In a world of rampant blogging, splendorous podcasts and vlogs, I noticed that while some content creators where generating a lot of sales and creating exposure for titles, and great new games, we were missing one or two critical things.

First to my mind was the HOW.
How did this genius of a person come up with the idea, develop it and turn it into a real game?
What went into the game concept, the design, the mechanics, how it is represented on the board, the game play goals…so much why and so much how!!!

To me that is the sauce, the meat and the bloody bone gnawed on by the Game Designer.

No doubt for some this might be a perfunctory casual affair, for others it is a task that is daunting, challenging and rewarding from start to finish.
It is very easy for us to sit here as Monday Morning QB’s..wait does anyone watch football on Sundays anymore?
We can critique colors, rule wording, finished art etc. But we did not gestate, ideate or mature the precious thing to birth and fruition. Nope. We often plop the game on the stack, say ‘I’ll get to it later’ and never do, then glom onto to some half baked comment about its failings before we even crack that shrink!

In this occasional series the intent is to allow the designer to chat with us and tell us about their experience bring a particular title, or titles to market. Already after this experience with Tom, there are additional and different questions that could have been and should have been asked. We will become more adept at this over time.

So join Tom Russell from Hollandspiele Games, the up and coming rock star upstart of print on demand wargame publishing and listen to him share his personal journey thru the design process and a few other interesting topics along the way.

Oh… you are wondering what the other things that are missing are?

Chill thats next.