Board games are an escape for me. I worked in corporate for many years, and I didn't really see the point in my job at all, and I've always envied people who have their job as their hobby, or their hobby as their job. A lot of my friends around here got it before I did and are already working in the board game world. I had no choice but to start my own boardgames publishing company, I wouldn't have been hired anywhere else because I didn't know anything I could offer.
But actually something, I know how to find and connect the right people, that's why Troubadour was created, and I can finally say I'm working on something I really enjoy. Where else can you play and call it work?
I've always enjoyed imagining strange worlds, fictional situations, and alternate realities. That's why books and movies have been a huge inspiration for me. When I discovered board games, I was mesmerized by them. We are not mere spectators in them, but we actively decide what happens. We can become someone else in them, have a specific role or experience an epic story, all in the face of friends who are part of that world at that moment.
I was drawing and painting at a young age. That's also why I'm now into illustration and graphic design for board games. In recent years I have also fallen into board game design. Finally, I love hard music and am a member of the band Behavioral Sink.
I love to discover and explore new things, people, worlds... But it's not easy for an introvert. And so, something had to be done about it. Stepping out of your comfort zone isn't easy, and not everyone can do it. I was lucky, the people around me and the opportunities that life presented me, which I wasn't afraid to take advantage of. Today, not many people would consider me an introvert, but that's because of my job working with people, the theatre and of course, a huge part of that is board games.
In my youth I was captivated by Dragon's Den, but my first big opportunity came from Deskofobie, a YouTube channel about board games that opened the world of board games to the fullest and most importantly gave me the opportunity to meet the amazing people around it. I was completely engrossed in it, and I still live in it today. After the great experience of producing Shipyard 2nd edition, and thanks to Delicious Games for it, I'm now facing my next big challenge, and that's co-publishing with fools like me. And I believe the journey is not over...
I've been inventing board games as far as my memory can reach. My very first memory of game development is when I was 12 years old, and I made a "sort of board game" based on my favourite Playstation games Tomb Raider and Metal Gear Solid. It probably wasn't very playable, but that didn't bother me at all. Then I got my first game, Settlers of Catan, and I was completely engrossed. Almost immediately I started making my own scenarios, making my own pieces, making huge maps across the living room, and it was awesome. Other games followed, like Puerto Rico, Dungeon Petz, Agricola, etc... You can tell that the more complex titles appealed to me the most. The first "real" prototypes were in the same range, i.e., big strategy eurogames. I guess I can still say it's my favourite genre, but more and more lately I've gravitated towards smaller and smaller titles, which I've also started designing.
I've been devoting myself full time to development for the last couple of years, and now I've been given the opportunity to release a game next year with a new publisher, Pink Troubadour, so I can work with some amazing and talented people.