Welcome back to the What If blog, where we dive into the minds behind the games that bring us together around the table. Today I’m chatting with Mike, a board game designer who has made quite the splash in the industry over the past year. In 2024, he officially launched his career with Shoal, published by Molinarius Games and debuted at UK Games Expo. Now serving as Director of Family Games at Molinarius Games, Mike has his second game, Flippers, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter.
What strikes me most about Mike’s approach is his unwavering focus on accessibility. His games are designed to bring players of different experience levels together, prioritising fun over unnecessary complexity. In our conversation, we explore his design philosophy, discuss the challenges he’s faced in development, and discover how he keeps games approachable whilst maintaining depth. Thanks to Mike for taking the time to share his experiences and wisdom with us.
Joe: Heya Mike, welcome to the What If blog. Can you start by introducing yourself to our readers and let us know what brings you to the world of board game design?
Mike: Hi Joe! Thanks for inviting me onto your blog! I’m Mike and I (officially) became a board game designer back at the start of 2024, although I’m still not quite used to calling myself a game designer just yet! I would consider myself someone who got into the hobby quite late, probably around 24 years old? I’ve always enjoyed video games and I’d never considered myself to be ‘into’ board gaming. That was until my wife Beth bought me Evolution by North Star Games. That was such a big hit for me. The concept was easy to pick up, a theme I enjoy, and lots of pieces to move around, plus cards that encouraged replayability and different strategies! Soon after, I discovered expansions and started to delve into other games. Six years on and now I would very much consider myself into the hobby!
Mike with his first game, Shoal, published by Molinarius Games
After about a year and a half of prototypes and plucking up the courage, I designed and pitched my first game Shoal to Molinarius Games in January 2024. They enjoyed it and accepted the game to be published, and launched Shoal later that year at UK Games Expo 2024! Now, I have become part of the team as Director of Family Games at Molinarius, and my second game Flippers was successfully funded on Kickstarter and will launch at UK Games Expo 2025!
Joe: That’s a whirlwind journey. If I might ask, what was your background? Many people come into this through teaching, or graphic design, or illustration. Is that where you come from?
Mike: My background is a bit of an odd one. I have always been fascinated by animals, so I went on to study Marine Biology at uni with the hope of being the next David Attenborough! Instead of getting on the TV, after I graduated I worked in retail and admin until I gained enough experience to work in aquariums. That was the best job ever! I worked with aquatic animals for a few years and had a blast. So many great experiences and lessons learnt here. It was all going well, and then COVID hit. Everything changed and unfortunately I had to wave goodbye to the aquarium. I watched some online tutorials and picked up the Adobe package, and soon after I got a job as a creative assistant. Five years later, I am now Lead Creative for a children’s gifting brand, designing packaging, catalogues, posters and the like. It was during COVID that I first had the idea of Shoal, clinging onto an interest close to my heart, so when it later came to pitching the idea and Molinarius decided to keep the theme, I was chuffed!
Joe: I nearly did marine biology too. Went with marine engineering instead in the end! Let’s talk a little about your approach to game design. I was listening to your interview with Lee on the podcast recently and you talk a little about what drives you to create the kinds of accessible games that you create, like Shoal and Flippers. Can you tell us a little about what underpins your approach to game design?
Mike: Ah, neat. Yes, back to game design! For me, accessibility is everything. Whether it’s in the game’s concept, goal, or rules, I want to empower the person playing, not try to trip them up at the first hurdle. I try my best not to make things unnecessarily complicated. Find the fun within the game and focus on it. How can that aspect be as approachable as possible?
An early porotype of Shoal
One thing I learnt quickly as I got into the hobby was how much misunderstanding the rules or relying on having the rulebook open seemed to drain the enjoyment from the table. I get it. The first time learning a board game there are going to be some teething issues and that’s cool and all, but I don’t want the teach to be just as long as the playtime. For me, I want to allow the player to quickly understand and use the tools, mechanics and rules within the game and run with it, focusing on the fun and having a great time! Shoal is all about adding cards to your group to score points; the catch is you have to partially cover the cards you play and the fish are worth different points every game. Flippers is about activating card powers to move your opponents and score points; the catch is, card powers become active on every turn, causing an ever-changing environment! The concept for each game is easy to understand and what makes it fun is found after the first few turns. That’s something I’m super proud of, even if Flippers has caused a few competitive arguments!
I don’t want the teach to be just as long as the playtime. I want to allow the player to quickly understand and use the tools, mechanics and rules within the game and run with it.
Joe: The rulebook checking really resonates. There are a few games I’ve played where the game time gets to probably 30% of the total play because I’m checking and rechecking complicated rules. This focus on ease of play sounds like a fantastic design principle for you, and your two games showcase it really well. What would be your advice on how to successfully build games following that principle? My experience of making Sky Relief has been that complexity finds a way of appearing even when you don’t want it to. “I could do this” equals complexity, “what about trying this” equals complexity.
Mike: Ooh, good question! I would advise anyone to start designs with a clear objective and focus on that. Inspiration can come from adding a twist or mashing a few mechanics from other games you enjoy, but stay focused on why you want to make a game. My goal for Shoal was to bring gamers of different levels together to have a good time. For Flippers, I want high player interaction with eventful card play. Each game had a clear goal and a desire to be easy to pick up and play. A game can be easy to understand, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be ambitious or large in scale. Give the player a simple tool, premise or mechanic that will allow them to work towards the gaming experience you wanted to design. It is up to us as designers to craft and shape how a player will use the given tools and attempt to compete or work together to complete the designed goal.
A game can be easy to understand, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be ambitious or large in scale.
The end goal needs to be crystal clear to the player, so allow them to see the steps they need to take in order to achieve that. Setting out some easy-to-follow constraints in the rules can help ensure that the players will stick to the path you want them to be on. A path that is too complex to follow may reduce how much a player will enjoy the game. For example, let’s create a quick rainforest game: ‘Players compete to grow the highest value rainforest. Grow trees, attract wildlife, build eco-tourism but avoid poachers and wildfires.’ The end goal is clear and so is the route a player needs to take.
Now it’s up to us to build tools and constraints for how a player can perform those actions to achieve their goal. Perhaps, ‘Grow 1 yellow tree to attract 3 yellow bugs; green birds need to eat 2 yellow bugs to stay in your rainforest but can only live in green trees, although green birds scare off blue lizards who also need to eat 3 yellow bugs.’ Add on a point value onto each of those and you give the player easy-to-understand tools but a fun creative decision space to play in. Also, after all of that, it needs to be fun! Sometimes I get so fixated on trying to solve a problem I forget that it should allow someone to enjoy it rather than not break the game.
Joe: Thanks for that overview, Mike. It’s definitely a sound principle. And let me know when Trees, Birds and Bugs is coming to Kickstarter! 😂
You touch on the aspect of getting fixated on solving a particular problem within your game when designing. That resonates for me too. I wonder if you have an example of that in your work you might share, and then, possibly more importantly, how did you catch yourself so that you didn’t end up spiralling?
Mike: Well, when Flippers was still in its initial design stages, I wanted each team to have a unique power and their own sets of cards. The core gameplay loop was the same (play a card and then activate its power), but I wanted each team to be unique and make the gameplay feel like a real battlefield. I was so focused on making them feel different that I lost sight of the fun. Sure, I reckon I had a cool range of teams with their own ‘team power’ and unique decks, but after feedback from playtesting, they just didn’t feel fun. The goal for each team was the same (‘most points wins’) and after fixing some balancing issues it all just felt kind of bland. I tried adding card values to spice things up, making some cards more valuable than others. Players would then score based on their face-up cards at the end as well as minusing or multiplying points from the neighbouring cards.
“I was so focused on making them feel different that I lost sight of the fun.”
The concept seemed fine but it also opened the gap for unfair play, analysis paralysis and a messy endgame. To try and fix this, some extra rules were added, but I fell into the pit of ‘this happens when X happened but not when Y happens to Z’. I found that I was tripping over myself and I couldn’t figure out a way to make it all work. Out of frustration, I was ready to scrap the idea. After some time I came back to it and decided to strip it back to its core, so team powers and card values went out the window! ‘How can I get high player interaction with cool card powers? Rather than just fighting each other, what if players were fighting over control of a central thing that awards points?’ So I made my central point thing and used my basic card powers split across each team. This felt better straight away.
Not only did this get rid of the balancing headache, but it also gave a level playing field with an interesting player choice. Focus on getting the point thing or focus on getting rid of your opponent. Playtesting went well, but it needed a bit more spice, a bit more chaos! I wanted it to feel like a Looney Tunes fight. Everyone jumps into the dust cloud fighting over a thing and at the end the winner is revealed! So, to make it a bit more chaotic, I brought in the golden rule. No matter what, on your turn, you must activate all of your face-up cards. This allowed players to read the battle that’s happening in front of them but also allowed players to use their opponent’s cards to benefit themselves! From there, some card powers were chopped and changed and over time the game grew into what it is now, Flippers!
I wanted it to feel like a Looney Tunes fight—everyone jumps into the dust cloud fighting over a thing and at the end the winner is revealed!
Joe: That’s Flippers. I played at UKGE this last weekend, and really enjoyed it. Thanks for teaching it to me. I’ll round this conversation off by asking, what are you working on at the moment, and are you managing to stick to your principles in your new projects?
Mike: Yes, it was great to meet you and if I remember correctly you won that game, so well done! Ooh, I have two things in mind for the next game, but I want to challenge myself to do something different. Both Flippers and Shoal use cards as the only way to score points, so I’d like to try and design a board or a map, to either take players on an adventure or navigate to gather, trade and combine resources. Map creation is something I’ve never done before, but the idea of world-building and adventure is really exciting! So maybe a cooperative adventure with the option for solo play. That is another thing that I’ve not designed before but seems like a cool challenge! I’ve got a bunch of scribbles and doodles down in my notebook, but now the next exciting step is taking them onto prototyping!
Thanks to Mike for spending time with us today on the blog. I love these conversations so much, and am excited to share them with you each week. You can find Mike hanging around on instagram here, and can get your hands on his games here.
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