Tomasz Waldowski: Hello Pedro! Thank you for finding some time to answer a couple of my question. Do you remember when did you for the first time become interested in board games?
Pedro Pereira: Hi Tomasz, thank you for the invitation to talk about board games. Just talking about them makes me happy and I will always find the time for a kindred spirit. My family is from Portugal but I was born in Germany in 1980 and grew up there. So board games is something that has always been part of my life really. So much so that I didn’t think much of it. It was like any other “toy” my friends and I played with. At some point, video games took over with the revolution of home consoles and only later in my early 20s did I re-discover board games again. That’s when it really hit me and I never looked back again. At one point I had to decide what hobby to keep as all of them combined were taking too much time: I kept the board games and sold all of my video games.
TW: When did you for the first time think about designing board games? How did you get such an idea?
PP: The first time I really thought about it was in 2004. I was 6 months in Finland as part of a student exchange program (Erasmus) and because I wasn’t able to bring any of my games with me, I browsed for games in local shops that were language independent. I always enjoyed purely abstract games and so had a passion for Gigamic’s wooden abstract game collection. I purchased Quarto when I was there, which also included rules in English. Gigamic actually had a page dedicated to encouraging gamers to submit ideas for games and mentioned royalties. I started thinking about designing a game for the first time then.
TW: What do you want to achieve by designing a new game? What is your goal?
PP: It depends what you mean specifically. Because I am also a publisher, to me designing a game ties in with multiple aspects. So if you are asking about designing the game system gamers interact with, then I want the game to be fun and engaging. This is not a very useful answer since fun depends on who is playing. But that’s why we play test the games a lot of course. On the other hand, when I design a game, I also try to think of an original theme to go with the games we publish. This is to me one of the most interesting aspects of designing a game: making sure that the theme meshes well with the system. We do spend a lot of time around creating the perfect concept for the theme of any game that we publish.
TW: I get the feeling that Violet and the Grumpy Nisse is your first design. Because it is reimplementation of your previous project – The Grumpy Nisse. Is this correct?
PP: It is correct that it is a reimplementation of The Grumpy Nisse. It is also correct that this is my first design on my own. But I have had a few published games in which I was co-designer (uncredited) or had a heavy involvement in its development. The Grumpy Nisse though is the first game that is really just mine from initial idea of creating a print & play game during a time where publishing was hard for an indie publisher such as Agie Games, and then further develop it into a version that is more thought out and (I think) marketable.
TW: How did you come to idea to create a game? Did you wake up one day and come to conclusion that you want to design a board game?
PP: I think that was something that happened quite organically. I’ve been working in board game publishing for over 10 years now and a lot of that work went into developing games from other designers. When you get exposed to so many rough designs and your work is to polish them, you take in a lot from other designer’s design processes and start seeing patterns for example. So naturally you start playing around with some of those ideas and patterns to try and help improve a prototype. But also as a gamer, I’m sure you felt this too: you develop your taste for games and then after a while you find yourself thinking things like “I wish I was able to do this action differently in this game”. So you are being pulled into a somewhat marginal design process as a first step into game design, that comes to you from playing so many games. It’s normal when you expose yourself to an industry so much (even as a consumer) to be inspired by it, and start creating your own unique approach to it I think.
Lastly, I find that publishing games is the only thing I’m really good at, at the moment. So it’s what I dedicate most of my time to. I’ve also always had a few ideas in the back of my mind about themes or game systems. Because of the pandemic, all of the shows were cancelled which is a harsh reality for a small publisher who lives off those shows. So during the past 2 years we didn’t want to financially commit to game designers because we didn’t know what the future was holding in store for us, and what we would be able to accomplish financially. This drove me to focus more on my own ideas and try to turn those into reality to help with continuing to build an interesting catalogue of games.
TW: In your opinion, what was the most difficult part when you started to design the game?
PP: Of Violet and the Grumpy Nisse? I’m not sure. I felt the start was quite ok. It was originally designed as a roll & write because I found that there were so many of them that were also just a variation of each other. I just wanted to try something different. Later it started steering away from roll & write and into trick taking but with still a lot of the original ideas included. The theme too was already clear to me fairly early. I found the hardest part to be actually towards the end. In terms of design it’s the fine tuning of the different tracks that was really challenging. Making sure that the game was well balanced because it is asymmetric. But even then, the hardest thing was letting go. I was always convinced (and still am) that there is something that might be possible to improve and I was always looking for constructive feedback that would help make improvements to the game. I think the fear of disappointing gamers is the hardest bit!
TW: You started the design beginning with mechanisms or theme?
PP: One aspect of the mechanism was the first part that crystalized. But I didn’t have all of it before the theme was much clearer. Often I find that the theme helps ask relevant design questions. In the case of Violet and the Grumpy Nisse I was always thinking about the characters. For example Violet is a young girl travelling by night. In the Print & Play version, the story seemed to focus much more on Torech, then Nisse. But Violet and the Grumpy Nisse helped emphasize Violet a lot more because I was asking questions about what a young girl would feel like travelling on her own and what she would need. That’s how the ideas for the Fear Track (being afraid of the dark and Torech’s confrontation) and the Lantern Track (needing some kind of light and running out of fuel) came from. So I find that theme helps come up with mechanism or solutions for them, and the mechanisms help develop the theme. They really help each other out in the design process I think and in my case always hold hands.
TW: What is the story behind Violet and the Grumpy Nisse?
PP: Violet and the Grumpy Nisse has actually three characters in its story: Violet and Torech, the Grumpy Nisse are the titular characters. Then there is Ordep, the friendly troll who is the reason why Violet is embarking on this journey in the first place. The characters are inspired in my family: my fiancé, our 4 year old son, and myself. My fiancé and I have always been very active and motivated. We’ve always had a ton of projects going that often only one of us was involved in but the other would always support in one way or another. When our son was born, we had to change things a little bit because one of us always needs to look out for our son. Because we both live abroad (my family lives in Portugal, hers in France and we live in Ireland) we don’t really have family to help us look out for our son if we are both busy.
So when we became parents our lives had to adapt quite a bit and we find it a lot harder to spend some time together just the two of us. The theme in Violet and the Grumpy Nisse is an expression of that. Violet trying to spend time with Ordep but there is Torech who does not approve! Haha. It’s not that our son doesn’t approve of course but I wanted to give it a fairy-tale spin to our parenting experience. Ultimately that’s it, the game is about an aspect of our experience as parents.
TW: What is unique in Violet and the Grumpy Nisse?
PP: I think the theme is very unique and has been consistently praised throughout! I’m very happy about that. There are few (very few) trick taking games for 2 players only. This in itself is quite unique, but Violet and the Grumpy Nisse is also asymmetric on top of that, now that’s really unique. I don’t know any other game like that. Both players look at the game quite differently and have to manage outcomes of tricks in different ways. Another thing that I wanted to accomplish with this game that I think is also fairly unique is that with trick taking games you generally play for points. In Violet and the Grumpy Nisse I wanted to stay away from score pads or point tokens and instead have a track that gives a sense of game-progress, ultimately it turned out that the board players use to keep track of the game, ends up telling the story that is being played out and I love that about the game.
TW: I get the general 'feel' of the game. Can you say something about the mechanisms a bit more? Is the game very cutthroat or more a family friendly game?
PP: I find it’s very cutthroat. It’s quite confrontational because of the board. In your previous question I explained how I turned away from victory points. When you play for points, players are opponents but it’s like a race game, first to get to a certain score wins, so it’s more like parallel competition. In this game, it’s pure confrontation. As Torech I want to deplete Violet’s lantern oil, or have her panic for fear. As Violet I want to complete my journey as quickly as possible. So players are actively interfering in the other’s plans. The way this works is with a combination of trick taking, card powers, and open drafting. Because the game is only 2 player it wouldn’t make sense for all cards to distributed to the players as is usual in trick taking games, otherwise both players know what the other has in their hand. But I also don’t like the idea of leaving random cards out. So the solution for me was the open drafting where I can see what you are collecting into your hand of only 4 cards, but some card effects allow you to swap cards around so now I don’t know all of your hand anymore. At the same time there are a lot of parallel decisions players have to take: If Violet wins a trick, does she want to advance, or rest to refill the lantern? If Torech wins he wants the cards to be as far apart in value as possible to cause maximum damage on the fear track, but sometimes he might need a particular power more than the value of the card. So you got the trick taking going on, you got the drafting, but you also got the game that unfolds on the board and impacts your decision space by a lot. Torech has events that are triggered by Violet’s fear, and they can impact the board for example, changing the path that Violet moves on. So suddenly the way players anticipate certain situations changes in timing or structure.
TW: Do you think you can compare Violet and the Grumpy Nisse to any other board game? I assume you try to make it unique but from experience I know people like to compare things to another things.
PP: I know what you mean and I look forward to reading the first comments about that once the game is being played out there. I can draw comparisons of single aspects. For example The Fox in the Forest comes to mind for being a 2 player trick taking game, so I imagine players might compare VatGN with that one (which would be a privilege). But I played The Fox in the Forest and the games are nothing alike. So I would suppose that this comparison makes sense when thinking about someone who only wants one 2 player trick taking game in their collection and needs to compare the two to decide which one to keep. I also wrote openly about the games that inspired different aspects of VatGN. But in all I can’t really say that I know any game that is quite like it. I played Brian Boru – High King of Ireland recently and another player and I ended up drawing a few comparisons to WatGN due to the way the trick taking works in Brian Boru. But again, the two games are nothing alike. There’s so many games out there though, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was to know a game that feels similar to VatGN. I am very curious about that myself!
TW: Who is testing your games?
PP: Playtesters includes a variety of people from lots of different places. Violaine, my fiancé, was my primary playtester throughout the Print & Play version, and the early stages of VatGN. Once I reached a certain stage in the development of VatGN, I needed to take the game out of the bubble her and I created around the game (she always wanted to play Violet haha) so at that stage I reached out to the Trick Taking Guild on BoardGameGeek and was able to recruit a few really helpful playtesters there. Locally there is a Games Societey in Sligo (I live just outside of Sligo on the Irish Wild Atlantic Coast) that has a few really good gamers, a bunch of them were quite committed to playtesting the game. There also friends of mine who are gamers and always eager to help. The most important thing is to get gamers with different tastes in games to hear different approaches I think.
TW: And do you think the game rules are sufficiently polished right now? I am asking because I am a kind of player who likes to search for inconsistencies in rules. And quite often I manage to do that.
PP: Ah interesting! I think I am the opposite from you. I read the rules quite leisurely and then I start playing the game and all sorts of questions arise haha. I think the rules for Violet and the Grumpy Nisse are really polished at this stage and mostly thanks to Alfred Das. He’s a good friend who has collaborated on every Agie Games project so far and did the graphic design on VatGN. He is like you in regards to rules and did not rest until we sorted out all of his questions. So he played a major role in getting the rules to a point where I can’t imagine there being any room for doubts. But behold! Enter Jens Kleine-Herzbruch (amazing surname!). Whilst I am fluent in German, I don’t really write Germany actively for a long time anymore so I don’t trust myself to do the translation into German (also, you shouldn’t really translate your own work). So Jens came recommended from a friend and he took on the translation only to come back with more questions haha. The rules are undoubtedly the hardest part of the entire process but both Alfred and Jens did an amazing job around it. I actually feel Jens managed to make the German version better than the original… I am very confident at this point but am also aware that because of that, the rules might seem more complex that what they actually are. Luckily, Alfred did an incredible job with the flow chart. You could literally learn the game by playing one random card each player, and just follow the “yes/no” diagram on the flow chart. There is a fine line between doing it right, and being pedantic… I think we might have overstepped just a little, but you tell me.
TW: How long does it take you to transform the original idea for a game into an actual board game?
PP: I don’t think there is a time frame for that. Some games are colossal and can take half a decade or longer. In the case of Violet and the Grumpy Nisse, if you factor in the Print & Play version as the springboard for the final game, it took around 2 years to complete the game. Considering the size, components and play-time of the game, that seems like an appropriate amount of time, especially for someone who hasn’t designed a game of their own before. Other games I think about for years now and just can’t seem to find a breakthrough point. At the moment we are planning Botanists: The Dice Game for 2024 and that was a lot faster because some concepts of the original game transferred to the dice game. So you see it really depends on a few things.
TW: So making the game became your full time job? Or this is just your side project?
PP: Pretty much my full time job. Agie Games is a very new publisher if you think about it. It was founded 4 years ago, but 3 of them were pretty inactive due to Covid. That was quite destructive and I had to seriously consider shutting down Agie Games. My fiancé encouraged me to continue though so instead I started a side project to help with financial stability. Agie Games is still my main focus though and my project for the future.
TW: I assume you play other board games. Do you have a favorite title?
PP: Yes I love playing board games and try playing every week. I do enjoy playing the games I publish a lot but it is great to play and discover other games. I am also not hooked into the cult of the new so I still play some games that have been around for a long time. Just recently a friend of mine got really interested in War of the Ring so we have been playing that one almost weekly now. I still love playing Race for the Galaxy which is an all time favorite. I also really loved playing Fayium and hope to play it a lot more. My fiancé and I are big fans of Tiny Towns and Mystic Vale too. We try to play different games from our collection often, but sometimes we rediscover a game and play it a ton. The last one was Abyss which we played over 40 times in the first half of the year. This might not sound like much, but when you have a 4 year old and manage to squeeze in 40 plays, that’s pretty good. Currently we are excited about new purchases from Essen but we don’t usually go too wild and keep the purchases to a minimum.
TW: I always like to ask in my interviews about the story behind the company's name. What is the story behind the name – Agie Games?
PP: Haha. That’s actually a good story (I think). When my fiancé got pregnant we decided early on that we wanted to know the gender so that we could focus on how to prepare and think of names, etc. Our son’s name is Hector (Torech from Violet and the Grumpy Nisse is an anagram of Hector). When we knew that we were expecting a boy I immediately knew I wanted to name him Hector because of the Trojan Hero. Hector from Troy was well liked and described as devoted, loving and caring. I liked that and they are traits I wish for in my son. But I didn’t know how my fiancé would feel about the name so instead I told her I wanted to call him Agamemnon! She was shocked of course! So I immediately backed down with Agamemnon and suggested Hector instead, which she felt was a much more „normal” name and after a while it started growing on her. So I just wanted to create a sharp contrast hoping that the name I really wanted would sound a lot better to her haha. I told this story to a friend of mine and he started calling Hector „Agie” instead. Like a nickname for Agamemenon. I started joking about this and said that I wasn’t allowed to name my son Agamemnon (which I never intended to do anyway) so instead I’d call my company after Agamemnon. And Agie Games was born.
TW: Where can we find news about your new games?
PP: I’m really the only person working full time in Agie Games, so because of that Agie Games is a bit slow on the social media front and updating the website. We do have a Facebook page and an Instagram account though. Whenever there is something new I do post on those. I try to write a blog post on our website www.agiegames.com when I can but that too is hard work and doesn’t get nearly as many posts as I’d like. We will start attending more shows in the future, so if we ever meet there, I will be a good source of news too!
TW: Do you have any ideas for future games?
PP: We are currently working on two dice games that I would like to release in the same year. It’s Botanists: The Dice Game, and The Haunting of Carrickfergus Castle. Carrickerfergus sounds strange maybe, but it’s a real place in Northern Ireland a friend of mine is from. I playtested a game of his a while ago and we worked on it more since. I plan their releases for 2024. I want to keep 2023 open in case Violet and the Grumpy Nisse is well received as we already have a few ideas for expansions (alternate boards, more events and new components). Also I want to take more time with development to make sure the games are the best they can be. So I decided over the past two years, that I don’t want to give in to the pressure of having to publish a game every single year, and instead focus on publishing really good games whenever they are ready.
TW: Would you like to say something to our Polish readers? Is there going to be a Polish version of the game?
PP: One of the early play testers of Violet and the Grumpy Nisse is actually Polish. He’s a good friend of mine who lives in Sligo near me and we meet almost every week to play games together. I also worked with Rebel a lot in the past and we often spoke about the Polish board game scene. I can’t claim that I know your readers well, but I always felt in touch with them. I think Polish designers are on the rise and there are a lot of talents from who you write for. I always look out for what’s trending in Poland because I think you all have great taste in board games and have an important weight in the global market.
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