Luke Laurie started small with his first game Stones of Fate launched on Kickstarter by indie publisher Wombat Games. He then leveraged that experience and networking to get his next design picked up by Minion Games for The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, a critically acclaimed game. He’s now working with multiple projects for top tier publishers.
We chat about how he went from teacher to game designer, speed dating, and various tips for designers.
Q&A: Luke Laurie
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Eduardo Baraf is a game maker from Mountain View, California. He is married with two boys (5/8) and loves playing games with his family and friends at home. He owns Pencil First Games (Lift Off! Get me off this Planet, The Siblings Trouble, GemPacked Cards) and runs the YouTube channel: Edo’s Game Reviews. Professionally his career spans Video Games, Startups, and VR technology.
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5 Readers Commented
Join discussionPingback: The Village Square: July 6, 2017 6 Jul, 2017
[…] A chat with Luke Laurie Fun little half-hour interview at League of Gamemakers with designer Luke Laurie (Stones of Fate, Manhattan Project) on games and other stuff. Source: https://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/qa-luke-laurie/ […]
It was really interesting to hear your story, Luke, thank you. I’ve got a couple questions for both you and Ed.
1) Industry roles: I’m from the video games industry (and then software security) and now starting out in board games so some of the roles seem quite different; like what is a “developer” as compared to “designer” and “publisher”?
2) Speed dating: We attended Origins, took part in Unpub, but decided against the speed dating event because we are intending going the self publishing route via Kickstarter. Should we have/could we have done this event as a means to get feedback on our game? Hone our demos etc? Maybe to meet people we could partner with if we change approach?
1) Typically…
Designer is the person who comes up with the core gameplay mechanics / systems
Developer is the person who is working on the game to integrate art, refine systems, bring through production
Publisher is the company that sells / publishes the game.
2) Speed dating is a good experience. Even if you think you are going KS. I’d suggest doing it!
The common comparison is to the book industry:
Designer = Author
Developer = Editor
Publisher = Publishing House
Thanks both, we’re ex video games industry and I was just trying to work out where we fit in in the world 🙂