2020 - On My Shelf The Game Designers

As a follower of the blog, you know I teach various Game Studies-related courses, so I am always looking for related books and media as research and possibly to share with a class. So I was excited when a Kickstarter was announced for a documentary, The Game Designers.

The Game Designers is a feature-length documentary film about board game designers. Join us as we follow professional and fledgling board game designers as they strive to bring their heartfelt creations to life. The challenges are great, but their resolve is even greater as they toil night and day to turn their dreams into a reality! The Game Designers follows the stories of five main designers.

The Blu-Ray arrived recently, and I finally got to watch it last night with my wife. I will start out by saying the Featurette is amazing and very informative, full of soundbites from various tabletop game designers and media personalities. I will definitely be using this in my Game Studies and Writing & Editing for Gaming courses. It does a wonderful job of giving a realistic perspective of what it is to be a game designer as a hobby and a career in a quick-paced video, with some funny but poignant quotes as well.

Sadly, my wife and I found the actual Documentary to be rather plodding, with lengthy musical montages of game tables and convention scenes. We finally resorted to fast forwarding through those montages and even speeding through some of the documentary parts to get to the core of the story being told. The documentary was interesting, but the pacing was too slow to keep us engaged.

I would still highly recommend the Featurette for anyone interested in game design and those who teach game studies courses.

On My Shelf: The Game Designers

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