Travel-Games Raffle and Spotlight: Manny Dominguez, The Academy and Scratch and Scramble(August 2024)

Raffle Results

The winner of this raffle for a signed copy of The Academy is Paul Barber, congratulations your game should now be with you (It’s taken me a little longer to get this blog post out than I planned… ah the life of a goldfish!).

Introduction

I met Manny last year at Essen Spiel, excited to play his game The Academy published by Amigo. We chatted games and made our way around the convention. The game is only availible in German at the moment so it does require paste ups or cribsheets, but it’s well worth the effort if you like trick-taking with roles and personal goals. Hopefully one day it will get a print run in English and be more widely availible. Since then I’ve been keeping an eye on Manny’s newer game designs, there’s scratch and scramble and trick taker with no cards! and recently a game that fits in a PEZ dispenser (it doesn’t get much more travel size than that!).

An Interview with Manny

What are you playing at the moment? 

Honestly, like a million prototypes. It's both the curse and blessing of the game design bug that you end up spending a TON of time playing unpublished prototypes, both your own and from other designers. Thankfully, to switch things up, I do have a weekly game night with good friends who are not in the industry, and they love light games that are easy to learn and don't get in the way of a good conversation. We've been playing a lot of trick-takers (The Crew, Yokai Septet, Spades), co-ops (Hanabi, Pandemic, Regicide), and social deduction (Saboteur, The Resistance, and One Night). 

What initially drew you to the world of board game design? 

I feel like I've been designing games my whole life. I remember as a little kid tweaking games like Monopoly and Labyrinth; not to mention the countless playground games we would make up with conveniently unpredictable rules changes. My first more serious attempt at design was probably Button Shy's "Gen Can't" design contest, where I entered a game that did not win but was eventually picked up by Jason and became my first published game. I am eternally grateful to the Button Shy family for that first shot of validation and I've fallen head over heels for design ever since.   

You have a good range of innovative games, recently I've seen you creating a game that fits in a pez dispenser and you have a kickstarter coming up for a trick taker with no cards. 

I definitely gravitate towards quirky designs. It's really important to be excited by a project as a designer, because this is a heck of a lot of work, and I have found that the only projects that can keep me engaged are the weird ones. In addition to the PEZ dispenser game and the meeple trick-taker, I'm also working with a publisher on a storytelling game where you collectively fill in the speech bubbles on actual golden age comics. One of my favorite projects was Too Many Crooks, where I helped organize 18 designers in making an 18 card game in just 18 days. It was chaotic and messy and so much fun. Many of those designers are now in my regular design group years later. 

We met in person last year at Essen, apart from the giant spiral potato swords, do you have any recommendations for anyone going to Essen Spiel? 

My fondest memories are all from meeting up with people I had known online for years but had never actually met in person. Whether it was getting lunch with you guys, playing games with folks from the Portland Game Collective Discord, or testing some prototypes with the AMIGO team, I'm so thankful to all the people who briefly adopted me on my first Spiel. 

As far as recommendations, I'd say get an actual hotel room close to the convention, if possible. I thought it would be "fun" to rent a campervan, and it was for a bit, but the long bus ride back to the campsite meant I couldn't really take an impromptu break in the middle of the day for a quick nap or to just decompress away from the crowds.   

Following on what is the best flavour of spiral potato sword? 

I am embarrassed to say that I never actually had a spiral potato sword. I don't even remember what I had that day we met up, but I'm sure it wasn't as iconic as this quintessential Spiel snack. Which makes me think of another piece of advice for anyone going for the first time: You'll never get to do everything so just pace yourself and enjoy the silliness of it all. 

Are there any dream projects or collaborations you hope to pursue in the future? 

Oh boy! Too many to list. The amazing designers that immediately come to mind -- both because of their quirky designs and how much they contribute to the community -- are Taylor Reiner, Shreesh Bhat, and Taiki Shinzawa. It’s great to see a designer create games that are so genuinely and unapologetically a reflection of them. I just love how much personality comes out of their games and how you just know that could only have been a Taylor or Shreesh or Taiki game.  

Are you working on anything at the moment you would like to talk about? 

Yes! I am taking my first terrifying leap into Kickstarter and self-publishing with my latest design, Scratch and Scramble, a meeple trick-taker with an adorable cat and mouse that chase each other through your hand and around the table as you play. It has a super fun hot potato mechanic, where you are trying to win tricks but not so many that you get stuck with the cat and mouse, turning those tricks into negative points. The artist, Belle Wuthrich, is amazing and has created the most adorable meeples, which you use instead of the cards you'll find in a typical trick-taker. You can learn more here: www.scratchandscramblegame.com. 

Where can people find out more and keep up to date with your games?

I don't do a lot of social media but I am most active on the Portland Game Collective and Trick Talkers Discords under MannyDGames. It's a lovely community that I would recommend to anyone interested in these types of games. Beyond that, folks can always message me on BoardGameGeek (also MannyDGames) or follow the Scratch and Scramble campaign!

The Next Raffle and Spotlight:

The next raffle will be a double whammy we have both the Excellent Sakana Stack by Mike Petchey and this is your chance to win a preproduction copy and play it before the Kickstarter too! Check it out and back it here.

We also have a copy of Kings by the wonderful Hiroken who is kickstarting his new game (and honestly my most anticipated game of a VERY long time) Eternal Decks Check it out and back it here.