Zoom Out Media just dropped the full documentary, The Game Designers, on YouTube! After a very successful Kickstarter campaign and physical media release, The Game Designers documentary is now available to everyone. The film centers around board game designers telling their stories. The Game Designers follows five game designers: Antoine Bauza, Matt Leacock, Kelly North Adams, Chris Faulkenberry, and Doug Schepers.
The Game Designers Movie Premier at BGG.CON 2019
My last in-person board game event was BGG.CON 2019. This Board Game Geek convention hosted the premiere of The Game Designers documentary and Q&A panel featuring the producers, director, and stars of the movie. I was thrilled to be a part of the event!
Left to right: Kelly North Adams, game designer, Hans Scharler, producer, Matt Leacock, game designer, Eric Rayl, director, Scott Alden, Executive Producer
The movie premiere was a great time to meet the designers, take selfies, and collect some autographs. Everyone was super generous with their 15 minutes of fame. Matt Leacock signed my copy of Pandemic Legacy Season 2 and wrote a message to George: Good luck saving humanity. Eric Rayl presented the producers with a commemorative plaque and we signed posters for the team.
Lunatix Loop and Matt Leacock
One of the fascinating bits in The Game Designers documentary is when Matt Leacock talks about his start in board game design and shows us his first game, Lunatix Loop. Matt wanted to create his own board game after playing and tinkering on games in his childhood. Not only did he make a new game, but he also made all of the copies by hand. The documentary tells the story of how they made boxes and custom tokens. They sat on the couch and put stickers on thousands of bingo chips and glued paper to cardboard. This time investment paid off. Matt went on to design the Pandemic series of games, landing the Spiel des Jahres game of the year award, and starring role in a documentary. Ever since I learned about Lunatix Loop from the documentary, I wanted my own copy and have a part of board game history. I set an eBay alert and after a few years, a copy came up for sale. I didn’t haggle. I hit the Buy It Now button as fast as I could. It’s glorious.
Each copy of Lunatix Loop was handmade: the box, componetns, board, and rule book. Each game was signed and numbered. It definitely now feels like a limited edition. You can tell Matt had high hopes for his game design career and he really landed it.
I appreciate that The Game Designers documentary gives us a look into the game design world. Games are about people and people are the ones struggling over the design, the art, the rules, and getting everything right to create experiences for other people. I highly recommend checking out The Game Designers Documentary and checkout the Director’s Diary on Board Game Geek for more behind-the-scenes on how the project got started. Maybe you will be inspired by the people the movie features. Maybe you will design a board game?
Subscribe to Zoom Out Media for new and upcoming film projects, including Crafting Arzium, a documentary featuring the game design and production duo, Ryan and Malorie Laukat.