Tuesday Interview: Marc von Martial

It's running late, but at least it's up... here's this week's Tuesday Interview, with links & graphics to follow. Sorry it's not more detailed, but real life has severely intruded today.

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:
Oh, I’m not good at this selfpromo stuff :)
You don't get off that easy! OK, maybe this time you do, because we need to get this online ASAP

You would know me from my work in this corner of the wargaming world:
Mainly from Matrix Games were I work as Art Director and Senior Artist and from Mark Walkers Lock ‘n Load Publishing, where I work on the LNL, WAW series and some other boardgames. The two are my main clients but I also work for some other publishers and developers.

I'm currently working on:
Game related, well, do you really want me to list all those projects ;)
It is a list from here to Tokyo (not sure if this german phrase works). The two most current are / were “Decisive Campaigns: The Blitzkrieg from Warsaw to Paris” and the new "Gary Grigsby's War in the East", both PC war-games by Matrix Games. And I work for a couple of Lock ‘n Load and World at War modules for Mark Walker. In my rare freetime I work on strengthening my photography and free hand sketching skills.

What was your first game convention?
SPIEL in Essen Germany, I forgot which year though.

Pick one game whose graphics you really dig (other than your own!), and tell us about them
I will keep this to wargaming. It is hard to pick one particular, but I generally love the style Craig Grando does, counters and maps. It is always really well designed stuff. I totally dig his creativity and sense for clear and beautiful designs.
Craig's work is quite nice... maybe we ought to pester him for an interview, huh?

Compare working on a computer game with working on a print/tabletop game for us
This is tough. I would say the computer designs are sometimes more restricted by the quality of the coders and programmers. And you need to find solutions to work around that. It is more technical in some aspects. The print designs need a lot of attention to usability. We all know how small war-game counters can sometimes be. It is very challenging to have them look good and readable at the same time. Much so because the perception of gamers seems also way more varied then in the PC wargame world. Generally I prefer the "relaxed" design work of the boardgame world over the "hectic" one of the PC game biz. In the end I love both of course.

Have you ever visited a battlefield for a wargame you've played?
Yes, often actually. The last time was Noville Belgium, I did go there for reference shooting and walkarounds cause I was also working on a wargame map (Lock ‘n Load series) of the same area. We, that's me and a group of friends, have plans to visit various WW1 Westfront battlefields in Spring 2011

What was the first wargame you designed your own scenario for?
Close Combat III

What current events are you following closely? Which ones are you just vaguely aware of?
Politics national and international, more or less on a general basis. My interests shift a lot.

People would describe my fashion sense as…
Relaxed but stylish, I love buying skate sneakers and shirts, I'm a whore for T-shirts…

You can invite any 3 living people to dinner, who do you pick?
My wife, Helmut Schmidt, Henry Rollins and Bernie Dexter, oh that’s four :)

If you could be the filmographer at any one battle in history, which one would you view?
Verdun

What's the last good military book you read?
I’m not full into it yet but I enjoy “Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America” currently. I always loved “Citizen Soldiers”.

What was the first music concert you ever went to?
Some Punk Rock / Rockabilly concert, I do not really recall the band(s) though, it is decades ago ;)
Decades ago? What, were you 7?!

What's your favorite sport to play? To attend live? To watch on TV?
I mountainbike, which I love to do. I do regular gym and home workouts too. Watching on TV and live, well football of course. And no, not that kind of football were grown up men wear tight leggings ;) *
One in a while I visit hockey games of the local team in Cologne.
*Methinks he's making fun of us American football-types. C'est la vie. Someone point out where Köln are in the Bundesliga standings...

The coolest uniforms in history belonged to…
That’s tough, I would say the Nazis had some pretty mean and stylish uniforms but then again german uniforms always had quite some style ;), except for after WW2. But actually I always digged the british “red coats”.
Flecktarn doesn't do it for you, huh?


By: Brant