Hi everyone!

We got a bunch of feedback and questions in response to the “Anatomy of a Game Design: The Gallic Wars” article that encouraged us to give you guys more insight into how we accept new game designs. Some of the questions came from existing or  aspiring designers or friends of guys with a pet design project, some from customers  just looking for a deeper understanding of our processes. I hope this article will be beneficial to all of you.

More than an Idea:

Before I get into the details, I should say clearly that “We do not accept game IDEAS.” There are many creative people in the gaming world, and frankly, ideas are a-dime-a-dozen. So we generally won’t even look at a “design proposal” that doesn’t include a functioning prototype, at least not from a new designer. If you want us to accept your game, take the time to build a prototype, then test and refine it. It doesn’t have to be perfect when you bring it to us, but it does have to be an actual functioning game, with rules and pieces.

The Gatekeepers:

So, once you have a prototype, to whom do you submit a game if you want GMT to evaluate it?

Andy Lewis, VP of Acquisitions & Development

Andy Lewis and I do virtually all of the new game evaluation and approval here at GMT. Andy lives in Delaware and gives up most of his vacation time to attend several large East Coast Conventions each year, including WBC, where he is on the board. I live in California, and run a couple of GMT Weekends at the Warehouse here at our HQ each year (April and October). I also attend the Consimworld Expo in Tempe, AZ, and occasionally conventions in LA or SF. So between us, we have at least half a dozen  opportunities per year to talk to designers and evaluate new games at a multi-day convention. For new designers, it usually takes one of us playing a physical copy of the game – often at one of those conventions – before we are willing to accept a game to add to our P500 list. There are rare cases when this isn’t true, and that’s usually because either Tony or Mark (who play a LOT of games and whose opinions Andy and I totally trust) have seen the game and know the designer and recommend we accept the game (This happened recently, actually, when Mark saw the Gallipoli 1915 game at a convention, was impressed, and came back and made the case to us to accept the game. Hey, if Mark likes it, I’m in!)

The Process:

First off, I want to say that the process is a LOT different based on whether you are an existing GMT Designer or if this is your first GMT design submission. We absolutely DO play favorites when it comes to accepting games. It is much easier for guys who have already designed games for us, who know our teams and our process, and whose design quality, attention to detail, and personality is known to us to get the green light from me or Andy to put a new game on the P500 list. For them, it often takes only a series of  e-mails or a phone calls (as I noted in the “Anatomy of a P500 Addition” article about Volko and Andrew’s Gallic War), then an online follow-up with files to get the game onto the P500 list. That said, Andy and I have a track record of “taking chances” on new designs and designers, and we are VERY interested in continuing to add talented new designers and interesting designs to the GMT line. So just because we give preferential treatment to existing designers does not mean that  the door is closed to new (or new to GMT) designers. But if you are new to us, you are going to have work harder than existing designers to impress us.

For new designers, you’ll want to contact Andy(alewis@gmtgames.com) or me (gmtgene@gmail.com) and introduce yourself and tell us about your game. (Or, if you are REALLY good friends with Tony or Mark, show the game to them and ask them to plead your case! 🙂 ) Andy has a slightly different process than I do, but he is at WBC this week so I couldn’t get his input for the article (I’ll try to get his thoughts for part II next week). In any event, though, we take a similar enough approach to these first few areas that this will be a good guide for you.

Next, ideally, set up a time to show it to us. We used to have new designers send us prototypes, but the truth is, neither Andy nor I has a lot of extra free time to be reading prototype rulebooks and figuring out a game. So if you want to optimize the chance that we’ll understand and like your game, set up a time to show it to us. I mentioned recently that Kurt Keckley, the designer of Fields of Despair, came up to a GMT Weekend at the Warehouse and told me about his game, then set up a time to drive 90 miles one evening to my house to show it to me. And for this most recent GMT Weekend at the Warehouse, one new designer called me and asked if he could drive up to the convention a day early so he could show me his game. I agreed, and we spent four hours or so playing his game that Wednesday and I walked away with a keen appreciation of how the game played (and it’s now heading for our P500 list sometime later this year). Like any of us learning a new game, the best and easiest way is to have someone who already knows the game teach us, and show us why it is fun. So if you are a new designer, I definitely encourage you to set up a time to show us your game face-to-face, even if it means waiting months until we’re both attending the same convention. The chances that we will catch your excitement about the game and want to see it in a GMT box are going to go way up when you take the time to show us your game in person.

What Do I Look For?

1. Why is it Fun? When I meet a new designer and begin talking about his or her game, the  first thing I want to know is “Why is this game fun?” Don’t tell me about how many counters it has or that it has a cool map or that it’s the first ever game on “X battle”  or that it’s just like one of our existing designs “only better.” Some of those things might have relevance later, but if we’re going to spend our time looking at your game, we want you to be able to tell us simply and clearly right up front why our customers are going to enjoy playing it. If you can’t do that yet, go back to the design table and keep working on the game until you can. Even if it’s your labor of love, or the “perfect simulation of x,” if it’s not fun to play, we’re not going to be interested.

New designers almost always act surprised when I ask them that question (maybe that won’t be the case anymore after we publish this article). I guess they come all prepared to tell me about the details of the game, and I like the game to have details, but above all, it has to be fun – something that when you finish the last turn, you want to play again. Convince us that your game is such a game and tell, then show us why, and you’ll have our attention.

2. Is it Elegant? The next question I ask, this time to myself, is “Is this game elegant?” What I’m looking for here are systems and subsytems that are well thought out and interact seamlessly, processes that are streamlined, and a player turn that is logical (for what’s being simulated) and organized. What we see a lot from new designers is the rush to throw everything they know into the game, which inevitably leads to overwrought systems, rules, and usually way too many pieces and processes. Now if you fail in this area, it’s not as bad as failing the “fun” question, as we’re pretty good at helping designers streamline their games. But it would definitely be more impressive to us, and better for your game’s chances, if the game is elegant.

3. Is this person going to be a good fit with our teams? What?!?! I’m off the game already and thinking about the Designer? That’s right. Everything we do at GMT is team-based. One of the things that makes me proudest of what we’ve accomplished over 24 years is that with now around 38 different design teams and a growing staff, we’re still working with mostly the same people over all those years. We’ve added a lot of teams, of course, but those teams have tended to stick together over long periods of time. One of my fundamental beliefs about business is that all the important things are accomplished by teams, and we have built our company that way. Another is that it’s just easier and more fun to work with people who you’ve enjoyed working with before. So our experience has been that our team members soon become our friends, and it is a lot of fun to create products that people enjoy in the company of your friends.

So even if you happen to be the greatest game designer in the history of the world, but not a team player, or surly, or a “legend in your own mind,” we’re probably going to say “pass.” Andy and I hate to get this area wrong (it has happened, unfortunately) because it causes all kinds of trouble with developers, test teams, through production, and eventually, with our customer relations. We’ve had a few “one and done” designers over the years, people to whom we said “no thanks” on Design #2, and in almost every case it was because we failed question #3, and believe me, it always hurt us. So it’s critical to us to work with someone who has some humility to go along with their talent, and who  “plays well with others.”

A Real World Example:

I’ll give you an example of how these first three areas of interest worked together in the case of a game that eventually made it to our P500 list, was produced, and was very well received by our customers. That game was Navajo Wars. Joel Toppen, the designer, has worked with us for years. He’s one of my favorite people in our company. Joel is crazy talented in so many areas, and has been at the forefront of our VASSAL module development, our online Vassal/Ventrilo demos, and our YouTube channel for some time. At the time he brought NW to me, Joel had been a successful developer for us as well, and I knew him to be a great guy to work with. He’s talented but humble, that awesome combination that turbocharges teams and gets things done. So anyway, Joel emailed me that he had been working on his first design and wanted to show it to me at an upcoming GMT Weekend at the Warehouse. I quickly agreed.

Joel was a new designer, but because he was already “inside GMT,” I already knew he had the goods we were looking for as a team member. But I didn’t know if he would be a good designer. I intend no offense at all when I say that, it’s just that designing is a skill that not everyone has. So Joel brought me the game, and I was REALLY impressed by the amount of research he had put into the game. I was also impressed that he understood what it was going to feel like to play the game when it was finished – the “why this is fun” aspect. So I was “thumbs up” on questions 1 and 3. Unfortunately, Joel had done what so many first-time designers do, and had thrown basically everything he knew about the subject into the game. So elegant, it was not.

But here’s the good part. Joel asked me to give him my honest feedback on the game. So I did, and I was pretty blunt about the inelegant parts. There was this long pause, and I was afraid I had maybe been too blunt. Joel looked down at the game map, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. I didn’t really know how he was going to react. And then he looked up and said “Do you have any suggestions to make it better?” Ah, humility! I believe it’s the key to being a lifetime learner and improver, and Joel has it in spades. It turns out that I have a little experience with developing games, and I know a bunch of other guys who do, too, so in short order, several of us took hard looks at the game and gave Joel a bunch of suggestions and constructive criticism that I think helped him see the game in a new light. By the next Weekend at the Warehouse, Joel had a completely revamped version, and it was light years better, but still a little rough around the edges. Once again he asked for suggestions, got them, and found a Developer (Mike Bertucelli) in the process. With one more round of revisions, Joel had a version that was ready for testing, and in short order, the P500 list.

I think you can all imagine how that process would have gone differently had Joel not been the kind of guy who could take honest critical feedback, blink, take a deep breath, swallow hard, and then ask for suggestions to make it better.

Wrapping Up

So, make it fun, make it elegant, and be a humble team player who’s willing to learn. Those three things will go a long way toward getting your game published by GMT, as well as winning you a bunch of new friends and teammates along the way.

I hope you find this information helpful. I plan to deal with a few other things we look for and  more details in Part II of this article sometime next week, hopefully with some comments from Andy Lewis.

Enjoy the games!

What Does It Take to Have Your Game Accepted by GMT Part II

Author: Gene Billingsley