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Thought you guys would appreciate reading this - Colby Dauch, the guy who wears the Plaid Hat, took some time to share his thoughts with MenWithDice about Dungeon Run. Colby has been around the gaming community for years, first as the man behind heroscapers.com, the primary Heroscape internet community, and then as a game designer in his own right. Colby's credits include a number of the later Heroscape expansion sets as well as the phenomenally successful Summoner Wars, the game on which Plaid Hat was launched. With Dungeon Run, Plaid Hat breaks new ground, entering into...

F:AT Looks Back: This article was originally published June 7, 2007 in the Fortress: Ameritrash Blog. Rob Daviau (along with Craig Van Ness) of Hasbro has designed several games that, despite their mass-market heritage have become instant classics--many of them featured right here on Fortress: Ameritrash such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Heroscape, Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit, Risk: 2210, and many others. Rob graciously agreed to give an interview for Fortress: Ameritrash, to find out what makes the mind of an AT-oriented game designer tick.

It's well known among my gaming circle that I generally hate economic games. The majority of them generally revolve around moving generic cubes around railroad tracks or shipping slaves from one colony to the next. BORING! Cripes, even the word economics makes me heavy with sleep. A few months back, our fellow FATtie Jur compiled a list of upcoming and potentially interesting AT games and while perusing it I saw the game After Pablo on it. The short of it? Pablo Escobar the notorious drug lord is dead and each player takes the role of...

There have been many games lately involving Dominion's deck drafting idea. In this slate of games, one really caught my attention--Puzzle Strike, from Sirlin Games. Using chips instead of cards, a more coherent theme, and having a much higher degree of interactivity, it's one that looks like it might stand out from the crowd. I decided to catch up with David Sirlin to get more on his background, design philosophy, and the skinny about Puzzle Strike as well as other games he has in the pipeline. David has game...

I really liked INCURSION, and I'm glad to see a start-up publisher come out with such a strong product. In my emails with Jim Bailey, the designer of the game and kommandant of Grindhouse Games, I got a sense that he was a pretty cool guy. So I asked him to do an interview. He agreed, and he gave me the probably ill-advised "ask me whatever you want" go-ahead. So I wanted to make this the first in what will hopefully be a series of articles, interviews, and editorials that are specifically about the business...

In continuing this interview series, I contacted the creative genius and owner of another small-press game publisher, Colby Dauch of Plaid Hat Games. Colby has been immersed in the gaming industry for many, many moons and has worked on high-profile projects such as Heroscape, as well as his own product, the new and exciting game, Summoner Wars. His story is inspiring and really goes to show what a man with some passion and some big, brass balls can do when he sets his mind to it. He, personally, spent several weeks on the "Hotness" list at boardgamegeek.com and his...

I've decided that I am tired of seeing games produced by faceless companies and that I have a duty, as a journalist and gaming enthusiast, to bring you something you don't customarily see: In depth, conversational interviews with innovators in the industy. These are the designers, small-press publishers, and the owners of small companies that provide us with the games we love and enjoy. This will be an ongoing series, so keep an eye out for more interviews with industry leaders and innovators. This, as all of my interviews are, was by phone as I...

I’ve been meaning to ask Martin Wallace for an interview for ages: I’ve often thought that he’s one of the more innovative designers working today and I love the manner in which his games retain the basic feel of a Euro whilst usually allowing a very high degree of player interaction. And of course, just like me, he’s British and in the US/German-centric world of board gaming us minorities need to stick together! But what finally gave me the impetus to ask was the fact that Brass turned up very...