First off, do you ever ask yourself if the world really needs one more game and, along those lines, why do you keep making games yourself?

Martin Wallace: Yes I do. Personally I think there are far too many games being produced each year and the rate seems to be increasing. I keep making games because I need the money. I also need an excuse to go to Essen.

From a newbie designer point of view I think it is worth considering the theme of whatever design you are working on. Is it one that has already been done to death? Similarly, with mechanisms, is what you have put together closely related to another game, e.g. El Grande? Don't just think that a different theme will be good enough to dress up an old system.

What is the most important thing you keep in mind when designing a new game?

Martin Wallace: It's not enough to make a game that works, it has to be fun as well. It has to be something that players will want to play again.

Let's say you've got a game that's working well, but there is one clear problem that's still present. Either...

• the game is too dry.
• there is not enough player interaction.
• it's too long.
• or it's not making sense within the current framework of the theme.

Which one or two of these problems would you consider to be most crucial and how might you go about fixing it?

Martin Wallace: Dryness can be a matter of taste. If it's too dry then sell it to a German games company;).

Player interaction is also a matter of taste, some players prefer to play solitaire.

Length is a key issue when I design a Warfrog game. I try to make sure a game will take between 2-3 hours, which means you can play it in a evening. There are a lot of games that need a whole weekend, they do get played but not often. If you are going to compete with those games then you had better have a good one.

I think a game works better if it feels logical, that what you are doing intuitively fits with the theme. I like to think of Age of Steam as a good example of this - you build track and ship goods, which is what the railways were built for. This is not true of all railway games.

Sometimes efforts toward balancing a game lead to uninteresting, nearly equal choices. Do you have any advice on keeping things fair, yet still offering the players interesting decisions?

Martin Wallace: If your starting conditions are not balanced then make sure there are enough decision points in the game to reduce the effect of the initial imbalance.

How do you decide upon and achieve a proper balance between randomness and pure strategy for a game?

Martin Wallace: Taste. I prefer a degree of randomness, the alternative can be a dry, predictable game. A number of my games have to deal with battles. These were largely random affairs and so luck must be incorporated to a degree. What I try to do is give players the option to reduce the risk of bad things happening. It should also be the case that a bad result does not knock a player out of a game.

The number or length of rules may be a factor when creating a game. How do you make the decisions of adding or removing rules during development?

Martin Wallace: Nearly all my development work involves removing rules. Struggle of Empires started with three times the number of rules it ended with. The aim is always maximum effect for minimum number of rules.

At what point in the game design process, if any, do you typically become bored or disinterested in a design and what methods do you use to help you push through to completion?

Martin Wallace: Depends on the game. I never got bored of Struggle of Empires. Same with Age of Steam. There are other games that I will not mention that I did grow bored of. Usually these end up in the bin. If I've been asked to design a game then it's a case of gritting your teeth and getting on with it. A first time games designer will find it hard to finish a game. However, once you complete your first game then you will find it easier to finish others in the future.

If they haven't been addressed already, what types of design issues did you find yourself having the most difficulty with when you first started designing games? How did you overcome these design difficulties and what did you learn from them?

Martin Wallace: The key design issue is coming up with a game that somebody a) wants to publish, and b) people want to play. All of my early games were not publishable. I must've thrown away twenty or so games before coming up with something that was OK. If there is a lesson here then it is to not be afraid to throw away a game that is never going to be right. Nothing is wasted, the experience of a designing a game that does not work is in itself positive. One example of this would be an early version of Stockers that would not work. Later I went back to one of the ideas in the game and turned it into a card game which was published as Und Tschuss, my first game published by a German company.

We're seeing a lot of new games these days, but not many are hailed as innovative. How new or different from other available games do you think a design should be to be considered worthy?

Martin Wallace: Cannot see how I could possibly answer that question. The only really innovative games are those that open a new field, such as D&D, Magic, Trivial Pursuit. Settlers was not really innovative, it just caught on in a way that was completely unexpected. Boardgames are functionally identical to those first made by the Sumerians, you just have lots of variations on a theme.

It's often hard for new designers to find good playtesters. Do you recruit your best playtesters or in some way train them? Whichever the case may be, how do you go about it?

Martin Wallace: I just grab who I can. It can be difficult to get people to playtest, very often a game will end half way through because it's broken. Some gamers will complain they have waste precious gaming time. You have to have a bit of a brass neck and cajole folks into trying your game. You cannot afford to be shy - be positive, tell them it's the best game they will ever play, and then find a new set of testers when they find out you lied;).

If you have any other comments for aspiring game designers, we'd love to hear them.

Martin Wallace: One way of breaking into the business is to publish your own game. Just remember not to bet more than you can afford to lose. All because you think your game is fantastic does not mean other people will feel the same. Do not assume that if you produce a game that it will sell. Think about potential sales outlets before publishing.