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addedToday we have the pleasure of interviewing Glenn Drover , game designer of the upcoming game Victory and Glory: Napoleon! Glenn Drover is a well known name in the world of boardgaming, having created the boardgame adaptations of some world famous strategy games such as Age of Empires III and Age of Mythology. Victory and Glory: Napoleon will be released on March, 17th Q: What is, in your experience, the main challenge a game designer has to deal with in a new project? A: The main pitfall is falling in love with your original design and ideas. At the beginning of a project, a designer is usually extremely excited about the new game, and thinks that they know how it should work. Once the reality of the first playtest kicks in, the designer’s assumptions are usually sorely tested, and many issues appear. A good designer will remain flexible enough to immediately throw out what is not working and make the necessary changes. If they are too in love with their original idea, they may not be open to that and their design can become stuck and never progress. Q: You did great tabletop adaptations of famous PC games like Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery, Age of Mythology: The Board game, Railroad Tycoon, etc. Now you had embarked yourself in a contrary enterprise: to make a PC version of a board game. What are the differences you encountered in this process? A: This game was actually a PC game from the get-go, but one that was designed with board game sensibilities and mechanics. It’s actually far easier to create in the electronic rather than in the physical medium because the computer allows the designer a great deal of freedom to create mechanics and systems that can be handled quickly and seamlessly by the computer. Board games require mechanics that are easy to understand, easy to execute, and do not become tedious for the players to perform over and over. This often requires streamlining a design and abstracting complex elements to a point that gameplay can flow more smoothly. PC games sometimes reward the opposite: the kitchen sink approach. PC gamers often want more detail and more complexity (since the computer can manage it anyway). Converting from PC to board game is challenging because you have to know what to eliminate and streamline. Converting from board game to PC game is challenging because you have to know what to add to enhance the experience. Q: In Victory and Glory, can the player play as Great Britain and her allies, or just France? A: We wanted to focus the game on allowing the player to play as Napoleon. His task of defeating an ever-changing alliance against France, re-organizing the patchwork of antiquated states and principalities in Germany and Italy, modernizing their political, legal, and economic structures, and building France’s power to ensure her security made for an interesting and complex game, even when streamlined and abstracted. In order to ensure that the game worked properly from that perspective, and was well balanced, I wanted to stay focused on allowing the player to play as France and having the AI take on the role as Great Britain and her allies. That proved to be very challenging to get right, but I think that we accomplished it. Now that the game is finished, we can start to entertain the idea of allowing the player and the AI to swap sides. That will be an all new
Victory and Glory: Napoleon changes
addedToday we have the pleasure of interviewing Glenn Drover , game designer of the upcoming game Victory and Glory: Napoleon! Glenn Drover is a well known name in the world of boardgaming, having created the boardgame adaptations of some world famous strategy games such as Age of Empires III and Age of Mythology. Victory and Glory: Napoleon will be released on March, 17th Q: What is, in your experience, the main challenge a game designer has to deal with in a new project? A: The main pitfall is falling in love with your original design and ideas. At the beginning of a project, a designer is usually extremely excited about the new game, and thinks that they know how it should work. Once the reality of the first playtest kicks in, the designer’s assumptions are usually sorely tested, and many issues appear. A good designer will remain flexible enough to immediately throw out what is not working and make the necessary changes. If they are too in love with their original idea, they may not be open to that and their design can become stuck and never progress. Q: You did great tabletop adaptations of famous PC games like Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery, Age of Mythology: The Board game, Railroad Tycoon, etc. Now you had embarked yourself in a contrary enterprise: to make a PC version of a board game. What are the differences you encountered in this process? A: This game was actually a PC game from the get-go, but one that was designed with board game sensibilities and mechanics. It’s actually far easier to create in the electronic rather than in the physical medium because the computer allows the designer a great deal of freedom to create mechanics and systems that can be handled quickly and seamlessly by the computer. Board games require mechanics that are easy to understand, easy to execute, and do not become tedious for the players to perform over and over. This often requires streamlining a design and abstracting complex elements to a point that gameplay can flow more smoothly. PC games sometimes reward the opposite: the kitchen sink approach. PC gamers often want more detail and more complexity (since the computer can manage it anyway). Converting from PC to board game is challenging because you have to know what to eliminate and streamline. Converting from board game to PC game is challenging because you have to know what to add to enhance the experience. Q: In Victory and Glory, can the player play as Great Britain and her allies, or just France? A: We wanted to focus the game on allowing the player to play as Napoleon. His task of defeating an ever-changing alliance against France, re-organizing the patchwork of antiquated states and principalities in Germany and Italy, modernizing their political, legal, and economic structures, and building France’s power to ensure her security made for an interesting and complex game, even when streamlined and abstracted. In order to ensure that the game worked properly from that perspective, and was well balanced, I wanted to stay focused on allowing the player to play as France and having the AI take on the role as Great Britain and her allies. That proved to be very challenging to get right, but I think that we accomplished it. Now that the game is finished, we can start to entertain the idea of allowing the player and the AI to swap sides. That will be an all new
Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Glenn Drover , game designer of the upcoming game Victory and Glory: Napoleon! Glenn Drover is a well known name in the world of boardgaming, having created the boardgame adaptations of some world famous strategy games such as Age of Empires III and Age of Mythology.
Victory and Glory
Napoleon will be released on March, 17th Q: What is, in your experience, the main challenge a game designer has to deal with in a new project? A: The main pitfall is falling in love with your original design and ideas. At the beginning of a project, a designer is usually extremely excited about the new game, and thinks that they know how it should work. Once the reality of the first playtest kicks in, the designer’s assumptions are usually sorely tested, and many issues appear. A good designer will remain flexible enough to immediately throw out what is not working and make the necessary changes. If they are too in love with their original idea, they may not be open to that and their design can become stuck and never progress. Q: You did great tabletop adaptations of famous PC games like Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery, Age of Mythology: The Board game, Railroad Tycoon, etc. Now you had embarked yourself in a contrary enterprise: to make a PC version of a board game. What are the differences you encountered in this process? A: This game was actually a PC game from the get-go, but one that was designed with board game sensibilities and mechanics. It’s actually far easier to create in the electronic rather than in the physical medium because the computer allows the designer a great deal of freedom to create mechanics and systems that can be handled quickly and seamlessly by the computer. Board games require mechanics that are easy to understand, easy to execute, and do not become tedious for the players to perform over and over. This often requires streamlining a design and abstracting complex elements to a point that gameplay can flow more smoothly.
PC games sometimes reward the opposite
the kitchen sink approach. PC gamers often want more detail and more complexity (since the computer can manage it anyway). Converting from PC to board game is challenging because you have to know what to eliminate and streamline. Converting from board game to PC game is challenging because you have to know what to add to enhance the experience. Q: In Victory and Glory, can the player play as Great Britain and her allies, or just France? A: We wanted to focus the game on allowing the player to play as Napoleon. His task of defeating an ever-changing alliance against France, re-organizing the patchwork of antiquated states and principalities in Germany and Italy, modernizing their political, legal, and economic structures, and building France’s power to ensure her security made for an interesting and complex game, even when streamlined and abstracted. In order to ensure that the game worked properly from that perspective, and was well balanced, I wanted to stay focused on allowing the player to play as France and having the AI take on the role as Great Britain and her allies. That proved to be very challenging to get right, but I think that we accomplished it. Now that the game is finished, we can start to entertain the idea of allowing the player and the AI to swap sides. That will be an all new
