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Great Honor Plus Impostor Feelings
Ms. Vogelmann, how did you react when Jamey Stegmai- er presented you with the idea of developing a Wingspan successor?
Connie Vogelmann: Jamey’s proposal trig-
I mean, my first game wasn’t even finished yet—did I even have what it takes to do the Wingspan brand justice? Was I the best candidate to design a game about dragons? I grew up reading Anne McCaffrey’s “Dragonriders of Pern”, but I would hardly call myself a qualified dragon expert. And fi- nally, I was aware that the project—if it came about—would put me into the limelight, at least in the domain of game design. Frankly, I
gered a series of contradictory feelings in me: On the one hand, such an opportunity is every designer’s dream; creating a spin- off of one of the most successful games of the past decade is certainly a once-in-a-life- time chance. Elizabeth has been my mentor, and the opportunity to work directly with her—and, of course, continue to work with Jamey—was incredibly appealing. I also love Wingspan: The game’s system is brilliant. The prospect of leaving my own mark on it was very exciting.
Connie Vogelmann (left) with Kathleen Donahue.
felt uncomfortable with that.
Why was that?
Any spin-off of such a popular game, no mat- ter how well-conceived or executed, would bring a host of problems with it, both good and bad. In the end, the former concerns out- weighed the latter by far—and the rest is his- tory. Jamey and I spent the following weeks
That doesn’t sound like contradictory feel-
ings at all.
Well, I was also suffering from a slight impostor syndrome:
working on a draft for Wyrmspan and presented it to Eliza- beth. With her okay, we got down to business. (cc/cs)
watch up the entire, detailed process in the design diary.
Why wasn’t it Elizabeth Hargrave who developed the follow-up game? Elizabeth was very much occupied with The Fox Experiment, Undergrove, and Wingspan expansions. So, we asked for her blessing to have another designer take the spin-off on, with Elizabeth acting as a developer.
What’s that, exactly?
By this I mean someone who makes sure that the design is as fun, functional, bal- anced, and intuitive as possible.
But you had another designer on your radar ...
My collaboration on Apiary with Connie Vogelmann was fantastic, so she was the first person who came to mind. Connie is an extremely talented designer and ex- cellent communicator. On top of that she works fast, is quick at trying out alterna- tives, and lives close to Elizabeth.
Is there anything you would change about Wingspan today?
I would probably make some very minor adjustments, use slightly different word- ing to clarify certain actions and avoid confusion. I really like the quick start guide for new players, which was not in- cluded in the first editions.
Why is there no bird feeder in Wyrm- span?
The food dice provide a nice element of variability and interaction in Wingspan, but we found it a little too frustrating for Wyrmspan if not all resources were con- tinuously available.
Participation of non-active players has been significantly reduced. Why did you choose to do it that way?
There is much more positive interaction in Wyrmspan than in the basic game of Wingspan. But we have done away with the “between turns” abilities. They’re fine as they are, but they also require that players remember them. And many find them confusing, as we noticed from the questions we received.
Wingspan also teaches you something about the world of birds, in passing, so to say. Dragons can’t quite do that.
It’s definitely a great concept that you also learn about birds in Wingspan. In Wyrmspan, the booklet introduces you to a new world. Like I said, we also consid- ered dinosaurs, but we thought the drag- on theme would be more interesting and diverse, especially if we portrayed drag- ons as the birds of this fictional world and not as the big, scary monsters they are so often made to be in fiction.
What do you consider to be especially well-designed in Wyrmspan that is not featured in Wingspan?
There are three points that are particu- larly relevant, in my eyes. Firstly, I act by spending coins, which I can also save for future rounds. There are even ways to get additional coins in the course of the game, whereas there are no addition- al actions in Wingspan. Secondly, I can always trade resources two for one. And thirdly, the facts about the dragons are not printed on the cards but contained in a separate booklet in the style of a field guide, which I see as a fun supplement. Are you worried that a project like Wyrm- span, meaning the further development of an already successful title, could be undertaken by another publisher? Game mechanics are not protected by law. That is something I would consider essential as a future regulation. Other than that, we all continuously develop and learn from each other. Plagiarism, on the other hand, is illegal. If another pub- lisher released a Wingspan with dragons, even if the differences between the games were as substantial as they are here, it would lead to frustration and confusion among our customers. And that would definitely pose a problem for us. (cs)
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