Tag Archives: tabletop

Directing the Art of Games – Andrew Navaro, Episode 30

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Andrew Navaro, Art Director for Fantasy Flight Games.

Andrew Navaro, Art Director for Fantasy Flight Games.

It’s one thing to create the beautiful pieces of art that grace the pages and playing pieces of Fantasy Flight Games’ products. It’s another thing entirely to ensure that each image not only fits with the tone, themes and atmosphere of not just a given product but also a whole line of products.

Artist and tabletop gamer Andrew Navaro is the leader of a team of art directors at Fantasy Flight. It’s his job as art director to oversee the art direction of Fantasy Flight’s lines and manage the relationships between Fantasy Flight and its roster of freelance artists.

In this chat, Andrew and I discuss his love of gaming, how he came to work at Fantasy Flight Games, just what his job involves and the current state of art in the tabletop gaming industry!

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Episode 8: Jared A. Sorensen, Game Designer

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It was Australian gamer Steve Darlington’s describing Jared A. Sorensen as the “foetus horribilis” of the tabletop roleplaying game design set that got my attention. From there on it was all downhill as I followed Jared from the web forum RPGnet to The Forge and bought myself a copy of his game InSpectres, still the most fun tabletop roleplaying game I’ve ever played or game mastered (and would love to play or GM again regularly).

I managed to catch Jared on Facebook one Saturday and asked him about interviewing – it turned out he was available right there and then! I connected my recording kit and got a good half hour chat about his design process, his full-time job in game design and how empanadas are key to his upcoming martial takeover of New York City.

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A Return to Old Playing and Getting Paid to Podcast

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It’s been a good seven days here at the Realm. It’s been an upswing in both progress toward getting paid to play and, well, just playing.

On the play front, Cairns’ first dedicated comic book store opened on Thursday, May the 31st. By luck, I wound up the first person through the door of KerSplatt! Comics (I was on my morning break at work). Though I was planning on just browsing, I got on so well with owners and operators Mal and Amy that I couldn’t just walk right out again without something, which turned out to be Issue 515 of The Invincible Iron Man!

Since then, I’ve popped in with such frequency that Mal has joked about making me the store mascot! I’m suddenly having visions of the two guys down the other end of the bar in Cheers.

Though it’s still early days, the business seems to be keeping Mal and Amy pretty busy, with sales of Magic: The Gathering cards doing as well as the comics. Some visitors, though, have been asking about Dungeons & Dragons books, and while Mal and Amy are focusing on their core business right at the moment, it seems pretty likely that KerSplatt! could end up as Cairns’ first Friendly Local Game Store as well!

Which is an interesting piece of timing.

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