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Patrick Rauland: Hello everyone and welcome to the Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer and we talk about their experience in game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'll be talking with Till Engel, who designed Adellos.

Patrick Rauland: Till, welcome to the show.

Till Engel: Thank you.

Patrick Rauland: First of all, you're from Germany. So how bad did I mess up your name and/or the name of your game?

Till Engel: Very happy with you pronouncing my name. It worked out fine.

Introduction

Patrick Rauland: Okay, good, good, good. I did a little bit of research on you before this podcast, so I know a little bit about you, but the audience doesn't. I like to start with a little game. It's a little lightning round game. I just ask you three quick questions. Sound good?

Till Engel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Patrick Rauland: Okay. What is your favorite topping for bratwurst?

Till Engel: Since I'm a vegan, I do not eat any bratwurst. Sorry to disappoint, but I cannot give any good advice on toppings.

Patrick Rauland: We will have to have a conversation about this off air, but I find it very hard to be vegetarian or vegan in Europe.

Till Engel: Really?

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. In the states, I think it's more common, so it's easier to do. I'm vegetarian, so I … Interesting. Cool. That was totally unexpected.

Patrick Rauland: What is your favorite Ameritrash game?

Till Engel: Actually, I did not even know this term until late 2018. When I got to know it for the first time in a board game group, I'm afraid my answer is quite unoriginal. It's Exploding Kittens, if that even counts as an Ameritrash game, which I'm not sure of. I mean it's based on luck, and it also has a big theme, so it might count by definition, but I'm not very sure.

Patrick Rauland: I'm not sure how to define it. I know there are some threads on Board Game Geek about how you define them, but you know what, you're the guest. I'm going to go with it.

Patrick Rauland: If you could live anywhere besides Germany or besides Europe, where would you want to live?

Till Engel: New Zealand.

Patrick Rauland: Ooh. Why New Zealand?

Till Engel: I heard, and I have distant family there. I heard it has the best weather.

Patrick Rauland: Oh, okay.

Till Engel: Yeah, that's the main reason.

Patrick Rauland: I am inclined to believe you because you're the guest, but I'm also biased. I'm very happy in … Come to Denver. Before you move all the way to New Zealand, check out how sunny it is in Denver. I'm just saying.

Till Engel: All right.

Patrick Rauland: All right. Cool.

How Did You Get Into Board Games & Board Game Design?

Patrick Rauland: So, first real question. How did you get into board games and board game design?

Till Engel: Pretty easy. I call myself a gamer. I would call myself a gamer since I was a teenager. I played like PC consoles. In my late teens, I started boardgames. My family plays a lot of board games. Somewhere around 2015 or 2016, I was in a bunch of board game groups, and I felt that the one board game I would love to play didn't exist or at least it wasn't in my reach. Some day after work I just realized, hey, why don't I create the game that I would love to play? That's pretty much how I got into this whole world.

Patrick Rauland: Love it. I like to ask, what was the gateway games for you? What was … If there was one game that got you addicted to gaming? Or maybe you were too young. But is there a particular game that just calls to you?

Till Engel: I think they were a few. Dominion is one of them. I really love Dominion and all its expansions. Then there is Risk. I mean, it's a classic, but I still love it. I love the KO system. I know people hate KO systems. I love it. Stratego, which I do not know if there is an English word for it.

Patrick Rauland: Stratego.

Till Engel: Yeah, okay, well then it's that. These are the games I really love to play. I guess also Carcassonne a lot. Yeah, that's pretty much the games I played as a teenager, as a young adult, and still today.

Patrick Rauland: Very cool. I was just talking to a previous guest about this. Do you have any favorite expansions for Carcassonne?

Till Engel: Yes. Adventure.

Patrick Rauland: Which one is that?

Till Engel: Adventure is the one that brings in new cards, like the cards that stay on the map, that stay like two or three rounds. Yeah, that's a pretty huge expansion.

Patrick Rauland: I haven't tried that one, so I'll have to give it a go.

Patrick Rauland: Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about your game. I want to talk about a couple things with you. Number one, you launched your game at Spiel, which I'll get to in just a second. Number two, you launched your game on Start Next, which is sort of like a German Kickstarter.

What's It Like Launching a Game At Spiel?

Patrick Rauland: The first one is, what is it like … So, your game Adellos, you launched it at Spiel 2018. So just like a couple months ago. What was it like to launch a game at the biggest gaming event?

Till Engel: It was nerve wrecking. It was terrible. I haven't been to the Spiel before, not even as a guest. So I had no idea what I had to do. I was very much the newb there and yeah, I felt like I didn't really belong there for the first couple of days. Also it was very expensive. To have a booth there really is expensive. For someone who is on a low budget, that was quite an adventure, let's say that.

Patrick Rauland: So this is your first time. Did you make your money back by selling your game? Did people even stop by you because there's like … I'm sure there's giant banners for more … game companies that have been around longer.

Till Engel: Yeah, the big game companies are placed in different halls. In the hall that I was placed in, there weren't big banners at all. There were only people on my level. But I think I barely made the money back. Like, just that.

Would You Launch Another Game at Spiel?

Patrick Rauland: Yeah, okay. Interesting. But so how was your experience though? Would you do it again moving for a future game?

Till Engel: Good question. That's a really good question. In this year, I'll be on a lot of conventions that are way smaller, so they are not that expensive. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to be on Spiel 2019. I haven't decided yet. I know it's the biggest one, and you basically have to be there. But also, it's very expensive and I do not know if I can afford it this year.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. Oh, totally. So, I guess, that's kind of like, it was okay. If you had to rate your experience, it was awesome but just expensive for what you-

Till Engel: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was a great experience because I met a lot of people and there are a lot of contacts there that you can make through this convention that otherwise would have never have happened.

Patrick Rauland: Sure. All right.

Patrick Rauland: You launched your game, Adellos, on Startnext, which is basically the German version of Kickstarter. Why would you launch it on Startnext, which I imagine has a much smaller user base than Kickstarter, which has a bajillion users.

Till Engel: Yes, it was a mistake. Looking back at it now … There's a lot of mistakes I did. This was one of the biggest mistakes I did.

Patrick Rauland: Oh no.

Till Engel: So here's my thought process, okay? Two years ago or like … Yeah, it's almost two years ago, I thought, okay, the only people that really know my game right now are my family, my friends, and a few people from work, right? They are all German. Why would I launch my game on a international site? Doesn't really make sense to me. I didn't know back then that Kickstarter has a huge community in itself that would then highly increase your chance to get your game funded, right? I didn't know that. So I was like, why would I force Germans to have a credit card, which Germans do not use normally. Most Germans do not have a credit card. Why would I force them to join a website that they do not know yet? Kickstarter is not a big thing in Germany. It's coming, but it's not a big thing in Germany. People had to log into the website, and they had to make an account, right? They have to have a credit card, which most people don't have. It didn't really make sense to me back then.

Till Engel: Now, I know I should have done it, because a lot of people that are already on the site would have seen the game.

Would You Use It Again?

Patrick Rauland: Sure, sure, sure. My next question was, would you use it again? Which I'm guessing is no?

Till Engel: No, no, no. No, of course not.

Patrick Rauland: Do you have an expansion coming out? Like a-

Till Engel: Yeah, I have an expansion planned, but I also launched the game again on Kickstarter on the 1st of March, because I want to improve the game. There are some points, some actually valid points, of critique that I'm ready to improve my game, right? So I started a campaign on the 1st of March to improve my game and to bring it to Kickstarter, and make it more accessible for a lot of people because right now the game is not well known.

Patrick Rauland: Well, and just so listeners, this will come out it probably in the middle of March. So the campaign should be going on, and I will have a link to it in the show notes.

Till Engel: Yes.

Patrick Rauland: I don't know how you find a Kickstarter right now, but we will have a link to it.

Patrick Rauland: One of the things I love about the game design community is lots of people, they seem to be okay with failure or making mistakes. People make mistakes like launching on the wrong platform, at the wrong time, with the wrong price points, with the wrong components, whatever. Whatever the mistakes are. And then you just relaunch. I love that you're just relaunching.

Till Engel: We learn from mistakes, right? This is the best way to learn. Make mistakes and then get told, well dude, that was a mistake. That's the best way to learn. I made like, I'll say a ton of mistakes on my way so far. The past two and a half years were filled with mistakes, obviously because I'm very new to this world and I had no mentor. No one was guiding me, right? I had to pretty much make my own experiences and on that way, do all the mistakes that you have to do to realize how to make it better next time. So yes, making mistakes is not a bad thing on its own, as long as you learn from these mistakes.

Patrick Rauland: Love it. Wow. I love that. I do wish more people, I see this with like entrepreneurs or people who make their own games or people who are artists or creatives. When I talk to sort of regular people on the street, I do not see this mentality. I think that's the mentality you just have to have as a creator of a thing. You just have to be okay making mistakes. I kind of think our society would be better if more people were just okay making mistakes.

Till Engel: This might be true.

Patrick Rauland: Anyways, that is for the philosophical podcast that I will have someday, where we talk about the world.

Are the Stereotypes About German's Playing Board Games True?

Patrick Rauland: So, you're from Germany. In some circles, Germany seems to be like the Mecca of board games. We have like euro style games from all the games that came out of Germany after World War II. There's some history, you can look into it. I guess here's what I want I want to ask you. What is the perception of Germans playing board games and how accurate is that perception?

Till Engel: Well, let me say that Germany is a place where board games are very much on the rise right now. Board games are pretty much coming. I have been in board game groups for I'd say three, maybe four years, and they grow. I've moved a couple of times so far. In every city I've lived, board game groups are growing. We're back to the philosophical part of your podcast. I think this has something to do with people being more connected via their devices, but on the same time more lonely. Board game group exists in the physical world. You really meet people and see their faces, which gives people an experience they do not have on the digital world. So, I think that's one of the reasons why those groups are growing insanely, and I very much enjoy it. Playing in a board game group gives you so many experiences you would have missed otherwise. I really enjoy it.

Till Engel: Also, board games are a big thing in Germany. Even before the new trend, they have been … I'd say there has been a room in pretty much every family where they were storing like 20 or 30 board games that they play every now and then. I remember the home of my parents. When I grew up, they already had like 20 games that we would play on events or on a long weekend, right? Now they have even more. Like I said, it's a growing trend. So, yeah. I don't know if it's a Mecca, but it is a big thing.

Patrick Rauland: That's really interesting. I talked to, I'd say maybe 50% of the guests seem to have board games in their family, like growing up. Board games are more than just Monopoly. But you know a little bit more, a few more games than that. A little bit more advanced games than that. But I didn't have that at all. My parents are not into games at all and I would just love to know why. Yeah, I would just love to know what it's like to like have a family that's into games and you can play them on the weekend. ‘Cause I basically got into board games in college because my family didn't play them. It's gotta be so cool to be a kid in Germany and play games with your family.

Till Engel: Yeah. Well, as a kid, you mostly lose. So I don't know if it's that fun, but yes. I'd say it's a great experience, yes.

Are Euro Games Popular in Europe?

Patrick Rauland: I did wanna ask. We call … I mean, there's Ameritrash and then there's euro style games. Do you think people in Europe, do they play more of these euro style resort? To me the archetypical euro style game is Agricola, right? Where you're making your own farm and the only way you can interact with other peers was by the worker placement board. Do you think people play more of those in Germany than in other places?

Till Engel: Yes. I really think so. In every board game group, at least that I have been in, there was a high that I didn't say there was a bit of hate against Ameritrash games. This is not me saying that we don't like the games, but euro games have a bigger place in our heart, I'd say so. Yes.

Patrick Rauland: Very cool.

Till Engel: At least in the board game groups I have been to so far.

Patrick Rauland: Sure. Yeah, I find that interesting. I guess I'll just have to go to Germany at some point again now that I'm an adult and go to a board game group and see what it's like.

Why Did You Set Your Goal So Low?

Patrick Rauland: So, moving on. I see you set a very reasonable goal of like 4,000 euros on Startnext. I'm always fascinated by people when they set reasonable goals. I should say, I don't want to say reasonable … A lot of people on Kickstarter are like, 20, 30, 70,000. So whenever I see like a 4,000 – in this case, euros, which is like probably like 4,500 bucks – Why do you set the campaign goal so low? Did you not make that many? Did you just not need that much 'cause it's a simpler game? What was the rationale behind that?

Till Engel: I'll tell you. I already told this. I never thought that my game would reach people outside of my friends and family circles, right? I sent a very reasonable goal as you said, which is I think a pretty fair term because I was sure that I would not be able to get more than that. It turns out, I was pretty much right. I got like 4,150 euros or something like that, which is just above the line that I set myself. I think I was lucky that I actually got that goal. But looking back again, it was not enough. The 4,000 euros that I aimed for were not enough at all to pay the production. No, to pay the design or even the production. The production alone was like three times the amount that I raised.

Patrick Rauland: Wow.

Till Engel: Right? You see why this was a mistake. It was a very high private credit that I had to take to be able to fund the production of the game because yeah, I said it was low goal.

Patrick Rauland: You're the second designer in Germany that I've talked to. The other people were at Crimson Company. I should look up that episode number super quick, which is probably-

Till Engel: 50, I think it's 50..

Patrick Rauland: Well look at you. Yeah. All right. I think you're right. Yeah it is, number 50. Good job. It seems like both of you had higher costs than I would've thought. This is one of those things where I'm guessing in the states we have access to so many companies here and also the game crafter is so good for prototypes that our prototypes are super cheap. I think this is one of those things that this is an advantage that we don't realize we have as Americans. Where we tend to have things that are much cheaper. I think I could get my game made 4,000 and probably get like a thousand copies.

Till Engel: Wow.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. Yeah.

Till Engel: That's like nothing.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah.

Till Engel: That's crazy.

Are You Using a Local Manufacturer?

Patrick Rauland: Are you using a local manufacturer in Germany or someone in Europe?

Till Engel: I'll tell you, I worked with a Polish company. There are companies in Germany, but they are even more expensive than the one I use in Poland. I paid like 12,000 euros to produce my game. I could have done with a Chinese company because that is also … Well, I didn't want to, right? I didn't want to use a Chinese company because then they have to deliver the games from China to Europe, which is like why? And also, who am I to then go back and call them out if something isn't right? Right? I can not just drive there and say, “Guys, what is this? This didn't work out.” But again, if I have a company that is in Poland, I could drive there if something would go wrong, right? Yeah, so that's pretty much why I didn't work with a Chinese company, even though that would have been way cheaper. Like, way cheaper. Yeah, but I don't know, maybe it was a wrong decision again. I don't know.

Patrick Rauland: Hey look, you just have to keep doing this stuff. I think you figure out what works and what doesn't.

Patrick Rauland: Anyways. I should say the price that I just gave you is from a Chinese manufacturer. So-

Till Engel: Oh, you see?

Patrick Rauland: It wasn't a US company. I should have been clearer. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't a US.

Till Engel: Okay.

What Resource Would You Recommend to an Aspiring Designer?

Patrick Rauland: Anyways. Cool. Okay. Let's keep going a little bit because I'm curious, again, because we're just in different areas. One of my favorite questions is what is a resource that you'd recommend to another indie game designer? Like a book, a podcast. I'm just curious if it's different than something that an American designer would recommend. So, yeah. What do you think is good to read or to listen to or to attend as a aspiring game designer?

Till Engel: There's a book that I got sent, I should read. It's called The Art of Game Design. It's from a digital game designer, but almost everything in that book also works just as fine for board games and pretty much every kind of game. That was one of the books that I read. But actually, I read that after I developed my game. I told you, man, there's so many mistakes to make. Because I met a different developer, a different author of a game, that taught me, hey, did you read that? And I was like, I didn't even know that game that, that book existed. He was like, “You have to read this, this is amazing.” And I was like, “All right, okay. I don't like reading at all, but all right, I'll do it.” Then I started reading the book and I realized I should have read it way before I started developing my game. But again, it was too late. But yeah, that's a great book.

Patrick Rauland: Let me ask you a question there. If you had read the book first, what would you have … Would it have prevented you from making a mistake? Can you look at your game and go, oh, I shouldn't have used that mechanism?

Till Engel: No, no, not the mechanism. But my decisions on what to do first. I started with a board game with a ton of components. There's a lot of material in my game. I shouldn't have done that, because this was a very expensive first decision. It was a very expensive first try. I took a big risk with this. If this game is a game that no one was to play, right? If this is a game that no one wants to play, I am in big trouble because now I have like hundreds of games there in my room, right? No one buys them. That's not good. So what I learned is I should have started with a smaller game, like just the card game, right? Only cards because that's first of all, it's so much cheaper to produce only cards. Then again, it's, it's way smaller, like card games, you can carry them in your pocket. Putting them in your room and waiting for them to be sold is no problem. If you have a game that is too big to put to put it in your bag, right, put that in your room and wait until it's sold. These are the problems that I ran up to and I should have avoided them.

Patrick Rauland: If you ever make another game, do you think you'll try to make something smaller?

Till Engel: Yes.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah, okay.

Till Engel: Of course, of course.

Patrick Rauland: Cool. Was there anything else from that book that just stuck out to you?

Till Engel: Oh, there's so much there. It would take like an hour to tell you all about it.

Patrick Rauland: We'll have a follow up episode some day and we'll go through it chapter by chapter.

What's The Best Money You've Spent?

Patrick Rauland: I love the resource, because generally resources are free or very cheap, like books and podcasts are generally free or cheap. But what is the best money that you've ever spent as a game designer? What is something that was worth every single dollar or cent that you put into it?

Till Engel: Yeah, that's a funny story there. I had a Russian artist actually who created a couple of event cards or actually the pictures, photos, event cards, which are a part of my game. I only paid him for those cards like 30 euros per picture, which is almost nothing. I'm very happy he even did any of those pictures because I'm pretty sure he didn't make a fortune out of that. Anyway, one of those cards turned out so great and I love that card so much that it actually turned into the logo or the symbol of the whole game. So that was 30 bucks I invested, and without even planning it, I turned out with the logo for my game, which is great.

Patrick Rauland: That's fantastic.

Till Engel: Yeah.

How Do You Hire Illustrators?

Patrick Rauland: Let me talk about art for a second. In my case, I hired one illustrator to do about 30 drawings, I think. Did you hire different illustrators? An illustrator to do these five, a different illustrator to these 10? How did you do that?

Till Engel: You will notice that if I tell you where the mistake is in what I did. There were like I would say 50 pictures in the whole game. Like 17 cards and like 30 some words, units. I paid five different artists to work on the units, and two artists to work on the cards. So far, so good. But I also had different artists work on the same unit. I had one artist who started with the head and then the chest, and then I had to cut him and then different artist made one of the arms. Then artist made the legs. This is terrible because some of those designs, you really see that they were different artists on the picture, which doesn't look great at all. So, yeah.

Patrick Rauland: I need to get a copy of your game just to find which, oh look, this arm looks very different than this leg.

Till Engel: Yeah. If you know this you then look at the cards, you really see them. If you don't know this at all, you might not catch it. But as soon as you realize that there are cards where four different artists worked on, you will easily pick them out and say this one was a mistake and look at this one. What the hell goes on with this picture?

Patrick Rauland: I like that you basically included two games in your game. One is the game, and the other one is finding the minor illustration changes.

Till Engel: Yes, yes.

Patrick Rauland: Well that's pretty great. Cool.

Are There Any Fun Ideas of Mechanisms You're Looking Into?

Patrick Rauland: Okay, so one of my favorite questions is are there any fun ideas or mechanisms you're looking into for a future game?

Till Engel: Yes. Right now I am developing a push your luck card game. I looked at a couple of different push your luck card games, and I don't want to spoil too much, but I think I had a great idea for a push your luck card game that I have not seen so far anywhere. As I said, I don't want to spoil too much, but I'm working hard on this push your luck card game right now.

Till Engel: A good friend of mine is also becoming game author. I don't know if you say it that way, but he's on the way to create his first game. We are creating an adventure game in the style of The Legends of Andor. This is so much fun. We're creating hundreds of units. There's so much going on. I know this will take years to produce, to develop, and then again produce [inaudible 00:27:39]. But this adventure game does make a lot of fun. The story telling that you can create, like the campaigns we have written, the characters that we design, that makes a lot of fun. I'm really excited how this one turns out.

Patrick Rauland: Oh, very cool. All right, well I can't wait to see what you've been working on.

What Does Success Look Like?

Patrick Rauland: Okay, so one of my favorite questions is what does success in the board game world look like to you? What are you shooting for in the next year to five years?

Till Engel: I think that's a pretty short answer there. The goal or the dream that very much is to be able to live from creating board games. That's the dream. I don't know if that's a reasonable dream or if that is even achievable. I know in Germany there are like only 500 people out of 80 million, right? That can live from creating board games, so it may be a very far fetched goal, but that's the dream.

Patrick Rauland: Now, do you care if you're a publisher or a game designer or do you want to do one more than the other or are either one fine?

Till Engel: I'm not interested in being a publisher. I am only very much interested in creating in the creative process. Actually I am aiming to create a gaming universe where every creation I'm able to pump out, fits into the same world, fits into the same story, in the same scenario.

Patrick Rauland: Oh, I love that.

Till Engel: So yeah. I love big gaming worlds. Like the Elder Scrolls or Lord of the Rings. Those fantasy worlds that are able to be perceived on almost every medium, like film, TV, books, music, podcasts, and games of course. Having the ability or the chance to create a world that is able to be played on many different media, that is the ultimate goal.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. No, that's great. Is it Quintin Tarantino, where all of his films have a very subtle tie in?

Till Engel: I heard that too. That they all play in the same world very much.

Patrick Rauland: Yeah, it's stuff like they're driving down the road in a car and you'll hear someone on the radio, in the background, who's in some other movie or TV or movie.

Till Engel: Can you really?

Patrick Rauland: Yeah. I think in, gosh, I want to say there's a movie called Death Proof and there's a person who's a radio host. She's not in the movie. She's just like on vacation, like on a night out. But then in a different movie, you hear her on the radio while the main character's driving on the cars. It's like, if you don't know every single one of his movies perfectly, you never notice those little tie overs. But I love-

Till Engel: Oh yes. That's great.

Patrick Rauland: Here's my question, 'cause I love stuff like that. But then I don't want to be tied to one … You're almost tied to one timeline, right? If everything wants to tie in together, then I can't really do a fantasy and a sci-fi and a modern game. You know what I mean? I kind of have to go all fantasy, or all sci-fi, or … It's tricky.

Till Engel: Yeah. It's tricky. It's a hard adventure to connect a sci-fi game to a fantasy game. Yes, I think so. But you know what? There is time travel. Time travel is a thing in sci-fi and also in fantasy games, so why not? You can try to make them into the same universe.

Patrick Rauland: Have you ever seen what Pixar does?

Till Engel: You mean the company that creates the movies?

Patrick Rauland: Yeah, so they tie in all their games. In one of their movies, sorry, there's like a Lion King toy.

Till Engel: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. I know what you mean. Yeah. Like, the toys of Toy Story will be in other … Yes, this is awesome.

Patrick Rauland: So, if you wanted to get around this, you could just, you know what I mean? You could just have a character who's a toy on the shelf instead of the character himself. You know what I mean? You could be creative that way. Anyways, That was a nice, long little rant. But that's very cool. If you ever get to that point, let me know and we'll have like a bonus episode on tying your universes together from different games.

Overrated Underrated Game

Patrick Rauland: I like to end my show with a game called Overrated, Underrated. Have you heard it?

Till Engel: I don't know. I don't want to be too promising.

Patrick Rauland: Okay, okay, okay. So, Overrated, Underrated. Basically, I'm going to give you a word or phrase, and you need to tell me if you think it is overrated by everyone else or underrated.

Till Engel: Okay.

Patrick Rauland: So if I said … I was going to give a political example. No, I will not do that.

Till Engel: Why not?

Patrick Rauland: Because everything is political now.

Till Engel: Okay.

Patrick Rauland: I'm gonna go with The Avengers movie and you … Oh wait, shoot, that's one of my actual questions. Nope. No, I'm going to say pizza and you're going to say, “That's clearly underrated because it's the best food ever.”

Till Engel: Pizza is the greatest in the world. But I also think it's overrated.

Patrick Rauland: Okay. All right. So first one, games involving memory. Are they overrated or underrated?

Till Engel: Totally overrated. I hate them.

Patrick Rauland: Ooh, okay. You don't like any of them?

Till Engel: No. Memory Games are the worst because I suck at them.

Patrick Rauland: Good, okay. We like and dislike games for the same reasons.

Patrick Rauland: We're recording just like a week after Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day, is it overrated or underrated?

Till Engel: Totally overrated. Come on. You can love your partner every day in the year, don't you?

Patrick Rauland: I mean, but how do they know that unless you give them gifts?

Till Engel: I don't want to answer that question.

Patrick Rauland: Okay. Deck building games. Overrated or underrated?

Till Engel: I think underrated, actually.

Patrick Rauland: Okay, cool. ‘Cause you like Dominion, right?

Till Engel: Yes. That's one of the greatest deck building games. But I know a lot of people who have never played a deck building game. I always say you should try one.

Patrick Rauland: Cool. No, I like that.

Patrick Rauland: The last one. The Avengers movies, overrated or underrated?

Till Engel: Even though I like them, I actually think they're a bit overrated. Right now, every year there are like two or three of them in the cinemas. You can rarely talk about another movie, a different movie. Even though I like them, I think they're a bit overrated, yes.

Patrick Rauland: So then I have to ask a followup. Are you not excited about the sequel to Infinity War? I forgot what it's called. Infinity War Part II?

Till Engel: End Game. Yes, of course, I'm excited for End Game. But that's for the reason because because they build up to that with 20 movies. I was not excited for Black Panther, for example, or Antman and the Wasp. I haven't even watched them. But End Game, I have to watch. Everyone has to watch it, right?

Patrick Rauland: But Black Panther was nominated for an Oscar.

Till Engel: Yes, I know because there is only two white people in the movie.

Patrick Rauland: Okay. All right. Fair. I'm curious how it will do 'cause I think the Oscars are next weekend? By the time this airs, people will know what happens.

Till Engel: Yeah.

Wrap Up

Patrick Rauland: Anyways. Till, thank you so much for being on the show.

Till Engel: Thank you. It was a lot of fun.

Patrick Rauland: Where can people find you and your games online?

Till Engel: There's actually a website I created a year ago, which is called Adellos. Then you can put in dot de, which is the German website, or a dot en, which is the English version. So you actually find me on English and German.

Patrick Rauland: Don't you have a Youtube channel somewhere?

Till Engel: Of course. Yes. I do have a Youtube channel about the game, and it's actually called Adellos The Game. Pretty easy to find, and I talk about my experiences in creating a game. I talk about my experiences in publishing my own game. And I talk about the game whenever I have time to.

Patrick Rauland: Love it. Again, thank you for being on the show.

Patrick Rauland: Listeners, if you like this podcast, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to this. If you leave a review, Till will give you a high five At Spiel in Esson if he's there, or at some other local German convention. So high fives if you leave a review.

Patrick Rauland: Fry Thief wrapped up … This is so funny. I've recorded a lot of episodes right at the end of the Fry Thief campaign. So Fry Thief will have wrapped up by the time this airs, but I actually have three days left at this time. But it is successfully funded. Huzzah. I am now looking at … I just want to … If you have questions about Kickstarter or launching your game or pitching it to a publisher, please just contact me, because I'm sort of trying to come up with a service where I can help people launch stuff on Kickstarter.

Patrick Rauland: I would love if you have questions about Kickstarter or marketing your game or there's something that's sticking for you, please just reach out to me because I'd love to chat to you about that and figure out how we can help each other.

Patrick Rauland: With that little promo out of the way, you can visit the site at indieboardgamedesigners.com. You can follow me on Twitter. I am @BFTrick. That's B as in board game, F as in fun and trick as in trick taking games. That is all for me. So until next time everyone, happy designing. Buh-bye.