Today we sit down with the crew at Burning Games for this edition of The Game Of Crowd Funding Written Interviews. Burning Games has a Kickstarter running right now, through March 12, 2015 for their game, FAITH: The Sci-fi RPG.
What do you do as a profession? (besides making games, and it can be generally and not specific if that is your preference)
The four of us come from very different backgrounds. Carlos G. is a filmmaker, Mauricio G. is a Med student, Jon E. is a marketing and innovation expert and I (Helio) am an engineering student on his last semester. We’ve all had different jobs on the side, some related to our studies, some related to gaming and others completely different.
What makes you a geek?
We each have our individual hobbies and talents, although we share a common passion for gaming in general. We play wargames (Infinity, Warhammer, our own wargame…) and videogames (LoL, the Total War saga…), and we share a common passion for interesting science and technology.
Do you have a geek level passion for something that most people might not consider geek related?
Mauricio plays the electric guitar like a pro and I (Helio) play the bass. Sometimes we write melodic death metal songs together. Jon is an avid collector of Pink Floyd merchandising, and Carlos cultivates a growing collection of history books.
Outside of gaming, what keeps you going and excited to approach each day?
The little pleasures of life, like drinking orange juice right after waking up or walking under the sun on a bright day. Watching good films, reading books, learning new skills and making stuff, from paper animals to furniture.
The Internet crashes and never recovers, are you lost or do you thrive?
We are lost for a short period of time, then we thrive. Then we invent the Internet again.
Speaking of the Internet, what has been social media’s impact on your view in to the gaming industry?
We are now more aware of everybody else’s gaming habits. We are also more informed now about what the companies do and we can decide which companies we support not only for the quality of their product but also for their work ethics.
Besides your own creations, what are the last 5 games you played?
Chaos in the Old World (Awesome game, although a bit long), Android Netrunner, Infinity (the miniatures wargame), Dominion and Cosmic Encounter.
What’s your favorite genre of game, and why?
RPGs are near the top, because we love telling and living stories, but strategic yet well themed games like Netrunner or Chaos in the Old World are probably our favourite.
What’s your least favorite genre of game, and why?
Random games where your decisions do not matter. You might as well just watch a simulator play by itself…
Do you have a moment that you can point to where you decided to move from casual game player to wanting to be in the game industry from a business perspective?
We started designing our own games when we were 12 year old kids with nothing to think about other than being happy. It has been a process, but if we had to point one specific moment it would be the summer of 2009, when we started creating our first wargame. From that moment I knew we only needed to wait for an opportunity to arise, and that opportunity came early last year in the form of a grant award from the University of the Arts of London, where Carlos was studying.
What’s a typical game design process for you?
We usually start out talking about a theme idea. Then we look for mechanics that will suit that theme properly, and flesh out the game removing everything that makes it clunky or boring. However, we have not designed enough games yet to have an established process, those are more guidelines than anything else.
Where does playtesting come in to your overall process?
As early as possible, as soon as we have something even remotely playable we start testing to see if it is worth developing or we must start from scratch again.
A lot of times, rules and rulebooks can make or break a game from a player perspective. What do you attempt to do to make sure that’s not an issue for your games?
Make it as clear as possible. Our experience as young wargames players got us used to deal with hundreds of pages of rules, so that gives us a nice perspective of what is appropriate and what can be just too much.
How does collaborating on a project differ for you from solo design?
When we are collaborating, there are many more ideas on the table and everything is easier to decide. Designing solo often leads each of us to write over complicated stuff that we think we will enjoy but in reality we don’t.
Give us your elevator pitch for FAITH. Ready? Go!
Faith is a pen and paper role-playing game that uses cards instead of dice. Randomness is replaced with streamlined resource management and the art is on the table at all times in the form of beautifully illustrated playing cards accompanied by gear and non player character cards and character boards.
What was the driving factor that inspired you to create this game?
We were considering starting a new RPG campaign, but all the games we kind of liked were overly complicated. Jokingly we said it seemed easier to design our own game than to learn how to play another one, and one year later, the joke is on us. However, we are very happy with the results and we have had amazing support from the community at different conventions.
What went in to your decision to go with a Kickstarter campaign versus seeking publishing?
Retaining control of the whole process was an important part. However, what we are seeking is to build a company that ends up carving its own place in the gaming industry, and we believe this was the best step we could take.
In the spectrum of “I love designing and don’t want to handle publishing at all” to “I love the publishing side and want to do that full time” where do you fit in?
We are lucky to be a team of four with different answers to this question. While Mauricio and Carlos enjoy the designing part best, I lean a little bit more towards the publishing side and Jon downright pursues it.
What are a couple of things you would tell someone on the fence about FAITH that would make them say, “I HAVE to back this right now!”
The art is awesome and if the Kickstarter is funded, there will be more of it. And we had one playtester say “my girlfriend hates RPGs, but she loves FAITH. I got to buy this right now”, so there’s that.
Do you have any lessons about the Kickstarter process that you can share with others that might be looking at launching their first project?
Do all your research properly. We found extremely good advice on almost everything related to Kickstarter on Jamey Stegmaier’s blog (http://stonemaiergames.com/) and James Mathe’s blog(http://www.jamesmathe.com/).
Where can people find out more about you/your company?
Our website is http://faith.burning-games.com/
You can find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/burning.games.ltd
Twitter @burning_games
Pinterest, Google+ or email us at
We would like to thank the Burning Games team for taking the time to answer our questions and let us know a bit more about FAITH. Again, FAITH: The Sci-fi RPG is currently on Kickstarter through March 12, 2015. So make sure you go check it out!
If you are interested in being interviewed by All Us Geeks, please visit our contact form and let us know.
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