I recently had the opportunity to interview the lovely people behind First Fish Games, a small Canadian studio developing card games. They are currently working on a card game about my hometown Coevorden (Netherlands) in the 1600s, named Town Builder Coevorden. When I found out about a Vancouver-based (Van Coevorden..) studio was developing a game about Coevorden I was a little shocked. Why would anyone make a game about a small town like Coevorden. But luckily, First Fish Games’ Stephanie and Eric were more than willing to enlighten me about the creative decisions they made while creating card games (mostly about historic towns nobody ever heard of.).
As always, our first question for our guests is to introduce themselves. Can you tell a bit more about yourself and the company you work for?
My name is Stephanie with First Fish Games. First Fish Games was started by 3 friends, Gord, Liam and myself. Publishing board games is actually a side business for us as we all have full time jobs. As much as we’d love to dive in full time designing and publishing board games, it’s just not financially viable at this time. That’s the dream though, isn’t it?
How does one come up with the concept of creating a card game about a little town in Drenthe, the Netherlands? Have you ever been there to do any ‘fieldstudy’?
I let Eric Raué answer the next 3 games as Town Builder: Coevorden is designed by him:
Eric: The inspiration came from the stories I heard of my dad’s childhood there. This was near the end of World War II so the stories were quite dramatic. It was more about the personal connection than accurately representing the city.
At first, I wasn’t planning to mention Coevorden since I thought it would be too difficult for players to pronounce and spell. First Fish Games convinced me otherwise and I’m glad we did since the response has been very positive. Had I known earlier I would’ve included more direct references to the city itself. A few years before designing the game I visited the Netherlands with my parents and stayed with relatives in Coevorden. While designing the game I found myself looking at my pictures and recalling experiences from the trip.
Nick: I can totally imagine, since I heard similar stories from my grandparents. Coevorden is really close to the German border, so the first stages of the war were probably felt the hardest in the towns close to the borders of the German empire during World War II. Growing up in Coevorden I find it sometimes hard to imagine why people would come and visit, but once you move out of the town and gain some perspective, I can imagine why people would like it.
What is the most challenging part of designing a card game, especially ones about an existing place?
Eric: I enjoy designing card games with a lot of unique cards since the order in which the cards appear allow for significantly different experiences. The challenge is ensuring every order consistently delivers an enjoyable experience at all player counts and skill levels. It involves a lot more playtesting than usual.
What’s the biggest difference between designing a board game and a card game?
Eric: I mainly design card games so the challenge for me is justifying using components other than cards since cards are so flexible. I like to include a certain amount of information density on each component. There’s not enough space on small tokens and too much space on large boards.
First Fish Games brings games towards the community solely trough Kickstarter, why Kickstarter?
As a new company, it’s one of the best ways for us to bring our games to life. Of course eventually, we would love to not require the assistance of crowd-funding but for now it’s the most tried and tested way of publishing games for indie developers.
Nick: Although the Kickstarter is over (and fully funded on Day 1!) you can still apply for a game for people who want to support First Fish Games: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1812622835/town-builder-coevorden
Since you brought Town Builder Coevorden to the online tabletop simulator, Tabletopia, are you planning on creating video-only-card/board games as well?
We are mainly focused on designing and publishing board and card games. Town Builder: Coevorden was brought to Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia because Eric, the designer, is a software developer so he could script it nicely for our backers to get a good sense of the game while they wait for it to be manufactured.
Nick: And you can try it out for free – I’ll add the link for the readers to try themselves: https://tabletopia.com/games/town-builder-coevorden
Any future plans after Town Builder Coevorden you can tell us about?
We have a lot of game designs in process but with all of us having full time jobs, it’s hard to find enough time to sit down and focus on designing our next game. We are trying to Kickstart one game per year but sometimes we can’t control what happens in life, so we’ll see where we are by next year!
We would like to thank First Fish Games for the time they took to sit down with us! If you have any questions about First Fish Games, you can tune in on the 14th of November for a AMA on Reddit or visit the website or Facebook!
