Dice Hate Me and Go Forth and Game have joined forces to bring you some of the best gaming interviews on the web! That’s right, from time to time here on Dice Hate Me, Tom Gurganus will contribute one of his comprehensive conversations. In this interview, Tom sits down for a detailed chat with Geoff and Brian Engelstein, makers of The Ares Project. Enjoy the interview and be sure to let us know if there are other designers, artists or gaming insiders that you would like to know more about!

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Tom: Ok, The Ares Project – It just hit stores and it’s getting good buzz on the internets. Tell us all about it. Where did the idea come from? What it is about? All the details.

Geoff: Back in 2007 I (Geoff) had a business trip to Korea, and I met up with Tom Vasel of The Dice Tower to play some games. We played the Starcraft boardgame from Fantasy Flight, and while I liked it, it didn’t give me the feel of playing Starcraft on the computer, a game I loved. I started thinking about other games that were based on computer ‘real-time strategy games’ (RTS), like Age of Empires and Warcraft, and realized that there was no board game that felt like they did. So on the long flight back to the US I started thinking of ways to capture those features that I really like in computer games.

There are a few features that are common to most RTS games – Each player gathers resources, constructs buildings, uses those buildings to produce units, and then attacks the enemy. These buildings and units are usually built in a ‘base’ which is hidden from the other player until they send other units to attack. And there are always a wide variety of units with strengths and weaknesses, and ways to upgrade them. Finally, there are many different strategies – you can build a lot of weak units and try to attack your opponent quickly, or try to defend your base while building up stronger units. So we had a lot of design challenges. We definitely started with the theme and no idea of the mechanics.Very early on we decided we would use a deck of cards for each faction. Cards represent the buildings or upgrades if played face up, and resources if played face down. In addition most cards can produce two different types of units depending on how you play them into your base. We also decided pretty quickly to have no map. Each player just plays cards to the table in front of them, which represents their base. You play cards face down as resources on the building cards to construct units.This kept the game really streamlined so that it preserves the feel of an RTS, with it’s fast moving play. An older version of the game actually had the players playing simultaneously until someone launched an attack, but it turned out to be way too chaotic. So instead we have a very simple turn structure – play one card, draw one card. Once you know the cards a turn is typically just a few seconds long.We also wanted to preserve the hidden information in the computer game. So we have the players playing their cards behind a screen. You literally have no idea what the other player is building until the fighting starts. We worked hard to develop a system that makes it extremely difficult to cheat while letting players make their moves out of sight of their opponent, and we think it works very well.In addition to the building and tech cards there are Attack cards. In order to launch an attack you have to play an Attack card. At this point the regular back and forth play stops and a battle between the players is fought. The players take their screens away and exchange their resources for unit tokens, which represent the actual fighting forces.

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Last time on The State of Games, we talked a bit about how not to scare girls away from gaming. Now, we want to talk about how to scare everyone while gaming! Yes, it’s our favorite time of the year here at Dice Hate Me HQ, and we’d love nothing more than to dim the lights, look around nervously, and share some frighteningly good games with all of you.

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“Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, and the peoeple dyd feast upon the lambs and slothes, and carp and anchovyes, and orangutans and breakfaest cyreals, and fruyt-bats…”

– the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, paraphrased

Sometime in the late 14th Century, author, philosopher and alchemist Geoffrey Chaucer – having dutifully observed and soulfully absorbed the full folly and sin of mankind in his surroundings – decided to share his singular vision with a vast audience in the way he truly knew best: through sarcasm, lyrical satire and bawdy humor. Early in the 21st Century, English professor, troll wrangler and board game designer Alf Seegert  – having dutifully observed and soulfully absorbed the full folly and skill of the board gamers in his surroundings – decided to share his singular vision with a vast audience in the way he truly knew best: by insanely adapting Chaucer’s classic and influential works into a game that encourages extortion, makes profit of death, and extolls the virtues of good ol’ St. Nick’s underpants. If you ask me, Alf automatically wins this particular contest of creativity.

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Although Monkey238 and I were not able to attend the Big Show in Essen this year, we were lucky enough to have a few friends in which we could live – and game – vicariously. One of those friends was Ian L. Smith, of Glasgow, Scotland. Ian and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on games, but we are always equal in passion and respect. When Ian began recounting his tales from Essen on Twitter, I eagerly interjected and learned about a whole bevy of games I need to sink my teeth into. I prodded Ian to share his thoughts with all you, dear readers, and he eagerly agreed.

By way of an introduction, let me explain that I and around 9 of my fellow Glasgow Geeks make the annual trip to the Spiele in Essen. I was chatting with Chris (@dicehateme) on Twitter and shared a short group email I had sent around our group mailing list, and he asked if I would mind contributing something here. So there we are – what follows is, hopefully, a concise but honest review of the highlights and lowlights of Essen 2011. Read More

Girls. They’re everywhere, you know. Or at least outside the game shop, it seems. Still, there are a few females – those glorious few – who put up with agape jaws and stammering starers to grace the gaming tables with the boys. This episode is dedicated to those lovely ladies who not only ignore us fellow’s warlike tendencies, but embrace it. Here’s to you, oh women of gaming – may we continue to not scare you away.

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Clever Mojo Games has announced that recent talks with beloved game designer Bruno Faidutti has resulted in an agreement to publish Haathi, which Faidutti has developed with Sérgio Halaban, and André Zatz. Haathi (hah-thee — the Hindi word for elephant) is described as a family board game for 3 to 6 players that features a fantastical race through villages, jungles and mountains of storybook India, atop – you guessed it – elephants. Head of Clever Mojo Games, W. David MacKenzie, has stated that playtesting and refinement of the game with Faidutti and his team will begin soon, and they will also be interviewing quality artists and designers to bring the title to life. Haathi is slated for a late-2012 or mid-2013 release.

For those two or three of you out there who may not be familiar with Bruno Faidutti’s work, he is the man responsible for the Dice Hate Me-approved Citadels, the original Diamant (now more commonly known as Incan Gold), the gnomish submarine adventure Red November, and the recently-released Lost Temple.

The lesser-known members of the team (in North America, at least), Sérgio Halaban and André Zatz, live in Brazil and have collaborated on games such as the recent Ouro de Tolo card game and the Spiel des Jahres-recommended Hart an der Grenze card game.

Clever Mojo Games is, of course, publisher of Alien Frontiers which all of you have seen mentioned more than a few times here on Dice Hate Me, and the upcoming tile-laying city game Sunrise City by newcomer designer Isaias Vallejo.

Look for more information, art and design notes on Haathi, as well as more news from Clever Mojo Games, here on Dice Hate Me soon!