Tuesday Q&A: Byron Collins

This week, we're catching up with Byron Collins!



If my plaque was to go in the Wargaming Hall of Fame next week, the 2-sentence bio on it would say this about me: 
Byron spent many unpaid hours doing what he loved- game design and publishing.   At one point he realized that the real dividend was not financial at all- it was meeting his many industry friends and customers in the process.
 

You would know me from my work in this corner of the wargaming world:
 The Frontline General Series of games including two currently available titles-
-Frontline General: Italian Campaign Introduction (a boardgame that sets up and drives miniatures battles as a campaign system),
-Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 (a fast-playing 30-minute card wargame that is streamlined, fun, and easy to learn).
 
I'm currently working on:
-Two expansions for Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943- one is an Eastern Front addition.  The other is a two-sided tactical Village/Defensive Line map expansion with terrain tiles and new Situations (Scenarios).
-Frontline General: San Pietro Infine, which is a historical wargame covering the 1943 battle of San Pietro with a gorgeous Mark Mahaffey mounted map and euro-style components.
-A Sci-Fi euro-style game.
-Branching out the Spearpoint card game system into other periods (Spearpoint has proven to be very popular).
 
Tell us about your first game convention...
Gen Con 2008.  I went as an exhibitor not knowing a thing about sales, conventions, or the logistics of getting to or from a show, how to approach demos, or who my audience was at the show.  All mistakes that I worked through with some great assistance from my loving wife who helped at the show (and sold more games than I did).  I only had one product and had just launched it at the time- Frontline General: Italian Campaign Introduction.  Sales were good enough for us to break even at Gen Con, which was exceptional considering all of the mistakes I believe I made there.  One mistake was choosing the largest gaming convention as my first show.  Another big mistake was not realizing that Gen Con does not have a large wargamer presence.  Still, a great learning experience and my first sales as a publisher made the experience worthwhile.
For what it's worth, BayonetGames made all those mistakes (and probably more) at our first Origins, too!

What wargame made you want to be a designer?
A wargame didn’t really make me want to be a designer- I kind of fell into it.  My friend and I started collecting Micromachines Military vehicles for fun.  We thought, “Why don’t we design some rules for these cool toys?”  So we did, and it all started from there.
 
 
My parents thought my future in designing games was…
Great, as long as I didn’t quit my day job :)  They’re very supportive and proud and can’t believe these games “I do” are sent all over the world to customers.
 
When I mock up a game for playtesting, my general process is…
For this question, I’m assuming that the game has already been designed- so it’s not my design process.  The mock-up can be made from anything- I generally use scrap paper for cards, hand-written stats, and rough barebones maps.  For testing, I generally solo-test as much as I can internally, then run an extensive external playtest using multiple game groups I’ve come to know all over the world and also get some help from my local gaming group/club, ODMS (Old Dominion Military Society).  Internal testing continues with feedback from the external teams- we all communicate via e-mail and forums throughout the process to iron out any bugs.
 
What's one game that you'd like to see produced, but wouldn't want to do it yourself?
A game covering the recent Georgia / Russia conflict.
 
Have you ever visited a battlefield for a wargame you've played?
I’ve been to some civil war battlefields like Gettysburg, PA and Petersburg, VA, but really don’t play many civil war games.  I’d love to visit the ruins of the village of San Pietro in Italy, which is at the center of a game I’m designing around the actual battle that occurred in ’43.
 
Favorite gaming website(s)?
Boardgamegeek.com and Consimworld.com.  Primarily, I’m a BGG user (frontlinegeneral) and I’m constantly on there supporting my games and hanging out in the wargaming forum (the thirteenth floor).  I’m also a fan of Tabletopgamingnews.com and Theminiaturespage.com.
 
What's the last good history book you read?
The Day of Battle by Atkinson



By: Brant