Buddy/Ignore List
Thought I might publish here over time a few articles I wrote for Suspense & Decision.
This is my take on the best strategy game designers. Hope to have a Word doc attachment and just copy text here.
The Top Five Game Designers of Our Generation
Rick McDowell
“Of Our Lives” might be more appropriate, but let’s consider “Our Generation” to mean as long as we have been playing games, rather than strictly the last 30 years.
In the current environment, game designers remain largely anonymous to their playing public. Who designed World of Warcraft (WoW)? Who knows? It’s not in the interest of the company to promote their designers over their product, and a production of that scope has scores of committees of artists and programmers assigned to every aspect of the game, so no one individual is really responsible for the game and no one is indispensable to the project. Hugely successful financially and very corporate.
But the games that those of us who play or might play PBEM games, likely do have the mind of one designer behind them, with his vision, drive, innovation and style behind it and responsible for the final result. So what follows is my take on the greatest game designers who have produced the manifestations of their imaginations in our lifetimes. A caveat is that to be included, a game must have achieved both commercial success, so that most people reading this are aware of them, and have advanced strategy game design. There are no shooters, MMORPG, or games that have a gee whiz factor based on computer graphics instead of deep, rewarding game play. There are no cute games like Donkey Kong or Mario Kart – this is a review of fairly serious strategy games. That said, there are also no PBM games (episodic strategy games) here today, as none are well known enough to qualify, even if the design itself might warrant consideration. Perhaps they can be the subject of a controversial future article by some brave soul.
Is design that important? As we said, look at WoW or any other mega-production of recent times: there is no prominent design credit, as contrasted with the games on this list. WoW might list many artists in lead credits before disclosing a team of level designers. WoW and many current games are driven by graphics, not game design. The names that follow are all driven by innovative design, not splashy graphics. This perspective is that game design is an art form in itself, not a byproduct of another art.
#5 Steve Jackson (Steve Jackson Games). Jackson has been an incredibly prolific designer with dozens of games to his credit. Among the best of his are Illuminati, GURPS, and OGRE. He designed card games, board games, RPG’s and a couple computer games. Mainly micro-games, light on components and heavy on fast moving game mechanics and innovations, they were inexpensive, fun, and playable in about two hours. The Illuminati game was the one that most appealed to me, and fostered a PBM game of the same name.
#4 Reiner Knizia (Settlers of Catan). The face of the current wave of “designer board games” rampant in Europe, ‘Settlers” is his best known work. It plays great as a four player game, and features a host of innovations. Players first jointly assemble the map for each game by connecting large hex pieces of differing terrain that provide various resources. Resources are accumulated in various combinations to allow for the construction of villages, cities, roads, or accumulating development cards that can purchase soldiers, other resource cards, or provide victory points. A game takes 2 -3 hours, which is pretty reasonable for most board game players. Among the best design aspects is that the players are not primarily oriented toward eliminating their fellow players. In fact, trading resources is a major aspect of the game, conducted openly and often with competing verbal bids.
#3 – Sid Meier (Civilization). Sid provides the only representative of computer game designers in this list. When discussing strategy games of our generation, it would be rare that the Civilization series doesn’t come up early in the conversation. A really elegant, groundbreaking design, it is about the archetype of the “4X” strategy game genre of exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination. Its innovations and advancements include the technology research tree, treaties, culture, religion, happiness and a good, not overly complicated economic system.
#2 – Gary Gygax (Dungeons & Dragons). Gary was the primary designer of the original D&D release. The top game for at least two decades, it reached the rare status of being an important piece of Americana culture. A loose set of rules that gave structure to concepts largely played out in the imagination, and also perhaps the first game to involve a game master, it was a truly brilliant creation, was imitated endlessly, and is now played by a whole new generation. A masterpiece that enriched lives and created new dimensions for friendship. It was clearly inspirational for many PBEM games to follow.
#1 – Richard Garfield (Magic the Gathering). Another genius-level creation, Garfield created the collectible trading card genre, although that term hardly does the game justice. The aesthetics are also a strength, with the concept of different kinds of magic having different colors and each with strengths and weaknesses, it introduced the intoxicating strategy of deck creation, where a player chooses what forces may come into play, or deny his opponent of assets by what cards are included in his deck of at least 60 cards. The game rose to such heights that it fostered a professional tour with prizes of up to $100,000 for a world champion, who became a respected celebrity known around the world to the game’s followers. Deck designs became famous and spawned legions of deck arch-types and variants.
Honorable Mention:
Michael Gray (Shogun). Michael isn’t given credit on the game box of the best of the Gamemaster series of games by Milton Bradley (including Axis & Allies), as that was not the fashion when Shogun was released around 1987. But he took a framework from that very popular Axis & Allies game and provided many new elements in his beautifully rendered Shogun game that was the culmination of that great series. Shogun introduced the covert element of ninjas, bidding among players for elements like Ronin and Ninja, did not require a “capture the flag” element typical of the time. I give Michael the credit that the whole line of Gamemaster deserves for keeping strategy board games flourishing in an era where they were receiving little attention.
Lord British (Richard Garriott). The Ultima series of computer RPG’s dominated in its time – the late 1980’s into the mid 1990’s. Famous for showing up in the costume of his persona, he was principal in forming the beginnings of what became the norm for gameplay elements of computer RPG’s.
Hope you enjoyed, and of course, there can be many other opinions.
This is my take on the best strategy game designers. Hope to have a Word doc attachment and just copy text here.
The Top Five Game Designers of Our Generation
Rick McDowell
“Of Our Lives” might be more appropriate, but let’s consider “Our Generation” to mean as long as we have been playing games, rather than strictly the last 30 years.
In the current environment, game designers remain largely anonymous to their playing public. Who designed World of Warcraft (WoW)? Who knows? It’s not in the interest of the company to promote their designers over their product, and a production of that scope has scores of committees of artists and programmers assigned to every aspect of the game, so no one individual is really responsible for the game and no one is indispensable to the project. Hugely successful financially and very corporate.
But the games that those of us who play or might play PBEM games, likely do have the mind of one designer behind them, with his vision, drive, innovation and style behind it and responsible for the final result. So what follows is my take on the greatest game designers who have produced the manifestations of their imaginations in our lifetimes. A caveat is that to be included, a game must have achieved both commercial success, so that most people reading this are aware of them, and have advanced strategy game design. There are no shooters, MMORPG, or games that have a gee whiz factor based on computer graphics instead of deep, rewarding game play. There are no cute games like Donkey Kong or Mario Kart – this is a review of fairly serious strategy games. That said, there are also no PBM games (episodic strategy games) here today, as none are well known enough to qualify, even if the design itself might warrant consideration. Perhaps they can be the subject of a controversial future article by some brave soul.
Is design that important? As we said, look at WoW or any other mega-production of recent times: there is no prominent design credit, as contrasted with the games on this list. WoW might list many artists in lead credits before disclosing a team of level designers. WoW and many current games are driven by graphics, not game design. The names that follow are all driven by innovative design, not splashy graphics. This perspective is that game design is an art form in itself, not a byproduct of another art.
#5 Steve Jackson (Steve Jackson Games). Jackson has been an incredibly prolific designer with dozens of games to his credit. Among the best of his are Illuminati, GURPS, and OGRE. He designed card games, board games, RPG’s and a couple computer games. Mainly micro-games, light on components and heavy on fast moving game mechanics and innovations, they were inexpensive, fun, and playable in about two hours. The Illuminati game was the one that most appealed to me, and fostered a PBM game of the same name.
#4 Reiner Knizia (Settlers of Catan). The face of the current wave of “designer board games” rampant in Europe, ‘Settlers” is his best known work. It plays great as a four player game, and features a host of innovations. Players first jointly assemble the map for each game by connecting large hex pieces of differing terrain that provide various resources. Resources are accumulated in various combinations to allow for the construction of villages, cities, roads, or accumulating development cards that can purchase soldiers, other resource cards, or provide victory points. A game takes 2 -3 hours, which is pretty reasonable for most board game players. Among the best design aspects is that the players are not primarily oriented toward eliminating their fellow players. In fact, trading resources is a major aspect of the game, conducted openly and often with competing verbal bids.
#3 – Sid Meier (Civilization). Sid provides the only representative of computer game designers in this list. When discussing strategy games of our generation, it would be rare that the Civilization series doesn’t come up early in the conversation. A really elegant, groundbreaking design, it is about the archetype of the “4X” strategy game genre of exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination. Its innovations and advancements include the technology research tree, treaties, culture, religion, happiness and a good, not overly complicated economic system.
#2 – Gary Gygax (Dungeons & Dragons). Gary was the primary designer of the original D&D release. The top game for at least two decades, it reached the rare status of being an important piece of Americana culture. A loose set of rules that gave structure to concepts largely played out in the imagination, and also perhaps the first game to involve a game master, it was a truly brilliant creation, was imitated endlessly, and is now played by a whole new generation. A masterpiece that enriched lives and created new dimensions for friendship. It was clearly inspirational for many PBEM games to follow.
#1 – Richard Garfield (Magic the Gathering). Another genius-level creation, Garfield created the collectible trading card genre, although that term hardly does the game justice. The aesthetics are also a strength, with the concept of different kinds of magic having different colors and each with strengths and weaknesses, it introduced the intoxicating strategy of deck creation, where a player chooses what forces may come into play, or deny his opponent of assets by what cards are included in his deck of at least 60 cards. The game rose to such heights that it fostered a professional tour with prizes of up to $100,000 for a world champion, who became a respected celebrity known around the world to the game’s followers. Deck designs became famous and spawned legions of deck arch-types and variants.
Honorable Mention:
Michael Gray (Shogun). Michael isn’t given credit on the game box of the best of the Gamemaster series of games by Milton Bradley (including Axis & Allies), as that was not the fashion when Shogun was released around 1987. But he took a framework from that very popular Axis & Allies game and provided many new elements in his beautifully rendered Shogun game that was the culmination of that great series. Shogun introduced the covert element of ninjas, bidding among players for elements like Ronin and Ninja, did not require a “capture the flag” element typical of the time. I give Michael the credit that the whole line of Gamemaster deserves for keeping strategy board games flourishing in an era where they were receiving little attention.
Lord British (Richard Garriott). The Ultima series of computer RPG’s dominated in its time – the late 1980’s into the mid 1990’s. Famous for showing up in the costume of his persona, he was principal in forming the beginnings of what became the norm for gameplay elements of computer RPG’s.
Hope you enjoyed, and of course, there can be many other opinions.
