stefaan schreef:Welcome and thanks for your effort. ?
It's fun actually!
fatum and LeonM: The answers to your questions are here, too.
stefaan schreef:
3) How many time did Tobago take from the first idea untill it was published??
Quite long, actually not so long, and then a lot longer than I expected.
I plan to clarify this cryptic answer while answering a bit now and the rest during the next 3 answers.
(That is the reason why the questions aren't in strict numerical order from now on).
"Quite long":
In 1992 we visited Egypt and I was so impressed by the temples there with the carved and painted columns I wanted to design a game about building a temple. But I only found the time around 2000. It had 36 column segments with pictures of egyptian gods and other things for building 12 columns but lacked a mechanic. After a while I had decided that I didn't want it to be a resource management game and had the idea that there were lots of accidents in the contruction place because the gods were angered if the column segments were placed insultingly, i.e. Horus above Osiris. So the players were to combine the clues given by the priests (not next to Isis, etc) to find the correct place for a given segment. Now I had the mechanic but game design kind of stalled, because finding a good way to score was difficult and the theme didn't help, so it sat for some years doing nothing.
"actually not so long":
In spring 2005 I bought a Heroscape Set. I had been designing a game set in the jungle using the statues and huts from MakaBana (a French game by Tilsit) and some jeeps -drive around, get tools in the huts, try to find out which statue belongs to which god (Cluedo-style) for some time. When I played around with the terrain tiles of Heroscape it all came together: mountains, rivers, lakes, beaches, forrests all was there for an island with statues, huts, and palm trees on it and the clues would lead to hidden treasures and the scoring would be gold pieces. The title of the work in progress was simply "Piratenschatzinsel", the players would have jeeps and all would participate in the treasure found according to the clues they gave. The game was ready early in fall, so that felt really quick after the long time before.
LeonM schreef:8. What was first: Theme or Mechanic?
(the mandatory question for each interview about a board game
)
So, it was kind of another theme first, then mechanic, then the (perhaps) most fitting theme. The way the design took off after I had the treasure island theme makes it feel like it was theme first to me even though it's not exactly true.
stefaan schreef:
4) Did you have to contact many publishers before you found one that would go for it?
No, I only showed it Klaus Zoch at the Spiel in Essen in 2005 together with some other games of mine and he was interested right away. The final prototype and rules were handed over in November.
fatum schreef:
5) Did the publisher changed a lot compared to the prototype you made ?
"then a lot longer than I expected":
Someone told me if a game is published completely unchanged it is either a extremly simple game or by a design genius (or possibly both) or
self-published (which might also include the aforementioned two).
The developers of Zoch poured their heart into Tobago and I am very thankful for that.
The board design is a result of their extensive playtesting, mine was modular and twosided, too, but they put the effort in to get it symmetrical and the largest space of each terrain unique, no matter how you arrange the board tiles. There were other changes which smoothed things out and I have learned a lot about tayloring a game to a target audience and most important about streamlining mechanics.
After submitting the prototype I heard from Zoch again in spring 2008 (see quote above). They told me they had experimented a lot, e.g. with tool cards, but kept coming back to my design. From then on, I was part of the further development and it took until fall 2009 until Tobago was finally published.
fatum schreef:
6) Do you have children ? And if so, do they play Tobago ?
No, I haven't. But friends of ours have and especially two 9 year old daughters enjoy Tobago very much.
fatum schreef:
7) Do you go to a lot of fairs now to promote the game ?
Well, since the very start I have always been to the Spiel in Essen and last year was quite a change. I still managed to haul lots of great games back home but seeing Tobago being played by lots of gamers was absolutely thrilling. I have been to the game fair in Cannes as Tobago was nominated for the As d'Or and the awards were handed out there, but thankfully Zoch takes care of promoting Tobago at all kinds of fairs. I wouldn't have the time to do that and am absolutely impressed how small publishers (sometimes being one person shows) manage to do it.
.....but I still do enjoy a lot of Euros if they have a decent theme and are not too long. 
). 