My Favorite Games

Sam and Alec, designers from Alec. A.Sam Games sit down with Gelb to chat all things games. They geeked out about Carcassonne and delved into their journey building a game studio through collaboration. Sam and Alec discussed building games like The Big Crunch, and topics from how they complement each others' skills, approach game design, how to reassess after an unsuccessful Kickstarter, and their...

Tory Brown, the designer of Votes for Women sees board games as an opportunity for advocacy. In this episode, Gelb learns all about Tory's game design journey and the challenges of creating a game about women’s suffrage. They talk about balancing historical themes with gameplay mechanics, personifying the opposition to the suffrage movement, and handling feedback as a designer. Tory shares insight...

Gelb and Judson geek out about Trickerion, discuss his first game Hideous Abomination, and his upcoming game that’s live on Kickstarter now, Deep Regrets! We chat about the importance of theme and narrative in game design, the kickstarter process, and Judson shares his experiences with self-publishing on Kickstarter, the impact of game design on his mental health, and his plans for future games. F...

Roach and Stefan from 13th Moon Games just love LARPing. In this episode, Gelb learns all about their creation of the tabletop role-playing game Coven and Crucible, the importance of narrative and mechanics in RPGs, and their unique approach to game design. They talk about their inspiration from Changeling the Lost, the successful Kickstarter campaign, and innovative RPGs that prioritize storytell...

Keith Matejka from Thunderworks Games really loves War of The Ring. In this episode, Gelb learns about Keith’s journey from music to video games and eventually to starting Thunderworks Games. They chat about the influence of playing games on game design, the process of designing a first game, and Keith’s approach to game design and ideation. He also shares his views about the differences in design...

My Favorite Games is a weekly podcast where game designers geek out about their favorite games, talk about what their working on, and share their views about their journey of how their games are made. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midnighttradingco.substack.com