Welcome back friends to another interview with a board game industry professional! Today we will be talking to Michael Epstein, Director and Lead Designer of Copper Frog Games LLC. Let’s jump right into our questions with him now:
What started you into game design?
I have been making games since elementary school, but the first “serious” design was my junior year of high school. I’ve always played games, (mostly Nintendo), but got into tabletop design as a career path after leaving culinary school, and discovering D&D. Dungeons & Dragons gave me an opportunity to put my creativity to work solving problems, having fun, and meeting new people in new situations, so I made it my purpose to give back to the gaming community as a designer.
Who are some of your game designer inspirations?
There’s a lot! I’ll just do two for now. I am in awe of Christopher Badell of Greater Than Games’s devotion to flavorful world-building through game design, which is on a whole other level, (plus he’s a very sharp dresser!). The sheer diversity, quality, and quantity of the games that Sen-Foong Lim makes are something I aspire to emulate someday, and I respect him as a super down-to-earth designer and mentor in the industry.
What do you think sets you apart in the industry?
Man, I’m just another fish in the ocean of indies! But if I had to name anything, it’d be my ability to talk to almost anyone about anything in the games industry. I’ve been a programmer, artist, graphic designer, game designer, writer, editor, games retail employee, and indie publisher in various capacities for several years, and while I don’t excel at art or programming or graphic design, I know enough to speak the language of those professions. As such, I work well as a ‘go-between’ on projects, and have the ability to translate across many fields with my esoteric knowledge.
What was the first game you remember playing as a kid?
I’d say Candy Land. I remember playing that in the basement with my sister back in preschool. The first tabletop games I LIKED include Battleship and Scrabble, and the first video game I owned was Super Mario Land on the Gameboy.
What is your ideal game night? Games, group size, snacks, etc:
This is a good question! Most importantly, everyone wants to play all the games that I picked out, and we’re able to transition easily between the games. Each of the 5 players will teach the rules for one of the games, and we’ll have a mix of cooperative and competitive. My ideal games take 30-90 minutes to play, so we’d probably do a mix of shorter and longer. Sentinels of the Multiverse, Century: Spice Road, and some sort of drafting game would likely make the list, and there’d be a nice cheese and charcuterie plate for snacking. I LOVE having bread, cheese, and crackers at game nights.
What game is on your table right now?
I run weekly game nights at my day job as an event coordinator at Omar’s World of Comics & Hobbies in Lexington, MA, so I trend towards mostly smaller, lighter games like Azul, Dungeon Mayhem, and Sushi Go Party. That said, I’m looking forward to playing Scepter of Zavandor again, along with some recent Kickstarters I’ve backed, such as Chocolate Factory, Gardens of Babylon, and Matryoshka.
What is coming down the pipeline from you in the near future?
Chiseled is on Kickstarter and we’re aiming for a late-Fall 2020 delivery. I’m also working on a microgame follow-up to MeepFrog, tentatively called “Meeples and Spaghetti”, and reworking “Tattoo! The Game of Ink” into a lighter, leaner drafting and card-placement game. Plus, with our first game Pigment effectively sold out, I’m looking into reworking that for a future printing.
What inspired you to design Chiseled?
My first released game, Pigment, was a Renaissance painting-themed worker placement game, and I knew I wanted to keep the art theme going for a bit, since I’ve also designed a tattoo-themed game. Chiseledevolved naturally as a “reverse deck-building game”, since like sculpting, you’ve got all the material you need already… just too much of it. The idea of removing the extraneous pieces of your deck to reveal the art within is what drives the entire game, and making it a competitive race for the right tools fits the type of worker placement games I enjoy. That, and a deck of cards with a marbled back looks a bit like a block of marble when it’s sitting on the table already!
So about the current Kickstarter for Chiseled- What are the details? When can we sign up for it?
Chiseled is live on Kickstarter Tuesday 2/11/20 to Monday 3/3/20. It’s a deck-sculpting and action drafting game for 1-4 players, which plays in about 30 minutes. It’s a great twist on the “deck tuning” aspect of deck-building games, and will appeal to fans of that with its implementation of the sculpting theme. The base pledge tier includes subsidized US shipping for only $35, and all the content is available from the start. Check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/copperfroggames/chiseled
Thanks and good luck with the campaign Michael!
