules for growing. And if
Speaker 2: I was in the game, it was no problem because
Speaker 2: I could do it relatively quickly. But we couldn't beg it.
Speaker 2: You run into every game box. So then we cut
Speaker 2: that out and we were like, hey, the building buildings
Speaker 2: center primary and secondary producer change, building up your building
Speaker 2: up monuments is really the essence of this game, and
Speaker 2: we should keep that and just remove the combat combating
Speaker 2: aliens parts. And then we also transplanted it into Africa.
Speaker 1: And so when I think of Splotter games, so I
Speaker 1: played a game of Antiquity once and I forgot to
Speaker 1: build wood in the first turn, and so I was
Speaker 1: never out of the game, but I could never do anything,
Speaker 1: And so I had sort of three hours of being
Speaker 1: kicked in the nuts. Space claim and and and your
Speaker 1: your games can be punishing and in the in the
Speaker 1: in the bio you sent to me, I can't remember
Speaker 1: exactly how they phrased it, but it was something like
Speaker 1: games that reward planning and punish complacency, something like this
Speaker 1: is the punishing nature of your game's coincidence or is
Speaker 1: that deliberate?
Speaker 2: It's it's not completely deliberate, but I think there's also
Speaker 2: a famous quote of your this saying that if if
Speaker 2: the first turn of the game doesn't doesn't matter, but
Speaker 2: why have that first turn? And why not when you
Speaker 2: start the second turn? And it's really a consequence of
Speaker 2: that design philosophy because if there is nothing meaningful to
Speaker 2: do in the first turn, we often just could could
Speaker 2: await it first turn and have you started a little
Speaker 2: bit later where you can very very actually matter. But
Speaker 2: that also means that you can make a bad mistake
Speaker 2: and put yourself out of the game. So the quote
Speaker 2: is often misinterpreted because it's definitely true that you can
Speaker 2: be out of a Splotter game in the first turn
Speaker 2: for a lot of our games, but it then always
Speaker 2: is your own fault. It's always a mistake that you
Speaker 2: made yourself. It's you. You cannot kick out another player typically,
Speaker 2: so that that's something we at least try very hard
Speaker 2: to guard against, and so do you.
Speaker 1: Have a game of yours that you think is kind
Speaker 1: of your your archetypal design that sort of sums up
Speaker 1: your and yours' design sensibility the most.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's a very difficult question, and probably my
Speaker 2: answer to that is the current game that we're working on.
Speaker 2: So now I will say, Bailiff of Boscope is that
Speaker 2: game if you ask me in a few years time,
Speaker 2: it will be the game that we're working on. Then.
Speaker 1: So your next game then is you one you've already mentioned,
Speaker 1: and it's a biggie and this is Civilization. So you're
Speaker 1: an eighteen xx fan and this is a game that
Speaker 1: you bought when you were young and you played. How
Speaker 1: important do you think is Francis Tresham to the world
Speaker 1: of board games?
Speaker 2: Oh? I think he's quite He's quite important because he
Speaker 2: designed Civilization, which which is a great game. He designed,
Speaker 2: designed eighteen twenty nine and started the whole eighteen xx
Speaker 2: scene and then partially walked away from it after eighteen
Speaker 2: thirty was developed. But he and he never managed to
Speaker 2: get horse racing into eighteen thirty year, which was his
Speaker 2: original wish. Or so I hear so in in in
Speaker 2: that in that sense, for more, more more complicated and
Speaker 2: more and more involved games. I think he made two
Speaker 2: of the of the real big titles there, so definitely
Speaker 2: quite important. And there's there's other things that he that
Speaker 2: he did as well that's quite admirable, but a little
Speaker 2: less to my own liking, like Revolution and the Judge
Speaker 2: and Circuit that that came out after he passed.
Speaker 1: So how good is the story that Civilization tells.
Speaker 2: For me? For for for me? For me, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's quite good. And I have a weakness for for
Speaker 2: the original Civilization, though I immediately admit that on Civilization
Speaker 2: is better as a game because otherwise when that never
Speaker 2: played Egypt and always pray, always play Creed because it's
Speaker 2: much much easier to get get certain disasters because they
Speaker 2: don't affect you. But there's really these big events, specific
Speaker 2: disasters that will will always happen. They will happen to
Speaker 2: somebody and that really shape the story and the story
Speaker 2: of the game and how that specific game develops.
Speaker 1: And Antiquity feels like a sief game to me. Was
Speaker 1: it inspired by Civilization at all?
Speaker 2: Not so much, I think, because to me, Civilization is
Speaker 2: is really a trading game. It's it's it's all about
Speaker 2: the trading and getting the resources, and the game board
Speaker 2: is secondary, is secondary to that. So so in that sense,
Speaker 2: and and Antiquity isn't inspired by by that. And Antiquity
Speaker 2: was really also inspired by by and that. That's why
Speaker 2: it's even though it's set in the Middle Ages. That's
Speaker 2: why it's vice called antiguity, uh, but by finiteness of
Speaker 2: resources in the cities around you, because people whould build
Speaker 2: up their cities and they were like, hey, we need
Speaker 2: to build new houses or new buildings, we need more woods.
Speaker 2: So hey, we go to the forest, we get more wood,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden the wood is gone
Speaker 2: and it's harder to build new buildings. And that whole
Speaker 2: spirit of the game is what we tried to capture
Speaker 2: and I think we did.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk now about the future. So
Speaker 1: first of all, how.
Speaker 2: Did he maybe maybe also one more thing about Civilization,
Speaker 2: because there's an extra reason why I picked it, and
Speaker 2: that's because a little less so for for current titles,
Speaker 2: but almost all of the earlier Splot heavier Splot Splotted titles,
Speaker 2: we play tested and created the civilization pieces. So if
Speaker 2: I have a copy of Civilization, I can design a
Speaker 2: lot of of extra games that will help.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk now about the future. So
Speaker 1: whenever a Splotter game comes out. I got one friend
Speaker 1: in particular, and you know, I say to him, you
Speaker 1: could go to the Lunar Box and he would he
Speaker 1: would buy it instantly on pre order because anything with
Speaker 1: your name on it he absolutely adores. And when Bailiff
Speaker 1: of Boss Coop came out, he was absolutely cocker Hoop.
Speaker 1: So so what was the inspiration for the game?
Speaker 2: What there was inspiration for that one? What was twofold
Speaker 2: we we we We posted this a teaser social media
Speaker 2: social media image as well, because one of the things
Speaker 2: was really water management in or in in Holland in
Speaker 2: early early Middle Ages, because it started out as a
Speaker 2: swamp and it need it needed to be drained to
Speaker 2: to be used forul land and really all the the
Speaker 2: p digging there there and then it turned into a
Speaker 2: lot of water and when there was a storm, all
Speaker 2: the all the dykes and all the roads which would
Speaker 2: flood over and be destroyed and that would need to
Speaker 2: be managed, et cetera. So that whole history of water
Speaker 2: management was what what was an inspiration? And also in
Speaker 2: the game. I mean we uh, we made the bike
Speaker 2: tours through the area and we visited one of the
Speaker 2: quite deep lakes and that is there now, which started
Speaker 2: out well as long so Pete Pete was dug there.
Speaker 2: So then then then it was a lake and water
Speaker 2: and that turned into problems, so it was turned into
Speaker 2: land again and then it was then it was dug
Speaker 2: down again, and so it really changed from water to
Speaker 2: land to water a few times, and that that was
Speaker 2: that was fascinating. So that that was one of the pillars,
Speaker 2: and then the the other one was the judicial system
Speaker 2: in that time, because uh, if even if at the
Speaker 2: same spot you committed to two different crimes, you would
Speaker 2: you would go to different judges because there there was
Speaker 2: a judge for low crimes and there was a judge
Speaker 2: for high crimes. And then and then if if there
Speaker 2: were water issues there and there there was a dike
Speaker 2: a digree for that. So that whole idea was also
Speaker 2: really fun, and we also wanted to capture that in
Speaker 2: the game. So both of those combined are actually in
Speaker 2: the game now and good fun, I must add.
Speaker 1: So what are your hopes for the game? And I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting because if I were to speak to
Speaker 1: someone whose job it is to be a game designer,
Speaker 1: a job it is to be a publisher, that they
Speaker 1: hope they would I assume they would respond, well, they
Speaker 1: would lie and say I hope people love it. What
Speaker 1: they mean is is I hope it sells a million
Speaker 1: copies and makes me rabulously wealthy. But this isn't your job.
Speaker 1: You do this purely for the love of it, And
Speaker 1: what are your hopes for the bailiff of Bosco.
Speaker 2: Oh, I definitely hope that it sells a million copies
Speaker 2: and that people will but not but in all seriousness,
Speaker 2: I hope that people will love it and play it
Speaker 2: and and keep playing it. Because one of the problem
Speaker 2: is a big word, but one one of the hard
Speaker 2: things currently is how how do you get somebody to
Speaker 2: to play a game twice? How how does it how
Speaker 2: does it get to the table that second time? Because
Speaker 2: often also our games are quite involved, so you probably
Speaker 2: need need a few plays in order to see all
Speaker 2: the intricacies, et cetera. But how do you how do
Speaker 2: you have people actually give give it that chance before
Speaker 2: just discarding the game and say, hey, I have a
Speaker 2: million other games that they also want to play.
Speaker 1: So then I'm going to ask you, and I'm hoping
Speaker 1: for a scoop. I assume I'm not going to get one,
Speaker 1: but can't blame me for trying. What's the next game?
Speaker 2: Well, you mean after Bailiff of Boss, after Bailiff of Boscope,
Speaker 2: I don't know yet. I've I've had a few discussions
Speaker 2: videos on on on a few ideas, but we haven't
Speaker 2: put we have we haven't put anything to paper yet
Speaker 2: and and tried because what we often do in the
Speaker 2: very early stages of a game we just well, in
Speaker 2: the early earlier days, we would we would take Civilization
Speaker 2: and say, hey, b we have we have these pieces,
Speaker 2: this is this, and just have a mechanism and try
Speaker 2: that out. Just this is this fun? To play this?
Speaker 2: We we won't have an ending condition or even scoring,
Speaker 2: but really just the mechanism shoving the pieces around. Just
Speaker 2: does this work? Can we make a game out of this?
Speaker 2: But we're not that far yet, so there is no
Speaker 2: scoop to give yet. Sorry.
Speaker 1: So, when you think about the work you've done since
Speaker 1: you've formed the company, what impact do you think Splotter
Speaker 1: has had on the gaming world.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's a hard question. I I would hope
Speaker 2: that a lot that a lot of people like the designs,
Speaker 2: and we've we've also in particular seen some of the
Speaker 2: design ideas copied by other designers, which which which is wonderful.
Speaker 2: So it's it's really it's really getting out there, getting
Speaker 2: played and people are liking it.
Speaker 1: And when you see designers I can think of, for instance,
Speaker 1: I think Laharva was inspired by roads and boats to
Speaker 1: a large degree. When you see someone like Uve Rosenberg,
Speaker 1: who's such a nun deniably great design being inspired by
Speaker 1: your work, how does that feel?
Speaker 2: That's that that that feels great, and it's great, it's
Speaker 2: it's great. It's great to see to see those things back.
Speaker 2: And I think even in Agricula already it's inspired by
Speaker 2: the growing mechanism of farming in antiquity specifically.
Speaker 1: So your last game then is dark Packed. Are you
Speaker 1: a fan of clever little card games?
Speaker 2: Oh? I did? I definitely am man. Darkbacked is a
Speaker 2: wonderful deck builder, even though that makes me too, makes
Speaker 2: me take two Tom Lemon games to the cabin. And
Speaker 2: so then.
Speaker 1: How does it so we talked about this, how does
Speaker 1: it stack up against other Tom Lemon games?
Speaker 2: That that's that's that's that's a hard question because I
Speaker 2: would probably trade it for almost any other Tom Lehman game.
Speaker 2: I He's he's He's a great guy and and also
Speaker 2: a great friend. I've met him often, and I love
Speaker 2: his style of of game design and also his analytical
Speaker 2: sinking and balancing of of of his games.
Speaker 1: And and so what does Dark Pacts do? Because I
Speaker 1: think most people listening to this when they think of
Speaker 1: Tom Lehman think of Race for the Galaxy. But what
Speaker 1: does Dark Pack do that's different? And and and why
Speaker 1: is it so special?
Speaker 2: Uh? For for me, the Dark Pact is is a
Speaker 2: Deck Builders or sing Sink Dominion, except there are two
Speaker 2: big differences and many more. But the first difference is
Speaker 2: there's no sets and time where you just count the
Speaker 2: points and you see who did the best by seeing
Speaker 2: who scored the most points. There are I forget how
Speaker 2: many twelve I think twelve Dark packs in the game
Speaker 2: that you have to buy, and that gives you your
Speaker 2: victory condition. And if you buy two or three, then
Speaker 2: you have two or three victory conditions. And those victory
Speaker 2: conditions are voldly different. They can be something relatively simple
Speaker 2: like have and I'm making up the numbers here because
Speaker 2: they don't know them by hard. Have fifty money in
Speaker 2: your turn, or have all your cards in play, so
Speaker 2: nothing in your hand, nothing in your deck, nothing in
Speaker 2: your discard or things like, have twenty actions remaining, all
Speaker 2: all that stuff. So the variety in there is great.
Speaker 2: And it's also one big deck that that shuffles, so
Speaker 2: you never know which victory conditions are gonna show up,
Speaker 2: so you you have to be pretty flexible and be
Speaker 2: able to adapt. And then the second thing that I
Speaker 2: really love and that gives rives to long, long and
Speaker 2: complicated combos and sometimes long term so I can I
Speaker 2: can see why that why that could put put off
Speaker 2: some people is it has these wonderful multiplier cards. So
Speaker 2: there's simply a two times card and also a three
Speaker 2: times card, and if you play that together with another
Speaker 2: card every numeral principle, that card doubles. So you could
Speaker 2: have a card that says that says draw one card,
Speaker 2: gain one action, and all of a sudden that says
Speaker 2: draw two cards and gain two actions. And of course
Speaker 2: the the player is a printed number, so if you
Speaker 2: play it two times on the two times, it's certainly
Speaker 2: four times. That's a key way to get to the
Speaker 2: fifty gold goal, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But so I've got one more question for you. So
Speaker 1: you're heading out of Eindoven to the cabin and go
Speaker 1: around you go around a corner.
Speaker 2: I'm dreading this question already, and the back door of the.
Speaker 1: Car flies open. Four of the games fly out down
Speaker 1: a ravine, and I'm sure there are tons of ravines
Speaker 1: in the lands into a river, and I swept away
Speaker 1: to posterity. Which game do you hope is sitting on
Speaker 1: the back seat of the car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a really cruel question, but I think
Speaker 2: you get that feedback a lot. I do. I probably
Speaker 2: the eighteen x X game, so eight three. Ay.
Speaker 1: So if people want to see what Splotter are up
Speaker 1: to and when the next big game comes out, they
Speaker 1: can reorder it. How do they go about doing that?
Speaker 2: It's, at least, I hope, very easy. You can go
Speaker 2: to our website. So just go to splotter dot com
Speaker 2: and there's a pre order link there. The game will
Speaker 2: likely be available early twenty seven. It's going to be
Speaker 2: very tied to get it at the end of this year.
Speaker 2: We're trying our best, but first quarter twenty seven is
Speaker 2: more likely at this point. There's also yours has been
Speaker 2: doing a lot of Facebook posts on the game's design
Speaker 2: and autographic design and graphic design choices. It's also available
Speaker 2: as a geek list on Board Game Geeks, so you
Speaker 2: can follow along their for scoops on the game.
Speaker 1: Excellent, well your own dowmon. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You can support the show in many ways. You can
Speaker 1: tell your friends talk about it on social media. You
Speaker 1: can talk about it in your own blog, podcast or video.
Speaker 1: You can put it directly going to picture on dot com,
Speaker 1: forward slash five gfd for a rolling donation or for
Speaker 1: a one off donation hitting the PayPal link at the
Speaker 1: website fivegfd dot com. It's these donations that keep the
Speaker 1: show going. You can join the best discording gaming We're
Speaker 1: going to five gfd dot com and clicking the button. Also,
Speaker 1: if you want to say something nice about the show,
Speaker 1: if you want to see something horrible about the showing,
Speaker 1: contact me at five Games for Doomsday at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And if I've managed to skip away from the blister
Speaker 1: and the cat whiskers and the shambling disappointment, I'll see
Speaker 1: you in two weeks for another five games for Doomsday