WEBVTT

NOTE
Podcast: Bretterwisser
Episode: Eric Lang
Publishing Date: 2014-11-21T17:35:43+01:00
Podcast URL: https://bretterwisser.de
Episode URL: https://bretterwisser.de/bretterwisser-spezial-011-eric-lang/

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Bretterwisser Spezial. Arne und René sprechen heute mit Eric Lang über seine aktuellen Spiele.

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Wir sitzen hier mit Eric Lang, der sich dankwerte bereit erklärt hat, ein kurzes Interview mit uns zu führen.

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Wir sitzen auch vor seinem neuen Spiel.

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Wir werden das jetzt auch in Englisch machen.

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Genau, nur eine kurze Einleitung auf Deutsch.

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Und auf der Abendrecht geht es mal umswitchen auf Englische.

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Ja, wir haben hier einen Mr. Lang.

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Guten Tag.

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Ich habe gesagt Englisch.

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Guten Tag.

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Hallo.

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Ja, du bist ein besonderer Mann gerade jetzt.

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Es ist eine sehr besonderer Show.

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Du hast jetzt mehr als ein paar Spiele auf der Tafeln.

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Das ist wahr.

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Also es ist ein bisschen eine optische Illusion.

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it looks like I've done 80 games in the last year but we were talking about two hours ago about

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that you have a lot of games right now and here on the fair yeah so part of it is or is it just

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coincidence a little bit of it is that so I mean of course I do work on several games at once but

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not this many some games I work on get because I work with a few different publishers they don't

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coordinate their schedules so some publishers fast track a game some publishers take extra long

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on the game sometimes a game schedule ends up getting re-slotted so this year um i i'd rather

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i probably shouldn't name exact games so you know one game got fast tracked really quickly one game

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took a long time another game was slot to come up the same show so they just all all the games i

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worked on in the last two years basically showed up here so then the next two years you have no game

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I thought that was true, but that's not true

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so I got three more games coming out next year

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so we are safe

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it's not the bad thing, the worst thing

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no, no, no, I'm very

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I'm blessed and happy to be doing this for a living

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yeah, we are sitting here on the table

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where Arcadia Quest is set up

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that's a miniatures game?

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it's a board game

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it's an adventure board game

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with miniatures

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it has lots and lots of cool miniatures in it

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of course, because every game done by cool mini or not

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It has tons and tons of awesome costumes.

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They look so beautiful.

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This game is actually an homage to some of the old school Games Workshop style campaign games

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where you could play these cool campaigns that were many sessions that are interrelated and interlinked.

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But I just wanted to do a very modern design take on it, make the sessions shorter, the playtime shorter, more economy of rules.

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Yeah, that's a trend in shorter games, right?

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Absolutely.

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Some people would like to play four-hour-long games, but...

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Not me.

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Me neither.

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So I basically took my short attention span

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and applied it to a classic old school of design.

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And I also took a lot of my trading card game background

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and made the way the interactions work in this to be very card-based.

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You'd recognize the style, I think, if you play some of my card games.

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Yeah.

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And so, essentially, this is the adventure game that I want to play.

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And hopefully the market agrees.

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Yeah, René took a copy of it, and he's pretty excited.

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And it's very heavy.

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It's heavy, yeah.

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It is a big game, yes.

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But it isn't like Descent 2nd Edition.

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It's like you play against the game, against the players.

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Yes.

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So you have a buzz phrase I call the PvPVE, player versus player versus environment.

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You guys are ultimately competing against each other,

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but you are using the board on each other's turns to screw each other up.

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And you have this role-playing mechanism where you can level up your heroes or your guilds?

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Yes. So there's a campaign system.

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There are 11 scenarios in the game.

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You'll be playing six in any given campaign.

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And the outcome of whoever wins or finishes the story quest in one of the sessions

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will unlock special features of the two scenarios that it's related to later on in the campaign

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that are exclusive to that player.

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And of course the winner of that campaign also gets to choose where to go.

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So every campaign should play a little differently.

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Yeah, it looks stunning.

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Yeah, they did an amazing job with the miniatures.

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Yeah.

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I think it's a trend. Miniatures in board games are getting huge.

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Because at the end of the day, I mean, I'll admit it, I'm 10.

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I'm 10 years old, right? I love playing with toys.

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And this game would, as proud as I am of the mechanics and how well it plays,

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I wouldn't have nearly as much fun if it was with Chits, right?

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Or even with Standies.

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Or with Meeple.

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Right, or with Meeple, right?

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I want my orc with axes.

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I want Schmetterling the troll with these bag of bones, right?

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Yeah, I was really surprised that they released it in German language.

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I thought it would never come to Germany.

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I was surprised, too.

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I only found this out two weeks ago.

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Well, so this game actually...

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So it was launched on Kickstarter at first,

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and it was a pretty big Kickstarter,

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so we knew already that it was going to have some traction.

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but the pre-orders on the retail side were stunning.

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They just exploded.

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And Asmodee played this last year, actually at this show.

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We played it with the guys at Asmodee

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and I didn't have a chance to see what their reaction was

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but apparently they really liked it and they picked it up.

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I think this game will do pretty well here.

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It is a little bit more...

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I wouldn't say it's more Euro

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because there's a fair amount of luck in it.

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But it is controllable luck, but the economy of mechanics is a little bit Euro.

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And there's competition.

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There is competition, and you do kill each other.

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However, everything about the game system is set up to positively reward instead of negatively reward.

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So when you die, you come back right away, but it gives a positive reward to one of your opponents.

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That's great.

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And the game actually also encourages you to pick on different people at different times,

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because the quests, you have to finish three quests,

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and one of the quests is to kill somebody from an opponent.

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The first person to finish a quest gets bonus gold.

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So once somebody has killed, say, one of your players,

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then nobody else will get the bonus by picking on you.

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So they want to go somewhere else, otherwise they're hurting their own victory.

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Yeah, it sounds really good.

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I want to know what René thinks about it

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and he will talk about it in the podcast.

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Hopefully.

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But let's talk about the other games

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that we have here on the trade fair.

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Sure.

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You might have to tell me

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because I haven't seen too much of the haul.

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I know Conquest is here, Warhammer Conquest.

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I just saw XCOM, which also surprised me.

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It surprised me too.

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We talked with another blogger about XCOM

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like 10 minutes ago

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and he played it already this morning.

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You played it already. Wow.

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I mean, the prototype version, some kind of prototype, but he said it looks amazing.

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I am very excited about XCOM.

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I'm a little scared because it is...

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Because of the expectations?

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Well, it's very new, right?

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We're trying some new things, and that was the goal.

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That was what made me excited about it in the first place.

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But whenever you try new things, right, there's a big degree of risk.

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The market could always say, we don't agree with you.

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but I love that

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FFG took the

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like they're the market leader right now

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in this type of game but they still take risks

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like this

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it's a new thing

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like new Neuland

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Neuland, yep

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frontier territory

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everybody is figuring out

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how to make it

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like

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what to make with the new technology

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and what will be possible

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Germany also the publishers are trying to

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about how to use the new devices with board games.

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Well, I think ultimately with XCOM,

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the thinking behind XCOM wasn't exactly how do we incorporate devices.

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It was how do we use technology that everybody has

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to enhance the board game play.

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So it was very important for XCOM that we were making a board game.

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The game is supposed to be about above-the-table play.

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It's supposed to matter that you and a bunch of your friends are sitting at the table.

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We didn't want to make a computer game with pieces.

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yeah that's the danger

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that's the danger right

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so basically the design goal of

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XCOM was to make a game

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really to make a cooperative game

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about arguing about how to win

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with your friends

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using a medium heavy game

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and the app turns it into a medium light game

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because it handles the administration

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and puts the time pressure on you

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but the fact that you're using a board

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the fact that you're moving plastic around

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the fact that the AI is only this cold

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distant threat in the background

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that one player only gets to pay attention to,

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is that all comes together, I think,

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to make the board game experience

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about limited communication

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and tension between players,

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even though you guys are trying to go for the same goal.

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Yeah, I'm excited for this.

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I played XCOM 15 years ago,

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the original pixel art.

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And Enemy Unknown.

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I'm a big fan of the franchise.

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I just hope you weren't expecting a squad-based game,

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because that's not what this is.

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Yeah, but can you say when it will be out?

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I have no idea, unfortunately.

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Okay.

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I was surprised to see it here.

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Okay.

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I mean, it should be this year.

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That's interesting.

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Well, as a designer, I'm not so much in tune with the release schedules.

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I can't keep up.

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So I know generally when things are expected to be out.

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For example, I was surprised to find out that Dice Masters is out here in Germany.

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Is it in German?

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As far as I know, it is being localized.

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it is oh god damn it i thought it would never come out in germany so i i said okay

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i might be wrong in fact there's whatever that we could ask about that right now okay

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maybe later so if i'm wrong with kids i apologize no problem uh and conquest is

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conquest is out conquest is out and for sale yeah yeah i saw it yeah and localized

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and yes and localized that's true yeah that's true um that's another one that i was very uh

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i mean i finished the design of that game a year ago so this is uh it just it's it was it's a

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it's a complicated game that we tried to make as simple as possible and we knew that

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we wanted to this is it's an lcg that's following netrunner so yeah we wanted to take all the time

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to make it the most polished possible experience.

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So we just took our time.

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We could have released it eight months ago,

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but we just wanted to spend many, many months

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on the tiniest, tiniest little details.

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And most people won't notice,

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but that's the point.

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That's the point of polish, right?

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When you don't notice the details, that's...

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Yeah, we played UniQuest,

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like this game over there, this afternoon.

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And it isn't out because they said

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they want to make it perfect.

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It has to be perfect.

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it tries new things also

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and they want to make it perfect

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that's the right attitude

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it will be the right attitude

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but people are screaming and saying

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oh no I cannot buy it here

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then wait six months

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there are enough other games

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that is true

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is it on sale?

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I don't even know

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it is on sale?

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I saw it

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I'm glad I listened to this podcast

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you learn something new every day

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Okay, thank you for the time.

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Thank you.

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Have a good fair.

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I will do my best.

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How long will you be here?

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All four days.

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All four jet lag days.

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Demoing games?

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Mostly signing, actually.

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The demo teams that they have here

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are so much better than us

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that they don't need us.

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He wants a signature.

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Of course.

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Happy to.

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Okay, we have five genomes.

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Wir kennen es wieder als Deutsche.

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Danke nochmal Eric Lang für seine Zeit.

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Bitteschön.

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Und ja, mal gucken,

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was jetzt noch passiert.

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Tschüss.

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Ciao.