FallCon - A Cornucopia of Gaming

They are officially joining us this year at FallCon to showcase a lineup of their best prototypes. All of these games are fairly late in development, there are no raw designs, and some of these games have already been submitted to publishers! Now you have an opportunity to play the game and offer your comments on the game play…before it even goes public!

This Interview is with Dylan Kirk. Dylan (AKA Wen Xiang) is a local Calgary designer who currently lives and works in Shanghai "doing all sorts of things". He will not be running any official tournaments this year at FallCon, but I am sure if he is able to attend he will be seen floating around the open gaming area with his recently published game Genji. Perhaps you could get him to autograph your copy!

What are your current favorite three games and why?

Go. This is the masterwork of all games. No other game comes close to it in purity, strategy, and philosophical depth. The interplay of atsusa and moyo, of extension and penetration, and of strategy and tactics make this a game for the ages. It's a game for the whole brain; a game to live, not simply to play.

Xiang Qi. IMHO the best of the Chess family. With only a half-rank of pawns, the games start fast and have a tendency toward the offensive right from the get go. The cannon is a unique piece and adds another tactical layer to the play: not only can you force the opponent onto the defense through aggressive play, but you can, through the creative placement of your cannon, deny him the opportunity to defend in certain places.

Viktory II. Admittedly, I would probably rather be playing a good, tabletop miniatures wargame than anything else in the world, but as a working dad I simply can't get the table time anymore. Nowadays, I have come to love ViktoryII as something of a replacement for my tabletop wargames and Star Fleet Battles. ViktoryII is fast, aggressive, has elements of both tactics and strategy, and forces the players into strategic compromises.

I agree Go is a fascinating game. I once read that the fastest way to learn Go was to lose your first 200 games as quick as you can.

How long have you been playing games? What’s your earliest recollection of playing a game

Started with chess at the age of 5 or 6, and that game is still my earliest recollection. I remember clearly being soundly beaten by my dad and not letting him away from the table until I had exhausted all possible board configurations to try to save my king. Of course, when all was said and done, I cried like a little baby. Obviously the loss didn't affect my future love of boardgames.

Have we heard about any of your games yet? What is the status of them?

Genji has been on store shelves for a while, and I have a few other games in the pipe, but nothing else is on the road to publication at the moment. I'm currently doing work on a space combat card game, a custom deck of cards with six suits, a game about Soviet collective farming called Kulak, and an abstract wargame about the Long March.

 

How long have you been designing or tinkering with designing a boardgame?

Forever. When I was in Elementary School I would get books about games and try to build the boards. In grade 6 I started into Dungeons and Dragons in a big way, and we of course made house rules for that. I had also started work on an Ironclad wargame in grade 6 that allowed players to build their ships with points on either a Monitor style or Merrimac style hull. I designed a couple games in Jr. and Sr. High school, and then in University during my war history degree my friends and I did all sorts of unholy things to Axis and Allies.

What was the first boardgame you designed? What ever happened to the design?

I'd have to say the first complete boardgame I designed was in Jr. or Sr. High. It was an abstract that allowed for different moves based on the configuration of your pieces on the board. I may resuscitate that one for a print and play game, it was actually rather good as I recall.

Where do you start the design process?

Experience. I start with an experience I want to have. For example, I want to know what decisions I might have to make as a commander of a tank troop, so I'll want to play a game that simulates those decisions adequately to satisfy my curiosity. If no game does so, I make my own.

For my space combat game, I did a lot of research regarding what games were out there, and the large proportion of them didn't seem to encompass the experience I wanted in the game. I started to design my own that was a break from the games I researched. Sometimes reading about something on wikipedia will excite me enough to think "I wonder what went through his head when he made that decision?" or "what would I have done when presented with a similar set of circumstances?". Then I will build a game with that theme and mechanics that try - as close as possible - to recreate some of the problem solving that went into that situation.

What's the creative spark that gets you excited about one of your designs?

The "eureka" moment when theme and mechanic begin to sing in tune. That point after a lot of sitting around and reading and sketching and card layout and charting turns into one beautiful whole.

What are your favorite game mechanics?

I haven't any. I kind of reject the idea of design from mechanics as too tactical an approach. Mechanics must fit the game, not the game the mechanic. If a mechanic that emerges in my game fits a certain classification, that's not intentional, it just happened to be the mechanic that fit. Even if I use mechanics that have been used before, I still design them from the ground up each time.

What themes (if any) are your favorites?

History, war, and politics. That's what I've studied my whole young life, my whole school career, and it's what I continue to do today, to a degree. The problems and experiences in these subject areas are simply limitless.

Can you let us in on any designs you are currently working on?

Well, I am certainly ready to get down to play testing this space combat game, and I wish more people would give me feedback about a little abstract I made called Block Kriegspiel. I've also got this card deck in the works, but there's no secret about that one, it's mainly revolving around how fast I can do the art. Every card will have its own Norse mythology picture on it. The art is somewhere between Alphonse Mucha, Nordic knotwork, and Marvel comics.

Sounds interesting Dylan. Hopefully if you can attend FallCon we will see some of these prototypes. I would really like to try your Space Combat game, and the Long March game sounds interesting as well.

Thanks for the interview Dylan, good luck on your future designs!

Peace