=

Origins is so much more than just playing board games with strangers and buying the latest and greatest products. You get to meet and chat with your favorite designers! Imagine going to good old E3 and getting the chance to talk to Hideo Kojima or Shigeru Miyamoto. With the abundance of guests and board game celebrities to choose from, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk to Eric Lang.

For the uninitiated, Eric Lang is one of the leading designers in the world of board games. Several of his titles are in the top 500 on BoardGameGeek, and a few even in the top 100. Bloodlusta Viking journey to Valhalla, is probably his most notable title, developed back in 2015; it sits at a comfortable rank 50. For you RPGFanners, you may remember our two Bloodborne: The Card Game Reviews – of the base game and the expansion Hunter’s Nightmare – from a few years ago, which Lang also developed.

In my conversation with Lang, we talked about his ability to choose which games he covers and that he has not taken on a game he did not want to work on. Blood transfused Fan, he said he was already thinking about the card game’s design when he was approached about the opportunity. Lang’s approach to designing games is a “sit-on-it” approach, as he likes to revisit his work months after he’s touched it. This way, he becomes less personal and defensive about his work, as he can more easily discard what doesn’t work and fine-tune what needs a facelift. When he talks to his fellow designers, he often hears stories of people who just can’t get rid of something because they put x amount of hours into it; he no longer has that problem.

We also discussed his views on balance. Balance is an ongoing discussion in both video games and board games, especially among consumers. The idea of ​​balance is put on a pedestal, but Lang has no problem accepting that some aspects simply don’t need to be balanced. For example, why shouldn’t one or five cards be relatively overpowered? This creates a “wow factor” when players get such a card, especially in cooperative games. In competitive games like the Blood transfused Card game, fellow players can balance the game by simply attacking the lucky player. I would like to note here that I think playing with a reasonably reasonable group of players who can recognize when someone is firing forward is a good way to balance the game.

Lang talked about what he called “sanding down the lows,” an idea that many designers admire. However, Lang says that when you try to eliminate the lows, you minimize the peaks, which can dilute the experience. Lows should exist because they also allow for highs. Furthermore, he explained that if there are no lows, the mediocre experiences become lows, and then you reach mediocrity. I like this perspective because I’ve learned to love games when they make me feel something, even if it’s not great; the opposite of love is not hate. It’s ambivalence.

I could have talked to Lang for another half hour, but my time was interrupted by another developer who had something to say; I didn’t mind since I had already taken up Lang’s time. That person was none other than R. Eric Reuss, the genius behind the critically acclaimed Ghost Islanda cooperative game developed in 2017 where players take on the role of island gods to terrorize and outright murder imperialists. (It’s as fun as it sounds.) My gaming group and I immediately fell in love with this outstanding title, which currently sits at number 11 on BoardGameGeek’s top games list. He immediately apologized for bringing himself in, and when I found out who he was, my jaw dropped and my eyes went wide. I asked to shake his hand because his game had meant so much to us, and I couldn’t believe I’d bumped into him by chance. And Eric Lang, no less! The two of them discussed views on design, seemingly in a different language, and it felt like watching two masterpiece painters talk shop.

These experiences make Origins a fantastic event. Not only did I get to speak with Eric Lang, but I also happened to see another of my favorite designers speak. My wife and I left the event with big smiles after a warm farewell. What a joy.