Full disclosure: Constant Companion and I owned and ran a board game and puzzle store from fall 1978 through winter 1997. So, yes; I’m more interested than most, when it comes to this topic.
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| Charlie Bink, designer of the board game "Trekking the National Parks," contemplates whether to tweak the rules one more time. Note his game's high-quality wooden and glass components. |
(And many of us still do…)
That said, be advised: This film — available via Amazon Prime and other streaming outlets — eschews historical content. No time is spent discussing the creation of vintage board game classics such as Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, Candy Land and Scrabble; or how the very nature of games has evolved. (Consider the seismic shifts that occurred in the wake of Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit.)
Instead, Mruz’s film adopts the format that made earlier documentaries — such as 2002’s Spellbound, and 2018’s Science Fair — so entertaining. We meet and follow the progress of four would-be game designers, as they navigate the discipline’s necessary trials and tribulations.
You think it’s hard to get a book published? Try bringing a game to the retail market.
Mruz chose well. Each of his four subjects is personable, creative, enthusiastic and delightfully humble: well aware of the difficult path ahead.
Scott Rogers, a former video game designer and Disney engineer, began designing his first-ever tabletop game while undergoing chemotherapy for stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The process was its own former of therapy, as it gave him something on which to focus.
“I’m a really big Star Wars fan,” he cheerfully recalls, “and I went, I wanna make a Star Wars game. And my friend said, ‘Pfft, forget Star Wars, make your own damn Star Wars. And I’m like, Yeah, I could make my own damn Star Wars.”
The result, dubbed “Rayguns and Rocketships,” became all-consuming: play-testing, fine-tuning the rules, play-testing, making the components, play-testing … you get the idea.
