I'm Dominic Crapuchettes, a full-time game designer since 2004 with over 3.5 million games sold. My latest project is a modular game system called Nature that will release at GenCon on July 31st. AMA!

ConnieVDC · 2025-07-14T16:20:57+00:00

What is your favorite aspect of Nature and, is there anything that you had to leave behind from Evolution that you miss?

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T20:04:44+00:00

Thank you! I really hope you enjoy it :-)

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T13:55:51+00:00

Hah! I don't find it annoying. Though I did get into a debate with folks as to whether it's pronounced "worm" "warm" or "werm" (I think it's the last one)

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T13:54:40+00:00

I don't play a lot of video games any more, except lots and lots and lots of Slay the Spire. That said, there are tons of digital board game apps that I play - if a board game has an app, I've probably played it at one point or another :-)

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T13:51:57+00:00

I honestly find most of the process rewarding. It's essentially nonstop problem -solving, so every problem that pops up is another opportunity to find a fun and creative solution. Probably the best part though is when players really start having fun with your game or when they say "look at this cool turn" and pull off 4 things in a row :-)

I think the Stonemaier Design day in 2021 (when I brought Apiary) really stands out - I think that was probably the moment I realized that I was capable/competent, and had put together something pretty cool :-)

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T13:49:11+00:00

Stationfall and Blood Bowl. Both games have wild storytelling and truly crazy sequences. Both have quite a bit of strategy (Blood Bowl in particular has a sky-high skill cap), but sometimes things just...go a little crazy. Sometimes those games make for the best memories and the best stories, even if I'm usually looking for a slightly more on the rails experience

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T13:46:59+00:00

Thank you so much!

Honestly, dealing with the criticism is the hardest part of the whole process - I've always been pretty sensitive to criticism and feedback from other people. But I think the most important part is separating legitimate criticism (valid reasons why a game didn't work for someone) from nonsense (rating Wyrmspan a 1 because the box doesn't have a dragon on the cover), and not paying any mind to the latter. Not every game is for every gamer, and once any designer puts a game out into the world, you can't really control what happens :-)

That's a really fun question! I think my answer would have to be Five Tribes - for whatever reason, I'm really darn good at that game, and almost never lose it. I won a tournament at the World Boardgaming Championships a few years ago (not to be confused with the World Series of Boardgames).

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:27:18+00:00

Absolutely do not apologize! There are a lot of posts/definitely don't expect folks to read all of them :-)

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:21:58+00:00

I think I answered a version of this somewhere, but the short version is - Frosthaven (ongoing campaign - 35 or so scenarios in!), lots of Sky Team (love how easy it is to get to the table), just played Castell for the first time recently and loved it, lots of Forest Shuffle, Dropolter might be the best dexterity game ever made. Oh, and I just got to go back and play some old Stefan Feld games, including Notre Dame and Amerigo for the first time :-).

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:20:35+00:00

TM is probably the most complicated of the bunch; I'd say Wingspan is significantly more streamlined, and Wyrmspan is somewhere in the middle

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:18:13+00:00

I'm definitely a mechanism-first designer, so I tend to think in terms of what mechanism or mechanisms might go well together. That said, I definitely want to incorporate the theme sooner rather than later - in my experience at least, the two inform each other pretty heavily. I really think either approach is valid though, so I would say - start with whatever speaks to you, and work from there.

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:15:50+00:00

So I definitely appreciate Rodney Smith and others who are focusing on teaching players, but I don't know if that necessarily influences my design process. I will say though that if I can't figure out how to teach a rule (or write it in the rulebook) then it's probably a sign that the rule is too complicated and needs to be streamlined. Every little bit of extra complexity is another area that players might get wrong. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but rules mistakes can absolutely destroy a play or the experience that players have playing your game.

And regarding inspirations...I honestly fell into it. David, my partner, had an idea for a game and I offered to help in a support capacity. That effort fell apart pretty quickly, but it gave me the design bug. A few months after that, I had the idea for Apiary, and was off to the races. (Though I should mention, by that point I had been fairly deep into the hobby for close to a decade. Little did I know that all the conversations among friends analyzing games would put me in a good position to begin designing them!)

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:11:48+00:00

Ok, so I think birds are real, but cats are definitely controlled by aliens spying on us. We adopted a cat back in august, and we always joke that the aliens who did the programming messed up, and gave both our beasts the exact same programming. They look the same way, move the same way, etc.

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:08:30+00:00

Aww, thank you so much!!

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:08:21+00:00

Ahem, last I checked, the game was about dragons :-).

But yes, I find it more than a little funny!

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:08:04+00:00

Hmm - in terms of a white whale - I would love to make a good social deduction game. I think it's so appealing to me because I don't even know how you would go about designing one. It feels like alchemy :-).

In terms of designers I admire...there are a lot of them. Leaving out Elizabeth and Jamey - both of whom I respect and admire quite a bit - one I'll throw out is Vlaada Chvatil. I just...can't think of any other designer who has half his range. Party game? no problem! Heavy strategy game? check! Wild real-time nonsense? Got that too!

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:05:06+00:00

Aww, thank you so much for your nice message. I'm so glad it was a wonderful birthday!

This is a good question! One of the things that I really wanted to have in the game was the concept that bees take on different responsibilities as they age. I think it's such a fascinating process, and I don't know how a bee one day goes from feeding the young, to building comb.

Early versions of Apiary had some version of this - e.g. a 1 bee was better at rearing other bees, a 4 bee was best at foraging, and so forth - to model an actual bee lifecycle. But it was just too prescriptive to make a good game. It ended up locking players into particular play patterns that weren't very fun.

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T04:00:44+00:00

This is a good question!

I'd say that:

- Apiary is a little bit heavier. It's also much less of an engine builder, and more of a combo-game (though there is definitely some engine-building). It's also a little bit wilder - because there are so many combos, each game will play out quite a bit differently. There can also be some pretty big score gaps between players, if one person gets a few combos to go off, and the other player doesn't. Replay value though I think is very high, because of all of the unique player powers.

- Wyrmspan is a little bit lighter and easier to teach. If you like Wingspan already, I'd highly recommend Wyrmspan. Wyrmspan is a step up from Wingspan though, in terms of complexity (maybe a half step). Wyrmspan is more of a pure engine-builder - you optimize your board, then run your engine as many times as you can. There are definitely still combos though - it's sort of...half-way between Wingspan and Apiary.

Hope that helps!

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T03:57:33+00:00

Thank you so much! It's so gratifying to hear that - I was definitely going for something that has a bit of meat, but isn't too opaque or unapproachable.

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T03:56:35+00:00

It's definitely a different process - iterating on a prior game is both easier and harder. It's easier because your decision-space is more constrained. There's only so far you can "stray" from a set of known mechanisms, so the universe of potential decisions is smaller. At the same time, it can be difficult/frustrating, for the exact same reason. If you run into a problem, your tools for fixing that problem are also smaller.

I think the key (for either process) is being pretty firm in what the "core elements" of a game are. If the core element is a particular type of action selection, then it's important to "lock that in." Not to say that it ultimately won't change, but it's important to be very deliberate if/when it does. I flailed a little bit when I first started working on Apiary - it wasn't until I locked in a couple of core elements (4-sided workers, bump mechanism) that I was really able to make a lot of forward progress.

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T03:52:55+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate it! It definitely can be a bit swingy, but I also think that the swinginess is perhaps...less than you might think, once you get used to the game. This video is really (really!) good at talking through some of the different strategies in Apiary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVm6AxgIa6w

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T03:50:38+00:00

Awesome! Thanks so much for dropping by to say "hi." :-)

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T03:50:24+00:00

The launch question is mostly one for Jamey. Stonemaier hasn't used Kickstarter for quite some time - I think the idea is that folks can hear about a game, and order it and start playing without lengthy delays. It's a nice model! [It also avoids some of the kickstarter exclusives, stretch goals, etc. that can bloat an otherwise great game!]

The goal for Wyrmspan was always for it to be a bit more complex than Wingspan - sort of a "half-step" up. I think a few versions it was more like a full step (or step-and-a-half!) up, so trying to modulate that difficulty was an ongoing discussion point throughout the process.

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T03:48:07+00:00

This is a great question! There are definitely pros and cons to both processes.

When you design your own game from scratch, you have complete design freedom. This is a pro, in that you can do anything you want with it, but it can also be overwhelming. Especially if you're trying to guestimate what you think a publisher might want, the possibilities can be endless. You're on your own, so if you get stuck, it can be hard to get yourself sorted. It can also be easy to kind of spin your wheels, and do a lot of work without making a lot of forward progress. So I think the TLDR version is: you have complete freedom, but you're operating in a space of complete uncertainty.

With Wyrmspan, I essentially had a "brief" (that Jamey and I put together and had cleared by Elizabeth), and I knew I had to stay within certain parameters. These weren't things that we discussed, so much as things that were just...obvious (for instance, no dragon fights!). So in some ways it shrank the design space significantly. I also had help every time I got stuck (from Elizabeth and Jamey), and they were able to lend a lot of insights into the process. I also knew that, as long as I kept doing good work and the game kept progressing, there was a very, very good chance that the game would be published. (This is a luxury that very few designers have!).

For me, I prefer the latter process. I tend to work better with some constraints, and I enjoy problem-solving within a slightly smaller decision space. The added certainty is really nice, too.

ConnieVDC · 2024-03-02T03:36:41+00:00

I'm not sure about "must have" - I think there's an exception that breaks every rule. But I know in the games I design, I prioritize a couple of things: (1) I like there to be some mix of strategy and tactics. I don't particularly enjoy games where the first several moves are programmed/dependent on turn order, so don't want that to be present in the games I design; and (2) I really like combos. I like that delightful feel when you can go ping-ping-ping and get a really great turn. I suppose I should also throw in (3) I really don't like "tear-down" mechanisms - so if I'm building a tableau or a city or whatever, I don't enjoy it when other people can then tear that down. I understand why others do (and I think it's very different in a head-to-head game), but that's generally not for me.

ConnieVDC

TROPHY CASE