First off, do you ever ask yourself if the world really needs one more game and, along those lines, why do you keep making games yourself?

Bruno Faidutti: Well, I think the world could be completely satisfied with just Poker and Cosmic Encounter, and maybe Settlers of Catan. So, the main reason I keep designing games is that I like to.

What is the most important thing you keep in mind when designing a new game?

Bruno Faidutti: I think a good game must be tense, meaning there must be some anguish about victory and the way to get it building during the game. It's also nice when a game is fun, but it's not absolutely necessary.

Let's say you've got a game that's working well, but there is one clear problem that's still present. Either...

• the game is too dry.
• there is not enough player interaction.
• it's too long.
• or it's not making sense within the current framework of the theme.

Which one or two of these problems would you consider to be most crucial and how might you go about fixing it?

Bruno Faidutti: The lack of player interaction or the senseless theme are the most crucial problems for me. I think a game with not enough player interaction usually needs a completely new element added, and a game with a senseless theme needs a new theme - or no theme at all. As for the "lack of interaction" problem, I have it with a game I'm presently working on. It's about looking for treasures with a treasure map - the theme and the whole story behind suggests each player has a different map, but this way they are not going to the same place, and don't even know how to hinder other players. And making the players goals public knowledge destroys the theme....

Sometimes efforts toward balancing a game lead to uninteresting, nearly equal choices. Do you have any advice on keeping things fair, yet still offering the players interesting decisions?

Bruno Faidutti: I think there is a necessity for interesting choices for the players, which means that you must have some control on the effects of your decisions. But I usually don't run into this problem.

How do you decide upon and achieve a proper balance between randomness and pure strategy for a game?

Bruno Faidutti: I usually start with something very strategic, or very psychological, and add the luck element afterwards, stopping when I feel it's enough.

The number or length of rules may be a factor when creating a game. How do you make the decisions of adding or removing rules during development?

Bruno Faidutti: There are two phases. First, I start from a rough idea and add some "chrome" rules, usually because they make sense with the theme and I feel they could add something to the game. I usually end up with something a bit too convoluted, and there is a second phase of simplification, of removing what's unnecessary and trying to group single rules into more general ones.

At what point in the game design process, if any, do you typically become bored or disinterested in a design and what methods do you use to help you push through to completion?

Bruno Faidutti: It's very simple. When I'm getting bored with a game design, I just stop working on it and start on something else. Sometimes I can come back a few years later, if I still remember it. The computer helps a lot. I sometimes browse my "game creations" folder and find game projects four or five years old that I had completely forgotten, and for which I immediately get completely new ideas.

If they haven't been addressed already, what types of design issues did you find yourself having the most difficulty with when you first started designing games? How did you overcome these design difficulties and what did you learn from them?

Bruno Faidutti: My first games tended to be far too somplex, strategic and simulationist, and I had to train myself to make things lighter, in a more "German" way. Now I have troubles going back to the full chrome games I used to design when I was young.

We're seeing a lot of new games these days, but not many are hailed as innovative. How new or different from other available games do you think a design should be to be considered worthy?

Bruno Faidutti: I think it's with games like with books, innovation is not a good thing per se. There can be bad innovative games, and fantastic derivative ones - like Ticket to Ride. I don't try systematically to make things completely new and different.

It's often hard for new designers to find good playtesters. Do you recruit your best playtesters or in some way train them? Whichever the case may be, how do you go about it?

Bruno Faidutti: I think my problem is more with finding time to playtest the game myself - I usually play only one a week, sometimes less - than with finding playtesters. Some of my good old playtesters are getting old, though, and there are now babies, etc., which sometimes make things more complex.

If you have any other comments for aspiring game designers, we'd love to hear them.

Bruno Faidutti: When I'm blocked on a game, or when I have an idea I think great but don't know how to develop, I often ask some other game designer to work on it with me. It's much easier when there are two of you.