Q&A met Bruce Allen, de auteur van Tobago

[Arzach]

41) Do you know any Belgian or Dutch game designers?

I met Fréderic Moyersoen from Belgium, he is a very nice guy and I talked to the guys at Repos Productions, they seem a bit crazy but in a good and friendly way .

[Arzach]

What do you think is the most important rule concerning the mechanisms in Tobago in my opinion? I don't mean the main reduction mechanism but a small often overlooked rule without the game wouldn't work.

The turning of the statues ?

Not quite, but it has to do with the amulets (and the treasures).

The combination of the amulets for finding and driving to a treasure, together with the protection against te curses?

Well, in my opinion using the amulets like that for pinning down a treasure and raising it in the same turn is a very good move you always should be aiming for.

What I meant was the use amulet still left: taking away a cube.
I might have been a bit misleading with my question because it has something to do with the reduction.
But it is what makes it work: I am quite sure that it is impossible to design a variable board on which you can place the landmarks anywhere you want so that you could always narrow down the treasure location to one space just by using the clue cards alone. In the first draft this function of the amulets were rumour cards basically saying: "I have heard that someone has dug here before and there is no treasure here."
Without such a function the game would constantly crash (like a computer programme does ).

[Arzach]

For now, I'd first and foremost like to thank Bruce for his presence here, for extensively answering our questions, for his patience (when a time out error occurred again with his connection ) and of course for taking part in this experiment!
See you at Spiel 2010!

Secondly, thanks to all our members. Hopefully you enjoyed 'talking' with Bruce and reading what he had to say!

Thank you, Bart, for inviting me to this very pleasant community. It was great fun for me to answer your questions (and I hope you enjoyed it, too) and a big thank you to you all for that.

I will set up an appointment with Bart (Bartjes) to meet him at WGG, as soon as I know more about my other appointments, probably early October.
(I do not envy the publishers, with all the game designers showing them their new games they hardly see anything else .)
And of course you are welcome, too, so if you are interested I suggest you contact Bart.

I am looking forward to meeting all of you at Spiel 2010!
Nice dice and happy gaming til then!

[P.T.]

Thanks for the detailed answers. It was fun reading them

I hope we will hear more from you and your boardgames in the near future